by Paul Kidd
“Hey. Hey, you.”
There was a crunching, crumbling sound. A considerable disc of rusting steel was tossed up out of the hole. It was followed by a pink nose and a spray of whiskers attached to a neat, narrow, white-furred face. She had a broad straw hat, and the inevitable sand goggles. Happy as a lark, a rat girl dusted off her gloves and greeted Xoota with an enthusiastic wave.
“Hallo. Dropping in for some tea?”
The rat girl was pure white and pink eyed, limber and full of guileless energy. Her features were very humanoid, despite a long, expressive tail and a pointed, delicately pretty rat face. She wore a cotton singlet, voluminous shorts with many pockets, and clunky work boots. She used her meager cleavage to stow an ancient penlight. She had delightfully long, white hair plaited back into a ponytail. The rat girl planted her shovel in the salt, pushed a pair of spectacles up on her nose, and climbed happily out to greet her guest.
“Jolly glad to see you. It was getting a tad lonely. This is a bit of a find, what?”
The music still clanged and thumped out across the wilds, echoing perfectly off the hard-packed salt. Xoota almost danced in anger.
“Turn it off.” She waved in panic at the music machine. “Get it the hell off. Now.”
The rat cocked an ear. “Can’t hear you. Sorry. Just a mo.” She pulled a tiny control out of one pocket and pressed a button. The music instantly shut off. “That’s better. Sorry. Whistle while you work and all that.”
Oh, scrote. Xoota seethed. Four hundred kilometers from home, and she still managed to find the one idiot in the entire desert.
The rat girl pulled off her gloves, and Xoota found herself numbly shaking the girl’s pink hand.
“Shaani. Name’s Shaani.” The rat instantly presumed they were colleagues. “Charmed. How do you do? Didn’t catch your name.”
“Xoota.” The quoll’s antennae were flat with droll displeasure. “So you’re prospecting, are you?”
“No, no—investigating. Research. Scientific process.” Shaani the rat had somehow managed to dig through salt, dust, and rust and emerge remarkably clean. She saw Budgie and was delighted, fearlessly going over to scratch him behind the head. “Oh my. Who’s a pretty boy, then? Who’s a pretty boy?” She looked back at Xoota. “Beautiful. Does he talk?”
“He doesn’t talk.” Xoota was so tired of idiots. “Now look. You have to get out of here. This whole area is exposed. What the hell are you doing out here?”
Shaani was already back in her hole, levering rust chinks out of the side of the wide tube.
“Well, I’m a lab rat.” The girl seemed surprised anyone would ask. “It’s the mission. Noblesse oblige and all that.” She passed a large chunk of rust up from the hole. “Here. Hold that, will you?”
“This area is irradiated.”
“Oh—fairly immune to all that sort of thing, old horse. I mentioned I’m a lab rat? Special breed. Science ever forward and all that.” The rat’s face reappeared in the hole. “I say, you might not want to hover here too long, though. Unless you don’t mind it. Some folks don’t. Tickle the old genes and all that. But radiation can be dangerous, you know.”
“I know.” Xoota felt as though a hand were crushing her brain. “You’re just lucky that damned music didn’t bring anything down on you.”
“Oh, no bother. The salt makes a sound conductor. I’d have heard anything coming.”
“Over the music?”
“Oh, well, I see your point. Stand corrected.” The rat had broken a sizable hole into the side of the wide tube. “Excellent. Here we go.”
Xoota peered down at the hole in the tube.
“What is that?”
“Ah, a point of egress.”
“Egrets?”
“Egress. Entry. Or is it exit? I can never remember. Whatever it is, it’s an invitation to adventure.” The rat switched on her entirely inadequate penlight. “Splendid.”
Xoota took another look at the steel tube. She could see it was a funnel. The rat was digging into the side of a funnel. It was the top of a vast, old ship, somehow buried in the salt.
“You found this?” Xoota was amazed. “How?”
“Oh, simple deduction. This used to be a sea, old bean. Some documents back home said these were what’s called ‘gauge roads,’ where ships sort of parked while waiting to unload in port. So it was a matter of following up the gauge roads and seeing if anything had somehow gotten stuck.”
“Following the ‘roads’?”
“Yes.”
“Through hard radiation?”
“That’s the way.” The rat was pleased. “Well, if it was easy, someone would already have found it.”
The technique was impressively simple. Xoota was annoyed that she had never thought of it herself. However, her skin was starting to burn. Although creatures on Gamma Terra could laugh off radiation that would have fried their ancestors to a bubbling paste, it was still not a good idea to dance around in it, particularly if one wanted to limit the number of tentacles festooning one’s children. Xoota irritably shoved dirt and rust aside and squatted by the hole.
“Anything down there will be radioactive, you know. No one will trade for it.”
“Trade? Oh. No, no. This is a time capsule. A veritable museum. With luck the power generators and drives will be intact.”
“They’ll be too big to drag home.” Xoota blinked. “Wait—you know how these things ran?”
“Well, of course. Perfectly simple principles. It’s just all in the engineering.” The rat poked her head up out of the hole. “Coming?”
Xoota blew a sharp, sour breath through her whiskers. “Where did you come from, anyway?”
“Oh, here and there. From the Rookery, down south of Watering Hole. But no research to be done down there. No, it’s all up here. Improve the world … sacred calling. I’m a lab rat, you know.”
“So you’ve never really left the villages before?”
“No, no. Just starting field operations now.”
“Did you even bring a weapon?”
“I have the shovel.” Shaani had a slightly battered entrenching tool. “Oh, and these would do at a pinch.” She pointed at a few homemade pipe bombs jutting through her belt. “But observation is the key. No need to run about being disruptive.”
Xoota’s tail thrashed.
“Look, rat girl. There are certain rules out here if you want—”
The rat was tugging away at the rusty sides of the funnel.
“Will you listen to me?”
“Listening in, old girl. All ears.”
“Look, you can’t expect to survive unless you take extreme care. It takes a real veteran to know just how dangerous the wilds are.” Xoota paced back and forth, waving an expressive hand in the air. “Now look, survival in the wilds is a matter of wits, of perception. You need to be like me: stealthy, cautious, switched on.”
Xoota had a sudden flash of the future: teeth exploding up around the ground at her feet. She did an instant dive and roll. “Bleedin’ heck!”
Right on her heels, huge jaws burst up from the ground where she had been standing. They clashed shut with a noise like ringing steel. Xoota had leaped pell-mell and knocked Shaani off her feet. Out on the salt, Budgie frantically climbed to the top of the steel funnel. He sat up there, screeching in alarm.
The ground rumbled as the ravening snout of a sand shark snapped its jaws at the two. As they tumbled through the hole, their progress was slowed by a rusted grill that gave way under their weight. The metal crumbled, spilling them down again, where Xoota caught hold of Shaani as they fell through the dark, but she was able to lash out with her prehensile tail and catch a protruding metal strut. Shaani was almost ripped from her grasp and ended up hanging from her hand.
They swung from an ancient, rusted metal strut in the darkness. The metal creaked, and a little shower of rust flakes fell.
Xoota’s tail felt as if it were being pulled out by the roots. Below her, Shaani swu
ng back and forth with her penlight still awkwardly clamped in her mouth.
“Wot th’ deuce was zat?”
“Sand shark.” Xoota’s tail shifted. She clung tighter in panic. “Can you reach anything to hold on to?”
“ ’Kay.” The rat immediately began to climb up over Xoota, using the quoll girl’s armpits and backside as footholds. “ ’Scuse ’e.”
The metal strut slowly began to sag. Paralyzed by fright, Xoota could only stare into the dark. Suddenly Shaani was scrabbling off her into the blackness. An instant later, the rat grabbed Xoota’s belt and hauled her up into a hole rusted through the wall. They tumbled back into a reeking, old corridor and sat there in the glow of the little penlight, both dazed with fright.
Shaani pulled spectacles from her cleavage and settled them back on her nose. “What’s a sand shark?”
“Mutated … fish … thing.” Xoota could still feel her heart hammering, but at least the danger was over. She took a bio light stick from her belt and shook it into life. “We’re safe now. This whole hull’s made of steel.”
They looked carefully around themselves. They were inside a dark corridor sheathed entirely in rust. The rat’s penlight showed some yellowed posters clinging to the walls. Xoota dusted rust from her fur and looked at the light in interest.
“Hey, how are you powering that? Have you got batteries?”
“Mmm? No, no, personal voltage. I generate electricity. It’s a lab rat thing.” The rat girl waggled her light. “Specialized evolution.”
“Oh.” Xoota blinked. “Wacko.”
The two women edged slowly into the long corridor before them, hearing the ancient ship all around them groan and echo. Shaani seemed fascinated by it all.
“ ‘So … sand sharks. Would you say that’s a typical local life form?”
Xoota rolled her eyes. “Well, along the shoreline, yes. That’s why we keep things quiet.”
“So it could be homing in on us by sound?”
The quoll made a droll face and rapped her knuckles hard against the steel walls.
“Well, not now. We’re inside a steel ship. We’re perfectly safe.”
Something exploded through the wall beside them. A vast, ravening sand shark with a mouth like a guillotine burst through the rusted, collapsing hull. Twelve meters long and mad with hunger, the monster smashed its way into the hall.
Screaming like nestlings, the two girls flung themselves down the corridor. The flooring was giving way beneath their feet. Behind them, the shark turned and thrust itself along the corridor, splitting the walls and ceiling as it came.
The lab rat cast a glance behind her as she ran. “I think the salt may have had a detrimental effect on the structural strength of the steel.”
“Really? How bloody fascinating.”
They came to a wide gulf in the floor. Corridors and cabin doors opened all around them. Shaani jumped and hit the edge of the decking. The floor instantly collapsed beneath her. She fell one level, landing on her rump. Xoota simply dived down after her, grabbed her by the scruff on the neck, and ran.
The sand shark plunged down after them, wriggling as it tried to fit into the new corridor. Xoota pulled her crossbow from her back, a bolt held in her teeth, and frantically cranked the cocking handle as she ran.
Xoota took aim and fired. She hit the beast right between the eyes. The crossbow bolt was on target, beautifully fast, and achieved absolutely nothing. The shark fixed her with an insane glare then lunged toward her. It came down the corridor at a terrifying speed.
The girls fled. Shaani took a sudden right turn, leading the way off through a vast, old chamber littered with tables and chairs. There were stairs. The two women raced up them two by two. The shark came right after them, floundering as it tried to take the stairs. Xoota danced away, desperately searching for ideas.
“The bombs. Light the bombs.”
Shaani reached for a pipe bomb on her belt then hesitated. “Have you got any matches?”
“What?”
“Matches.”
“No, I don’t have any damned matches.”
“Flint and tinder?”
The shark actually leaped. It gathered like a spring and lunged up the stairs, jaws shearing clean through the railings as the two girls fled madly away. Xoota took the lead.
“I can’t believe you don’t have matches. What use are bombs without matches?”
The rat girl squeaked as she ran through cobwebs black with dust. “They’re on my bicycle. In the pack.”
Xoota swore.
Quite suddenly, the sand shark burst up out of the deck beneath them. Teeth fastened on Xoota’s leg. A chunk of wreckage stopped the jaws just short of clashing shut. The giant fangs gripped Xoota’s leather armor. The shark jerked its head, yanking her off her feet and dragging her deeper into its mouth. Her legs were already halfway down its throat.
Shaani raced up and beat the shark about the snout with her shovel. She rained blows on it, shouting at it. “Drop it. Drop it. Down.” Shaani backed off and leveled one hand. “Take that, you blighter.”
A shot of green radiation blasted from the girl’s hand and smashed into the shark’s head, singeing it all down one side. The radiation blast cut out with a disappointing fizz.
The shark instantly spit out Xoota and turned on the lab rat. Covered from the waist down in shark drool, Xoota rolled aside and blinked. Shaani squealed and leaped as the beast snapped for her. She clung to the nose of the shark, which bucked like mad. It slammed the rat against the ceiling, plunging her up through the rusted deck and onto the floor above. Amazed that its prey had escaped, the shark remembered the quoll and whirled. Xoota picked herself up and ran as fast as she could.
Metal bent and shattered behind her. The sand shark roared. Struts collapsed and rusted panels burst open. Teeth slammed closed behind Xoota with a clash. Then she was leaping and scrabbling over fallen pipes that cluttered the hallway. She looked back to see the shark slamming itself against the blockage. There were three side hallways leading off into the dark. Heart hammering, Xoota wondered what the hell she should do.
The rat girl plunged down through the ceiling in a shower of rust. She landed on her backside, dazed, and saw Xoota.
“Oh, hello.”
The sand shark burst through the old pipes with a savage roar.
“Oh, bloody hell.” Shaani grabbed Xoota by the hand. “Come on. This way.”
“Where?”
“Engineering. The bulkheads will be stronger.”
They raced down a long passageway, ducking beneath fallen pipes and wreckage. Behind them, the sand shark floundered, sometimes gaining, sometimes falling behind. As they raced past a cabin, the lab rat screeched to a halt and sparked with glee.
“Ooh, books.”
Fallen shelves had spilled old paper books over the floor. The rat instantly plunged into the room and snatched an armload of books. Xoota almost had a heart attack.
“Are you crazy?”
“But this is information.”
“Run.”
She propelled the rat down the corridor. Shaani kept two huge books clamped to her chest. The sand shark was only a few meters behind them. The women ran until an enormous, steel door blocked their path. Xoota took a run at the door and slammed her shoulder against it, rebounding with a yelp of pain. Shaani looked at her and yanked on a hefty handle. It squealed and moved slowly.
“Try now.”
Swearing, Xoota slammed herself against the door again. It budged a few centimeters. She tried again with Shaani helping. Bit by bit, it squealed open. The shark came hopping and raging toward them. The girls squeezed through the crack and stumbled into a great space that stank of old machinery. The shark crashed against the door, bursting it from its hinges. The door cartwheeled into the room, narrowly missing the women. But the doorway was too small to admit their pursuer. Xoota backed away then felt a wave of relief wash through her.
Safe.
The lab rat pol
ished her spectacles. She waved her little penlight over the vast cavern all around them. The chamber was filled with machinery—titanic engines, sitting silent and dead in the bowels of the ancient ship. Still clutching her books, the rat touched an engine and marveled then swung her light to point toward one wall.
“That’s the funnel. We can make another hole in it and climb out.”
“Climb how?”
“Well, there should actually be rungs or something inside it, so they could clean and inspect it back in the day.” The shark was still making a horrendous noise, trying to shove itself through the bulkhead door. “The point remains: How do we escape the shark once we’re on the salt?”
Xoota looked up at the ceiling and scowled. “Budgie can outrun it. We just double mount and ride off, providing the little coward is still up there.”
“Oh. Right-o, then.” The rat seemed perfectly happy. She pulled a string bag from a pocket, put her books in it, and slung it behind herself like a backpack. “Well, this has been a success, then. Shall we go?”
“Oh, by all means.” The quoll sniffed. “After you.”
Something in the chamber smelled decidedly sour. Xoota followed the rat as she clambered up and over machinery. The sand shark raged and roared, making an appalling din. Shaani found her way to a wall and began to tap on it experimentally, one pink ear pressed against the metal, seeking out the worst areas of rust. The shark was making her investigations more difficult than strictly necessary. Eventually she tapped with her little fist then bashed the wall with her shovel. A rotten chunk of metal buckled away, and she was able to tear open a hole into the funnel and peer around with her light. Gray daylight filtered in from high above.
“Excellent.” The rat paused and gave a sniff. “Eww. I think something’s been nesting in here. It smells horrid.”
“Is there a ladder?”
“Um, sort of.” The rat shone her light awkwardly up the shaft. “Looks intact.”
Suddenly the shark was gone. Xoota could feel the distant crash and smash of its maneuvering for a new route into the engine room.
Shaani gave a frown. “Did it just give up?”