by Greg Keyes
“There,” Teng said, jarring his reverie, and the fall became a dive, an arrow plunging earthward. Alvar shut his eyes, waiting for the ride to be over.
Chapter Fifteen
Sand did the only thing that seemed even remotely sensible; she ran like hell. She went ten steps before her calf muscles knotted and rode up under her knees. Spasms rippled up her back to her neck like a massage in reverse and her fingers contracted into knobs. The earth came up and bounced off of her, rolled her over. She tried to scream, but her tongue was crawling back into her throat like a flatworm. Her forebrain saw death coming, and again she wondered what she had done that was so bad as to deserve this.
She couldn’t see Tuchvala, but the Whipper’s Wings settled onto the earth where she could see it without the impossible necessity of turning. She watched, vaguely aware of the drool dripping down her chin, as the windshield split open and the Whipper, still in full regalia, stepped out.
A fool to think I could escape the Whipper, she thought. One part of her knew that the Kachina was just a man—almost certainly someone she knew. On another level, she understood that he was also more than that, just as Sand was more when she became the Dragonfly. The conditioning—both biochemical and psychological—that he had undergone allowed him to fugue into a reasonable facsimile of the most dreaded of Kachina; smart, fast, unstoppable. Finally, at the deepest, most fearful level, Sand believed that this really was the Whipper Kachina, a being born from thousands of years of fear and discipline. It was real, a manifestation of the punishing aspect of the universal power, just as Tawa the Sun was the ultimate incarnation of light and fusion. This thing, this Whipper, he was coming for her now, and protest would do no good even if she could speak. Indeed, the wasp he had just used on her might have been set to a lethal intensity; she might be dying now, though she thought she could still feel an erratic heartbeat in her chest. Sand wished she had been more devout, that she might think of the proper power to call upon for her salvation.
Mother! But her mother was not yet a Kachina; she had two days yet to remain in the ground before her spirit rose to become a cloud. No help there.
The Whipper was drawing much nearer, but he was in no hurry. His bearded, horned face turned this way and that, very slowly. He carried a sunbow, a green-black glass tube as long as an arm and a little too thick to hold in one hand. It rested on the Whipper’s shoulder.
The painted smile seemed to mock Sand as he approached her. He reached into his belt and pulled out a pair of resistance cuffs. Halfway through the motion, his slow, deliberate movements erupted into a flickering blur that Sand had no hope of following. He dropped the cuffs, whirled the Sunbow from his shoulder and traced a crazy green line in the air above her head. Then he was gone, out of her range of vision.
But the sky above Sand bellowed, and exhaled a breath so hot that she felt her skin burn and the hair on her neck singe. She had the hazy impression that it was raining fire.
“Fuck!” Teng shrieked, as the green light cut across their windshield. The heavily tinted window went opaque instantly, but it spattered like water on a very hot rock. Alvar felt intense heat pass across his face. The windshield looked like marble, veined with black cracks instead of mica.
“Fuck!” Teng repeated, as the hoverjet yawed wildly. “He just got the jets! Shiau-shi! Eject us!”
Alvar opened his mouth to scream, so that the foam that instantly encased his body filled it. It hardened there, froze his frantic bleat in mid-gape. Far away, his body seemed to compress, sink down into his feet, and then he was encased in light as well as impact foam. Free fall, and then a lazy moment that seemed to go on and on. Alvar winced in anticipation of the impact: he knew the drags didn’t have time to open and do any good at this height. His wince was too early: just as he relaxed it, thunder struck.
Impact foam had been designed for paratroopers; it allowed for a much greater falling velocity than a normal parachute and it also quickly dissolved on impact, so that a soldier could be up and fighting instantly. There were drawbacks to this; Alvar’s first landfall on the Fifth world occurred thirty meters up a talus slope. As he rolled and bounced down the rocks like a wooden barrel, the foam broke and shucked off of him, so that for the bottom ten meters it was his own flesh and bone that absorbed the fierce pummeling. He managed—more by reflex than by design—to wrap both arms around his head, protecting it. Almost mercifully, he fetched up against a boulder large enough to arrest his roll, though it nearly cost him some ribs in the process.
Adrenaline yanked him into a crouch, despite pervasive pain. Beyond the boulder, things were still happening more quickly than mere mortals—like him—could be expected to easily comprehend.
The hoverjet was a smear of flame along the far canyon wall; smoke blacker than space was belching furiously up from the deepest, most perfect orange he had ever seen. Silhouetted against that was another craft of some sort, cut rather neatly in half. A. … tent? Something like a tent, anyway, and someone lying dead next to it. Crouching near the body was a monster. It was mostly black, with a huge head full of grinning teeth. Two horns branched out from that cylindrical head, and a stiff projection that looked, for all the world, like a beard depended from its scowling jaw. As Alvar watched, it whirled with superhuman speed, sidestepping a yellow flash of fire singed across its shoulder.
The fire came from Cortez: the big man was already out of his foam, firing a large, black rifle of some kind. He snapped off one more round; its trace speared straight into the monster, but the thing just kept moving. A green ribbon darted out from the heavy-looking tube it carried. It stroked Cortez lightly, feather-like—but the man’s head fell off, just like that.
Jesus save me! Alvar whispered, forgetting that he was agnostic. But how could he fail to recognize El Diablo?
El Diablo turned in his direction. He must have seen me come down here, Alvar thought frantically. How did one hide from the devil? He didn’t even have a rosary.
An angel answered by whispering in his ear. For one terrifying instant, this was no metaphor for Alvar; he had forgotten the transceiver on his skull. Then he recognized Teng’s terse commands.
“Alvar. Don’t move until I tell you. Then run as fast as you can down that slope, away from that thing. There is a side canyon just around the wall from you. Try to get in there and hide. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Where are you, Teng?”
“Never mind that. Just don’t move until I tell you. As soon as he sees you, you’re dead.”
“Okay,” Alvar said, trying to sound confident.
Alvar was trying to remember a prayer—any prayer—when a faint crack-crack floated down the canyon, an almost pitiful sound that seemed flat and silly. El Diablo reacted dramatically, however. He pivoted around about twenty degrees and green lanced out from the tube he held. Alvar could not see where the light was probing; it was farther up his own side of the canyon, beyond an obscuring bulge in the irregular stone.
“Run!”, the angel on his skull hissed.
Alvar sprang up without question. His sore muscles whined in protest at their sudden flexion, and he felt slow, as if he were in one of those dreams where one can never outrun danger. The horrible fact here was that this was literally true. He was the only human being in this canyon, Teng, his protector running second, and El Diablo. …
Alvar reached the bottom of the slope. He could see the “side canyon” described by Teng, which was nothing more than a fissure in the upthrust stone wall. It was less than a meter wide.
Stop that! He remonstrated himself. That is not el Diablo. It is. … Was it the alien? It didn’t look like a woman. But it reminded him of something else. He should know what the damn thing was.
He quickly saw that the fissure was going nowhere. It grew narrower, but not too narrow to negotiate: however, a rockfall had filled the far end with debris. He might just be able to get over it, but it
looked pretty steep and crumbly. He looked up, frantically, at the little ribbon of sky that he could see. It was partially blocked by a chockstone, a lump of rock that had fallen and wedged itself in the crevasse. It hung about five meters above him, a blunt but effective sword of Damocles.
To his surprise, Alvar’s panicked brain presented him with an idea. Chockstones were familiar enough to Alvar; rock climbing was one of his few real skills. If he were fast enough, if Teng kept that thing busy for maybe five minutes, he could give himself a fighting chance.
Here, below the lodged stone, the crevasse was still under a meter wide. Alvar put his back to the wall, lifted one foot and placed it firmly against the opposed stone wall. With a grunt, he pushed out, wedging himself by muscular effort, lifted the other foot to reinforce the labor of the first. As quickly as he dared, Alvar began working his way up the crevasse, pushing out and down with his legs and sliding his back up incrementally, then bringing his legs up, one at time, to push again. He helped himself with his arms, spreading them wing-like to either side of his body. He wished the split were a little narrower; it was better to go up in a sort of standing position, working one leg and arm against each stone face. It was easier to catch yourself if you fell. It was also much faster, if you were adept. At three meters, the ground seemed far away, and the walls might have been getting farther apart. His legs began to tremble, making him realize what a sorry shape his body had gotten into. Nevertheless, he continued to move up.
He hadn’t heard from Teng since that last command. Was she dead? The black monster seemed to be at least as skilled as she was—a damned fine shot anyway. Cortez hadn’t lasted long at all, and Alvar had seen the man work out.
Push, slide push. He was almost level with the chockstone, now.
Where had he seen such a monster before? His mind was beginning to sort things out. It was a man—or a human being anyway, wearing a mask.
A mask. It was a Kachina. How stupid could he be? What had he studied for three years?
But Kachina dancers were supposed to be sort of friendly and peaceful, personifications of rain and agriculture spirits doing folksy little dances in the pueblo squares. He had not pictured them waving light swords, killing professional, augmented soldiers and chasing him through Fifth World Badlands.
But there was a Kachina who punished, wasn’t there? And there were also the twin war gods. They weren’t Kachina, but they might have masks, too.
Some old books said that Hopi meant “peaceful people”. Peaceful People my ass, Alvar thought. It was a mistranslation, anyway. Hopitu-Shinumu meant “well-behaved people”, and good behavior could involve killing, under the proper circumstances.
Push, slide. A few more and he could hide on top of the chockstone. He was already sort of behind it; he could just see over it enough to make out the place where he had come in. He was pausing to get his breath for the final push when the horned, black clad figure entered the canyon, stepping lightly and holding its weapon in front of it. Alvar slowly tucked his head down; like most people, the Kachina hadn’t immediately thought to look up for him. Anyway, Alvar was mostly hidden by the stone, and as the Whipper progressed in, he was eclipsed completely by it.
Unfortunately, that meant Alvar could not see the Whipper, either. He dared not move, though his legs were beginning to really ache. If one of them cramped, that would be the end of Alvar Washington and his brilliant career.
His career would end soon enough anyway, when the Kachina dancer noticed that his tracks had vanished and did look up.
“Teng?” he whispered, just barely, with his sender on. “Where are you, woman?”
There was no answer.
The Kachina was only a man. In fact, he must be some low-tech version of Teng. He shouldn’t be a match for her.
But he had been more than a match for Cortez. Alvar reminded himself that Cortez had been poorly armed to fight a laser. He had been ejected with the weapon he was loading, not his weapon of choice. If he had been armed with a laser himself, the duel would have surely been more even. But what was Teng armed with? Not much, probably. She had been flying. The shots he heard were probably from some kind of side arm.
Alvar tried to control his breathing and bring his mind back into focus. It was down there below him, utterly silent. Did it have a soundscreen or could a man really walk and make that little noise? Or maybe the whumping of Alvar’s heart was drowning out the shuffling footsteps. He strained his neck to peer between his own legs. His only chance would be to let himself fall on the Kachina while it was pondering his tracks ending. Before it looked up.
Alvar sighed. He would probably miss, like the Coyote in those films from his early post-atomic film class. Splat! Maybe the Kachina would spare him out of a sense of humor.
Suddenly the black, cylindrical head—with its outspread horns—was in view. As Alvar released his hold, he amended the imagined result of his fall, saw himself comically impaled on the horns, the Kachina turning its head this way and that, wondering where he was, unable to see him of course, since he was on its head. …
“Alvar!” someone screamed, as he fell. He heard another one of those puny cracks!. The Kachina stumbled back, and Alvar, trying to get his feet under himself, missed his enemy’s torso but hit both of his arms. Alvar lashed out blindly, felt something tap his ribs. Then he was airborne again, whirling in a somersault. He landed in a pocket of hard vacuum that sucked the air right out of his lungs. His chest seemed filled with glue, as he strained to draw in breath but absolutely unable to. Nothing else hit him, so he levered up, spitting sand and blood. He had to get away.
Teng was there, somehow. The Kachina had not fallen, but it had dropped the laser. It now wielded something like a machete. Teng was busy throwing her undoubtedly empty pistol at the Kachina’s face. Her opponent didn’t flinch; the gun struck his mask and bounced off.
For a moment, Teng and the Kachina merely regarded one another. She looked relaxed, her hair almost playfully mussed. Her yellow eyes seemed to sparkle with what had to be glee.
Teng then darted forward, and the machete descended in a simple, oblique strike aimed at her neck and shoulder. Teng was somehow a half a meter to the right, however, spinning and sinking, one leg lashing out. She caught the Kachina right on the ankle. He was already leaning onto it to counteract the sweep, but the force of her kick staggered him, nevertheless. He turned with the blow, somehow brought the sword back around. Teng and the sword briefly shared the same space—Alvar could not see in what way—and then Teng was inside his guard. Her fist crunched dully into the Kachina’s solar plexus, her other arm deflected the Kachina’s second, chopping hand, and then her punching hand pistoned straight up under the hooded mask. Even Alvar, gasping as he was, heard the snap and gurgle as the Kachina rocked back on its heels and sat roughly down. To its credit, it did not grasp vainly at its crushed larynx but instead groped for a black baton in its sash. Teng was having none of that; she leapt like a dancer and stamped her heel sharply against the Kachina’s breast, just over the heart. He pitched back and lay still.
She regarded her downed opponent for a long moment, chest heaving, as if a little uncertain of her work. She picked up her pistol, pushed a second magazine from her belt into it, and very carefully shot the still form three times. She returned the gun to a holster beneath her grey jacket. It—and her hand—were sticky with blood.
“Shit, Teng,” Alvar gasped as he finally came to his feet. “He got you.”
“Flesh wound,” she said, quirking her lips sarcastically. In fact, the blade had sliced a palm-shaped depression in her shoulder, shinned across her ribs, and bitten deeply into her thigh. The entire left side of her body was soaked with crimson. It was still gouting from her thigh, but the other wounds had already ceased bleeding as some strange thing in her blood clotted quickly along the oxygen boundary. No matter what had been done to improve Teng, however, Alvar could not b
elieve she wasn’t in bad shape.
“You saved my life, Teng. Thank you.”
“Told you I’d take care of you. Now come on, before those two wake up.”
“Who?”
“The alien and the other woman. I saw them twitching; this thing must have stunned them.”
“Oh. Very observant of you.”
“It’s my job,” she said, and Alvar was sure he detected some bitterness. Teng stooped and picked up the laser, examined it and made a face.
“Fuck. It’s keyed to some remote, probably in his brain. Useless.” She bent and quickly searched the body. The mask came off easily, revealing the face of a young man, probably no older than twenty-five. His broad, handsome face was serene save for the trickles of blood from his mouth and nostrils. His eyes were half lidded, as if waking from a nap.
“Oh, shit,” Alvar groaned. He staggered away from the dead Kachina, spewing his lunch onto the reddish sand. He felt Teng’s eyes on him, sure that they were full of disdain. When he turned, shamefaced, to face her, however, he caught a peculiar light in her eyes. A sad kind of light.
“You’re a sweet boy, Alvar,” she said.
They started back towards the larger canyon, Alvar at a loss for a response. He let Teng take the lead, and he was distressed to see her legs tremble. In fact, she almost stumbled as they crossed the edge of the slope he had so ungracefully descended.
How bad are you hurt, Teng? He knew what shape he would be in with similar wounds. He knew something else, as well.
“You knew he would follow me, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I only distracted him from taking a shot at you, but I knew he would follow you first.”
“I was bait, then,” he said, without rancor.
“Yes. It was the best way.”
“But you didn’t expect me to attack him myself.”
“That was an attack?” she said, trying hard to be light. “I thought you just fell.”