The Rings of Tantalus [Expendables 2]

by Richard Avery

  It looked bloody funny with a piece of the radius sticking through the skin of the smashed forearm. He couldn’t see what had happened to the ulna. In any case, he didn’t really want to know.

  “Thank God it wasn’t the prosthetic arm,” he said aloud. Then he began to laugh. That was a fucking stupid remark to make. If the prosthetic arm had been smashed, he wouldn’t have felt such pain.

  Then he realised it wasn’t such a stupid thing to say. The bio-arm could be repaired on Tantalus—if he lived. The prosthetic arm, a miracle of advanced engineering, could not. Big joke.

  He had difficulty stopping the laughter. He knew all about hysteria. He had once seen a man with half his stomach blown away, laughing like crazy. But hysteria was difficult to control when it happened to be your own. He bit his tongue some more. That stopped him laughing. It also made him faint. When he came to again, he ordered himself to stop thinking about the broken arm, and took stock of his surroundings.

  The chopper had come to rest at an angle of about forty-five degrees and he was hanging half-out of the pilot’s doorway, held in position only by his safety harness. His bio-arm flopped over his chest, oozing blood, like carelessly butchered meat. He used his prosthetic arm to straighten it a little, then wished he hadn’t. He blacked out.

  Next time he came to, he knew what the optimum move would be. His prosthetic hand hit the harness release stud. He fell out of the chopper. He had expected to pass out yet again, but he didn’t. He just lay on the ground, suffering and groaning for a while and feeling immensely sorry for himself.

  Then he experienced shame. The shame was stronger than the pain. It gave way to anger. As adrenalin pumped through his system, he examined the damage—professionally. Apart from the arm, he was bruised all over and he hurt all over. When he breathed deeply there was a nasty little pain in his chest. Maybe a bust rib, maybe not.

  But his legs were O.K. That was a great relief. He was going to have to use them. It would be a long walk back to the Santa Maria. Using his prosthetic arm to hold his bio-arm carefully in the position that gave least discomfort, he stood up.

  Waves of blackness surged disturbingly over him, and there was a great roaring in his head. But miraculously, he did not fall. He swayed, but he did not fall. That, he told himself, was an important victory.

  The chopper was a right mess—vanes curled like the petals of a withered flower; undercart smashed beyond belief; tail twisted up like a scorpion about to sting.

  Idly, he wondered if Pushkin could fix it. Academic problem. The trick was to get back to the Santa Maria.

  Carefully and slowly, he looked all around him. The chopper had hit the deck just over one kilometre from the nearest ring. It wasn’t glowing any more. The fact was interesting. He tried to work out why, but he couldn’t.

  He had half expected a battalion of little green men— or, at least, monkeys with prehensile tails—to be rushing towards the wrecked chopper. But there was no living thing in sight.

  It was a great relief.

  Slowly, he got his wits back, recovered his bearings. He knew from the position of the sun which way he would have to go to get back to the Santa Maria. He tried to estimate how long it would take him in his present condition to walk twenty-five kilometres. With a bit of luck, he thought, he might make it before nightfall. If he didn’t bleed too much, // he didn’t pass out, if he could cope with the pain in his mangled arm, // some bloody carnivore didn’t get the smell of blood and have a go, // he didn’t start marching round in circles once he was in the forest.

  “To many fucking ifs!” he said aloud. The sound of his own voice was, at least, some small comfort.

  He looked down at his mangled arm—held firmly to his chest by his prosthetic arm—and wished he hadn’t. The bleeding had almost stopped—which was something. But it looked one hell of a mess, all blotchy and blue and swollen and blood-stained. And there was ‘the smashed radius. Only about three centimetres was now poking through the flesh; but it looked fairly horrible.

  “Jesus!” he said. “The bloody bugs! The bugs of Tantalus!”

  He wanted to sit down and scream. God alone knew what alien micro-organisms had already settled down to have a good time in the wound. He denied himself the luxury of sitting down and screaming. It would be—as they used to say—counter-productive.

  Instead, he exercised his intelligence. In the chopper there was an emergency pack. Bandages, antiseptics, analgesics, splints, boosters, water, brandy, food concentrates.

  “Look arm,” he said in what he hoped was a reasonable tone, “you are going to have to hang loose for a few moments while Fred—that’s my tin arm—finds something to keep you happy. Think you can make it?”

  The broken arm did not protest. Conrad took that as a kind of assent.

  He lurched back to the chopper’s personnel bubble. Very carefully, he lowered the bust arm and let it hang loosely. Waves of pain came up and crashed against his mind. With a supreme effort he cancelled them.

  He crawled back into the bubble and found the emergency pack. His prosthetic arm managed to snatch it out before his legs became rubber and he had to sit down.

  In the pack there were various one-shot hypos, colour-coded. The red ones contained knock-out shots, the blue ones contained pain-killers, the green contained stimulants. He took a blue one and pressed the small plastic hemisphere resolutely into his arm. Then, while he waited for that to take effect, he started chewing dextrose tablets. He figured he was going to need a fair amount of sugar.

  Presently, he felt better. The pain wasn’t bothering him too much now. Deliberately, he bent his arm to open the wound as much as possible. Then he took a small can of aerosol antiseptic and squirted it all over. The stinging sensation was almost pleasant compared to the ebbing pain.

  To calm himself down after that little effort, he took some brandy. He carefully measured the amount, knowing that in his present state he could get pissed very easily.

  Then he straightened his arm and started to wind self-adhesive bandage round it. When he came to the break, he bound in a couple of light plastic splints. Finally, he slipped one of the adjustable slings over his head and nursed the smashed arm into it.

  That accomplished, he felt better. Much better. He celebrated by taking one more small shot of brandy. Then he stuffed his pockets with food concentrates, slung a canteen of water round his neck and stood up.

  He glanced around. Still no sign of little green men or even monkeys with hands on the ends of their tails. He was greatly relieved.

  “March, Conrad,” he said. “You are going to get back to the Santa Maria before nightfall. That is an Order.”

  “Decision noted,” he answered himself, trying unsuccessfully to mimic Matthew’s metallic voice. “Execution proceeds.”

  Conrad marched. Or, more accurately, staggered towards the green wall of the forest.

  Phase Seven ENTER THE U.S. CAVALRY

  As he went into the forest, Conrad got the sudden impression that he was being watched. He stopped, glanced all around him and could see nothing. He pressed on, trying to shake off the feeling, telling himself that he was in a highly nervous condition. But the sensation persisted. He began to sweat profusely, though the forest was not unpleasantly warm.

  “Dammit, I have a right to be shit scared,” he said aloud. “I’ve fallen out of the sky, bust my arm, and I have to make it on foot back to the ship. I don’t know a thing about this lousy world… Don’t even know whether or not there are any dangerous animals or whether the whole shebang is as safe as Kew Gardens on a wet Sunday. No wonder I’m sweating. Probably some tiny little bug I can’t even see will bite me in the arm and give me a one-way ticket. It was an amusing thought. He began to laugh. Then he realised that he was going to pieces.

  “Stop that, Conrad!” he snapped. “You are guilty of negligence and dereliction of duty. You lost the chopper and you didn’t even bring a laser rifle. You deserve to be court-martialled. Now get the hell back, an
d stop whining.”

  It worked—for a while. Resolutely, he marched forward. But the green umbrella of the forest was hypnotic, and the sense of being watched persisted.

  He tried an experiment. He ran fifty paces as fast as he could, trying to ignore the pain that was coming back to his broken arm. Then he stood still and listened. Was it imagination or were there other bodies crashing through the undergrowth? He could not be sure. The noise stopped almost as soon as he stopped.

  He sat down, got his breath, waited for the throbbing in his arm to subside, swallowed some more dextrose. Then he got up and walked.

  Presently, he was amazed to find that he had fallen down. He had not tripped over anything. He had just fallen down. He looked at the bandage on his arm. It was bright red—red and wet and dripping. He was still aware of the sensation of being watched, but it did not seem to matter any more.

  “Law of diminishing returns,” he muttered thickly and incomprehensibly. He drank some water, then stood up, swaying.

  When the roaring in his ears had stopped, when the mists had cleared, he marched forward again. It seemed a good idea to count his paces. Something to do. He counted.

  He made two hundred and forty-seven paces before he fell down again. He was tired. He wanted to sleep.

  “Conrad,” he said, “you are a stupid bastard. Get on your feet, man! March, you stupid specimen, march! And count your fucking steps.”

  He managed two hundred and twenty-three steps before he fell down again.

  More dextrose, more water. He stopped sweating. He began to shiver.

  “Get up, swine!” he grated. “Call yourself a man, you chicken-hearted zombie! Get up and march.”

  Conrad did not recognise the voice, but he did not like the tone. It was offensive. Not nice. Definitely nasty.

  “Piss off, whoever you are. I’ll do it my way.”

  Nevertheless, Conrad stood up and staggered forwards, counting.

  One hundred and nineteen paces, and he hit the dirt. With a supreme effort of will he got up again and went on. Seventy-three paces—-or was it sixty-three?—and he hit the dirt once more.

  He didn’t feel like getting up again. He tried it twice and failed. The third time he was cunning. He told himself he was just playing a game, conned himself into crouching, then stretched suddenly. He went out like a light.

  Next thing he knew, there was a great metal monster standing over him. A giant. A fantastic creature, vaguely humanoid in form. A colossus.

  “What the hell are you?” he asked faintly.

  He felt he ought to know the voice that answered. It was vaguely familiar, but he was just too tired to identify it.

  “Boss, I am the resurrection and the life. Take it easy. You have had a hard day.”

  Then great metal hands came down and scooped Conrad up as if he were a baby.

  “Rest easy, Boss,” said the strangely familiar voice. “You’ve had a rough time. Don’t worry yourself no more. Bang on schedule, de U.S. cavalry has come over de hill.”

  Kwango!

  Conrad was immensely pleased that he had finally identified the voice. Kwango in an exo-skeleton.

  Commander James Conrad uttered a great sigh and went peacefully to sleep.

  Stage Three SHOWDOWN

  Phase One THE IMPORTANT PATIENT

  The first thing Conrad saw when he opened his eyes was the face of Lieutenant Smith. Her white hair was a bit disordered, but she looked beautiful. He had a feeling of deja vu.

  “Good morning, James. I hope you had a good sleep. I have filled you full of anti-biotics and set the arm properly. I had to do a bit of fancy needlework also, but it will hardly show. You were in quite a state.”

  “How did Kwango find me?”

  She shrugged. “You know Kurt. The Gods gave him too many talents—fortunately for us. He worked out some kind of search pattern based on your probably flight-path, harnessed himself in the exo and departed at thirty knots. You have seen what he can do in an exo-skeleton. Be thankful.”

  “I am.”

  “Now for the bad news. I have assumed temporary command of the Santa Maria. It is entered in the log and countersigned by Kwango. All legal. I shall retain command until, in my judgment, you are a fit person. Understood, Commander?”

  Bloody woman! Now he knew it really was deja vu. It had happened on Kratos also. Only there he had smashed himself up having a go at the death worms.

  “Understood, Commander?” she repeated with an edge of hardness in her voice.

  He sighed. “Understood—Commander.” His head was clear and he felt fit enough to get up and resume duty. But what the hell use was that if she was backed up by Kwango? She would only get Kurt to hold him down while she shot a needleful of sleep-juice into him. She was that kind of woman. “How long is the sentence this time?”

  Indira smiled. “Three days if you are lucky.”

  “Do I get any remission for good behaviour?”

  “I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, do you feel fit enough to explain how you, an experienced pilot, managed to smash the chopper?”

  “I do.”

  At that moment Kwango came into the cabin. “So the good Commander is alive and well… Boss, you have been a very naughty boy. If you don’t behave yourself, the Lieutenant and I are not going to let you play with any more expensive toys for quite a while. And how do you like that?”

  “I don’t. Thanks for picking me up, Kurt, but spare me the funnies.”

  “How came you to bust the chopper—drunken driving?”

  “Kurt, my prosthetic arm is still O.K. Remember that.”

  Kwango laughed. “Right, Commander. Now tell it like it was.”

  Conrad remembered vividly all that had happened. He recounted the sequence of events concisely, accurately.

  When he had finished, Kwango let out a low whistle. “So the rings can knock out atomic engines, control systems, radio communications.”

  “So it would appear. We haven’t discovered much about

  Tantalus so far; but what we have discovered is rather unnerving… How long have I been out, by the way?”

  “About thirty hours,” said Indira. “I could have let you re-join us sooner, but I thought you needed the rest. I had to put quite a lot of plasma into you. I hope you have an appetite because you are shortly going to eat a meal of lightly cooked liver, washed down with half a litre of red wine.”

  Conrad rolled his eyes and grinned. “Oh, the terrors of the sick bay!”

  Kwango said: “Returning to the problems of Tantalus, there is something else you are not going to like too much, Boss. While you were off playing strange games with the rings, I went on my proximity survey and bagged one of those interesting little critters with prehensile tails.”

  “You killed it?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  Conrad tried to sit up, and wished he hadn’t. Waves of pain ran up his bio-arm and made his head throb. His vision blurred and he almost passed out.

  Lieutenant Smith noted his reaction. “Serve you right,” she said. “You don’t do anything—I mean anything— without my say so. You will now rest until the meal is prepared.”

  With an effort, Conrad managed to control his temper. “Permission to continue my discussion with Kwango?” he asked meekly.

  “Five minutes only.” She went towards the door. “When I come back, you eat the liver—all of it—and rest. Understood?”

  “Damn you, yes!” Conrad wanted to hit her.

  Lieutenant Smith turned. “May I remind you,” she said softly, “that you are speaking to the temporary commander of this expedition. Your behaviour and reactions as a patient will undoubtedly affect my judgment of the time when you are fit to resume normal duties.”

  Conrad turned red. He was about to make some malicious reference to Applecross, then thought better of it. “Yes, sir. I apologise, Commander.” He cleared his throat and spit out the words like plum stones. “No offence intended.”

&n
bsp; “Keep it that way, spaceman,” she retorted. “Until I decide otherwise you are just an injured man in a bed.”

  She left before he could explode. Conrad turned his frustrated anger on Kwango.

  “You are not empowered to destroy intelligent indigenes. Explain yourself, black man!”

  “Cool it, Boss. You get yourself all worked up, and de good Lieutenant—I mean temporary Commander—is going to keep you here longer than you think.”

  “O.K. I get the message. Now, what happened?”

  “I was cruising along in the hovercar—actually, I was following a herd of quadrupeds that look like zebras and might be a potential meat supply—when this joker rose up out of the grass about a hundred metres ahead of me. It looked as if it was about to toss something playfully— like the grenades that took out the vids. So I lasered it.” Kwango shrugged. “I only had the laser on minimum power. Didn’t want to do too much damage, thinking that Zonis might want to take a look at what was left. But, Boss, that creature fell flat on its tiny, and then went up boom. Seems it had a grenade or some such, after all. The pieces were still raining down when I got to the crater.”

  “Hm… Did you collect any of the bits?”

  “Yes, Commander. Here comes the part you are not going to like too much. It wasn’t an animal. It was a robot.”

  Conrad forgot Himself, tried to sit up again, again wished he hadn’t. He waited patiently for the pain to subside. Then he said weakly: “Goddammit!”

  Kwango permitted himself a cautious smile. “My sentiments exactly, Commander. The circuitry, the technology and the hardware—judging from the pieces I found—are so far ahead of our science as to make me feel like a Stone Age savage… Matthew is the most advanced kind of robot we have. He is built like a tank, weighs about two hundred kilos, and looks like an antique washing machine on legs. The robot I lasered was light, compact, extremely agile. Also it had a bio-skin. The innards were electronic and mechanical. But the skin was a living organism.”