“I will.” She gently laid her hand against his grizzled cheek, and he could feel the tingle of electricity in her fingers. “You’re not going to die.” It was a command.
“I always planned on dying in South Dakota, anyway. In bed, when I’m a hundred and one.” The pain was beginning to take him, but he didn’t let his face show it. “You’d better go.”
“We’ll be back for you,” Rick said.
“You sure as hell better be.” He put the stick of dynamite across his chest, just in case.
Daufin gave Jessie the lamps and then started along the tunnel at a brisk pace. Jessie and the others followed. The metallic boom of the ship’s pulse told Daufin that the systems were rapidly energizing. The tunnel wound to the left just ahead. They had to be almost under the ship by now, and soon they’d see the opening into it. The question was: would Stinger try to stop them from getting inside, or let them enter the ship?
As her eyes darted from side to side and she listened for the scurrying of claws digging in the dirt, Daufin knew Stinger was right: this warren of tunnels was his world, and he was everywhere.
Her legs moving like little pistons, the alien warrior in the body of a child advanced deeper into Stinger’s realm.
56
The Chopshop
“HOLD IT,” CODY WHISPERED. Behind him, Miranda and Sarge stopped. “I see a light ahead.”
To call it a light was for want of a better term: it was more of a luminous violet mist, hanging at the far end of the passage they’d been following for the last ten minutes. Cody figured it as being about forty feet away, though distance had become unreal. They’d been in the dark since leaving the chamber where they’d been caged, and they’d been feeling their way along a passage with walls and floor that felt like soggy leather. Cody thought they were gradually descending, going around in slow spirals. They’d seen no other openings, no other lights.
Cody held Miranda’s hand, and cautiously led her forward. She had hold of Sarge’s hand, pulling him along. They walked through two or three inches of a thick sludge that lay at the bottom of the corridor and dripped from above, and then they reached the luminous mist. By it they could see that the corridor wound to the right. Ahead was a circular portal into what looked like a large chamber, lit in a sickly violet glow.
“Come on, Scooter!” Sarge whispered over his shoulder. “You gotta keep up!”
They emerged from the corridor. Cody stopped, stunned by the sight.
Above them, perhaps a hundred feet in the air, was a huge ball of purple mist, radiating light like an otherwordly sun. Other portals and platforms advanced up the inner walls of the ship right up to its distant apex. It made Cody think of what the inside of an antbed must look like, but he could see no other sign of life. About sixty feet above hung another black pyramid, the size of a tractor-trailer truck, connected to the walls by two massive metal arms. A network of thousands of silver cables ran from the pyramid into the walls, but Cody was most astounded by what stood before them.
Across an area fifty yards wide and the same distance in length were hundreds of structures—spheres, octagons, bulky slabs, and some as graceful and puzzling as abstract sculptures. All of them were as black as ebony, and appeared to be covered with scales. They were arranged in long rows, connected by silver-blue rods; some of the structures were twenty or thirty feet tall.
“What are they?” Miranda asked fearfully.
“Machines, I think.” Cody had thought at first that this must be the ship’s engine room, but the rhythmic pulse was not coming from here but from a level below. One black wall was covered with thousands of dimly glowing, violet geometric shapes. Probably Stinger’s language, Cody guessed. On another wall were rows of triangular screens, displaying what looked like X-ray images of human skeletons, skulls and organs from varying angles. A different set of images appeared every two or three seconds, like a visual encyclopedia of human anatomy.
“Good God A’mighty!” Sarge stared upward. “Got a fake sun in here!” But the ball of mist gave off a cold light, and the sight of it made his head throb.
“There’s got to be a way out.” Cody held Miranda’s hand and started across the chamber’s black, leathery floor. Pools of slime lay everywhere, as if a huge snail had recently crawled through. Cody reasoned that there had to be another portal, maybe on the opposite side of the ship.
They went between the rows of machines. Cody heard a slow whooshing, and he realized with a prickle of flesh at the back of his neck that some of the machines were breathing. But they couldn’t be alive; they couldn’t be! Still, their scaled surfaces expanded and contracted, each with a slightly different rhythm. Cody thought Miranda’s grip was going to break his hand.
Hanging from one of the structures, a large slab studded with needles like an alien sewing machine, were scraps of what might have been human flesh—or a good imitation of it. Another structure held a huge spindle with a coil of finely meshed wires that fed into the next machine, and there was a chute with scraps of cloth, hair, and what might have been bones lying on it like discarded bits of trash. These were the machines that made Stinger’s replicants, Cody realized. The chamber was a chopshop, eerily similar to Mack Cade’s.
Beyond the machines was another portal. Cody walked toward it, but suddenly stopped.
“What is it?” Miranda asked, almost bumping into him.
“Look at those.” He pointed. On the chamber floor, trailing into the passage before them, were thirty or more cords of what looked like stretched red muscle. Cody looked back to see what they were connected to; the fleshy fibers ran along the floor and into the largest of the breathing black machines. His next question was: what were those attached to on the other end?
They had no choice but to enter the passageway. “Let’s go,” Cody said, more to get himself moving than for any other reason. He took three steps onto the sludgy surface—and then he heard a high whining noise like the line on a fishing rod being rapidly reeled up.
The cords on the floor were vibrating. They were being pulled into the breathing machine, and Cody knew that something was coming through the passage ahead. He heard the noise of movement, the scuttling of claws against the passage surface. What sounded like an army of Stingers on the march.
“Back!” he told Miranda and Sarge. “Get back! Hurry!” The noise of something massive was almost upon them. Cody guided them behind cover of a structure that resembled a gigantic blacksmith’s anvil, and then he crouched down and watched the portal, his spine crawling as the cords continued to reel into the depths of the breathing machine.
And there it was, sliding through the opening into the chamber, its mottled flesh wet and gleaming under the violet sun. What had sounded like an army was only one creature, but the sight of such an ungodly thing speared terror through Cody. He felt as if his insides were shriveling, and he knew what he was looking at—not one of the replicants this time, but the thing that had crossed the void of space hunting Daufin, that had landed the spaceship here, dug tunnels under Inferno, and burst through the floors of houses in search of human bodies. There it was, twenty feet away from him.
In the tunnel outside the ship, Daufin was still advancing like a small juggernaut. Behind her, Jessie and the others were having trouble keeping pace. Curt slipped in the slime, got up cursing and slinging the stuff off himself. Daufin listened to the pulse of the ship’s systems. She didn’t know if the force field had been turned off yet, but when it was a huge amount of energy would be shifted to the engines.
At the rear of the group, Rick took four more strides and two hands burst from the dirt at his feet.
One of them locked around his swollen ankle, the claws piercing his skin. He cried out “Jesus!,” pointed his rifle at the thing’s head, and started shooting. Pieces of flesh flew off the face. “Back here!” Curt hollered. He put the Colt’s barrel against the thing’s dark-haired skull and pulled the trigger. The head broke open, spewing its insides. But the thing was still fighting its w
ay out of the ground, one hand gripping Rick’s ankle and the other flailing at Curt’s legs. Curt jumped like he was barefoot on a hot griddle. Rick fell, aimed his light into the thing’s face, and saw the eyes sucked back into hoods of flesh. They smoked and burst, the face contorting with either pain or rage. The claws released him, and the creature thrashed itself down into the ground again and disappeared.
“Everyone all right?” Daufin had stopped fifteen feet ahead. Jessie shone the lamps back to illuminate the others.
Curt was helping Rick up, both of them trembling. “Can you walk?” Curt asked. Rick tried weight on his ankle. Actually, the claw slashes had relieved some of the pressure, but his ankle was bleeding. He nodded. “Yeah, I can make it.”
“Hold it.” Tom had seen something, and he pointed his light along the tunnel in the direction they’d come. His eyes widened behind his glasses. “Oh my God,” he said.
Four human scorpions were scuttling toward them, their spiked tails thrashing. The light hit them and they flinched, shielded their eyes, but kept coming.
Tom lifted his rifle and started to fire. Curt said, “Don’t waste the bullets, man.” He flicked his lighter, touched the flame to one of the dynamite fuses. It sparked and flared. “Everybody kiss the ground!” As the fuse was gnawed away, he flung the stick at the things and dove onto his face.
The seconds ticked past. No explosion.
“Christ!” Curt looked up. The creatures were right on the dynamite. Still no blast. “Must’ve been a damned du—”
It exploded. The four bodies were thrown against the tunnel’s sides in the thunderclap glare of the concussion, and the shock wave passed Curt and the others like a searing desert wind. Daufin was on her belly too, the blast’s breeze ruffling her hair.
Jessie held up the lamps and saw two of the figures digging themselves into the walls. A third was lying there twitching, and a fourth did not move at all.
“Bingo,” Curt said.
Daufin stood up.
And that was when the figure that had rushed along the tunnel behind her seized her by the back of the neck and lifted her off her feet. Two of its claws sliced into the skin, bringing a cry of pain from her. She was held at arm’s length, her legs dangling.
“It’s over,” Stinger whispered, in the voice of Mack Cade.
Jessie had heard Daufin’s cry, and she started to turn around and shine the light ahead. But Mack Cade’s voice was a harsh command: “Throw your weapons away! All of them! If you don’t, I’ll break her neck!”
Jessie hesitated. Glanced at Tom. He stared at her, gripping the rifle to his chest.
“Throw your weapons away,” Stinger repeated. The replicant held the child between itself and the lights. The dog’s head writhed in its chest. “Throw them down the passage as far as you can. Do it!”
“Oh, Jesus!” Curt fell to his knees in the muck, rocking back and forth. “Don’t kill me! Please… I’m beggin’ you!” His eyes were wild with terror. “Please don’t kill me!”
“There’s bug bravery!” Stinger shook Daufin, and droplets of blood fell from the cuts on the back of her neck. “Look at them! There’re your protectors!”
Curt was still rocking back and forth, making sobbing sounds. “Get up,” Rick said. “Come on, man. Don’t let this piece of shit see you beg.”
“I don’t wanna die… I don’t wanna die…”
“We’re all going on a nice long trip,” Stinger said. “I won’t kill you if you do what I say. Throw your weapons down the passage. Now.”
Tom drew a deep breath, his head bowed, and tossed the rifle away. He winced when it splatted into the ooze. Curt threw the hogleg Colt down the tunnel. Rick’s rifle went next. “The lights too!” Stinger shouted. “I’m not a fool!”
Curt’s light went first. Then Rick’s, and Tom’s lantern. Jessie threw the wired-together lamps away, and it landed near the blown-up scorpion creature.
“You have something else,” Stinger said quietly. “The weapon that shouts and burns. What’s it called?”
“Dynamite,” Jessie told him, one hand pressed to her face.
“Dy-na-mite. Dynamite. Where is it?”
No one spoke. Curt was still huddled over, but making no sound.
“Where?” Stinger demanded, and shook Daufin so hard it brought a grunt of pain from her.
“Give it to him, Curt,” Tom said.
Curt straightened up, slowly took the knapsack off. “The dynamite’s in here,” he said, and tossed it toward Stinger. It landed at Jessie’s feet.
“Take the dynamite out and let me see,” Stinger said.
Jessie picked up the knapsack and reached in. Her hand found not the last two sticks of dynamite, but a pack of Lucky cigarettes.
“Let me see!” Stinger demanded.
“Go on.” Curt’s voice had a nervous edge. “Let him see what he wants to.”
“But…this isn’t—”
“Show him,” Curt interrupted.
And then she understood, or at least thought she did. She brought out the pack of cigarettes and held them in her palm. Stinger’s eyes watched her over Daufin’s shoulder. “Here it is,” Jessie said. Her throat was dust dry. “Dynamite. See?”
Stinger made no sound. The blue Mack Cade eyes stared at the pack of Luckies in Jessie’s palm. Blinked. Then once more. Processing information, Jessie thought. Maybe searching through the language centers of all the brains it had already stolen. Would it know what dynamite was, and what the explosive looked like? A hissing sound came from Stinger’s throat. “That’s a package,” Stinger suddenly said. “Open it and show me the dynamite.”
Jessie’s hands were trembling. She tore the pack open, and held up the remaining three cigarettes so he could see them.
There was a long moment in which she thought she would scream. If Stinger had any information on dynamite, it might be the same definition Daufin knew: an explosive compound usually formed into a cylinder and detonated by lighting a fuse. The cigarettes were cylinders, and how would Stinger know any differently? She could almost see the gears turning rapidly behind the creature’s counterfeit face.
Stinger said, “Put the dynamite down. Step on it until it’s dead.”
Jessie dropped the cigarettes and pressed them deep into the slime.
A quick smile flickered across the thing’s mouth, and Stinger lowered Daufin but kept his hand clenched on her neck. “Now I feel better! Good vibes again, ya’ll! Everyone walk in front of me. Go!”
Jessie let out the breath she’d been holding. Curt Lockett had gambled on the fact that Stinger had never seen dynamite before. But where were the last two sticks?
Curt stood up. His red cowboy shirt had been buttoned almost to the throat. He followed Rick along the tunnel, his arms close to his sides and his back slightly stooped like a dog afraid of being beaten.
Stinger shoved Daufin into the muck. Hauled her up again, shoved her roughly forward. She’d already seen what was clamped between the dog’s jaws: her lifepod. Stinger grabbed a handful of her hair. “I knew the bugs would draw you out. Oh, we’re going to have a nice long trip together. You, me, and the bugs. Think on these things.” He shoved her again, and followed the others into the dark with his spiked tail thrashing.
57
Stinger Revealed
CODY LOOKED UPON STINGER in the dank light of a violet sun, and the world seemed to freeze on its axis.
Stinger—the bounty hunter from a distant planet—was a snaky length of mottled dark and light flesh. Its body shone with slime, and it moved on hundreds of small silver-clawed legs, propelling the bulk forward with wavelike undulations. Like a fat, oily centipede, Cody thought; but it had two large hinged and clawed forelegs that looked like the shovels of a living bulldozer. It was those forelegs that had dug the tunnels and smashed through the floors of houses.
Its head was a duplicate of the thing that had burst out of the horse—thick, elongated jaws and four amber eyes with thin black pupils in a f
lattened, almost reptilian skull. Except the jaws did not hold needle teeth. The mouth was a large, wet gray suction cup, like the underside of a leech.
Stinger’s body continued to glide into the chamber. Cords of elastic red muscle emerged from its sides and connected it to the breathing machine, which Cody figured must reel the cords in and out automatically; but it was clear that Stinger was tethered to the machine, and might even be part machine itself.
But the worst was that in some places Stinger’s flesh was almost transparent, and Cody could see what was in there: corpses, drifting as if in a macabre ballet. What looked like hundreds of ropy filaments had wrapped around the corpses and seemed to be feeding them into the organs. A horse floated in there, drifting as if on an obscene tide. Flashes of what might have been electricity jumped along the filaments, illuminating the dead in that corpse-swollen body as if by strobe lights. A woman’s pickled face pressed up against the scaly flesh, red hair floating, and then she tumbled backward in terrible slow motion. More bodies moved in Stinger’s internal currents, and there were other faces Cody recognized and wished he did not. He pressed a hand against his mouth, fighting on the edge of the Great Fried Empty.
It knows my name, he thought, and that almost sent him over.
Finally, Stinger’s tail slid through the portal. It had a wrecking ball of spikes, just as the horse creature’s tail had. The tail twitched with horrible life, and the hundreds of legs carried Stinger’s bloated, twenty-foot-long body across the floor with a noise like sliding razor blades.
Cody couldn’t move. The portal was clear now, though slimed with Stinger’s ooze, and they might be able to make it. But what if they couldn’t? The breathing machine was reeling fleshy cords out again as Stinger slithered toward the far side of the chamber. Cody looked over his shoulder at Miranda and Sarge; both of them were pressed against their shelter, and Sarge’s eyes had bulged with terror. He motioned for them to stay where they were, then crawled out of cover on his stomach to see where Stinger had gone.
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