BlackMoon Reaper (9 page)

into his mouth, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It felt as good as when Truian

did it to me.” He looked up at Fontabeau. “When I left that river I was confused. How

could I take such pleasure from both of them?”

“It’s easy,” Fontabeau said in a harsh voice. “Pleasure is pleasure. You take it from

wherever it’s offered. It doesn’t matter if it’s from a female or a male.”

The Reaper shook his head. “I used to believe that,” Phelan said. “That kind of

thinking is what put me here.”

The gunman stiffened. “You think it wrong? Degenerate?”

“No, I don’t. Love is love. It matters not if it is between a man and woman or

between two men or two women. The heart knows what it wants the same as the body

does.”

“I want you,” Fontabeau said stubbornly. “Tell me you don’t want me.”

“For an hour’s pleasure?” Phelan countered. “Sure, we could do that, but it

wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t mean anything.” He searched the gunman’s

eyes. “You are looking for a mate and that isn’t me, Beau.”

“How do you know it isn’t?” Fontabeau pressed.

“I just do,” Phelan said. He laid his palm over his heart. “I don’t feel it here. If I

don’t feel it here, I know it isn’t right for me.”

“Maybe it will come later,” the gunman insisted. “Let me—”

“Beau, I’ve never been tempted before so I didn’t know how I’d deal with it when I

was. Didn’t know which way I would go. I do now. It isn’t a man I want or need to

make me happy.”

“You want to find a woman,” Fontabeau said in a dejected voice.

“I may have already found her,” Phelan said.

Fontabeau blinked. “Don’t tell me you mean Lucy?” he gasped.

“Maybe,” Phelan said. “Maybe not. I don’t know for sure yet. All I know is I feel

things with her I’ve never felt before. I’d like to have the time to see if she’s the one.”

“Well, ain’t that a kick in the balls,” Fontabeau said on a long sigh. “Never thought

I’d lose out to a female in anything. I suppose you just want to be friends?”

Phelan held out his hand. “I’d consider it an honor if you’d accept my friendship.”

The gunman snorted then slapped his hand to Phelan’s. “If that’s all you’re willing

to offer, I can accept it. Don’t like it worth a gods-be-damned shit, but I can accept.” He

jerked his hand back and whipped around. “Always a fucking usher and never the

groom,” he said under his breath.

Phelan watched the gunman stomp over to his horse and swing himself into the

saddle.

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“You gonna stand there all day? We’ve a job to do, Kiel,” Fontabeau snapped. “Best

we get to it!” He drummed his heels into the flanks of his mount and shot forward

before Phelan could reply.

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BlackMoon Reaper

When Phelan caught up with the gunman, Fontabeau’s lips were set in a grim line.

“I’m sorry, Beau,” he said as they forded a small stream, feeling the need to

apologize but not understanding why. Something inside him wanted to make up to

Beau for having turned him down.

“Hey, can’t win ’em all,” the gunman snapped.

“It’s just that—”

“Let it go, Phelan,” Fontabeau said. “There’s no need to discuss it further. You’ve

made your decision. No sense in beating a dead horse.”

They rode for another twenty minutes before the mine could be seen through the

trees. There was little noise as men walked in and out of the adit leading into the mine.

The buildings surrounding the operation—the headframe, the hoist house, the office—

were devoid of activity and equally devoid of noise.

“Tell me that isn’t strange,” Fontabeau commented as they rode up to the hitching

post in front of the mine captain’s office. He pointed to the barracks where the miners

lived. “If you go in there, the bunks are as unruffled as an old maid’s cunt. No clothes

lying around, no smokes littering ashtrays, no rank odor of unwashed male. No man—

and especially not a miner—lives the way these men do. I’ve yet to see any of them

sitting around playing poker, chewing ’baccy or throwing dice.”

“Aye, well, chances are they aren’t men but ’bots,” Phelan muttered.

“Sure is starting to look that way to me,” Fontabeau allowed.

Dismounting, the Reapers tied their mounts and went into the captain’s office, not

surprised to find it empty at that time of day. A half-consumed cup of coffee sat on the

desk alongside the remains of breakfast, dried egg yolk hardening on the plate.

“That doesn’t look fresh to me,” Fontabeau said.

“Where’s Brell’s office?”

“Back in town,” Fontabeau replied. “He’s been under the weather the last few days

so I’m looking after things up here for him.”

Phelan shot Fontabeau a tight look. “Under the weather how?”

“He has headaches like we Reapers do, and this one has been particularly bad. He

refuses to take tenerse for it so he just shuts the drapes and lies in bed ’til it passes.

Could be a day or it could be a week. I once knew him to suffer with it for nearly two

weeks before the gods-be-damned thing passed.” He took out his kerchief and swabbed

at the sweat on his face. “Cluster megrims, I think the healer calls ’em.”

“Aye, my aunt had them,” Phelan said. “That’s a tough row to hoe.”

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“I hear that,” Fontabeau agreed. “I hate getting the headaches.”

“So what do you think?” Phelan asked. “Should we go looking for the captain and

do a bit of reconnoitering?”

“You can do all the reconnoitering you want to,” Fontabeau snapped. “I told you

I’m not going down into that mine, and I’m not sure you should either.” He narrowed

his eyes. “Leastwise not in humanoid form.”

Phelan thought about that. “You’ve got a point.” He looked about, spied a copse of

trees around which no one was milling. “I’ll just wing my way in.”

“As an owl?” At Phelan’s nod, Fontabeau relaxed. “Can you shield your passing

like one of my kind can?”

“They’ll never see me,” Phelan said.

“I’ll wait here for you to return,” Fontabeau said, taking off his hat and hanging it

on a peg on the wall. He mopped at his sweaty face again. “I’ll never get used to the

heat on this world.”

Phelan moseyed on over to the door and over to the copse of trees, not surprised in

the least that no one looked his way or stopped to watch him. The men coming from

and going into the mine kept their eyes straight ahead, shambling along as though the

weight of the world were on their shoulders. Once in the cover of trees, Phelan shifted

from his humanoid form into that of a small burrowing owl then took to the air,

winging straight through the mine entrance, staying close to the wooden roof supports

as he followed the rail system deeper into the gloom of the mine.

What struck Phelan as being even stranger than the quiet outside the mine was the

silence within. There was no sound of metal wheels clicking over the track, no shriek of

chain, no thump of pick or scrape of shovel. The mine was eerily quiet with only the

shuffling of the feet of the miners over whose heads he flew. Around him the air was of

good quality—suggesting the intake pipes were functioning well. It was cool and dry,

and the deeper he went, the atmosphere grew more claustrophobic for him, the tunnels

seeming to close in, become narrower. He knew it was an illusion but it made him

uneasy and at one point he flew to a roof support and perched there, swiveling his head

one hundred and thirty-five degrees as he took in his surroundings.

One by one the miners trudged along with their eyes never wavering from the path

in front of them. It was dark with only a lantern every twenty feet or so, but the miners

didn’t seem to notice. They ambled along as though they were following an inner

beacon.

The silence was unnerving and Phelan was reluctant to spring from his perch and

continue on, but somewhere within the vast complex of twisting and turning tunnels—

many bisecting the rail track at forty-five- and ninety-degree angles and venturing into

total darkness—was a place where humans were being turned into automatons. He had

to find that place and put an end to the Ceannus’ evil plan.

He flew past the inclined shaft where several levels of tunnels stretched into ebon

stillness then circled back, winging his way to where a cage sat unused beneath what he

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BlackMoon Reaper

reasoned was the headframe building. Flying down the shaft, he met only more

darkness without so much as a flicker of light in the pitch black. He spied the skip hoist

sitting idle along with several two- and three-car wagons on the tracks. None of the

conveyors by which he passed were in use. There did not appear to be any work being

done in the mine.

Flying down one of the galleries, he detected a faint light far ahead and increased

his speed. No one was headed this way, but the hint of light in the unrelieved darkness

needed to be investigated. The closer he got to the speck of illumination the stronger his

sense of claustrophobia increased. He knew he was far below the surface and going

farther still, but at last there was light in this torturous gloom.

It was into a large cavern he flew where several lanterns flickered from brackets

hammered into the rock wall. A lone metal door stood partially open and it was from

behind this mysterious portal that strange humming noises were coming.

Dropping to the floor of the mine, Phelan wedged his feathery body into the crack,

trying to see what was beyond the door, but all he spied was the metal legs of long

tables. Using the cloaking ability given to him by the goddess, he bound into the air to

fly into the room unobserved. Finding a metal roof truss, he alighted and looked down

at a scene straight out of hell.

On the long metal tables lay the naked bodies of what had once been living,

breathing men. Only now their torsos had been splayed open and the vital organs

removed. On a long shelf above the tables sat their heads with the top part of the

cranium sliced away, the brain missing. A harsh beam of light passed over the features

of each decapitated head in a grid pattern, mapping the features and then translating

those features to a glowing green screen where a rapid set of numbers scrolled.

To one side of the room two hideously formed creatures worked over a single table.

At least seven feet in height and rail-thin with overly long arms and spindly legs,

bulbous heads completely devoid of hair, the creatures were a pale gray in color and

their flesh was mottled with warts. Their thin, delicate hands had four long fingers and

a spatula-shaped thumb that ended with sucker-like pads at the tips. When one turned

so Phelan could see its face, the Reaper was taken back to Calizonia and the Ceannus he

had seen there. The black, slanted eyes devoid of pupils, the sharply pointed chin and

the broad, flat nose with its triple rows of vented nostrils were unnerving. When it

spoke—if that was what it did—it made clacking sounds between twin rows of very

small, very sharp barbed teeth.

Even in his owl form Phelan Kiel shuddered at the sight of the beings hunched over

what had to be a new cybot they were fashioning.

He swept his gaze about the room and counted over fifty monstrosities the Ceannus

had already created with the remains of at least that many humans awaiting

transplantation into new bodies. Taking in the rows of equipment that lined the other

two walls of the rectangular cavern, he couldn’t begin to imagine the function of the

various machines.

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All except one.

One medium-sized machine was spitting out rubies and sapphires in what no

doubt was meant to be their natural form. It didn’t take a genius to realize the stones

were being manufactured by the Ceannus to preserve the illusion of mining operations

going on as they should. As the dual bins in the front of the machine filled, they were

dumped on a small conveyor belt then tracked from the room through a long tube in

the cavern’s wall.

* * * * *

“Will you be able to find your way back to that hellish place without much

difficulty?” Fontabeau asked when Phelan returned and told him what he’d discovered.

“Aye, that’s not the problem. Getting back down there with a charge to blow this

operation sky-high is going to be the challenge.”

“And getting back out before it blows,” Fontabeau said.

“Aye, there’s that too,” Phelan agreed. He paced about the mine captain’s office. “I

didn’t detect a single human in that mine, Beau. Not a single one!”

“Then that means the captain’s been changed,” the gunman suggested.

“I’m thinking I can load charges into the cage and the skip hoist then send them

down as far as they will go. The room where they are making the ’bots is farther down

than that, but if we cause a cave-in at the top—sending tons of mountain down on their

warty heads—I don’t think they’ll be able to escape.”

“Unless they have a bolt-hole,” Fontabeau said. He looked skyward. “What about a

ship sitting up there ready to snatch them up?”

“The Net wouldn’t allow it,” Phelan said, and explained about the security system

ringing the planet that prevented alien ships from entering Terran atmosphere.