Borderlands: The Fallen (16 page)

“Yes,” she said, retching, pulling away from him. “Yes, yes, yes …”

He took the gun from her and pointed up the road. “Let’s head on—I think that’ll be all we hear outta these fuckers if we don’t get any closer to their crazy little camp. There’s a trail up to the left we can take to skirt around the rest of ’em. It’ll take us to the place where we’re gonna bed down for the night. With any luck, we won’t wake up with a couple of loony scumsuckers cutting our throats …”

“Oh hell,” Roland whispered. “I think it’s Crannigan.”

They were lying flat on the lip of a high sand dune, overlooking a shallow valley of sand and scrub. The
moonlight was bright, picking out the shapes of Crannigan and his men clustered below. “What’ll he do if he sees you?” Cal asked.

“Probably kill me if he can. But … might be able to negotiate something. Better if he doesn’t see us.”

“So … shouldn’t we get to the outrunner and get outta here?”

“Like I said, you got good instincts. Let’s go.”

They slid down the face of the dune, and ran toward the outrunner, about ten meters away.

A green-white explosion of energy, expanding in the shape of a sphere, knocked Cal flat on his back.

He found himself dizzily staring up at the oversized moon of Pandora. His ears buzzed, his head seemed to vibrate. What was on that moon? Was anyone there? Were they staring down at him now, with their heads buzzing and vibrating?

“Hey kid …” It was Roland, dragging him to his feet. “Get up. We got to try to get the hell out of …”

“You’re not going anywhere alive, unless I say so, Roland,” said someone stepping into view from the shadow under the dune. He had an Eridian rifle in his hands.

“Great,” Roland muttered.

Crannigan leered at them. “Well he’s able to survive the Primals and he’s able to identify me—but he’s not able to stay out of my way.” He pointed the alien weapon. “Tell me why I shouldn’t blow you to hell.”

“Because then I’d be in hell waiting for you, Crannigan,” said Roland, grinning. “The other reason is—this kid here is worth a million big ones in ransom. And I’m the only one who speaks his language—unless you speak Caucasio Bunkonian?”

Crannigan blinked. “
What
language?”

Cal took the cue. “Carbenosian rafka bukasa?” he asked, stringing random syllables together.

“Carbenosian nofka, ibo,” said Roland to Cal, in the same sort of gibberish.

“You claim he’s worth a mil in ransom?” Crannigan said, looking doubtfully at Cal. “Who’d pay a million for him?”

Cal almost retorted in his own language. But instead he looked at Roland and said, in a puzzled manner, “Snebozo mucka?” Cal tapped his own forehead.

Roland sighed and shrugged. “Rikbonna forcbusca!”

“What’d you just say?” Crannigan demanded.

“He asked me if you had an injury to your head,” Roland said. “I told him I figured maybe you did.”

Crannigan scowled. “My head’s fine but yours is gonna be scattered all over the landscape if you’re bullshitting me about this. Now step on over to our camp. And one thing you oughta take away from this is you can’t sneak up on my people without me knowing, I always got lookouts keeping watch. Come on …” He pointed the Eridian rifle. “Move!”

“You want a share of the ransom, fine,” Roland said, rolling the dice, “but I don’t go with you under the gun. We can partner up. You know you’re gonna need me—not only to talk to the boy, but also—you’re sure to run into some hell out here. None of these chuckleheads you’ve got with you now are gonna match what I could bring to a fight. You keep me at your side, I can watch your back, Scrap.”

“Or shoot me in the back,” Crannigan snorted. “Last time we met, I couldn’t have made you too happy …”

Roland shrugged. “All in good fun. I didn’t mind. I handled them.”

“Yeah—how’d you get out of that? Outrun ’em in the outrunner?”

“Dragged ’em to a Nomad with a mean streak.”

“Nomads are all mean streak.” Crannigan lowered his weapon. “Truth is, I don’t trust none of my men—so I’ll take the chance you’re more useful to me than risky. Come on, let’s go to camp.”

“Crinbonna?” Cal asked, as if puzzled.

“Cringo-ina,” Roland said, pointing toward the camp. He turned to Crannigan. “What about my outrunner? I got a Zodiac Turret too …”

“A Zodiac, huh?” Crannigan muttered. “That’ll be useful. Okay, let’s all three get in the outrunner. I’ll be on the rear gun. Behind you. So don’t get cute. Move it.”

S
ince coming to this planet, Zac was always a little surprised to wake up in the morning. He was surprised he hadn’t been killed in the night by … something. Any number of somethings.

But despite his foreboding, he’d slept the deep sleep of aching exhaustion. He’d spent a night in freedom, not tied up, not having to wonder if Berl was going to go mad and kill him, and this morning, stretching, looking around at his surroundings, he felt a surge of improbable optimism. The plateau he’d slept atop was about two hundred feet over the plain, a tableland rising abruptly over the rolling desert; the view, in the blue light of morning, was spectacular. It’d been worthwhile, climbing the steep trail up here with only the moonlight to guide him. It put him out of the reach of most predators—and the vista, from the cliff’s edge, was all subtle silver mist broken by islands of blue stone. To one side the moon was setting; to the other
the sun was ascending over the horizon. The air was fresh and cool.

Maybe there was hope. Maybe his wife and son were alive. Maybe he would find them, and the crashed alien ship. He would even make it all good with Berl—send him his share. He had no problem with that.

Might be hard to do, though, if Berl killed him before he could find the treasure. Always a possibility. He peered down at the desert, in the direction of Berl’s hideout, at least twenty kilometers back. He shaded his eyes, looking for Bizzy. Wherever Bizzy was, Berl wasn’t far away. And Bizzy ought to be easy to spot. Just look for a shape like a daddy longlegs as high as a house.

He saw nothing but a movement in the sand, almost directly below the cliff. Big creatures that seemed to swim in the sand, down there: emerging, dipping out of sight, emerging again. Giant purple crustaceans.

And there, a half kilometer off—the rising sun was throwing long, rippling shadows from a group of trotting skags. Farther, rakks wheeled over the horizon. A few clouds scudded. Nothing else moved.

Maybe the old man wasn’t coming after him.

But Zac knew better. Berl was obstinate and obsessive. When the old hermit realized what had been taken from the cave, he wouldn’t stop till he got back “what was his” or died trying. In time, Zac would have to face him.

He returned to the old surveyor’s camp, a hut and a circle of stones, where he’d spent the night. He knew it was an old surveyor’s camp because the old surveyor was there: a skeleton, hand still clutching surveillance instruments.

Most of the instruments were rusted, broken. But one, protected by a scrap of canvas bag, looked intact—a small telescope. Did it still work?

He picked up the telescope, brushed off the lens, and looked into the distance.
Yes.
The little telescope zoomed in quite sharply. And it was solar powered, so the power unit was still functional. This instrument could save his life—he could use it to see enemies before they spotted him. Give him time to take cover. It also just might help him find the starship crash site …

Feeling like maybe, for once, he was on point with destiny, Zac ate a small amount of the food he’d cadged from Berl, drank a couple of swallows of water from the canteen, and then reached into his satchel, took out the strange helical neon tube–like artifact he’d stolen from Berl’s stash. He remembered seeing a spirochete in a microviewer once—this thing was shaped something like that, but large as a man’s hand. It squirmed at his touch, turning, shifting, rolling in his palm—to point west.

He put on his floppy hat against the increasing glare of the rising sun, carried the telescope and the artifact to the other side of the plateau, less than a quarter klick away to the west.

Zac approached the edge carefully and hunkered down, not wanting to be seen against the sky.

A warm breeze rushed from the west, fluttering his hair, and bringing the smell of carrion and unknown spices. He raised the spiral artifact, held it loosely on his palm so it could move freely. It quivered, and turned compasslike to point southwest. He set the artifact on the rock of the butte, and lifted the telescope to his eye.

Southwest, a promontory jutted against the sky, rising like a worn tooth above a series of canyon rims. A conical shape, broken on one side—could be an old volcanic cone. Hadn’t Rans said something about that?

… Now it just happens the crash site is under a kind of overhang in an old volcanic cone …

That could be it, right there. Meaning he was in the same area of the planet, in a rough sort of way, as the coordinates he’d been given.

But how far away was the dead volcano? At least fifty kilometers, maybe a hundred. How was he going to get there alive? He didn’t have enough food or water …

Berl had said a man could eat almost any animal on the planet. He had the shotgun. He could kill game. If it didn’t kill him first.

He’d sent the location of the crash site to Marla. It could be that she and Zac had gone there already. They could be there waiting for him. Maybe they’d gotten help—

Or maybe they’d gotten killed. Or … remembering the bandits who’d nearly done him in by the DropCraft he felt sure that there were worse things than being dead on this planet. If Marla was in the hands of people like that …

No. He had to put that out of his mind.

Zac returned thoughtfully to his campsite. “Well, old boy,” he told the skull of the dead surveyor, “sorry to leave you without company. Maybe Berl’ll be along soon. No doubt he’ll have something to say to you …”

Zac gathered up his supplies, stashed them in the satchel, picked up the shotgun and the canteen, and left for the steep, twisty trail that led down to the desert.

An hour later, he was trudging through the shadows of a gulley, headed southwest. He stopped from time to time, to listen, and look. Twice he scrambled under cover of stone overhangs to hide from rakks soaring overhead.

But he kept moving—one step at a time to the southwest. Wondering if he was getting closer to his wife, and son, with each step. Or farther away.

Marla woke in the sheet metal shack to find Vance gone.

The first feeling she had wasn’t fear of being left unprotected on this dangerous planet. It was one of emotional abandonment. A deep resonant pang went through her. An ache.

“Oh no,” she muttered, looking sleepily around the malodorous little shack. “Don’t tell me …”

Surely she didn’t have feelings for the big lout, did she?

Ridiculous. Despite more than an hour, last night, of … bonding. Of a sort.

Sex, sure. But love? Not possible. First of all, she loved her husband, flawed though Zac was. Second, Vance was a felon wanted on numerous planets. Third, he was a big, sweaty thug who’d killed a number of unsuspecting men in front of her—in fact, he’d killed
scores
of them, blowing them to hell on Grunj’s Island. True, they were all sea thugs, awful men from what she’d seen, but still … the ruthlessness of it was frightening.

And fourth, she had to think of what was best for Cal and …

Wait. Why was she having to make this long list? Why wasn’t “she loved her husband” enough?

The why was … last night. Vance had picked her up in
his arms, carried her easily to the bed of old rags, and he’d taken her, acting as if it were a matter of course—and she hadn’t resisted. Just as she’d acquiesced that first time on Grunj’s Island. Both times she’d told herself it was because she needed to develop a relationship with him, so she could use him for her own ends—to protect her till she could get back to her family. She needed him to survive, and besides, if she resisted him he might hurt her.

But she’d opened herself eagerly to him; she’d sought out his rough lips, she’d let her hands trace his powerful shoulders as he took her, she’d enjoyed his considerable endowment—in fact she’d reveled in it.

All right, she was a grown woman, the circumstances were unusual, she could be forgiven for enjoying herself, squeezing a little pleasure out of life in this terrifying world. Who knew how long she’d be alive? No reason to be a martyr. She could enjoy the little … if
little
was the word, given the ravaged soreness she felt between her legs today … that life offered her, on Pandora.

But surely there was no real emotional involvement. Nor should there be. It wasn’t
love
making, it was just sex. That was all.

But she ached, seeing he’d left her here alone without a word. There was something primeval here. Her ancient ancestors, hundreds of thousands of years earlier, had been hunter-gatherers, she supposed, traveling the land looking for shelter, for game; the man protecting the woman, the woman doing her part maintaining whatever dwelling they managed, offering him affection, a kind of shelter in her open arms.