Dark Planet (12 page)

“You’re a Sen,” Captain Amalfi said to me. It was almost an accusation.

My ears involuntary twitched in frustration. It puzzled me that my senses were unable to detect much activity in this mountainous valley basin in which the alien Blobs were supposedly concentrating their advance base.

“There is a Blob down there,” I said finally.

The Captain frowned. “A Blob? There should be hundreds.”

“I detect a single Blob.”

“What is he doing?” Sergeant Shiva asked.

“I cannot be sure. He is hardly doing anything. It is … almost like he is on autopilot or suspended animation … He is quite unconcerned. There is no martial feel to him. It is like he is simply going through the motions.”

Captain Amalfi paced back and forth at the mouth of the cave, agitated and puzzled. “It doesn’t make sense,” he fussed, talking mainly to himself. “A single enemy Blob does not build an advance assault camp. Nor does a single enemy account for the disappearances of the previous DRTs. DRT-418 was a strak team.”

That acknowledgment produced a minute of restive silence contemplating the fate of those who came before us. It began raining harder than ever, so that the rain across the cave entrance resembled a live curtain. Lightning flashed so brilliantly it lit up the entire cave and deposited among us the acrid odor and taste of ozone. Sergeant Shiva, who had gone outside to glass the valley yet again, returned through the rain curtain, dusting water off his cammies and shaking his crewcut free of rain.

“Maybe they’re building it underground,” he suggested.

“Sen,” Captain Amalfi said. “Would underground interfere with your … your reception?”

“The Blobs communicate telepathically,” I said. “I should be picking up something even if they have burrowed to the planet’s core.”

Atlas moved near, glaring at me suspiciously. “How do you know what the Blobs feel like? Where do you feel them at? In your brain, in your nuts?”

I thought I heard the Presence’s baleful snigger, but it was faint and none of the others heard.

“It is a gift, a Talent.”

“Fu-uck,” Blade rumbled.

A spider’s electric web crackled across the dark dome of the low sky outside the cave’s entrance. I felt hostility all around me, but none of it came from the valley. Even Maid looked at me in an odd way, like she didn’t quite trust me either.

What are you hiding, Kadar San?

Blade stepped up. “The elf is lying,” he said. “Can’t you see that, any of you? He knows something he’s not telling the rest of us.”

A discussion with Blade was like talking to a rock. Another old, old Earth expression I learned from Maid. As I had to avoid overt behavior at all costs — the Humans already distrusted me sufficiently — I reverted to passive aggressive defense and turned my back on Blade. It was a sign of disrespect among both Zentadon and Humans.

“We’re being sucked into a trap!” Blade roared. “Ask this tailless elf.”

He grabbed my shoulder to spin me around to face him. I planted myself. He was unable to move me. I chuckled with satisfaction. Blade stepped back in astonishment that his muscular enhancements seemed to have failed him. I turned slowly on my own to look at him.

Captain Amalfi interceded before Blade could collect his thoughts. I suspected collecting his thoughts would be a major challenge for him.

“At ease, Sergeant Kilmer,” the Team Leader commanded. “That will be all of that.”

“A trap,” Blade reiterated. He glowered at me, then walked off, deliberately fondling his Gauss.

“The Blobs are up to something,” the Captain pondered, staring out past the rain curtain. “It’ll be dark again soon. Place the bots on near perimeter with a constant monitor watch. We’ll scout the Blobs when it’s light again.”

I offered to take first monitor watch as a gesture of peace.

“Ferret will take it,” Sergeant Shiva interjected. “Followed by Gorilla, Blade, Atlas, and Maid. In that order.”

That said how much he trusted me.

“I’ll be doing a monitor watch on him,” Blade said, jabbing a finger at me. He patted his Gauss for emphasis.

This time I knew I heard the snigger.

C
aptain Amalfi and Sergeant Shiva called for a move the next morning; we had thoroughly scouted out this particular AO — area of operations. We continued down-valley with the intention of crossing over to the far ridgeline and taking a look there. A wildlife trail led through the forest on the side of the ridge. Three inches of rainwater turned it into a miniature river, but it was still easier going than cutting fresh trail. The downpour reduced visibility to a matter of yards. Out front on point, Ferret was forced to depend upon the robots for early warning. The crack of lightning, the snapping and writhing of struck trees, the bellow and boom and din of the continuing storm all but negated the effectiveness of his hypersensitive implants.

“When this is over,” Atlas complained, “I’m moving to a desert where it never rains. Want to go with me, Maid?”

She didn’t answer.

From the middle of the march with the C&C element, I looked back and ahead when the trail opened up and saw most of the team. I noticed that our chameleons were beginning to fail. One or the other of the team would suddenly flicker into full view as a Human form rather than the IR heat source our helmets provided, then just as suddenly merge back into the surroundings. I assumed the dreadful weather was causing the dangerous little glitches.

It was no problem as yet, as long as none of us flashed into view at a critical moment, such as when we ran into a Blob patrol or encountered a predator. I gently probed Captain Amalfi’s thoughts and discovered he was also concerned about it. The intervals of uniform failures and our coming into full view of all and sundry were bound to lengthen until they became more than an inconvenience.

“Ferret, I see you,” Gorilla hissed.

“Close yours eyes. The damned cammies are going.”

We had almost reached the point where the trail cut up the ridge and down into a narrows to cross over to the other ridgeline when Ferret gave the danger signal. He barked crisply through the intercom: “Off the trail!”

The team split to either side, SOP. I was on one side of the trail, Maid on the other. Her chameleons flicked off, making her visible not only to me but also to anything else that happened by. What was happening by was a beast that we had not come across before. I watched it as it approached along the path, passing Ferret and Gorilla without noting their presence. Their chameleons were functioning properly. The imposing creature was about the size of a tracked land rover and resembled some hellish cross between a desert fanged scorpion and a horned dung beetle. Its long, ridged tail of a blistered orange in color curled up over its back and rode at alert above its triangular head. A barbed harpoon protruded from the end of its tail.

It paused when it detected Maid. Its four antennae swept back and forth, swishing aside foliage. Venom dripped from its harpoon. Maid frantically worked with her cammie controls as the beast crouched, preparing to spring.

Maid disappeared from sight. The scorpion-thing relaxed, confused.

She reappeared. The huge predator emitted a type of squeal and again crouched to attack.

Captain Amalfi prevented Blade from shooting it, snapping, “The Blobs’ll hear.”

Mission always came first.

Terrified, Maid edged away from the trail, attempting to melt into the jungle. I again experienced an explosive rush of taa. Thousands of generations of selective breeding had engrained into Zentadon males the need to protect and preserve females. Zentadon breeding season was fast approaching, a time when young Zentadons’ attention spans for most matters shortened and their … well, lengthened. Besides, this female in danger was virtually the only member of 213 who had shown me any kindness or friendship, and I had promised to protect her.

No bug, no matter its size, was equal in speed to a young and vigorous Zentadon under the influence of taa. I moved too rapidly for the Human eye to follow. I appeared next to Maid and deftly whisked her to concealment behind a growth of large ferns. To the disoriented insect, it must have seemed its quarry simply vanished.

Another victim appeared running in the trail, however. Lovelorn Atlas had deactivated his cammies and thought to distract the scorpion away from Maid by running directly at it. The poor brave Human was willing to sacrifice himself for the woman. For an instant, I thought to leave him to the attentions of the vermin. That would free Maid from him. I had my weaknesses of character. After all, I was half-Human.

That I even considered letting Atlas cede his life showed I might be no more immune to the unseen influence of whatever entity had linked itself to this mission than any of the others. After only the one thought, however, I left Maid among the ferns and in an instant deposited Atlas beside her. The three of us hid while the scorpion-thing quivered in lost anticipation. Its antennae searched the rain-driven air. Then, as though shrugging, it dumbly scooted on down the trail and out of sight.

“Kadar San, we owe you our lives yet again,” Maid cried, hugging me.

“Spare me the sentimentality,” Atlas flared. “I had it under control. I didn’t need him. It was a piece of cake.”

He reactivated his chameleons and moved off like a shifting image. Maid rubbed my arm.

Kadar San, you’re the better man
.

With that one thought left behind as consolation, she jumped up and went after Atlas. I wasn’t sure which weakened me most, the burnout of taa in my system or the choice Maid apparently made.

Gorilla patched a micro-electrode replacement into Maid’s cammie suit, but even he admitted it was only a stopgap measure. There would be other failures. He had insufficient replacements to repair them all. It was only a matter of time before all the suits went.

“Captain, we need to get this recon done quickly and return to the pod,” Gorilla proposed, worried. “If the chameleons malfunction entirely, which they’re starting to do …?”

“Bugs gotta eat too,” Blade said.

Atlas laughed a little too shrilly. He gave Maid a spiteful look and slapped Ferret on the back. “Don’t worry, little man,” he gibed, still looking at Maid. “If the fauna get you, I’ll take care of your little prolie slut for you. I won’t let Naleen get lonely.”

It required quite some time for a Zentadon’s body to replenish itself following the use of taa. One other time, long before the attempted sabotage of the
Tsutsumi
, I had witnessed a Zentadon go into instant lintatai from the prolonged use of taa and explode. The incident occurred during a crisis when little Zentadon children were trapped inside the flames of an interplanetary shuttle that crashed. The Zentadon teen rescued four of the children, but it was too much for his system when he started back into the fire for more. There wasn’t enough of him left to wrap in soul-cloth to be shot into burial space.

I felt shaky and substandard for the rest of the day’s march and took every opportunity to rest. It was a welcome relief when we came to the ruins of an old Indowy encampment and Captain Amalfi called an early camp.

Centuries ago, the town must have been a spectacular achievement of architecture and construction. Time, however, along with the relentless rain erosion and the wrecking bar lightning, had reduced it to piles of rubble with here and there a wall still standing encrusted with lichen and snarled with lianas and vines. Giant spider creatures, black with red legs, had spun webs out of strands of silk as thick as hawsers. Abandoned webs stretched across many of the trees. They looked like fishing nets and were coated with a substance so sticky that we had to literally laser Ferret free when he stumbled into one.

After the Humans’ Great Revolution succeeded, the conquerors started the initial destruction of the Indowy by nuking the towns and settlements and systematically laying waste to the Indowy war technology so that it could never be used again. Today, remnants of the Indowy technology, unsurpassed in either of two neighboring galaxies, were literally invaluable and brought huge prices on the black market. Space bandits, pirates, scavengers, pot hunters, and other restless ones sought to enrich themselves by finding and exploring old ruins for their secrets. Few of them, however, ever came to Aldenia. Aldenia kept its remaining Indowy and Zentadon skeletons.

A giant dragonfly lifted into the clouds from the dome of what appeared to be the only structure that offered some relief from the storm. It circled lazily above us, as though curious and sensing us even if it could not see us in our chameleons.

“It’s like a vulture,” Maid commented through her helmet intercom, watching it.

I selected her channel to talk to her in private. “A vulture?” I inquired.

“It’s an Earth bird, a carrion eater. It circles over the doomed and waits for them to die for its meal.”

“A pleasant Earth thought.”

“This place gives me the creeps, Kadar San.”

“Duly noted, Sergeant Pia.”

Water circulated out of hidden rooms and ate runnels through rubble. Rain slashed at walls with empty window panes.

“How did the Indowy manage to build camps here and live in such a horrid and dangerous place?” Maid asked me. “You would think it would take a miracle to survive.”

“Technology is a sort of miracle,” I replied. “The Indowy erected force fields around the camps through which nothing could enter … and nothing could leave. During the time that the Indowy bred Zentadon to fill the ranks of their soldiers, there is record of only one escape. A brave and rebellious Zentadon named Ghia San.”

“What happened to him?”

“It is supposed that he was eaten by the predators.”

“A pleasant Zentadon thought,” Maid murmured.

The team crowded into the domed structure. It was small, moldy, and empty of all furnishings. Soon, my energy restored, the relief I initially felt at bivouacking early turned to apprehension. I suspected the camp must once have been an Indowy experimental compound holding Zentadon slaves. That impression was strong in my genetic memory. The character of the evil place slowly seeped through our skins. I felt the Presence stronger than ever. Stronger than in the pod when it emitted its chilling death’s laughter.