Hellworld (Deathstalker Prelude) (3 page)

Corbie sighed again, and Lindholm looked at him, amused. “What is it now, Russ?”

“Nothing. Just thinking.”

“Something gloomy, no doubt. I’ve never known anyone with such a talent for finding things to worry about. Look on the bright side, Russ. We’ve been here almost three hours, and so far absolutely nothing has tried to kill us. This place is deserted; there’s not even a bird in the sky.”

“Yeah,” said Corbie. “Suspicious, that.”

“There’s no pleasing you, is there?” said Lindholm. “Would you have preferred it if we’d stepped out of the pinnace and found ourselves face to face with something large and obnoxious with hundreds of teeth?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. At least we’d have known where we were, then. This place
feels
wrong. You can’t tell me you haven’t felt it too, Sven. It isn’t natural for an open space like this to be so deserted. I mean, it’s not like we’re in the middle of a desert. You saw the probes’ memories; apart from a few extra volcanoes and the odd patch of stormy weather, this world is practically Earth normal. So where the hell is everything? This kind of planet should be swarming with life.”

“Will you cut it out?” said Lindholm. “I’m starting to feel nervous now.”

“Good,” said Corbie. “I’d hate to feel this worried on my own.” He stared at the ground thoughtfully, and hit it a few times with the heel of his boot. The ground cracked and split apart. “Look at this, Sven. Bone-dry. Sucked clean of every last drop of moisture. Can’t be because of the day’s heat. The sun’s up and it’s still bloody freezing.” He studied the view again, and scowled unhappily. “I don’t know; I wasn’t expecting a garden planet, but this place gives me the creeps.”

“I shouldn’t worry about it,” said Lindholm. “You’ll get used to it, as the years go by.”

“You’re a real comfort, Sven.”

“What are friends for?”

They stood together in silence for a while, studying the featureless plain. The sound of Dr. Williams digging came clearly to them on the quiet.

“What do you think of our Captain?” said Lindholm, as much to keep Corbie from brooding as anything. He already had his own opinion of the Captain.

Corbie’s scowl deepened. “All the Captains we could have got, and we had to end up with Scott Hunter. I did a little research on him before we left the
Devastation.
The man is hardworking, a bit of a martinet, and too damned honest for everyone’s good. Volunteered for patrol duty out in the Rim worlds, and distinguished himself in four major battles. Could have made Admiral eventually, if he hadn’t screwed up. Always assuming he could have learned to keep his opinions to himself, and kiss the right butts.”

Lindholm nodded slowly. “We could have done worse.”

“Are you kidding?” Corbie shook his head dolefully. “I know his sort. Honest, courageous, and a bloody hero to boot, I’ll bet. You can’t trust heroes. They’ll get you killed one way or another, chasing after their bloody ideals.”

“You’re a fine one to talk,” said Lindholm. “I was there the time you led that charge against the Blood Runners, out in the Obeah Systems, remember?”

Corbie shrugged. “I was drunk.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have that problem here. The nearest bar is light-years away.”

“Don’t remind me. I’ll have to put some thought into building a still.”

“We could have drawn a worse hand,” said Lindholm. “It’s a dismal-looking place, no doubt about it, but at least it’s not another Grendel or Shub.”

“As far as we know,” said Corbie darkly.

“Cut it out, Russ.” Lindholm glanced over at Dr. Williams, and lowered his voice. “What do you know about the rest of our Squad? The way I heard it, the esper got caught making a run for the rebel planet, Mistworld, but I couldn’t find out a thing about the doctor, or the Investigator.”

“Don’t look at me,” said Corbie. “I’ve never even met an Investigator before. I don’t normally travel in such high company. The esper’s no one special, as far as I know. Just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and trusted the wrong man. Not bad-looking, though, in a spooky kind of way.”

Lindholm snorted. “Forget it, Russ. The Captain won’t stand for any tomfoolery. Beats me how you can think about sex at a time like this, anyway.”

Corbie shrugged. “I have a reputation to live down to.”

“What about the doctor?” said Lindholm. “Why is he here?”

“Ah, the good doctor; a mystery man indeed…”

“All right,” said Lindholm patiently. “What have you heard?”

“Nothing definite, but the word was that he was involved in some kind of scandal to do with the adjusted men. Forbidden augmentations, that sort of thing.”

Lindholm whistled softly. “If that’s the case, he’s lucky to be alive. The Empire’s been really tight over that kind of thing since the Hadenman rebellion.”

“Right. Those killer cyborgs threw a scare into everyone. Anyway, as I understand it, Williams was given a straight choice: volunteer for the Hell Squads or end up as spare parts in a body bank.”

“And I was thinking we were lucky to have a doctor in the Squad,” said Lindholm. “Still, it could have been worse. He could have been a clonelegger.”

“Will you stop saying it could have been worse! It’s bad enough as it is. All the Squads I could have been in, and what do I end up with: Captain Pureheart, a Mad Doctor, and a flaming Investigator. I don’t even want to think what she did to end up here. Those people are as inhuman as the things they kill.”

“At least she’s on our side,” said Lindholm. Corbie looked at him. “Investigators aren’t on anybody’s side.”

The pinnace control deck looked even gloomier than usual with the control panels dead. The single overhead light only showed up the darkness of the shadows. Captain Hunter and Investigator Krystel lay still in their crash webbings, and their eyes saw only light. Patched into the onboard computers through their comm implants, the probes’ recordings filled their eyes and ears to the exclusion of the real world.

Hunter concentrated on the scene before him. With direct input, it was only too easy to become lost in the sound and fury of the probes’ memories and forget the real world and its imperatives. He fast-forwarded relentlessly, pausing only when the computers pointed out scenes of importance or possible significance. He felt guilty at leaving the real work to the computers, but he needed an overview of the situation as quickly as possible. There were decisions he had to make, and they were already starting to pile up. When he had a chance he’d study the records in real time, weighing and evaluating every detail, but right now all he wanted was information on possible threats and dangers. Everything else could wait. Scene after scene flashed before his eyes, and Hunter’s scowl deepened as Wolf IV reluctantly gave up its secrets.

In the north, volcanoes threw molten fire into the sky. The lava burned a deep and sullen red, and ashes fell like rain. There were vast plains of cooling ash, and all around the land was baked dry and brittle. A planet as old as Wolf IV was supposed to be should have left its volcanic stage behind centuries ago, but instead a long chain of smoking volcanoes studded the north of the single great continent, like so many warning balefires.

The oceans were racked by endless storms, and among the mountainous, churning waves, huge creatures fought a never-ending battle for survival. It was difficult to judge their exact size from a distance, even seen against the height of the waves, but the sheer ponderousness of the creatures’ movements hinted at appallingly vast dimensions. Hunter didn’t even want to think what the damned things would weigh on land. It was clear that in the future all travelling would have to be by land and air; no ship would survive an ocean voyage. Some of the creatures rending and tearing each other looked to be almost as big as the
Devastation.

Huge areas of forest filled the centre of the continent; solid masses of dirty yellow vegetation. The probes didn’t show much in the way of detail, but trees were usually a good sign for a colonist. You could do a lot with wood. Hunter smiled for the first time as the probes’ memories moved on to show him large areas of open grassland in the south. Even so, he kept a firm grip on his enthusiasm. First rule of the Hell Squads: never take anything for granted. On an alien world, nothing is necessarily what it seems. All right, from a distance it looked like ordinary, everyday grass, although the colour was a bit vile. But on Scarab, the long grass had turned out to be carnivorous. On Loki, the grass had an acid-based sap and spread like plague in the night. Everything on a new planet had to be treated as potentially dangerous, until proved otherwise by exhaustive testing. And then the scene changed again as a new probe’s memories patched in, and Hunter’s heart missed a beat. He hit the freeze frame, fixing the image in place, and swallowed with a suddenly dry throat.

“Investigator,” he said finally through his comm implant, “Patch into probe seven. I’ve found something.”

There were structures of stone and glass and gleaming metal. Jagged-edged turrets erupted from asymmetrical buildings. Strange lights blazed in the windows of huge stone monoliths. Low domes glimmered with pearl-like translucency. In the centre of everything, a spiked tower of gleaming copper reached up to touch the sky. And everywhere, hanging lightly between the oppressive shapes and buildings, were frothy strands of gossamer walkways.

“It’s a city,” said Hunter, his voice awed and hushed.

“Looks like it,” said Krystel. “Roughly circular, four miles in diameter. No signs of life forms as yet.”

“I’ve got the computers checking for similar sightings.”

“They won’t find any. We’re pretty much near the end of the recordings. If there were any other cities like this, we’d have come across them long before now.”

“Switch to the viewscreen,” said Hunter. “I want full computer analysis of the recording. This has top priority until I tell you otherwise.”

“Aye, Captain.”

The alien city disappeared from Hunter’s eyes, and the control deck reappeared around him. After the haunting, mysterious views of the city, the Spartan Empire fittings had a comforting familiarity. The Investigator was already bent over the control panels, calling up more data. Hunter leaned back carefully in his webbing, and studied the alien city on the viewscreen. Now that the first flush of excitement had died down, he found that his skin was crawling, and he had to keep fighting down an urge to look away. The shapes of the structures were ugly, twisted …
wrong,
somehow. They made no sense. There was something actually unnerving about the alien shapes and angles. Whatever theories of architecture had produced the city, they followed no human patterns of logic or aesthetics.

“How far away from us is it?” he asked, and was relieved to note that his voice sounded somewhat calmer.

“Fourteen, fifteen miles. Walking distance. We could be there in a day.”

Hunter looked sideways at Krystel, but didn’t say anything. She might see fifteen miles as walking distance, but he sure as hell didn’t. Fifteen miles? He scowled unhappily. He hadn’t walked that far since Basic Training. And he’d hated it then. He shrugged, and turned his attention back to the viewscreen. Something about the alien city nagged at him. It only took him a moment to realise what. The labyrinth of twisting streets appeared to be completely empty. Nothing moved in the city. Hunter studied the viewscreen for a long time, and then activated his comm implant.

“Esper DeChance, this is the Captain. Please join me on the control deck immediately.”

“Aye, Captain. On my way.”

Hunter shut down his comm unit, and looked at the Investigator. “No life, no movement. Nobody’s home. What do you make of it?”

“Too early to tell, Captain.” Krystel drew a slender, villainous-looking cigar from her sleeve pocket, and took her time about lighting it. “The city could be deserted for any number of reasons, few of them good. And anything alien is always potentially dangerous.” She looked at Hunter. “Strictly speaking, we ought to report this immediately to the Empire.”

“But if we do that,” said Hunter, “we’ll have to wait till they send in an official Investigatory team. And that could mean a long delay before they send us any colonists… or the extra equipment that comes with the colonists. And we need that equipment.”

“Yes,” said Krystel. “There is that. There’s only one choice open to us, Captain. We need more information, so we’re going to have to go there and take a look for ourselves. We need to know what happened to the city’s inhabitants, and why. If there’s anything on this planet deadly enough to wipe out an entire city’s population, we’d better find out all we can about it, before it comes looking for us.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Hunter. “That’s why I’ve sent for the esper.”

Krystel sniffed, and studied the glowing end of her cigar. “Telepathic evidence is subjective, and therefore unreliable.”

“Espers have their uses. And I’ll trust a human mind over a computer any day.”

The door behind them hissed open, and the esper Megan DeChance stepped onto the control deck. She was a short, wraithlike woman in her late thirties, with long silver-blond hair. Her eyes were green and very steady, and like the rest of her face, gave nothing at all away. She nodded once to Hunter and ignored the Investigator. Hunter’s heart sank. Traditionally, espers and Investigators didn’t get along. By virtue of their telepathy and empathy, espers tended to be fanatically pro-life. Investigators weren’t.

“Right, esper,” said Hunter briskly. “I want a full scan of the immediate area, twenty-mile radius. Never mind plant or animal life; I’m interested in intelligent life forms.”

DeChance raised an eyebrow but said nothing. She sat cross-legged on the deck between the two webbings, arranged herself comfortably, and closed her eyes. She sent her thoughts up and out, and her mind spread across the world like ripples on a pond. The Hell Squad were bright sparks in and around the pinnace. Everywhere else was dark. She spread out further, and the world blossomed before her. Lives shone in the darkness like flaring torches and guttering candles, but none of them burned with the steady intensity of the intelligent mind.