Raising Caine - eARC (35 page)

Chapter Thirty-Five

Southern extents of the Third Silver Tower; BD +02 4076 Two (“Disparity”)

As the day wore on, Disparity’s flora continued to command Riordan’s attention—not because of what it displayed, but rather, because of what it might conceal.

Disparity’s foliage was worse than the Javanese jungle. Here, the mists and humidity not only reduced visibility, but often painted halos around the numerous reflective surfaces. The supersaturated air also grayed-out objects very rapidly, obscuring even nearby silhouettes or terrain features. In short, Disparity conspired to reduce the visual acuity upon which effective security watches depended: an unnerving factor that soon evolved into a dangerous one.

Caine had just come off point when Macmillan held up a large, thick hand and crouched. The entire team took a knee; those without rifles hefted their axe-headed combotools. Caine crept a few steps closer to the burly IRIS operative. “Report.”

“Movement there.” Macmillan jerked his now red-furred chin at the narrow band of low land that separated the stream’s split courses; they had taken to calling it the median. “I think something from the far bank forded over to the median when our line of sight was blocked a hundred meters back.”

Riordan nodded. “Whatever they are, they’re paralleling us, using cover to get closer.” He scanned ahead and behind. “But if they are predators, and they have any brains whatsoever, they won’t charge at us from the median. If they can, they’re going to get across the river and approach our opposite flank before they attack us.”

Macmillan glanced at the gentle wooded slope behind them. “You mean, they’ll either get ahead or behind us by crossing the near stream when we can’t see them, and then press us so that our backs are to the water?”

Caine nodded. “Where they’d plan to run us down along the shore or in the shallows.”

Qwara Betul had drifted in far enough from the right point position to overhear. She hefted her rifle anxiously. “So what do we do?” She claimed to be a good shot, and Caine believed her, but hitting stationary targets on a range was a lot different than hitting moving creatures in combat. Particularly when the creatures wanted to kill you.

“We’re changing formation.” He waved Dora forward; she arrived with startling speed.

Before he could update her, she nodded. “I thought I saw something over to our left, just as Macmillan called for a halt. I’ve been checking the slope to our right. I don’t think anything has made it across, yet.”

Damn, she’s good.
“And we’ve got to keep it that way. The three of you on watch are going to walk beside the stream. The rest of us are going to push away from the water a little bit, higher up the slope. That means we’re giving up the delta formation. We’ll be moving as two columns; the unarmed folks up higher on the bank, you three down closer to the water. That way, if the creatures try to cross the stream either in front of us or behind us, we’ve got a better chance of seeing them. And putting a bullet into one of them.”

Betul’s eyes widened. “Will that not just anger them?”

Macmillan looked thoughtful. “These aren’t big critters, Qwara. Pretty light-footed from the way they move, and their haunches don’t make a long flash when they pass between the fronds.” He shook his head. “Besides, most predators run from the sound of a gun. And if one goes down, the others tend to flee.”

“Sharks don’t,” Dora argued. “They don’t give a damn about what happens to other sharks. If they aren’t hurt, they don’t run. And the creatures here may not be any smarter.”

“Maybe not, but fish don’t work as cooperative hunters.” Caine pointed across the stream. “The group trailing us does. So, the same bonds that make the group work together can be used to collectively scare them into running.”
Theoretically.

Dora shrugged. “Hell, it’s our best shot, anyhow.” She turned and scooted back, shooing the unarmed persons at the center of the delta up the slope and into a column paralleling the tree line. Macmillan started to move toward the point position on the stream-hugging patrol column, saw that Riordan wasn’t moving. “What about you, Captain?”

Caine rubbed his chin. “I’m going to play free safety in the center, between your column and the upslope group. Can’t really be an effective commander from back there.” He gestured toward the jungle to their right, where the first bioluminescent lures and attractors were warming to the approach of dusk. “We’d better get going, see if we can find a defensible rock outcropping or something similar before nightfall.”

Macmillan shrugged. “You’re the boss, boss,” he said, but Caine could read the real meaning in Keith’s tone easily enough:
please don’t be stupid and get yourself killed
.

* * *

The lower the sun sank, the more frequently the group saw movement. But their change in formation seemed to discourage the creatures paralleling them. They kept their distance, which probably signified that if the humans were considered prey, they were not deemed unaware nor easily frightened prey.

As more of the bioluminescent plants began speckling the undergrowth with orange, yellow, magenta, and indigo glows, the movement of the trackers became easier to follow. Although it was impossible to make out a flashing flank or leg, swift occultations of the glowing dots in the underbrush revealed the direction and speed of the creatures’ movements. Most of them had now crossed the far stream and were on the median. A few minutes after Keith Macmillan quietly reported he didn’t have enough visibility left to reliably hit a target at forty meters, the river’s northerly course bent slightly to the west and the narrow band of salmon and teal sky that had been visible between the trees on either bank suddenly widened.

“Watercourses rejoin up ahead,” he reported. “The median runs out.”

“Any rock formations?”

“Not that I can see from he—yes. About one hundred meters beyond where the river comes together again. There’s an angled bluff that juts into the current. Naked rock. If we get to the top of it, we’ll be in a defensible position.”

Caine stopped, scanned the terrain. The creatures knew this land, which meant that they knew they were coming to the end of the easily fordable part of the river, and were coming to the end of the median, too. Which meant that they were running out of areas where there was enough cover to screen a crossing. In fact, they had already run out of opportunities for crossing the stream ahead of the group, as shown by the widening space between the trees downriver. Which meant they only had one option left:“Keith, double-time forward!”

“Forward?”

“Yes: watch for critters trying to cut you off from that bluff. Ambassador,” he called over his shoulder, “everyone in the upslope column runs after Macmillan. If he stops to shoot, you go past him. Lead our people up the rocky bluff you’re going to see in a few meters. Dora,” he shouted, moving to the rear. “Form up on Qwara, and watch the stream behind—”

Up ahead, Macmillan’s rifle spat three times as something started splashing across a rocky shallow where the streams began to reconverge. Whatever it was went down, thrashed, went down again. As it struggled, it made a sound like a soprano screaming over a fast rattle of deep-toned castanets. Another of the creatures, a thin-limbed and nimble quadruped with a heavy body, was sprinting past its feebly kicking pack-mate. Two more shots from Macmillan’s nine millimeter had no effect. The animal started up the shallows toward the now sprinting group—then Macmillan’s weapon fired twice again, rapidly.

The creature, a bulldog body perched on whippet legs, spun away from the impact of a hit. Its broad, blunt head tossed—upward jutting fangs flashed as its jaws snapped irritably—and then it charged back into the water, fleeing for the median and the far stream beyond it.

Behind, Dora was approaching Betul—just as the median vomited out a handful of the same creatures, splashing across the shallow water. Dora shouldered her rifle, fired twice—the second bullet elicited a brief castanet-shriek—and then she ran. Caine sprinted toward Betul, who had drilled on what to do in this situation: aim, fire twice herself, turn, and run past Dora, who would then repeat the process. A simple leapfrog retreat. Riordan should have been retreating as well, but hung back to make sure that nothing went wrong. Because when even the simplest maneuvers had to be executed in combat—

This day was no exception. Betul fired once, tried again: nothing. But Riordan had heard the incomplete cycling of the bolt, knew what had happened: “Jam! Cycle the action, Qwara!”

Qwara Betul was either too terrified, too surprised, or too unfamiliar with the terms to react quickly enough. Instead, she tried firing again, to no avail.

Caine ran past her. “Just run. Now!” He brandished his combo-axe at the scattered creatures just coming up the shore, and shouted at them. But the words of his shout were also a signal: “Dora! Cover fire!”

The creatures stopped for a moment.

“Dora!”

But she was gone, was too fast. And the creatures were edging forward.

Damn it: if they charge Qwara now—

Riordan yelled at the ugly predators again: no words, just an animal howl. They froze in mid-stride; Caine jumped into the stream and made for the end of the median, finding the footing on the rocks swift, but dangerous. If he slipped or tripped just once—but he didn’t and evidently, that was the last direction the creatures had expected their prey to go.

The barrel-chested predators spent a moment in indecision, and then the largest ones went after the main group: more meat in that direction. A trio of smaller specimens, probably having learned that they did not get much of the kill when they competed with their bigger pack mates, veered after Riordan.

Who was already charging up the far shore. Far behind, he heard his name being shouted:
no time for that now
. He just hoped that Qwara had been able to use the momentary distraction to break out of her panic and run like hell. Riordan scanned the median: there wasn’t even a tree large enough for him to climb. He could always try his risky back-up plan: to push out into the reunited currents of the river and swim over to the rocky outcropping—

But beyond the further, narrower stream, he spotted the distinctive shape of a large cone tree, alone among indigenous vegetation. It almost came down to the water’s edge, and was cinched close against a rock face on the downsteam side. The clearance under the lower margin of its canopy was less than a meter.

Riordan’s decision was as much instinct as tactical insight: under that tree, his rear flank was protected by a sheer rock face. Along the rest of its perimeter, enemies would have to hunker down to get at him and so, lose their speed and leaping advantages. He sprinted into the stream on the other side of the median, discovered the light was failing.

As he waded through the midcourse currents and heard the creatures skitter to a stop on the bank he’d just left, his collarcom paged. Again, no time. With one hand clutching the pseudo-axe and the other out before him to maintain balance, Riordan sloshed through the accelerating, groin-deep current. Behind him, the predators jumped into the water and started picking their comparatively hesitant way after him.

Caine came up on the far shore, raced along the dark ribbon of muddy silt that led all the way to the cone tree. It would be close; he had a decent head start and had gained on them during the crossing, but once on the shore they were much faster. As he neared the tree’s canopy, he saw hints of light under it, hoped he wasn’t jumping from a frying pan into a fire, and, hearing the pattering of speedy pursuers behind him, dove forward at an angle. His sideways roll carried him under the lowest branches and sent him banging over a washboard of crisscrossing roots.

The first of his three pursuers fetched up outside the canopy, ducked its head under to get a look—

Riordan, axe cocked as he came up from his roll, swung hard.

The creature saw the movement, flinched its head back, scream-clattered as a glancing blow tore a divot out of a cartilaginous flap that might have been an ear. Furious, ravening, the other two angled apart with the innate tactical insight of all predators; any prey can be brought down if it can be flanked. Caine cocked the axe back again, wondered how long this could go on—

A monstrous, outraged foghorn roar froze him and the predators mid-action: a savage tableau illuminated by pink and violet lanterns now brightening in the cone tree’s under-canopy. A great rush of water swept under its low boughs from the direction of the river bank, where something large, terribly large, was rising up, torrents of water pouring off the sides of its shadowy bulk, obscured by the leaves of the tree.

The predators inched back, muted castanet-clatters vying with shrill warbles and yelps as they made a show of standing their ground. But the foghorn-hooting—the same made by the dimly seen gargantua which had ended the pirhannows’ attack upon Hirano—sounded again, and a broad, spatulate foot thudded down into the shore-silt so hard that gouts of the sandy black sludge sprayed under the tree and toward the predators.

All of which promptly ran, making sounds akin to fighting tomcats as, scalded by terror, they leaped off into the underbrush.

The foot in the silt remained planted there for a long moment, then, wavering, turned, moved back out toward the water. But the creature did not seem to be leaving. Instead, it seemed to be brushing along the riverside periphery of the cone tree’s canopy, searching—

With a blast of musk and mist, two immense legs forced open a gap in the cone tree’s shoots and branches. The legs bent and with one surprisingly deft dipping motion, the blunt body of the river-striding behemoth was crouching under the ten-meter canopy of the tree. Its head, not much more than a trough-jawed protrusion of its body, swiveled toward Caine, a pair of round, wide eyes both above and below the gaping maw. Jaw-lining light sensors pulsed and bulged in his direction as well. The gigantic animal staggered toward him, a grumble rising up out of its gut like a chorus of bears waking up from hibernation.