Sandcats of Rhyl (8 page)

“It’s another couple hours, if this damned computer isn’t lying to me again!” Slayton slammed his hand against the control panel. A few lights flickered as if in protest.

“Do you think it’s wise to abuse the equipment like that?” Steorra knew nothing about the on-board computer or the operation of the aircar. She was at home in the laboratory, chemical apparatus in hand. This was a new experience for her and not a very pleasant one.

“Phase off,” snapped Slayton. His face suddenly lost its hard lines as he said in a lower voice, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. It’s just that this heat is getting to me. I’d give anything for a nice, cool, icy drink.”

“You mud-world types always scream for ice. Me, I’d be satisfied with a nice, long drink of pure water. Tepid, cold, boiling, it doesn’t matter. As long as it’s wet and doesn’t taste like piss.” Dhal licked his lips under the filter, then pulled it away from his face and properly wet his lips.

“We’ll be getting a little extra water ration soon,” Slayton said. “Look out there.”

He settled the aircar to the ground and pointed. The dasteel dome was badly pitted and it was difficult to see, but Steorra could make out a peculiar herringbone flattern in the sand. “What is it?” she asked.

“That’s the track left by an aircar. The magnetic field causes eddy currents that push the sand into those patterns. Since the sand hasn’t been blown round, it means Nightwind’s not too far ahead. Let’s go out and do some scouting on foot.”

“Right, Slayton. It wouldn’t do to drive right up on them. They, uh, they might shoot us,” said Dhal.

“Get the blasterifle out.”

“Wait!” Steorra protested. “No violence. We … we’ll get the drop on them after they’ve shown where my father’s dig was.”

“Why, Steorra, we’re not going to use the rifle. It’s the ‘scope on top that I want to use.” Slayton hefted the bulky blasterifle, showing her the variable power electronic telescopic sight.

“Oh.”

“Come on. Let’s go find them.” The aircar door opened amid a scratchy noise indicating sand in the mechanism. Slayton and Dhal ignored it; Steorra began to worry. The sand was all pervasive. It seemed like a thing alive, digging into the deepest, tightest, most protected recesses of their equipment.

She dropped down into the sand beside the others. It was apparent to her that Dhal was used to moving in sand. He barely left tracks, so light and sure was his tread. Slayton left deep depressions, and Steorra’s were barely less pronounced in spite of the difference in their weights.

Slayton dropped to his belly atop a dune and unlimbered the blasterifle. Storra stayed a little behind and down the rise, but she could hear the crackling of the electronic discharge of the ‘scope. In principle, she knew how it worked. Light was focused using an intense electric field. But she couldn’t imagine why the device was internally arcing over unless it was turned to maximum magnification.

She made her way up the slope and lay prone beside Slayton. The distance revealed the solitary pinnacle of Devil’s Fang. In the heat haze, it danced and wobbled before her eyes. She wondered what Slayton could possibly see with his magnified vision through that curtain of heat.

“I got a possible on them. Looks like their aircar at the base of the rock,” he said. “But the image keeps bobbing around. They must be a good twenty kilometers away. Too far for any kind of shot.”

“What do you mean?” Steorra demanded.

“I was just saying they didn’t have a good shot at us.”

“Don’t start anything, Slayton. I’m warning you. I hired you to follow my orders. You are
not
to start shooting unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Don’t get so excited. Dhal knows what I mean, don’t you, Dhal?”

“Sure. He’s just worried about them opening up on us. That Nightwind’s obviously a killer. A back shooter. As long as they’re too far away to do anything like that, we’re in good shape. In fact, I doubt if they even know we’re around. What’s it look like, Lane? You got the big eyepiece.”

Slayton continued to scan the area. “Looks pretty quiet to me. The shimmery air’s making it hard to tell what they’re up to. Looks like they are sticking something into the base of the pinnacle. It’s too far away to tell what, but there are a lot of places where they’re stopping. I can make out the runty guy better than Nightwind.”

“Are you sure it really is Nightwind?”

“Who else would be out here? Besides, there’s no way I could mistake that scarecrow figure. Or the short, scrawny friend of his.” Bitterness tinged Slayton’s voice. Steorra shivered a little in spite of the desert heat. She didn’t like the way Slayton took the setback in the ship’s lounge as a personal affront. He should be satisfied with bringing Nightwind to justice for theft and possible murder.

Somehow, she doubted that would be enough for the man. The steely bite of his words told her more than she really wanted to know.

The Watcher silently padded across the dune, huge paws preventing the heavy beast from sinking into the soft sand. The dull throbs deep inside its head indicated the alien intruders were nearby. The faint touch at the buried recesses of its mind hadn’t returned. That fleeting telepathic contact must have been imagined, a specter born of the Great Wind blowing that night.

The sandcat crouched down, head resting on crossed paws, powerful rear legs positioned to give the maximum acceleration should it prove necessary. A third set of legs — arms — remained curled up in pockets on the beast’s belly. This was a Watch duty, not a Builder’s task.

In the distance lay three figures on the crest of another sand dune. In the deep valley between towering mounds of desert rested their machine. The earless head turned and studied both the humans and the aircar. Only three sources of telepathic white noise were detectable.

Only three humans in this aircar. The Watcher was pleased. It would be easy to eliminate these feeble predators. The Old Ones told of fierce adversaries before the desert devoured the planet. They spun tales of water and dense vegetation — and swift, deadly opponents.

Nothing at all like these humans. Even with their mechanical devices, they couldn’t match any cub’s strength or will to survive. The flame of life flickered so low in them, the Watcher could detect very little telepathic power. Enough to show life, not enough to indicate intelligence as the sandcats understood it.

Still, there had been a hint of positive contact with the humans in the other aircar. That would bear closer scrutiny. But a Watcher wasn’t advanced enough. An Old One would, have to make that determination, especially since the humans were approaching a place forbidden to them.

The sandcat stirred a little, then settled down into the cradle of the burning sand. Eyelids moved until the proper combination brought the three humans into focus. The heat haze was corrected for. The trio might have been a few meters distant. The device held by one of them was familiar to the Watcher. The sandcat had seen humans use the fire stick before.

It was a pitiful weapon. Even now, the Watcher could detect a desire to kill from the one holding the blasterifle. How such feeble creatures could think of invading the desert was a mystery to the sandcat. When even the Rulers had perished…

It was simply inconceivable these creatures could pose any real threat.

The sandcat felt a growing pressure in its brain. The one holding the fire stick had turned and somehow sighted it. The Watcher launched itself in a high arc over the top of the dune. It hit, running. Low, fast, it presented only a small profile for the distant marksman.

The sand erupted in a molten fountain in front of the sandcat. It stopped, turned, and bolted for the rise to its right. Another blaster beam liquified the sand beside it.

The Watcher was too fast, the distance too great and the blasterifle too limited. The Watcher slipped over the top of the dune and silently laughed at the consternation it felt bubbling out of the mind of the ineffectual human.

Fierce
kill
emanations were liberally interspersed with
hate
and overwhelming both was
fear.
It was always this way.
Fear
betrayed the human; the sensation left the sandcat’s mind feeling unclean. A racial memory was stirred by this closeness to
fear —
a memory buried for eons.

The Watcher would soon kill these intruders. It was disgusted and disturbed by telepathic contact with them. Yes, the Watcher would perform the ages-old duty. But cleanly, without
hate
or
fear.

It would strike soon.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, hollow?” asked Richards. Nightwind was busily punching another series of parameters into the computer.

Without looking up from his work, Nightwind said, “We were figuring on hitting something really big. Like a pile of solid osmium. But this is even better, if more mysterious. Why is Devil’s Fang hollow? It is artificial? Or is that a natural cavern under it?”

“The entire thing looks strange anyway, Rod,” said Heuser. “It’s the only real hunk of rock to be seen. The tri-dimensional charts show a mountain range five hundred kilometers away, but this is the only upjutting in the entire region. The rest is hard desert.”

“PR, do the sandcats show up around the Halz Mountains to the south? Or any of the other ranges? Or are they thickest around this single peak?”

Richards looked surprised. “I don’t know. Never thought about it, I guess. Nobody’s ever reported seein’ them in any of the mountains. Always in the deep desert, then just seldom. But Devil’s Fang has a reputation going back to the first days of exploration.”

“And like most planets,” Heuser ventured, “this one hasn’t been very widely explored except for the satellite recon.”

“It’s expensive and every gram freighted in is precious. On Rhyl, just setting up the equipment to squeeze the water out of the planet’s crust cost a fortune. The only reason people stuck around was sheer perversity.” Richards laughed harshly. “And a few like my old man who liked it. Just too damn stubborn to leave. And me, of course, I’m just as bull-headed. This is home, even if it is a blast furnace in the day and an icebox at night. And a dusty one, to boot.”

Heuser pulled out another metallic tape from their seismic integrator. Handing it over to Nightwind, he said, “Is there any way of telling how large the cavern inside is?”

Nightwind shook his head. “No way from the few detectors we sank. The best way of finding out is to go look.”

“And how,” asked Richards, “are you two gents plannin’ on looking? It’s a week’s drive around the base of this monolith. And we don’t have that much water to spare. Things have gone more or less accordin’ to the time table I gave, and we’ve got six-eight days worth of water left. And that’s not taking any emergencies into account.”

“What emergencies?” snapped Heuser, his eyes flashing.

“Any emergency. This planet has all sorts of nasty tricks in its repertoire. It’ll dance all over your heads, then bury your corpse without a bit of remorse if you slack up.”

“So we work from here. I figure out … source of information … couldn’t have scouted too far from here. But rather than looking, let’s try getting inside by a little judicious use of explosive.” Nightwind indicated a case still unopened in the back of the cabin.

Richards’ eyes widened. “You mean I’ve had a case of explosives in here all the way from Rhylston? I ought to make you walk back! You could have gotten us all killed! See those lightning storms? Ever hear of electrostatics? The electrical potential gradient could have set off the explosives at any time!”

“Calm down. I’m not that stupid, PR. I’m a pretty fair demolitions man and know the job. This stuff isn’t set off by detonators or electrical shock. And it’s certainly not set off by heat.” Nightwind repressed the urge to wipe his forehead. He knew the desert suit would handle the sweat and keep him cooler, but the tickly feeling and a lifetime of instinct were hard to fight.

“So what sets it off?”

“Pure chemical reaction. Two blobs of relatively inert material are mixed together into a paste, then the paste is spread over the area we’re blasting. We wait. About an hour later — boom! It’s as safe as we could get. A magnetically activated explosive would go off the first time you upped this little aircar. Photosensitive explosive is out of the question. There wasn’t any way of carting around the equipment needed for a compressive-explosive material. I decided this was the easiest and safest, if not the best for the job. Frankly, a handful of good plastique would have been better than a kilo of this stuff but, as you pointed out, the electrostatic discharges around here are severe. Look, PR, I want to get back to Rhylston in one undamaged piece, too.”

“Sorry,” apologized the guide. “Some of you greenhorns do silly things. And silly things kill people on the frontier. But I keep underestimatin’ you two, it seems. You been kickin’ around the frontier a long time, or I’d lose money betting on that.”

Heuser smiled, his lips a thin line. “You’d win a bundle. Rod and I have been to a lot of planets, seen a lot of strange things. And we’re going to see more. We’ve got to keep alive to do it.” He bent over and hefted the case of explosive material and started out the irising door.

Nightwind joined him a few minutes later. He pointed to a relatively flat area on the face of the rock cliff. “I think that looks like a good place for the Devil’s Fang to get a cavity. You handle the primer, and I’ll work on the rest.”

“Anything I can do? You don’t mind if I watch?” said Richards, coming out of the aircar for the first time.

“Why don’t you take that vee-channel steel and bend it into an arch?” said Heuser, busy with his gooey explosive.

“Bend that channel steel? Hell, I can barely lift it.”

“Sorry,” Heuser said insincerely. The smile on his lips showed he was still getting even with Richards for doubting their competence. As soon as he had properly mixed his half of the explosive, he passed it over to Nightwind and hefted a length of the steel. He gripped it, then began tensing the powerful muscles in his upper arms and shoulders. His desert suit appeared as if it would rupture when his small body expanded under the strain — but the steel bent like tin.