The Devil's Nebula (30 page)

Her immediate reaction was one of relief, and then she saw that the party of humans was led by the Elder, Leah.

The Sleer lowered Maatja to her feet and she stood, knock-kneed, and paralysed with fear. Leah was with a group of strangers, people in strange clothing whom she had never seen before. Only when she saw the four giants in their midst and realised that they were not giants at all, but men in golden suits of armour, did she consider that these people could be from the starship.

Leah stared at her and smiled. The Elder reached out, touched her cheek and Maatja was surprised that so gentle a gesture could frighten her as it did.

Leah said, “I always thought you were
different
, Maatja. I don’t know whether you’re very brave, or supremely foolish.”

Leah turned and spoke to one of the strangers, who nodded and addressed a golden man. “Take her to the surface,” the thin-faced man ordered, “and leave her with Kaminski.”

Maatja stared at Leah and the look in the Elder’s eyes – something that was almost sadness – told Maatja that she was destined for the Harvester.

The golden man picked her up and slung her over his shoulder, and Maatja was powerless to resist.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

C
AREW GRIPPED
L
ANIA’S
hand as they raced through the jungle.

He could safely say that in all his years of star-faring through the Expansion, he had never experienced anything like the events – weird, grotesque and threatening – that had confronted him on the planet called World.

He had thought that his life of old, journeying among the stars of human space, interpreting the law as it suited him, had been about as thrilling as he could ever hope for. But he had to admit that he was now living through events that, as a star-struck child on far-away Temeredes, he could scarcely have dreamed about. And this time, the success of the mission would affect more people across the inhabited galaxy than any of his exploits to date. Only he and his small team had gained from his past ventures, even though he had liked to tell himself that the petty infringements in which he indulged were one in the eye for the Expansion authorities. The Weird were far more dangerous than the Expansion hierarchy, and he could not help but smile at the irony – as he leapt over a moss-furred tree trunk in pursuit of the galloping Sleer – that he was now fighting to protect his erstwhile enemies.

He gripped the laser tightly and told himself to concentrate.

Langley had warned them, before they set off from the
Hawk
, that the jungle would be hiding many Weird in their various forms. Leah would have alerted the Weird to their disappearance on the eve of the journey downriver, and they would suspect the Outcasts of being behind the snatch. What the Weird could not know was that now, thanks to the haul of arms from the
Hawk
, they were equipped with the latest Expansion weaponry. When Carew had asked the Outcast if this evened the odds of success in the imminent encounter, the young man had smiled and replied, laconically, “Not quite.”

Well, it always helped to know where one stood.

After thirty minutes, they came to the fissure.

Its edge was not as well delineated here as it was back at the clearing. The pair of Sleer had come to an abrupt halt before them, and Carew and Lania almost crashed into their muscular thighs as the creatures stopped and peered down.

Lania said, “What’s the problem?”

“Nothing,” Villic said from his perch upon the leading Sleer. “We’ve come to the fissure.”

Carew peered through the tangle before them, making out a dip in the land. He wondered whether the Outcasts had their own stair excavated down to the river, or if they would be forced to hack their way through the undergrowth.

The answer came very shortly.

The unencumbered Sleer set off again, barging its way through the vegetation, creating a tunnel through which the others followed. The land dipped precipitously beneath their feet, and Carew found that holding onto Lania only increased the likelihood of their both tumbling down the rapidly steepening incline. He let go and attempted to slow his descent by grasping hold of vines and whatever occasional handholds presented themselves.

Lania went before him, making it look easy. It was all very well, too, for the telepath, clinging to the back of the Sleer as it dropped with reckless abandon through the undergrowth. As Carew skinned his hands on whip-like vines armed with barbs, and slipped onto his backside for the tenth time, he wondered if he should suggest that, as the second oldest veteran of the party, he should have the privilege of riding the unburdened Sleer. On second thoughts, the idea of gripping the rubbery, blood-coloured creature around its bullish neck did not appeal. He’d had sufficient intimacy with the Sleer during his abduction the night before.

He looked up. Already the lip of the escarpment was a hundred metres above them. The ruddy face of the supergiant, swarming with sunspots, was free of the horizon and filling the sky. He wondered if Leah and the others had set off at the prescribed time, full sun up... in which case they would have the lead in the race to the lair of the Weird.

The pair of Sleer had stopped and were peering over a precipice. Langley conferred with Villic, and the Sleer carrying Villic leapt through the shrubbery on the lip of the drop and vanished from sight.

Langley looked from Carew to Lania. “I’m afraid this is the only way.” He gestured for Lania to climb onto the back of the remaining Sleer, which she did after a short hesitation, and with evident distaste.

No sooner had she fastened her grip around the creature’s neck than it leapt through the undergrowth. A minute later the first creature reappeared, then the second. Langley gestured for Carew to go first and he hitched himself onto the sickeningly warm, viscous back of the Sleer.

He closed his eyes as it dived forward and leapt through the air.

The fall seemed to last for ever, and he was wondering when the hell they might land when he felt the creature beneath him flex its legs and hit the ground. He slid from his perch and looked up.

Overhead, he saw the second Sleer appear, silhouetted against the fiery sun, and plummet towards him with Langley on its back.

He moved aside the creature landed with the grace of a gymnast, its massive thighs juddering with the impact. Langley climbed down and led the way to the shade of a tree growing almost at right angles from the steep embankment.

The Outcast suggested a break, and Carew sat on the mossy bank and took a welcome mouthful of water. “Where are we, in relation to the clearing of the Fissure People?”

“Downriver from it,” Villic replied, before Carew had finished the question. “Perhaps ten kilometres. I’d hoped to intercept Leah and the rest before they set off, but I suspect they left before full sun up when they discovered you gone. I just hope that they don’t reach the lair before we can stop them.”

Lania asked, “How far are we from the lair?”

“It’s around thirty kilometres to the underground opening.”

Carew began to ask, incredulously, if they were going to walk all the way – but Villic cut him off.

“Of course not. It’ll be far faster – even than riding the Sleer – if we take a boat. The current’s pretty strong further downriver.”

Lania asked, “And do you happen to have a –”

“– boat handy. Of course, though your definition of a boat, and mine, might vary a little.”

Refreshed, Carew stoppered his water-gourd and replaced it in the improvised backpack. He looked at Langley. “When we find Leah and the others...”

Villic finished off for him. “...How are we going to go about stopping them reaching the Weird?” He nodded. “They’ll be defended, that’s for sure. Sleer, Shufflers, once they reach the caverns... I hope at some point we’ll be able to get close enough, undetected, so that I can tell which of your colleagues – if you don’t mind me calling them that – are infected.”

Lania interrupted, laughing uneasily, “You don’t think Jed is...?” She shook her head. “Jed’s fine. Tell them, Ed.”

She looked across at him expectantly. He held her gaze. At last he said, “That’s another reason I wanted to come along, Lania. If Jed is one of the infected, I want to make sure he goes without knowing it, as painlessly as possible.”

She looked aghast. “But this is insane. Jed’s one of us. We’d have noticed something, wouldn’t we?”

Villic said, “I’m sorry. Very likely you wouldn’t have noticed anything.” He stared at Lania, reading her thoughts. “Yes... his odd outburst aboard the
Hawk
when you said that you believed Choudri. Well, it might have been caused by the infection, or not. There’s no way of telling until I get within range and probe him.”

Lania appealed mutely to Carew and her looked pained him. She said, “But he’s been with us over five years, Ed! We’ve been everywhere he’s been! When could he have become infected?”

Carew looked away. “Remember what Jed told us about seeing that crashed Kurishen starship, Lania? Where was it – on Tamalkin? Well, if he is infected...”

Villic finished. “Then that’s where he picked it up.”

Carew thought of something that had troubled him way back, aboard the Expansion station. He said, in barely a whisper, “I wondered why they hired us, Lania. I wondered why Gorley went to all that trouble to make sure we were caught coming back from Hesperides, tried and found guilty, then reprieved and sent on this mission. It all begins to make sense if Jed is infected, doesn’t it?”

He glanced at her. Tears made her eyes seem bigger than they normally were, and Carew reached out and took her hand.

“I’m sorry, Lania.”

She looked up, smiled and dashed tears from her cheeks with the cuff of her smartsuit. “But we might be wrong, mightn’t we? All that might just be coincidence, hm?”

He squeezed her fingers. “We’ll see, Lania.”

She sniffed and smiled bravely.

Villic stared down the incline. “Not far now. Another hour and we’ll reach the river.”

They set off again, and the incline proved less precipitous than on the first leg of the descent. The land levelled out as they travelled, parallel with the river far below, dropping gradually and making the hike less strenuous.

They passed in and out of cooling shadow, and this far into the fissure the temperature dropped significantly.

The terrain descended sharply again. The Sleer led the way through the undergrowth, snapping branches and uprooting shrubs as they went. Langley and Lania skidded along behind them and Carew brought up the rear, picking his way with care and occasionally shuffling along on his backside when the drop became almost sheer.

He’d slipped the laser into his belt, to free his right hand, when something shot past his left ear and slapped into a tree trunk directly before him. He saw the trunk dissolve before his eyes, the whole process taking perhaps two seconds. He fell onto his back and rolled. In an instant his laser was in his right hand and he was firing up the incline. Whatever was following them had vanished. He yelled to the others, glanced over his shoulder down the hillside. There was no sign of Lania, Langley, Villic or the Sleer. Then he caught a glimpse of Lania as she took cover behind a tree and drew her weapon.

He saw a boulder to his right and rolled into its shelter. He scanned the vegetation cloaking the incline above him. All was still, quiet. Only his heart sounded, deafening in his ears. He peered over the rock, willing whatever it was to show itself. A Sleer, he guessed. Armed with an acid weapon? He glanced at the unfortunate tree. It was stripped down to its inner rings, the wood steaming. An acid weapon of some kind, then. Which, in the hands of a Sleer, was a combination to be feared.

The Sleer knew the jungle, the terrain. It could easily move around him, silent in the undergrowth, and attack him from behind.

A noise interrupted his frightened thoughts. A hiss.

Villic.

“Ed! See the red tree? Eleven o’clock? There’s a Sleer behind it. It’s... it’s thinking to move to your right.”

Trembling, knowing he had to make the shot count, Carew found the tree and sighted his weapon. He aimed two metres up from the gnarled root system. With luck he’d plant a charge right in the bastard’s midriff.

“It’s moving
now!
”

He saw a purple-red blur streak out from behind the trunk. He fired, missed. The Sleer was lightning fast, vanishing behind the foliage. He fired again, guessing where it might be. He heard a crashing through the undergrowth above him and fired again. The Sleer returned fire and the rock centimetres from his head bubbled and spat. He felt something molten pepper his right shoulder. He yelled out and fired again.

A ton of weight crashed from the jungle and fell across the rock. Carew rolled out from beneath a domed head, its slit mouth wide in screaming agony. The sound deafened him, something unearthly, like a cross between a siren’s wail and an animal howl. He stood and found himself firing again and again into the torso of the creature, and chunks and gobbets of bloody flesh jumped from its body as if he were firing into a barrel of offal.

Lania was beside him, a hand on his arm. “Okay. It’s okay, Ed. It’s dead.”

He stopped firing and stood there with his laser outstretched in both hands, as if the Sleer might miraculously come to life and resume its relentless onslaught. That was highly unlikely: he’d almost succeeded in slicing the thing in half.

In the creature’s left hand he made out a bulky, organic-looking pistol – like an outgrowth of its bloody flesh.

“It’s okay,” Lania soothed.

He looked away, his heartbeat slowing.

The others had gathered around, staring at the carnage.

Villic peered over the hulking shoulder of his Sleer. “Well, now we know for sure that they’re after us.”

One Sleer, Carew thought... and there’ll be more up ahead, as well as the Shufflers, whatever the hell they are.

What are our chances of getting out of this alive, he wondered.

Then Lania gripped his arm and led him away. They set off again. Together they hurried down the incline, away from the dead Sleer, towards the peacefully flowing river.