The Trilisk Ruins (20 page)

“
All right. Lead the way,”
Telisa said.

Magnus strode back the way he had come,
with Telisa and Shiny following closely. They skirted to one side,
and Magnus quietly indicated a circular opening in the wall that
they were avoiding. They ended up beyond the entrance, standing
behind one of the massive pillars.

“
We have to wait here for
him to return. When he comes out and goes looking for us, then
we’ll go up the tunnel,” Magnus whispered.

Telisa noticed that Shiny waited with
them in plain view of the entrance. He hadn’t placed himself behind
the column of equipment.

“
Shiny,” Telisa whispered.
She performed the motions for “follow me”, facing the alien and
stepping slowly backwards.

The creature watched her for a moment,
and then took a few steps forward. Telisa walked farther back
behind the pillar, continuing the hand motions.

“
He’d better not give us
away,” Magnus said. “I’d rather not have to shoot Joe.”

“
No problem,” Telisa said.
“If he sees us, I’ll give him a jolt with my stunner. He’ll wake up
later and we’ll be long gone. What I’m worried about is, what if he
doesn’t come back quickly? He could be calling in reinforcements
and waiting for them up there.”

“
Shit.”

“
What?”

“
We have to stun him at
least,” Magnus said. “I just realized that he probably has vids of
us in his link memory. We need to erase it.”

“
He may have already sent
some if he’s managed to contact the base.”

“
Yes. We should have shot
him in the back before he left. So stupid,” Magnus growled at
himself. “We’ll just have to hope that he hasn’t done that yet. His
link memory would take a lot of bandwidth to transfer. But he may
have sent a summary.”

Telisa sighed. Another risk for them to
take. There had already been so many.

“
Are you sure you’ve done
this before?” she asked.

“
Yes. But we never got
detected on the way in before. And I wasn’t trapped in an alien
complex. That’s why things are so screwed up this time.”

“
Well, I agree we should
stun him, but it’s probably not critical. Even if the link memory
is erased, they can still work with him to come up with our visual
profiles.”

“
Yeah. But it might slow
them down, introduce some uncertainty. His memory might even be
faulty. Maybe he spent all his time looking at you and he can’t
remember me.”

Telisa smiled. “I’m going up closer to
the exit then. I’ll stun him the instant I see him.”

Magnus nodded. “Sounds good.” His Veer
suit made him difficult to see, maintaining a near-black color that
blended into the dark room.

Telisa crept around the side of the
pillar and turned her flashlight down. She took the stunner in her
right hand and moved until she stood with her back against the wall
beside the tube exit. She turned her flashlight all the way off and
waited for Joe.

***

Kirizzo watched from his position
behind the pillar as the two humans observed the exit portal in
front of him. Their behavior had been extremely odd. Kirizzo felt
that perhaps a problem had arisen in the alliance the creatures had
formed with each other. Perhaps he was about to witness a falling
out amongst them.

The smaller human still carried the
alien items that Kirizzo had gathered for it. Kirizzo hoped that
this gift served to further convince the four-limbed creature that
his presence would be beneficial. He would need any goodwill he
could get when the time came to find transport off the
planet.

Kirizzo felt a mass disturbance in the
tunnel they watched. He decided to attempt to aid the humans again,
to further demonstrate that keeping him around was to their
advantage. Kirizzo moved behind the pillar so that he could not be
seen, and he extended a single limb forward, pointing towards the
doorway.

The larger human observed his motion
and transmitted some information to the smaller one whose primitive
weapon was ready. Kirizzo predicted the ambush would succeed. Their
outlines were obscured by the clever suits they wore that broke up
their visual signatures. To creatures with no mass sense, Kirizzo
decided this must go a long way to disguising their
presence.

Momentarily the third one emerged from
the tunnel. It seemed from its movement patterns that it did not
suspect anything was amiss. Kirizzo watched as the newcomer walked
into the pillar room, then fell to the ground, incapacitated. The
other creatures moved forward to inspect their enemy.

Kirizzo felt surprised. Why didn’t the
pair take advantage of their position to destroy the third one?
Perhaps the race did not eliminate others of their own kind but
simply permuted their alliances from time to time.

Now the larger alien took a device out
of his carrying shroud and applied it to the back of the head of
the disabled creature. Kirizzo detected an EM spike and an
electrical interaction between the device and the embedded
equipment in the disabled creature’s skull. Kirizzo thought perhaps
the victors stole knowledge from the head of their enemy. Or at the
very least, they were forcibly disabling their foe even
further.

Once the electronic vandalism was
complete, the larger alien motioned to Kirizzo and the smaller one.
He moved towards the exit, with his body bent forward oddly.
Kirizzo guessed this must be their battle posture. It did serve to
shrink their silhouette, perhaps to reduce the possibility of being
seen. He filed the observation away for future use and followed
them towards the tunnel.

In the exit passage, the bipeds
increased speed, lengthening their strides and pushing off strongly
with each leg. Although they seemed rather ungainly to Shiny, his
estimation of their balance did come up a notch. He kept up with
them easily, working his many legs without conscious
thought.

He emerged after them onto the surface
of the planet. The weather was still calm above; a few motes of
moisture floated in the sky under the yellow sun. The spiny plants
still looked strange to Kirizzo. On his home planet, life thrived
on volcanic heat below the surface, not solar radiation from
above.

The larger biped took only a moment to
acclimatize to the surface conditions. Then they resumed running,
heading off into the vegetation. Kirizzo hoped that some
transportation had been cached away somewhere nearby. It would take
a significant amount of time to go any large distance on foot. He
wondered about the physical endurance of the creatures. They didn’t
usually seem to prefer moving so quickly, so would they eventually
tire and slow to their more normal speed?

When they moved into the forest, the
group did slow. It appeared to be more because of the inhibiting
mass of spiny growth than any fatigue. The leader took out a sharp
implement and raised it as if to clear a path but then hesitated.
The pair moved their mandibles for a moment and then the larger
human put it away. Kirizzo theorized that they didn’t wish to leave
an obvious sign of their passage.

They marched deeper into the forest.
Kirizzo thought that if they had a vehicle here, this would be a
sufficient distance from the site to avoid visual detection.
Perhaps they feared some other form of sensor with a wider
perimeter. Kirizzo continued to hope that faster transport would be
forthcoming. The language barrier would have to be broken as soon
as they had a chance, he decided.

Suddenly a large mass exploded into
movement within meters of their position. Kirizzo turned his
optical receptors towards the disturbance and caught a glimpse of
shaking vegetation. Then a large creature burst from the leaves,
headed straight for Kirizzo.

The creature sported a wide maw that
bristled with spiky mineral deposits. Kirizzo realized that it
would enjoy a considerable advantage if the opening were to be
fastened upon any part of his own body. He maneuvered to avoid
this, his many legs thrashing in the vegetation as he tried to
flank the thing.

Kirizzo’s move saved his torso from the
jaws of the monster, but as the huge mouth clamped down it caught
two of his legs. The thin brittle limbs snapped off near his body,
spraying black goo on the spiny leaves of a shrub. Kirizzo felt a
throb from each of the legs that his muscle sensors gave when the
flexors in his body contracted completely.

The smaller of the two aliens worked
its mandible and scrabbled for its weapon. The large alien had
unlimbered its long projectile thrower and leveled it towards the
thing that had bitten Kirizzo’s two legs off.

The Gorgala readied a seeker projectile
to destroy the threat, but he held his fire. His supply of weapons
was limited. He scrabbled away at full speed, running around the
base of a large plant.

The muzzle of the larger human’s long
weapon flashed. Kirizzo felt the ghost of rapidly moving mass
pellets tunneling their way through the thing that fought him.
Immediately its movements became erratic. Kirizzo continued to
retreat, hoping that the wounds would render it inactive. He saw
that the smaller biped used its weapon as well. It did not appear
to be a projectile-based weapon; Kirizzo could not detect what
principle it worked on. Perhaps it emitted radiation on a
wavelength he could not detect.

The thing seemed to be mortally
wounded. Like Kirizzo, it leaked its internal fluids out onto the
fuzzy leaves on the forest floor, but it did not have attendant
modules to tend to its wounds. The small spheres moved over to
Kirizzo’s severed limbs and began a temporary repair. Kirizzo
realized that the bipeds had lost interest in the native creature
and had moved over to see how he fared. Perhaps they did value his
presence since they watched the modules working carefully, or
perhaps they were simply curious. Kirizzo indicated the previous
direction of travel with one limb, urging them to
continue.

***

“
Do you really think he’s
okay to keep going?” Telisa asked Magnus.

“
We don’t really have a
choice,” he said. “Obviously we have no idea about his physiology,
but we have to get back to the ship as soon as
possible.”

“
You’re right,” she agreed.
They stepped around the body of the awful creature that had bitten
Shiny. The thing looked like a giant salamander, but it had moved
like a tiger, bolting out of the cover and attacking without
warning. Just looking at its mouth gaping in death made her
shudder. She kept her stunner ready and scanned the forest. If
another thing like that lurked nearby, it could kill
them.

Obviously Magnus thought the same since
he cradled his slugthrower in his hands and his gaze moved across
the area warily.

They moved up the hillside and through
to valley after valley, making good time. Without Jack and Thomas
holding them back, Telisa thought they might make it in a single
day, but when the light of day faded, twenty percent of the
distance remained.

“
We’re almost there, let’s
keep going,” Telisa urged.

“
It’ll be dangerous, but I
agree,” Magnus said. “I don’t want to run into one of those
monsters in the dark, but we need to leave now to avoid any kind of
UNSF response to Joe’s messages.”

“
And we’ll take Shiny with
us,” Telisa said.

“
That’s insane. The
government would hunt us down,” Magnus said. “Our DNA is still back
there, somewhere.”

“
Maybe it is, maybe it
isn’t,” Telisa said. “Inside the part that shifted, the matter was
being molded all the time. It may be absorbed. And I noticed in the
other room with the Trilisk columns in it, that there was no dust.
That means it gets cleaned somehow. Any hair or skin we left there
might get removed.”

“
Well, it’s still insane.
But Shiny got us out of that place. So if he wants to come with us,
I’m not saying no. Besides, maybe we can sell him,” Magnus
said.

“
Uh!” Telisa started at the
suggestion, ready to rant back at Magnus, and then she saw that he
was smiling at her. It was a joke. “Of course we won’t. Think what
we can learn from him!”

“
Yeah, we won’t. But Momma
Veer would pay a pretty penny for those floating things of
his.”

“
We’d be arrested for
selling something like that,” Telisa said.

“
In normal channels, yes,”
Magnus said. “But Jack knew some people. We might be able to work
something out and keep out of prison. Maybe. With some work. It
helps if you’re selling defense systems and not
armament.”

While they talked, the light became
inadequate. Telisa took out her flashlight and turned it on. Magnus
attached a light to the end of his slug thrower so he could see
ahead.

An eerie red light came from behind
Telisa, illuminating the nearby leaves and tree trunks. She looked
back and saw that Shiny had many glowing cubes.

“
Like in the caves back in
the complex,” Magnus noted.

“
Yes! That’s interesting. He
must come from an underground society, at least in its primitive
beginnings.”