Weird Space 2: Satan's Reach (17 page)

“We really think Mr Kreller needs at least another two days...” the nurse began.

“I’ll be fine! Now sign the waiver, Janaker!”

She nodded to the nurse, who provided a softscreen. Janaker scribbled her signature, then paid three thousand units with her data-pin. She helped Kreller into his jacket, easing the material over the hardened cast that encased his torso, and assisted him from the room.

They limped from the hospital, Kreller pushing her hand away.

“What the hell, Kreller...?” she began.

“I read a nurse back there. Harper’s given a ride to the doctor who was treating the girl, Zeela, in lieu of payment. They’re heading for Kallasta, but by way of a planet called Teplican. It’s uninhabited, but for a small scientific team. We can apprehend Harper and the ship there.”

She looked at him. “And you’re sure you’re up to this?”

“A few cuts might stop a human,” he spat, “but not a Vetch.”

You nauseating macho prick,
she thought as they stepped into a downchute and dropped to the hangar and her ship.

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
HE
J
UDI
H
EARNE
fell through a thin layer of cloud and sailed over a mountainous continent, following co-ordinates supplied by Dr Di Mannetti. High, sharp ridges like scimitars passed by in silence. Ahead, a vast green plain extended towards an ocean.

“It’s beautiful,” Zeela said. She leaned forward in the co-pilot’s sling, staring through the viewscreen.

Harper agreed. “I never tire of visiting new words.”

Di Mannetti stood between the slings, smiling to herself. “It’s every bit as picturesque as the 3Vs suggested.”

“I wonder why Teplican has never been resettled?” Harper said.

“Other than gorgeous landscapes and vast oceans, there’s not a lot more here. The planet is low on metals and ores, and while it’s clement and the soil fertile, it’s too far off the star lanes to make it a profitable agricultural location.”

“What were the original colonists doing here?” Zeela asked.

“They were a religious sect,” Di Mannetti said, “persecuted by the Expansion. They came to the Reach in search of sanctuary, and claim to have found it here.”

Harper glanced at the doctor. “And you said they left the planet around ninety years ago? How long had they been here?”

“No more than fifty years, I gather. And they left over a period of two years. I want to investigate a theory that there was some health scare which prompted the evacuation. They left aboard the same two colony ships on which they came to the planet. The odd thing was that, instead of heading further into the Reach – which you would have expected from a persecuted minority – they returned to the Expansion.”

“Yes. Very odd.”

“Even odder,” Di Mannetti went on, “is that they passed
through
Expansion space and entered Vetch territory.”

“Any idea why?”

Di Mannetti shook her head. “The historian who pieced together the events from all those years ago, from radio transcripts, second-hand reports and hearsay, has no idea – not even a theory. The human-Vetch conflict had yet to kick off in earnest, but there was still an uneasy truce between the races. The Vetch didn’t like human vessels straying into their territory, and they made their feelings plain by blowing these strays out of the sky.”

“And you think that’s what might have happened to the colony ships?”

“Since no more was ever heard from them,” Di Mannetti said, “that’s the working hypothesis.”

They left the mountains in their wake and drifted over the rolling green plain, dotted with darker expanses of forest and threaded with the silver filaments of rivers. A great lake came into view, backed by low hills. The remains of a small city or township nestled around its far shore, surrounded on three sides by forest.

“That was the capital of Teplican, such as it was. Around ten thousand citizens made it their home before the exodus.”

“And now no one lives there?” Zeela asked.

“Not a soul. The only people there at the moment are part of a small scientific team, numbering around twenty individuals.”

Harper said, “What about sentient natives?”

Di Mannetti shook her head. “Teplican was never home to sentient life-forms.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Harper said. “Had there been native aliens, then inter-species conflict might suggest why the colonists left.”

Di Mannetti smiled. “I’m afraid it’s not going to be that simple.”

The ship flew in low over the water, heading for the deserted township. According to Dr Di Mannetti the scientific team had set up camp in the town’s main square, and Harper instructed the ship to make landfall there.

“You’ll remain here for a few days, I take it?”

Harper considered the question. It all depended on whether either the Ajantans or the bounty hunters decided to follow them to the planet’s surface. He said, “We’ll keep our options open. Our priority is getting to Kallasta, after all.”

“But we could stay here for a day or two, Den,” Zeela said.

“We’ll see. Right, will you leave the deck while I bring the ship down?”

Zeela climbed from her sling and said to Di Mannetti, “Den can be
so
dictatorial at times.”

Di Mannetti smiled at Harper and followed Zeela from the flight-deck.

Harper eased himself back in the sling, glanced over his shoulder to ensure the women were out of earshot, then said, “
Judi
, what’s the situation with the pursuing ships?”

“There is no sign of either the Ajantan ship or that of the bounty hunters.”

Harper thought the news too good to be true. It was as if his pursuers were playing with him, hanging back beyond range before a tactical strike.

“Very well... Inform me if either of the ships show up, okay?”

“Affirmative.”

He considered the situation. “And if the Ajantan ship does appear in the vicinity... and elects to fire at us, intercept with a missile and then follow it up with a retaliatory strike.”

“Understood. And the bounty hunters?”

“They’re very unlikely to launch a strike,” Harper said. “If they do locate us, they’re more likely either to arrest me and hand me over to Expansion custody, or try to account for me one-on-one.” That way, he thought, the bounty hunters could claim his ship as their own.

The ship slowed, hovered over the main square, and came down gently. Harper felt the cushioned impact of its ramrod stanchions and heard the jets’ diminuendo.

He stared through the viewscreen at the deserted square. A line of timber store-fronts, ramshackle and rotted over the decades, contrasted with the dozen silver domes belonging to the scientific team. The scene was notable for its air of desertion. He had expected the square to be busy with scientists, or at least one or two of their number to be in evidence.

He considered the evacuation of the planet almost a century ago, and the current quietude which hung over the place, but dismissed his thoughts as fanciful.

He left the flight-deck and found Zeela and Di Mannetti at the top of the ramp, staring out at the quiet square. Bright afternoon sunlight and a warm breeze were a refreshing change after breathing the canned air of the ship for the past few days.

They made their way down the ramp and stood in the square, staring around them at the tumbledown timber buildings and the globular domes. The square had the aspect of a vacated film-set.

Zeela said, “Where is everyone?”

“I wasn’t exactly expecting a welcoming committee,” Di Mannetti said, “but nor was I expecting there to be no one here.”

“What’s that?” Harper said.

Seconds later the growl of an engine grew louder and a small run-about came into view around the bend of an overgrown road.

“Ah,” Di Mannetti said with a note of relief, “no doubt the scientists returning from a field trip.”

The open-topped buggy crossed the square and drew up before them, bearing a silver-haired man in his sixties and a young Oriental woman. The latter stood up and braced her arms on the windshield, smiling a greeting.

“Dr Mannetti! But we thought your flight had been cancelled.”

“It had, but then I hitched a lift from this kind starship captain.”

“I’m Director Xian Ti,” the woman went on. “My deputy, Dr Lionev.”

Di Mannetti made the introductions. “We were beginning to wonder where you all were.”

“You’ve arrived at an opportune moment. My team has made what we hope will be a breakthrough. We’ve set up a secondary camp ten kilometres north, around the lake. If you’d care to accompany us...?”

They made arrangements: Di Mannetti was to travel with Xian Ti and Lionev in the buggy, while Harper and Zeela would follow in his ground-effect vehicle. They would remain at the new camp overnight. Xian Ti assured them that there were provisions enough for three extra mouths and room aplenty in an accommodation dome.

Harper gave the ship instructions to secure itself, then packed a bag with supplies for himself and Zeela and steered the vehicle down the ramp. He could not stop himself from glancing up into the clear blue sky as Zeela climbed in beside him.

There was no sign of the pursuing bounty hunters or aliens.

“W
HAT’S WRONG,
D
EN
? You’ve been quiet ever since touchdown.”

They followed the buggy along the long, curving track – which might have been a metalled road, once, but was now overgrown with short grass laced with multi-coloured flowers. A herd of small animals, like sheep-sized rodents, cropped the vegetation. To their right, sunlight sparkled on the placid surface of the lake.

Harper smiled at Zeela with what he hoped was reassurance. “I’m fine. A little tired.”

“Worried about the bounty hunters, and the Ajantans?”

He laughed. “No, not at all. I heard from the ship earlier, and there’s no sign of them, Ajantans or bounty hunters alike.”

“We’ve lost them?”

Why was he uneasy to acknowledge the possibility, as if to do so would be to tempt fate? “For the time being,” he said.

They drove on in silence.

At last Zeela said, “What if they find us again, Den? What would be the best case scenario then?”

He glanced at her. “Meaning?”

“I mean, can we really lose them both in void-space, or will it come to using the missiles?”

“If they found us again... then I’d seriously think about using the missiles.”

“And if they come after us down here?”

He gripped the wheel. “I’ll think about what to do if and when it happens. But we’ll be fine.”

She nodded. “You’re still worried, though?”

He turned and smiled at her. “No, Zeela, I’m confident that the ship has managed to outrun them.”

She laid a hand on his thigh and rubbed it up and down. He remained clutching the wheel, wishing she’d desist.

Five minutes later a collection of blister domes, smaller than those back in the township, came into view around the curve of the lake. They were strung out alongside what looked like an artificial mound, a long bank of bare earth rising to a height of ten metres.

Xian Ti’s buggy pulled up beside the domes and Harper came to a halt alongside.

“I’ll show you to the accommodation dome, and then perhaps you’d like a guided tour before we eat?”

The accommodation dome was larger than the others and was filled with bedrolls and a central, enclosed shower unit. They stowed their bags next to vacant bedrolls and emerged to join Xian Ti in the sunlight.

She led the way up the gently sloping mound behind the domes.

Harper followed, curious as to what the ‘breakthrough’ might be. The mound appeared man-made, certainly not a feature formed by nature: the plains around the township were rolling, and had thrown up no other similar hillock.

But why might the colonists have constructed such a mound or barrow – and what relevance, if any, might it have on the mystery of their sudden exodus?

“A cursory satellite survey of the planet discovered this feature,” Xian Ti was saying as they climbed. “But it wasn’t until a few days ago that we got around to examining the data.”

“What is it?” Di Mannetti asked. “It’s certainly not natural, is it? So the colonists must have made it.” She hesitated. “It has the look of a burial mound.”

Xian Ti nodded. “It certainly does, but it isn’t.”

“I take it that you
do
know what it is?” Zeela asked.

Xian Ti smiled. “We certainly do,” she said, approaching the crest of the rise.

She stopped at the summit and pointed.

Harper joined her, pulling Zeela up beside him, and stared at the sight Xian Ti was indicating with an outstretched arm.

“So,” she said, “what do you think?”

They were looking down along the length of what might have been a narrow metal building perhaps a couple of hundred metres long by twenty wide, a construction without a roof and divided internally by a dozen bulkheads. Only then did Harper realise what it was.

Di Mannetti got in before him, “A starship...”

Beside him, Zeela laughed. “Of course!”

“It had me guessing at first,” Xian Ti admitted. “We suspect that its upper panels were wrecked when the ship came down, so at first sight it doesn’t resemble a ship at all.”

Harper turned to Di Mannetti. “But didn’t you say that the colonists left the planet aboard the ships they came in?”

Di Mannetti looked at Xian Ti. “That’s right, isn’t it? So this ship can’t have belonged to the colonists.”

“It isn’t of human design,” Xian Ti said. “Nor does it belong to any of the alien races known to the Reach, the Expansion, or to explored space beyond.”

“It’s not Vetch?” Harper asked.

Xian Ti shook her head. “Most certainly not. They don’t go in for such florid designs. Look.”

She was pointing to a fin that had collapsed into the structure of the ship halfway along its length. “You can’t really see from up here, but if we go down to get a closer look...”

They descended the far side of the mound, coming down inside the tangled metal of the ship’s nose-cone which had ploughed the mound of earth.