Borderlands: The Fallen (19 page)

“You asking if they’re called rakks, them birds? Nope.” The man removed his goggles, so that his sunburnt, lined face showed pale goggle marks where the dust was missing around his eyes. He spat on the goggles and wiped them
off with his sleeve. “Nope, those is what they call ‘trash feeders.’ Almost like big, leathery birds. Some can train ’em as attack birds. Mean little bastards when they’re mad but they won’t bother us unless we shoot at ’em. Least how, that’s what I heard.” He looked at Cal shrewdly, probably trying to figure out if Cal understood what he’d said.

Cal remembered to shrug and say, “No mezucka Englitchy!”

The merc looked at him suspiciously but only shrugged and put his goggles back on.

Another hour in the rumbling, jolting sandtracker, grinding past the torn, strange bodies of a half-dozen dead scythids; past the cold camp of a Nomad who had retreated to watch them from high on a purple bluff; through a maze of small canyons, and then a small forest of the saguaro-like plants … and then up a barren, steep trail, till they pulled up beside Roland’s outrunner waiting on the edge of a ridge.

Cal was glad to climb out of the hot, dusty sandtracker. He stretched, and watched as Roland walked with Crannigan over to a group of mercenaries to talk. Rans joined the men. Cal wanted to go over and listen but since he supposedly couldn’t understand them that would look pretty suspect.

He crossed to the edge of a nearly sheer slope, overlooking the plain below the ridge. It was a remarkably flat plain, starting about fifty meters below the ridgetop. It looked as if a nuclear bomb had gone off down there, in some phase of prehistory, and turned the plain’s sand to coarse, cracked glass. It was hard to tell from up here for sure, with the glare of sunlight on the glossy surface, but
it looked as if the cracks were converging, like windshield cracks around a hole. Maybe that was the epicenter of the ancient blast, ground zero.

And rising over it all, far away across the cracked flatland, was the dark purple broken cone of a mountain, probably an old volcano.

Specks moved across the plain, far away. Skags? Scythids?

Flying creatures wheeled over the plain, just silhouettes against the sky. Looking at them he decided they were bird-shaped, and not rakks—probably trash feeders.

“Hey kid—how’d you like riding in that sandtracker?” Roland asked.

“My ass is killing me—uh-oh.” He had answered without thinking—and Crannigan was there, standing beside Roland, with Rans Veritas and two mercs. Crannigan was smirking—and Roland was grinning.

“Don’t worry about it, kid,” Roland said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Crannigan figured it out. But he just hired us both on.”

Cal blinked. “Me too?”

“Sure,” Crannigan said. “We might need you for a hostage. Or we could trade you to the Psychos for a bottle of booze.”

The mercs laughed and wandered off, Crannigan with them.

Rans remained, staring. “I know this kid. I remember now. Zac Finn sent me a picture, when we were talking on warp mail. He sent a holo of his wife and kid. And this is the kid, right here!”

“Yeah?” Roland said, turning a warning glare at Rans. “So what?”

“So—he’s a liability! Might be anybody out there looking for him! Bringing trouble down on us! They’ll find out about the crash site!”

“We all work for Atlas now,” Roland pointed out. “The company’ll watch our back.”

“I say we get rid of this kid, dammit!” Rans insisted. “If his old man is alive the kid might do anything! He might sneak off and help his old man get what’s ours!”

“You the one talked my dad into coming down here?” Cal demanded, staring.

“I made him a deal and it didn’t work out!” Rans snarled. “Don’t be mouthy, boy! I did what I had to! I got myself shot half to pieces for this thing … and I’m not losing my share! Not for anyone! Your old man is out of the picture now!”

“Maybe,” Cal said, looking him in the eyes. “And maybe not.”

Roland chuckled. “Don’t get on the wrong side of this kid, Rans. He’s a pistol. And learning to use one too.”

Rans snorted and stalked over to the men making a temporary camp at the ridgetop.

Roland glanced over at the other men standing with Crannigan. He pushed his goggles back on his head. “Looks like we’ll stop for something to eat, get our breath, then move on, when we figure out how to get the vehicles down off this ridge …”

“What’d he mean about a hostage?” Cal asked.

“Just talk. Nothing. Unless he’s thinking ahead to the possibility that your old man is alive—and trying to get hold of the same thing he’s after. He could trade you for the rights to the find, see.”

Cal grimaced. The thought made him uncomfortable. “Crannigan figured it out—about the language thing?”

“Yeah. Pretty early on. Now they all know—but nobody cares. Give ’em something to laugh about around the camp at night. I heard a couple of ’em trying out your ‘No mezucka Englitchy’ and having a good laugh.”

Cal shrugged. “So—it just gave you time to show Crannigan he can trust you?”

Roland nodded. “You’re a pretty smart kid. That’s about it. But”—he lowered his voice—“there’s something else.” He glanced over at Scrap Crannigan, then stepped closer to Cal, and spoke almost inaudibly. “Crannigan figures he’s gonna rip Atlas off. And Rans. Everyone. He figures he can’t do it alone—and, since I ain’t given to false modesty, I will admit I’m about the best man with a gun this side of Pandora. So Crannigan offered me a split. I join with him … we catch the mercs by surprise, kill ’em off.” He started counting the plan’s points off on his fingers. “Call the Atlas shuttle down. Kill everybody on board the shuttle. Take the goods from the alien ship, load ’em on the shuttle, head up to orbit. We surprise the crew up there, take
that
ship over. Atlas ship’s mostly automated so—not many crew … Then we take the goods and offer it to Dahl, or one of the other corporations—and me and Crannigan split the full price, not the little cut Atlas is offering. After that, he figures he’ll retire to the homeworld …”

Cal studied Roland’s expressionless face. Was he really thinking of taking the deal? He’d said,
Kill ’em off … Kill everybody on board the shuttle …

Like it was nothing.

Cal had to ask, “Would you—really
do
that?”

Roland’s smile was twistedly ironic. “Naw. But Crannigan doesn’t know that. And we don’t want him to know that until the last moment. So keep your trap shut. All he knows is, I said okay. And I told him I wouldn’t tell you about it. But I figure you got to know what’s up. When the time comes, Crannigan’ll get what’s his. And it won’t be an ET treasure.”

“Suppose you’d said no right to his face, right then? What would he have done?”

“He’d have shot me dead. Or waited for the first time I turned my back. Just to keep me from telling the others. Then he’d claim I was up to some shit so he had to kill me.”

“What about my dad? Anyone hear anything, see anything … ? Of him—or my mom?”

“No word yet. But maybe he’s on his way to the site. That’s the, what you call it—the hypothesis, right? We see either one—we’ll do our best to protect ’em. Put you back together with your folks.”

“You don’t want any of that stuff from the crashed ship?”

“Kid—I don’t know if that alien ship is really out there. It might be all skagshit. If it’s there—I’m not gonna murder a buncha guys in their sleep, or whatever Scrap’s got in mind. But I’ll
get
my share from it—and I’ll see that Crannigan pays his debt to McNee. Don’t you worry. The problem is going to be living long enough to sell the stuff off, once we get it. But if we live, you’ll get your cut, kid. You’ll clean up.”

“Yeah?” Cal wasn’t particularly excited by making
money on this trip. Not right now. He’d trade any amount of riches for a sight of his family.

“Yeah. Alien artifacts from anywhere are worth a pretty penny. Especially if there’s tech involved. Trouble is, all these bastards are thinking the same thing. I figure half these damn mercs are thinking like Crannigan. They’re thinking maybe they can take the thing for themselves. The word has gotten round that there’s riches out there, in that volcano. But lots of times I see people go after riches, they end up as meat for scavengers.”

Cal closed his eyes, controlled his impulse to start crying. But it must have shown on his face. He felt Roland’s big, rough hand laid reassuringly on his arm. “Take it easy. I didn’t mean your dad ended up that way …”

No? But his dad had gone after riches …

And he might already be bleached bones somewhere in the desert.

Z
ac was out of water, nearly out of food, and running short of hope.

It was early evening. He was in the shadow of an overhang under a ridge, on the edge of a glassy plain, still a long way from the volcano cone. And there was no hope of getting across the glass plain without being spotted by some predator. No cover at all. No water likely out there in that flat emptiness. As for food—he was more likely to
become
food.

Zac took out his telescope and turned it on the horizon, made out some skags, off in the distance between him and the volcano. Flying creatures circled over the skags.

He swept the horizon but saw nothing else. Then a sound prompted him to look up at the ridge. Dust was sifting down from the edge of the ridge, about an eighth of a kilometer away, and light glinted on metal. He turned the telescope that way and after some fiddling with it, made out an outrunner poised on the top of the ridge, and a
couple of men standing near it—judging by their outfits, they were mercenaries. Maybe ex–Crimson Lance.

Great,
he thought as he lowered the telescope.
Now what do I do?

If he set out across the plain, they’d probably see him and head out after him. The presence of mercenaries suggested one of the big corporations—they had their own little armies but they used mercenaries when they were trying to keep something quiet. They were probably after the same thing he was. Maybe they worked for whoever had sent the security bot to sabotage his DropCraft.

They were looking toward the old volcanic cone, just like he was …

And maybe they were looking for him too, so they could finish what they’d started on the Study Station.

Even if they didn’t go after him, he’d run into those skags and rakks out there, and who knew what else. There was no cover on that plain.

There was one chance—a slim one. He could wait here, till it got dark. Then head out in the dark and hope to elude both the human predators and the animal ones.

Of course, the mercenaries would go on ahead. But this was Pandora. Who knew what they’d run into?

A squadron of mercs in big outrunners, they’d call attention to themselves. They could draw off whatever he might have to face—they just might accidentally keep him safe …

He’d come too far to give up now. He had to try it. He would go after dark—the moon had been setting earlier at night, so it’d be mighty dark. If the moon set and he got lost in the dark, he’d use the alien artifact that pointed the way to guide him. The night would be his cover.

But that meant he would have to wait here, right here, crouching under this outcropping, until nightfall …

Zac sighed. He had a little food. He had no water. But now, anyway—he had a little hope. Just a little.

The flatbed truck emerged from a canyon and Vance brought it to a skidding stop on the edge of a cracked, glassy plain. The sunlight, in this spot, threw glare back from the enormous shards, so that Marla had to shield her eyes with her hand.

“What
is
that?” she asked. “Ice?”

“Nah,” Vance said, handing her a pair of tinted goggles. “It’s melted what-you-call-it—silicon. I’ve been out on it, about a quarter klick, once before. It’s just a coating over the rock and sand. Solid enough.”

“Where’d it come from?”

He stuck out his lower lip and cocked his head. “Ain’t nobody knows for sure. But a year or so ago, Grunj took a scientist guy prisoner. One of those archaeologists. There’s a lotta bones of archaeologists scattered around on this planet. Anyway, the guy had been working out here on this thing, came out to the Trash Coast looking for something else. I talked to him some. He said this here was from some old nuclear blast—happened thousands of years ago. Ain’t radioactive anymore. There’s a crater out in the middle of it. Not sure if some alien visitor did it—or some old civilization used to live here. He said he figured those big ugly bastards—the Primals—were degenerates, left over from that bunch. Mutated, kinda … mentally messed up … Their ancestors weren’t so beastly-like.”

“What, um …” Marla suspected she was going to regret
asking this. “What happened to the archaeologist Grunj took prisoner?”

“Oh, him? He was kinda young. Eventually Grunj decided not to sell him, or ransom him out. See, if Grunj takes an interest in a young guy—he don’t last long. I think he was already dead, though, when he fed him to that big ol’ skag of his …”

He opened a canteen—she automatically put out her hand for it, but he drank from it first, before handing it to her.

Lot of differences between this guy and my husband,
she thought, as he finally passed her the canteen.