“Ow! Cut it out!” Sandy slapped away a claw that was exploring the sleeve of her unitard, then hastily backed herself up against Kyra. “Look, I don't care if you use smoke signals, but tell these stupid things to back off!”
Kyra glared at her. “Don't you think I would if I . . . !”
The voices suddenly increased in volume, then abruptly subsided. All at once, the crowd withdrew from around them, if only by a few feet. They were still surrounded by a ring of javelins, but at least no one was trying to rip off their airmasks.
“What's going on?” Sean asked aloud.
As if to answer his question, the mob parted to allow an individual to pass through. The
taaraq
who approached them was a little smaller than the others; its carapace was faded and cracked as if with age, and it seemed to limp as it hobbled forward on its back-jointed hind limbs. A large round quartz hung from a pendant around its neck, and a braided grass tiara lay on its head.
A chieftain, perhaps, or maybe a warlord, a priest, or a witch doctor. Whatever it was, it was obviously revered as a leader. The
taaraq
stopped in front of the humans, head moving forward on its neck as it silently inspected them.
“Try it now,” Sean whispered to Kyra. “This may be your best chance.”
Kyra hesitated, then stepped forward, raising her hands to show that they were empty. “Hello,” she said slowly. “We are visitors.” She pointed to Sean, Kyra, and herself, then gestured in the direction from which they'd come. “We come from there,” she went on, then pointed toward the river. “In your boat,” she added, cupping her left hand and placing three fingers of her right hand in it. “Down the river. In the boat. Weâ”
The chieftain interrupted her with a strident chitter, its antennae twitching like a cat's whiskers. The other
taaraq
responded with staccato clicks and chirps of their own. Kyra glanced at Sean. “I don't know if I'm getting through to him,” she murmured.
“I think you are. Keep at it.”
Kyra returned to her earlier pantomime. “We came down the river, in the boat,” she reiterated, moving her hands to imitate the boat's motion. “To this place,” she added, stopping her left hand while pointing to the nearby waterfront with her right. “We are lost, and trying to . . .”
The chieftain's mandibles made three sharp clicks, then it half turned to make a gesture with its two left claws. The
taaraq
behind them responded by poking the humans with their javelins. “Damn it!” Sandy yelled, turning to swat aside the nearest spear. “Will you knock it . . . ?”
The
taaraq
who had prodded her buried the tip of its spear in her thigh. Sandy screamed and fell to the ground, clutching her wounded leg.
“Oh, hell!” Sean hastily knelt beside her. “How bad are you . . . ?”
“Bad enough,” she hissed. Between her fingers, Sean saw a red splotch spreading across the blue fabric of her unitard. “Got me right in the muscle.”
“Guys, you better get up.” Kyra's voice was barely distinguishable through the crowd noise. “Hate to say it, but I think I've made'em mad.”
Sean nodded. It seemed that Kyra's admission that they'd stolen a boat was the only thing that the
taaraq
chieftain had clearly understood; apparently this was a taboo that they shouldn't have broken. Looking up, he saw that their guards were jabbing at them again, their barbs stopping only inches from their bodies, while the chieftain continued to gesture angrily at something Sean couldn't see.
“We gotta move,” Sean whispered as he draped his arm around Sandy's shoulder and under her arm. She nodded and curled her arm around his waist. “On the count of three. One . . . two . . .”
“Three,” she finished, and bit off a soft cry as Sean hoisted her to her feet. Holding her so that he'd support most of her weight, the two of them lurched forward, with Kyra bringing up the rear. The
taaraq
chieftain led the way, the mob once again parting to make room for their leader, the guards, and their captives.
As they slowly moved through the mob, Sean saw that they were heading away from the river. At first he thought that they were being led toward the closer of the two immense domes, but after a couple of minutes it became clear that they were moving away from the dwellings as well. The river was behind them, and although they were close to the edge of the jungle, there were far too many
taaraq
for them to escape. Not that they could have made a break for it; Sandy could barely walk, let alone run, and the couple of miles that lay between the settlement and the tram-station escalator might just as well have been light-years.
You idiot,
he thought as he struggled to keep the woman beside him on her feet.
They were counting on you to get them home, and you blew it.
And then, another thought, even more unwelcome than the first:
You've carried a grudge against your mother for a decision she once made, but you're not doing much better, are you?
The crowd continued to follow them as the chieftain led the way past the dwellings, but Sean had just noticed that they'd dispersed immediately ahead of the procession when the
taaraq
leader abruptly came to a halt. Its mandibles clicked and squeaked as it turned again toward its captives, then its right hands made a sudden gesture. The guards prodded Sean, Sandy, and Kyra forward, and as the chieftain stepped aside, Sean saw what lay before them.
A large, open pit, about thirty feet wide and about half as deep. Or so it seemed; when Sean came closer, he saw that its walls went straight down about six feet, then began to slope downward even farther, forming a funnel that ended at a floor about fifteen feet below the pit's edge. The floor was covered with waste and debris, most of which seemed to be rotting; along the sides of the upper walls were the narrow openings of pipes through which a brown, sludgelike fluid constantly trickled.
Even though his mouth and nose were covered by the airmask, Sean could nonetheless smell the stench of excrement and decay. Either that, or he thought he could. Either way, he had little doubt as to what the place was, or why they'd been brought there.
“Oh, my God.” Sandy's voice was a horrified whisper. “You don't think they want to put us down there, do you?”
Kyra yelped as a javelin barb tore the upper sleeve of her unitard, scratching the tender skin beneath it. “'Fraid so,” she said, moving closer to Sandy and Sean. “Maybe they don't have any other way of keeping prisoners, or . . .”
Her voice trailed off, but Sean knew what she was about to say:
maybe this is a form of execution.
If so, though, it was hardly an efficient means of death. Gross and humiliating, perhaps, but nothing down there appeared to be particularly lethal.
The chieftain gestured toward the pit, erasing any lingering doubts as to what it wanted them to do. Sean and Kyra knelt beside the pit, then he grasped her wrists and carefully lowered her over the edge. Kyra was still a long way from the bottom, though, so he had no choice but to let her go. She slid the rest of the way down the funnel, landing in the stinking waste on the floor.
“Are you okay?” Sean called down.
“Yeah, I think so.” Kyra clumsily pulled herself to her feet, planted her back against the wall. “It's not a solid surface. You'll make a soft landing.”
Sandy was the next to go; she balked at the last moment, but when the guards once more began to move forward, she saw that it was either this or be on the receiving end of their javelins again. Standing unsteadily on top of the garbage, Kyra reached to catch Sandy as she slid down the funnel, then grasped her by the waist and helped her stand up.
“She's right,” Sandy said, calling up to Sean. “There's just a lot of crap down here. Nothing solid to stand on.”
Sean turned to look one last time at the
taaraq
chieftain. It regarded him with its implacable gaze, and he wondered what was going through its mind. One of the guards made an urgent motion with its javelin, so Sean bit off whatever useless remark he was tempted to make and carefully lowered himself into the pit. Its walls were smooth and made slick by slime; he knew at once that it was impossible for them to climb back out. Yet he could do nothing but let go and slide down the funnel.
His boots sank up to his ankles as soon as he landed, and when he moved to get up, he found himself sinking even farther into the muck. All he could do was lie against the pit's sloping wall and brace his feet against the surface material; it seemed to be floating on layer upon layer of debris, and there was nothing beneath the filth except more filth. Much of it appeared to be vegetable matterârotting weeds, shredded bark, something that looked like an enormous banana peelâbut he noticed what appeared to be a
taaraq
carapace and pieces of chitin lying nearby. A chill went through him; apparently this was also how the inhabitants disposed of their dead.
“Great. Just wonderful.” With Kyra's help, Sandy had managed to struggle to her feet. Both women stood with their backs against the funnel wall. Her eyes were accusing when they turned toward Sean. “I told you we shouldn't have . . .”
“Shut up. He knows.” Kyra was still holding her up, her legs continually moving as she struggled to keep them from sliding farther into the reeking waste. She looked at Sean. “What now? Any ideas?”
Sean said nothing as he made his way over to them, careful to keep his back against the wall. Once he was beside Kyra, he looked up at the top of the pit. Dozens of
taaraq
peered down at them, but the chieftain had vanished and it seemed to him that the chittering and clicking of their voices had diminished in volume.
“I don't know,” he said, “but if they lose interest and enough of them leave, we might try . . .”
All of a sudden, something was tossed over the side. Sean caught a brief glimpse of the transceiver before it fell into the pit's center about four yards away.
“The radio!” Sandy yelled. “Sean, can you . . . ?”
Before he could even think about retrieving it, though, it sank into the morass at the center of the pit. For an instant, he heard a tinny voiceâ
“. . . to Survey One, please respond . . .”
âcoming from its speaker, then it disappeared from sight.
“The radio!” Ignoring her injured leg, Sandy lunged forward, desperately reaching out with both hands. “Somebody get the radio!”
Kyra grabbed her by the shoulders, hauled her back. “It's no use. It's gone.”
“But . . . !”
“Don't even try. It's like quicksand over there.” Frustrated, Sean slammed the back of his fist into the wall. If only the transceiver had come down a little closer . . . “Maybe someone will be able to home in on its signal. If it's still functioning, that is.”
“I don't understand.” Sandy shook her head. “Why take away our radio, then throw it back to us again?”
Sean didn't reply. Instead, he looked to Kyra for an explanation. “I don't understand either,” she said quietly. “It's almost as if they didn't know what it was, so they got rid of it. But that doesn't make sense, either. They're supposed to be a starfaring race . . . at least they were, before they went extinct.”
Despite himself, Sean laughed out loud. “They don't seem very extinct to me.”
Kyra sighed. “That's what Dr. D'Anguilo told us at the university. The
taaraq
were the very first extraterrestrials we encountered, back when we found Spindrift. There were millions of them in long-term biostasis, with little chance that they'd be revived anytime soon. The rest of their race was dead, their homeworld destroyed by the Annihilator. Technically, that makes them extinct.” She paused. “Tom's going to be surprised when he finds out otherwise.”
If he ever does,
Sean thought, although he refrained from saying so. “Maybe others of their kind survived and managed to find their way here. Is that what you're saying?”
“Uh-huh.” Kyra continued to backpedal in an effort to keep from sliding farther into the pit. Sean realized that he was having to do the same as well; it was as if the pit's contents were constantly subsiding beneath his feet. “But the
taaraq
we found in Spindrift were able to build a starship out of an asteroid. The ones here didn't even recognize a radio. They're more . . .”
She stopped, as if searching for the right word. “Savage?” Sean asked.
“Yeah. Savage.” Kyra glanced up at the handful of
taaraq
still watching them. “I wonder if they even know where they are.”
“Sure they do,” Sandy murmured. “They're home, and we're the . . .”
“Uh . . . guys?” Kyra's voice had become quiet as she continued to stare upward. “I don't like to mention this, but . . . I think we're sinking.”
Sean followed her gaze and saw that in the few minutes they'd been in the pit, its walls had become slightly higher, if only by a few inches. Looking down near his ankles, he examined the point on the funnel wall at which the floor began. A faint stain, brown and wet, showed the level where it had once been.
Kyra was right. The waste material upon which they were standing was sinking farther into the pit. That couldn't be possible, though, unless . . .
He peered more closely at the center of the pit. It was hard to tell, but it appeared as if there was a faint depression in the middle of the garbage, showing the presence of . . .
A hole.
Now he knew what was going on. The pit fed into a giant funnel, and at the bottom of that funnel was a hole that in turn dropped underground. Gravity, along with the sheer mass of the material thrown or piped into the pit, would eventually drag everything in the pit to the hole. But where did the hole go?