“Save it,” grunted Sarah, grimly taking a new grip on the pole and stumbling forward into the dark trees.
Zimmerman wisely fell silent for a time. Trudging forward, exhausted and injured, Sarah thought that this march had to be the worst experience of her life. Not for the first time, she reflected that the luck of her family had gone bad at the point of her husband’s accident. It was as if she were in a deep well of bad luck, where she and Bili spiraled ever downward until now it seemed that the light at the top of the shaft had all but vanished entirely.
Utilizing reserves she didn’t know she possessed, she eventually reached the outcropping of rocks that Zimmerman had said to keep an eye out for. At that point, he directed them to proceed downhill into a steep gully. The sides of the gully were wet and slick with moss. They almost lost hold of Zimmerman and pitched him squalling onto the rocks before reaching the bottom.
“Over there, under the tangle-bush. There should be a cave mouth,” hissed Zimmerman, hushed now that their goal was so near. There was a genuine, feverish excitement in his voice.
They set down the stretcher and Sarah went forward to investigate. Using a hand-held glow-lamp they had taken from a fallen trooper on the way out of the nest, she examined the walls of the gully closely. After a time she discovered the entrance.
“There’s no way a flitter could fit inside that hole,” she said, returning to Zimmerman. She directed the glow-lamp, set at its highest setting, into his sweating, dirty face.
He squinted and waved at the light in irritation. “Just take me inside. I’ll show you.”
Grudgingly, she obliged. Inside, the cave was quite a bit larger than it appeared. Although she saw no immediate signs of the flitter, she did see numerous familiar-looking bales of bluish reeds. Along one wall were stacked a dozen barrels of bluish dust.
“These barrels are full of blur dust. This is a smuggler’s cache,” she said, blinking in surprise.
“Of course. But fortunately, the former owners are beyond caring about this particular cache.”
“How do you know that?”
“This was Mudface and Daddy’s property,” he explained, hauling himself into a sitting position. “Recall the feast.”
Sarah shuddered. “I’d rather not.”
“Didn’t I tell you it was here?” demanded Zimmerman, beaming and looking for credit.
Bili gave him a wry glance. “Just tell us where the flitter is, fatso.”
He waved his hand at the stack of barrels. “Look back there.”
They did and found the flitter. It was a smaller model than Sarah had hoped for. It could hold six passengers in a pinch, four comfortably. She eyed the refined blur dust speculatively, licking her cracked lips. Any one of the barrels would bring a fortune on another system. She shook her head, as if to clear it. She was done with that kind of business. It had brought her nothing but trouble.
She noticed that the skald was eyeing the flitter curiously, running his pale thin hands over the stubby wings and the silvery landing skids.
Directly above the flitter was a camouflaged hole that leaked starlight. It would be a simple matter to leave the cave, except for one thing. “Where’s the card-key, Zimmerman?” she demanded.
“Isn’t it in the slot?” asked Zimmerman, smiling.
“No.”
“Carry me into the flitter and I’ll tell you where it is.”
Sarah made no move. She glared at him. “You tell us now, or we leave you here for the killbeasts to sniff out.”
“I don’t want you to be tempted to leave me behind.”
“I’ve never been more tempted to do anything in my life, but you will tell me now, before I carry your sorry ass another foot. I can hot-key a flitter, you know. As you continually point out, I am a smuggler.”
Zimmerman looked concerned. “It would take longer.”
Sarah only shrugged. Behind her, the skald had boarded the flitter and now sat quietly in the back.
Zimmerman chewed his lips and eyed her speculatively. “All right,” he sighed at last. “The codekey is in the flare kit, attached to the back of the hatch.”
Sarah snorted at the obviousness of the hiding place and went to retrieve the key. She stood there in the hatchway, looking back toward Zimmerman where he lay on the floor, still on the makeshift stretcher. He was doing his best to look pitiful. She moved to wave the skald forward to help carry Zimmerman again, when a heavy cough sounded outside the cave mouth.
“Landshark,” hissed Bili, grabbing her arm and trying to pull her into the flitter. Sarah’s mouth sagged. It must have tracked them, stalking them while they moved through the forests and following their spoor down into the gully. Wildly, she thought of the story of the boy who cried wolf once too often.
She stepped out of the hatchway, moving to help him, but she was too late. The landshark was already thrusting its snout into the cave mouth. A great bulbous head appeared, blocking the entrance almost entirely. Powerful forelimbs with six-inch curved claws made for digging followed.
“Let’s go, Mom!” shouted Bili.
Zimmerman, terrified as deeply as he had been during the feasting, found the strength to struggle erect. Trembling with the effort to lift his bulk on one thin leg, he determinedly began to hop toward them, dragging his injured leg behind him. The landshark caught up with him in a sudden lunge, just as he reached the barrels full of blur dust. They went over with a crash, firing great clouds of bluish dust into the air.
In horror, Sarah slammed the hatch shut before the dust could reach them. There was no hope for Zimmerman now. Breathing in that much blur dust at once was definitely fatal. A few grains of the hallucinogen could keep you high for hours. Breathing in gouts of it was deadly. She doubted if even the landshark would survive.
With a great gulping motion, the landshark sucked the man into its toothy maw, making jerking motions as his legs vanished into its head.
Demonstrating its initial effects, the blur dust gave Zimmerman a sudden rush of inhuman vigor. Although he was already mortally wounded, he beat at the head of the monster with wild fury. Savage blows rained around its eyes and the sensitive olfactory regions, making it wince. Sarah thought that Zimmerman was probably breaking the bones in his hands, but he kept on striking it, even as his life’s blood gushed out.
Then she managed to shove the codekey into the slot and hit the throttle for emergency lift. The flitter shot out of the shaft and into the open night air.
After a few minutes she managed to steady the wobbling craft and set a course for Grunstein Interplanetary.
Beneath them the treetops swept by with blinding speed. She hugged as close to the leafy canopy as she dared, hoping to avoid detection. None of them spoke about what they had left behind in the smuggler’s cave.
* * *
Long after midnight, Drick was awake and back at his old desk. To his delight, he found his portable holoset and his flask of blur distillate were still there, although more than half of the moonshine had leaked out. The holoset was a disappointment as well, as all the net stations were out except for the automated ones that showed only the most dull comic reruns at this time of night. Not surprisingly, KXUT hadn’t been heard from since the building had been bombed.
The vaporous distillate had lost none of its flavor however, and with a heavy contented sigh, Drick loosened his sash and leaned back in his self-contouring chair. Suddenly, he sat up with a brilliant idea. Keying in his account codes, he accessed the public net and coaxed the computers into providing him with a private viewing of last week’s rayball game. He had been interrupted with the invasion at that point and had missed it. Damn the price, what did a few credits matter now?
He sipped his distillate and heaved another sigh as the holoset flickered, bringing the correct image up. Hot numbness washed over his mouth and took the edge off his tension. He had been tense for days now, he realized.
Bauru took an early lead in the game, scoring two goals from the third tier in the first period. The Dragon defense was hard-pressed to hold them, and when the Dragons finally got the puck, it took several minutes into the second period before they managed their first goal. Although his team was losing, Drick was happy. For the first time in a week he was comfortable and relaxed. He took another heavy slug of the drug, knowing it was too much, but wanting to do it anyway.
When the security plate glowed into life, it displayed what had to be the most unwelcome sight Drick had ever seen. It was a mechanical nightmare, a draconian battlesuit of some kind with a mouth that glowed with an unnatural blue radiance.
“Gi?” he questioned out loud, recalling vague memories of the thing from his great Aunt’s estates. The distillate had dulled his wits. He took another drink, and was surprised to discover he had drained the flask. He was alarmed just a bit, realizing that he had taken too much, but then the feeling of alarm faded as the drug fell over him like a veil.
“I am bringing my army to the spaceport,” she told him, her voice oddly disembodied from the alien image on the holo-plate.
“What do you want here, Gi?” asked Drick, his voice slurring slightly. He glanced down at the flat flask, but it was still sadly empty. With a studied concentration, he worked to replace the stopper. It seemed a difficult task.
“I’m not Gi, you idiot! I’m Mai Lee!” she boomed in irritation.
Drick squinted at the wavering holo-plate. He realized with a dull lack of concern that his vision had faded somewhat, a clear sign of a heavy blur dose. “Oh yes. How are you doing, Auntie?”
Mai Lee made a sound of infinite frustration. “Listen to me carefully, my drunken, imbecilic nephew. Tell me where Droad is.”
“The Governor?”
“Yes,” Mai Lee hissed through her teeth.
“He’s at the fort.”
“All right, good. I am bringing in several lifters and helicopter gunships. You must drop the security nets on the western side of the complex so that we can come in over the trees without detection.”
Drick blinked at her in incomprehension. At length, she managed to get her message across. Accustomed to obeying his Aunt and almost beyond resistance in any case, he gave the appropriate orders to the handful of men who Droad had left in charge of the spaceport.
Having finished, he managed to key-off the pause button on his holoset and settled back to watch the remainder of the rayball game. The roar of arriving lifters and the heavy tramp of armored feet outside his office did little
to interest him. It was the final period, and the Dragons had finally regained their fighting spirit. With two quick goals, they could still win the game. Drick was hardly able to make out the tiny figures on the holoset, his eyes were tearing up so badly. Streams of drying tears were cold on his cheeks.
There was a pounding on the door. He didn’t respond until it crashed inward. A fantastic creature ducked its head as it entered. The tail twitched with the whining of servos, balancing the metal monster on top of the shattered door.
Behind the creature there was the flash and boom of gunfire. Men screamed and died. Drick struggled to grasp what was happening, but found it difficult to think.
“Follow me to the elevator.”
Drick blinked dazedly. “Where are we going, Auntie?”
Mai Lee snorted. “To the
Gladius
, you moron. The clan is leaving this world. Will you attend me?”
Drick struggled to his feet. His thigh hit the corner of his desk, the flask and the holoset clattering to the floor. “Could you help me?”
Mai Lee looked at him for a moment, metal tail twitching. “You disgust me. If you can’t make it to the elevator by yourself, you are best left behind.”
Her claws left heavy scars in the broken door. Drick was left to struggle to his feet alone. Feeling only the vaguest sense of urgency, Drick found the holoset with his groping hands. He reactivated it, relieved to find it still worked. For a time he forgot completely about Mai Lee, and sat on the floor, watching the end of the rayball game.
An unknowable time later he awoke to discover he was staring at a blank plate. Only a ghostly green nimbus shimmered over the set, the holo equivalent of static.
The intercom was beeping. That was what had finally sunk in. With infinite slowness and a mild feeling of annoyance, he answered the call.
“Major Lee?” said a voice. An image of a man’s face stared out at him, but Drick couldn’t make out who it was.
“Droad?” he guessed.
“Listen very carefully, Major Lee. You have to shut down the elevators immediately. The lifters coming in now aren’t manned by Mai Lee’s troopers, Jarmo tells me they are alien forces. They mustn’t be allowed to board the
Gladius
.”
“What?”
“Shut down the elevator, man! That is an order!” Droad boomed at him.
“Everyone’s yelling tonight,” muttered Drick. “I’m in charge of this installation, Droad. This is my post. I will not halt the elevator while my Auntie is using it.” He sneered at Droad’s wavering likeness in suspicion. The man thought he was God.
Droad fumed for a moment, then continued in a slow, gentle voice. “Listen, you must listen. The aliens are coming right in on you, I can’t raise anyone else at the spaceport, and you’ve got to keep them from getting to the
Gladius
.”