Ruthless (24 page)

"He's right," said Nigel after a while.

"About what?" said Wulf.

"Have you ever seen
aurora
like that before?" asked Nigel.

"Well," said Wulf, "maybe once in Iceland..."

Nigel shook his head. "Not on Earth you haven't. There aren't enough charged particles."

Even as Nigel spoke, the sky above him fountained with light, bursting in haunting silence. There was far too much energy flowing erratically above them for it to be innocuous.

"Those lights are coming from the sun's energy," said Blarg. "And there is far, far too much of it."

Wulf looked back at the sky as realisation dawned. The prettier the colours and the greater the display, the more radiation there was pouring out from the sun.

"Der star," breathed Wulf. "She is going to blow."

"Soon," agreed Blarg, but that was a relative term where stars were concerned.

The lives of interstellar bodies were measured in billions of years. In stellar terms, young whippersnappers were older than life on Earth itself; Sol was barely a teenager. Kajaani, on the other hand, felt imminently unstable. Maybe not today, thought Wulf, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, Kajaani would blow itself out of existence. It was the mitigating "maybe" part attached to the hopeful "not today" that bothered Wulf the most. The chances of Kajaani exploding at that very moment were remote, to say the least, but Wulf still didn't like the odds. Given the choice, he would prefer to be several light years away.

Johnny, meanwhile, was in no mood to be hurried. He was jammed in the shaft, resisting the temptation to rest his head against the frozen golden wall. It was lighter in the shaft now, the distant glow and shine of the
aurora
making its way into the pyramid. Patches of glowing light danced across the sheer golden surface, causing the upended staircase to cast strange, undulating shadows.

"You took your bloody time," said an angry voice. Squid crouched at the bottom of the shaft, picking idly at the broken remains of his dropped torch. He sat on a floor decorated with the same sunburst design that graced the entranceway to the pyramid, wedged among the links of a giant chain that snaked across the floor.

No, Johnny reminded himself. Not a "floor". The pyramid had rolled away from its former site. He was looking at a wall. Alpha vision showed him the long, thin line that neatly transected it. Not a wall, at all.

"There's a door!" he shouted up. "Squid landed on a door."

Squid looked down at his feet in surprise, irritated that Johnny had made the discovery and not him.

"Yeah," he added, belatedly. "That's right."

Looking for some means to contribute to make up for his mishap, Squid kicked the giant links beside him.

"But it's chained shut!" yelled Squid. "I mean, big-time." He pointed at the links beneath, each the size of a human head. Johnny's feet finally reached the bottom of the shaft. He patted the chain experimentally then motioned for Squid to help him lift it. Mumbling a momentary complaint about his aches and sprains from the fall, Squid half-heartedly complied. The pair strained to lift the chain, but the links were impossible to budge.

"Can you break them?" called Wulf from the entrance.

"No," said Johnny. "They're snecking huge."

"We're gonna need to cut through!" yelled Squid, dejectedly. Even if Johnny had any number four rounds left, they wouldn't be able to blow the chains apart. They were going to need something much more heavy-duty.

Up by the entrance, Nigel, Blarg and Wulf looked at each other quizzically. All they had was a Happy Stick and a couple of penknives. Wulf looked down the icefall at the distant lights of the bandit camp and wondered if Malcolm's minions had anything of use.

"Could you saw through it?" called Nigel, observing the damage wrought by Johnny's life wire.

Johnny looked closely at the chain. "No," he said, after a while. "Nowhere to get leverage."

"Blow it open," shouted Blarg. "Go back down to the others and drag them in on it. They must have brought something."

Johnny thought about it. Malcolm seemed more than happy for Johnny's gang to be doing his dirty work, and it was hardly like he had offered much in the way of equipment. But what had he been expecting? Blarg was right. Malcolm was bound to have spare equipment, maybe even some laser cutters or an oxyacetylene torch. But Johnny didn't want to risk it; they were lucky they hadn't been found out so far already.

"You know," called Wulf. "I do not wish to be der worrying wart thing, but can we be doing this before der sun explodes?"

Wedged in next to the slightly smelly bulk of Squid in the shaft, Johnny willed himself to have a bright idea. It wasn't working.

"I wish I'd never come," sulked Squid. "It's cold, I'm gonna have a bruise the size of Hertfordshire, and I am sitting inside the largest gold bar in the history of the universe."

"Shut up," said Johnny quietly. There had to be a way, a quick way that didn't involve the long climb back down to the landing site, going cap in hand to the real criminals for help.

"Let's ask Malcolm for a cutter," said Squid.

"No snecking way."

"Winch me back up and
I'll
snecking ask him," offered Squid, reaching out a hand to the life wire launcher. Johnny slapped him away, suddenly a lot happier.

"Wulf," he called back up the shaft. "Chuck us the Gronk."

Blissful ignorance, it had long been decided, was the best policy with all Gronk-handling issues. Wulf didn't give the Gronk any time to debate its fate. He simply told it that it was needed inside the pyramid, and that Mister Johnny would catch it. The Gronk's chief concern was the invisible monofilament that already cut across the shaft like high-tech cheese wire, but Johnny assured him that it was in place.

"Well..." began the Gronk, as Wulf lifted it up in the air. Then suddenly the nature of the kaleidoscope in the sky changed. The lights became mere reflections of themselves, spattered across the walls of the shaft as the Gronk fell down it. Falling, yes, thought the Gronk. It was quite clearly falling. It then bounced onto a hard metal surface, its momentum causing it to slide on an extremely cold metal surface. The Gronk's brain juggled with the mystery of whether it should be enjoying itself or if it should be scared sneckless. But even as its glands poised to lob an avalanche of juddermine into its system, it landed squarely in the waiting arms of Mister Johnny, and everything was all right again.

"Hello Gronk," said Johnny cheerily, ruffling its fur. Instead of the normal soft hairs, Johnny's hand found matted, frozen clumps.

"Mister Johnny," said the Gronk, still not quite sure of how it found itself in this new and unexpected location. Johnny swiftly placed the Gronk against the door, talking all the time to distract it from any sense of danger.

"We've got something for you, Gronk," he said, his "we" somehow conveying the sense of him and Wulf, and not him and Sick Squid who waved coyly in the cramped dark space. Johnny pointed at the large chain links that barricaded the door below his feet.

"Are you feeling hungry?" he added, hopefully.

"You wants me to eat through that?" said the Gronk.

"Yes, please," said Johnny.

The Gronk cleared both its throats. There was quite a lot of metal about it. It debated whether to spit or swallow.

"Of course, Mister Johnny," it said, and took a bite-sized chunk out of the nearest link. The Gronk chewed thoughtfully on the morsel and found it not unpleasant. It was a little
al dente
, as one might expect at sub-zero temperatures, but it was familiar, though possibly a little overspiced. The Gronk chomped another fragment out of the giant link and realised that it was going to take a while if it savoured every crumb. Realising that there was plenty of this kind of metal to hand, it dispensed with manners and spat the chunk out. Then it took another bite, and spat that out, too.

"Excellent," said Squid, appreciatively. Squid grabbed one of the discarded chunks of chain in his gloved hands. "Don't you see Johnny?" he said. "These are transportable." He eagerly pocketed the chunk and scrabbled on the floor for the next while the Gronk continued to chew its way through the chain. Except the Gronk had stopped.

"Why are you doing that?" it piped, quizzically.

"Hello?" said Squid. "If you don't want this gold, I'll have it." Squid's voice developed an edge as his internal bully fretted that a fight may be in order.

"Okay," said the Gronk, chewing on another chunk. "Whatever." It bent down and snagged another chunk of the chain, the little Gronk-bites forming a semicircle into the solid metal. It spat the mouthful out and chomped on another.

"What's it like?" asked Johnny, suspiciously.

The Gronk made a non-committal mumbling noise.

"Tell us, Gronk," he said. "I'm curious."

The Gronk stopped and looked up at him.

"A bit tangy," it said. "I prefer it plain."

"Gold?" asked Squid, expectantly.

The Gronk looked at him nervously.

"Iron," it said.

WORTHLESS

"What do you mean,
iron
?" bellowed Squid, his voice echoing and curling back on them in the enclosed shaft. The Gronk looked back at its handiwork then at Johnny, wondering if it did something wrong.

"This is iron," the Gronk said, quivering noticeably. "Pie Rights," it added, nodding seriously.

"What?" sputtered Squid.

"Pyrites," explained Johnny. "This is made of iron pyrites."

The Gronk licked experimentally at the door itself, and at the wall of the shaft. "This too," it added. "And this."

"Iron?" said Squid, having trouble breathing. "This whole thing is made of
iron
?"

"I'm not surprised," said Johnny.

It would certainly explain a lot. Theirs couldn't have been the first expedition to find the pyramid on Kajaani, although considering the icefall, they were probably the first to find the entrance. It wouldn't have surprised Johnny if a dozen former parties had arrived over the years, found a chunk of the fabled golden pyramid sticking out of the ice, and run a metallurgy test. Finding that it wasn't gold at all, they would have all packed up and gone home.

Wulf called down, concerned about the noise. "What is der Squid's problem?" he yelled.

Squid stared in mute rage at the shining lump of partly chewed metal in his gloved hand.

"It's fool's gold," shouted Johnny, by way of explanation.

"Pie Rights?" asked Wulf.

"Pirates?" asked Blarg in the distance, not hearing correctly.

"
Pyrites
," said Johnny. "Iron pyrites. The whole pyramid is worthless."

Blarg tried to think of people who might actually want a giant lump of fake gold: impoverished gangster rappers, perhaps, or a mail order jewellery company he had once patronised near Procyon.

The Gronk finally made a large enough hole in the chain so that the neighbouring link could be slipped out of it. It took all the strength Johnny and Squid had to lift the giant loops of metal.

"Now what?" asked Squid.

"Well," said Johnny, "the chains were on this side of the door, so they must prevent it opening outwards."

"Which is now upwards," Squid added.

Johnny attached his life wire winch to the giant band of metal on the door proper. "I figure we can winch this open," he said, ushering Squid and the Gronk over to stand on the other door. He joined them and then reached over to activate the wire.

The winch tightened, causing the launcher to rise up into mid-air above the loop of metal. But the door didn't budge. The life wire began to make a grating noise as the winch slipped. Pulling off his glove, Johnny reached out to the launcher and found it hot to the touch. He quickly switched off the winch before it could burn itself out.

Assured that Johnny's life wire was not going to slice him in half as he rappelled down the side of the shaft, Wulf eased himself down through the darkness. Up on the ledge, it was impossible to believe that it was night. The lights in the sky expanded and refracted in a rainbow of silent explosions, each shape and pattern melding fractally into the next. The Boy thought it was the most amazing thing he had ever seen in his life, like God's own screen saver. He sat on a rock and stared at it with a smug smile on his face, wondering how he would ever explain it all to the gang back home.

Nigel and Blarg were less awestruck.

"I'm telling you," Nigel was saying soothingly, "that there is only one of us left up here who can shoot straight, and that's you. So you are the one on guard." He held out his hand for the last remaining life wire.

Blarg looked back sourly at the Boy who was lost to the world. He wasn't even looking for other snow tigers, let alone aiming a gun at them. Blarg then looked back down towards the irregular circle of the landing site, which appeared to be deserted. Most of Malcolm's men were back in their lander where it was warm. Blarg didn't like the situation one little bit. It made him feel like an interloper, or an unwanted member of the group.

But it was snecking cold and Nigel wasn't much use either. Blarg might resent the stockbroker for getting inside the tomb, but he would resent him even more if he botched his duties and left them all to be mauled by a predator. Given a choice between giving up his gun or the monofilament winch, Blarg let Nigel have his fun. He plonked the winch forcefully into Nigel's waiting hand before marching off to scan the area for any remaining snow tigers.

Nigel smiled to himself. He wasn't as dumb as people thought. He shot the grapnel at the rock where Johnny's and Wulf's were already stuck. Then he walked backwards to the tip of the shaft, waiting until he felt the invisible pull of the tightening cable.

"See you," he said cheerily at Blarg, who looked back in stony disapproval. Nigel took one last look at the soundless explosions in the night sky and dipped below the golden ledge into the pyramid.

He descended just a little too fast.

"Slow down," suggested Johnny with a note of rising urgency as Nigel all but fell down the shaft. His winch, barely activated, whined with the sound of several metres of cable playing out, and only the scuffling sound of Nigel bouncing on the shaft walls indicated that anything was slowing his descent at all.