Hellworld (Deathstalker Prelude) (8 page)

“Well?” said Hunter. “Is it drinkable?”

“I’m afraid not, Captain. This stuff’s more like soup than water. Most unusual makeup. I’m reading metallic salts, a fairly high acid level, and what appears to be some kind of enzymes.”

Krystel frowned. “That isn’t a naturally occurring mixture, Captain. It sounds more … organic.”

“Yeah,” said Hunter. “I think you’d better get away from there, Doctor.”

Williams drew his hand back out of the water, and the dweller below struck quickly while its prey was still within range. A dark blue tentacle shot up out of the water and slapped around Williams’ wrist. He screamed with pain as the hold tightened viciously, and had to brace his legs against the side of the well to keep from being drawn in. The tentacle snapped taut.

Hunter fired instinctively with his disrupter, and severed the tentacle. Williams fell backwards, and scrambled away from the water hole without bothering to get up. The severed tentacle thrashed back and forth in the water. Pale purple blood flew on the air. Hunter stepped back to avoid it, and three more tentacles erupted out of the churning water, attracted by the movement. They whipped around Hunter, pinning his arms to his sides, and then snapped taut. Hunter crashed to the ground, and fought desperately against the tentacles’ pull. Their hold tightened, and hundreds of miniscule barbs grated against his steelmesh tunic.

Krystel drew her sword and cut at the nearest tentacle. The sharp edge barely penetrated the leathery flesh, and she sawed at the tentacle to try and weaken it. The Captain was dragged steadily closer to the well’s edge, despite all his struggles. Krystel glared at Williams, who was sitting nursing his bruised wrist.

“Grab him, dammit; I can’t do it all myself!”

For a moment, Williams was tempted to tell her to go to hell. He wasn’t about to risk his life for the Captain’s. One look at Krystel changed that. He wasn’t stupid enough to get an Investigator mad at him. He moved quickly forward and grabbed Hunter’s legs. The extra weight slowed the tentacles down, but Hunter was still being drawn closer to the water’s edge. Krystel sheathed her sword, drew her gun, and fired into the water. The tentacles writhed, slamming Hunter and Williams against the ground, but didn’t release their hold. Krystel swore unemotionally, and put away her gun. She unclipped a concussion grenade from her bandolier, primed it, and tossed the grenade into the middle of the well. It quickly disappeared, and for a long moment nothing happened. The tentacles snapped taut again, and Hunter dug his heels in against the broken ground. Williams clung to the Captain’s legs and swore breathlessly.

Water fountained up out of the well as the grenade exploded down below. The tentacles bucked and heaved, casting Hunter and Williams away. The water boiled and frothed, and chunks of partially broiled flesh bobbed to the surface. The tentacles whipped back into the water and disappeared. The surface of the water gradually grew still, and a long, peaceful silence fell over the water hole.

“Is there any life form on this planet that isn’t treacherous and disgusting?” said Hunter, sitting up slowly and carefully.

“Early days yet, Captain,” said Krystel, lighting a new cigar. “The rest could be downright devious.”

Williams got unsteadily to his feet. “I think we should all return to the pinnace. The Captain and I could both be suffering from internal injuries.”

“Don’t make such a drama out of it,” said Hunter. He rose to his feet and made a token attempt at brushing the dirt from his uniform. “We’re just bruised and battered, that’s all. Now let’s get moving again. The sooner we put some distance between us and whatever it is that’s living at the bottom of that well, the better I’ll like it. And in future, if we come across any other water holes, I think we’ll drop a grenade down it first, and check the quality of the water afterwards.”

He turned his back on the water hole and walked away. Krystel and Williams exchanged a glance, and moved off after him.

Corbie and Lindholm strolled unhurriedly after Megan DeChance as they left the melting forest behind them and headed out over the broken plain. The esper was some way ahead of the two marines, and the gap was slowly widening. DeChance glanced back over her shoulder, her face set and grim. She was tempted to order them to walk faster, but she had a strong feeling they’d just ignore her. Technically, she was of a superior rank, and the Captain had specifically put her in charge of the group. But none of that mattered a damn; Megan DeChance was an esper.

Espers had a contradictory status in the Empire. On the one hand, their powers made them invaluable servants, much sought after and prized. But those same powers made them officially sanctioned pariahs, feared and detested by those in authority. Espers were conditioned from their earliest childhood to know their place; to be meek and obedient and cooperative, and never, ever, to challenge authority. Those who had trouble learning these lessons found them brutally enforced. All espers carried some scars, physical and mental. They were second-class citizens, tolerated only because they were needed. Every esper dreamed of escape, but there was only one sanctuary from the Empire, and that was the rebel planet Mistworld. Getting there was a long and dangerous journey, and only a few ever made it. Megan DeChance hadn’t even got close. Which was possibly why she’d been allowed to join a Hell Squad instead of the body banks.

Corbie didn’t give a damn about espers, one way or the other. He didn’t trust them, but then Corbie didn’t trust anyone, including himself. If you don’t trust anyone, they can’t let you down. As for the esper’s authority, if she didn’t push her luck, he wouldn’t either. He was in no hurry to get to the alien city. Let the Captain and his team get there first. They had the Investigator.

He looked disinterestedly around him as he strolled along. The plain rose steadily before him, and then fell away again. Banks of pale red clouds sailed majestically overhead, clashing gaudily with the green sky. The ground was hard and unyielding under his feet, and covered with endless cracks. Corbie supposed he must have seen a more desolate landscape somewhere before, but he was damned if he could think when.

They’d just crossed the high ridge when a low, rumbling sound suddenly broke the silence and the ground shifted slightly underfoot. Corbie and Lindholm stopped dead in their tracks and looked quickly around them, but the wide-open plain below was bare and deserted. Megan DeChance hurried back to join them, and the two marines moved automatically to protect her with their bodies in case of attack. The ground slowly grew still, but the rumbling sound continued, growing louder and more ominous. Corbie dropped his hand to his gun and glanced at Lindholm.

“What the hell is it, Sven?”

Lindholm shrugged, his face impassive. “Could be building to an earthquake. You’re bound to have some earth disturbance with so much volcanic activity going on. It would explain why the ground’s so broken up.”

“It’s not an earthquake,” said DeChance slowly. “I’ve seen this kind of terrain before. This is geyser country. Keep watching. They should start spouting any time now.”

Almost as she spoke, on the plain below a jet of boiling white water burst up out of one of the cracks in the ground and fountained high up into the sky. The water roared like a wounded animal, a deep grating sound that resonated in rhythm with the shaking ground. The fountain seemed to hesitate at the top of its reach before falling reluctantly back to the parched earth. The cracked ground drank up the water thirstily. One after another, a dozen and more geysers burst up out of the ground, mud and boiling water flying up into the green sky at heart-stopping speed. The roar of the geysers became deafening. Corbie turned to ask DeChance a question, but the noise of the eruptions drowned him out no matter how loudly he shouted. In the end, he gave up, and just watched the towering fountains as they soared into the air. Finally, one by one, the geysers fell away and disappeared as the underground pressure that fed them collapsed. A light mist of water droplets added a haze to the air. The ground rumbled quietly to itself for a while, and then fell still.

“Impressive,” said Lindholm.

“Yeah,” said Corbie. “It’s a good thing we stopped where we did. If we’d been walking through that area when the geysers started spouting…” He shook his head quickly, and then looked at DeChance. “You’re in charge, ma’am. What do we do now? Turn around and go back?”

“It might come to that,” said DeChance. “But I don’t think so. Geysers usually spout at regular intervals. As long as we time it right, we should be able to walk right through the area while they’re quiet, and be safely beyond them before they spout again.”

Lindholm nodded slowly. “We’d have to time it exactly right. And even then, we couldn’t be sure. Those geysers were quiet until we approached. It’s possible our presence set them off. If that’s so, the timing of the eruptions might change as we move.”

“Unlikely,” said DeChance. “We just couldn’t see them until we topped this ridge. This area should be within range of the pinnace’s sensors. All we have to do is wait for the geysers to blow again, then patch into the ship’s computers, and they’ll give us the exact times.”

Corbie scowled unhappily, but held his peace. He’d have leaped at any excuse that would let him turn back, but he couldn’t give up while the others were still willing to go on. No matter how scared he was. The three of them stood together patiently, waiting for the geysers, and some twenty minutes later they blew again, filling the air with steam and mud and boiling water. After they died away, the ground shook and rumbled under their feet for a disturbingly long time before growing still. DeChance patched into the pinnace’s computers through her comm implant, and studied the glowing figures as they appeared before her eyes.

“All right,” she said finally. “The interval is twenty-two minutes. Then there’s only a few seconds before the rest start to go off. The geysers seem to be limited to one small area, and we can cross that in ten minutes easily. So, as long as we keep moving, we shouldn’t have any problems at all.”

“Oh sure,” said Corbie. “Just a comfortable little stroll, right?”

“Right,” said DeChance.

“And what if we’ve got it wrong, and the geysers don’t blow off at regular intervals, but just when they damn well feel like it?”

Lindholm smiled. “You can always say I
told you so.”

Corbie gave Lindholm a hard look. DeChance looked away to hide a smile.

They waited in silence for the geysers to spout again. Corbie chewed the insides of his cheeks, and clenched and unclenched his hands. He hated having to wait. It gave the fear longer to build; more of a chance to get a hold on him. He watched Lindholm out of the corner of his eye, but Sven seemed as calm and as unmoved as ever. There were times, when his nerves were really bad, that Corbie thought it might help if he could just talk to someone about his fear. But Corbie was a loner, and always had been. He’d never found it easy to make friends; never wanted or needed them, really. Sven was the nearest thing he had to a close friend, but Corbie couldn’t talk to him. What could a man like Lindholm, a career marine and ex-gladiator, really understand about fear?

And then the ground shook and the geysers blew, and there was no time for thinking anymore. DeChance waited until the last geyser had stopped, and then ran down onto the plain. Lindholm started after her, and then stopped as he realised Corbie hadn’t moved.

“Come on, Russ; we’re short on time, remember?”

Corbie tried to move, and couldn’t. The geysers were out there, waiting for him, waiting for the chance to kill him. He knew that wasn’t true. He knew he had plenty of time. But he still couldn’t move, still couldn’t run forward into danger. DeChance was already well ahead of him, running freely and easily, as though she didn’t have a care in the world. Lindholm was looking at him, puzzled and impatient, but a glimmer of understanding was starting to form in his eyes. Corbie looked quickly away, anger and shame burning within him. And then DeChance screamed, and everything changed.

Corbie looked round just in time to see the cracked and broken earth collapse beneath the esper. The ground rumbled and shifted under Corbie’s feet, and for one horrible moment he thought there was going to be an earthquake after all. The moment passed, and the geysers remained silent, but the esper had disappeared into a wide crevasse that looked to be a dozen yards long and still spreading. Corbie ran forward, with Lindholm close behind him.

“How much time do we have, Sven?”

“Plenty,” said Lindholm. “As long as we don’t run into any complications.”

“Like an esper with a broken leg?”

“Right. Think positively, Russ.”

They soon reached the gaping crevasse, and stopped at the edge to peer down into it. DeChance looked up at them, her face pinched and white with pain. When she spoke her voice was strained, but even.

“First the good news; I don’t think I’ve broken anything. The bad news is, my right foot’s stuck in this crack and I can’t get it loose. The really bad news is that there’s a geyser opening down here right next to me.”

“Take it easy,” said Lindholm. “We’ll get you out. There’s plenty of time. Right, Russ?”

“Yeah,” said Corbie. “No problem. Hang on, esper, and I’ll come down there with you.”

He clambered awkwardly over the edge, and climbed carefully down into the crevasse. It was a good eight or nine feet deep, and underneath the cracked surface the earth was a dry, brittle honeycomb. The esper’s right foot disappeared into the floor of the crevasse, swallowing up her leg almost to the knee. Corbie crouched down beside her and gently investigated the crack with his hands. The esper’s boot had sunk deep into the earth honeycomb, and the broken shards were pressing against the boot like so many barbs. The harder she pulled, the harder they dug in.

Corbie swore silently. Brute force wasn’t going to get her out of this, but he was damned if he could think of anything else. Time was the problem. Whatever he was going to do, he had to do it quickly. He glanced at the geyser opening next to the esper, and patched into the pinnace’s computers. Glowing numerals appeared at the bottom of his vision, giving him a countdown till the geyser spouted.