Only Human (10 page)

She tried to ease what she perceived as
tension when he slipped into his full-length desert robe. "You must have
the dust of a dozen planets in there!" She toed the sand that had drizzled
onto the floor from the folds of his garment.

 "Probably do."

 "We just had the place cleaned, you
know," she reminded him with a cheerfulness that she did not feel. She
adjusted her own, much newer, robe. "Does this thing go on my head? It
looks like a shoe."

Tychon smiled and adjusted her burnoose,
showing her how it closed over her face to protect her eyes and skin.

He took the helm and soon they were skimming
the ship over the dusty surface of the planet, heading for the city of Gyan,
its outskirts their destination.

 There they walked into a tavern of sorts
and Tychon spoke in low tones to the barkeep who seemed to know him. Or had
expected him. Nova sat by a narrow window, waiting and listening. She heard the
cold desert winds drive sand in needle sharp blows against the stone building,
widening the gouges and channels that already scarred the thick walls. Darkness
descended without the preamble of twilight.

 Tychon slumped into a seat beside her, his
hooded eyes on their fellow patrons. No one spoke; only the eerie music of the
ceaseless wind outside moved through the brooding silence. A shallow pit filled
with dying coals in the center of the room was the only source of light here.
They were all waiting.

 Three men and a woman entered, slamming
the door against the driven sand. They were native desert dwellers, their eyes
mere slits within flat-planed and leathery faces. The bodies under their loose
robes seemed dense, powerful. They would have been tall had evolution not
taught them to walk forever stooped against the winds. K'lar had not always
been a desert.

 Tharron was born here, Nova reminded
herself. But he walked upright, larger than any humanoid she had ever seen. Any
available video about him showed a man more Terran or Feydan than these
unsmiling nomads. Perhaps he had sought to escape the hardships of this wasteland
and found that there was more to existence than striving for the next drink of
life-giving water. She had seen how much Tychon had paid for the flask of
liquid he now shared with these people.

 The manner of conversation around this
table fascinated Nova. Tychon, who never used two words where one sufficed,
seemed almost chatty compared to these people. Long, thoughtful pauses seemed
to be as much part of the conversation as slow gestures and monosyllabic
answers. From what she understood, most people on K'lar had only a vague
concept of what the Union Commonwealth represented. They did know, however,
that whatever great unknown a future allegiance with the Commonwealth was, Tharron
was by far the greater evil. Allowing a Union base in orbit seemed a small
price to pay.

 Tychon frowned when he heard of their plan
to stage a massive assault to overrun and destroy Tharron's current
installation here. Not only would this jeopardize Anders' rescue but such an
uprising would surely bring Tharron's attention to K'lar while the new orbiter
was still only half finished and defenseless. With difficulty, he persuaded the
K'lar representatives to avoid a battle in favor of a more covert operation. He
was relieved to learn that the rebel base here was staffed almost entirely by
Rhuwac and that no planes were kept here. Nova suggestion that Tharron had not
yet received word about the new Union station now seemed probable.

 At last, two of the men left to head for
the far side of town. Nova watched through the window as they mounted awkward,
furry beasts of burden that moved surprisingly fast when prodded.

 The remaining group fastened their head
coverings and prepared to leave. The other customers of this alehouse watched
their exit silently, covertly. Nova was certain that she had seen approval in
the weatherworn faces.

 Others joined them outside and closed
around Tychon and Nova on their way through town, hiding the more slender
figures among their number. Moving in huddled groups through the ever-present
squalls of sand seemed a sensible way to get around. Nova saw that most of the
buildings were single-storied with few narrow windows shut tightly against the
abrasive weather. The roofs were sloped, almost completely round, and she saw
the airborne sand glance over them in angry blows. There were no basins to
catch rainwater. She bent low, buffeted by the fine grit.

 "So you had to pick a storm to do
this?" She wiped sand from her lips, shivering. The seeping, drifting
stuff had begun to filter through her clothing and file away on her skin and
already taut nerves.

 Tychon whispered back to her, the wind
snatching away all but something about 'normal weather pattern'. He tugged a
fold of her burnoose up to cover her mouth and nose. She thought she heard the
word ‘greenie’ through the whistling gusts.

 Their companions had disappeared into the
deeper shadows. Tychon gestured toward a group of low constructions. The small
compound was divided from the rest of the town by a wide, open square. Its
designers had not learned from the native population - the stone buildings were
flat-roofed rectangles. Deep drifts of sand embraced the walls facing the
prevailing wind. A battered radio tower and sentries posted at intervals
betrayed the rebels' presence.

 "Gods, they're ugly," Nova
observed the guards with interest. They seemed to be little affected by the
cold and dust. The Rhuwacs topped well over two meters, their thick skin
chitinous and red. Uneven patches of hair covered their heads and bare arms.
Grotesque jaws jutted forward to show double rows of blunt teeth. Some of them
carried guns, others little more than cudgels.

 Tychon made a strangled sound, his hands
balled into fists, when he saw the creatures. She could almost feel his need
for revenge burn across the space between them. She cuffed him, deliberately
aiming for the still tender wound at his side.

 He shook his head as if to clear it, his
eyes shut. She could hear him speak in his native language - prayer, she
supposed, before he continued forward. In the gloom of the day Nova saw him
point toward a sentry to her left. She moved, halting only to await his signal
to strike.

 "What the hell...?" she
whispered to herself when she saw him creep toward another guard. Why didn't he
just shoot it? She covered his progress with her pistol. Perhaps he sought to
avoid detection by not using the telltale light of his laser. Nova watched
anxiously, knowing the real reason for the more personal attack.

His arm clamped around the Rhuwac's thick
neck. The struggle was brief, almost pointless, and the beast fell dead without
having uttered a cry of warning to his mates. Nova used her pistol to dispose
of the other guard, less eager to attempt physical combat with the massive
creature.

She scurried to where Tychon waited by the
building he had selected. They pressed tightly against the rough stone.

"How do we get in?" She peered
along the windowless wall, expecting another sentry to round the far corner at
any moment.

"Up," he bent his knees, cupping
his hands. "Lie down up there, wait for me."

"This wall is over five meters!” Nova
objected but put her foot into his hands. She felt herself catapulted into the
air, almost too surprised to reach for the ledge of the roof. Seconds later Tychon
had landed beside her.

She rolled over to him. "How did you
do that?"

He smiled, flexing his arm.

"Still..."

"Low gravity. We're used to a higher
gravitational pull–" His voice drowned in the roar of an explosion less
than a kilometer away. Both instinctively covered their heads.

Nova blinked at the light of a fireball
that rose up before them, turning the whipping sand into so many snowflakes.
"Your diversion, right?"

 They crawled along the roof until they
found a metal grate. Tychon pried it open and looked inside.

"Clear," he leaned back to let
her lower herself into the building. She dropped to the stone floor, at once
flattening herself against the wall. Tychon also dropped, crouching, his gun
ready. There was no one there. It seemed as though everyone had run to
investigate the explosion.

He gestured for her to move down the hall.
While he watched her progress, she peered into two of the rooms, finding them
empty. They heard deep voices coming from the next. Carefully, she extended a
telescoping wand from her wrist monitor and risked a quick snapshot of the
room. After a glance at her screen she signaled Tychon by lifting two fingers
and raising her hand high over her head. Two Rhuwacs. He nodded and drew a
finger across his throat. She leaped into the doorway and fired at the two
targets while he caught up and passed her along the hall, taking his turn to
explore while she covered him.

"Whiteside," Tychon hissed,
pointing into the next doorway.

They had found a small room furnished with
outdated but doubtlessly workable communications gear. Even now incoming
messages announced their presence with impatient persistence. She saw a barred
door to her left and moved to throw the bolt back.

Suddenly a thin beam of light cut the stone
wall near Nova's head, flinging fine splinters into her face. She whirled to
see a Rhuwac, earphones clamped around the large skull and looking weirdly out
of place. The beam of her own weapon dealt with his head as impersonally as it
did with the machinery. Both nerve centers melted, twisted and disintegrated.

Tychon poked through the smoldering
equipment. "No long range. Would not make it to the first jumpsite with
this, unless they figured out how to use our relays. They must have another
base here. This will only reach other areas of K'lar. Did, anyway, before you got
to it."

"Let’s get moving before they come
back,” Nova said. She released the latch on the locked door, finding only
darkness beyond it.

“Anders,” Tychon whispered into the dark,
looking for a switch or a lamp beside the door.

Nothing came back to them until he tried
again. They heard a groan. “Hullo? Who’s there?”

Nova stepped into the room, already
adjusting her gun to emit light. The floor she had expected to be there was
nothingness beneath her feet. She stumbled down along a narrow stairway and
landed painfully on her knees.

Tychon was beside her at once. "Are
you hurt?"

She shook her head, looking around.
"Bingo!"

"What's B..." he turned to see where
her light pointed. "Never mind." He approached a short row of cells
at the foot of the stairs. "Anders?" He peered into the darkness,
choking on the ripe smell of decay.

A very dirty hand passed through the rough
bars of one of the cages. "Ty! Am I dreaming? Get me out of here!"

Tychon melted the lock and forced the door
open. A man in ragged dress uniform stumbled forward and fell into his arms
like the long lost friend he was. "I can hardly stand up, man."

Nova checked the other enclosures for
anyone else with the misfortune of having fallen into the Rhuwacs' hands. She
found no one.

The filth-encrusted officer leaned feebly
against Tychon, watching her. "I was wondering if someone'd come for me.
Glad you did. It's about time someone kicked the rebels out of K'lar. Did you
get them all? I heard there were more in the mountains. Did you take the city?
It's pretty infested but I wouldn't want to see the natives get
displaced."

Nova and Tychon exchanged a bewildered
look.

"What are you talking about?" Tychon
asked. "We didn't take the city. She and I are the only ones here."

Anders stared at him, wide eyed. "Just
you? You snuck in here by yourselves? Holy gods, how did you manage that?"

"We walked in. I intend to leave the
same way."

Anders shook his head. "You didn't by
chance see the Rhuwacs here, did you? From what I've seen, there must be
hundreds of them here. Thousands, maybe. Training or something. It's like he
keeps his spares here but I haven't seen many high ranking rebels."

"A hatchery? That's what the K'lars
were talking about!" Nova said. "They could have been a little more
specific about numbers. We have to get out of here before someone finds the Eagle!"

Tychon ducked reflexively when they heard
the crash of heavy boots over their heads. There were shouts and curses and,
suddenly, silence.

He nodded to Nova. She crept up along the
staircase until she could peer under the closed door into the room above. She saw
the feet of many soldiers waiting on the other side.

"No way," she returned to the
others, whispering. "Ten or more up there."

"Anders, is there a way out of this cellar?"

He shook his head. "If you're a rat,
maybe. For us, the only way out is that way."

Nova looked up, wondering how long it would
be before the door would fly open to admit the bloodthirsty Rhuwacs.

“Nova," Tychon whispered, lowering
Captain Devaughn onto the stone steps. "Remember where the door to the
hall is?"

She nodded. When they had entered the
control room, the door into the prison had been on her left. Hinges on the
right. She retraced her steps mentally and found that, if they could throw the cellar
door open, the hallway was only an arm’s length away.