Skeen's Search (9 page)

Timka shook her head. “Just small stuff like that skitter you rousted this morning.” More shrieks and flaring. “Are they going to keep that up all night?” She hugged her arms across her breasts. “What happens if some of those things whatever they are get through?”

“We run like hell for the Lander.”

There were three clusters of life readings that might be escapee camps. The nearest was in what appeared to be a cavern high up in the wall of a monstrous canyon which lay at the boundary between mountains and plain about fifty kilometers west of them. The river running along the bottom of that chasm had its source in the lake they were camped beside. The second cluster was in the same mountain range but about five hundred kilometers farther north beside a long skinny lake. One of the mining settlements was a short distance off, several small farms with lush crops near harvest were laid out in a deep valley a few kilometers beyond the mines. The third cluster was far to the north out in the middle of the Plain, no settlements or mines within many days' travel.

Skeen tapped the canyon. “Not this one. Look.” She fished among the fax sheets beside the map, pulled out a halfsheet with what looked like several views of a stunted root system. “The caves. No back door. None.” She looked up as another wave of whatever hit the defense web. “Stupid gits, they should know by now they can't get at us. Hmm. I suppose those things are why the fugitives wanted the safety they'd get in that rat trap. It gives me itches to think of living in a hole like that with only one way out.” She moved her finger up the mountains, touched the lake. “Let me come back to this one.” She rubbed her thumb over the Plains settlement. It was much the largest of the three. “This is a possibility. There are fots somewhere in this mess.” She riffled through the stack of papers but didn't pull any of them out. “They show an organized settlement, sod houses, farms, livestock penned in fields. Been there a long time. Probably have their pick out of the fugitives from the mines and farms. From what I've heard of him, Rostico Burn would be welcome. If he is there, it means he's given up. That's why I say this is the second choice. Two years is too short a time to lose hope and rage and settle down to vegetate. Me, I'd be here.” She tapped the lake camp. “It's pretty well camouflaged by trees like the ones we're under right now. It's close to a clutch of mines, offers possibility for raids, close to farms to supplement what they can scrounge out of the wilds. Might be the easiest group for a newcomer to find; it'd also be the best guarded and most dangerous. No vegetating there. What do you think?”

“If it were me, I'd choose the Plains settlement. That's why I think you're right.”

“Well, now that's settled, let's get something to eat. This is going to be a busy night. You hungry yet?”

Timka shook her head. “But I wouldn't mind a bowl or two of tea. And I wouldn't mind your telling me how we're going to get through that.” Another wave of attackers had hit the shield web.

Skeen grimaced. “I was so busy being efficient and getting everything packed onto the miniskip …” She got up from the table, all angular, impatient moves, filled with nervous energy, crossed the to kitchen nook. “There's not one fuckin' weapon in this place, Ti, except this,” she slapped the darter holstered on her hip, “and it's worth a load of spit against what's out there. This isn't my sort of thing, great hunter of the wilderness blowing beasts to shreds. If the fuckin' stupid gits would get the message and go away, let 'em live to arthritic old age, I don't care.”

“So we sit in here until they decide they've had enough. You think they'll quit when the sun comes up?”

“Don't know and don't care.” She shook some tea leaves into the strainer, tapped the water heater into high, then sent a stream of boiling water through the leaves into the pot. “I'm not going to wait them out, um, if you don't mind scrambling for the Lander.” She punched up a meal for herself. “You sure you don't want something hot? Up to you.” She shook the strainer, lifted it out. “Tea's ready, take it to the table, will you? I'll be over in a minute.”

“You interest me strangely, Skeen my friend. Just what is it you want me to stick a claw in?” Timka came back for the bowls and the honey she liked in her tea (though Skeen made faces each time she spooned it in). “If you think I'm going to jump without knowing where my feet land, forget it.”

Skeen pushed the fax sheets aside and set her tray down. Outside, the bests renewed their attack. When the light faded again, Skeen frowned, swung round to face the nearest window. “That one was, um, quieter, didn't it seem that way to you?”

“Not enough to mean much. Several of the hits have been like that but they always come back heavier in the next or the one after. So. You've got a plan. What is it?”

“They aren't fliers; they're hitting the web from the ground, you can tell that by the way the cutters swing. The canopy is fairly thin over the middle of this clearing, you can take a look at it, see if you can fly through it, if you can't I'll have to think up something else. Once you're out, you get to the miniskip. You get the gas grenades out of the cargo-pod and fly them back here. I hate to waste them on those beasts but I'm getting nervous about this place, I think we should get out fast as we can. Not just this lake, away from Pillory altogether. Well?”

Timka gazed into the bowl cupped between her hands. “It might work. Yes. I'm willing to have a try.” She gulped the rest of her tea, stood up. “Let's have a look at the leaves.” Quick grin. “Or did you pack the torch too?”

“Now that's not logical, Timmy.” Skeen laughed at the face Timka made and wondered, not for the first time, who'd first called her that and why she hated it so much. “With the kind of roots these trees have, I'd be falling on my face or otherwhere every second step without a torch. It's in the clip by the door. Come back and let me know what you think. I'm going to finish my meal in peace, you hear.”

The air under the flickering forcedome stank of roasted meat and the deathvoiding of the beasts; the dead were dark piles their shapes still secret, lit by erratic blue-white flickers from the web and the occasional stab of the cutter beams. Skeen stood close to the shelter, the control in one hand. She turned to Timka who was crouched in bird form close to the guard ring. “Ready?”

A rustle of feathers, a harsh squawk.

“I take it that means yes.” She entered the command, activated it. The top vanished from the scrawled web of the dome. “Go.”

The bird form rose from its squat, began running round the ring, long legs scissoring faster and faster until finally the choppy wings took hold and the bird labored up and up, it slid through the gap, went crashing through the thin layer of leaves and vanished beyond them, still working hard to overcome the pull of the dirt below.

Skeen sighed, strolled over to the ring and turned the torch on the body of a beast that lay apart from the rest though it was as dead as the rest of them. A disc-like body with a sharp hump in the middle, a head on a short thick neck, great round mouth filled with razor teeth, round staring eyes, black, beady, around the top of the head like a crown. Clusters of legs, longer than she expected, splayed out on both sides. “Ugly fuckers.” She giggled. “No, I'm wrong, you do it on your own over here.” She played the torch over the creature. “Just as well, I doubt even a mother could love something like that.”

Timak dropped the pack of grenades, landed heavily a moment later. She shifted to Pallah and squatted, panting, while Skeen began working the straps loose.

Skeen glanced at her. “Any trouble?”

Timka swallowed, sucked in a long breath, exploded it out. “Nothing ah in the air. That stuff is heav vy.”

“Put on some fur or get dressed. You won't have to fly again. I hope.” Skeen squatted beside the pack and began snapping together the launcher. “Better stay biped. I've got nose plugs in here that will fit your Pallah form, but I'm not so sure about the cat.” She dug in the bag, tossed a film-wrapped packet to Timka. “You can wait a while before putting them in, they're misery doubled.” Holding onto the pack, she straightened until she was standing. “Got your breath back? The shelter's buckled down, the skitter discs can chew on it till next year and have their trouble for their pains. All we have to do is wait for them to come again.”

“My clothes?”

“Round by the door with the rest of the gear.”

“Another reason for me to stay Pallah, eh?”

“Why else.”

“Your friendly neighborhood packhorse reporting for duty.”

“Duty right now is get dressed and wait.”

“Funny.”

“What?”

“An hour ago we wanted them to go away. Now we dance in circles till they come back.”

“Get dressed, Ti.”

“Yeah, right, Sarge.”

“What?”

“Briony taught me some things.”

“Obviously. Can you chase pneumonia off by shifting?”

“What's that?”

“Never mind; get dressed and get back here.”

They came out of the night and flung themselves at the force dome, snarling, warbling back-of-the-throat threats, screaming howling hissing as the cutter beams slashed through them without stopping them, dark garish pastiches of fur and shell and leathery skin, red, gray, vomit orange, green, purple-black, polyjointed forelimbs slamming into the field like clubs, scimitar claws trying to slash through the shimmer of pale light that was the only evidence of the impenetrable shell that kept them from the meats inside.

Skeen programmed loops into the dome, oval holes outlined in fuzzy buzzing blue, one over each of the spikes. Starting where the attack was the hardest and noisiest, she launched gas grenades through the loops, working methodically about the guard ring until she returned where she'd begun. The cutter beams sliced away at the gradually decreasing number of attackers, lighting up the pale blue, almost invisible puffs of gas spreading in a thick ring outside the dome, part of it seeping gradually away under the trees, part into the dome. The air that came through the nose plugs had the burnt smell that meant the gas inside was thick enough to put her out if she was careless. She slid the bagstrap over her shoulder, clicked three more grenades into the launcher and signaled Timka to follow her.

When she reached for the far side of the guard ring, she collapsed it and went trotting through, moving slowly enough so she wouldn't be tempted to open her mouth and gulp down the gas-laden air. She snapped her fingers impatiently. Timka grunted and switched on the torch.

Tense, alert, they moved under the trees toward the lakeshore. Timka swung the torch in wide sweeps across the path ahead, but kept her exaggerated enhanced ears tuned to the rear, listening for anything coming at them from behind.

Multilimbs driving it in a hitchety swoop toward them, the beast came silently out of the night, mouth open, two forelimbs, twin claws like steel hooks reaching, ready to swing faster than the eye could follow, coming at them without snarl or threat, many feet setting down on the uncertain footing, mold and knobby roots, surely and without more than faint pats. Coming behind them, behind the sweeping fan of light, coming from the sleep and slaughter around the shelter, faster, closer, reaching.…

Timka gasped, clamped her lips shut to keep out the gas, snuffed up burnt air through the nose plugs, leaped off the path into the trees, torch coming around, shining, holding steady on the best despite the gyrations of her arms and body.

Skeen swung at the gasp, launched the first of the grenades into the gaping mouth of the beast, then put another on the ground a step ahead of it, flung herself around one of the trees and stood pressed against it, watching the result of her shots.

The torch beam trembled a little but kept the beast pinned.

The first grenade went off in its throat. It shuddered and kept coming, head jerking about out of control, body juice spraying from the holes in the neck. The second grenade went off beneath it, drowning it in the pale blue gas mist. It kept coming, breaking out of the dissipating cloud.

Skeen waited, holding the launcher ready.

One meter, jerky pat-pat of the several feet, lurching plunge that could have been comic if it wasn't so terrifying. Two meters. Head jerking more and more wildly. Legs starting to tangle, to lose sequencing. It tripped itself and crashed to the ground, making more sound in its fall than it had made in the whole of its run. Lay scrabbling aimlessly at roots and mold, tearing up and flinging away clumps of fungus and earth, small weeds, bits of bark.

Timka kept the torch sweeping the backtrail, returning to the beast, moving away, until Skeen snapped her fingers and stepped onto the faint path once more, an animal trail leading down to the drinking spot on the lakeshore. They went on, moving at the same easy trot, breathing through the noseplugs and fighting the need to gasp in more air through the mouth.

The trees grew smaller and farther apart, then they were on the stretch of red dust running in a gentle slope to the water.

The camouflaged Lander was a dark mass a few meters off, the low black miniskip lost in the shadow beside it. Skeen stopped alongside it, tested the air. The burn smell was almost indetectable. She grinned and shucked out the plugs. “Gahh, I hate these things.” She held them in her fist, looked wistfully at the lake, slipped the plugs into her belt pouch. “Ti?”

“I'm here.” Timka moved up beside her. “The gear's in the cargo pod. We going? It'll be raining soon.” She'd stripped off shirt and trousers and was wearing a dark sleek coat of fur. Arms folded, shoulders rounded, she was eyeing the skeletal miniskip with some distrust and considerable disfavor. “Will that … that … thing fly through the storm that's stirring up there?”

“We won't crash. Climb in. I want to reach the camp area before sunup.”