Species (38 page)

The boy . . . Dan could hear him coming down the slope with a surefootedness that belonged more to a mountain goat than a toddler . . . toddler? The heavy noises coming from the blackness above him indicated more a boy of seven or eight, or—what did Dan know of children and their ages?—maybe eleven or twelve. He blinked and tried to clear his head, then began to move slowly along the incline, searching for his light. As the last of the sparkles cleared from his vision, he caught a faint glow a few feet farther down—the Afterburner, lodged in a crevice on the rocky bank.

The sounds above began to get louder as the child neared its prey. Fighting for balance, Dan clawed a path sideways toward the light. If he could get to it before the creature got to him, he might—
might
—be able to find the flamethrower. He’d set it at the edge of a spot on the upper edge; he should be able to stand and feel his way along the rock until he got to it. If he couldn’t find it . . . well, he wouldn’t think about that.

Far below, he realized that Laura was screaming for Press.

“W
hat’s wrong?” Press yelled. He was running in a darkness broken only by the glow of his light, a dangerous thing to do. As if to prove it, he tripped on something—a large rock—and fell, felt his left hand shoot forward to leave a good chunk of skin along the gritty floor of the cavern so that his right could juggle the light. He was back on his feet and sprinting for Laura and Dan without feeling the pain. “Laura?” he yelled. “Damn it,
answer
me! Where are you—where’s your light?”

Her voice floated back to him, echoing and directionless. “Press, something’s happened to Dan up on the slope. I’m going up.”

“No!
Stay where you are—where the hell is your
light?”
Moisture gleamed blackly in the beam of his Afterburner as he swept the ground with it—one of the tar pools. Press skirted its edge, forced to go slower by the treacherous furrows hidden in the sliding soil.

“He needs
help,
Press! I can’t just stand here an—”

Laura’s words ended in a squawk and a mucky-sounding splash, then she started cussing. Farther above, he could hear Dan scrambling frantically along the rocks. “Oh God, Press—I’m stuck in one of these damned tar pools! Jesus, what
is
this stuff?”

“I’m okay!” Dan called hastily. “I found my light—
sweet Jesus!”

“What’s the matter?” Press and Laura shouted nearly in unison. Press’s gaze searched the upper regions of the cavern, finally pinpointed the other man’s whereabouts by the glow of the faraway flashlight beam.

“It’s another one,” Dan cried. “A new one—her baby!” Then his voice rose in pitch. “Hey, no—stay back! Oh God,
where is that flamethrower?”

Off to his right, Press finally spotted Laura mired a few feet inside the edge of the largest tar pit. He started in her direction but she waved him anxiously away, the nozzle of her flamethrower perilously close to the flammable pond. “Never mind me, Press—I’m not going anywhere. Get up there and help Dan.”

Press didn’t need to be told twice. He whirled and headed up the mound of earth toward his friend. A useless effort, though—without taking the time to search for careful footing, he lost two steps for every three he tried to take. Balling his fists in frustration, he kept at it, each unseen scrabbling making him think Dan was dying or already dead. But midway up, he heard Dan’s triumphant howl.

“I
found
it!”

A jet of flame filled the air above Press, rolling from the nozzle of Dan’s flamethrower like a sideways mushroom cloud thrown by an explosion. The startling red-and-orange eruption blinded Press momentarily, but not before he saw Dan’s target. Already nearly as tall as a teenager, it could have been the Sil creature herself except for its smaller size. Poised to attack with ropy coils of hair spread in a Medusa-like fan above a head that might have come from a mutated praying mantis, the blast of napalm caught it full in the face and knocked it off its feet. It staggered back and fell, and Press tracked its frenzied path downhill by the rolling ball of light. A high, head-throbbing shrieking filled the air as Press let himself slide back to level terrain and saw Dan chase the life-form at an angle across the hilly area, the creature batting crazily at the burning blotches on its head with long, yellowish tentacles the entire time.

Enraged, Sil’s blazing offspring spun to face its attacker. It lunged, huge mouth snapping open to expose triple rings of teeth the pale color of new ivory. Legs firmly planted, Dan two-fisted the handgrip and nozzle of the flamethrower and coated the creature with a full, two-second spray of pure heat.

Yowling in agony and engulfed in flames, it went sprawling. It got up and Dan grimaced and aimed the flamethrower again, but the life-form whirled and tried to run across the oily surface of the tar pit, succeeding only in trapping itself in the gooey black pool. Looking on, Dan lowered the nozzle of the flamethrower as the liquid floating on the surface of the pool ignited and began to burn around the creature. Catching a natural path as Sil’s only child gave a final death screech, the flames hungrily enveloped it—

—then began to fan across the pool toward Laura, still fighting to free herself from the tar’s sticky hold.

The interior of the subterranean cavern was suddenly filled with the red-and-blue glow of the fire. It looked like lighter fluid ignited on the surface of water, floating and licking at its own boundaries in an effort to speed itself farther along.

“Press!”
Dan shouted.
“The fire’s headed for Laura!”

But Press was already there, feet precariously close to the edge of the tar pool as he stretched himself over the beckoning liquid. The only thing that kept him from falling face-first into the filth was the woven strap of the Mossberg hooked around one of the hundreds of stalagmites jutting from the ground. “Come on, Laura,” he urged as he reached out, “grab my hand. You can do it—
stretch.”

“I—I—
got it!”
With a jubilant cry, Laura’s hand slid up his wrist and locked. Grunting with exertion, Press hauled her out, feeling like he was pulling some precious treasure from an aeons-old burial place. He swung her around to dry land and she collapsed, trying to rub the black mess from her skin with one hand while still grasping the pistol grip of the flamethrower with the other.

Press let go of the shotgun and bent over her. “Are you all right?” he demanded.

“God,”
Laura sputtered in reply, “now I know what a fly feels like on flypaper. That was
awful.”

“Well, it’s over now—”

“Press, look out!”

Sil!
Press twisted around, then jerked his body down in reflexive response to Laura’s shriek, but he wasn’t fast enough. Two soiled-looking tentacles shot forward and twined about him, dragging him away. He heard Laura yelling—
“Get out of the way, get out of the way!”
—in the background, vaguely registered her shrill instructions to get away from Sil so she could blast the creature with her flamethrower. A great idea if it weren’t for the sinewy limbs wrapped so viciously around him—and he didn’t have his own flamethrower as an option. He’d left
that
next to the stalagmite off of which his Mossberg 590 was still hanging. Great preparation . . . to
die.

Fighting for his life in a macabre dance up the side of the cavern, he felt something bang against the side of his elbow as he shoved an arm between himself and the life-form—his Specwar knife. Spikes were thrusting their way from Sil’s rib cage, and Press was trying mightily to keep some distance between his chest and the creature’s torso to avoid being impaled. As he dodged the teeth snapping at his face, the fingers of Press’s right hand found the knife and pulled it free of the belt loop. When one of the two tentacles whipping around him came close enough, one good swipe of the high-tech military knife severed the appendage cleanly and caused enough pain to gain his release, giving him the chance to retreat farther up a wall of rock ledges to his left.

Sil roared in agony and floundered backward, the stump end of the tentacle spurting a nasty, gelatinous glop that was yellowish tinged with glistening clear streaks. Twisting, the creature nearly lost its balance, then charged at Press again, its movements filled with strength and much more agility across the outcroppings than Press’s. He slashed at the air in front of it, ducking away from the dozens of daggerlike protrusions that erupted from its body. If it got hold of him with its remaining tentacle and pulled him to it, he was dead; the sharp spikes of before were nothing compared with those jutting from its skin now, and Press had the flash impression that it bad only been playing with him then, like a cat toys with a mouse it doesn’t consider threatening. The amputation of her limb had changed all that; she wasn’t playing games anymore.

Sil slapped at him again, the backward motion of her tentacle leaving her upper torso wide open. Press saw his opportunity and went for it, darting forward to bury the Specwar knife deep in the center of her chest before momentum brought her limb back. Was her heart there? Did she even
have
one? He didn’t know the answer to either question, but he’d done
something
right, because the resulting scream from the life-form was like no sound he’d heard it make before. Long, incredibly loud, it was enough to disorient him for a second . . . enough time for Sil to launch herself and knock Press off his feet.

The battle had carried them farther up than Press realized, and the glow from the burning pool below was a madly swinging kaleidoscope of orange, yellow and red, splitting the blackness like a child’s flashlight covered with Halloween paper. Pinned beneath Sil’s weight, Press had just enough room to bring his leg up and under his own body in an instinctive maneuver to avoid her killing spikes; a tricky shift of balance, a bit of opportune leverage and the hardest push he could muster—

—and Sil went sailing into the empty space past the rock ledge and toward the pool of flaming sludge below.

But not before wrapping her remaining tentacle tightly around Press’s ankle.

The alien’s weight dragged him forward and Press clawed at the ground, frantically searching for a hold on the loose, pebble-strewn earth. His fingers dug deep grooves into the ground until the right hand scraped across a rock poking out of the soil. Press clung to it while one foot shook in midair and the other leg was pulled straight by the mass of the creature hanging on to it. He tried to kick at Sil with his free leg, but every jouncing movement made his hold loosen a little more. His endurance was running out, and to his horror Press saw that the tip of flesh beating the air where he’d hacked off the life-form’s tentacle was elongating, beginning a slow, spontaneous regeneration. Soon she would have full use of her limbs again, and then what the hell would he do?

Unanticipated warmth wrapped itself around Press’s wrists below his grip on the jutting boulder. His fingers spasmed and slipped beyond the point of no return, but when he opened his mouth to cry out, Dan and Laura were there, hands locked around his as they towed him back over the edge of the brink.

“No!”
Press gasped. “You’ll pull it up, too!”

Dan’s face twisted with dread but he didn’t stop pulling on Press’s arm. With Laura dragging on the other one and Sil hanging from one leg, Press was starting to feel like a victim of the rack—or at least a little like a human rubber band. Everything hurt and he couldn’t stop the groan that escaped his lips as his thighs scraped the jagged lip of the ledge; suddenly he was over and pushing with his free leg, battering at Sil with his foot, but to no avail.

Amid the frenzy, Press caught the glimmer of something metallic shining on the ground
—his combat knife.
He reached for it but was too far away; still, Dan understood Press’s intent and leaned sideways without letting go of his friend, snaring the dropped weapon. Without being told, he scooted to the edge of the precipice and began to stab at the tentacle encircling Press’s ankle, oblivious to the yellow-gold fluid spurting from the wounds he was inflicting.

“Put some elbow in it!” Press screamed as the monstrosity hanging from his foot simultaneously scrabbled for purchase against the side of the rocks and tried to tug Press’s body sideways to avoid the bite of the blade. “Pull it
across
—it’ll cut!”

Dan abandoned his puncturing motion. With a single, swift slash he severed the alien’s remaining tentacle. Fluid geysered from the open wound, coating all three of them as the thing went into free fall, its tentacle slipping away from Press’s ankle like an untied piece of nylon rope.

As the Sil-creature, flailing uncontrollably, roared its final defiance and tore at the rocks on its fall toward the pool of tar below, Press righted himself and reached for the flamethrower on Laura’s back. She turned her body and twisted free of the straps as Press seized it and hurled it over the side of the ledge. It struck the alien and followed it down. Before they could look over, they heard a double splash, then—

KABLOOM!