Sweet Starfire (35 page)

“All set?”

Cidra nodded, glancing back at the safehold. “I hope it lasts until someone gets here with a holotape set to record the history stored inside.”

“Even if the circle doesn’t hold much longer, it will take quite a while for that safehold to be reduced to rubble, even here on Renaissance. Let’s go.”

“Does it strike you, Severance, that you’re always asking if I’m ready to go?”

“You’ll get used to it.” The pulser was gripped in his right fist as he started back into the jungle. The utility knife was in his left hand.

Cidra smiled to herself and followed.

One hour and two dead green slicers later, Severance called a halt. He tapped the face of the directional indicator and sighed. “We’ve got a problem.”

Cidra battled at a small buzzing creature intent on landing on her cheek. “You’re thinking we didn’t walk for much more than an hour that first night?”

“I see that the thought has crossed your mind too.”

“We might have been totally unaware of the time,” she offered.

“It was dawn when we reached the safehold. I think we left the campsite just shortly before dawn. No more than an hour before.”

“What does the directional gadget show?”

“That we’re within a few meters of the skimmer.”

Cidra looked around at the heavy vegetation surrounding them on all sides. “I don’t see a river.”

“Neither do I.”

“Perhaps we’re just a few meters away.” Tentatively Cidra shoved at a hanging vine. “This stuff is so thick, we could be a short distance from the river and not be able to see it.”

“We should be able to smell it.”

She remembered the unique scent of the muddy water. “You’ve got a point. Okay, fearless and respected leader, what next?”

“We’ll give the beacon another ten minutes. If it hasn’t led us to anything familiar by then, we’ll backtrack.”

“Is that why you took a whack out of the tree with your knife every couple of meters? So we’d have a trail to follow back to the circle?”

He lifted one shoulder negligently. “You can’t be too careful on Renaissance.”

“So I’ve noticed. How are you feeling?”

“Fine. The shoulder’s stiff, but it’s not getting in my way.”

“Want me to wear the utility loop for a while? I imagine it gets a little heavy. You’ve got so many interesting things packed inside.” She stepped close, reaching for the closure of the rantgan leather loop. “I was going to ask you a couple of questions about what you carry around with you, Severance.” As she moved, the edge of her skirt brushed against Severance’s arm.

“Forget the loop. I said I’m fine. I’d feel naked without it.” He was staring at the directional device as she stepped back. “Do that again, Cidra.”

“Do what?”

“Come close.”

She saw the direction of his attention. “Something wrong?”

“Just brash up against my arm again.”

Uneasily she did as she was told. When she started to move back, Severance caught her wrist and held her close. “What is it?” she asked.

“Look at the signal,” he muttered. “It’s going crazy.”

“You mean, I’m causing it to go crazy?” Cidra’s mouth felt very dry.

“Or something you’ve got on you. I don’t understand. These things are virtually fail-proof.”

“Desma says mechanical stuff is always breaking down on Renaissance.”

“Empty your pockets. Hurry!”

She reached inside her shirt, and the first thing her hand touched was the stone shard. Slowly, with a feeling of doom, she brought it out and held it toward the directional device.

“Sweet reeting hell.” Severance jerked the shard from her hand and waved it back and forth across the surface of the device.

“I’m sorry, Severance.” Cidra stood in dismay, bearing the full weight of a heavy guilt. “I didn’t realize it would cause trouble.”

He tossed the shard as far as he could into the undergrowth.

“Neither did I, although I suppose we should have made an educated guess on the subject. I wonder what it was about that slice of eggshell that could screw up the signal on this thing.”

“How does it read now?”

“It says the skimmer is west of us and not very close. We’ve got a long walk ahead.” He looked up and started to say something else.

Cidra held up her palm. “Don’t say it. I’ll say it. Let’s get going.”

A reluctant smile edged Severance’s mouth. “You’re learning.” He started forward with Cidra close behind.

They hadn’t gone more than a few paces when Cidra saw the glint of black stone. “Severance, there’s the shard. But I thought you threw it much farther.”

He turned to glance back. “I did. And I threw it in a different direction. That’s not the shard.” Cautiously he used the knife to push aside the heavy mass of creeping vines. A black, curving surface glinted in the dappled light.

“Sweet Harmony in hell. It looks like a giant version of one of the stones.”

“Severance, we’ve got to get out of here!” Cidra tugged at him frantically, but he shook off her hands. “If it’s another egg, it’s a huge one. Anything that hatches from that thing isn’t going to be stopped very easily. You saw how much of the pulser charge it took to destroy the little eggs.”

“If it’s an egg, it’s already cracked.”

“What?” She peered around his shoulder to see what he was looking at. The huge sphere was crumpled and jagged on one side, revealing a gaping hole. Inside there was only darkness. Cidra edged back, trying to pull Severance with her. Everything within her that had felt wrong about the eggs was reacting violently to this discovery.

“It’s not made of the same material as the egg, although it’s the same color.” Severance touched the black surface. “It’s a metal of some kind. Like nothing I’ve ever seen.” He dug out the quartzflash and shined it into the dark hole. He sucked in his breath. “It’s a ship, Cidra. Some kind of vehicle. It’s got to be!”

She stared at the array of mechanisms revealed in the light of the flash. The shapes were oddly distorted to her eyes, unfamiliar and strange. “Not a human ship.”

“You can say that again.” Severance stepped closer, clearly fascinated. “Not a Ghost ship, either. At least nothing in here appears designed to fit one of the creatures we saw in that history lesson we got in the safehold. Their hands were similar to ours, and anything mechanical they built would have had similar gripping surfaces. The height of everything is wrong too. Some of it’s too high and some of it’s too low. Everything’s made out of this same black metal.”

“Severance, it looks too much like one of those eggs. The same color, the same shape, and it was that shard in my pocket that drew us here. I told you those blue things were alien to this planet. Let’s get out of here.”

But he was already moving closer to the gaping black hole. It occurred to Cidra that any man with Severance’s natural aptitude for keeping machines in working order was probably going to be overcome with a fascination for this alien gadget. “Whatever was once in this thing is long gone, Cidra. If it survived the crash, it probably stepped outside and became a meal for one of the natives.”

“No,” she said with quiet certainty. “First it carried its eggs into the safehold. Maybe it was following the same mind call we followed. Maybe the call draws anything above a certain level of intelligence to it. Perhaps that’s how it screens out the rest of the jungle life. It was meant as a record for another intelligent species to find. Whatever was in this ship must have found it. The safehold probably looked like a good place to leave the eggs.”

“You’re assuming that the ship and whatever was inside was alien to Stanza Nine.”

“I know it was,” Cidra said stubbornly. “There’s something wrong about it, I keep telling you.”

“It will take a full-scale scientific investigation to find out the truth. Perhaps another intelligent species developed on this planet.”

“No.”

He waved the quartzflash around inside the ship. “You can’t be sure of that, Cidra.”

“Severance, please come away from there. After what I saw of those eggs, we’ve got to assume that the ship is dangerous. Maybe it’s protected the way the eggs were.”

“Just a minute. I want to get a closer look at this stuff. Doesn’t look like this metal has had the corrosion damage most metal gets on Renaissance.” He whistled soundlessly between his teeth, his eyes gleaming with barely suppressed excitement. “We’ve got to be able to find this ship again.” Severance punched a code into the directional indicator. “Between this thing and the safehold, I’m going to make enough credit to launch Severance Pay, Ltd. in a big way.”

“Is that all you can think about? Selling this information? You’ve got a one-track mind, Teague Severance! This is the find of the century, ultimately maybe far more significant than the safehold. And all you can talk about is how much you’ll get when you sell the location.”

“Yeah, well, a man has to keep his eye on the main chance.” He edged closer, shining the flash around the edge of the jagged metal. Suddenly they heard a sharp hiss, and something with a long tail and four short legs leapt from the darkness. Severance ducked, and the disturbed inhabitant of the ship disappeared into the trees.

“What was that?” Cidra took a deep breath.

“A roacher. They like caves. That one must have thought he’d found a really nifty home when he came across this thing.” He wrinkled his nose as he leaned forward again. “What a stench. The roacher’s been living here a while.”

Cidra stepped closer, caught a whiff of the rancid odor, and nearly choked. “Are you going inside that ship?”

“I just want to take a quick look around.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Severance.”

“I’ll be just a minute.” He stepped over the jagged edge. “Stay here in the opening where I can keep an eye on you.”

Reluctantly she moved closer, aware of a deep curiosity that was at war with her instinct to put as much distance as possible between herself and the ship. The ramifications of the discovery were endless. She could certainly understand Severance’s fascination with it. But Cidra didn’t like the feel of the whole thing any more than she had liked the feel she’d gotten from the eggs.

The quartzflash moved around inside the ship, falling on banks of alien machinery that stood silent and blank. There was a lounge that might have been a seat or a bed for a body the size of a man, but it was shaped oddly. Cidra had a passing mental image of one of the blue monsters, grown to the size of a man, lying on that lounge, and she shuddered. The creatures from the eggs were bad enough when they were hatch-lings; she didn’t want to imagine what the adult version looked like.

“Look at this, Cidra.” Severance shone the light along the surface of a long, sealed case. It was made of the same black metal as the hull of the ship, but the top was fashioned of a clear material, perhaps a hard plastic. There were scratch marks on the clear portion, as if something hungry had tried to get inside. Whatever it was had not succeeded in prying open the case.

“What do you think it is?” Cidra asked. “Some kind of storage facility probably. I can’t see what’s inside. The cover looks clear, but it’s not when I shine the light down through it. Too much dirt and grit caked on it. Maybe I can get it open.”

“Don’t, Severance. It looks too much like a coffin. Let’s leave it for an exploration company that’s got equipment and time. We don’t have either right now.”

He paused as if a part of him realized the truth of what she was saying, but Cidra saw his eyes drift back to the long case. She realized that getting him out of the ship wasn’t going to be easy. She remembered all too clearly how stubbornly he had insisted on fetching the egg from the safehold. Cidra decided to try a drastic approach to breaking the spell the ship seemed to have on him.

“I’ll just be another minute or so, Cidra.” He ran his hand along the line on the metal case where the clear section joined the black portion.

“Fine.” She swung around determinedly. “I’m leaving.”

“Cidra! Don’t be a fool. You can’t leave without me.”

“Want to bet?” She was sure of herself, absolutely convinced that she had to get him out of the ship. The same sense of wrongness was permeating her senses as she had experienced when she had kicked the blue reptilian carcass out of die protected circle.

“Damn it, Cidra, come back here. That’s a direct order.” “No. You’ll have to come with me if you don’t want me to leave alone.” She paused, about to shoulder her way through a wall of vines, and glanced back. “Severance, I mean this. I’m leaving and I…. Severance!”

His name was a scream on her lips as she looked back and saw him silhouetted in the doorway. Behind him a deathly black light flashed inside the ship. But light couldn’t be black, Cidra thought in horror. For a timeless instant everything seemed frozen. Energy crackled from the depths of the round ship, flickering around Severance’s body as he stood poised with the pulser in his hand. For a few seconds he stood staring out at her, his face a mask of agony, and then he collapsed backward, out of sight. The black glare flashed again and then died out.

Cidra caught her breath in fear and raced forward, slamming to a halt at the opening in the ship. “Severance, where are you?” She could see nothing. The quartzflash no longer shone in the darkness. He was dead, Cidra thought in a flash of hysteria. No, it wasn’t possible. She refused to believe it. Frantically she started to scramble over the torn hull. She had one leg swung over the edge when she heard the heavy scrape of claws on metal.

Cidra froze. She knew with sure instinct that the long coffin-like case had opened. The shock of that knowledge was enough to make her feel dizzy. Clutching at every ounce of willpower she possessed, she started to edge back out of the ship. Slowly, her eyes never leaving the jagged opening, she backed away from the horror that lurked within. But her body seemed to be moving in slow motion. It was like a dream in which she was trapped, knowing that she should flee but finding herself unable to make her body respond.

The blue, leathery body appeared in the opening of the ship. Cidra was mesmerized by the shock of its size. As tall as a man but far heavier. Standing erect, its pale, iridescent blue belly looked obscenely shiny. The head was massive, built to hold the teeth of a predator. Red eyes gleamed with the flat, lethal, unemotional expression of a true reptile. The little appendages she had seen on the hatchling were indeed sickeningly handlike. One of them held Severance’s pulser.