The Omega Cage (19 page)

Once there, she saw what Sandoz had spotted. A few dozen meters away was a beast. It looked vaguely like holos she had once seen of a horse, but it was stumpier, with thicker legs and a fat, smooth, black body. The ears were large, almost leaf-shaped, and its tail was a hairless cord that nearly touched the ground. The thing appeared to be eating something on the sand.

Sandoz whispered, "Scanner, you know what it is?"

"Never saw anything like it," Scanner replied.

"Dangerous, do you think?" Chameleon said.

Dain said, "Probably not. It looks like a herbivore. It's nibbling one of those succulent plants, see?"

Dain pointed at the ground, and Juete could see that what he said was true. Then, though no one had moved, something must have startled the creature, for it suddenly whipped its head up and stared directly at them. It didn't seem to see them, but the animal snorted as if testing the air for scents. Then, abruptly, it turned and trotted off. Juete saw that the animal's feet were very broad and flat, almost semicircular. They kept it from sinking into the sand very far, despite its bulk.

"I wonder if they're good to eat," Raze said. "Those rations we have don't stick too well. And they won't last past tomorrow, no matter how we slice 'em."

"How're you planning to nail it, Raze? Scare it to death?"

Raze grinned at Chameleon. "You're the one whose got a face that would fry a security circuit. Maybe that's not a bad idea."

"Come on," Dain said. "Best we get moving again."

Juete stood and shook the sand out of her coverall. She was abruptly aware of Sandoz watching her movements, and she stopped. Better to be a little sandy than to give him any reason to heat up.

After another hour, it became apparent that they weren't going to make as much speed as Dain had hoped they would. It was fine on the flat stretches, where the sand was packed fairly tight, but on the slopes of the dunes it was two steps up and one step back. They sank to their knees, and Juete's lower legs were scraped and raw before they had walked ten kilometers. On the downside of the dunes, they could let gravity do a lot of the work, but they often fell, and rolling in sand was not enjoyable after walking in it for several hours.

They came to a sort of pass that meandered through several large dunes. The footing seemed almost solid, and Juete was grateful for small favors as she trudged along with the others. Scanner had taken the lead, followed by Raze and Dain, with Chameleon and Sandoz bringing up the rear behind Juete. It was by far the easiest walking they had done. If it stayed this way for a few more kilometers, they would be across the desert in another couple of hours…

Then, under the moonlight, Scanner yelled suddenly. Juete was looking right at him when he sank, disappearing into the sand like a man stepping onto the surface of a lake. Only one arm and hand remained in sight, and that was sinking rapidly.

As she watched, immobilized by shock and surprise. Scanner's hand vanished beneath the sand.

Stark stood under the lights outside of his personal storage shed, a prefab stress plastic block nestled behind the fence in the northeast corner of the Stores yard.

Thousands of insects buzzed the lights above. Weird shadows danced over him as the insects fitfully bounced against the glass of the HT lamps. The shed was locked, and would open only to the palm signature of his right hand. The warden stared at the translucent green building as if he could see through it to what was inside.

Don't panic
, he told himself.
It's not time yet
.

"Warden Stark?" came the voice from his com.

"Yes?"

"The search team leader is reporting in."

"Put it through."

"Copy. Stand by."

The team leader came on. "We've lasered half a dozen big animals in the swamp, but there's no sign of the prisoners, either visual or on sensors."

"What about the back trails? Any signs?"

"Ah, that's negative. Simmons says he's seen sand deer and a lot of dry ground, but no tracks. He's gotten some subsurface readings, but they've all turned out to be rocks or outcrops."

"Keep looking. They're out there."

"Unless they sank in the swamp or something ate them."

"Say again, search leader." His voice was cold and even.

He heard the man swallow. "Sorry, Warden. Search pattern continuing."

"Copy. Discom."

He walked to the stress plastic building and put one hand onto the surface.

Warm, even this late at night. He turned away. He was tired. He needed to rest.

The bastards were making him react, he was not in control, and he did not like it.

There was really no reason to worry. After all, he had the information from Maro, via Berque, to fall back upon.

Oh
? said the malevolent little voice inside his head.
Really? As slick as the
escape went, and Berque going with them; do you really think what Berque told
you is true? You know Maro was behind this escape, don't you? Remember how
he withstood the Zonn Chamber? You don't have anything for back-up here,
Stark old buddy, not a goddamn thing, so let's not fool ourselves, hey? Go and
take a nap, but don't stop worrying, because you've got
plenty
to worry about
.

Stark moved away from the small building toward the gate in the fence around Stores. Sleep, if he could manage it, that would help. He'd be better after a few hours of sleep.

He hoped…

Raze yelled "Chain up! Grab my arm!" at Maro. He reached out and caught her wrist, feeling her lock onto his at the same moment with powerful fingers. He extended his other arm, and Juete grabbed it with both hands. He spared her a glance in time to see Chameleon clutch Juete around the waist in a tight hug.

Sandoz was moving toward Chameleon, and Maro turned back toward Raze, who dropped to her knees, pulling Maro with her. The others went down, dominolike, as Raze jammed her free hand down into the sand, stirring the powdery substance as she groped for Scanner.

It seemed like a long time, but it could only have been a few seconds before she yelled again. "Got him!" Marc's shoulder felt like it was being torn loose as Raze contracted the muscles of her upper body. Scanner's hand cleared the sand, followed by his arm and then his head. He coughed violently as Raze, anchored by Maro and the others, dragged him free of the sand. His shoulders and chest appeared, then his hips. He pawed at the sand with his free hand as if swimming, and after a moment his feet came out of the treacherous ground.

"Back up!" Maro commanded.

The chain of people shuffled backward, dragging the still-coughing Scanner. In another moment they were clear of the trap.

Chameleon laughed, a release of tension, and Maro felt the urge to join him.

That had been close—

The ground started to vibrate. Two meters behind Scanner, the sand began to churn. It erupted upward suddenly into a cloud of fine particles and a rattle of…bones.

Maro saw clearly the dead, dry bones as they showered down, long ones, ribs, an oblong skull, thumping and sinking back out of sight into the sand.

Then, out of the sand came a nightmare.

It looked vaguely spiderlike, in that it had a lot of legs, but it seemed to be as big as Maro's cell. The limbs were short and paddle-shaped, and centered in the top of the fat, brown oblong body was a gaping hole surrounded by three or four sets of serrated pincers.
That would be the mouth
, Maro thought, almost calmly. The thing didn't seem to have any eyes, but then, it didn't seem to need any.

The sand monster scrabbled easily toward Scanner, its body tilted, hind legs rearing it up so that the mouth was almost parallel to the ground. Maro released Raze's wrist and grabbed for the flare pistol. He dropped it, snatched it up, and managed to get to his knees. The rest of it was almost instinctive. He pointed the weapon at the monster's open mouth and fired as fast as he could pull the trigger.

The gun spat four flares. Three of them went into the thing's maw before it could close the opening; the fourth flare hit the armored carapace as the mouth snapped shut, bounced high into the air trailing red, and landed twenty meters away to sizzle on the desert floor.

The monster opened its mouth again and screamed. Smoke poured out with the sound, and the light of the burning flares looked even redder than usual. The thing shook its body back and forth, then backed away. Maro caught the odor of burning tissue, a nidorous smell, as the thing roared again, its cry like that of a woman screaming in pain.

Without realizing his actions, Maro reloaded the flare pistol, then held it extended with both hands, aimed at the monster. It wasn't necessary. The thing's legs churned the surface, flippers showering Scanner and Raze with buckets of the fine, dustlike sand as the creature swiftly dug its way back out of sight. The ground rumbled for a moment, then faded to stillness.

Maro stood, flare gun still pointed at the now-quiet patch of almost liquid sand.

The others got to their feet. The silence was unbroken until Chameleon said,

"What the fuck was
that
!"

"I don't know," Maro said. "But 1 don't want to be anywhere near here if it comes back."

"Amen," Raze said.

Maro looked at her, then the others. "As long as we're on this kind of flat stretch, we hold hands. Anybody object to that?"

Nobody did. "I'll take the lead," Maro continued. "If I hit one of these traps, try and pull me out. If you can't, let go and run like hell."

From the looks on their faces, it didn't seem as if he would need to worry much about that.

Juete's energy was just about gone. She walked mechanically, glad to have Raze's hand on the one side and Scanner's on the other. They weren't walking single file any more, but at about a forty degree angle, with Dain leading. Any of them could step into another pit, but as bunched up as they were, it was likely Dain would hit it first.

"I don't think we'll run into another of those things for a while," Scanner said.

"What makes you think so?" Juete asked.

"I don't think the desert will support too many of them. They eat those horse-things, looks like, and we haven't seen a lot of them. Something that big must eat a fair amount, and if there were too many of them around, they'd starve."

Sandoz said, "That sounds pretty good, but what if the thing has more than one trap? I'd think it had a bunch— otherwise, it might be a long time before it caught anything."

"I think maybe this one won't be interested in checking his traps for a little while," Raze put in. "Too much pepper in its last meal."

Dain laughed at that, and the sound made Juete's pulse speed up. She liked hearing him laugh.

Both Scanner and Raze squeezed her hands then, almost at the same instant.

They had felt her joy, her excitement. She felt as if she could trust Scanner and Raze, at least for now, and she returned the hand pressure. She had learned the hard way that you had to take your friends where you could find them. And friends were something to look for, especially when you were as vulnerable as were the albinos of Rim.

The moons began to set, and the sky gradually grew darker, even under the luminous swath of stars that swept across the heavens. The six escapees walked across the sea of sand, still alive for now. That was something, at least. They weren't dead yet, and that was in itself a kind of miracle.

But they hadn't really escaped yet, either. If Dain and Scanner's mining site was there, if they could get a vehicle working and if the warden's guards didn't find them, then they had a chance. It was a lot of "ifs," she knew, and any one of them could short the whole plan. And another whole set of questions lay beyond these: could they get a ship and get offworld? That was the only way they would stay alive, and that was the biggest worry of all.

Juete mentally shrugged. One miracle at a time.

Chapter Twenty-One

Stark awoke just before dawn, after no more than two or three hours of sleep. He lay on the bed for a few minutes, but knew he wasn't going to recapture that blessed unconsciousness. He got up, showered and dressed, and went to his office.

He felt a little better than he had; some sleep was better than none. He powered up his desk terminal. Time to review his options.

There were things he could do to catch the prisoners. He could call Omega City for help. They would footprint the likely routes of the escapees with one of their looksats, and probably pick up the bastards within a pass or two. That would solve one problem, but it wouldn't do him any good personally. Getting them back wasn't as important as keeping quiet the fact that they were out in the first place. He knew there was no way he could keep a lid on it forever; eventually, it would get out. But if he caught them before it happened, then it would not be a real escape. The Confed might grumble, but I-took-care-of-it-myself was a prime defense for any kind of military snafu.

He could keep his men searching for another day or two in hopes of nailing the runners. He could expect that much time before Kamaaj really started throwing his weight around. By then, he could smile and blandly assure the SDI ghoul that there had been some trouble, but it was all in the past, and here's Maro for you.

Juete? Oh, she had an accident. Dead, I'm afraid. Cremated, of course. Pity, but there it is. Fortunes of war, what?

As a last resort, there was the Juggernaut—that option was becoming more attractive all the time. He still might be able to use it and keep it quiet long enough to dump it where it would never be found.

Or he could always simply open a line to Confed HQ for the sector, tell them he had an escape, and throw himself upon their mercy. Which would be rather like throwing himself upon a thicket of poisoned spikes.

None of the solutions seemed very appealing, but it wasn't time to panic yet. In two more days he would make the hard decisions. Until then, he would keep things as they were.