The Trilisk Supersedure (17 page)

Cilreth
looked at the Trilisk corridors. Long and straight. Sometimes as long as half a
kilometer.

Cilreth
found another case. She took out a sniper’s weapon: a powerful three-shot laser
with a tripod and a scope. The weapon wasn’t a rifle since it had no need for a
long barrel, but it could deliver a lot of energy accurately at great
distances.

Maybe I
could kill it from a long ways away.

Cilreth
tossed her machete to shed some weight and slid the three-shot over her shoulder.
She left the case on the ground and gave the scout that had carried the rifle
case one of her own containers. She told the scouts to carry the last load to
the
Clacker
, then headed off toward the other building. She recalled her
favorite danger mantra.

The
twitch is already killing me anyway.

She
left the tiny train of scouts and headed for the building. When she got there,
she realized her oversight immediately. She faced an ancient wall with two of
the grilles built into it. And she hadn’t brought anything to dig them out
with.

“You
are the most miserable planner that ever existed,” Cilreth said to herself.
Telisa had been carrying Shiny’s digging device at the time they separated.
Cilreth considered her rifle. It was a high-powered weapon, but shooting each
grille out would eat through her ammo quickly. The weapon was at least much
quieter than Magnus’s incredibly loud rifle.

“Okay,
just check the perimeter first,” she said, still angry at herself for
forgetting about the grilles. She turned and looked all around for a moment.
Without any scout machines nearby, it rested upon her to be more alert than
ever.

Movement
caught her eye. Another of the tree clumps was dropping green worms. In all the
action, she had forgotten completely about the tiny things. She saw a small
clear creature pluck up a worm and pull it back toward the fissure where the
stalks emerged. Then she saw another do the same.

“Ah,
when the worms move, it’s feasting time—”

A huge
creature registered on Cilreth’s mind. It had been standing there the whole
time, next to the shedding plant, though its coloration made it look like a
stand of plants itself. It was a horror of knobby legs and green tufts, a
lobster-like monster. Cilreth saw a terrifyingly wide trap of a mouth with a
hundred tendrils along the top and bottom edges. She knew instantly, utterly,
her life was in danger.

She
raised her rifle, but the thing attacked first. Four long spikes shot out
toward her as fast as arrows. She felt an impact on the front of her suit and
another on the top of her right leg. She shot the laser but missed as something
yanked her forward. The weapon had no seeking projectiles, and it was not
configured to lock onto something that looked like a stand of plants.

Cilreth
realized the spines it had shot toward her
were still attached
to the
monster. A wail rose from her throat as the tendrils began to take up more
slack.

The
damn thing is reeling me in; then I go into that Venus flytrap mouth—

Terror
turned into a cold need that set aside her emotions. The laser lined up for
another shot. A powerful yank of the tendrils sent her hopping forward a meter.
The thing was closer now, easier to hit…

She
activated the fire command. This time she hit her mark. A third of the pack’s
charge went into cooking the creature from the inside out. It burst into flame
and made a squeal grotesquely similar to that of a real lobster dropped into
boiling water.

The
tendrils’ pull subsided as the thing died. Cilreth dropped onto her backside.

Shouldn’t
I feel pain? Have I been poisoned? Paralyzed?

Cilreth
drew a deep breath. She heard a sound like a frightened schoolgirl. She looked
down at herself. Two of the spikes were embedded in her, one in her chest and
one in her leg. She looked away and closed her eyes. She couldn’t feel the
pain. It must be blocked out like the initial stage of a gunshot wound.

Oh no.

One
shuddering breath later she looked again. She grabbed a spine and moved it a
bit. The spines had hook tips, but they were caught in her suit, not her flesh.
The last layer had protected her from the attack, but the biological spear
hooks were caught on her suit.

She
grabbed the one sticking from her chest and pulled. It was stuck firmly.

I didn’t
bring the damn machete. Holy Entities…

She did
not lament long about the lack of a machete. She was still alive, and that was
what was important. Cilreth came to her senses and considered her other
equipment. There should be a smaller knife in her pack. She looked around for
other creatures, but didn’t see anything threatening. She flicked a green worm
away in disgust.

Her
pack slid off her back as she lay there, allowing her to search for the knife.
She found the tool, then cut away the tendrils. They were strong but no match
for the sharp alloy.

I
should have gone back to the
Clacker
. I should never have
left it.

The
scare had been severe, but she had been lucky. She tried to calm her nerves.
Telisa might still be depending on her. Once Cilreth cut herself free, she
tried to work the spines out of her protection. As she worked she ran the suit
diagnostic. It reported some damage but judged itself to remain 95 percent
effective.

Once
she dropped the spines free on the ground before her, thoughts of returning to
the ship assailed her again. But she decided to keep looking for Telisa.

How
much worse could it get? I don’t want to find out.

She
walked toward the next corner with her stunner in her hand. Her gaze even
flitted upward occasionally, looking for anything lurking on the roof. The
other wall of the building had one grille opening, but the grille was missing.

“Yes!
Wait. Who did that?”

Cilreth
checked over her shoulder, then took out a flashlight. She directed the
powerful beam into the entrance. She saw just another ruined Konuan room.
Scraps of cloth or paper, a few old plant stalks, and a small rock carved into
something. Something with three arms and three legs.

Creepy.

Cilreth
knelt down and slid through the entrance. She paused to let her eyes adjust.
She examined the little statuette again.

Wait.
That’s important. It shows they knew the Trilisks were here. Either that, or it’s
a bizarre coincidence. If a child has twenty toy monsters, what are the chances
one of them accidentally looks like the alien race living below her? Focus,
Cilreth. Telisa needs you.

She
checked her tunnel map in her link. Straight ahead. The grille that direction
was missing, too.

Someone
else has done this. But it looks like it was a long time ago.

She
crawled through to the next room, and the next. All she saw was rotten garbage
and a few old pieces of oxidized metal. She kept an eye out for more little
statues, but she did not catch sight of anything similar. She came to the room
above the tunnel.

The
center of the room held a circular opening leading straight down. Just like
where she had been separated from Telisa. As soon as she saw it, Cilreth
nervously checked the ceiling. She started to shake.

Dammit,
dammit, dammit. I’m such a damn coward.

She
turned her stealth suit on to calm down. It helped a bit. The suit still had a
lot of juice. She decided to leave it on as a crutch, at least until it showed
a third of its energy store was expended. She would use it now to get a grip,
but she would make sure and leave plenty for if, or when, she really needed it.

I’m not
really an explorer. I’m just a private investigator. Of the deskbound type.

Cilreth
had a smart rope in her pack. She took it out with her suit’s ghostly outline
service turned on in her PV, to help orient herself while invisible. The rope
anchored itself and prepared to bring her down to the tunnel below.

She
took a deep breath and descended.

At the
bottom, Cilreth pulled the sniper rifle off her shoulder. She activated the
scope with her link and flipped through various low-light options. She saw the
tunnel ahead in various frequencies of light, but none of them revealed any
potential dangers.

She
followed the long, smooth tunnel. She kept flipping through low-light settings
until she saw a light ahead. It came from a larger room at the end. She slowed
as she approached. No sounds disturbed the long tunnel.

Cilreth
raised the rifle before her and took one step at a time. The room looked smooth
walled and of advanced make, as if constructed of one piece of metal or
plastic. There was no dust. Everything there looked brand new. The room had
three pillars extending from floor to ceiling. Each column was black and
silver, wide, way too thick for her to wrap her arms around. In fact, she felt
threatened by the fact she couldn’t see what might be hiding behind them. Two
other tunnels exited the room.

Cilreth
walked over to the nearest pillar. “Telisa, where the hell are you? I don’t
know anything about Trilisk stuff.”

Cilreth
examined the massive pillar. It was way overbuilt, simply thicker than a metal
pillar would have to be to support the ceiling. The other three pillars were
the same thickness. Cilreth carefully touched the surface. The metal was smooth
but it didn’t feel warm or cold.

“How
can this be human body temperature? Ridiculous,” she noted aloud. She tapped
the surface. Did it sound hollow? She wasn’t sure.

What’s
in there?

Cilreth
felt a vibration. There was a sound. A low humming. She stepped away.

Suddenly
the top of the pillar was dropping. Cilreth realized the surface had been
moving from the moment she felt the vibration, but it had been so smooth she
hadn’t seen it moving. In the next second the top had dropped almost to the
level of her head. Cilreth took several steps back and aimed her heavy laser.

What am
I shooting at?

The
pillar’s outer clasp continued to drop. In another couple of seconds, she would
know.

A clear
tube had been revealed beyond the outer wall of the column. The last bit of the
sheath sunk into the floor. It was filled with…

“Ugh,”
she grunted. “What
is
that crap? Green moss?”

The
inside of the tube had been stuffed with a fluffy green material. The mass must
have been more than her own weight, unless it was extremely light. The color
was darker than the plants above, she decided. But the closer she looked, the
more she realized the mass had shape.

A
massive, three-legged, three-armed shape.

By the
Five!

Cilreth’s
hands wavered wildly. She dropped the barrel of her compact rifle lower, then
looked around the room in case she had been so taken aback that something had
approached unnoticed. But it was only her, her two attendant spheres, the three
covered pillars, and the massive, fuzzy green derelict in the tube.

If
Telisa was running from that thing, she may have hidden in one of these. Shit.
She may be suffocating in one right now. She could be in one of the other
three!

She
took a deep breath and tried to gather her wits yet again. Her shaking
subsided. The thing in the tube, Trilisk or not, looked very dead. Rather
crumpled toward the bottom of the tube and utterly still. Had the Trilisks
looked like that in life?

Cilreth
walked over to another of the massive cylinders.

“So,
how did I do that?”

She
touched the pillar. Then she spoke quietly, “What’s inside?”

The hum
returned. The pillar was opening.

This is
madness. How can the Trilisks know how to interpret the brain of a Terran and
open on command? It’s not like vastly different creatures across the galaxy
could possibly have any universal wiring or patterns that would allow a machine
to simply—

This
time the clear cylinder revealed was empty. It lit up with a violet outline of
a human brain. The walls of the tube rotated with thousands of glowing symbols.
Even as Cilreth watched, the brain pulsed with activity. She watched flashes of
light dart here and there through the brain as the symbols danced across the
surface of the tube.

A
brain. My brain? It is showing me…it has analyzed me, read me; it understands
me as easily as I can read a network service driver…

Cilreth
realized she was standing, mouth open, weapon dangling from her hand like a
mesmerized idiot.

“Telisa.
Where’s Telisa?” she asked the pillar.

The
display shifted. A new shape appeared. It was a flat, complex creature. The
rendering of the creature was transparent to display some of its inner
workings. An apparent nervous system flashed green. Cilreth couldn’t see any
centralized brain; its nerves were laid out in a grid like some kind of
well-organized electronics project.