Zero Recall (42 page)

“
Crack you, Huouyt,
”
Flea snapped.  “
I’ve killed three of them so far.  We do this together.
”

“
You’re not doing it
at all,
” Joe said.  “
Get back here.  All three of you.  Scarab will dig
us a tunnel all the way to the den.
”

“
That will use up all
of my secretions,
” Scarab said quickly.  “
At this distance, if I hit a
main corridor, I won’t be able to back up and seek out a slave tunnel.  We’d be
down there without an escape route.
”

“
I think the three of
us can take out the defenders,
” Daviin insisted.

“
Think about it,
goddamn it,
” Joe snapped.  “
Instead of six battalions on each prince
this time, we’ve got three
groundteams. 
They’ve got more Takki to go
around, and just like last time, they knew we were coming.  Except this time,
they know where we’re planning our tunnel penetration.  The Takki are a
distraction.  They’ll have Dhasha waiting for us there, too.  Now get your
asses back here before you’re seen.
”

Joe realized suddenly
that it was his three most stubborn groundmates who were out there, and all
three of them had told him to go to hell in the past.  If they didn’t agree
with him, they were just as likely to keep doing things their way as come back
to regroup.

Please don’t turn this
into a fight,
Joe prayed. 

Jer’ait, to his surprise,
was the first to return.  He had found a stream or river along the way, for he
had shed his Jikaln pattern and was once more in Huouyt form, his violet eye
oozing irritation.  He said nothing as he climbed into the Grekkon’s hole,
simply hunkered down and inserted something into the vertical slit in his
head.  The red wormy appendages of his
zora
slipped out to take it, and
immediately his body grew squatter, his muscles and flesh condensing in a
shifting that looked both painful and revolting.  Still, no matter how many
times he saw the Huouyt take a new pattern, Joe could not look away.

Flea and Daviin arrived
later, though neither of them showed any of the anger Joe feared.

“
All right,
” Joe
said, “
Let’s go, Scarab.
”

The Grekkon did not
move.  “
You’re talking about two ferlii lengths of extrusion, if not more. 
I will be useless to you afterwards, if I even make it to the tunnels.
”

“
Do it,
” Joe
said.  “
This will be an easy crawl anyway.
”

“
It’s never an easy
crawl,
” Scarab said, its four black eyes staring back at him.  Then,
slowly, the Grekkon bowed its two spearlike appendages until they almost
touched the ground.  “
But you are Prime.
”

Scarab wordlessly began
backing into the soil behind him at an imperceptible angle towards the Dhasha
den.  He was gone so fast that Joe and the others had trouble keeping up.

They were panting by the
time the Grekkon backed into a slave tunnel and reversed.  Jer’ait and Flea
took opposite directions and disappeared down the tunnels as Joe rigged a mask
for the entrance.

“
Clear toward the
surface,
” the Baga said.  “
The end is sealed maybe ninety rods up.
”

“
No Takki guarding it?
”
Daviin asked.

“
If there are, they’re
not on this side.
”

“
Good,
” Joe said. 
“
Get back down here.  Jer’ait, what do you see?
”

“
Tunnel’s different
from all the slave tunnels I’ve ever seen,
” Jer’ait said slowly.  “
There’s
less confusion about where the tunnels want to go.
”

“
I agree,
” the
Baga said.  “
None of that up and down and sideways crack.  I can go full
bore and not worry about slamming into a wall.
”

“
Another oddity,
”
Jer’ait added, “
There’s no side tunnels so far.  No Takki, either.
”

“
Probably won’t find
any until we start hitting other tunnels.  Jer’ait, stay there.  Flea, Daviin,
go down there and meet him.  Scarab, stay here and guard our way out.
”  As
Flea sped past at almost fifty lengths an hour, Joe switched his headcom to
broadcast to the other three groundteams who were supposed to making the
insertion with them.  “
Teams One and Three, you make it?
”

Nothing.

“
We’re on our own
again,
” Joe said, after he repeated his request.  He glanced at Galek,
signaling for him to wait to follow the others into the slave tunnel.  “
Flea,
you catch up with Jer’ait yet?
”

“
Caught up and passed,
”
Flea announced.  “
Still no connections.
”

Joe frowned.  “
How far
have you gone?
”

“
I don’t know.  A long
way.
”

“
And no connecting
tunnels?
”

“
No, Commander.
”

Joe blinked at the added
‘Commander.’  He wondered if the Baga was being sarcastic.  “
All right, go
another hundred rods.  If you don’t find anything, stop.  This might not be a
deep den.  We might’ve found something else.
”

“
Like what?
” Galek
asked.

“
I was told this
planet used to belong to the Trosska.  Mineral-rich.  Had some ruvmestin
pockets.  We could be in a mine shaft.
”

The Baga obeyed, then
said, “
I went a ways further and still see nothing.
”

“
All right,
” Joe
said, “
Everybody stay where you are.  Flea, go find out what’s at the end.
”

“
Flea?
” Joe asked,
after a couple tics.

“
Still going,
”
Flea responded.  “
No connections so far.
”

“
Nobody would dig a
tunnel like this without a reason for it.  Let us know as soon as you find
something.
”

Ten tics later, Flea
said, “
I think I found a slave tunnel.
”

Joe sat up.  “
Ghosts. 
How deep are you?
”

“
I don’t know, but
it’s crackin’ hot.  A furnace.  I’m surprised the walls aren’t glowing.
”

“
What makes you think
it’s a slave tunnel?
” Jer’ait asked.

“
There’s Takki
crawling in and out of it.
”

“
Ash,
” Joe said. 
“How
deep did you say you were?
”

“
Deep enough to make
my
abbas
feel like they’re drying out.
”

“
Probably a length or
two,
” Daviin said.  “
On Vora, we dig deep because we like it hot.
”

“
Flea, take a guess on
the temp,
” Joe said.

“
A lot warmer than
your skin.  Almost like the casing on a
haauk
generator after it’s been
running a few hours.
”

“
Soot,
” Joe
cursed.
 
“
That’d kill me without my biosuit.  Jer’ait, you gonna be
okay down there?
”

“
I doubt it.  Huouyt
cannot operate in conditions over sixty-nine-point-three grads Standard for
long.  Even in another species’ pattern, our
zora
begin to lose
functionality once they reach sixty-nine grads.  After our core temperature
reaches the breaking point and remains there for more than four tics, our zora
will go into hibernation and we will lose our pattern, thereby quickening our
demise, as our natural bodies are aquatic.
”

“
Are you trying to
tell me it’d kill you to go down there with him?
”

“
It’s a strong
possibility, Commander.
”

Joe glanced at the
Grekkon, who was sulking in the small trap-hole he had dug in the wall with his
remaining secretions.  They were down two teammates and they hadn’t even met
the enemy yet.

“
Flea, how easily do
you think you could follow those Takki you’re seeing?
”

“
It’d be easier to
pluck the scales off a live Dhasha than get through there unseen.
”

“
Too many Takki?
”

“
That, and the
tunnel’s small.
”

“
Too small for Daviin
to slip through?
”

“
He could make it
through, but the Takki would know he’s there.
”

“
How about deeper in
the shaft we’re in?  There might be another entrance.
”

“
You want me to go
deeper?
 
Any deeper and my wings are gonna catch fire.
”

“
Go deeper,
” Joe
ordered.

The Baga did not report
for another tic.  Finally, he said, “
There’s another tunnel, but it’s too
small for Daviin.  Joe, you might be able to make it, but you’d have to crawl
on your stomach.  That fat Ooreiki would get stuck.  Damn, it’s hot down here.
”

Coldness traced along
Joe’s spine as he listened to the Baga’s report.  He was once more all too
aware of a tunnel crawl fifty turns before, one in which they had lost his
groundteam’s flag and Joe had been utterly too terrified to go back and look
for it—and had subjected his entire platoon to a suicidal frontal assault
instead.  “
Flea, see if you can find a bigger tunnel.
”

“
This is it,
” Flea
said.  “
The last one down.  All the others were crawling with Takki.  This
one looks like some sort of waste shaft.  Got a little stream running out of it. 
Probably comes right out of the prince’s watering hole.
”

“
Did anyone see you?
”
Joe asked.

“
No.  One thing about
these Takki…they’ve got vision like a Jreet.
”

“
I see well enough to
whip you at dice, Baga.
”

“
Tonight we’ll try
cards, Jreet.  When I’m finished with you, you’ll slither back to Vora crying
like a Cu’it slave.
”

“
Like you cried last
night after losing all your credits?
”

“
It’s hot down here. 
Commander, if you don’t need me, I’m getting back to somewhere cooler.
”

“
Check out the
tunnel,” Joe ordered.  “If it goes to the den, that’s where we’ll make our
insertion.
”

The Baga said nothing for
several more tics.  Then, “
Yep.  Straight to the deep den.  My scanner says
there’s twelve adults in here, not counting the females, though none over five digs. 
The prince himself is only a little bigger.  Lots of young, though, and I’m
pretty sure some of them are small enough to fit in the slave tunnels.  Want me
to stick the prince?
”

Joe took a deep breath. 
“
No.  I’m coming down with you.  Meet me at the tunnel entrance.
”

“
What about the rest
of us?
” Daviin asked.

“
Stay where you are
right now.  I’m gonna go check out the situation in the deep den first.
”

It took Joe almost two
hours to get down to the Baga without alerting the Takki.  His stomach did a
flip when he saw the tiny opening the Baga had found.  Water trickled in a
warm, brackish rivulet along the floor.  Joe could imagine his body plugging
the hole like a stopper in a vial, and his subsequent drowning as the water
piled up around him, with nowhere to go.

Ghosts of the Mothers,
he wants me to crawl in
there?

“
Well?
” Flea
demanded.  “
Can you do it or not, counter?
”

“
I can fit,
” Joe
said, more strongly than he felt.

“
So who you want to go
first?
”

“
You,
” Joe said. 
“
I might block the tunnel for you.
”

“
You might block it
behind me, too, counter.  Then we’d both be stuck down there.
”

“
Just get your ass in
the tunnel.
”

Flea made a disgusted
noise and obeyed.  For his part, Joe stared at tiny tunnel entrance until he
could feel the heat that had nothing to do with temperature slickening his neck
and palms. 
God hates a coward
, he thought, with more determination than
he felt.

Reluctantly, Joe got on
his knees and pushed his gun into the darkened entrance.  The tunnel sloped up,
not down.  As such, it was not going to afford Joe the advantage of being out
of reach in the high ground when the shit hit the fan.  What was worse, if he
didn’t move fast enough when the Dhasha started attacking, it would pluck him
out of his hole as easily as a robin pulling out a worm.

Taking a deep breath, Joe
got onto his stomach and eased his head and shoulders into the tunnel. 
Immediately, the brackish stink of water assaulted his senses.  The walls of
the tunnel almost touched his back, and his arms had only ninths on either side. 
Joe tried not to think of the stream running around his waist and legs as he
pushed himself deeper into the tunnel.

The further he went, the
greater the sensation that he was trapped. 
If I have to back out, I won’t
make it.  I’ll wedge myself in and the water will build up and I’ll have
nowhere to go…

Finally, Joe had to close
his eyes and concentrate to calm his breathing.

“A little claustrophobic,
Commander?” Flea asked.

Joe cried out and tried
to stand, only succeeding in straining his body against the ceiling of the
tunnel.  “
You son of a bitch!
” Joe snapped through his headcom, barely
able to avoid shouting out loud.  He located the Baga hidden in a crevice in
the rock ceiling ahead.  Only the faceted burgundy eyes were visible in the
shadows, watching him.

“
What happened?
”
Daviin asked quickly.

Joe closed his eyes and
tried to slow his heartbeat.  “
Nothing.  Stay where you are.  I’m almost to
the den.
”