A Planet For Emily

CHAPTER TWELVE

Suzanne pulled on the protective coat Rods had given to her, only to find that her arms were completely lost in the sleeves. The image she saw in the mirror in her cabin was that of a shapeless blob. The coat was meant to be a jacket but fell almost to her knees.

“It’s too big for me,” she yelled.

“Roll up the sleeves and put on the belt, Cruise,” Rods yelled back from the wardroom.

Suzanne rolled up the sleeves, belted up the coat and strapped on a soldier’s helmet which Rods had also produced from the lockers but again was too big for her; inspected herself, despairingly in the closet mirror and went into the wardroom.

Rods laughed.

“A fiercesome sight.”

“I look ridiculous.”

“What do you want to be, fashionable or alive? Do you have any trouble moving?”

“No, the coat is light. The material is strange.”

“It moves like cloth but if you hit it hard it forms into panels. Should stop bullets, and maybe even knives which are a different proposition, but you will be sore afterwards. Amazing stuff.”

“Is this another item from these remainder bins?”

“Something like that. The military that escaped the Zards ended up selling whatever they had just to eat. What about your head? That helmet is too heavy for you.”

“It’s light, and I strapped it on tight liked you said.” Suzanne moved her head from side to side to demonstrate.

“Good! You’ve set your earpiece in place? Remember your mike.” Rods pulled the microphone on Suzanne’s helmet down and switched on the helmet comms unit. “We’ll be able to talk to one another.” He touched a switch on his own helmet and the earpiece in Suzanne’s left ear came alive. “Everyone online. Con, Igor, Max?”

“Here,” they chorused. Con was on the bridge and Igor was already in the shuttle.

“Suzanne?”

“Roger!”

“Who’s Roger?”

“Isn’t that what people say when checking in?”

“It’s good enough. You have Mr. Glock for close encounters and Mr. Sig Saur as a backup date?”

Suzanne produced both weapons from different pockets, demonstrated that Mr. Glock had been tied onto her belt with a lanyard and put them back.

“Ammunition loaded?”

“Full magazines and spares in pockets and boxes more with Igor in the shuttle, sir.” She gave Rods what she imagined was a military salute.

“Battlefield conditions, Cruise,” said Rods rubbing his hands together. “No saluting. We’re set. The equipment’s loaded and the nest’s had time to settle down for the night. Let’s get some in Cruise!” He held out his fist to her. “We’re assault infantry.”

She looked at Rods and then at the fist, puzzled.

“You’re meant to hit my fist with yours.”

“Oh. Okay.” She did so, gently.

“That’s not the assault infantry style.”

“I’m not assault whatever,” she protested. “I’m a cruise director with a gun.”

Rods positioned the shuttle well above the gargoyles guarding the hive entrance. He attached the mask to the vacuum suit he was wearing, as he would be starting in thin atmosphere, and strapped on the grav pack he had shown to Suzanne when they were preparing to visit the valley.

“Stay in the shuttle cockpit, Cruise,” he said through the radio link. “If I can clear the entrance without raising the alarm Max will drop the shuttle close to the hole, then get out and join me. Take care.”

With that he stepped into the airlock and dropped out the other side.

Rods had jumped before, but only in vacuums and was surprised by the rush of thin air. He tumbled and gasped.

“What’s wrong?” said Suzanne, who was watching the whole thing on Rod’s helmet cam.

Rods slowed his descent then flipped on his front. A faint memory of pictures of people falling through an atmosphere on earth – parachutists, was the term – made him spread out his arms and legs. After a couple of tries in the steadily thickening air, he found he could balance.

“What’s happening?”

“Cruise, this is fun!”

Back in the shuttle, Suzanne sniffed.

Rods checked the screen strapped to his wrist, set up to show his height and where he was in relation to the hive entrance. Almost right above it, but drifting. The grav pack could also move laterally. He adjusted it to drift back and looked for the gargoyle sentries. The planet had no moon to speak of but only a few, thin clouds to obscure the starlight. Once low enough to depressurise he did so, pushing back his breathing mask – after years of controlled atmospheres, the cold wind on his face was a delight – and slipped on light-amplification goggles. There they were! The airborne gargoyle sentries were just below him; one a hundred meters or so higher than the other. He drew his favorite pistol – the latest in a long line of Heckler & Koch weapons equipped with a laser sight and, at a small additional cost, a silencer. Rods had got the weapon in a side deal at about the same time as the shuttle (where the special forces grade weapon had come from wasn’t his concern) and had practiced with it in stopovers at Fin’s Reef until he was lethal. But he had never had a chance to use it in earnest. It was far too high-powered for anti-jacking work. Now the weapon’s time had come, however, he found he had trouble fitting his gloved finger between the trigger and trigger guard. For the moment any killing that had to be done would be up close and personal.

The higher gargoyle called – a caw! sound much like that of a crow on Earth but high and clear in the wind. Thinking he had been spotted, Rods stayed his descent for the moment, hanging there, adjusting for wind drift. It was just a routine call. The other gargoyle answered, fortunately without even looking up. Rods continued drifting slightly down towards his target. The creature sensed the trader’s presence a moment before Rods wrapped one arm around its body and pressed the muzzle of his silencer against its skull and pulled the trigger.

The dead creature proved surprisingly heavy, dragging Rods down He dropped the pistol – it was tied securely to his belt – and yanked on the control stick to prevent an unseemly collision with the second sentinel. He steadied and, still holding the first gargoyle - he dare not let it fall – Rods dropped on the second, wrapping his legs around it, and grabbing the pistol with his free hand. The creature’s head turned to see a huge alien creature about to engulf it and opened its mouth to call an alarm. Like its fellow the creature took a hole in its skull before being able to utter a sound. Burdened with two gargoyles plus a human the grav pack whined in protest. Rods started to fall in earnest.

There were four lizard guards around the round entrance to the hive, which was a hole in the top of the mound. These were mostly looking out in different directions but two were together, apparently in conversation. As the spaceman watched one of the other proto-Zard sentries glanced at the two in conversation, and then went back to its own chore of staring out into the dark landscape. Rods wondered what the guards could be talking about considering that they had spent all day together in the hive and had some link to the queen’s communal mind. Soon it wouldn’t matter. Holding a dead gargoyle under one arm, with his legs wrapped around another he had one hand spare for the joy stick. He used what little capacity the grav pack had left to influence his fall to drift to just above the chatter-box guards when he let the gargoyles fall.

The chatting guards yelped and staggered, making the other two turn around. But it still took a few moments of staring at the dead flyers before any of the sentries thought to look up. Released from its extra burdens the grav pack braked Rods fall. He was able to turn, out of sight in the darkness, touch down lightly and lie flat, stripping off his gloves. The four guards couldn’t see anything above them or around them. This was not how an attack from any of the other colonies along the valley was supposed to occur. Where were the attackers? Rods thought he had moments before they called the alarm. He crept forward.

“Are you alright?” whispered Suzanne.

“Shhh!“

Now he would see if his hours with the pistol, and considerable cost in ammunition, had paid off, not to mention the pistol’s laser sights to mark targets and his light amplification goggles. He put the red dots on the skulls of the two closest guards, the chatterers, as they looked down at the gargoyle bodies. Already bent forward they collapsed on top of the two gargoyles. One of the other two guards, who had still not seen Rods, hurried forward to see why his companions had collapsed. The other, with greater presence of mind, opened its snout to let out a yell and got out a yip before passing into proto-Zard Valhalla. The now sole survivor turned his head to see his companion collapse. That was enough for an alarm, but before it could give the warning cry the creature was hit in the shoulder – firing on the run, Rods had missed – which spun it around. It got out a single yell before also being hit again in the head, falling to its knees to teeter on the lip of the entrance. Rods raced forward. Nothing would announce his arrival like having a body fall through the entrance to land with a messy thud below.

Deep within the hive Ja-lar broke her meditation. Something had happened in her hive, she thought, irritated. Those who disturbed her meditation with un-hive like activity would pay dearly. She listened, felt for unusual vibrations and reached out with her mind to her many children. Nothing. She drifted off into meditation again.

Rods grabbed the creature around the neck and pulled, just stopping the heavy Proto-Zard from toppling into the entrance. He braced himself, flipped the grav pack over to pull and, with another whine of protest from the pack dragged the creature away from the lip. It had been like wrestling with a tree. He switched off the grav pack and listened. Nothing. He went down on his stomach and crawled forward, pistol out, and listened at the lip of the hole. He could hear a faint twittering from somewhere in the hive, rising and falling in a slow rhythm, but it was not changing. Rods supposed that the guard must be changed at some point, but as he had expected, the security plan did not take into account the possibility that all six sentries would be taken out, quietly, by a gun wielding lunatic Earthman with a grav pack.

“Suzanne, all clear,” he whispered into his mike. “Max, Con, send the shuttle down quietly, as we discussed.”

“I really don’t want to be a sentry in any place you want to get into,” said Suzanne.

Rods smiled.

The shuttle was landed, stern towards the nest entrance, some 50 meters down the mound, much to Suzanne’s disgust.

“Why not go right up near the hole?” she asked, having jogged uphill with Igor. Many hours on the treadmill had paid off. She was not puffing.

Rods had stripped off the vacc suit and changed into his own short, protective vest.

“Voice down, Cruise,” he whispered. “Because I want to disturb the nest as little as possible before we go in, and the best way to do that is not to park alien spaceships right up against the entrance. There are thousands of worker gargoyles in there and if they wake up they’ll swarm on any intruder.

“Oh.”

“Igor, no shooting until I say otherwise.”

“No shooting,” repeated Igor. “Am I ahead or behind?”

“Behind for now.”

“Always behind,” said the robot, a little sadly, Suzanne thought.

“Don’t worry you may be in front later and not like it.”

“I like being in front.”

“Enough chit chat,” said Rods. He attached a cable from Igor to the grav pack. “Remember Cruise. We need to be quiet down there. If you see something dangerous, you do not shriek, yell warnings or otherwise make a noise. What do you do?”

“I tap you on the shoulder and whisper ‘look, we’re about to be killed’, in a quiet, orderly way. Anyway, I do not shriek, I’ll have you know. I cry with measured alarm.”

“That still means being loud. You ready? This is the intimate part.”

He stood on the lip of the entrance. Suzanne nodded stepped up and wrapped her arms around Rods neck, turning her face away. She found his hold comforting.

“Were you ever married or engaged?” asked Suzanne. She had asked that question before, without getting a reply.

“Shhh, Cruise. I was engaged once. She made me read Jane Austin. Now shut up.”

They jumped. Suzanne, her eyes tightly closed, was aware of a floating sensation, the whir of the grav pack and then she hit the floor with a thud, her arms still around Rods neck.

“Sorry! Grav pack has trouble with both our weights.”

“You shouldn’t be so heavy,” she whispered back, stepping away and putting on her light enhancement goggles. The inside of the mound was still dim but she could see they were in a vast cylindrical space rimmed by a series of galleries that were like human floors, connected by ramps at precise intervals, running up to the entrance hole all made out of what might have been a calcium shell, like that of a sea shell. All was still and silent, but for a faint twitter, rising and falling in a steady cycle.

“See the ramps,” whispered Rods into Suzanne’s ear.

“Yes.”

“If we find lots of colonists they’ll have to walk up those, unless I blow a new hole in the hive.”

“Can you do that?”

“Not keen on it as that will excite the proto-Zards no end, but if we walk up I think it means we have to pass the entrances to the big worker dormitories part way up.”

“Oh.”

Rods dropped a relay so that Con and Max could keep track of them – Max would make maps as they went – and they moved out. After delving through what little was known of Zard social organisation, and the even sparser material on proto-Zards, Rods’ best guess was that any humans left would be held somewhere in the western part of the hive, as that was where the queen was likely to be.

Suzanne quickly lost all sense of direction in what proved to be a honeycomb of chambers joined together haphazardly, without the benefit of doors. A number were empty. One was the armoury for the fighting proto-Zards they had seen, with racks of spears, helmets and shields. Other rooms had primitive electronic equipment – “look at that, vacuum tubes” whispered Rods excitedly. Suzanne got the impression that he would have liked to have stayed and played. They moved on. Another room had what appeared to be giant mushrooms, and a few long, low cocoons, which they moved through quickly. There was no sign of the colonists, and their uninvited tour of the colony was becoming extended.

“Taking too long, guys,” said Con through their earphones, as if reading Suzanne’s thoughts.

“Any movement on the mound?”

“Nothing, yet.”

“Why can’t these guys build corridors and put up signs,” grumbled Rods.

They heard shuffling behind them. Both Rods and Suzanne saw two proto-Zards at the far end of the chamber they were in, carrying one of the cocoons between them. Why the creatures chose the middle of the night to move the cocoon, neither human found out and did not care. The important point was that the guards saw the humans, even in the dark, at the same time as the humans saw them, dropped the cocoon and hissed. One died with his mouth still open, the other dodged into the next chamber, missing a date with one of Rods bullets by a whisker and, to judge from the noise, knocked over one of the trays of equipment.

“Wait here,” snapped Rods. He ran to the next chamber but was back almost straight away.

“Damn things probably still running, hissing as it goes.”

Suzanne was suddenly away that the twittering had stopped cycling. Now it was increasing in volume.

“Guys there’s movement on the mound,” said Con. “One of the flying gargoyles is wondering why everyone is dead.”

“That’s torn it,” said Rods. “Okay, there is only one thing for it.” He filled his lungs. “DAWN TREADER!”

“EVE!” yelled Suzanne.

Above and behind them the mound began to stir.

Not far away Eve Clark was trying to get some sleep. Another of them was due to be taken soon. They knew this. There were now 34 of the 52 who had stepped on to the surface of the planet and then watched in horror as their ship took off without them. At first, because they were on the best piece of real estate in that section of the galaxy they thought that someone would turn up. The planet’s location had been kept a secret, but they thought the traitors who took the ship would at least come back to enslave them. Slowly they realized that the traitors must have decided not to come back or pass on their location. No matter, they would make a life for themselves with what they had and eventually they, or their descendants, would be re-discovered. Then the proto-Zards turned Hostile, and they were herded into the chamber in which they had now spent weeks.

Hours after their captivity started the first person had been taken out the back entrance of the chamber. That person, a man, had started screaming in what soon became a familiar cycle. The screams, echoing in what must be a large chamber below them, becoming weaker over several days until they just faded away. Then another would be taken. The captain had been the last to be taken and his screams had become weaker. That meant another colonist would soon make the one-way trip through the doors. Rather than face the possibility of being chosen for that ordeal, one colonist had managed to commit suicide by opening an artery with a small fibro-ceramic knife she had managed to smuggle through the rough searches of the guards. When the other colonists realized what had happened they hid the knife and discussed what to do.

One person dying just meant that another would be chosen, so why shouldn’t they all go, using the knife one by one? Those unable to do the deed would have it done for them. If a few wanted to hold on to life and go through the ordeal that was their choice. Eve had decided to take the knife. She did not mind dying. She had walked on the surface of a planet unprotected and that was a lot for one lifetime. She did not regret coming.

Her husband John stirred uneasily next to her. His left leg had been broken; the price of a moment of defiance. They had set and braced it as best they could but there was nothing for the pain. All the more reason to take the knife. She lay next to the double doors at the front of the chamber. Like the back doors they were made of what looked like wood – at least as far as Eve knew what wood looked and felt like. There had been some debate about rushing the door when they first arrived, until someone pointed out that they hadn’t been able to resist the proto-Zards and get away out in the open, what chance did they have deep in the mound? And what about the injured, would they be left behind?

No, Eve had long decided, their fate was sealed so she should at least think of happier things until they undertook their suicide pact. That would be soon. She thought of the clues she had left her sister, strictly against the group’s rules, and thought that Suzanne had not been able to work it out in the end. Well, she did not want her in the clutches of the proto-Zards. She thought of her mother back on Earth Station, about being courted by John and then her thoughts wandered back to Suzanne. She even thought she could hear Suzanne call her name. She smiled. The dream was so real it was comforting.

“I keep on hearing my sister calling,” she said to the man opposite. The man’s wife was among the first to be taken and he now lay opposite Eve and John. He had confessed to Eve two days ago that his wife often came to him in his dreams, so he was likely to understand. He smiled in the darkness.

“Memory is a blessing,” he said and sat up. “Jennie was just telling me …” He stopped.

“I hear something, too,” said the man, Gregory. “Someone calling Dawn Treader.”

In a moment both Eve and Gregory were at the door, yelling “In here! In here!” and pounding on it for all they were worth. The rest of the colonists, those who were able, stood up.

Rods and Suanne did not hear Eve and Gregory, but they did hear the proto-Zard guards at the human cell door hissing at the noise the pair were making and ran towards the sound. Rods knew that if there were going to be guards anywhere in the mound they would be with the colonists. They ran through two more chambers and turned a corner to be confronted by the only door they had seen since entering the mound – a wooden door with two proto-Zards hissing. The last act of the two creatures was to turn to face the intruders.

“Igor get these creatures out of the way. Shut up in there, people.” The door was held by a simple bar which Rods threw to one side, and the colonists spilled out including Eve, a taller and broader version of Suzanne. The two sisters fell into each other’s arms.

“I told you I’d come for you, I told you.”

“Why so .. so you did, so you did!” said Eve. She craned her head back to look at her sister as Rods ordered the helmet lights of the rescue party switched on, set to dim. “You’ve turned blonde.”

“Everyone quiet!” said Rods sotto voice. “Cruise, reunions later. We’re not out of it yet.”

“There’s a rescue party?” said someone.

“You’re looking at all of it, the crew of the James Clerk Maxwell, and your Con on the ship. We’ve got to move fast. Our cruise director will hand out survival chocolate, sports drinks and weapons.”

“Did you find The Dawn?” asked another colonist.

“Explanations later. Who’s in charge? Get organised. Two people on each of the sick and wounded. We’ll have to drag them out. Here’s a grav pack. It’ll take two. Grab any weapons you can find off the guards. There are some more guns in the bag Igor is carrying. People with weapons training take them. Where’s The Dawn’s captain?”

“He was taken,” said someone. “The mate’s down there.”

Rods pushed his way to the back of the room to find the mate, Hospers, his thin face streaked with tears. He had not moved.

“He’s down there,” he said, pointing at the door. “I heard him just half an hour ago. He’s weak but he’s still alive. It’s not far.”

“Okay, we’ll take two minutes, and I mean two minutes. “You!” He pointed at one women colonist, also concerned for the captain, who had come down with them. “Tell the others we’re taking two minutes to find the captain. Then we’re leaving!” Rods grabbed his assault rifle from the bag he had been carrying and thrust it at Hospers. “There’s a light on this so you can see what you’re doing, but you don’t fire unless I say, got it?”

“Okay.”

“Leave the firing up to this.” He showed the mate his silenced pistol. Rods inspected the double doors. “It’s just like the front door with a bar on the other side.” The trader fumbled in one of the zippered compartments on the side of the bag, pushed what looked to be a stick of gum with a red tag hard into the space between the two doors at the level of the bar, then pinched the end. The tag glowed and began to hum.

“Get back and cover your ears.”

The explosive cracked. So much for keeping quiet. Rods kicked the doors hard. They swung open. Hoss charged through, rifle at the ready, Rods just behind. A few paces beyond was a ramp that took them down to a major underground space, filled with large pieces of equipment. And they found the captain.

“Stars,” said Rods.

Hoss screamed.

Ja-lar broke her meditation again. What was wrong with the hive tonight? There were unfamiliar vibrations. The soft creatures taken for breeding had sometimes been active at night; but she knew those vibrations. When she used them for incubating they made noises she found irritating, but they added to the process, particularly if they were kept alive during it. She had discovered their value by chance when experimenting with the first creature who had come to the mound burbling, through a translator, something about good will – a concept she did not understand. No matter, her embryos had fed well, and soon she would have many more servants than at any time in her long life. If the soft creatures made a noise during the process what was that to her? In any case, she knew those noises and vibrations. This was different and the hive was waking up. Ja-lar thought briefly of the report of more soft creatures in the valley who had fled after killing her flyers. She dismissed the thought. They would not dare come into the mound. But what was wrong? She would now have to deal with this, but first she would summon her personal servants and check on the breeding chamber.

“Rob,” sobbed Hospers. “Oh Rob!”

“Rescue came at last,” said Robin gritting his teeth in pain. He was lying on a wide table his arms bound to rails on either side, but his body up to his chest inserted into the side of a vast, semi-transparent tub. Tubes inserted into his body from inside the tub were obviously the only thing keeping the captain of the Dawn Treader alive. They could see vague shapes moving in the tube in and out of the area where the captain’s body should have been but wasn’t. What they could see of the captain’s upper body was pasty and grey. He would not have lasted much longer and would then, Rods supposed, be replaced by another colonist.

“Too late for me, Hoss.” The words came with difficulty.

“Oh Rob!”

Rods cut the captain’s hands loose. They fell uselessly. The bonds around the wrists had been tied so tightly that circulation to the hands had been cut off and the flesh had died. It mattered little now.

“You found the Dawn?” asked Rob, Hoss still sobbing.

“They got it as far as the Oid planet, then your anti-jacking script kicked in. We only found it when the guys who jacked you, tried it on me.”

“Dead?”

“All gone.”

“Good… I let my guard down and got caught out, and now I’m taking the punishment. Hos can unlock the engines. What about the remaining colonists?”

“We’ve got to get them out, and that means we’ve got to go.”

“Yes, go! Don’t worry about me. I just want this to end, I want the pain to end. You got guns, do me and go, now!”

Rods had already unslung his bag, thinking that Rob would make such a request and produced a block of C4 with a timer. He pulled Rob’s useless hands up to near his face and placed the explosives with the timer face up, within easy reach.

“You can check yourself out. I’ve set it for 10 minutes but there’s a default red button. Press that hard any time with your nose and it’s over. You can see the display. But not right now,” he added hastily, “give us at least three or four minutes to get clear.”

“At last I’ve found a use for my long nose,” the captain of the Dawn said joyfully. “Four minutes and it’s over. Hoss, I don’t want you to see me like this. I really want to end this. You must go.”

“Hoss, you have 10 seconds to say your goodbyes,” said Rods, “then you’re coming. The colonists will need you.”

Hoss nodded.

The trader stepped away to give the two privacy and slowly scanned the chamber with his helmet cam. The soldiers had spears and shields but the hive had machinery like this? And how did the equipment with vacuum tubes fit in? There were deep forces at play, but this was not the time to work it out, if they ever did.

“Time to go,” said Rods and, when Hoss showed no signs of moving, stepped in, grabbed the mate of the Dawn by the arm and pulled him away.

“Go! Go!” said Rob. “It’s over for me. It’s finished. Be happy for me.”

At the bottom of the ramp Hoss allowed himself one last look and then followed

Rods. They found the colonists all lined up behind Igor. The two badly injured, including Eve’s partner John, were supported by the grav pack. All but the wounded had some sort of weapon, although for many it was just a knife from The Max’s galley. There were three assault rifles, including the one carried by Hoss, three shotguns and four pistols, including Mr. Glock carried by Suzanne and Mr. Sig Saur now in the uncertain hands of Eve.

“Did you find the captain?” asked one woman.

“What was left of him,” said Rods. “Explanations later. Hoss, if you can handle that rifle you’re at the end. Keep everyone closed up.”

“I’ll be okay,” said Hoss, making a noticeable effort to pull himself together.

“Until I say, nobody fires but me and no one speaks.” Rods tried to keep his voice down, meaning that some of the colonists had to crane forward to hear him. “Follow Igor. He’s kept track of where we went. Now move.” They shuffled off, Rods walking behind Igor.

The noise of the hive was increasing.