Stardogs, page 12
“Perhaps the rider can communicate?”
The girl shook herself. “No. They’re horrible. Horrible. Just hunger.” She seemed to sink into herself again.
“We’ll feed them then.” The leaguesman spoke between gritted teeth. He risked his broken arm to hold up the toxin-canister with his good hand. “Here. It’s disconnected. Cycle it. If it’ll kill Stardogs, it should kill these brutes. They’re ingesting the gobbets they rip off. I just hope they’ll eat each other too.”
Without a word Deo took the canister of nerve toxin and swayed hastily back into the passage. A few moments later the deadly canister had been spat out into space. The lead proto-dog was too intent on its attack to see the bait, but it was taken by one of the smaller followers. The others stopped to attack the dying. The toxin was plainly concentrated enough to continue to kill.
Shari looked at the young Leaguesman as the flight path steadied. At the sobbing ridergirl. “Well Leaguesman. This is the first time your kind has been in space without a threat to keep the riderfolk in place. You’d better hope that they don’t want revenge as badly as you think they do.”
Deo returned, as unobtrusively as usual. “I’m sorry your highness. The bomb-scare prevented me finishing the clean up here. If you would be so kind…”
Shari pointed at the expanding planet before them. “It seems pointless, doesn’t it, Deo. In another hour we’ll hit that atmosphere, and burn.”
The viscount looked out. Memories of the idealistic young man joining the Imperial Space Navy, the paint on his glory dreams still wet-surfaced. He had not always been the perfect consort, twisted into the plots and greed of Empire. No. In those days he’d been a starry-eyed dreamer, learning the depths and distances of deep space… without Stardog distance-cheating. The perspective of space that navigating interplanetary craft lent told him they had less time than that. Suddenly, the maneuvering and scheming, the deaths, the smirching of the soul of the last fifteen years seemed so wasted. He could have been happy…
CHAPTER 10
PLANETFALL
“See how I fly!” said the lordly eagle to the brick. “I soar! I glide! I bank! I spiral! I rise! And you, common clay? What can you do but sit?” To which the brick replied. “I can fly down pretty well, maybe even better than you. And sooner or later both of us must fall.”
From the parable of the Sergeant-Major, The Gospel according to St. Gopal.
Deo took Teovan to the lifecraft, to make him point out just what had been sabotaged. Not being one to waste time or labor, Deo had carried one corpse and loaded the other onto his prisoner. They came back a few minutes later. The grey-clad man plucked fastidiously at some fluff stuck to his sleeve. “I am afraid, Your Highness, that the lifecraft are completely beyond repair.”
“We may not be in dire straits yet.” The Leaguesman was studying the limited bank of instruments. With the Stardogs and tugs doing the navigating, instruments were considered to be unnecessary on interstellar craft. The original extensive panels of alien readout had been covered by the cocktail unit. Simply cutting it out blindly had been too full of disaster-potential. So, in the fashion of the empire, they had simply been hidden, and ignored. It was like the system that maintained the barge’s 0.92 gravity, without the inconvenience of inertial spin. Ignored. But still functioning.
The leaguesman, with rusty math, attempted to calculate the changes in vector. A few yards away, hidden beneath panels of Terran walnut inlaid with dark Aldera jacnithwood, data screens plotted the tangents and showed that the Stardog was in fact aiming for a spiral near-orbit pattern. But the alien data screens with their insect screeds of numbers wouldn’t have made much sense anyway. The folk in the cockpit would not have known that, besides Leaguesman Kadar’s increasingly frantic signalling, other calls too were flickering across space toward a control centre on the world below.
Below on the edge of a sand sea, from the vast bulk of a grey-stone pyramid structure, a reply, not just a guide-path, was beamed upwards for the first time in more than three thousand years. A challenge. A warning. A demand for something beyond the mere automatic responses of the ship above.
The only thing that happened was that the panel allowing the rider contact with the Stardog’s skin slid slowly closed and sealed again with a small hiss.
In a luxurious cabin somewhere toward the aft end of the vessel another passenger stirred. Hunger had pulled him from sleep. Hunger was something he had never experienced before. What had happened to that damned steward? He was several hours late. He would have the fellow flogged to within an inch of his life! Then he realized that he would not. He no longer had the power to have anyone punished. He was dependent on the steward, at least until the League agents could spirit him into hiding.
Fear nibbled at him, and he bit anxiously at his knuckle. Had his father’s agents discovered the steward? Prince Jarian felt the gnawings of terror, and they savaged his vitals more strongly than the hunger that had nearly driven him out into the corridors. He knew he’d get no help from that supercilious bag of an aunt. Besides, she was surrounded by his father’s spies and hatchet men. He would stay for a bit longer in this room. This refuge. This prison. It was lucky he’d got wind of the plans for his assassination. Lucky the League-agent had been able to get him offworld, and onto the one ship that would not be searched. He went and lay down again, and attempted to displace the pangs of hunger with his favorite daydreams of revenge.
In the welded-off drive chamber Juan went again to pound at the doors. There was no response again. At least the ship had stopped bucketing about. And the…shots he’d heard? What was happening out there?
An odd noise came from the alien machinery behind him. He turned. Parts of the dull and silent assemblage were glowing. A set of globes had begun to spin, trickling slow fat blue sparks down into huge cables. The boy shivered, and pressed himself against the obdurate door. A small pink nose stuck itself out of the boy’s shirt and whiffled about.
Scraps of paper lay about as the Leaguesman and the Viscount frantically attempted to calculate what the changes in vector would do to the barge’s course. Deo, methodical as always, had carried the rider’s body away, before returning with a bucket and cloth, and clearing up the signs of the fight. He waived attempts to assist, seeming to find security in the performance of mundane tasks. Thus the others were left to peer out of the windows, which is why they were able to see the separation. The dying Stardog, having delivered its cargo, peeled away from the imperial barge. Its last thrust pushed the ancient craft downward, into an inward spiral, before the Stardog began the last internal changes that would send it on its final journey.
They also saw the apparently solid hull crack to allow stubby wings to push out. “The Denaari craft were obviously intended to be able to land,” said Tanzo calmly. “It still seems to be functioning. I hope the Imperial re-fitters didn’t mess about too much.”
The relief eased barriers. Smiles spread like ink. Relaxation flowed into the set of shoulders. The Viscount was the first to recover his poise. “Acceleration couches. The refit crews didn’t intend this craft for atmospheric work. We need to make some kind of plan.”
A few moments later the streamlined craft shrugged off the tick-like human-built lifecraft. But there was nobody in the cockpit to see that.
It ought to have been obvious. There had been no orbital stations around the Denaari colony worlds. Of course their craft must all have had planetary landing capability. As they drew into the magnetosphere, long quiescent systems awoke. The ship’s near total hibernation was over. The metallo-silicate-chitin creature flexed, checking awakening motor and neural circuits. The Denaari, after all, had used genes as humans used welding tools.
Something was wrong! The roost chamber was full of dead steel clutter! The hold area was intended for that! The cabins, which the refit crew had fitted into what had been the Denaari roost, cracked and bent as the ship-beast struggled to achieve the conformational changes required for landing its frail-winged Denaari passengers. The doorframe of the chamber in which Prince Jarian was hiding twisted. The lock cracked and shattered. The doors of the rooms in which Teovan and Kadar were imprisoned, survived. The walls split instead. The drive chamber’s doors, leading as they did out of the hold, were not affected.
“What’s happening!? Is the ship breaking up?” Shari came running out of Caro Leyven’s chamber, where she and both her new and old bodyguards had been attempting to turn the well-used mattress into some kind of landing couch for the girl. A piece of metal shrapnel from an exploding stanchion screamed past her, and Lieutenant Albeer’s dive brought her down.
Deo came staggering up the corridor. “Princess! To the kitchen quarters! Quickly! The ceiling appears to be coming down here.”
Getting to her feet she turned back to the chamber she’d run from. “No! Others can bring her! Come.” He attempted to hustle her down the corridor.
She shook free of him. “No Deo! Not without her!”
“I’m coming Princess. Go!” Pale and swaying Caro had obviously made it from the couch. Hastily the Lieutenant, who had also found his feet, scooped her off her feet and ran with her. The others were also in the corridor by now and joined the frantic rush toward the kitchen quarters.
“What about the prisoners?” Deo nodded and headed back up the corridor, now that his greatest concern was attended to. He was nearly bowled over by the terrified Kadar. He found the bound Teovan squirming his way determinedly down the passage. Sam Teovan knew where the safest place on this ship was, and he was getting there. A slash from Deo’s Kukri freed his legs and hands. Together they fled, the grey-clad servant helping the numb-footed Yak to run.
A section of steel pipe fell, spraying water. It struck Deo just behind the ear. He staggered. Without knowing why he did it, but knowing he must, the wiry Yak grabbed him and half-dragged, half-carried his stunned rescuer down to the kitchens.
Prince Jarian lay, frozen in terror, looking at the now swinging open door. They’d blown the door! Surely any minute now the assassins would bundle in through it, shooting? He whimpered. Then, grabbing the heavily quilted duvet around himself he rolled off the bed and under it. The ceiling split with a thunderous crack. Oblivion seized the heir to the Imperial throne rolled in his duvet, and cowering under his bed. But Prince Jarian didn’t know that his older brother’s latest experiment with a combination of hallucinogens had ended abruptly off a balcony at the Imperial palace. A sixth floor balcony. Thinking himself to be merely second in line for the diamond throne, Jarian felt quite entitled to faint as the ancient Denaari ship entered the exosphere of the planet.
In the ground-control pyramid far below, the tracking-systems followed the incoming ship. To the west a second object was detected, heading for the usual crash-down site in the pupping-grounds. Stardog.
The logic circuits of ground-control’s enormous organo-computer flicked over the incoming data. The only non-instinctive inbuilt response coming out of the incoming ship had been a stream of pure gibberish, and not even on the usual hailing frequencies. It was strange to hear the automated signal responses coming out of a ship again after all these centuries. There’d been the others. The ones the in-surf dying Stardogs had brought in the past, but they’d all come in too fast, without the control that this craft had displayed. There had also been none of the recognition signals that this craft had given. The others had, inevitably, burnt on re-entry, which made following the ancient orders unnecessary. This one, however, was following a perfect entry trajectory, and was slowing. Well, the directives hastily given so long ago were clear: Destroy; incinerate regardless, rather than allow the contagion to spread. It had been a wise order, if late.
Deep within the pyramid relays clicked. The missiles slid gently onto the launch ramps. The explosive matter in the warheads was 1.8 centuries past replacement date, but that couldn’t be helped. Computing the standard infall pattern of Imm class personal craft was too precise to allow any possibility of a miss, and the impact would destroy the craft even if the explosives failed to vaporise it. The computer calculated the areas of highest probability of debris outfall and sent off appropriate warnings to the various regional civil defense command centers. Sections of rock slid aside and the eight missiles roared out of the launch ports. The symbols and measurement of time used were alien, but calculations showed impact in minus four minutes and twenty-three seconds.
Even in the lower ionosphere the difficulties that the metal junk inside her was causing to the ship-beast began to affect her. She’d been unable to reach the optimal descent shape and heat-dispersal configuration ideal for an Imm craft. It was also affecting her flight path and speed. The creature did her level best to compensate despite having to arrange special conduits of coolants for that piece of her integument. The Denaari had genetically engineered a high degree of safety in all their creations. As the Stardogs had instinctive death-in-surf-return-home patterns imprinted into their complex nervous systems, so too the ship-beasts had enormous capability to protect their cargoes from potential disasters. Enormous capability… but not enough to survive the impact of the eight missiles that were streaking inexorably towards her.
The poor shape configuration caused untoward vibration as the ship dropped into the stratosphere. It was causing the ship’s small mind enormous distress. Despite her best efforts the ship would undershoot the perfect landing at Ground-Control’s landing area… Calculating the effect of the higher air density in the troposphere she would land nearly 3 miles short. The landing area was perfectly flat for nearly 600 square miles, but the ship’s brain was a perfectionist by Denaari-improved nature. She organized slight changes in her braking configuration allowing a little more speed despite the vibration… Yet they were still nearly thirty yards from perfect position when they reached the point at which ground control had predicted impact.
The missiles were one minute and forty two seconds underway when the minuscule difference between the predicted and actual flight-speed of the incoming ship was noted by Ground-Control. A second salvo of missiles, ones with guidance systems this time, was launched with all possible haste. There was no help for it. The second salvo impact would be just inside the troposphere, and within 120 miles of Ground-Control itself.
The ship-beast that the human explorers had found abandoned off the planet they called New Sahara was one which had been bred specially for the mission to the Sil, the aliens who had struck back so hard at the Denaari, whose nanomech plague was then destroying the Denaari. The ships had been sent in a last desperate attempt to negotiate, but the plague’s mech-viruses had got to the crew first. It was thus a very unusual Imm class ship. It was one of the two Imm ships imprinted with evasive action patterns. The near miss in the stratosphere activated these circuits in the ship’s brain. She dropped like a stone.
The humans clinging to one another, and to the mattress they’d piled into the sous-cook’s bedchamber, screamed. In the drive chamber Juan heard them faintly as he slid wildly across the floor. He caught himself on a strut, before he landed in the heart of one of the strange alien devices. He clung desperately onto it, only to be knocked loose by his own kit-bag. Fortunately, the craft was now banking the other way, and he rolled across the floor and into what could have been an alien acceleration couch, except that it hung against the wall. It definitely hadn’t been there earlier. Something hit the ship with a hammer-blow, and Juan found himself bounced against the huge alien wall-hung recliner.
And, as it had been bred to do, it swallowed him.
Fortunately his face was sticking out of the gel-matrix, or he would have suffocated. As it was he just screamed. And screamed. He was, understandably, terrified. But, of all the humans on the crippled but gamely struggling ship-beast, he was also undoubtedly the safest during the wild maneuvers that followed. The gel did allow slow movements, but he was still too panicked to work this out.
Then a second missile finally struck home. The ship summersaulted. Died.
The chair, which was also an ejector escape pod, responded. A transparent lid snapped across the pod, and the ship-fabric parted to allow Juan and the pod clear of the ship. Looking down as he hurtled away, the boy could see the stricken craft, which must have been ten yards from achieving a successful emergency landing, roll and half bury itself into a huge-sand dune. The escape pod flung him a good thousand yards away from what it considered a danger-zone, before drifting in to a thistle-down landing.
For the first few seconds he just lay there, too scared to move. Then the transparent lid of the ejector-pod seat snapped back. Juan was the first human to breathe and smell the unmixed air of the Denaari Homeworld.
It stank.
He struggled furiously. It was no use. He was still stuck. Stuck in an alien device, on an alien world, on the wrong side of a low black ridge of what looked like volcanic glass. On the other side there was a crashed ship. There might be other survivors. There might even be help. He shouted. His voice echoed thinly down the valley. There was no other response.
On the other side of the ridge, in the imperial barge which had proved to be no barge but a planetary lander and a brave creature too, there was silence. Then a low groan.
“Can you get off me?” a plaintive female voice said in the darkness.
“I’m sorry.”
“Ow! My arm!”
“Sorry, Leaguesman”
“Grr!”
“There, Otto. It’s all right, babykin.”
Then there was light. The ubiquitous Deo had produced a small glow-stick. The makeshift crashcouch arrangement of mattresses and straps had failed to remain in one piece. It was just as well. They would all have been hanging from the ceiling otherwise. Now the only problem was that the upside-down doorway was nearly six feet up the wall.
They all seemed to be alive. Alive and sore with several bloody noses and some concussion or dead faints, but alive. The ship definitely wasn’t. You weren’t aware of the ship’s life-noises until they stopped. Now, the normally ever present murmur of the air-cyclers was stilled. The space-wise Martin Brettan knew claustrophobic fear. The airlock… could it be cycled manually? If this was a Denaari world surely the air would be breathable? If they could even get to the lock. The accessway had been between the forward chambers and the cockpit. They must have at least several hours of air in here, but the still air already felt… dead.
