Heaven's War (48 page)

Dale turned to look ahead at the south wall, where the fog had lifted a bit. “Not to add to the general pessimism, but I don’t see an exit of any kind.”

“We’re still too far away,” Makali said. “And we can’t see everything.”

It was true that there were structures at the south end, as well as stands of vegetation. But it looked to Dale as though the surface behind both obstructions was still smooth and solid.

“How much longer?” Valya said.

Makali snapped, “An hour minus five minutes.”

Zack said, “Hey, Dale, you’re closest…see if we’re still sailing over those guys.”

Dale edged back to the front of the raft. Not only were they still passing over a herd of sleeping Sentries, they seemed to be closer. “Still there, and not as deep as they were.”

“We’re getting into the shallows, I bet,” Makali said.

Dale lowered his head, which turned out to be a mistake. The chain holding his Hulk medallion around his neck simply parted.

The shiny golden disk gently fluttered down, down into the water, landing squarely on the sleeping face of the nearest submerged Sentry.

Which opened its eyes.

“We’ve been spotted—” Dale said. He never finished the warning. The raft rose out of the water, tilting to one side. Dale had time to see Makali clutching the black box to her chest…Valya scrabbling at the surface of the raft…and Zack going into the water…and then he was in the water, too.

It was warm, smelly, briny, and in his mouth. Everything around him was churning, as if whales were at war. Something hit him, spun him around.

He tried to swim, to reach the surface at least. He thought of not only angry Sentries, but also the flying piranha—

He felt himself grabbed from behind. He kicked out, got grabbed around the neck, broke that hold, and was able to surface.

He was looking back the way they’d come. The raft was visible, though upended. He saw Makali’s head…she was swimming toward him. No Zack, no Valya.

Or not in front of him, anyway. What drew his attention was the sight of a Sentry—Dash, he realized, since the creature was wearing the translator around its neck—half out of the water and beating the daylights out of another Sentry. The snarls and groaning were loud and ugly, like two warring walruses.

“Dale!” Zack’s voice from behind him, tugging him by the shoulder.

He turned and started swimming. Valya was ahead of all of them, half-stumbling.

Dale’s legs collided with something solid, like the wall of a pool. He realized he was in shallow water now and was able to stand.

Zack, too. Then Makali. “Keep going, everyone!” Zack said.

The order was unnecessary. Dale wanted as much distance between him and the warring Sentries as he could get, as quickly as possible.

The four of them emerged from the water onto another beach, in the shadows of a Sentry village. “Which way?” Dale shouted.

“Get to the wall!” Zack said, sounding confident even if, like Dale, he had no idea where to go.

They stumbled between the two nearest buildings. Dale realized that the grunting battle had stopped. He looked back…Dash was out of the water now, too, dripping, its greater arms red with what had to be blood. The Sentry headed directly for them. “No!” it said. “That way, that way!” Dash pointed to their left.

“You heard the man,” Zack said. They formed a ragged, wet line, Valya behind Dash, Makali behind her, Zack, then Dale.

Dash seemed to be following a trail…there was a worn-down dirt path between the village and the wall. Bizarre trees with orange-colored leaves formed an archway over the path…they were low enough that Dash had to duck. The humans were able to go upright.

They entered an opening where the dirt path submerged itself in a narrow inlet. “I think we can get through that,” Zack said.

But as he made the first splash, a silvery thing leaped out of the water, snarling and flashing its teeth. Without thinking, Dale executed a soccer-style midflight kick, nailing the creature and sending it across the inlet.

The flying piranha flopped and sputtered. Nasty as it was, it turned out to be two hands wide. “Do we kill it?” Dale said, hoping the answer was no, because he knew it meant stomping the vicious thing with his bare feet.

“Why waste time and energy?” Zack said. “Everyone across, now!”

They returned to dry land, shadows, and buildings.

Suddenly they not only slowed, they halted. Dash was standing in front of a cave opening very much like the entrance to the Beehive in the human habitat…only walled in with chunks of rock and mortar.

A long time ago.

“It’s not here,” the Sentry said.

“This isn’t the exit?” Zack said.

“It was,” Dash said. “Before my imprisonment. As a halfling, I played here.”

“How long ago was this?” Makali said.

“It’s not important,” Zack said. “This isn’t a way out.” He glanced back at the water. “Are we going to be pursued? Are they specifically after us, or did we just disturb them?”

“We woke them,” Dash said. “Yes, now they will pursue.”

Dale said, “How many of them are there?”

“A lot,” Makali said, pointing. On the water, three Sentries broke the surface and began swimming toward them with great purpose and speed. Four or five others emerged after the first three.

Zack sighed. “Are they a danger to us?”

“Extreme.”

“Is there another way out of the habitat?”

“There were several. This one I knew best.”

“Jesus,” Dale said, losing patience. Couldn’t they all see that they needed to be
moving
? “How far to the next one?”

Dash answered with nonsense syllables, another failing of the translation for units of distance. “Can you point in the right direction, at least?” Dale said, helpfully demonstrating the action.

Dash used its greater arms to point both left and right. “It could be either direction,” it said.

Zack suddenly tilted his head back, looking up at the orange trees. Then he turned to Dash. “Can you lift me up?”

It was no surprise, really, that it took Dash several moments to grasp the concept. It took several seconds for English speaker Dale Scott to understand what Zack meant.

Zack was going to climb the tree. And with the giant Sentry grasping him and raising him like the Statue of Liberty torch, he was easily able to reach the lower branches of the nearest tree…and begin scrambling higher. “Watch for more Sentries!” Makali said.

“Absolutely!”

Zack reached his lookout spot—at least, the highest he could safely climb—and turned himself one way, then the other. “Can’t see Sentry pursuit yet,” he said. He was out of breath from the climb. “But there are buildings in the way….”

Then, apparently satisfied, he began climbing down, a process that went quickly, even with an awkward landing. “Would the exit be inside a building?” he asked Dash.

“No, would be a stupid idea,” the Sentry said.

“Then we keep going forward,” Zack said. “There’s no open space back the way we came…it’s all structures or the west wall of the habitat.”

If they needed further prompting, it came in the form of a crunching sound in the opposite direction. Sentry pursuit.

With Dash in the lead, and Dale again bringing up the rear, they resumed their sprint to some kind of exit.

They reached a stretch of open beach—so open that Dale feared to cross it, since anyone within a couple of hundred meters would see them. Dash was plunging right ahead, its big head swiveling right and left.

Then the Sentry stopped. The south wall of the habitat here was dense with multicolored brush. The big alien plunged into it like a rhino fleeing a lion, leaving the humans panting and exposed on the beach.

“Do we follow him?” Valya said.

Zack was pointing farther down the beach, where what appeared to be a tidal wave of Sentries was now in pursuit. “Yes, for God’s sake!” Zack yelled.

Deeper into the “forest,” they found Dash ripping brush away from a smaller cave mouth. “This is it,” it said.

Without waiting for further discussion, the Sentry grabbed Valya and threw her into the opening. Makali was quicker, and dived through. Zack, too.

Dale didn’t need the assist but received one, anyway. The Sentry’s hands were like vise grips, leaving certain bruises on his arm and leg.

Being tumbled into a disused cave mouth, its floor littered with rubble from an ancient fall or construction, left another set of bruises, but the lower gravity allowed Dale and the others to tumble like socks in a dryer.

As Dale lay on his side, catching his breath, he saw Dash squeeze through the opening, then immediately begin pulling rocks from the floor. “Work!” the Sentry commanded. He stuffed several into the passage.

“Come on, everybody, you heard the request,” Zack said. In slow motion, as if battered by Dash’s toss, Makali and Valya began reaching for rocks.

What Dale heard was something entirely different, and substantially more disturbing: horrific scrabbling, grunting, and other nasty sounds from just beyond the opening.

The pursuing Sentries were here!

He rose and picked up the largest rock he could carry. With his hip,
he shoved Valya aside and jammed the rock into the mouth. Combined with the earlier efforts, the opening was now half the size it had been—

And just in time. The mouth darkened as the big Sentries arrived.

A Sentry arm shot through the opening, the clawed hand slashing violently. Valya screamed. Even Makali looked startled. “More!” Dash said, continuing to stuff rocks into the mouth.

Seeing the value of this—the Sentries on the other side were pushing the rocks aside—Dale added more debris. “Zack,” he said, “brace me!” He dropped to his back and used his feet to wedge the rocks more tightly. This did his feet no good at all, but he would rather limp on bloody soles than be captured by angry Sentries.

“I think that’s as good as we get,” Zack said, breathing hard and looking worn.

Dash seemed to agree; the opening was now small enough that a cat would have a hard time squeezing through. But it was large enough to allow one of the Sentries to reach inside again.

And this time the Sentry spoke. Its original voice was a raging growl that reminded Dale of an angry bear. But he could hear words, too: “Return!” “Savage!” “Traitor!” “Die!”

Dale realized that Dash’s translator was picking up the Sentry’s tirade, and transmitting pieces of it.

“Go!” Dash said, roughly shoving the humans farther down the tunnel.

Dale needed no encouragement to get as far from the angry Sentries as possible. Behind him, he heard the sudden crash of rocks falling. For a moment, he feared it meant the pursuing Sentries had broken through…but he realized that Dash had caused a cave-in near the mouth.

In a few moments, they were all in near-darkness, Makali and Valya walking a slow, unsteady point…Dale with Zack and, finally, Dash.

“They don’t seem happy that you got away,” Dale said to the Sentry.

Zack have him his exasperated look. “You think it’s going to respond to a statement like that?”

“Never know till you try.”

“That was DSZ,” Dash said.

“Your connate?” Zack said.

“Yes.”

Dash took a moment to glance back at the opening…and DSZ’s arm, still waving.

Before they had gone very far, Makali switched on the black box display. “Why now?” Dale said.

Makali held up the unit. “It’s the only light we have.”

He felt stupid, but to his amazement, Zack said, “I didn’t realize it, either.” Then he added, “Since you’ve got it running, why not show Dash?”

When Makali did so, the Sentry snatched it out of her hands with eager curiosity—or so it seemed to Dale. He was afraid the Sentry would smash the unit against the tunnel wall, dooming them to a dark passage.

Instead, the Sentry handed the black box back to Makali. “Do you know that creature?” Zack said. Receiving no answer, he turned to Valya. “What do you think?”

“I think he heard and understood you,” Valya said.

Dash was already walking away, making long strides into the dark tunnel. He seemed not to require the sad little light the humans found so necessary.

They had to hurry to catch up. It was especially annoying for Dale; his feet hurt. He was probably leaving bloody footprints now.

Zack wasn’t ready to give up the interrogation. “If you know what that creature is, tell us.”

Dash kept walking, with Zack pursuing him like a puppy. “Is that the enemy? Is that what the Architects are afraid of? If so, I can understand your fear….”