Neverwylde (The Rim of the World Book 3) (13 page)

            Kyber tightly held Kelen to his chest as Sandow jumped to his feet.

            “Eye worms,” Gaveer growled. “They came in through the tunnel leading up to the temple.”

            “Where is Massapa?” Kyber demanded, knowing the Seneecian had been on guard duty earlier.

            Tojun leaned against the wall to catch his breath. “He retreated down the tunnel toward the machinery room.”

            “Let’s hope he manages to find a way to evade them,” Sandow commented.

            “I think he’s leading them away from us,” Jules added.

            “Damn. Guess we’re stuck here until those little buggers move on,” Fullgrath grumbled. “Too bad there aren’t any windows in these rooms so we can keep an eye on what’s going on outside.”

            After a pause, Jules remarked, “I bet there is. We just haven’t discovered the glyph for it yet.”

            Kyber was inclined to believe the man, considering everything else they had discovered.

            Fullgrath walked over to stand at the lip of the bed. “What now? We can’t get any food samples from the tanks.”

            Kyber glanced over where the food glyphs glowed. “I ate two blue pancakes I took from our room. They were tainted, but I ate them anyway. That is how I got sick. Sandow, have you checked the food in this apartment?”

            “No, I haven’t,” the doctor admitted, and hurried over to retrieve samples.

            Cooter began pacing the small room. Normally, two people their size could fit comfortably, even though they were twice the size of the planet’s natural inhabitants. Three max without everyone getting in each other’s way. But with all of them crowded inside, the air was beginning to get stuffy.

            Kyber gazed at Kelen’s serene expression. Her skin was cool to the touch and shone with perspiration. Tenderly, he pushed a strand of hair away from where it clung to her cheek. If there was anything to be grateful for, it was knowing she wasn’t in any distress.

            The security officer paused in front of the rear door. “I wonder if the coast is clear the back way.”

            “Would it not be better if we wait them out?” Gaveer countered. “They have come and gone before.”

            Cooter whirled on him. “And leave your man out there to face them alone? Armed with nothing more than a pistol? Don’t care much about your ship mate, do you?”

            “Cooter!” Sandow barked, glancing up from where he was examining the food.

            The head of security immediately bowed his head and held up a hand. “Sorry. That didn’t come out right.”

            Kyber broke in. “Do not worry. We have every reason to believe Massapa will be able to remain safe. He is very resourceful.”

            Cooter continued to eye the rear door panel. “I’d still like to check the back. What if we’re holed up here for days? Eventually we’re going to need something to eat and drink, since we can’t eat what’s behind those glyphs.” He motioned to Sandow, who’d returned to his spot with his samples. “You did say we can’t eat that stuff, right, Doc?”

            The physician slowly nodded. “That is correct. I can already tell by just looking at it that there’s evidence of fungi and mold in the blue pancakes, as well as in the oatmeal.”

            “What about the water?” Gaveer asked.

            Sandow waved a hand. “Bring some to me. Don’t worry about handling it. What I tested earlier was okay to bathe in, just not to drink.” He narrowed his eyes at Kyber. “You said you ate the pancakes earlier?”

            “Yes. Before Kelen and I left to go up to the temple, I filled my pouch with three pancakes. When we got separated, at some point I ate two of them. They tasted bitter, but I needed the nutrition, and assumed the odd flavor was due to the fact I was Seneecian.” He shook his head as he searched his foggy memory.

            “That’s why you attacked Kelen,” Fullgrath noted, drawing gasps of surprise from the others. “That stuff made you sick in the head.”

            Kyber jerked his head around and snarled.

            “I would never try to harm her!”

            “Whoa! Hold on there, Kyber. I know that. We all know that. We know you’d never try to hurt Kelen, but you weren’t in your right mind. You don’t remember, but you have to believe me. You were acting like a crazy man. I was going to try to stun you, but she wouldn’t let me.”

As much as Kyber wanted to deny the possibility that he would try to harm Kelen, he realized there had to be some truth in the man’s statement. The thought of him attacking the woman he loved made him light-headed, and he glanced down at the prone figure lying at his feet.

Do you hate me, my Kelen, for what I tried to do?

            Fullgrath crouched down by the bed. “You were very ill when we found you. You were bloodied and sweating profusely. You kept yelling something about monsters coming to get you. Kelen told us you claimed monsters had captured you and tied you up, only to let you go later on.”

            Raising a hand to his face, Kyber stared at his arm and wrist, noting the tufts of fur that had been ripped out by the roots during his struggles to free himself. “I vaguely remember the monsters, but I clearly recall being bound.”

            “Could it have been Plat and the others who captured you?” Jules inquired.

            Kyber paused. “Perhaps. It is plausible.” He shook his head. “The rest is hazy.”

            “I don’t doubt it,” Sandow announced. He glanced up from his scanner. “This stuff is full of diometrodides. High levels of it. Strong enough to kill any of you Seneecians if you eat enough of it. It acts in the same manner as any hallucinogenic drug does to us.”

            “Is it harmful for us, too?” Cooter questioned.

            The physician sighed loudly. “Yes, but not in the same manner. Mostly severe abdominal cramps. Diarrhea. Vomiting. Kyber, you were damn lucky.”

            “What about the water?” Tojun questioned.

            Sandow went back to his scanner. “I’m finding little microscopic creatures moving around inside. Gaveer, hand me your water pouch.”

            The Seneecian did as he was asked. The physician took a sample, handing the pouch back, and examined it.

            “Nope. No tiny little buggers here.” He looked up. “Stick with the flowing water, everyone. Don’t drink from a standing pool.”

            “But eventually our water and food will run out,” Cooter repeated. Hefting his rifle, he pointed at the rear door with the barrel. “I say we take a chance and open that one, and follow it to the garden. Or…” He looked directly at Fullgrath, then Gaveer. “We try to make it to the machinery room and rescue Massapa.”

            “This room doesn’t lead to either of those tunnels,” Jules informed him. “This one sits in the section leading to the underground lake, remember?”

            “He means to take the interconnecting corridors between those tunnels,” Kyber informed them.

            With the exception of Cooter, everyone gave him a blank look.

            “What interconnecting corridors?” Fullgrath voiced.

            Rather than answer, Kyber silently handed the question over to Cooter.

            “There’s smaller paths circling around this nonagon. They intersect at each tunnel, allowing a person to go from one tunnel to the next without having to walk all the way into this main area.” He drew a picture in the air. “Think of these apartments as the hub in the center. The three tunnels going to the machinery room, the garden, and the lake are spokes leading outward. Those connecting tunnels circle all the way around.” He paused, then added, “It’s where I hid out most of the time when I first removed myself from the group.”

            “I’ve never seen any kind of juncture or intersecting corridors in these tunnels,” Fullgrath countered.

            “That’s because they’re invisible.”

            Jules gave a bark of laughter. “Want to run that by us again? If they’re invisible, how the hell did you find them?”

            “He means the entrances are disguised by some sort of holographic image that looks exactly like the wall of the tunnel. They are virtually indistinguishable from the surrounding rock and dirt,” Kyber elaborated. “Do you recall the air ducts we initially discovered the first time we descended from the garden? Those ducts are where the entrances are located.” He nodded at Cooter. “I found them by accident when I was trying to avoid being attacked by the clickers.”

            Fullgrath waved a hand in front of his face and shook his head. “Hold on. Let me get this straight. The entrances only have a hologram for a doorway?”

            “Yes.”

            “And those things didn’t follow you inside?”

            “No. They never entered the corridor.”

            “I suspect there must be something else which prevents those nasty critters from entering the corridors,” Cooter added. “Like some kind of aural barrier.”

            “So, let me get this straight.” Fullgrath ran a hand over his mouth and stubbled chin. “You ran around in the dark the whole time you were on your own?”

            “Those corridors are lit,” Kyber informed them. “There are rows of glyphs lining the walls along the floor.”

            “Maybe that’s where the D’har and the others are hiding,” Jules suggested.

            “I would be surprised if Dayall and the D’har know those corridors exist,” Cooter countered. “So what’s the verdict? Do we try the back door? Or do we want to open the front door and see if those eye worms are still there?”

            Gaveer stepped forward. “I choose the back door. If we have to flee, we could find refuge in one of the other apartments.”

            “That’s always a possibility,” Sandow acknowledged.

            Cooter grinned broadly. “All right! Who’s coming with me?”

            Gaveer and Jules moved toward the rear exit. Fullgrath paused by the bed, a silent question masking his face. Kyber nodded. “I promise to keep her safe,” he assured the Terran.

            “I won’t go far,” the big man promised.

            Cooter held up a hand, ready to press the lighted symbol that would open the door. “Everyone ready? Stay behind me. We’ll be moving fast.”

            “You’re heading where first?” Sandow asked for clarification.

            “The machinery room. If we can make it that far, hopefully we’ll be able to help Massapa if he needs it.”

            “It’ll also give us clearance to use the elevator to reach the gardens,” Jules added.

            Cooter looked at the men standing behind him, gave a nod, and hit the glyph.

            The rear door dropped into the ground.

            The man-sized creature standing there jumped in surprise. Opening its mouth, it let out a bone-chilling shriek and charged into the room.

Chapter 20

Epiphany

            Cooter reacted without thinking, firing his pulse rifle and spraying the tunnel. Swinging the weapon from side to side. The creature exploded in a mass of blue-black gore.

            As the men swarmed to the door to prevent more of the creatures from entering the room, Kyber pressed Kelen down on the bed and stood guard over her, baring his fangs and claws to back up the men crowding the back door.

            It was over in seconds.

            “What the
hell
was that thing?” Cooter kicked an oozing chunk of the creature back into the tunnel, then slapped the glyph to close the door.

            “Wait. You forgot a piece.” Jules picked up what looked like part of the thing’s body, when Sandow stopped him.

            “Hold on. Leave it.”

            “Leave it?”

            The physician nodded. “Give me the chance to examine it. For that matter…” He glanced over his shoulder at the front doorway. “The next time we battle those eye worms, save me some of the remains.”

            “Why?” Tojun bluntly asked.

            “To see what makes them tick. To see if their bite is poisonous. To see if they could be the cause of the extinction of the indigenous people.”

            “I have another question you might want to consider,” Kyber spoke up. “If you theorize that none of those creatures caused their extinction, why did the intelligent species die but not the creatures?”

            “That’s assuming the bodies of the peoples we found here were the dominant species,” Sandow countered.

            Fullgrath snorted. “Are you suggesting one of those creatures is the apex in the food chain?”

            “Anything is possible,” Gaveer told him. “We have personally come across planets where the more intelligent species was not that world’s ruling class.”

            Jules dropped to the floor next to the bed. “Well, now we can add another creature to the list.”

            “Yeah. A big lake monster, a middle man-sized one, and those little bitty buggers. Small, medium, and large.” Cooter gave a single laugh. “Three.”

            Kyber was hit with a chilling thought. “What if there are three of each?” He was aware of all eyes locking on him. “We already know there are three large creatures. The lake monster, the smoke one with three heads we fought in the garden, and whatever is outside under the sands.”

            “If that’s true,” Cooter continued, “there are two more middle-sized beasts we’ve yet to encounter. And one more small species, to go with the clickers and eye worms.”

            “Oh, you’re just one big bright ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” Fullgrath grumbled.

            Checking his rifle, Cooter readjusted the weapon’s strap over his shoulder. “All right. What’s our next move? Should we try the back door again? Or should we try the front door this time?”

            Gaveer crossed his arms over his chest and took a wide-legged stance. Behind him, the wall and floor was spattered with dark gore.

            “I suggest we stay here for a while. Perhaps the creature at the back door was there in response to the eye worms invading the nonagon. Maybe it was drawn here because of them.”