Outward Borne (11 page)

LePan saw the Cathians burst into
the passage. She was cut off from the shuttle and, without any
protective covering, she feared making contact with them. LePan
turned and scuttled back toward a large dark brown block building,
disappeared through its heavy door, and slammed it shut behind
her.

It was the first time any alien
had ever seen an ObLaDa and the Cathians were stunned. It was big
and agile, probably very strong, definitely slimy, and that sucking
mouth seemed to gleam with menace. After the shock of the
encounter, they followed the thing to its low sprawling
refuge.

Laboratories, dissection rooms,
and operations buildings had been built wherever needed within the
large open medical deck and now the Cathians were loose within that
maze of buildings. Pok went around the low, single story structure
to see if she could trap the Da inside its set of rooms. She was
surprised at how large the irregularly shaped building was.
Fortunately, there were only a few openings and these Pok tried to
block by tying them shut. It might not prevent the ObLaDa from
getting out, but it would slow it down. The air was hot and
strangely heavy. It made her skin hurt.

A file of six Sticks flowed into
the laboratory as Til was detaching the portable lights and piling
them onto her cart. Surprised, she spun around to look at them and
knocked her head against an overhanging rack. The Sticks formed an
ark around Til and followed her every move with a series of
coordinated dips and bows. She ignored her fan club and pushed the
heavily laden cart to the double doors. She readjusted her mask and
propped the doors open to get the cart through the air lock. The
Sticks followed, they could breathe the air, it seems, and the
stink did not affect them, but the foul stench and hazy atmosphere
of the ObLaDas chambers bothered Til even through her breathing
mask. She pushed it around on her face trying to make a better seal
while looking into the dark hallways to locate Zep and Pok. There
was no sign of them. Her eyes began to water. She thought it was
from the smelly oils. She fumbled her way through the dark
corridor. As she was about to reach the conduit, the Sticks spread
out in front of her, bodies low and parallel with the floor and
with an exchange of clicks they formed up in a wedge and went
across the hall and between the buildings opposite. Til had no
better option than to follow.

Once in the next corridor, she
could see Zep and Pok outside of the ObLaDas’ old building. She ran
as fast as she could with the awkward cart, leaving the Sticks
behind. Pok and Zep considered blockading the ObLaDa within the
complex. They were reluctant to break in to find who-knows-what
waiting there, but when Til arrived, they saw that she had only a
few small air tanks. Time would be limited. They decided to enter
the building and lock the door behind them. There were only three
of them in the maze, so they had no choice but to turn their backs
on any threat from beyond and take their chances with whatever was
inside.

They exchanged their spears for
short picks that would be more effective in confined spaces and
went into the darkness. Pok held up a light to see what she could.
They were in a small empty entryway with connecting narrow
corridors, all streaked by the slimy ObLaDas. The oils, or whatever
was on their body, had turned black with age giving the place a
grimy decrepit look, but nothing in there moved. They knew that
their every step could be watched. With no ability to surprise and
being unprepared and probably outnumbered, Pok decided to use a
full speed rush against any force they encountered. All or naught!
Hopefully, the effect of their full weight concentrated on a narrow
front might carry them through. They would move side-by-along the
hallways until they found the Hag.

The Cathians moved deep into the
interconnected rooms, taking chances, bypassing doorway after
doorway. The floors were sticky and the walls too scrummed to
touch. It was becoming clear that the Da was not going to stand
against them itself and would probably rely on its robotics. They
had fought against the bots often enough and had beaten them, but
the real weapons they feared were the flybots and their darts. It
was, in fact, the only effective weapon the ObLaDas possessed. None
of the robots carried any real arms; they were workers with
worker’s tools, still they could do damage if they got close enough
to use their short limbs, sharp blades and strong clamps. The
farther the Cathians moved into the complex, the more certain Pok
was that the Da had gone to the far end of this nest of rooms and
was hiding behind as many protective bots as it had. They kept
moving, with every step increasing the risk of being attacked from
behind. It was an obvious strategy, hide a few bots in rooms along
the corridor and wait for them to pass by, it would be easy enough
to surround any invader, but it did not happen.

The Cathians moved far into the
compound before they met the robots, a mass of them standing ready
in a high open space. It was the largest opening that they had seen
so far. Four corridors converged in the circular atrium and two
ramps led to an overhanging second level. It was only about ten,
maybe twelve paces across, not so large. The bots stood as barriers
before three hallways, the Cathians were in the fourth. Pok took a
few steps into open space directly across from the largest mass of
bots. They moved closer together as she did so. A large service
bot, several lightly armed maintenance bots and the lightweight but
quick spider bots were grouped before each of the openings. Some
were holding pointed objects, but they were not armed with anything
that could be dangerous, unless they got too close, that was the
problem. No flybots were around, but Pok motioned toward the upper
level indicating that the site could give the flybots room to
descend upon them. There were fewer bots than the Cathians had
feared. Still, if the machines were able to combine their numbers
and surround them, there would be trouble. Even the small bots had
a tight mechanical grip and you could not shake them off once they
had hold of a piece of flesh. Pok discounted retreat into the maze
of hallways. They might be able to find a way around the courtyard,
but if the bots got behind them, they could easily become trapped
in some dead end corridor. The Da would not even need to fight
them, just wait for their air to run out.

The bots appeared to be
disorganized, however, maneuvering around to sort out positions,
some standing still as if shut down, while others bumped into one
another following some command. Perhaps the Da was having trouble
controlling all of these machines at the same time. Pok thought
they might have gained some small advantage by getting to the bots
faster than expected, so she moved quickly to keep whatever edge
they had. She led the three well-armored Cathians and their cart at
a fast walking pace toward the nearest exit. The bots made no move.
She turned to the middle hallway; this caused a reaction, a few
bots from both sides moved toward the center. It was what Pok hoped
to see. The ObLaDa did not want them to enter the middle way, so
that is where they would go.

On her signal, the three Cathians
charged into the bots. If they moved fast enough, they could drive
straight into and hopefully through the group. They might be able
to enter the narrow corridor beyond before any flybots came out of
hiding, but there were no flybots on that deck, never had been.
Within seconds, the Cathians hit the front line of large bots,
pushing these unarmed masses aside to reach the more dangerous
spider bots. They hoped to ruin each bot with a single well-placed
metal-piercing blow and keep a row of newly dead bots between
themselves and the sharp knives of anything still active. The bots
crowded together each trying to follow their program to slash or
grapple with the aliens and as they did so, they became too tightly
packed. The Cathians were able to slide the lightweight bots
against one another where they became tangled and immobilized,
losing both their ability to maneuver and use of their weapons.
Still a low boxy thing had a grip on Zep’s foreleg and twisted
enough to open a cut. It took several blows before the thing
dropped off, each hit painful as the wound worsened. The Cathians
overmatched the muddled bots once again and could have destroyed
most of them, but with only three fighters, no further casualties
could be risked.

With a last swing at a spider bot,
Pok broke free of the mass, and with a brief look to confirm that
Zep and Til were still with her, she ran into the hallway beyond
the cluttered plaza. The Cathians held a desperate hope that the
ObLaDa would be hiding in the back of the complex, having run as
far away as it could get. So now, with Til stationed in a narrow
passage to block any bots from following, Pok and Zep moved on,
this time they searched each room they came to. They were
right.

LePan had lost track of the
Cathians while she was trying to control the bots. She was
frustrated. Those things really were helpless doing anything that
differed from their routine. She was standing in the small
communications room, the image of Buth NuTet, Captain of the
Outward Voyager for the last sixty years, displayed before her. Zep
pushed open the door. LePan turned in surprise, shocked that they
had gotten through the complex so quickly. Buth NuTet watched,
disgusted. LePan was bigger, quicker and faster than the Cathians,
in spite of her bulk, and easily dodged past them and out into the
corridor. She was not sure and then remembered a door not too far
away. She might still escape in the waiting shuttle. Pok followed
LePan with her low undulating gait, while Zep, limping, went out
the far door into the next hallway and headed toward the rear of
the complex. The Cathians came down both sides of the corridor as
LePan tried to force open the very exit doors that Pok had long
since tied shut, unfortunately for her, from the outside. Even
though the ObLaDa outweighed the stocky Cathians, she did not put
up a fight. LePan stood passively as Pok hobbled her rear legs,
looped a line around her forearm, and led poor LePan back to the
communication room. Buth NuTet had told her she would not survive
contact with the aliens and, if that were to occur, he would
consider her dead already. No wonder she succumbed.

Zep was elated. This was the hoped
for but unexpected culmination of her plan. With the captured Da in
full view and with operational communications, they would be able
to make their demands known and force the Hags to listen. Still,
communicating would be a problem, as the ObLaDas had only a minimal
understanding of the Cathian language. Then again, it should not be
hard to guess what a rebellious captive species that had been
forcibly transported from their home might wish.

As soon as she entered the room,
Zep could see the image of another ObLaDa on the large wall screen.
She pulled LePan forward to make it clear that it was under their
control. LePan said some words, very calmly in Zep’s opinion. The
image on the screen did not make much of a response and, without
saying anything, it moved away. A few seconds later, the lights,
the screen, and all power in that level of the anti-module went
off. LePan cried out and collapsed to the floor, surprised by the
sudden blackout. The ObLaDas, it seemed, had not mastered the
negotiation concept, or maybe they had, but rather not. On the far
side of the deck, the shuttle quietly moved out of the
antimodule.

The initial shock of the shutdown
and the apparent disregard for their follow ObLaDa was soon
replaced by a sense of confusion. Zep’s plan had run its course.
Pok, as was becoming typical, attempted to find a way to recoup
their situation. They could still function as long as their air
supply and portable lights held out. They had one captured Da as a
bargaining tool, of doubtful worth, and they could not go back.
From the start, they were on a one-way chance with long odds and
limited resources. Pok decided to run for the shuttle tube and move
through it toward the ObLaDa habitat. They would take the risk,
their plan never had much chance of success from the start, an act
of defiance became her goal, and she would pursue it to the
limit.

Chapter 9 Worthless
Hostage

Zep trussed up the sad and
confused LePan while Til rigged lights to the front and rear of the
cart. The three together hefted LePan’s bulky body onto the top and
stuck supplies into whatever space remained. They went out into the
deserted deck. Pok tied the door closed from the outside. They did
not expect to be pursued by the leaderless house bots, but why make
it easy for them to try? The three plus LePan took off at a fast
pace toward the shuttle. No bots or Sticks or any moving thing
could be seen.

The large circular conduit passed
through the connecting arm and the modules. Both of the shuttle
tubes ran along the inside of conduit tube and most of the
remaining space, that not taken up by the pipes, wires, load baring
cables and supporting beams, was given over to the heavy truck lift
that could move construction materials and large loads throughout
the ship. Pok and Zep came to the distinctively painted shuttle
door and wedged it open. It was the one they had been through. Zep
stuck her head into the open tube. The shuttle itself was nowhere
to be seen. The empty tube disappeared into the darkness below and
up through the Filim anti-module, where some light could be seen
far above. They considered climbing up the tube, there was a ladder
of sorts, but the distance to the habitat module was too great for
that.