Sandcats of Rhyl (13 page)

“Right, Lane. And I’ll keep an even sharper eye on the gunsights.” The desert worlder slipped down the incline and was gone.

“Look, Slayton — ” Steorra began.

“You look, lady. This is my expedition now that we’ve found Nightwind and those two with him. And from now on, I’ll call the shots. I mean that literally. Either you seal that mouth of yours or I’ll do it for you.”

Steorra turned white. “All right. For now. We’ll speak more on this after Nightwind is captured.”

“Sure, sure. Now let’s move out. Dhal’s in position to cover the palace.”

Slayton pushed Steorra down the slope and quickly followed her. This was beginning to look like fun to him.

The Guardian sensed three humans moving along the periphery of the Ancient Place. With the precision of a finely engineered machine, he guided a score of sandcats through the hole blasted in the rock wall and into the giant cavern, then set them on the trio’s path.

The three — or was it two? — humans entering the Rulers’ Nest would be easily taken when the proper time came. But the sandcat was beginning to feel uneasy because of one of the three. Not human, that was a certainty.

But if the alien wasn’t human, what was it? The Guardian caught stronger surges of thought as the creature experienced the glories of the Rulers’ Nest. It responded in ways not dissimilar to those of the sandcat. The Guardian vowed to explore this phenomenon further, but not at the expense of carrying out its mission.

Guardians had protected the Ancient Place for a thousand years. This Guardian would not be the lone one to be remiss in the duty.

“That’s a really fine piece of work,” Richards said, placing the jeweled scepter back into its cradle on the altar. “But this chair is not my idea of comfort.” He pulled himself erect, looked at Heuser and Nightwind, saying, “What’s got into you two? It’s creepy enough here but the way you’ve been walkin’ like robots…”

“The place is reaching me, I guess,” Nightwind explained, knowing fully how inadequate such an explanation was. It didn’t approach telling the exact way this place impinged on his senses, his emotions, drove unsettling messages to the very core of his being. He couldn’t understand how the guide could be so totally unresponsive to the aura of the palace.

As if Heuser were reading his mind, the cyborg said quietly, “I don’t think he has the experience to appreciate this like we do. Or it could be more complex? We might be more sensitive to certain subsonic vibrations.”

“I don’t think it’s got anything to do with sound, Heuser. The first thing I noticed was the silence. The quiet is like a blanket. Doesn’t it seem likely a race on this planet might not have any ears? The dust would certainly work against such creatures — like you and me.”

Richards piped up, “You’re forgetting this city is old, so old it may date back before the sun started heatin’ up. If that’s so, the builders weren’t forced to live in the desert.”

Nightwind shrugged. “Perhaps they were telepathic. There have been enough documented cases of intraracial ESP communication to make it plausible. I’ve even heard the Council has a few interracial telepaths it uses on certain cases. But the telepathy angle might explain why I’m so jumpy. I could be a natural receptor for some form of telepathic transfer.”

“I doubt that. The people building this place are long dead. Even if you believe in life after death, I’m doubtin’ you could communicate with them.” Richards began walking around the room, studying the geometric sculptures. He shook his head. “These folks just don’t seem to go in for self-images. Everything’s mathematically precise, geometric. Oh, well.”

Nightwind turned and looked back at the scepter on the altar. It held a strange compulsion for him. He felt the urge to pick it up, hold it, make it do … what?

His reverie was broken by the sharp crack of a blasterifle. Nightwind’s catlike reflexes came into full play. In less than a tenth of a second, he had his needlegun out and was facing the door into the throne room. Richards was crouched down, fumbling out his own blaster.

“Slayton!” barked Heuser, prone on the floor looking out across the vast chamber. “We’re trapped in here, Rod!”

“Hell we are! Cover me, you two. Ole Patton Rommel Richards is going to show those jackals some fancy pistol work!”

“PR!
Stop!
” yelled Nightwind.

But it was too late. The guide was already rolling, spinning, sliding across the smooth floor, his blaster spitting out microsecond bursts of deadly energy.

“Give him cover and make for the other side, Heuser. We can catch them in a crossfire when we make it.”

Firing, trying to cover Richards’ precipitous departure, Nightwind and Heuser broke from the cover of the throne room and sprinted for the safety of a pillar at the side of the chamber.

Nightwind couldn’t remember a hundred meters being longer. Even pitted against Heuser’s artificially enhanced muscles, Nightwind matched the cyborg’s ten seconds flat across the distance. And it was a ten seconds lasting for an eternity.

Heuser said, not even out of breath, “Looks like Richards made it. Now let’s give it to ‘em!” He savagely triggered one blast of raw energy after another.

Nightwind lay prone, his needlegun quiescent. He couldn’t see a good target and wasn’t going to waste energy. As a hand clutching a blaster came into view from behind a pillar, he squeezed off a shot. The blaster went spinning across the floor as Dhal screamed in pain. Nightwind was silently pleased at his marksmanship. It had been a two-hundred-meter distance shot, and he had done it perfectly.

Richards was firing wildly. Nightwind saw him stop, pull out a power unit, slam in a new one and bring his blaster back up. He smiled and waved at Nightwind. The gaunt, dark man motioned back.

With the suddenness of a summer storm, Richards shouted, “Look out, Heuser!” The guide turned and took three quick steps out into the center of the room. Stock still, he held his weapon in both hands, the position of an expert marksman.

As Heuser was turning to see what was behind him, Richards fired. The sandcat crumpled to the floor, dead. The cyborg spun in time to scream his own warning: “PR! Get down!”

Nightwind viewed the scene in an eerie slow motion. The sights of a high-power blasterifle and the blunt nozzle of the weapon appeared from behind a pillar. His own hand seemed leaden. He couldn’t bring his needlegun to bear in time to stop the fiery lance leaping out to steal Richards’ life. The spurt of energy from his tiny needlegun was far too late to save the guide.

Richards lay dead on the floor.

“Heuser!” snapped Nightwind. “Be careful. Don’t end up like him. And the sandcats are coming from somewhere. Guard my back and I’ll try to move up a bit and see if I can’t get a clean shot at Slayton.”

“Go!”

Nightwind launched himself, firing wildly as he went. He wasn’t trying to hit anyone. If Dhal and Slayton stayed under cover, that was fine. It was all he could expect. Kicking out and diving, he slid to a crashing halt against a pillar of the opalescent material. He poked his head cautiously around and saw Dhal blasting a sandcat.

He took glum satisfaction that the sandcats weren’t playing favorites. They were attacking both sides in this fire fight. But Nightwind could take little consolation in this. Not with Richards charred on the floor.

“Rod! My blaster’s getting weak. Make it quick,” called Heuser, sotto voce.

Nightwind heard a partial discharge, then a grunt. He would have turned back to his friend’s aid except a clear shot presented itself. Slayton moved from behind a pillar to blast down two sandcats padding into the Chamber. Nightwind lined up the sights on his needlegun with firing-range preciseness. Just as his finger was squeezing down, Steorra blocked his shot. She ran out, pulling down Slayton’s blasterifle. Nightwind couldn’t hear what she said, nor did it matter.

The shot wouldn’t do any good now. Not with Slayton already moving back to the protection of the pillar. Nightwind cursed himself for being such a sentimental fool. He could have dropped the woman, then taken out Slayton with a second shot.

But he hadn’t. Something made him hold back at the critical moment. The woman was still alive, but that was less than cheering. Nightwind was sure she was responsible for much of the unpleasantness with Slayton and Dhal. He still didn’t know exactly where she fit into the matrix. Kidding himself this was the reason his finger had hesitated long enough for Slayton to save himself wasn’t productive.

Nightwind heard Slayton’s heavy blasterifle fire again. The sandcats were invading the palace in greater numbers now. He took a quick shot at Dhal, missed, cursed and fired again. The other had picked up another blaster and was liberally spraying spurts of energy all over the chamber. It didn’t seem to matter to the man if he was firing at a sandcat or Nightwind.

“Heuser,” Nightwind called. Not hearing anything, he called, louder, “
Heuser!
Are you okay?”

Nightwind abandoned his position and made his way back to Heuser’s side. The cyborg was unconscious, pinned under the bulk of a sandcat. The beast had obviously jumped Heuser and the cyborg had fired point blank into its chest. Nightwind checked his friend’s blaster. The charge level read zero. The sandcat had taken only a partial bolt of energy. He reached over and felt the sleek beast’s throat, searching for a pulse. Finding it, he paused.

Should he finish the job Heuser had started? Should he kill the sandcat? A single shot through its earless head would end its existence and avenge Heuser, not that Heuser was dead. The cyborg’s head displayed a knot the size of a small egg growing even as he watched.

He shrugged it off. The battlefield was to the front, not here. He could hear two blasters firing with grim regularity. He was sure Dhal and Slayton were perched high up, firing down at the sandcats. Only in that position could they be assured of successfully driving the ‘cats from the palace.

Nightwind studied the pillars and thought he spied the mezzanine or balcony where Dhal must be. He hunkered down, his wrists resting against his knees. The needlegun unwaveringly pointed at the tiny target so far away. A flash of desert suit, a burst from his pistol, an agonized scream from Dhal’s lips.

Good.

He turned to find where Slayton would be lurking to give a crossfire. Not even his super-fast reflexes could respond quickly enough to the cold worlds, “Good-bye, Nightwind,” uttered from behind.

The man pivoted in time to see the blur of a descending blasterifle butt. Then the world went away.

REDWAVES OF PAIN washed through his head. It was agony to move. But Nightwind struggled back to consciousness. He had to squeeze the trigger of his needlegun. He had to put a searing bolt of lambent energy through Slayton’s heart.

Opening his eyes set off a chain reaction of muscle spasms throughout his body. The light burned like a white-hot poker jabbing into the back of his skull. But still he fought to regain full use of his body. He rolled over, feeling cool floor under his hands. Nightwind shook his head like a wet terrier, then pulled himself erect. He was looking into the muzzle of Slayton’s blasterifle, Slayton’s cold eyes peering up over the electronic sighting mechanism.

“I can’t miss at this range, Nightwind. Just sit back and be a good boy.”

“It doesn’t seem I have much choice, does it?”

“No,” Slayton said cheerfully. “It’s finally turned full circle, the wheel of fate has. I control you now. And I’m going to enjoy it to the fullest.”

“Since I’m not dead, should I bother getting hopes up for my continued existence?” Nightwind was casting furtive glances to either side hoping for a slight diversion. He could wrap his left hand around the barrel of the blasterifle lifting it out of the way while his right hand crushed Slayton’s windpipe.

No diversion came.

“Don’t hold your breath. I’m saving you until I can think up something appropriate.”

“Slayton!” came Steorra’s voice, slightly shrill. “You said there would be no killing! You’ve captured him. He’ll confess to the theft now. We’ve got what we want!”

“You’ve got what
you
want. I’m just getting around to taking what
I
want.” Slayton stepped back and included Steorra in his line of fire. “Why don’t you join our friend? Sit on the floor. It’s harder for you to move fast from that position.”

“Slayton!” Steorra pleaded.

“Down or I’ll shoot you down!”

Nightwind coughed, then said, “I believe your best bet, milady, is to join the prisoners’ ranks. I doubt if Slayton’s missed many sitting ducks in his career. Have you, Slayton? How many men have you shot down from behind? How many were unarmed, helpless?”

“All of them that I could arrange, Nightwind. I’m nobody’s fool. I just stay alive however I can. Now, yes, good, Steorra. You make a nice pair, the two of you kneeling like that.”

Nightwind turned at the sound of heavy panting. Dhal was dragging Heuser up, the cyborg’s hands bound with a thick gray rope. The stunned sandcat was already in the middle of the room.

“Damned if I can figure out why such a scrawny runt is so heavy. He weighs as much as the sandcat.”

“Never mind that. Get these two tied up.” Nightwind noticed no quiver in the muzzle covering him. He would have acted if Slayton had given the faintest sign of being unwilling to fire. Even with Dhal behind him, Nightwind was certain Slayton would fire, killing all of them if the need arose.

The gaunt, black-haired man decided he shouldn’t provide Slayton with an excuse to eliminate yet another partner. Let Dhal find out for himself what it was like being teamed up with the man.

Dhal gasped out, “You’re too good a shot, Nightwind. You hit me in the hand and the shoulder.”

Nightwind winced with pain as Dhal cinched up the bindings on his wrists. He said nothing but noticed how Dhal favored his left arm. And the bandage on his right hand clearly told of Nightwind’s accuracy with the needlegun.

“There. Both of them are tied up. What now, Lane?”

“I haven’t decided yet. I could burn them, starting at the feet and working up. It takes a long time for a person to die that way. The blaster burns cauterize the wound so they wouldn’t bleed to death. Of course, the trauma might — ”