Sandcats of Rhyl (7 page)

“Sure,” said Richards, “out with our lives and a hundred klick walk back to Rhylston.”

Nightwind shut up: What the man said was true. Without the aircar and its equipment, they were at the mercy of a planet lacking in the very concept of pity.

The day proved placid after the winds of the previous night. Richards kept the aircar at maximum speed. It was obvious he was growing increasingly nervous about venturing into this portion of the desert. His continuing paranoia about the sandcats began to make Nightwind wonder about the mysterious animals.

“You keep describing these ‘cats as some sort of devil figure. I just can’t believe they are all that dangerous. What do they live on?”

Richards snorted. “Predators, that’s what they are. They eat anyone stupid enough to come out here.”

“And what do they eat between the times stupid people — like us — come out into their territory?”

“Why,” Richards looked surprised, “you know, I lived on this planet all my life and I never once thought on that. Maybe they eat the plants or something. There’s a little rat creature around, though it’s hard to find during the day. Hardly big enough to cover your palm. Small. Not enough for one of the big ‘cats.”

His voice sounded husky through the air filter. Nightwind was tired of having to wear the desert suit but knew it was necessary even in the aircar. The less energy going for things like air-conditioning, the more that could be expended on the power-devouring force field or the magnetic repulsion engines sending them sailing smoothly over the desert.

“I think the sandcats are just myth. Maybe a legend. A boogeyman. And have you ever seen one?” Nightwind knew immediately the answer would be in the affirmative. Richards paled under his weather-beaten exterior and his grip tightened on the controls.

“Yeah. Saw one at a couple kilometers through binoculars. And if they don’t exist, how can you explain the fools going out to hunt them who never come back?”

“The desert is a dangerous place,” Heuser said simply.

“You bet it is. But there was Lirn Heitmann. You heard of him, I guess.”

Nightwind had. Heitmann was reputedly the galaxy’s biggest sportsman. Or what passed for sport in high-society circles. Heitmann sat back at ten or fifteen kilometers and blasted away at his prey. He had bagged some of the most dangerous animals in the known galaxy but seldom had he confronted any of the beasts up close. That wasn’t his style.

“Heitmann got himself mauled pretty bad not five years ago. He had this monster cannon he called a rifle. The energy pack on it took two strong men to lug around. He went out with a whole damn expedition. Five of them came back and mostly chewed up at that. Claimed a sandcat snuck up on him when he wasn’t lookin'.”

Nightwind said nothing. Heitmann wasn’t a hunter. He lacked any true ability except wanton killing. A cunning animal could easily have crept close, then taken its revenge. But that implied a vengefulness most wild animals lacked. The only explanation was that Heitmann simply made a mistake, let his prey get too close, then paid for it with a few cuts — and a decimated entourage.

“It seems like these ‘cats might be left over from wetter days. I found a brief study of Rhyl done by a couple galactographers, and they reported this was once a cooler planet.”

“Cooler and wetter,” agreed Richards. “Theory says the sun started heating up. Some internal mechanism went slightly out of synch. The average temperature on Rhyl started going up a half degree a decade for a couple hundred years. Only take a raise of a handful of degrees to make this place a furnace. And a blast furnace it is, too.”

He reached over and began punching in a series of instructions to the computer. Finally satisfied, the desert rat leaned back and sighed.

Heuser asked hopefully, “Are we about to Devil’s Fang?”

“Yeah. We made damn good time. Surprised me but the storm last night seemed to exhaust the planet for a while. Been almost dead calm for this place. Less than twenty-klick winds outside. I been putting the juice to the engines, and we should be at the place by sunset. If you’re going out and explore any, that’s the best time. The wind doesn’t start kickin’ up for a couple hours.”

Nightwind reached over and turned off the force field. The visibility was vastly greater than the previous day. In the far distance on the horizon was a single dagger of stone stabbing at the sky. He flicked up the magnification on his goggles and saw the sheer sides of the rock prominence. Surrounded entirely by rocky desert, Devil’s Fang seemed out of place. It was an oddity, an anomoly. Without trace of mountains nearby, the single pillar reached for the very vault of the arching, dust-filled sky.

“Spooky,” said Heuser. “All alone. Just like some lonely sentry. What’s beyond Devil’s Fang? Farther out?”

“More desert,” said Richards. “Deep desert that’s never been explored. No reason to. Mostly pictures taken from orbit are all the information we have — or need — about it. Story goes that’s the sandcats’ breedin’ ground.”

“Has anyone ever managed to kill or capture a sandcat?” Nightwind was still suspicious about the elusive animals.

“Nope. A few pictures, more sightings over the last fifty years. That’s what scares me cross-eyed about the ‘cats. Nobody’s ever got one. Heitmann didn’t. Lots of others before him didn’t, either.”

Nightwind shrugged it off. He turned around and scanned the desert behind the racing aircar. The other vehicle carrying Slayton and Dhal wasn’t visible. He still hadn’t figured out if Richards knew anything about the others or not. Perhaps he and Heuser had just been careless back in Rhylston and let their destination slip. Richards’ office wasn’t a security-tight area, not by a thousand light years. It would have been simple for Slayton to have fastened a listening device to one wall and overheard everything said in the room.

Or maybe Richards was in league with them. Only time would tell. Nightwind just wouldn’t trust Richards too far until he was certain of the guide’s integrity.

They didn’t reach Devil’s Fang that night or the next day. A sudden wind buffeted the aircar around until Richards was forced to go to ground. They weathered the storm — and then another — and finally arrived at the base of the rock spire on the morning of the sixth day after leaving Rhylston.

Richards lowered the aircar to the sand and turned off the engines. The force field died, and they were treated to the sight of a two-kilometer-high pile of wind-eroded rock soaring upward.

“Here we are, gents. Just tell me when you’re ready to go back.”

“Heuser, get the equipment ready. I’ll check out the area.” Nightwind waited until the aircar door irised open, slipped out and stood in the powdery dust at the base of the Devil’s Fang. The sheer mass of the mountain was intimidating. That it was the only thing in sight higher than a sand dune added to the effect. There was nothing to compare the mountain with to accurately judge its height.

Nightwind found a sliding motion the most effective way of walking through the sand. He studied the walls of the spike of stone. There was something different about this rock. It didn’t seem natural, but he wasn’t enough of a geologist to replace an intuition with facts. The rock appeared pitted, chunks of it totally eaten away by the high winds. He didn’t bother removing one of his gloves to touch the rock; rock was rock and any moisture loss increased the danger. Richards had been right when he said this was a violent planet. A single day’s journey after they sighted the Devil’s Fang had turned into three.

Heuser joined him, lugging along a box of small, square devices with cone-shaped protuberances on one face. The cyborg hefted the hundred-kilo box with easy contempt.

“Here are the sounders,” he said. “Ready to start putting them down yet, Rod?”

“Yes. You take numbers 1 through 100 and start off in that direction. I’ll take the rest and go the other way. Put the things about five paces apart. And be sure you don’t get the numbers mixed up. Start with 100 and work down. I’ll start with 101 and go up.”

They split, leaving Richards alone in the aircar. Nightwind felt uneasy about leaving the man behind, but not too uneasy. Heuser had opened the glycol coolant valves wide. It would take at least five minutes for Richards to heat up the engine enough to become airborne. It wasn’t much, but they didn’t dare disable the craft. Nor did they dare do anything to warn Richards they were suspicious of him; if he was honest, they could hurt his pride. If he was in some conspiracy with Slayton, he might panic and kill them. The desert provided too many opportunities for a desperate man.

Nightwind trudged off with his sonic detectors wishing he possessed Heuser’s strength. Still, each time he placed one of the seismic devices, his load was lessened that much more. After 500 meters, he finished planting the last of his sensors. He got back to the aircar ten minutes after Heuser.

The cyborg was sitting inside the aircar talking with Richards as Nightwind came in. Heuser turned and said, “All ready on my side. I have the detector ready to go.”

“What is that gizmo?” asked Richards. “I never saw anything like it before.”

“It’s the latest model sonic prospector. Just sit back and watch it work,” said Heuser.

“Fire the probes,” Nightwind said. He watched Heuser press a red button. Outside, two hundred cones exploded and sent a hair-thin tendril ten meters into the sandy soil or underpinning rock. “Activate the receptors.”

Nightwind’s cold eyes never wavered as a steady parade of numbers crossed the small monitoring screen. He fiddled first with one dial, then another. The numbers speeded up. He continued adjusting the device until he was satisfied.

He pressed a button on the side of the machine. A thin ribbon of metallic tape was spit out. Nightwind looked over his shoulder at Richards and asked, “Do you mind if I use the on-board computer? It’s already got power up. We brought along a diagnostic computer, but it would take a while to bring on-line.”

Richards pointed and said, “It’s all yours.” He pressed close as Nightwind inputted the metallic tape. The screen of the computer brightened, and the machine began digesting the raw data.

Nightwind let out a low whistle as the information came out. Heuser’s eyes widened perceptibly.

Richards was kept totally in the dark over their findings. He finally asked, in exasperation, “Well? What the hell have you two found out there with this thing?”

“This,” Nightwind answered slowly, “is supposed to give a detailed report back on the composition of the mountain. Different elements transmit sound waves differently due to density and crystal structure. The phonon wavelength difference should tell us all about Devil’s Fang.”

“Well?” repeated Richards. “Is the whole mountain nothing but pure osmium?”

“It’s nothing but pure rock,” said Nightwind. “Pure rock on the outside and completely hollow on the inside!”

Slayton snarled at Dhal, “Isn’t it working yet?”

“Quit complaining,” answered the other. “If you hadn’t gotten us buried under a ton of sand, we wouldn’t have overheated the engines getting out. I thought you knew how to drive this thing.”

“And I thought you were the expert on deserts. Why the hell didn’t you tell me it would be like that?”

“So how was I to know? I can’t see the future. I’m not a precog. So what do you mean — ”

“QUIET!” screamed Steorra, putting her hands on each side of her head. The desert suit irritated her skin, and the entire expedition was obviously not proceeding according to her plans. She thought it would be easy to follow Nightwind, catch him in the act of stealing her father’s discovery, then expose him for the thief that he was. But with the force shield up protecting them from the fierce dust storms, tracking wasn’t as simple as it might have been.

Slayton claimed to have put an electronic bug under Richards’ aircar. He might have, but it hadn’t sent out so much as a single bleep since the first day. Steorra had argued that the small device was destroyed by the wind or the ever-present dust. Slayton blamed Dhal. Dhal claimed the equipment was faulty, and Slayton should have provided higher-quality electronics for the task.

It had been one continual argument since they left Rhylston. Being trapped several meters under the sand had frightened Steorra more than she cared to admit. And she didn’t dare show the first sign of weakness to either of her companions. They obviously were raised in a tougher school. She had the gut-level feeling they would abandon her at the slightest provocation. A hard-bitten, authoritarian approach was the only way of coping with them.

She wondered exactly how much Dhal really knew of deserts. Being buried alive in the tiny aircar had been frightening. Sitting paralyzed with sure knowledge the aircar would vibrate apart as he applied power to get them out of the dusty grave took a greater measure of courage than she would have believed possible.

Now that they were out and had weathered several more storms, the aircar was beginning to show signs of metal fatigue and damage. Neither Dhal nor Slayton was mechanic enough to keep the machinery running properly. The gyros precessed slightly, requiring a constant vigilance. It was no longer possible to simply put the desired course into the computer and let the machine do the work. Steorra was the one who discovered the discrepancy between their intended course and their actual location.

It would have been funny if their lives didn’t depend on the aircar’s perfect operation.

“There,” said Dhal, wiping his hands on the sides of his desert suit. “I think we can get a few more hours of running out of it. Coolant tube into the reactor developed a hairline crack and was leaking. I don’t think it’s too bad.”

“But you don’t know for sure?” pressed Steorra.

The man glared at her.

Slayton quickly said, “We’re not going back, if that’s what is worrying you. Dhal can keep this bucket of bolts running long enough to catch up with Nightwind. We’re agreed the only place he could be going was Devil’s Fang. The topographical map of the area doesn’t show anything else in that direction.”

“How much longer do you think it’ll be?” Steorra ished now she hadn’t come along. Yet, she had to be here when Slayton forced Nightwind to admit he nurdered her father to steal his discovery.