Stardogs (22 page)

The Leaguesman complied “What are…”

“Shut-up. I’m calculating.” She measured again, from that point. “Now… about where my elbow is. Look up. About three yards. Shine the torch there. Anything?”

“There’s a pair of holes. Little ones. Too small for fingers.”

“Excellent!” she fished in a pocket. Emerged with her lock-pick. “Come Leaguesman. You’re the tallest. The Denaari used claw-holes for things they didn’t want bumped by accident. Pick me up, man.”

The Leaguesman gaped at her, but failed to move. Sam pushed him aside. Squatted down. “On my shoulders, lady-lock-tickler.”

He lifted her without any visible effort. It was not an alien lock to challenge her, but just two simple switches. They just wouldn’t stay down. “Lila, turn that wheel while I push these down.” With the safety interlock successfully interrupted, the inner airlock door opened with a cascade of sand and two naked people and a small dog.

Shari had recovered her blouse top and a shiny jacket thing that Lila assumed must be a support garment for the very rich. The sand-gaps had been plugged with strips of blanket from a ruined bedchamber. “So… how do we get out?”

“Can we dig? I mean, is it far to the surface?” asked Tanzo.

“Heaven knows. Surely it can’t be. The sand is warm. But as for digging… well the faster you dig the stuff out the more it pours in.”

“Stabilise it,” said Lila professionally.

The others looked her in surprise. “Er… do you know how?” Viscount Brettan had recovered his trousers. He had magnificent muscles, she thought.

“PVA in water, is what my dad used. But I don’t suppose we have any paint.”

“Didn’t see any in the maintenance workshop.” Sam Teovan kicked the fine sand. “Look, if the top is close, if we just open the outside door, some sand will come in, but we’ll be able to get out.” The idea felt good.

“Maybe. If outside is close enough.”

“So push a pole up and see where the sand stops.”

“And how will you know that, Yak?”

“When the pushing gets easy suddenly.”

Shari stood up. “I’m going to go back to the others. They must be very anxious by now. Perhaps they’ll have some ideas.”

Someone cleared their throat back in the darkness. “There’s no need, Princess. I have just come up to see what was happening. The Lieutenant is awake now.” Deo stepped out of the darkness with a piece of water pipe. “Perhaps this, with a U bend on? It would be like a harpoon. Possible to push forward, but not draw back unless the end was into the open air. It would also act as a snorkel…” He toppled forward, and the ridergirl, who happened to be nearest, was obliged to catch him or be squashed.

By the time the factotum surfaced again, his ‘snorkel’ was out in the sulfur-tainted air of Denaar. His head was pillowed on the Princess’s bare thighs and he wondered, briefly, whether this was one of those disturbing dreams he occasionally had now that his supply of the sexuality-suppressing drugs the Arunchal assassins used had run out. He stirred. She leaned over him. “We have to move you, Deo. They’re going to try opening the outer airlock now.”

He started to sit up. “Stay down. We’ll move you. Martin. Lila. Give me a hand, please.”

From further down the accessway Deo heard the grating of the airlock being forced further open. More sand spilled into the accessway. “Bring it in. Make more space for it to fall,” someone shouted. And then there was light. A shaft of dusty sunlight.

Somebody was scrambling out. Briefly cutting off the sunlight. Slithering, scrabbling and swearing. “Like being in a bloody antlion hole.” The Yak. He slithered back down bringing more sand with him. His tough face was grim. He picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle between his thick, stubby fingers. “There’s a bugger of a lot of this stuff out there, and sod all else.”

“Nice of you to come back to tell us,” said Shari sardonically.

A grin split the tough face. “I thought of doing a runner. But there isn’t much to run to out there. Just blooming sand. I’m a city boy, see. Don’t know much about sand.”

“You’ll speak with respect to your betters, scum,” said Viscount Martin Brettan, aiming a kick at him.

The Yak dodged easily. The Viscount stepped after him.

“Stop it.” Shari barely had to raise her voice. “Martin. You. Whatsit. Sam. We’re stuck here. Probably forever. What happened in the past is past. We’re going to have to live together, and rely on each other to stay alive. That is if we can stay alive where there is nothing but sand. And among the useless things we have our titles are going to be the most meaningless and useless. I for one, intend to drop mine. Call me Shari.”

The entire group was silenced. Shocked beyond speech. Hereditary power was the core of the Gotha Empire’s being. The idea was as alien as the world they now stood on. The princess had already extrapolated a castaway future. She’d also realized the potential of shock in maintaining her fragile control over the group. The statement provoked the response she’d required… and more. Viscount Brettan and Prince Jarian looked at her as if they’d abruptly awoken to find a snake on their chests.

Deo sat up. His deep voice was oddly calm. “To me, you will remain Princess Shari. But you are right, Princess. To survive we will have to set aside our differences and work together. Is there nothing outside but sand?”

“Big rock ridge over that way. And lots of sand.”

Tanzo sighed. “No buildings?”

“Just black rock and sand, Lady lock-tickler.”

The little scholar looked aggrieved. “I would have thought we’d land at some historical civilization site.”

“It was a rather forced landing, Tanzo. I don’t imagine sand and more sand was the Denaari’s idea of a holiday resort.”

The dumpy woman shook her head. “You’re wrong, you know, Prin… Shari. The most heavily settled Denaari worlds are virtually bare of vegetation. Too dry. This place is probably like that.”

Shari thought of New Sahara. Of Gobi V. Shuddered. “Water discipline is going to have to be our priority then. Fortunately, we have the ship and all the materials on it.”

On the other side of the ridge Juan didn’t have the advantage of a ship from which to garner the wherewithal of survival. He had a serious thirst problem and all he had was an alien escape pod. It also looked like he wasn’t going to have that for very long.

He’d finally gotten over his hysteria, and started a brief exploration of his environment, trying to work out the easiest way up the razor-backed ridge. He had to get over it… there would surely be other survivors? He could join them in finding the way to the nearest settlement. Also surely the stationers would have tracked the descent of the ship. Rescue craft must surely be on the way already. He must think of some way of signaling to them or he could be left alone out here. The idea terrified him. Perhaps something from the escape pod could be used as a mirror. He looked back at the pod. It was dissolving.

He turned and ran back.

The pod wasn’t dissolving under its own steam. It was being assisted by a myriad of little spitbug-starfish-like creatures. Frantically he tried to brush some aside. The spittle burned his hand and he hastily rubbed it off on the sand. It still burned. He spat on it. That seemed to help. He worked his mouth trying to make more spittle in its dryness.

The creatures’ digestive enzymes were actually totally ineffectual at breaking down carbon-based lifeforms, but they functioned best in a low pH environment. Anyway the creatures had been designed to clear up dead scrap and to recycle the nutrients and minerals therein. The Denaari would have been horrified at the idea of their garbage cleaning system attacking something living, but Juan didn’t know this. He backed off a good ten yards, still spitting on this hand. It wasn’t that bad really. It had just burned the cuts and scratches he’d acquired. He stood and watched as the escape pod was digested, ready to turn and run. As the chair crumbled, the starfish-spitbugs began blowing larger bubbles which fused into little gasbags. The creatures began drifting away down-valley as the last remnants of the escape pod fell into de-mineralized dust.

Juan stared. It couldn’t have taken more than fifteen minutes. And it was all gone. Every bit of it, except that sort of circlet left in the dust. Cautiously he went for a closer look. The thing shone, even dusty like that. It was… a sort of crown. Using a splinter of glassy rock he drew it closer to him, and then knocked the dust off it. It gleamed silver-gold in the afternoon sun. It would do for a mirror. Pulling his sleeve down to cover his hand Juan picked it up. It was surprisingly heavy. Well, he would just have to carry it, and be careful he didn’t drop it.

He didn’t know it then, but it wouldn’t really have mattered if he’d pounded it with a rock. A Denaari mnemonic crown was designed to withstand whatever fate overtook its wearer, and carry back the precious life memories and emotions to its nest-mates and roost. With the mission that the owner of this crown had been on, it was designed to survive a point-impact of up to eighty tons per square inch. Diamond was soft and brittle by comparison. But Juan didn’t know this and handled it with care. It was a damned nuisance as he tried to find a way up the virtually impassable ridge. He often found he needed two hands. If he slid it up his arm, it wouldn’t stay slid. His shirt kept coming untucked when he put it inside it. Besides, Rat didn’t seem to like it.

The awkward crown was one of the reasons Juan gave up trying to climb the ridge. The other was that the sun was distinctly lower now and as little as he might like the idea of spending the night out here, he liked the idea of a night stuck on a little ledge up there even less. From the height he had gained he could see up-valley. There was a little saddle a few miles further up. Surely that must be easier to cross. So he climbed down from the ridge, managing not to drop the crown.

It was as well that he didn’t drop it. It wouldn’t have broken, but he might have lost it. And it was probably worth at least twenty times what the Gotha Emperor’s grandiose seventeen pounds of platinum and rare gemstones was. There were, after all, only forty-one other mnemonic crowns as yet missing from the Denaari memory vaults. When the Denaari wings had spread over 433 planets there had been nearly two billion crowns scattered across the outworlds. All but the last forty two had been gathered in, sent back to Denaar, the crowns full of memories and the love of the dead and dying crowding desperately needed minerals and materials, and even the living off the ships. The remaining crowns, the crowns of those heroes who had stayed to the last, had been recovered by their keening and grieving small servants. The loyal echinate-creatures had loaded the last crowns onto the messenger ships, before following their beloved masters, even into death. The idea that inanimate things could carry this mysterious constantly mutating non-living plague never occurred to them, as it never occurred to their masters. The many-armed Sil, who had destroyed all life but themselves on their mudball-heavy-metal world, had had a similar problem with the Denaari-introduced viruses.

Walking up the valley Juan would have cheerfully traded the crown, even if he had known its worth, for a drink. He’d have given two of them for some human company, but all he had was that distant skein of birds, now high up again. He wished they’d piss off. Juan was a teenager, so he wasn’t a great believer in older and wiser heads. But, right now, he secretly admitted to himself, what he really wanted was his Dad or Mum, or even his step-mother-to-be. This had to be all their fault!