TangleRoot (Star Sojourner Book 6) (5 page)

“Is that a different kind of cannoli?” I asked.

“Naw.” He broke it open and a rich, white cheese oozed out. “This is a
sfoliatelle
. In your language, anglo, it means many-layered. Here!” He shoved half of it at me.

“
Gracie
,” I said.

He grinned his lopsided grin. “
Prego.
”

The pastry was creamy and crunchy and like nothing I'd ever tasted before.

“Better than the peach, huh?” Paulie said.

I nodded and chewed. “Better than a lot of things.”

I turned the peach pit between my fingers. Given the right conditions, the seed within could blossom into a mature peach tree. But not here in this unforgiving world. I slipped it into an inner pocket. If I made it back to Earth, Lisa and I would plant it in Joe's backyard. Someday, when she became a woman, the tree might bear fruit.

“Don't look so worried,” Paulie said. “Your neck is safe.”

I fished around in my dessert bag, took out a
sfoliatelle,
and broke it in half. “Do I have your word on that?” I handed him half.

“On the souls of my children.” He took it. “
Gracie.
”

“
Prego.
” I extended a light probe, calculated not to be noticed. And touched a dark place where conscience did not override violent acts. I withdrew and shivered.

“Paulie!” Al called.

“Gotta go.” He got up quickly. “Coming.” He strode to Al's bedroll and sat down.

Al gestured toward me. He poked Paulie in the chest and said something that made Paulie hang his head and nod.
Don't collaborate with the enemy,
I thought, or something like that.

I rubbed a hand over my eyes and felt lonelier than ever.
Spirit? Are you out there?

I am here. What do you wish this time, master?

I felt the sarcasm in his send.
So far, so good, Spirit. Our plan is working. When they're all asleep, I'll sneak away and into the cave with Joe and my team. Then we'll leave Equus. Do you have to kill these tags?

They will not be allowed to leave with bristra. Had I known that you took samples from Halcyon, I would have stopped you!

I rue the day, Spirit. Isn't there some way you can spare their lives?

Not that I can conceive of.

Your call, Spirit. I wish it could be otherwise. My team and I will be off-planet just as soon as we make it back to Star Sojourner.

If you can.

Why? What's stopping me?
I sent and froze. Zack was approaching. I stood up quickly.

“You right-handed, or left-handed, kraut?” he asked.

I took a step back. “Right. Why?”

He pulled out handcuffs on a long chain from inside his overcoat, grabbed my left wrist and snapped one on.

“That's not necessary,” I said. “Where the hell would I go?”

He grabbed my jacket, dragged me to my knees, and snapped the other cuff on my left ankle. “Nowhere. You can crawl, but you can't run.” He stood up and walked toward his sleeping bag.

“Son of a motherless, crotefucking, slimesucking bottom feeder!” I muttered under my breath.

He stopped and turned, blocking out the campfire and half the woods, it seemed. “You say something to me, kraut?”

I looked up and shook my head.

He chuckled and continued to his bedroll.

Vito unholstered his stingler from beneath his coat, took a small bag of everchips from his bedroll, and spread them carefully around our campsite. Then he fired them with the stingler. Flames shot around the circle and rose to three feet. It would burn all night, I knew, and stop the advancing bristra in their tracks.

Now what?
I thought. Joe and Chancey might be forced to face four well-armed killers in a firefight to free me. Bat, our gentle Southern medic, was no warrior, and hesitated to kill even when he was under fire.

I laid back on my bedroll and covered myself. The stars, and three of the moons, lit the unfamiliar sky in the high mountain air.

I rubbed a hand across my eyes. Had I forced Joe and Chancey and Bat to come to this godforsaken world only to be killed in a fight to save me, or by Spirit, who would send us all into geth state, the place between lifebinds, in one terrible burn of his massive tel power?

It was morning when I awoke to a chitinous scraping of bristra. I sat up and realized that the field had grown overnight, and was spread as far as I could see from my low vantage point within the ring of fire. I limped, hunched over like Quasimodo, dragging my chain to a tree, pulled myself up and leaned against it, my left foot braced on the trunk, and scanned the field that surrounded us.

Christ and Buddha! Bristra roots were spread out as far as I could see. I shivered at the sight of animal skins and cracked bones, sucked dry, that lay among them. Only that thin circle of fire prevented their assault on us. We knew it and they knew it. They were sending out suicidal tendrils to smother the flames. What degree of intelligence and analytical thinking had these creatures achieved?

Jesus, Spirit!
I sent spontaneously.
Were you developing an army?

I didn't get an answer and hadn't expect one. Spirit doesn't engage in academic questions.

“Al!” I called. “Al, get up! The barbarians are at the gates.”

He sat up quickly and brushed hair out of his eyes.

“We're surrounded by an army of Blackroots,” I told him.

He threw off his bedroll, jumped up and looked around. Vito stirred, sat up and rubbed his eyes. He got to his feet and looked around. “Holy shit! Paulie! Zack!”

I pulled at the handcuff in desperation. “Son of a crotefucker!” I don't know when I've felt more vulnerable. “Al! Get me out of these handcuffs. The Blackroot's going to break through!”

“Zack.” Al gestured toward me.

Zack pulled out a key from an inside coat pocket as he lumbered toward me. I held out my hand and he unlocked the cuff. I sighed and stood up straight.

“Just don't get no ideas,” he said, coming close, “that you gonna run away.” He pointed to his eyes. “”Cause I gonna be watching you with these eyes.”

“Right!” I rubbed my wrist as he unlocked the ankle cuff.
Asshole,
I thought, and sent out a tel probe to see how my team was doing. I caught Bat's thoughts. He was scared but trying to remain calm. They were trapped in the cave, surrounded by bristra that kept trying to breach the entrance. “Dammit,” I muttered.

“What'd ya say?” Zack asked.

“Just reciting a morning prayer,” I threw back and strode to the fiery edge of the campsite. The roots had smothered flames in a few places and were penetrating the camp's perimeters.

We'd have to burn a swathe through them and make a run for Searcher.
Then what?
I thought. If I were forced to pilot the ship, they'd kill me when we entered the trade lanes, and program their flight to Earth. I gazed out at the endless field of roots. I was damned if I did…and what about my team? How long would their stingler batteries hold out to keep those hordes at bay?

“Hey, Al,” I said, “how about giving me a weapon? I need you tags and you need every armed man to burn our way out of here. I'm familiar with these roots. They'll close in behind us, and they're fast when they want to be. What do you say?”

He stared at me with those intense black eyes.

I walked toward him, my hand out, and nodded. “What do you say?”

“Do I have your word,” he asked in that hollow voice, “that you won't try to escape?”

“On my children's souls,” I answered solemnly. I have rarely given my word and broken it, but keeping it this time would mean my death. “Do I have your word,” I asked, “that you won't kill me once we're on our way home?”

He nodded. “On the souls of my children.” He put out his hand. I shook it. I sent a light tel probe and saw my own demise in his mind. A stingler burn to the chest. The lying bastard.

Vito gave me back the snub-nosed stingler I'd taken off Al back in the Jemez. I checked that it was set for hot.

“Paulie,” Al said. “You burn the roots that close in behind us. Vito, Zack, you burn the ones on our sides. Me and the kraut will burn the path ahead of us.”

We packed our backpacks.

“Don't anybody trip,” Al told them. He strode back and forth, like a sergeant instructing his troops. “Don't fall!”

“They'll be on you,” I added, and shrugged into my backpack, “before you can get on your feet.”

I watched the four of them strap on their packs, cross themselves, kiss the crucifixes they all wore around their necks, and mumble a short prayer.
Ludicrous,
I thought, that murderers should appeal to their God.
Great Mind,
I sent,
keep us safe, if you would. And if it's OK with you, keep Joe and Chancey and Bat safe too. I'm just saying.

Luck,
Spirit sent.

I hadn't expected that.
Thanks, Spirit. Uh, Spirit?

Yes, Jules? What now?

Is it possible for you to kill this creation of yours? We need a break!

Not without killing you, these Terran butchers, your team, and other advanced races on the planet.

Somehow, I didn't think so. Wait a minute. What other advanced races?

Silence.

Spirit?

He'd broken the link.

I hoped he was just speculating that others might have made planetfall.

The bristra had breached our camp in three places and was advancing. Time to go. My plan was simple. Lead the gangsters out past the bristra field, then make a run for it and beat them to Searcher. Once onboard, I'd head for the cave to rescue my team and we'd take off for the trip back to Earth.

It seemed the bristra knew our direction, though, southwest, back to the ship. It had gathered its main force to cover that path. What the hell were we dealing with? I had to assume that these ground roots were intelligent, analytical aliens with a form of communication and an organized culture, of sorts. To theorize less could result in all our deaths.

I paused by the fire's edge. On a hunch I sent a tel probe across the root field. It was instantly slammed back at me. I gasped as it hit my mind like a blow. “Christ and Buddha,” I whispered.

“What's the problem now?” Al asked.

I shook my head and stamped out a small area of the fire on the south side of camp. “We'll skirt around the main root system. Let's go.”

Somehow, the bristra understood what we had in mind and opened a narrow path so we wouldn't burn it. “Hold your fire!” I shouted. “Save your batteries.” Was it reading my tel mind specifically, or all of us? I tried to cover my thoughts as we trotted out onto the trail it had provided. It snapped closed behind us as we made our way south, and climbed each other's brittle backs to the southwest. It was leading us away from the ship as though we were on a leash!

We ran south along the path. The roots flung themselves to stack up like a wall of firewood to the southwest. We couldn't burn through that even with a concerted effort of firepower.

“Turn east!” I ordered. There had to be an end to this field. When we reached it, we could turn southwest and hopefully outrun it to the ship.

My God. The roots to the east began to stack up. They were building walls around us. The bitter odor stung my nostrils as I ran, the chitinous scraping of climbing roots made me shiver. It was dark within those walls, with the morning sun hidden behind the black eastern barricade. I began to breathe hard as we continued to run south. Was it building a wall ahead of us, to hem us in? I thought of cattle, back in the days when they were herded into the slaughterhouse.

“Wait!” Zack shouted. He was stumbling and falling behind. The bristra was hard on his heels. “Wait for me!” He gasped and reached out a hand.

Vito went back, slung Zack's arm over his shoulder and hurried him forward.

Something bit into my thigh. I yelled and swung my weapon. A tendril had wrapped itself around my leg and was pulling me toward a wall. I blasted it with a hot beam. The truncated root jerked back. I pulled the tip from off my leg. Tiny feral teeth scraped my flesh as I flung it away from me, more in disgust than to be rid of it. I didn't stop to check if the wetness on my thigh was blood or the creature's yellow fluid. I heard Paulie yell and glanced back. His stingler was on the ground. He was trying to yank off two thick tendrils wrapped around his arm. I skidded to a stop, ran back, and burned off the tendrils. They lay twitching in the path as I picked up the stingler and slapped it into Paulie's hand. “Hang onto this!”

A look of shock crossed his face. “You came back for me.”

“Yeah. Imagine that!” I turned and ran again.

If these crotefucking roots were building a wall to the south, it was all over. I would burn out my own brain before I'd let them chew my flesh with those Lamprey teeth and suck my body dry. I was gasping for breath as we ran south. Zack and Vito were falling behind again. Al showed no fear in his intense expression as he trotted beside me, only anger.

I tried another probe as I ran, targeting a specific thick tendril that was looping out from the western wall. It lifted, exposing short pink legs and a mouth of round pointed teeth. Then it uncurled toward me and my send came back like a boomerang that crashed into the inner core of my brain.

I stumbled and fell. The creature probed deep and suddenly my limbs felt cold and numb. “Great Mind!” I tried to get up and couldn't. Al was ahead of me, still running.

A strong hand gripped my arm and yanked me to my feet. “Get up, you dumb kraut!” Paulie dragged me forward. Blood began to circulate again and I stumbled and then ran. “
Gracie!
” I said.

“
Prego
,” he threw back and kept running.

And then I saw it ahead. The south wall the roots had been building.

“We're finished!” Vito said and let go of Zack, who sank to his knees, his mouth wide, gasping for air.

Vito clasped his hands together, fell to his knees and looked at the sky. “Bless me, Father. Forgive me my sins.” He fished out his crucifix and kissed it, then began to cry.

Zack leaned forward, gripped his knees and lowered his head.

“Stop bawling, Vito!” Al searched the walls for an escape route.

Paulie looked at me the way a child would, as though I'd have a way out.

The eastern wall wasn't as high as the others. I tried not to project the thought. “We all aim at the bottom of those narrow roots,” I said and pointed to an area that had the thinnest tangle of roots. “Go!”

The bitter odor swirled around us as we blasted the roots. The wall above collapsed. Roots crashed to the ground. “Keep it up!” I said. The bottom roots spasmed and rolled as they tried to smother flames that shot up and engulfed them.

But the walls closed around us. They reared and lashed out tendrils. We swept them with hot beams, then went back to burning the path we were creating. A tendril whipped across my arm and knocked my stingler out of my hand. I threw myself down and made a grab for it, but the tendril curled around the weapon and yanked it into the wall.

“
Marrona!
” Vito shouted. “It got mine, too!”

I saw a thick tendril whip Al's stingler from his hand and throw it high over the wall.

Zack was flat on the ground, fighting with a root that had his weapon.

Only Paulie still held his stingler. He looked fierce as he screamed at the root system. “Come and get us,
frocio stronzo
. I'll take you with me,
diavolo!
” A tendril reached out and snapped the stingler from Paulie's hand. “You mother fucker!” he screamed.

Great Mind,
I sent, and swayed as I closed my eyes.
Take me. Take us all. Don't let us die this way.

Not yet,
Spirit answered.

A sound overhead. The whine of a hovair. But that was impossible. Still, I looked up. A hovair hovered above us. Beneath it a ladder unrolled to our small clearing. I had to believe what I saw.

Vito was already climbing the rungs. Paulie and I grabbed Zack under each arm and dragged him to the ladder. Al was on his way up behind Vito.

“Just hold on tight,” I told Zack. Paulie grabbed one side of the ladder. I grabbed the other and clung as the hovair yanked us up above tendrils that reached for us with sucking sounds. Zack was sagging. I gripped the shoulder of his coat with one hand, clung to the ladder with the other, and wrapped my feet around rungs.

Beneath us the field of bristra blurred with the speed. Wind cut like ice in the cold mountain air. I looked up at the hovair. Spirit had said
…and other advanced races on the planet.
He wasn't just speculating, after all.

The hovair lifted high over a craggy peak. I was shaking badly from cold, and current events didn't help, when it set us down gently between snowdrifts.

I untangled myself from the ladder, unslung my backpack, and rolled to my back, shaking, feeling weak. Paulie sat leaning against Zack, who was flat on his back with his pack under his head like a pillow. Al and Vito sat listlessly in the snow. “We made it,” I said.

Paulie just stared at me. “Did you…” He jabbed a finger toward the landing hovair. “Did you call for that plane with your tel stuff?”

I watched the hovair's hatch spring open amid swirling snow. The occupants remained inside, waiting for it to settle, I think. “I'm not that good, kid.” I winked. “Not yet, anyway.”

We had all lost our weapons, though Zack was himself a weapon. Whoever our benefactors were, I'd impress on them that we had to rescue my team and get off planet. If the syndicate tags wanted to come without their sample of bristra, that was OK with me. But somehow, I doubted they would opt to scrub their mission. They were soldiers, all right, with a captain, in a war they started for the love of credits.

When the snow settled, a slightly-built Terran woman and a tall, gray-haired man emerged from the hovair and strode toward us.

Paulie and I sat up, but Zack remained on his back.

“Are you folks all right?” The man, gaunt-cheeked and hunched, furrowed his brows.

“We are now,” I said. “Thanks. You saved our butts.”

The woman, perhaps in her early twenties, with short straight blonde hair and a narrow face, rubbed her pale hands in the cold air. “Where did that plant come from?” she asked in a high-pitched voice and spread her hands. “I think it was about to eat you all.”