The Trilisk Supersedure (12 page)

Those
things might be dangerous, even though my Vovokan spheres protected me once.

He
stopped after half an hour and asked the forward scout to do a passive scan.
For five minutes Magnus waited, crouched beside the ruin of a single-room
building the size of a tiny hovel. He had plenty of time to look it over. The
structure looked old. It had grilles on each face. The bars on the grilles were
of a different design: they were made from the plant stalks.

Like
wood,
he thought.
But all the others we’ve seen are tough stone
or ceramic. So this guy must have been poor. Or this building just predates the
others.

Magnus
took a peek inside with a light. As he expected, a grille was in the center of
the ceiling. There wasn’t one on the floor. The walls and floor were littered
with brown and green refuse that looked like rotted furniture or tools. Some
short sticks came out of the walls and ceiling, but nothing else remained
intact.

Magnus
walked around the building to check out the far side. Two large plants grew
from breaches in the rock next to the building. He saw something new there:
grilles across the openings where the plants emerged from the ground. The
stalks of the plants grew through the holes. The grilles matched those of the
building, made from pieces of cured or painted plant stalks.

That
means they went down there. Telisa will be interested. Maybe they lived in
those natural plant pots before they made their own structures. Like ancient
Terrans living in caves.

A small
gray critter of some kind darted inside. Magnus pointed his weapon. Thoughts of
the vermin that attacked him on Vovok came to the fore. He took a deep breath
and mastered the nervousness it brought.

On
second thought, maybe it’s a kind of animal pen to them. Those critters that
live down there might have been raised like domestic animals. But they can get
out. Which means the pen is to keep the predators out.

The
results of the passive scan came back. Magnus opened a pane in his PV to look
over the results. The information unfolded in his mind, and he instantly saw
signs of scanning coming from a nearby hill overlooking the ruins. Someone had
placed sensors there to keep track of what was going on in this area of the
ruins.

So. We’re
curious about them, and of course, they’re curious about us. Or they’re just
cautious.

Magnus
examined the scan patterns more closely. The sources must be Terran, he
decided. There was something familiar about them. He became apprehensive.

Military.

Magnus
realized he was already in a lot of danger just being within the scan arc of
the sensor he’d noticed. There was a good chance he hadn’t been picked up,
being a lone man in a Veer suit with a couple of small robots. His Veer suit
masked his signature to some degree, at least at long distance. Of course,
military sensors would be designed to defeat such obfuscation, since soldiers
so typically wore them.

Magnus
immediately moved to the side of the old building away from the source of the
scans. He thought for a moment, then decided to continue. He sent a scout ahead
to find a route with some cover from the hill. The next structure was not far.
Magnus dropped low and moved slowly to get behind the next building. And the
next. He stayed calm and alert. His link had the stealth device ready, but he
didn’t want to use it unless he had to, since he didn’t know what its lifespan
was.

If
something bad happens, hopefully I’ll have enough warning to activate it.

His
lead scout had come to the edge of a shallow escarpment. Its video feed showed
a small valley below its position.

Magnus
kept low. He decided to stay away from the open area and rely on the scout’s
vision. The open valley would mean danger of being spotted. He dropped to the
ground. The rocks were rugged and sharp, but the Veer suit was more than enough
protection.

Magnus
accessed a binocular feed from the scout in his PV, so he could get a three-dimensional
view from the machine. When he closed his eyes and concentrated, it was as good
as being there himself. He watched for a couple minutes before he decided
something looked wrong down below. He activated an optic enhancement suite on
the scout to get the best possible look.

Magnus’s
breath caught in his throat. In one moment it hit him hard: that was a camo net
system. A Terran active camo net.

Down
below, he saw them. Men dressed in dark gray fatigues. One of them wore a
battle suit very much like his own Veer skinsuit. The suit had adapted itself
to the terrain, taking on a light rust coloration.

Oh no.

Magnus
shook his head as if to clear it.
UED soldiers? Have I finally gone nuts?

He took
another look. They were still there. Magnus refused to believe for another
moment.
Maybe I breathed in some hallucinogenic toxin. I’m just seeing
things.

He
tried to contact Shiny.

There
was no answer.

Magnus
took one last look at the men below. They were grabbing gear.
Preparing to
move out. Have they detected me?

Magnus
got up onto all fours to crawl away. His trailing scout became the lead, and he
told them to slowly move back toward the
Clacker
.

The
crack of a large projectile weapon thundered across the landscape. The scout at
the edge of the escarpment behind him exploded into a thousand tiny fragments.
A dozen of the bite-size pieces landed all around him.

Magnus
dropped prone again.
Time for some serious cloaking!

He
activated the alien stealth field through his link. A moment later his other
scout was vaporized.

Boooom.

Magnus
decided to trust his cloaking. He stood and sprinted back the way he had come.
From an open spot in the vegetation, he glanced southward. An assault machine
walked toward him from a half kilometer away. It stood three meters tall, with
four arms and four legs. It moved with a clumsier gait than that of his smaller
scouts, though it was more intimidating. Each arm of the machine held weapons
trained in his direction.

Magnus
ran. He took long strides over the red rock, hopping here and there to cross
sharp spots. Though he had activated the cloaking sphere, he could still see
himself normally.

After
half a minute he slowed down. The cloak seemed to be working, since he didn’t
detect any more fire incoming. He retraced his steps by the various buildings
along the north side of the ruins. After he had traveled over a kilometer from
the encounter, he slowed further.

Magnus
returned to careful thought. His situation was like a virtual nightmare
scenario. Yet it had to be real.

It’s
not as crazy as it feels. Parts of the UED had to have escaped. I guess I just
thought they would have disbanded by now. But this is the frontier: rife with
gangs and rogue corporations. It would be better to stay in a big, heavily
armed group and find new means of sustenance.

Magnus
had never had a flashback, but now he thought he must know what one felt like.
Seeing those uniforms again after all this time brought it back. Most of the
men in those dark gray uniforms and military skinsuits he had seen in the war
had been dead, killed by space force assault robots. They had taken a few
survivors prisoner here and there for mind probe specialists to interrogate.
Magnus had done his part, though now he thought maybe he had been young and
stupid to follow the orders. Maybe the men and women of United Earth Defiance
had been on the better side. If he had it to do over again…

Magnus
chafed at the lack of communications. The UED force was jamming them. It had to
be it: they wouldn’t want anyone reporting their presence to the space force.
The
Clacker
must have scared the shit out of them. But now they were
moving out, which meant they were coming to silence the explorers.

We have
to cut our losses and get the hell off this planet.

He
retreated quickly back the way he had come. The battle machine must not have
been able to follow him, since he heard no more loud retorts from projectile
launches. He knew such a machine had to be able to outpace a man, at least on
clear terrain. The question was, would they rapidly reacquire him if the cloak
ran out of power?

After
an hour of moving through the ruins, Magnus realized something had gone wrong.
Nothing looked familiar. At first he had thought he was only a bit off his
previous course, and the many buildings did start to look the same after a
while. But his intuition told him he had not come this way before.

I’m off
course. I don’t…ah. The cloak.

Somehow
the cloaking device must have confused his link’s mapper. The device was
supposed to work through a combination of compass, accelerometer, and even
incorporate the things Magnus saw. Normally it could even ping base camp or a
ship in orbit for verification. But the first two, at least, must have
interacted poorly with the alien cloaker. And the last one would be impossible
due to the jamming. He had heard of stranger things happening. But the key now
was what to do about it. Presumably he could deactivate the cloak, at least
long enough to let his link get its bearings.

Magnus
hid in a caved-in Konuan ruin and deactivated the cloak. He tried to contact
Shiny again, but there was no response. His compass reading showed he had been
moving north. He made a note of the correct direction, which now would be
southeast instead of just east. Taking a rough guess at where he really was,
Magnus told his link where he wanted to go. If he left the cloak off, maybe it
could get him there.

Damn! A
huge waste of time when we can’t afford it.

The
shadows within the hovel deepened. Night was coming.

Decision
time. Can I make it in the dark? Do I want to try?

When
Magnus remembered that the UED soldiers were moving out, it helped him make up
his mind. If they were after the
Clacker
, then he had to get back first.

Though
if they had swift means of transport, then they’ve already arrived while I was
wandering around the ruins like an idiot.

Magnus
left the old Konuan building as the star’s light failed, and decided to find
out what Chigran Callnir Four was like after dark.

Chapter 10

“What?”
Telisa sent to Cilreth. The tone of her last message had been alarming. There
was no reply.

Telisa
grabbed the rope ascender in one hand and held her pistol in the other. The
smart rope wrapped around her foot to lift her back up. Telisa heard something
clack and scrape up above.

“Cilreth!”
Telisa transmitted. There was no answer.

Sounds
of a fight came from above. Telisa heard the thwump of a glue grenade
launching.

Dammit!
And we sent one of the scouts back!

Telisa
crested the lip of the tunnel. She braced her elbows on the floor with the rest
of her body dangling in the hole. Half her weight still rested on the smart
rope though her foot.

The
room was empty. The smoldering remains of a scout lay in the corner. Telisa
remembered to look up. A tan shape darted above. She yanked the trigger of the
smart pistol. The shot echoed in the tiny room. As soon as she did it, some
part of her mind told her to use the link command next time to increase her
accuracy.

There
were scraps of wood and fabric obscuring parts of the ceiling, almost like
hammocks, and the wide flower of a glue grenade covered one full quarter of the
ceiling. There were lumps under it, but they looked just like more of the
surviving Konuan structures. Telisa lowered her head slightly and raised the
pistol, ready to fire again. A soft scraping noise echoed through the room.

Why can
I always hear it and never see it?

“Cilreth,
is that you?” she sent through her link.

The
other scout robot emerged from the tunnel beside Telisa. She heard the high-pitched
whine of a stunner as the scout shot toward the ceiling. Telisa heard a
scratching noise again.

Did
Cilreth go back? Why isn’t she answering me?

A long
spear shape descended from the ceiling, then opened into an umbrella over the
scout almost before it could register on Telisa’s eyes. The speed was
startling, scary.

Telisa
released a shot at the creature as she told the ascender to free-fall. She didn’t
stay to see if the smart round struck the thing. It had a target profile
specifying any non-human as a legal target, so it probably wouldn’t fly through
a grille and hit Cilreth, wherever she was.

If she’s
still alive.

“Cilreth?”
Telisa transmitted.

Of
course. Cilreth activated her stealth suit. She might still have been in the
room! But she would have answered.