The Trilisk Supersedure (15 page)

Her
curiosity had been awakened. A Konuan trap? Unlikely. It had never used such
tactics before, at least not that anyone had survived to report. The creature
was always certain to destroy the link in its victim. It was scary to think it
knew that would limit their knowledge of it.

Arakaki
dropped to the ground. Her dark gray battle suit protected her from the cold,
hard stone. She crawled forward, weapon first, toward the hole left by the
pulled grille. The probe covered her back. She hoped it would be enough warning
if the Konuan darted in from behind to attack her.

She saw
it. A silvery metal ant the size of a large dog. It stood near the center of a
room filled with rusted strips of metal hanging from walls and ceiling.

The
machine turned toward her. There was a split second where she had the choice to
fire first. She decided against it. Some part of her knew instantly that her
target was the Konuan, not these odd robots.

The
machine didn’t fire at her.

As I
thought. It’s got weapons, but not for me.

Then
she scolded herself slightly. If the machine had shot a glue grenade at her,
she could have been pinned here like food on a dinner plate awaiting the Konuan’s
pleasure.

But of
course I have the ace up my sleeve…or around my neck.

“So,
you’re not going to shoot me?” she said quietly. She left her weapon aimed at
the machine and slid forward through the low portal. The floor inside was a bit
below ground level. She regained her footing.

The
machine turned back toward one of the other openings and froze. Arakaki gave
the room a once-over. She didn’t see anything Terran looking except the robot.
It was definitely responsible for the power signature: the machine had a lot of
juice. At its current output, Arakaki doubted it could go for more than a few
hours.

Arakaki’s
own weapon angled toward the same doorway the machine covered.

Do we
have company?

Her
weapon didn’t see any other targets. The probe trailing Arakaki sidled up
outside the building. It was a tall cylinder about a quarter of a meter in
diameter adorned with countless ports, sensors, and sampling equipment. The
machine gently hovered outside, then settled onto the red rocks to save energy.
It wouldn’t go through the doorway by itself, even though it could
theoretically fit through if turned on its side. The machine could only hover
in an upright position, so Arakaki would have to lug it through herself if she
wanted it inside the building. Even if she were willing to make that
investment, it would have to be repeated for every new room. She left the probe
outside. It could still pick up a lot through the walls of the Konuan ruin,
since it had extremely sensitive sonic sensors and radiation scanners.

Whoever
owns the bug here knows I’ve arrived. Unless the Konuan already got them.

Only
one of the grilles in the room had been opened. So if one of the scientists had
been here, they went that way, or they went to a lot of trouble to make it look
that way.

Just to
be sure, Arakaki checked the other grilles. With her weapon ready, she pulled
on them one at a time and examined them for signs of tampering. The other exits
looked solid, and she didn’t find any signs of the Konuan. The probe outside
told her the adjacent rooms were clear.

Which
proves almost nothing
, she thought to herself. She prepared to slide
through the grille hole into the next room straight ahead.

Arakaki
stole a glance back at the bug. The machine didn’t move.

“Guarding
the door, huh? Good luck with that,” Arakaki murmured. She turned back to the
room. She saw silvery webs of metal gleaming on the walls.

What
the hell?

Arakaki
grabbed a grenade as she stared for a couple seconds, trying to figure out what
the structures were. She saw the flash of a furry, umbrella-shaped body
flitting away like a squid swimming through the air. At the same moment the
probe notified her link of a reading. She didn’t hesitate. She tossed her
incendiary grenade to the ground and gave it a destination in the adjacent
chamber to her left.

It’s
too fast. I’ll aim where it isn’t.

The
grenade whirred through the grille and into the side room. There, it took the
next right and rolled through another grille.

Blam!
Blam!

Arakaki
sent a couple of rounds from her PAW straight ahead to run the creature toward
her seeker grenade coming in from the side. The thing might well go in another
direction, but she had to try.

A
massive flower of flame erupted from the grille opening. A redundant detonation
report from the grenade arrived at her link. She stepped aside a bit late. Her
face burned. Then just as quickly as the heat had come, it dissipated.

The
summary result was
target grazed.
The grenade’s computer brain, at
least, believed in its last instant of existence it would slightly damage the
enemy. Arakaki had set all her weapons slightly on the “trigger happy” side,
knowing the Konuan was a fast and resourceful target.

Her
probe lost track of the creature again. But Arakaki felt sure it wasn’t dead.

No, I
didn’t get it. This is just the beginning.

Chapter 14

Telisa’s
consciousness resumed.

Something
is very, very wrong.

Her
link did not respond. Her surroundings were dim. Small spots of light floated
randomly about the room. Her eyesight failed her in the darkness, but she could
smell the rock walls and she could hear air moving through the grilles nearby.
These clues brought her to the conclusion: she was inside one of the cube-shaped
Konuan rooms.

She
tried to move her head. It didn’t go well. Her head had melted into a flat
mass. She took a deep breath. She had no lungs. She only heard a loud rustling.

What is
that? WHAT HAS HAPPENED?

Telisa
tried to stand. She moved forward. She could tell it was moving forward, but
she didn’t have two long, strong legs. She had a dozen. A hundred. More.

Oh, by
the Five! I’m one of the banana slugs. This is just a bad dream. It has to be.
The technology required—Trilisk. Nononono…

Telisa
paused to calm down. She tried to breathe again. Instead of the familiar feel
of air bags expanding in her chest, tiny flaps of flesh—gills?—vibrated beneath
her, causing the rustling sound again.

Can
this body even handle distress? I could have the slug equivalent of a heart
attack and die. No. Most organisms must be able to handle a bit of fear. Unless
I got a damaged or frail body. Just don’t panic.

Telisa
tested her legs. Yes, hundreds of them now. She experimented. She could move
just one, if she tried. It was like wiggling a toe. She scratched the rock
wall. Despite the tiny victory of control, despair railed through her.

What am
I going to do? It’s not a recording. I’m living this.

Telisa
decided to try and look around. She could only see in four small, hand-sized
spots that roved about the room. It was like four small flashlights moving
about.

Wait. I
am controlling those with my…arms. My arms are flashlights. Five Entities, hear
me!

The
words came to mind of their own accord. When Telisa was scared, really scared,
she talked more like her mother, more like she had when she was a little girl.
But she was old enough to know now that the only thing getting her out of this
predicament was herself or her team. Unless, of course, a Trilisk prayer device
was operating within range.

Change
me back now. I want my old body back.

Nothing
happened. But she remembered her friends. Maybe they could help. Magnus. Or
Shiny or Cilreth. If they didn’t shoot her on sight.

The
room had some bits of cloth and rotten plant stalks on a wall. They had been
glued in place, or…for some reason they just sat there. A few rods stuck out of
the walls. Then Telisa realized she had misoriented herself.

The
plant stalks were sitting on the floor. She wasn’t.

I’m
already on the wall. I’m clinging to the wall. I’m crawling on the Five Times
Accursed wall.

Telisa
just sat there and waited to adjust further.

Get it
together. Just get it together, dammit.

Her
sight was abysmal. The colors were washed out. Or maybe she just couldn’t see
red anymore. But her
hearing
. Telisa could hear everything around her in
the sharpest detail. Her tiny claws scraping against the stone. A drip of
moisture that must be fifty meters away. In fact, she could tell it was about
fifty meters away just by the way it sounded.

She
crawled forward a little more. Her legs coordinated themselves. It made her
feel more in control to move. Somehow, she didn’t have to think about how to
coordinate the legs. It felt natural. She focused on the far wall. She could
feel coiled power in her body.

Telisa
sprang off the wall. Several things happened at once. When she launched, her
body folded quickly like an umbrella, forming a torpedo shape that cut
effortlessly through the air. She felt muscles or their equivalent compressing
the trapped air, squeezing it out of her collapsing body to help accelerate.
One of her arms seemed to point ahead to light the way for her eyes all by
itself. Then she was flying through the air, effortlessly, like a missile in
slow motion. She seemed to fly for a long time, though it could only have been
a fraction of a second. Like a tumbler, her body swung around as she traveled,
timed perfectly to land on her legs at the destination.

Just
before landing, she popped back open with a snap, decelerating as the air cushion
trapped between her opening body and the wall pressurized. Her wiry legs
absorbed the last of the impact, what little there was left at the moment of
landing. And there she was, one second later, on the opposite wall.

Banana
slug, my ass. Let’s see a slug hop across the room like that!

Telisa
felt like a combination grasshopper-bat. Instead of two giant hopping legs, she
had dozens.
Instinctual movement? But I’m Terran. My brain is Terran. It was
Terran. How do I know how to jump like a Konuan? The Trilisk machine just…endowed
me with these abilities? How could such a thing be translated? How can I still
be thinking like myself at all? Same software, different hardware? Impossible.

Telisa
hopped back to the other side of the room.

Not impossible.
Very, very difficult. Very, very amazing. And the Trilisks knew how to do it.

The
exhilaration of jumping made her feel just a bit better. And more in mastery of
her own fate. Telisa couldn’t see anything interesting in the room. No clues as
to how she had arrived. She crawled toward the nearest grille. She arrived atop
the grill, then realized she couldn’t fit through the vertical vents from the
top. She had to approach from the side, where the long openings would accept
her wide body. Then she just slipped through. It was effortless.

Okay,
well, the grilles are indeed just doorways. And having more than one slit means
that more than one Konuan can enter or leave at the same time. Any non-Konuan
probably can’t follow, though; neither can bulky objects be moved about.

The
next room had tiny square pits in the floor filled with ash. Horizontal metal
rods were affixed a couple of centimeters from the walls. The ceiling had
vents. Telisa assumed it was some kind of cooking or smoking chamber. She moved
for another grille, trying to find her way outside by listening to the air
movements around her.

Something
abruptly changed. Telisa stopped, overwhelmed by a new sensation. She felt a
flood of new impulses coming from…the surface under her feet. She brought her
tiny lights to bear but saw nothing.

I can
sense…a trail…smell? Touch?

The
sensation had a direction. Forward and to the right. She followed the trail
into the next room. It was a mostly empty cube filled with garbage. Dust that
might have once been wood or cloth or paper sat in piles with bits of rusted
metal. The trail led onward.

It
could be a trap. Maybe the other Konuan is luring me.

Telisa
slowed but did not stop. What alternative did she have? She tried to rustle her
breathing flaps more quietly and listened to the world. If she couldn’t see
well, she would have to rely more upon her hearing to sense danger.

On a
whim she walked in a circle, then checked her own trail. It was just as strong,
but smelled subtly different.

So. I
leave the same scent trail. The other Konuan can follow me easily, too.

Telisa
followed the trail through two more rooms, when it abruptly ended. She looked
around with her washed-out vision. She didn’t see anything except another
cubical room.