The Wind After Time: Book One of the Shadow Warrior Trilogy (22 page)

“I’m clear,”
the radio bleated.

“And I’ve got it,” Lesser Eagle said into his mike. “Okay, I’m going to want to fell the tree to the left.”

“Why left?” Joshua asked.

Lesser Eagle looked puzzled. “I can’t tell you that. It’s just … the right way to do it. Maybe after you’ve been making lifts for six months or so, you’ll get it.

“Maybe not. So when you don’t know, always drop it where there’s the least amount of crap. Liable to foul your lift or maybe kick up a widowmaker and take out the pig.”

His hands swept across the booth’s controls as if he were conducting an orchestra.

Far below the tree trunk broke from the stump to the left. The cable to the upper grab went taut, then the lower one, and the tree came up, swinging to the horizontal as it lifted toward the cutting head. Lesser Eagle swung the boom and neatly set the hundred-foot-long tree into the “basket,” which in turn brought the log lumber up onto the lumber drag over Joshua’s head.

“How about that, my friend? A little different than heaving iron, isn’t it?”

“Not much,” Joshua said. “A little hotter, a little noisier.”

“Hey, Prairie Flower.”

Lesser Eagle keyed his throat mike. “I’m listening, McNelly.”

“I’ve been down for two hours. Coming up.”

“Man, you ain’t got no stamina,” the Amerind said. “You ought to be good for a double, triple shift, the way you go on about what a great pig you are. Paul the goddamned Bunyan or whoever it was.”

“Stamina my left nut. You get in this stinkin’ suit one time and see how many minutes it takes you to start sweatin’ off the pounds. Friggin’ Sitka oughta put less money in bullshit and more into air-conditioning.”

“Not a chance, McNelly. I’m one of the privileged classes. Plus you could stand to lose a few ounces. Make you sexier next time you go below. Who’s replacing you?”

“Hsui-Lee. So get ready for amateur night.”

Another voice came up on the com:

“Your ass sucks buttermilk, piglet I’ll spend most of my shift cleaning up your shit I’ll be lucky if I send up more’n a few hundred feet of wood. Might as well have a brush hook as a cutter.”

Wolfe heard machinery grind, and cables lifted the cutter, awkward in his bulky sealed suit, out of the jungle up toward the head of the Logtrain. Another suit came down into Wolfe’s view, close enough so he could almost see through the faceplate. The pinchered arms waved or, more likely, tried to make an obscene gesture, and Hsui-Lee went down for his shift on the ground.

• • •

The monster came out of the jungle fast, a gray-green blur that hit the cutter and sent him spinning, life-support and lift cables tangling.

The radio screamed something, then cut off, then:

“Emergency! We’ve got a man down … and some goddamned critter’s about to take him! Where’s the sonofabitchin’ shooter?”

There was a gabble of chatter on the circuit that Wolfe couldn’t distinguish. He was the only one in the booth — Lesser Eagle had gone to help another driver reprogram his crane, telling Wolfe to keep his goddamned hands off the controls. “Let Hsui-Lee take the wood down. We’ll get it on the ground. If you want to be doing something, boom over to a clear area and practice tearing saplings out or something.”

Now Wolfe could make out the horror below. It stood about thirty feet tall, on four legs, with a body jutting up from the first two. He thought of some kind of lizardlike centaur, but the beast’s upper body was a dark cylinder, its head not much more than an enormous maw of dagger fangs. Four arms scrabbled at the downed cutter.

The man’s laser sliced toward the creature, cutting away one arm. Wolfe heard the nightmare roar, then his hands were busy on the controls, and the boom swung slowly, far too slowly, back from where he’d been practicing.

The cutter managed to roll away behind a tree trunk, and Wolfe had his boom over the scene. He slapped the cutaway, and his lower grab dropped, smashing down on the horror, missing the sprawled cutter by two yards.

He heard the howl through the sealed glass of the booth. His hands found another bank of controls, pulled, twisted.

The jaws of the upper grab yawned, lowered, took the monstrosity around the middle, and Wolfe lifted it clear of the ground, the cable reeling it toward him.

The grab bit deeply into the beast’s side, and a greenish fluid poured out.

Joshua snapped one control up; the grab’s jaws snapped open, and the horror fell, tumbling, down through the treetops into the jungle.

Wolfe saw the cables for the downed cutter’s suit lift him clear of the jungle. At that moment an explosive round slammed down into the area he’d dropped the beast into, and he heard the dim blast of the gunshot from the deck above.

The booth door slid open, and Lesser Eagle burst in.

“Get the hell out of there and let me — ” He stopped, realizing everything was over, and saw the limp body of Hsui-Lee moving past the booth, out of sight to the deck above. Sirens were still shrilling, and the radio was still going on about shooter failure and how in the hell and such.

“Guess you did run a crane before, eh?”

“Once or twice.”

• • •

“You figure you pulled the muscle yanking that man out,” the medical orderly said.

“I don’t know. All I know is it’s giving me grief.”

“Hell. I can’t see anything’s wrong.” The man hesitated. “But maybe I better send you back to the mill. Let a real doc make sure. I’m just the local specialist in blisters, burns, and whatever genital rots you lice managed to hide when you took your physical.

“As long as you’re back there, you might want to look up Hsui-Lee. I’m pretty sure he wants to give you his firstborn or something.”

• • •

“Just a sprain, Hunt,” the doctor said. “You wasted your time coming back here. Get on back up to the head and tell them to put you on light duty for a day or so.”

“Thanks, Doctor.”

“None needed. If I hadn’t heard of what you did pulling that man away from that chironosaur, I’d say you were malingering like the rest of those lice outside.”

Wolfe stood, left the small clinic, and went down the corridor toward a companionway. In one hand he carried a large, heavy book. He paused outside an open door and looked in at the sleeping, bandaged man he’d last seen being dragged out of the jungle. He went on toward the deck without waking him.

• • •

The two men walked past, the first telling a most elaborate story, the second listening closely. Wolfe slipped out from his hiding place and crept to the high stack of supplies on the structure’s deck. He climbed onto its top and lay flat so no one could see him.

The world was dark except for the glare of the searchlights that made a finger of light along the Centipede out into the jungle and the glare of the overhead stars.

He opened the book with the cut-out midsection, took out the small bonemike and transponder, and checked his watch. It was still a few minutes short of the hour.

He turned the set on, checked its controls, and dropped the bonemike’s harness over his neck.

“Am I being listened to?”
he said in Al’ar.

Nothing came for a long moment, then:

“You are being listened to,”
the
Grayle
said.

Joshua sagged in relief. “It would’ve been a real pisser,” he muttered, “if this buildup hadn’t paid off.” Then: “Give location.”

“Just entering atmosphere. I have your location. Instructions?”

“As ordered, you’ll land two miles from my location, offshore, homing on this signal. Return underwater until you reach a point no more than a thousand yards distant from me, unless the water is less than a hundred feet deep. In that event, go to the nearest hundred-foot depth and remain on the bottom until summoned.”

“Understood.”

Joshua put away the com link to his ship and slid down from the pile of supplies. He looked out seaward, thought he saw the momentary flare of a ship’s drive braking, then saw nothing. He took a tiny bottle from his book.

“Now,” he said. “Now we CYA.”

• • •

“I should’ve known,” Wolfe’s shift boss muttered, “you were too goddamned good to be true.”

“Sorry, boss. But honest, I wasn’t — ”

“Hunt, don’t lie to me. I can smell the stink of the booze from here. What’d you do, swim in it? Where’d you get it, anyway?”

Joshua looked down at the deck.

“Forget it,” the man said. “There’s never been a logger who wouldn’t manage to get himself trashed if he was marooned in space. Go clean up, and in your bunk. I’m not putting you on the cutting head with a hangover. You’re docked the day’s wages, too.

“Lesser Eagle’s covered for you, so you owe him a shift.” The man scowled, then turned his attention back to the data scrolling past on his screen.

Joshua left the compartment and went down to the two-man room he’d been assigned to. His bunkie was out, working. Joshua ran a basinful of water, took off his coveralls, and began rinsing out the extract of bourbon.

• • •

“All for the shore who’s going ashore,” the coxswain sang out.

There were about twenty men strapped into the seats of the small submarine, and the compartment was about half-full. No one paid any attention to the disgraced shooter who sat at the rear, cased rifle across his knees, his travel cases beside him.

The coxswain touched controls, and the port slid shut. The air-conditioning went to high.

“You know,” a man sitting near Joshua said, “until you suck in good air, you forget how every friggin’ breath we take stinks of that goddamned jungle.”

“You been with Sitka too long,” Lesser Eagle said. He sat comfortably next to the three soft cases that held his gear. “This is ship air, not the real stuff.”

“And what do you think you’re going to be breathing down below?” the man said.

“The same stuff,” the former crane operator said. “But I’m going to be so busy making whoopee, I’ll never notice.”

“Bet you ten credits you’re broke and back topside in a month.”

“I’ll take the bet,” Lesser Eagle said. He grinned at Wolfe. “The man isn’t aware of my resolve.” He leaned toward Joshua. “You gonna look me up, in my new position of great importance, next time you come below? I’ll even buy the first round. Maybe try to decoy you into staying.

“You know, only about half of the contract people fill out their time. The rest get hired away, like me.

“The only reason Sitka knows I’m leaving is the Port Authority was nice enough to buy out my obligation. Otherwise, it’d be
pfft
… and no more Injun.

“No reason you can’t follow my lead. Slinging cargo nets down there’s a damn sight better than breathing wood dust and shit topside. Plus you don’t get called lice and worse by the whitehats below.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Wolfe said. “Thanks.” He looked out the port. The sub was pulling away from the dock, out of the shadow of the Centipede. Air hissed, controls clanged, and the ocean rose and covered the port. Green changed to black as the ship dove toward the sea bottom.

• • •

“Welcome to Tworn Station,” the woman said. One of the lumbermen bayed like a wolf in heat. The station greeter kept her expensive smile firmly in place.

The men swarmed out the lock into the undersea city. Wolfe stayed carefully in their midst.

The sub dock was next to the liner docks, where starships could port after they’d made the underwater approach to Tworn Station, the largest of Montana Keep’s five deep-sea settlements. There was a lavish terminal there, plush welcome to the Outlaw Worlds’ tourists who came to play.

Outside the terminal Wolfe noted a pair of soberly dressed, mild-looking men whose eyes seemed to meet everyone’s and then sweep on.

Wind, blow, soft, not moving the grass …

The Chitet’s gaze swept across Wolfe and moved on.

There’d never been an Earth sky as blue as the roof of the dome. The “sun” was that of a spring morning. Wolfe consulted the map of Tworn Station he’d gotten from the Centipede’s rec room, oriented himself, and started down one of the winding streets. After a few moments he stopped, frowning. He looked up, checked his watch, then looked up once more.

He remembered one of the slogans of Tworn Station: “Where the Nighttime Is the Best Time.” Cleverly, while keeping to Zulu time, they’d modified it slightly. “Day” would be, he estimated, about seven-eighths normal, so the “sun’s” motion was slightly accelerated. The “moon’s” travel at “night” would be slowed to compensate.

From nowhere a bright ball of flame roared down. Involuntarily, he flinched just as the “comet” exploded and became flaring letters across the “sky”:

Wolfe shook his head and continued walking.

Tworn Station was built in a series of not quite concentric rings. The streets wound and twisted, creating the illusion of a far larger area.

Contrary to what the logger in the submarine had said, he wasn’t breathing dry, sterile ship air. Instead it sang of cinnamon, musk, cumin, watermelon — spices that tanged his nostrils and appetites.

Music roared, hummed, soared around him, coming from shops, bars, apartment buildings whose doors stood open; in them men, women, and children lounged, sharp eyes calculating, smiles offering:

“Hey, lumberpig … how long you been down?”

“Read your fortune, handsome?”

“Get up, get down, get all around, guaranteed pure quill, no habit, no regrets …”

“Best lottery odds, right here. Six winners last cycle alone …”

“You look lost, my friend. Need a guide?”

Wolfe kept his smile neutral, his gaze unfixed.

A woman passed, smiling a promise that her charms would more than compensate for what she’d do to his credit balance.