Reunion (15 page)

He had fashioned an improvised patch for the worm-punctured water tank. Now if only he had something to put in it, and the empty bottle he had salvaged from the wrecked shuttlecraft. The larger container was beginning to chafe against his back, threatening to raise a painful welt. At least he had something to take his mind off the raging thirst that otherwise occupied his every waking moment. They were almost out of food, too. In that regard, Pip was a little better off. At least she could hunt, though in her weakened condition she did so less and less often. Her elevated metabolic level demanded that she eat frequently. Despite the increasing desperation of his situation, he still refused to consider sacrificing her to save himself.

From overhead, from beneath cracks and holes in the chromatically hued salts, from behind the cover of strange flora, hungry eyes watched and waited. Flinx doubted his off-world origins would prevent their owners from closing in when they thought the moment propitious. Meat was meat, protein was protein, and in the truly barren expanses of any world, scavengers would always eat first and suffer any bellyaching consequences later. He had to keep alert and on the move. When his intermittently active talent was functioning, he could sometimes sense their primitive presence nearby, out of sight but not out of perception. Unfamiliar though their emotive projections might be, he had no trouble interpreting them. They were menacing, and expectant.

The sun of Pyrassis was as merciless as its counterparts on other worlds. Repeatedly, clouds would gather, only to break apart. Hesitant and fluffy, their sole purpose seemed to be to tempt and then frustrate him. They shuffled and re-formed in the clear indigo sky as if uncertain what was expected of them, only to eventually disperse as thoroughly as his hopes.

This was no place to die, he resolved. Not here, so far from Moth, from Alaspin, from the comforting confines of the Commonwealth itself. His determination, however, did nothing to alleviate the thirst that dominated his thoughts or the growling in his belly.

A pointed tongue caressed his neck. Breathing slow and steadily, he halted in the semishade of a rocky outcropping, a cracked green surface beneath his feet. Fumbling in a pocket, he removed half a food bar. Breaking off a chunk and setting it carefully on his shoulder, he waited while Pip gratefully consumed the nutritious segment. He considered trying to collect some condensate, but held off. They would drink tonight, he told himself firmly. After the blazing orb had dipped behind the horizon and both moons were high in the sky.

Squinting, he looked upward. Despite the deterioration of their condition, there was no sign of the
Teacher.
It must still be hovering behind the nearer of the two moons, its functions on hold, patiently awaiting the next communication from its owner. Sophisticated as its AI was, the means for including theoretical speculation in its cybernetic cortex remained more an art than a science among designers. Besides, he had foolishly, perhaps overconfidently, not specified a time frame for his return. In the absence of one, the ship was unlikely to assume that anything had gone amiss and act, or not act, accordingly.

Within its duralloy depths was a sufficiency of foods both synthesized and natural, a perfectly maintained atmosphere, various diversions and entertainments, and cool, freshly processed water. Enough water to swim in. Enough water to . . .

Pip had finished eating. For an instant, her slitted eyes flashed more brightly than they had in a while before she once more settled her triangular, iridescent green head back down on his shoulder. Stretching painfully, he resumed his eastward march. By now he would have been grateful for any sign of civilization, AAnn or human. At least before they interrogated him, the reptiloids would give him food and water. He was beginning to fear that he had reached the point where that was as much as he could hope for.

Then the dark ridgeline loomed before him, transformed from distant goal to impending obstacle. At the sight of it, the muscles in his legs protested. Halting at its base, he surveyed the barrier that he had made his immediate destination. It was steeper than it had appeared from a distance, but climbable, and thankfully not too high. Interestingly, the crest was of uniform height. Taking final stock of his surroundings before beginning the ascent, he saw that it ran away to north and south as far as he could see. Certainly, there was no going around it.

Moving slowly but with deliberation, his perception dangerously fogged and his reflexes slowed, he approached the base and began to climb. The otherwise slick-surfaced formation was ribbed with knobs and projections that provided excellent foot- and hand-holds. He was halfway to the top when he slipped, scrambled to regain his footing, and in doing so noticed something that would have greatly excited his interest had he been capable of feeling anything so peripheral to his continued survival as scientific curiosity.

From the time he had begun his long march, he had believed the ridge to be a natural formation made of dark stone. Slathered as it was in sand and grit and gravel, there was no reason to suspect otherwise. Now he saw that where his scrabbling feet had kicked away the adhering granules and accumulated cupric silicates, something black and shiny lay underneath.

Bracing himself against the inward-sloping wall, he used one hand to hold on and the other to brush at the coarse grains. More of the curious ebony slickness appeared beneath his fingers. Running his dirty nails along the now exposed surface, he found that he was unable to scratch it. His survival knife did no better. With only such crude devices at his disposal, he was unable to tell if the slope was metal, ceramic, plastic, some kind of welded fiber, or something even more exotic. Of one thing he was certain: It was unquestionably artificial.

Straightening slightly, leaning away from the wall, he looked along its interminable length first to the north and then to the south. If it was all composed of the same dark, reflective material, it suggested a unified assembly of considerable magnitude. From the air it doubtless resembled the natural scenic ridge he had previously imagined it to be. Who or what had raised it up in this desolate place, and to what purpose, he could not imagine. He was too tired to expend time and energy on lofty speculation. Had this world once been home to a people in need of such structures as long, high walls? Had at one time in its history, ancient wars raged across the surface of a greener but not kinder Pyrassis? As he struggled upward, slipping and grasping, he had time to weigh only the most insignificant of conjectures.

Even from the higher vantage point provided by the top of the wall, which he finally gained fifteen minutes later, the rampart showed no signs of abating or tapering off. In the clear, unpolluted air, he could see for quite a distance. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he thought he could detect a slight curving of the structure off to the southwest, but he couldn’t be sure. Ahead, the by now familiar green dunes and dry washes and bluish hillocks gave way to an unexpected, unprecedented jumble of broken rock and bizarre protrusions. From the air, the terrain might well have appeared impassable. But from his much more intimate location he could see winding pathways penetrating the formations. Gratefully, he realized there would be shade. That would make a nice change from walking beneath direct sunlight, and he would be able to make much better progress during the day—provided he could find water. Gathering himself, he started down the inner slope of the artificial ridge.

The wall had long since been lost to sight behind him when he happened to stumble against one of the eccentric structures among which he was walking. Somewhat to his surprise, he discovered that it was composed not of native stone but of the same singular dark material as the barrier he had just crossed. So was the utterly different shape next to it, and the one behind. Pausing in the convenient shade provided by the curious contours he was examining, he knelt to scoop sand from its base. He soon saw that the construction did not emerge from ground, but from a slightly ribbed, lightly warped surface of similar but distinctively different material. When a stray shaft of sunlight struck the glossy seam he had exposed, it seemed to absorb the light and respond by throwing back half a rainbow composed of artistically subdued hues.

For the first time since he had abandoned the ruined shuttlecraft, he found himself walking on and through a wholly artificial environment. What its purpose might be he did not know. If it was an ancient alien city lost to time and buried in sand and adhesive grit, then where were the houses, the workshops, the meeting places and temples? Entombed beneath him? What were the functions of the thousands of strikingly misshapen structures among which he was meandering? Their vermicular shapes and convoluted outlines failed to convey their function. He could only continue to stagger onward, and wonder.

Chapter 10

Another wall.

It wasn’t much of a wall, no more than a couple of meters high, but it was enough to stop him. He stood swaying slightly, sweat streaming down his face, looking older than his years and staring at the new obstruction as if it were Mount Takeleis back on Moth. He was nearing the end of his strength.

He still possessed enough sense to reflect on the irony of it all. Considering what he had been through, taking into account everything he had experienced in his short but intense life, for him to perish ultimately of thirst, of a simple lack of water, could be seen as almost a blessing. In death he would finally achieve the homely humanness he had sought for so long. He was sorry only for Pip, whose devotion to him would result in her unsought and near-simultaneous demise. On the whole, however, he would prefer not to die.

Struggling to summon hidden sources of strength, he made a tentative run at the wall. His hands scrabbled for the crest, found no purchase, and slipped. As his weakened body fell back, he lost his balance and found himself sitting instead of standing on the sandy surface. Where he struck, the grains had been shoved aside to reveal more of the enigmatic ribbed black material beneath. Not for the first time since he had descended into the jumbled maze he felt there was something almost familiar, indeed well-nigh identifiable, about his surroundings. Unfortunately, at the moment his brain was not functioning any more efficiently than the rest of him.

An attempt to stand failed. He remained sitting, Pip fluttering apprehensively in front of him as he struggled to recall the taste and tactility of plain water. The memory did nothing to comfort his desiccated system. Aside from the fact that the top of the wall now seemed out of reach, if he did not find liquid by the end of the day he knew he was not likely to see another dawn. It
had
to be here somewhere, he felt. Collected in a hollow beneath one of the gray-black contours, or running just beneath the surface of the porous sand. It was only a matter of finding it.

That, however, meant rising, walking, and searching—all activities that all of a sudden seemed beyond him. Without him having to open his mouth, Pip could sense and appreciate his distress. But he could not tell her to find water. Not that he had to. She was as in need of the life-giving fluid as he, and would go straight to it if a source was encountered.

Glancing up, he sighed heavily. If he could not go over this latest obstacle, he would have to go around it. Cursing gravity, he struggled to his feet. It took him a moment to be certain he was standing upright and to secure his balance. Then he resumed walking, this time to his right. The slightly pitted ebony wall curved away from him, and he followed the ribbon of unknown material as if it were a trail beneath his feet. Around him, other shapes and contours contorted against a cloudless blue sky while alien scavengers swooped low, checking on their impending two-legged meal as they avidly monitored its increasingly laggard progress. His vision was beginning to blur.

A dip appeared in the crest of the unbroken rampart. Breathing shallowly, he tensed himself and leaped, arms outstretched. Hooking his fingers over the top of the smooth rim, he somehow pulled himself up and over. The far side of the wall proved to be as slick and smooth as the one he had just surmounted. Unable to slow his momentum, he lost his balance and felt himself falling, falling. The wind-swirled sand rose to meet him.

Nightmare shapes pursued him through the unending maze of black monoliths and colonnades, enigmatic obelisks and waves of liquid soot frozen in time. They twitched threateningly, extending ebon pseudopods to try and trip him as he fled from something monstrous that was darker than dark. Like black pudding, the maze threatened to congeal around him, suffocating his debilitated form from pore to nostril. It coagulated around his feet, holding him back, sucking at him with a vacuous evil the likes of which he had never encountered before. Had he possessed the strength, he would have whimpered in his stupor.

He did not know whether he awoke from a deep sleep or had been knocked unconscious by his fall. Regardless, it was the sound of voices that roused him from insensibility. They were sibilated, inquisitive, and convicted. They were also not human. He retained just enough presence of mind to lie still, eyes closed, unmoving, as he listened to the querulous conversation that was taking place above and nearby his prostrate form. Pip’s coils formed a tense weight on his spine, between his shoulders. Inhuman emotions impinged on his feebly perceptive consciousness.

Fortunately, he understood as well as spoke reasonably fluent AAnn.

“. . . 
ssfwach nez pamaressess leu ciezess
we sshould let it die,” the slightly deeper of the two voices was insisting.

“Agreement. Iss nothing to be gained by keeping it alive,” the other responded all too readily.

“Do you think it knowss about the transsmitter?”

Hesitation, then the second voice replying, “I do not ssee how it could. But then, I cannot imagine what the creature iss doing here anyway. The quesstion will be obviated by itss passing.”

“That iss sso.”

The sound of footsteps turning away shushed in Flinx’s ears. He fought to rouse his weakened, moisture-starved body. AAnn or no, they represented his only, perhaps his last, chance at survival. True, he might only be postponing death from thirst for a more painful, lingering demise under interrogation at some unknowable future date. But as Mother Mastiff had always taught him, survival even under unpropitious circumstances offered far more choices than death under the best of circumstances. Managing to partially prop himself up on one elbow, he waved feebly and opened his eyes.

They focused on the dorsal sides of two AAnn in the process of striding away from where he was lying. Each was clad in a light, buff-toned jumpsuit festooned with pockets, some of which bulged with unknown contents while others lay flat against the gracile, muscular bodies. Dark brown tails streaked with yellow and flecked with golden highlights protruded from holes in the back of the jumpsuits. Both figures traveled burdened with multihued equipment packs diverse in size, shape, and composition. Accustomed to and evolved for life on desert worlds, they wore neither hats for shade from Pyrassis’s powerful sun nor artificial lenses to reduce the glare. Though they had no external ears, their hearing was excellent, as was demonstrated by the sharpness with which they turned at the sound of his voice.

Curled up on Flinx’s back, an enfeebled Pip nonetheless stirred, preparing to defend her companion so long as she could spit. He whispered to her, trying to keep her calm, hoping his commands made sense. He perceived no overt maliciousness in the AAnn. Only the usual muted enmity, and a general indifference to whether he lived or died.

“I . . . need water. You . . . you can’t let me die.” The whispery AAnn phrases emerged with difficulty. Someone had coated his throat with a tacky varnish to which half a kilo of dust seemed to have adhered.

From their slightly stooped posture and the muted color of their scales, he judged that both the male and female AAnn gazing down at him were mature specimens. Quite mature. In fact, he decided through dry, throbbing eyes, they were downright elderly. What were they doing out here, in the middle of nowhere, amidst the inscrutable ebony maze? Though both wore highly visible sidearms, they had neither the aspect nor the attitude of soldiers of the Empire. His erratic talent chose that inopportune moment to quit on him. As abruptly as if someone had turned off a switch, he found that he could no longer sense their feelings.

He could still hear their voices well enough, however. As he squinted at the male, Flinx noticed that the service belt containing his salvaged tools and endural pistol lay draped loosely over one sharply raked alien shoulder. Without his gun, he stood no chance of extorting water from the two aliens. Instead, he would have to rely on a contradiction in terms—AAnn mercy.

Its tone more academic than curious, the male responded impassively to Flinx’s desiccated, raspy-voiced entreaty. “Why sshould we not? Why sshould we waste preciouss liquid on a dying human?” Sharp teeth flashed in the wide, reptilian mouth as eyes that were scimitars of chalcedony regarded the prone biped without emotion. “Even on an educated one who understandss the language of Empire.”

His hastily concocted rationale had better be accepted, Flinx knew. Mostly because he did not have the strength to prepare another one. He tried to sit up, managed to make it halfway. Showing the alarming extent of her dissipation, Pip did not take to the air. Instead, she slid off him and lay nearby, coiling weakly on the sand beside him but still ready to strike.

“Because if it becomes known to the military that you allowed an intruding human to die before they had the opportunity to question him, it will go hard on you.”

The female gestured third-degree inquisitiveness. “How do you know there iss any military on thiss world? It iss an empty place.”

“Very empty,” he agreed. It was hard to hold a conversation and participate in a discussion of differences, he reflected, while barely lingering on the borders of consciousness. He had to keep going. If he fell back into insensibility, he knew they would turn once again and walk away from him for good. “But Pyrassis is an AAnn world, and no world the AAnn claim is ever ungarrisoned.”

The male hissed grudging assent. “That doess not mean any hypothetical military iss any more aware of our pressence than it iss of yourss.”

“Are you willing to take that risk?” Flinx prayed the argument would not last much longer, because he couldn’t.

In the silence that ensued, he dreaded their abrupt departure. Though he fought to keep his eyes open, even the reduced glare within the maze was almost too painful for his enervated system to stand. He was certain he had closed them for only seconds when something struck him full in the face with shocking force. Something cool, unexpected, and magnificently damp.

Water.

It hit his cracked lips with the force of liquid stone, simultaneously outraging and soothing his parched throat. Slim, muscular coils writhed about his face and neck as Pip rushed to partake of the grudgingly proffered bounty.

“More!” he gasped as he tried to keep his mouth directly beneath the spout of the AAnn waterpak.

“Dissgussting.” The male indicated second-degree revulsion as he continued to pour water into the human’s open mouth. “Look how much it takess.”

The elderly female clicked her teeth. “Mammalss. It iss a wonder they can ssurvive at all in a decent climate. And they pride themsselvess on their adaptability.”

Eventually the flow ceased. Evidently water was not a problem for the two AAnn. Had that been the case, despite their lesser personal requirements they would not have been so lavish in their dispensation of the precious liquid to a traditional foe. They must have ample supplies with them, a rapidly reviving Flinx decided. Even better, they might have a distiller. With Pip once more coiled securely about his shoulder, he rose and wiped at his mouth and face. Able to perceive clearly again, he was struck anew by the comparatively advanced age of his reluctant saviors. What were they doing here, in the middle of emptiness, on the nowhere world of Pyrassis, so far from the centers of AAnn culture and civilization? Not that the desert-loving endotherms would be uncomfortable in such surroundings. The heat and lack of humidity would be entirely to their liking.

The male continued to hold the waterpak. His companion held something smaller and more lethal, its muzzle focused on the now erect Flinx. “How did you find out about the transsmitter? It iss an archeological disscovery of the utmosst importance.”

“Ssuch wise, it is to us.” The male’s accompanying gestures suggested first-degree importance tinged with excitement. “There are thosse in the Department who will believe otherwisse.”

The female’s tail switched like a metronome as she talked, the steady side-to-side movement quietly mesmerizing. “It iss interessting, if not particularly flattering, to have our convictionss confirmed, if only by an intruding human.”

Flinx offered no comment, letting them ramble. As they chattered away, the two AAnn were doing an excellent job of carrying on the conversation without the need for any uninformed input from him. Every time they opened their scale-lined, tooth-filled jaws, they were unwittingly providing him with the basis for sustaining future conversation. Furthermore, their ongoing physical proximity combined with certain subtle hand gesturings suggested a relationship that went beyond the bounds of the merely professional.

He felt his initial supposition confirmed: They were not military operatives. Had that been the case, they would have said as little as possible. Their manifest lack of martial sophistication allowed him to believe he might even have a chance, however slim, to slip away to continue his search.

Any such possibility lay in the future, because the female continued to keep her small but contemporary-looking weapon trained on his midsection. That they were unaware of the minidrag’s lethal capabilities was evident by the lack of attention they paid to Flinx’s coiled, revivified companion. It was potential he decided to hold in reserve, unless and until they gave him no choice but to reveal it.

“Naturally,” he said when they finally finished, “I also believe in its importance.”

He addressed them matter-of-factly in his fluent AAnn, wondering as he did so what the hell he was supposed to be talking about. They had alluded to the existence of some kind of transmitter. True, his powers of observation had been weakened by his recent ordeal, but up until yesterday he had felt himself still capable of recognizing any type of device that even vaguely resembled a transmitter.

The elderly reptiloids exchanged whispered, hissing comments. “We had believed that recent confirmation of the field’ss exisstence wass known only to oursselvess and a few otherss in the Department. How did the Commonwealth learn of itss exisstence?”

“Oh, you know,” he murmured confidentially. “Information travels in mysterious ways. In these days of modern long-range communications, secrets are difficult to keep.”