The Devil's Nebula (32 page)

Perhaps thirty minutes later, they came to a bare ledge of rock high above the river. As they stepped onto it, Carew saw that the rock was the projecting lip of a recess into the hillside. They moved beneath the overhang and crouched down. Behind them, the Sleer almost filled the recess.

Villic was holding his head, his eyes closed. He murmured, “The Shuffler has seen the boat. It’s going to investigate.”

Lania asked. “You’re probing the Shuffler?”

Villic opened his eyes. “I’m watching the Shuffler via the Sleer. Look, we can see the boat from here. The Shuffler should be coming into view in a matter of seconds.”

Carew stared down the incline, a tightness in his throat. He saw the undergrowth move in front of the boat and then found himself staring down on the Shuffler.

He had been expecting something like a caterpillar, a green, hairy form, vaguely comical. But the reality was far from comical and not at all like a caterpillar.

He could see how it was the next evolutionary stage up from a Sleer; it retained that creature’s humanoid mass and its skinned-carcass complexion, but there the resemblance finished. The Shuffler was larger, fatter, its legs splayed and its torso bloated, its head swollen and thrust forward. As it moved forward to inspect the boat, Carew could see how it had earned its sobriquet. It dragged its adipose legs in an ungainly shuffle – ungainly, he thought, but not at all slow. It moved with surprising speed for a creature of its size.

As they watched, the Shuffler bent over the seed-boat and spat something from its gross, shapeless head. At first Carew thought it was its tongue – in the manner of some insect-eating frog – but then he saw that the gob of matter had landed in the bottom of the boat and was smouldering.

“Acid,” Villic said helpfully. “The bastards spit acid.”

The acid burned a hole in the bottom of the boat and it began to sink. The Shuffler turned, its big black eyes scanning the incline. For a second, Carew thought the creature was looking directly at him.

Then it jumped.

One second it was on the riverbank – the next it had vanished.

Langley pointed. The Shuffler had come down noisily amid a stand of ferns halfway between the cave-mouth and the river. It squatted malevolently, turning its hemispherical head to scan the incline.

When the creature was staring directly at them, it opened its mouth and ejected a spinning bolus of acid. Carew saw it coming, dragged Lania to the floor with him and heard the acid hit the rock half a metre above his head. When he looked up, the rock was crumbling.

Lania knelt and aimed her weapon. Langley laid a hand on her arm. “We might need the ammunition later. Look.”

As they stared, a Sleer emerged from the undergrowth before the Shuffler and attacked. Beside Carew, Villic squatted and screwed his eyes shut as he willed the creature to destroy the Shuffler.

The Sleer dodged a gob of acid, reached out and drove a vast hand into the creature’s mouth. It pulled and emerged with something red and dripping. As the Shuffler roared in agony, the Sleer gripped the top and bottom of its wide mouth and prized it apart. The Shuffler’s great domed head split, its pulsing brain revealed: for a second, the grey organ remained
in situ
, piled inside the braincase like the meat of an opened clam – then it slipped forward and dangled grotesquely on the end of its spinal cord.

The Shuffler collapsed, folding at the feet of the victorious Sleer, an inert mound of quivering, blood-coloured flesh.

The Sleer turned and sped away from the river.

“Deadly at a distance,” Villic commented. “But lousy at close combat.”

They stepped from the overhang. Villic pointed up the fissure to a knuckle of bare rock high above. “The cave entrance is up there,” he said. “It will be guarded.”

Lania looked at him. “By?”

“Sleer, most likely, and perhaps Shufflers.”

Langley said, “We’ll be able to get close without being observed, then assess the situation when we can see the cave entrance.”

They left the overhang and continued up the hillside.

They climbed slowly, the pair of Sleer scouting ahead for potential danger. Langley led the way, assisting Villic. Lania strode on before Carew, on her toes and alert. For his part, Carew was exhausted and jumpy. Bringing up the rear, he felt exposed, vulnerable, and expected at any second some Weird horror to jump out and attack.

From time to time he turned at a sound, only to find that the culprit was an insect or bird. He gripped the laser to his chest, his finger on the firing stud. He wondered what Villic thought of his funk, but realised that he wasn’t worried what the oldster thought: he liked the telepath, and knew that Villic was above sneering at an understandable fear.

He found himself wondering what it must be like to be a telepath, to be constantly privy to the most secret thoughts of one’s fellow man. Were there times when Villic felt cursed, and wished nothing more than to be away from the pollution of human thought?

They came to a tree growing at an angle from the hillside. Bright yellow blooms spangled the boughs, and a spread of blue flowers carpeted the ground in its shade. A miasma of overwhelming scent met them as they paused and drank water.

Villic sat on an exposed root, panting, and looked at Carew. “To answer your question, Ed. There are times when I feel cursed and wished I’d never had the cut.” He shrugged. “Those times, I just up and leave the commune. After about three or four days, I feel sane again and return.”

Lania looked at him. “It must be hard to... to sustain a relationship?”

The old man smiled with what Carew thought was bitter humour. “Almost impossible, to tell the truth. A normal relationship, yes. Or what’s accepted as normal. But then that’s relative, isn’t it?” He paused. “There was someone, once.”

Carew wondered what had become of the relationship, decided not to ask, then realised the futility of that decision.

Villic smiled. “She died, Ed. A Sleer got her. Is it any wonder I take great delight in controlling the bastards?”

A thought occurred to Carew, and the telepath said, “Is that right?”

Carew said, “The psi-science has come a long way since your day. These days telepaths can turn off their ability at will, controlled by some kind of damping device.”

“Well, isn’t that something?” Villic laughed. “Pity I’m so far from home.”

Five minutes later, they set off again. The climb became steep, almost precipitous in places. Villic chose the route that was hidden from the cave entrance high above and that meant crossing rough terrain until they reached the high ground.

After an hour, Carew’s limbs shaking with exhaustion, Langley called a halt. Carew thought he’d never heard such welcome words. They were on a high, bare ledge, cupped by surrounding peaks. Carew sank to his haunches and gulped deep breaths.

Langley passed around segments of a sickly sweet fruit and exhorted them to eat. “Energy,” he said.

Lania said, “The cave entrance is somewhere across there?” She pointed beyond the bastion of rock that hid them from view.

Villic nodded. “But I’m too far away to probe here,” he said. “I’ve sent a Sleer to scan the entrance. We’ll find out what kind of reception committee is awaiting us.”

Carew drank his water and watched the telepath as he closed his eyes in concentration. A minute later Villic opened them and looked at Langley. “The Sleer saw Leah and the others about five minutes ago. They’ve left just a single militia-man to guard the entrance.”

Lania looked at him quickly. “You sure it’s a man?”

Villic stared at her, reading her concern. “Sorry. Loose terminology.” He shook his head. “The Sleer can’t tell, and although I can see the figure via the Sleer, I can’t make out if it’s a man or a woman. Anyway, there’s just one, and he or she is concentrating on the river down there.”

“Mind if I take a look?” Lania asked, indicating the fanged rocks at her back.

“Be my guest, but keep your head down.”

Carew joined her as she crept to the spur of rock and peered over. Across the valley cleft was a dark, arched opening in the opposite rock face. Before it, a golden-suited human stood guard, laser rifle braced on its hip. He or she was perhaps three hundred metres away, and it was impossible to identify the soldier.

He looked at Lania, who was biting her bottom lip. “Do you who it is?”

She shook her head. “No, dammit.”

Langley and Villic joined them. Villic said quietly, “I’m sorry, but it’s the only way. I’m sending in a Sleer.”

Lania turned to him. “No! You can’t.”

“Look at the damned terrain,” Villic said. “I can’t get close enough to probe the identity, so I have to send a Sleer.”

Lania said in almost a whisper, “But it might be Gina... and for chrissake, she might not even be infected!”

Villic winced at the pain he read in her mind. “I’m sorry. We’ve got to stop them. And we can’t sit around debating this – we know the others are making their way down to the lair, so we have to act fast.”

Carew found Lania’s hand.

Villic hesitated, then said, “Look, I’ll get the Sleer to attempt to disable the guard without killing, okay? But, if we get over there and find out he or she is infected... no matter who it is, they’re dead. Agreed?”

She nodded at Villic with obvious reluctance, then walked off and sat down with her back to them.

Before he could join her, Carew saw movement on the far side of the valley. His vision was drawn to the drama about to be enacted and he found himself unable to look away.

He watched as a Sleer emerged from a rock and, using boulders as cover, made its rapid zigzag across up the scree-covered incline towards the unsuspecting guard.

The creature came to a halt five metres from the guard, taking cover behind a boulder. The guard sat down on a rock, weapon laid across armoured thighs. Carew glanced at Villic. The telepath’s eyes were closed in concentration.

Across the valley, the Sleer made its move.

It leapt, the suddenness of its spring startling. The guard was caught totally unawares. The Sleer barrelled into the armoured human, dashed the laser from its grip and wrapped its long, muscled arms around the torso with one hand covering the face. The Sleer stood up, the soldier dangling in its grip like some kind of oversized plaything.

“Let’s go!” Langley said, and Carew and Lania ran from their hiding place and crossed the scree-covered slope to where the Sleer was standing with its prisoner.

As they drew closer, Carew saw that the guard was not Gina Alleghri but Thomas, the militia-technician. His eyes, above the blue-veined meat of the Sleer’s hand, bulged with terror.

Carew glanced at Lania, who said, “It isn’t Gina. Christ, that means she’s somewhere down there.”

They reached the Sleer and the militia-man, and as they drew close, the expression in Thomas’s eyes became pleading.

Carew glanced at Villic. The telepath scanned Thomas, then shook his head. To Carew he murmured, “Infected...”

Lania gave a shocked, indrawn breath and looked away quickly, and Carew followed suit as the Sleer tightened its grip on the militia-man’s face. He heard a soft, osseous crunch as the human’s skull caved in, then a squelch, followed by the loud rattle of armour on rock as the Sleer discarded its victim. Carew lasered the suit’s power-pack, turning it to slag.

Villic sent the first Sleer into the cave, then he and Langley followed. Carew glanced at Lania, who smiled bravely in return.

“We’ve got to be strong,” he said. “We don’t know what we’re going to find down there.”

“I think I do,” she murmured.

“And that is?”

“Gina’s infected. I know it. And I know what that means, and part of me agrees with what we must do because of that, but another part...”

“We don’t know that, yet,” Carew said. “Let’s wait and see, okay?”

She swore. “And Jed... how can he be infected? I mean, we’ve lived with him for so long.”

He took her hand and pulled her into the entrance to the cave, followed by the second Sleer.

Lania activated a twin beam inset into the shoulders of her smartsuit in order to light their way, and they left the dazzle of the sunlight behind them. It soon became obvious that no artificial illumination would be needed.

Langley whispered, “Turn it off.”

She did so and Carew’s eyes adjusted to the aqueous twilight. A green fungus mantled the walls, shedding a low jade light.

Carew said to Villic, “Are you picking anything up?”

The old man turned to him, the fungal bioluminescence giving the telepath a deathly pallor. “Faintly, but not well enough to scan individual minds. They’re in the gallery a couple of hundred metres below us, about a kilometre from the chamber.”

Lania said, “The chamber?”

Langley explained. “Where the Weird have their interface to their home realm.”

“And that’s where they’re heading, right?”

Villic said, “The infected will pass through and join the Weird. The ultimate goal of their mission.”

“But not if we can help it,” Langley said.

“I’ve sent a Sleer on ahead,” Villic told them. “It should have them in sight within minutes. I’ll have a better idea of how to proceed then. Let’s go.”

He led the way, followed by Langley. Lania went next, then Carew. Behind him, the second Sleer loped, its ogre-ish presence giving Carew the shivers. He gripped his laser and peered ahead through the verdant half-light, expecting opposition to show itself at any second.

The rocky path sloped down at a gentle angle, working its way around great bulges in the wall.

Ahead, Villic raised a hand and came to a halt. “They’ve stopped, for some reason. They’re in a wide open chamber.”

“Are you close enough to...?” Carew asked.

The telepath shook his head. “Still just beyond range. I’m seeing this through the Sleer’s vision. There are plenty of rocks and boulders about, should they wish to take cover. It’s not the best place to attack them. Okay, there’s nothing for it but to wait until they move off again.” He sat down against the wall and closed his eyes.

Carew found himself too jumpy to rest. He stood with his laser at the ready, looking back and forth, up and down the corridor. The temperature this far underground had dropped appreciably, chilling him to the bone.