The Mothership (20 page)

“Let’s take a look,” Bill said, easing the
throttle forward.

They motored slowly toward the southern
bank where the curtain emerged from the river. As they approached, they became
aware of the faint hum generated by the vibration of air particles disturbed by
the curtain’s oscillations. Bill throttled back when they neared the retreating
river bank, holding position a short distance from the edge of the submerged
mangroves. The road through the forest ran down into the river, emerging on the
far side, while the metal pole stood a dozen meters from the shore, inside the
base of the energy curtain. The diamond-shaped objects either side of the cross
arm glowed with the dazzling white intensity of the sun. Wal picked up his
hunting rifle and tried to sight while squinting against the blinding point of
light. He squeezed off a well aimed shot that sparked harmlessly against the
curtain shielding the pole.

“Crap shot, mate,” Slab declared.

“You do better,” Wal snapped, setting his
gun down.

Slab gave Wal a dismissive look. “Waste of
a bullet.”

Cracker produced a stick of dynamite from
his private stash. “Get me closer.”

“You’re kidding, aren’t you?” Slab said
sharply. “That pop stick won’t even scratch it.”

Cracker looked defiant. “You want to be
stuck out here forever?”

Slab fell into a brooding silence as Bill
eased the boat toward where the road met the flooding river. Cracker pushed in
a fuse, set the timer and prepared to hurl it at the curtain when Slab stood
up.

“Give it here,” Slab said, sticking his
huge paw out.

Cracker hesitated, then handed it to the
hulking ex-footballer. Slab locked one hand around the railing for support,
then hurled the dynamite toward the bank. It landed well past the flood waters,
close to the foot of the curtain, almost in front of the pole.

“I’ve still got it,” Slab declared with a
self satisfied smile.

“Lucky throw,” Wal said mischievously.
“Wind caught it.”

“Piss off, Wal,” Slab raised his hand,
demonstrating there wasn’t a hint of a breeze, then the dynamite exploded. The
blast rippled a short way up the side of the curtain shielding the pole before
dissipating.

“Crap!” Slab growled disappointed. Resigned
to his fate, he removed a beer from the boat’s electric powered cooler and
prepared to drown his sorrows. “Guess we’re stuck.”

“The whole forest is going to be knee-deep
in water in a few hours,” Bill said.

“We need to get to high ground while
there’s still time,” Cracker said.

“Not more bloody hiking!” Slab moaned.

“We can’t stay here,” Cracker said, “This
place is going to be lousy with crocs in no time.”

Slab scanned the rising water irritably,
knowing Cracker was right.

“There’s a high plateau up river,” Bill
said as he pushed the throttle forward and headed the boat away from the energy
curtain.

“Then what?” Slab growled. “Sit there ‘til
the beer runs out?”

“It’s not that bad, mate. We’ve got bread,
we’ve got onions, we’ve got lots of crocodiles!” Wal said brightly. “We can
barbeque them! Make croc burgers!”

Slab gave him an irritated look. “Shut up,
Wal.”

* * * *

Cougar went down
on one knee beside an old paperbark tree and scanned the forest ahead through
his sniper scope. The air was still and the land was deathly quiet as the
creatures of the forest had not yet become accustomed to the dome’s ghostly
light. “There’s nothing out there.”

 “I’m telling you,” Vamp’s voice sounded
emphatically in his earpiece, “There are multiple contacts, dead ahead.”

Cougar performed another slow sweep with
his rifle, examining every shadow. “They must be invisible, because I got nothing.”

A short distance behind Cougar, Beckman
glanced at Laura. “Could it be wildlife?”

“It’s possible,” Laura said. “Casuarinas
would be hard for your man to spot.”

“Could you see them?”

“I know what to look for, but no
guarantees.”

“Everyone hold position,” Beckman ordered
over the radio, then he and Laura crept between green leafy plants to Cougar’s
position.

The sniper gave Beckman a dubious look,
convinced there was nothing out there. Beckman handed Laura his field glasses,
then waited patiently as she vainly examined the shapes and shadows lying
across their path.

“Movement!” Vamp’s voice sounded urgently
in their earpieces. “Two new contacts, coming at you! Fast!”

Cougar and Beckman raised their weapons,
but saw no target. Laura looked up, wondering if Vamp was mistakenly tracking
the large birds of prey circling above the tree tops. Instead, she saw two
shiny metal seekers fall through the canopy legs first, catching branches one
handed and kicking off from tree trunks toward them with more speed and agility
than any animal on earth possessed.

“Up there!” she yelled, pointing to the
tree tops.

Before either Cougar or Beckman could
respond, a silver seeker landed in front of Cougar and sprayed his face and
chest with nano membrane. The milky white substance swept around his head,
causing him to gag as it cut off his air supply. He dropped his rifle and
clawed at the nano membrane as it enveloped his neck and shoulders. A second
seeker landed behind Laura with a thud and sprayed her back with the same white
substance. The nano membrane flowed around her torso, pinning her arms to her
sides as Beckman brought his pistol up. Before he could fire, the seeker in
front of Cougar sprayed him, pinning his left arm and enveloping his waist. The
membrane flowed down his body, cocooning his legs down to his knees. The second
seeker stepped forward and kicked Beckman’s hand, sending his pistol spinning
into the trees.

Seeing Cougar was suffocating, Beckman
pulled his knife from his boot scabbard with his free hand. “Cougar, freeze!”

Cougar went rigid, then Beckman stabbed the
knife through the nano membrane sealing the sniper’s open mouth. Cougar gasped
as he got a breath of air, then the membrane started to close. The sniper
wedged his fingers in the hole, then kept tearing at it as the white substance
flowed around his fingers, trying to seal the gap.

Beckman turned and lunged at the nearest
seeker with his knife, but it effortlessly swatted the knife away, then knocked
him off his feet. Its thin metallic fingers clamped on his left ankle and
lifted him into the air, holding him at arm’s length where he flailed
helplessly upside down. The second seeker wrapped an arm around Laura’s chest,
and lifted her off the ground, oblivious to her attempts to hammer at its lower
torso with her fists.

Twenty meters away, the rest of the team
realized what was happening, and took aim at the two machines. The seekers had
struck so fast, even Tucker had failed to get a shot away.

“Shoot if you have a clear shot!” Hooper
yelled, unable to get an unobstructed angle himself.

The two seekers bent knees, then launched
themselves into the tree tops with their captives. Beckman saw the ground fall
away beneath him at astonishing speed. Hanging upside down, his stomach churned
as he spun helplessly. Below, he saw Hooper and the rest of the team aiming
their weapons, unable to fire for fear of hitting them. The seekers caught a
tree trunk with their free hands, then pushed off with their feet, propelling
themselves sideways through the canopy toward the ground, well away from the
team.

“Careful, guys!” Vamp yelled over the
radio. Her eyes darted from the two machines to the crystal ball. “The other
contacts are ahead!”

Beckman’s helmet struck the ground hard,
dazing him when his captor landed. The second seeker jumped down beside the
first, holding Laura high enough that her feet missed the ground. Beckman
blinked stars from his eyes, then tried to grab one of his captor’s metal legs
but it tore free effortlessly, seemingly unaware of his feeble attempt. The
seeker bent knees again, preparing to leap into the tree tops as Beckman heard
a thud of a hard object striking metal and felt the seeker shudder.

Good shot!
He thought, thinking a bullet had struck the machine,
then realized they were too far away for the team to help.

Hanging upside down, he looked up at the
seeker, puzzled by what he saw. A long thin, strangely blackened object
protruded from the seeker’s upper torso segment. The machine shuddered
awkwardly as it regained its balance, then froze. Confused, its sensor disk
conducted a rapid, three hundred and sixty degree scan of the forest, finding
nothing. A second projectile hit the machine from the other side, driving
through its hip section. The seeker turned toward the new threat. It had
momentarily detected movement, a shadow within a shadow, but the shape had
already vanished.

Beckman glanced at the seeker holding Laura
as another of the strange projectiles punched clean through its lower torso.
Suddenly, he realized what they were.

Spears!

The lower arm section of Laura’s seeker
sparked around the spear’s entry point as the machine spasmed and fell
sideways, its spine severed. A compartment opened in its hip section, and a
cylindrical data pod emerged, popping up a meter above the fallen machine. The
tiny device spun slowly on its axis, recording the seeker’s fate via dozens of
miniscule black sensors that pockmarked its surface. A rhythmic beating drew
Beckman’s attention to a spinning object that sliced through the air above the
forest floor. It crashed into the data pod, driving it into a tree, then the
boomerang and the shattered metal cylinder fell to the ground.

Beckman searched for the source of the
attack, but the forest was deserted. His seeker spasmed, dropping him hard on
his shoulder as it fell to its knees, ejecting its own data pod. It then
collapsed onto the ground like scrap metal while its data recorder, aware of
the fate of its twin, shot off into the forest, skimming above the thick green
foliage with increasing speed, intent on escaping to report the incident.

Bandaka stood up and crashed his nulla
nulla into the small cylindrical device as it sped past. The hardwood club
crushed one side of the small device, shorting it out, and driving it into the
ground. He gave a yell in a language unrecognizable to Beckman as Liyakindirr
appeared from his hiding place and gave a whoop of triumph, having felled
Laura’s evil spirit with a single spear. Bandaka shouldered his fire hardened
club as he strolled forward to where Beckman and Laura lay struggling against
the nano membranes.

“Nice club,” Beckman said, eyeing the
primitive weapon. “Glad you know how to use it.”

Bandaka grinned a broad piano teeth smile,
starkly white against his jet black skin, as Hooper ran to where Beckman and
Laura lay. The master sergeant watched astonished as Liyakindirr planted a foot
on one of the machines and wrenched his spear free.

Beckman followed his gaze. “Low tech, but
effective.”

“Yeah,” Hooper agreed as he tried cutting
through the nano membrane enveloping Beckman. As soon as his blade passed
through the milky white substance, it immediately flowed back together. “Can’t
cut this crap, whatever it is!” Hooper growled, sheathing his knife. He took
Beckman’s arm across his shoulders and pulled him to his feet while Laura stood
awkwardly beside them, able to walk unassisted.

Bandaka recovered his spears from the
seeker’s torso, setting off a new series of short circuits. A few meters away,
Liyakindirr retrieved his boomerang. Its leading edge was crushed, and would
require many hours of painstaking work to restore its aerodynamic qualities.
The aboriginal hunters exchanged words in Yolngu, then Bandaka fell in behind
them, while Liyakindirr headed off into the bush.

“Where’s your friend going?” Laura asked.

“To get the others,” Bandaka replied. His
wife and daughter hid among the trees to the southwest, although they’d not
seen Mulmulpa since they’d fled their camp. They were all growing anxious for
his safety. No one knew the forest better than the old man, but the strange
spirits invading their home were not of the forest. Perhaps they were beyond
even Mulmulpa’s wisdom.

Beckman studied the hunter as they headed
back to Cougar’s position. He was tall and lean, far more slender in build than
an African, and his skin was a dark midnight black. He wore the barest of loin
cloths, and while Beckman sweated constantly, Bandaka was unaffected by the
heat and humidity. He was as well adapted to his environment as any man had
ever been.

“Thanks for the help,” Beckman said.

Bandaka’s gleaming white smile returned.
The hunter had an infectious friendliness about him that Beckman had not
expected. “We lucky. The runners got no guns.”

“Have you seen other machines with guns?”

“Yeah, bigger than them two. Tried shooting
us, but we hide.” Bandaka sobered. “Can’t fight that one.”

Beckman and Hooper exchanged concerned
looks, then Bandaka tilted his head sideways, studying Laura. “You the animal
doctor, from over near Marrkalawa people?”