The Ninth Circle (49 page)

Authors: R. M. Meluch

BOOK: The Ninth Circle

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The Marines were passing through a shallow pass between low hills when the foxes began gathering thick woody vines and weaving them into large lumpy balls, like double cages.

The balls had an inner compartment and a woven outer shell equipped with a vine-hinged door. The foxes rolled their finished creations along with the file.

“They’re cages,” said Dak. “Look at that. Fourteen of us. Fourteen cages.”

“They’re steamers,” said Rhino. “They’re going to try to slow cook us. I bet there are hot springs around here.”

The tight set of twin moons that circled Zoe every thirty-five local days were on the wane, following the sun over the western horizon.

As the dusk gathered, the foxes told the Marines to get in the cages. At least that’s what the Marines thought all that humming and gesturing meant. The foxes even held the doors for them to get in.

“I knew it! I knew it!” Dak yelled toward the darkening sky. “I knew it!”

Kerry Blue told the foxes to bite her asteroid.

The slivers of the double moon, nearly new, looked like a pair of grinning Cheshire cats as they touched the horizon.

The foxes stopped trying to coax the Marines into their cages.

But here came the weird part. The foxes rolled out more cages from a forest glade. They climbed into the cage balls and lashed the hatches shut.

Kerry looked at her squad mates. “Do you see that?”

Flight Leader Cain Salvador ordered the squad, “Get in the cages.”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Dak. “We need shelter? I’m checking out the caves.”

Dak marched up in the direction of the caves in the rocky hillside.

The foxes rolled their cages like giant hamster balls alongside Dak. They rolled into Dak’s path, humming. Agitated.

They were afraid of something.

The pack leader unlashed the door of his own cage, climbed out and jumped around Dak. The leader’s gestures—if you could read alien gestures like human gestures—seemed to say: No, no, no. Caves bad.

The alpha male scampered into and out of a cage as if to show Dak how to do it.

Dak told the fox, “Look! I get what you’re telling me to do, Fur Face. I’m just not doing it. Look at me! I’m Black!”

Colonel Steele, who had been marching rear guard, hiked up to the scene of the noise. He demanded, “What is the issue, Marine?”

Flight Leader Cain Salvador told him, “The foxes don’t want us near the caves. They want us to get in those cages.”

Steele’s night vision turned on in the gathering darkness. He looked from Cain to Dak to the caves to the empty woven cages to the antic foxes inside their own cage balls. “What’s in the caves?”

“I don’t know, but I bet it comes out at night during the new moon,” said Cain.

Steele’s eyes moved over his Marines, the twitching foxes, the caves, the sky.

The sliver moons were slipping below the horizon.

Here at the edge of the galaxy, at this hour, the world turned this face toward the starless side of heaven. When those moons disappeared, the sky was going to be pitch black.

Steele ordered, “Get in the cages.”

Kerry Blue woke to something. Immediately forgot what it was. She knew what was happening while she was still asleep. Now she was awake and couldn’t remember what it was. She thought her cage shook.

She remained still, listened. Heard insects buzzing, crickety chirps, notes like birdcalls.

Big fronds rustled, waving in the warm breeze, but she couldn’t see them. She heard Dak and Cain snoring. Smelled green scents and earthy musk. Saw nothing. May as well have her eyes closed. It was foxtrotting dark out here.

Kerry Blue shut her eyes. Dozed off again.

She smelled something rank. Felt something big. Now
that
really was a shake this time. She woke up rolling. Over and over, bouncing.

Things that came out to feed under the moonless sky on the blackest night of the year were here. She hadn’t seen anything in the daylight like those she sensed clawing at her cage. Heated gusts breathed on her. These things must have been in the caves.

She switched her night vision on. It didn’t help much. There wasn’t any ambient light to enhance. She got an infrared image of a jagged gaping mouth. Claws raked at the outer bars of heavy vine. She felt the swiping paw roll her cage.

She grasped at one of the inner vines to hold on as she rolled hip over shoulder.

Someone else yelled. Dak. He sounded upside down. “What’s happening ?”

“Something is trying to eat my feet!” Kerry shouted.

Hot breaths seethed between teeth. Kerry unholstered her splinter gun. Rolled.

She heard Rhino, fluent in blasphemy.

Someone else yelled, “I dropped my fragging gun!”

Kerry got off a shot. Her target gave an angry snort so she knew she’d jabbed a splinter up the thing’s broad nose. She pulled the second stage trigger. Fragged it.

Felt a wet spray with an ungodly squeal. She hadn’t killed it. Not near.

Oh, crap. It’s angry. And I’ve got gunk on me.

The thing batted her into a furious roll. She held on till she crashed into someone else’s cage.

Someone else was yelling, “Get this thing off me!” Sounded like Taher.

Kerry Blue tried to get a bead on the mouth that latched onto her cage. The mouth and her foot were in same direction.

She braced for a sting in case she nailed herself. She fired.

Didn’t feel anything in her foot. But a sharp cry came from the mouth.

She detonated the splinter.

The thing threw her, cage and all, screaming. She heard the wrenching screeches diminish behind her. Her springy vine-framed ball rolled and bounced down a hill, picking up speed, with Kerry inside it.

The ball rolled off an edge. Dropped. Bounced. Splashed. The rolling slogged to a wet stop.

And now she was sinking.

Kerry dropped her gun. In the blackness she felt quickly around with her hands at the hard vines for the lashing that held her cage shut. She was clawing at the knots. The twined ropes were wet. They seized together tighter. She drew her knife.

And her cage was sinking. It was already up to her waist.

And took a roll for the worse.

Kerry screamed, “
I’m in the water!
”

With water up to her chest, she floated, the top of her head pressed against the hard vines. She took her blade to a vine. Barely scored a couple of grooves in it. Water was rising at her chin. She took in a giant breath.

Water rose up over her nostrils, filled her ears, shut her eyes. She felt around for the ropes that held her cage shut.

Thomas will save me. He always does
.

The cage rolled slowly upside down.
Don’t get water up your nose. You cough and you’re done
. She’d lost touch with the ropes on that roll. Leaves and dirt swam in her face. Algae brushed against her in slimy veils. She snorted them off her nostrils. Hard bubbles tapped her face.

Her head was singing. Lungs burned.

Needing to breathe.

Did anyone even know where she was?

I want to breathe. I want to breathe real bad.

Hold it. Hold it. Hold it.

She’d lost her place during the last roll. Lost her knife. Couldn’t find the twine to claw at it. Grabbed the bars and tried to shake them.
Stupid. Stupid Stupid
. The vines were hard enough to keep out giant creatures. She wasn’t going to shake her way out. Her motions were heavy and slow under water.

Thomas will be here.

Lungs felt to be splitting.

It didn’t look like Thomas was coming.

Why the hell did she have to say till death do us part?

Jose Maria de Cordillera was the only person in camp not afraid of the pirates. He knew they were deadly. Jose Maria was at peace with the concept of death.

He sat at the fireside, in the depth of the darkest night, his dog’s head on his knee.

Nox sat down on another bench. Said, “Thank you for respecting my name.”

“A man is not who he was,” said Jose Maria. “He is who he chooses to be. I am familiar with men who have more than one existence.”

Nox struggled not to feel shame at what he’d become. “I had damn few choices.”

Jose Maria picked up a stone. “Not mine to throw.” He let the stone fall from his hand.

Nox said, “I can let you inside your ship to get something to sleep on.”

Jose Maria motioned the idea away. “I have a hammock out here.”

No one was confined to his tent, but all the xenos were hunkered down anyway. Except for Jose Maria. And the one woman. She had taken a matter-of-fact walk across the grounds to the head, then stopped in the galley, then walked back to her tent with a glass of water.

Nox had caught her looking at him during dinner. Not the way the others looked at him. Nox could tell that she recognized him, or someone like him.

He knew he had never met her. But her name was familiar. Glenn Hamilton. Glenn Hamilton.

Mrs. Hamilton.

A snag. A jerk. Kerry sank to the bottom of her cage. Her cage was rolling.

And rising. Head up. Huge breath. Rolled back under. Rolled up. Another gasp. A voice. “We got her! You still with us, Blue?” Dragging up on land. Rolled her upside down.

“Oh,
frag a hag!
” she rasped.

“She’s okay!”

Someone got a red light on. She could see, sort of.

Thomas Ryder Steele. And Cain Salvador. They were out of their cages, hauling her cage away from a pond. Twitch and Carly were there too. Kerry dimly saw the others, their backs to her, arranged in a defensive half ring, splinter guns at the ready, watching for monsters.

Steele growling, “God
dammit
, Blue! Stay out of the water!”

Kerry felt warm. The growling was sweet. He’d been scared out of his head for her.

Asante Addai took the hail from the ship. Of course
Mack
had monitors all over them.
Merrimack
had detected splinter fire.

The XO’s voice: “Do you have pirates down there?”

“Negative,” Asante responded.
Pirates?
“We have wild animals.”

“You really oughtn’t be shooting the native wildlife.”

Oh, yeah. This from a guy called Dingo
.

Kerry heard that. Yelled, “It was trying to eat my feet!”

“That’s the being’s nature,” said the voice safe, way high and dry on the space battleship. “You need to allow for alien nature.”

“Yeah, sir?” said Kerry Blue. “It didn’t allow for my nature!”