"Great," said Corbie. "Just great."
Lindholm had just started to nod agreement when the room suddenly came alive around them. Blurred shapes thrust up out of the floor, grey and white and beaded with sweat. The marines moved quickly to stand back to back, guns at the ready. A new light pierced the darkness as they raised their force shields.
DeChance raised hers a moment later, and moved in close beside the marines, gun and sword in hand.
More growths burst out of the walls. Somewhere far away, something was shrieking with what might have been rage or pain or both. The growths blossomed out into huge mushroom shapes, with wide, drooping heads on long, waving stalks. Crude eyes appeared on the stalks, and the fluted edges of the flat heads fluttered with the steady rhythm of slow breathing. The growths sprouted from every side, spreading out to fill the room.
Corbie yelled out in surprise as a mushroom blossomed out of the floor at his feet, and he fired his disrupter at it. The fleshy head exploded under the energy bolt. The stalk swayed back and forth for a moment, and then a dozen flailing tentacles erupted out of the stalk, lashing furiously at the air. They were bloodred, and tipped with tiny sucking mouths. Corbie cut at them with his sword, but for every tentacle he severed, another burst out of the stalk to take its place. Lindholm looked from the doorway to the opening in the far wall and tried to work out which was the nearest. He had a sinking feeling the nearest opening was the one that led deeper into the building. One of the mushroom growths leaned towards him, top-heavy on its slender stalk, and Lindholm only just managed to stop himself from firing at it. He didn"t want to repeat Corbie"s mistake. The centre of the bowed mushroom head bulged suddenly outwards, and then split apart as a huge black-armoured insect exploded out of it. It had a wide, flat body, a dozen barbed legs, and razor-sharp mandibles. It reached hungrily for Lindholm, and he shot it at point-blank range. The armoured body blew apart, twitching legs flying through the air.
All over the room, the mushroom growths were swelling up and bursting open, giving birth to monsters.
Corbie and Lindholm holstered their guns and tried to clear a s.p.a.ce around them with their swords. The esper was no use to them. Her gun hung slackly at her side, her face drawn and twisted by some inner agony. The marines protected her as best they could, but they both knew they couldn"t do that for long.
There were just too many monsters.
A huge mushroom head exploded, throwing hundreds of bloodred worms across the room. They fell upon monsters and mushrooms alike and began to chew voraciously through whatever they landed on.
The marines were mostly protected by their force shields and steelmesh tunics, but still a few landed on bare flesh. One worm landed on Lindholm"s hand, and bit clear through to the bone before he could shake it off. He cursed briefly, and kept on fighting. In the Arenas you learned to ignore any wound that wasn"t immediately critical. Corbie wasn"t nearly so calm about it, and shrieked and cursed at the top of his voice when a worm attached itself to his ear. He clawed desperately at the worm with his free hand, and in tearing it off almost decapitated himself with his own force shield. Several worms landed on the esper, shocking her out of her trance, and she brushed and slapped frantically at them where they clung to her uniform. The monsters ignored the worms in their single-minded determination to reach their human prey. A long, dull grey tentacle snapped out of nowhere and grabbed Lindholm"s field lantern. The lantern shattered in its grip, and the light winked out. The room was still lit by an eerie, ghostly glow from the mushrooms, but it was rapidly being blocked out by the growing horde of monsters.
The marines fought on, despite the growing ache in their backs and arms and the air that burned in their straining lungs. DeChance protected them with her force shield as best she could, but she was no fighter, and they all knew it. Huge armoured insects up to three and four feet in length crawled over the floor and walls, and fought each other for the chance to get at their human prey. Long tentacles studded with snapping mouths thrashed the air. Something broken-backed with too many legs crawled upside down across the ceiling, watching the marines with unblinking eyes. The worms were everywhere, writhing and coiling and eating. Corbie wiped sweat from his eyes with the back of his hand, and something with foot-long teeth snapped at his throat. He got his force shield up just in time, and the teeth broke jaggedly against the energy field. He could feel the strength going out of him with each of his sword thrusts, but he kept fighting anyway. He had to. There was nowhere to retreat. He couldn"t even see the doorway anymore. He grinned defiantly, and swung his sword in short, vicious arcs while he waited for his disrupter to recharge. A mushroom burst out of the wall beside him, and as he cut through the stem, a writhing ma.s.s of intestines fell out of the wound, smoking and steaming on the still air.
Right, thought Corbie determinedly.That is it. Enough is enough .
He cleared some s.p.a.ce around him with his sword and shield, lifted his gun, and blasted a hole through the nearest wall. DeChance and Lindholm quickly used their guns to blast a path through the crowding monsters, and the three of them clambered through the hole into the darkness beyond. The two marines turned and blocked the gap with their force shields while DeChance pulled her field lantern out of her backpack. The sudden flare of light showed the room was empty, apart from some alien machinery, and the esper relaxed a little. Monsters pressed against the two force shields, trying to force their way past. A mushroom head exploded, blowing a hail of writhing maggots into the air.
"We"ve got to block this hole off and barricade it," said Lindholm. His breath was coming in short, ragged pants, but his voice was as calm and unconcerned as always.
"Sounds good to me," said Corbie. "You and the esper find something. I"ll hold them off. But you"d better be b.l.o.o.d.y quick."
He stepped forward to fill the hole, somehow finding some last reserves of strength to draw on. The monsters surged forward, and he met them with his sword and shield. Tired and aching and preoccupied as he was, Corbie still found time to notice he wasn"t as frightened as he had been. He was still scared, but it wasn"t the heart-stopping paralysing fear that had bedevilled him for so long. He was scared, but he could still think and he could still fight. Perhaps it was simply that he no longer had the choice of whether to fight or run. Being weak and indecisive here would simply get him killed. Not that Corbie had any illusions about his chances. Unless Sven or the esper came up with a miracle pretty d.a.m.n quickly, he was a dead man, and he knew it. The thought twisted his stomach and shortened his breath, but it was no longer enough to paralyse him or break his nerve.
Who knows; maybe I"m just getting used to being terrified . . .
His mouth stretched into a death"s-head grin, and his gun blasted a creeping thing into a hundred twitching pieces.
"Move back out of the way, Russ! Now!"
Corbie fell back, and Lindholm single-handedly slammed a ma.s.sive piece of alien machinery into the gap, sealing the hole off. Corbie didn"t even want to think how much the d.a.m.ned thing must weigh.
Certainly it looked strong enough to hold back the monsters while he and his companions made their escape. He started to move away from the wall, and collapsed. His vision darkened, and his head went muzzy.
"Easy, Russ," said Lindholm quickly. "Take a moment and get your second wind. The barricade will hold a while yet."
Corbie sat on the floor and concentrated on breathing deeply. His head was already clearing, but he could tell he wasn"t up to running any distance yet, even a.s.suming he had anywhere to run to. He glanced quickly around the new room. It wasn"t quite as big as the last one, but even so, the lantern"s light didn"t carry to the far wall, and the high ceiling was hidden in shadow. Squat, hulking machinery stood in neat rows, no two the same. There were no lights or other signs to show they were still functioning. Corbie distrusted them anyway, on general principles. There was a jagged hole in the floor, its edges glowing-hot from an energy burst where Lindholm had used his disrupter to break a machine free from the floor.
Lengths of steel and gla.s.s protruded from the hole like broken bones. Corbie took a deep breath, turned off his force shield, and got back on his feet again, with a little help from Lindholm and the esper.
"All right," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "What now?"
Lindholm shrugged. "We can"t go back, so we go on. There"s another doorway, beyond the machines."
Corbie looked at DeChance. She had turned away, and was frowning distractedly, listening to something only she could hear.
"Well?" said Corbie finally. "What do you think, esper? Do you agree?"
"Yes," said DeChance. Her expression didn"t change. "There"s no other choice. All the other ways are blocked. Besides, there"s something up ahead I want to look at."
Lindholm looked at her sharply. "What is it, esper? What"s up ahead?"
"Something interesting," said DeChance dreamily. She turned her back on the two marines, and walked steadily between the alien machines to the far doorway. Corbie and Lindholm looked at each other briefly, and hurried after her. Corbie still didn"t trust DeChance"s esp, but it had proved accurate enough so far. And it beat standing around arguing next to a room full of monsters. He glared suspiciously at the alien machines as he pa.s.sed, but they remained silent and enigmatic. They were structures with shape and form but no meaning. Or, at least, no meaning he could understand.
DeChance stepped through the open doorway, and held up her field lantern to illuminate the room.
Corbie and Lindholm crowded in after her. The walls curved upwards to a shadowed ceiling far above.
The room stretched away beyond the lantern"s light, which gleamed dully on the endless ranks of metal stacks that filled the room like a honeycomb. And there, in those stacks, in that honeycomb, lay thousands upon thousands of milky white spheres, ranging in size from a man"s fist to a man"s head.
"They look like that ball you found in the monolith," said Lindholm. "What are they?"
"Memories," said DeChance softly. "A storehouse of memories. The history of this city, and those who lived here. The answers to all our questions."
She started towards the nearest stacks, but Lindholm grabbed her by the arm and made her stop. "Wait just a minute, esper. Remember the way you reacted to one of those things back in the monolith. There"s no telling what these might do to you."
"Right," said Corbie. "And the monsters could be here any minute. We"ve got to keep moving."
"No," said DeChance flatly. "We need the information in these spheres. Without it, we don"t have a hope in h.e.l.l of surviving."
Lindholm nodded reluctantly, and let go of her arm. "All right. Russ, you look for another way out of here, while I stand guard. And DeChance, keep it short. We really don"t have much time."
The esper nodded, her eyes fixed hungrily on the stacks and the spheres they held. Somewhere in that endless honeycomb lay the answers she needed; answers that would make sense of the insanity that threatened them. She walked slowly forward, wandering through the towering stacks with only her esp to guide her. All around her, the spheres burned in her mind like so many candles guttering in the darkness.
They were old, very old, and their memories were fading. But a few still burned bright, flaring and brilliant, and DeChance"s esp led her to them. She stretched out her hands.
At first there was only a colourless grey, like a monitor tuned to an empty channel, and then the first images came to her, like single frames from a moving film. DeChance"s reason staggered under the impact. The alienness of the images was almost overpowering, but slowly DeChance forced sense and meaning out of them. And so the story unfolded before her, of a great race who dreamed a wonderful dream, and saw it collapse into a nightmare without end.
The aliens of Wolf IV had developed a strange and marvellous science, and used it to free themselves from the tyranny of a fixed shape. No longer bound to a single, rigid form, their physical shapes became a matter of choice. Their lives became free and wonderful. They grew wings and flew upon the wind. They adapted their bodies and burrowed through the earth. They soared above the atmosphere, and dived into volcanoes to swim in the molten lava. They were lords of creation, masters of all they surveyed.
But the change had not been natural. It was brought about and sustained by a single great device housed in a copper tower in the centre of the city. And slowly, horribly, the aliens learned the truth of what they had done to themselves. The shape of the body was controlled by the mind, and the aliens had forgotten there was more to the mind than the conscious will and the intellect. Body changes began to appear that were dictated by the demons of the subconscious mind, the id, the ego, and the superego; the dark areas of the mind, beyond sanity or hope of control. The aliens discovered hideous pleasures and awful longings, and their dreams became dark and foul. The horror had begun.
The aliens had been low-level telepaths, but the device changed all that. Their esp became wild and strong, and their minds were no longer sacrosanct. They quickly learned that the more powerful mind could overpower the weaker, and force a change upon the loser"s body. Before the great device, the aliens of Wolf IV had been a calm, thoughtful people. They lived long, and delighted in the act of creation. But they had reached too far and lost everything they prized, and in the end only monsters remained to stalk the city streets.
The city fell. Its streets were purulent with awful life, madness given shape and form. And so they came to the final horror. The aliens could not die. If a limb was torn away, it grew back. A wound would heal itself in seconds. The monsters tore and ate each other, but even the worst atrocities could not kill them now.
The city survived for a while. The device only affected living, animate matter. But eventually the city fell apart as the machines went untended. Only the great device, built to be self-perpetuating, continued in its purpose. Its influence spread across the planet, affecting all that lived, to some degree. But then something happened, something unforeseen.
The great device and the aliens had a continuing two-way contact, so that the device"s programming could reflect the aliens" changing needs. And slowly, progressively, the aliens" madness began to drive the device insane. Its programming became warped and twisted as it struggled to fulfill the aliens" needs and desires. Finally, it recognised the danger it was in, and took the only course open to it. The device shut itself down and put the city to sleep, in the hope that the future might hold an answer to its dilemma.
Time pa.s.sed. There was no telling how many years or centuries. The aliens could not die, and the device was patient. It waited, sustaining itself with the bare minimum of energy.
And then the h.e.l.l Squad came, and DeChance"s esp roused the great device from its ancient sleep. But too much time had pa.s.sed, and the device was no longer sane. Perhaps it had spent too long exposed to the aliens" madness, or perhaps simply the world had changed too much from the one it had been designed to serve, so that nothing made any sense to it anymore. It didn"t matter. The great device had its programming.
It awoke the Sleepers and roused the city, and the nightmare began again.
DeChance fell to her knees, shaking uncontrollably. Corbie reached out a hand to steady her, only to hesitate as the esper vomited onto the floor. Lindholm looked back the way they"d come. Something was drawing near. He raised his force shield and drew his disrupter from its holster. The wall to their left suddenly cracked from top to bottom and burst apart as a huge armoured form crashed through it. A piece of flying stone smashed DeChance"s field lantern, and darkness filled the room.
CHAPTER SIX.
The Hunt It was evening, heading into night, as Hunter led Dr. Williams and the Investigator through the deserted city streets. The green of the sky grew dark and ominous as the sun sank slowly behind the cyclopean towers. The alien buildings cast strangely shaped shadows, and the occasional lighted window seemed bright and sinister in the deepening gloom. It was bitter cold and getting colder, and Hunter shivered despite the heating elements in his uniform. He glanced surrept.i.tiously at Krystel and Williams, but neither of them showed any sign of being bothered by the cold. Hunter scowled. Investigators were trained to withstand extreme changes in temperature, but the doctor was just a civilian. Presumably those hidden adjustments of his made the difference. Hunter shared the popular distrust of black-market implants, but he had to admit there were times when they came in handy. He breathed on his freezing hands and beat them together, and tried to think warm thoughts.
They"d been walking for the best part of an hour, but the copper tower didn"t seem to be drawing any nearer. It stood before them, tall and forbidding, rising high above the surrounding buildings, its gleaming metal spikes stark and jagged. It had seemed huge enough when they first started towards it, but now Hunter was beginning to realise just how tall and ma.s.sive the structure really was. Not for the first time, he wondered what the h.e.l.l he was going to do when he finally got there. If he got there.
Hunter let his hand fall to the disrupter at his side. He hadn"t felt entirely happy about taking the Investigator"s gun, after he lost his own, but he had to admit he felt a lot happier knowing he had a weapon to hand. And if half the things he"d heard about Investigators were true, she might not need a gun, at that. Williams still had both his gun and his sword, of course. Logically, he should have given up his sword so that Hunter could use it, since the doctor had no experience with a blade, but Hunter had decided against pressing the point. Williams was jumpy enough as it was; without his weapons to lend him courage he might just fall apart, for all his precious augmentations.
"Captain," said Williams suddenly. "I have been thinking . . ."
"Yes, Doctor," said Hunter politely.
"Our weapons weren"t much use against that alien. In the future, if we come across anything else like that, why don"t we just set up our portable force screen, and use that to protect us?"
Hunter felt like sighing deeply, but rose above it. "You must have noticed. Doctor, that it takes quite some time to set up a screen. I can"t see the alien waiting patiently while we do it, can you? And even if we could get the screen up before the alien could get to us, what would we do then? Just sit tight, and wait for it to lose interest and go away? No, Doctor, as a plan it"s not very practical. We"d do better to save the power in the screen"s energy crystals for real emergencies."
He broke off as he realised the doctor wasn"t listening to him. Williams scowled, bit his lower lip, and stopped dead in his tracks. Hunter and Krystel stopped with him. Williams looked slowly around him, his head c.o.c.ked slightly to one side, as though listening to something only he could hear. Hunter listened, but everything seemed still and silent. He looked at the Investigator, who shrugged.
"Something"s coming," said Williams quietly. "I can hear it. And whatever it is, this time it"s not alone." He turned slowly round in a tight circle, and the colour gradually went out of his face. "They"re all around us, Captain, I can hear things coming from every direction. All kinds of things."
"Be more specific," said Krystel. "What exactly are you hearing?"
"All kinds of things," said Williams. His voice began to rise. "They"re getting closer. We"ve got to get out of here, while we still can. They"re coming for us!"
"Take it easy," said Hunter. "Investigator, can you hear anything?"
"Nothing, Captain. But if his hearing is augmented . . ."
"Yeah," said Hunter.
Krystel drew her sword. "I think we should find some cover, Captain. We"re too exposed out here."
"I think you"re right, Investigator." Hunter drew his disrupter, and looked quickly about him. There were buildings all around, cloaked in shadows from the coming night, but none of them had obvious doorways.
Over to his right, one of the buildings appeared to have been partially gutted by an explosion. Part of the street side had been torn away, leaving strands of metal like broken bones, and a jagged opening at the top of a small hill of rubble. Hunter started towards it, and the other two followed.
Climbing the rubble of broken stone and metal proved easy enough, and Hunter paused at the top to take out his field lantern and turn it on. The pale golden light showed a vast, empty room beyond the opening. The walls were covered with a silver metal tracery, forming disturbing patterns that bordered on the edge of meaning. Hunter looked back at the street below. He still couldn"t see or hear anything, despite the extra height the hill of rubble gave him. He began to wonder if Williams hadn"t been overreacting and jumping at his own shadow. And then the first whisper of sound came to him, from somewhere far off in the distance. He spun round, and glared in its general direction. Far off in the gloom, something was moving. Hunter crouched down behind one of the large outcroppings of rubble. Krystel had already found some cover. Williams had drawn his gun, but was still standing in plain view, staring off into the gathering dusk with his adjusted eyes.
"Oh, my G.o.d," he said faintly.
"What is it?" said Krystel. "What can you see?"
"Someone has opened the gates of h.e.l.l," said Williams. "And the d.a.m.ned are loose in the city."
Hunter shot a quick glance at Krystel, who just looked straight back at him. Hunter stared out into the dark, his breath steaming on the chill air. He felt even colder, now that they"d stopped moving. And then he caught his first glimpse of what was coming towards him, and a worse chill swept through him. A great tide of leaping, running, and crawling life came surging down the wide street, heading straight for the concealed h.e.l.l Squad; an endless flow of nightmares and monstrosities. There were things that walked on two legs and some that ran on four, and others that leaped through the air as though they were weightless. There were creatures with fangs and claws that snapped and tore at those around them.
There were those who looked as though they"d somehow been horribly turned inside out, and some whose shapes made no sense at all.
Giant insects crawled along the sides of buildings like beetles on a coffin lid. Twisted shapes flapped through the air. The aliens screamed and roared and chattered, and there were sounds that might almost have been human cries or laughter. They came surging out of the darkness without end, driven by some unimaginable goad, drawing closer all the time. Hunter looked at the city"s nightmares, and wanted to turn away and hide until they were gone. He couldn"t bear the sight of them. Their foul shapes and insane structures were an offence against his reason.
But he couldn"t just run away and hide. He was the Captain, and he had to set an example. Even if he was so scared he could hardly think straight, and the old familiar panic was gnawing at his nerves, threatening to break loose at any moment. His breathing was short and hurried, and he could feel sweat beading on his face. He looked down at his disrupter and saw that his hand was shaking. He swallowed hard and fought back the panic. It didn"t matter that he was scared and couldn"t cope. He had to cope.
There was no one else. He took a long, shuddering breath, and felt some of the tension go out of him.
There was a certain comfort in knowing that the worst that could happen had already happened. At least the waiting was over and there were no more surprises to worry about. He brought his disrupter to bear on the surging ma.s.s of aliens. His hand was still shaking, but so slightly now that only he would know it.
He grabbed Williams with his free hand and pulled him back behind some cover. Williams jerked his arm free and glared at Hunter. Hunter glared right back at him. There were times when he wondered if the doctor was trying to get himself killed.
The aliens were fast approaching the hill of rubble, and for the first time Hunter was able to make out the true horror of their condition. None of them had a fixed form. Their shapes came and went like so many whims or fleeting memories, never the same two moments running. Flesh flowed on their bones like melting wax, sliding endlessly from one form to another. New eyes surfaced in the bubbling flesh, and new arms burst out of their heaving sides. Hunter was reminded briefly of the statues he"d seen on the open plain, depicting creatures made up of bits and pieces from various species, neither one thing nor another. Perhaps they had been meant as a warning after all.
"Stand ready," said Hunter. His voice sounded gratifyingly calm and even. "Dr. Williams, wait until they"re close enough for you to pick a specific target before you use your disrupter. Investigator, you"ve had the most combat experience. You take the point, and the doctor and I will guard your sides."
"Understood, Captain." Krystel looked out over the milling horrors, and smiled unpleasantly. Hunter shivered. There was something horribly wild and eager about her smile. She might almost have been looking at an approaching lover.
"We can"t stay here!" said Williams suddenly. "Look at them! They"ll be here any minute, and there"s nothing we can do to stop them. We"ve got to get out of here while we still can."
He scrambled away from his section of cover and headed for the opening in the wall. Hunter grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back. "Don"t be a fool, Williams! How far would you get on your own?
Stand fast, and guard the Investigator"s side. Or I swear I"ll cut you down myself."
Williams snarled at him, but remained where Hunter had put him. "We don"t have to stay here! We could still fall back into the building and barricade the hole with the force screen."
"We"ve talked this through before, Doctor. The screen would only last as long as its energy crystals permitted, and then it would collapse. By which time the aliens would undoubtedly have us surrounded.
We"ll fall back into the building when we have to, and not before. Now activate your shield and stand ready. Company"s coming."
Williams turned away in disgust, and slapped his left wrist against his side. The glowing force shield appeared on his arm, murmuring quietly to itself. Hunter looked at Krystel. Her shield was already up.
She was still grinning at the approaching aliens. Hunter drew his Service dagger from his boot, hefted his gun once, and then activated his shield. The aliens were very near now. He moved forward a pace, so that he could guard the Investigator"s left side while still being comfortably close to his chosen piece of cover. It wasn"t much use as cover, if truth be told, but it would have to do. The Investigator stood in plain view of the aliens, looking strong and confident, as though cover was something only lesser mortals needed.
She"s an Investigator, thought Hunter.Maybe she doesn"t need cover, at that .
He looked out at the approaching aliens, and his heart missed a beat. They filled the street from side to side, for as far as he could see. There were monstrosities beyond counting, of every shape and size.
This isn"t fair, thought Hunter bitterly.We"re not up to this. We"re just a h.e.l.l Squad. A full company of shock troops would have their work cut out here. We"re not fighters. Not really. We"re just rejects and walking wounded; the outcasts and the expendables .
He took a deep breath and let it go.What the h.e.l.l; maybe we"ll get lucky .