When the antiquated grid had been inexplicably activated from the other side, Transfer Tech-Drone 4129 had been summoned from the city to examine it. He had waited up there on the hill to see if anyone came through, but though the grid generated the proper frequencies and stood quite ready, no one transferred.
At length, he was ordered to go through with a minimal team, including guards, and search the immediate area on the other side. No Maker had breathed on that misbegotten world since its far-side grid had been abandoned, many cycles ago, but obviously something or someone was tampering with it.
It was apparent as soon as he came through the grid that the air was too cold and thin for any sort of comfort. Makers could survive in such unwholesome conditions, but no breeding project would ever be successful on this world unless the atmosphere were drastically improved.
The work to do just that had been initiated long ago, but the project had been terminated short of completion and he did not know if it would ever be feasible to take it up again, perhaps only when the Makers ran short of proper worlds to sculpt. World-architecture was the ultimate art form, more beautiful and beguiling than any other, but selection was the province of the long-range planners, and he didn't pretend to understand their reasoning.
A hulking, fur-covered beast poked its nose into the transfer chamber just after he arrived. He followed it back through the tunnel to a primitive fiber ladder that led up to a hole in the mountainside. It fired an energy weapon, then somehow, without seeming to move, disarmed him and escaped.
4129 knew himself to be a bit slow these days. His tenure was almost up, and he was due to surrender his body for consumption by his replacement shortly. He might have been injured and thereby spoiled the planned transfer of memory if his body had not been sprayed with a sealant of his own devising against passage through this outdated and untended grid. Even protected, his side felt scorched.
The animal must possess at least a rudimentary level of sentience and so its presence here was at odds with what was known about this world. Since the Makers had abandoned the site, it was listed as unoccupied, except for those few left behind at the time. They had been a disturbed minority, produced by a faulty hatching and tainted with bizarre personality quirks that had actually proved transmittable to other Makers. The Deciders deemed them extinct by now. No one could be that insane and prosper.
The foliage around the exit hole, mostly sickly looking green ground-vines, had been thoroughly trampled. The vines flinched out of his way, as he climbed up, silvery sap still oozing here and there. He left his three tuners back in the transfer chamber to ready the grid for their return, but directed the rest of his team to follow the tracks and broken stems back up the slope to a series of temporary shelters, now deserted. Six full-grown and armed warrior-drones set a perimeter and kept watch over the company.
Agents of the Enemy had been here, and recently. Packages with a military insignia familiar to all Makers were still scattered about the hillside rocks, although nothing of value, as nearly as he could tell. He was, however, just a grid specialist, dispatched because of a familiarity with outdated systems, not a xenologician. It was not for him to make sense of these random bits and shards.
He leaned over and picked at a broken piece of white sheeting that protruded from the dirt. His team could carry out a superficial analysis, but more knowledgeable experts would have to be sent through to do a full scan.
If this particular grid even continued to function, that is. Its frequencies had skewed badly during the years of untended crystal growth. It was just chance it had been activated when someone was around to notice.
He turned to a bandy-legged investigator. "Conclusions?"
Highly specialized, the investigator was but half the size of a full tech. Its sight organs had been purposefully stunted to devote additional cortical tissue to its remaining senses, which were exquisitely acute. It swung its head to sample the air for analysis in its specially adapted lungs, retaining a minute amount in a side membrane for later examination, then rubbed a tattered piece of cloth between its chemo-sensitive forehands. "Artificially produced. Crude workmanship. Probably human."
The animal he had encountered down in the cave was definitely not human, but the weapon it fired might well have been of human manufacture. Imagine taking up with something so primitive! Humans were notoriously indiscriminate in their choice of allies, while Makers had no need of other species to augment their ranks. If they required some ability not currently within their gene pool, they simply designed it into the next generation of warriors, techs, or deciders. So much more efficient that way, so pure.
Other species of course did have their uses, especially as fodder for slave markets. Many of the galaxy's more advanced races disdained trade in less technologically sophisticated goods, but would purchase exotic slaves or pets. If this world had become infested with furred primitives, the Makers could always use another shipment of unique slaves.
Transfer Tech-Drone 4129 waited as his team probed and dug and sniffed and pried until they had extracted every bit of information available at this level of investigation. Then, when he was about to summon them back to the grid, two bipeds approached the abandoned camp from a lower elevation. It had been so long since he'd seen one of these, it took a moment for him to recognize them as human.
His investigators froze, then formed ranks. They had no skill with weapons, but knew how to use their bodies to advantage in a skirmish. The warrior-drones stepped forward in a precise formation bred into them, raised their laser sticks and fired.
"Holy Mother of God!" Montrose dove for cover, pulling Onopa with him. The two of them hit the ground rolling as laser bolts sizzled into the dirt and blasted the raw rock beneath into slag. He sidled desperately on bruised knees and elbows, keeping low. Of all the things they'd expected to find in camp, flek were not even on the list.
He took a glancing burn to the right leg, protected to some degree by his thermoinsular uniform, then found cover behind a drooping tree insufficient for the purpose. He propped his back against the trunk, tried to control his ragged breathing. The injured leg throbbed like a sonuvabitch. Onopa had gone the other way, instinctively splitting the enemy's fire.
By God, Jensen had been right. There were flek on Oleaaka. He'd thought she was around the bend, as crazy as the day Blackeagle had rescued her back on Anktan. If they ever got out of this mess, he owed her a drink. Hell, he owed her a whole bar.
The flek chittered among themselves, high and screechy. Sweat ran down his face, soaked his back. The material over the burned leg looked charred. His vision wavered and it seemed he was at the bottom of a deep dark well with only a circle of light above.
"Montrose?" Onopa called from that circle. "You all right?"
A laser blast answered and she didn't speak again, either dead or wiser, he didn't know which.
From the bottom of his well, he heard rustling in the grass, or was it just the leaves of the tree overhead? He squinted, but couldn't tell. His rifle lay inert in his hands and he wasn't sure he had the strength to lift it, even if something were coming. If flek were coming, he corrected himself. Not something, flek!
The rustling was louder now, like dozens of small feet creeping toward him. His mouth and his hands were numb; his eyes seemed only to be able to stare straight ahead and he was so frigging cold. Shock, stupid, some still functioning portion of his brain told him. Get up, move!
But where would he go? He closed his fingers around the rifle stock, marshalled all his strength to steady the butt against his chest. Even that slight movement made his leg throb, as though it had grown five sizes too large, and he had to clamp his jaws to keep from crying out.
"Montrose?" The voice was closer now, a whisper beside his ear. "Montrose, dammit, answer me!" Fingers fumbled at his belt, pulled off his medkit, applied it to the bare skin inside his arm.
Coolness flooded through him as the kit went to work analyzing his injury, then released appropriate meds. "W-what?" he said, unable to turn his head.
"You have to stand up," Onopa said. Her voice was strained as her fingers took his upper arm and pulled. "We've got to get out of here. Give me the rifle."
The pain retreated a bit, but he felt muzzy, confused, distant. "No!" he said. "The flek!"
"You're just going to shoot your own foot off," she said. "Put the safety on and give me that thing." She drew it from his nerveless fingers and he couldn't resist. "Now stand up."
He got his good leg underneath him and let her take his weight. Fortunately, she was almost as tall as he was and sturdily built. The mountainside seemed to swirl around him in great dizzying loops. He closed his eyes and let her guide him. The tree's long trailing fronds brushed his face as they passed beneath them and then he could smell the sea in the distance. "Where's Blackeagle?" he said with great difficulty.
"Hell if I know!" She was breathing hard. "Now, come on!"
She smelled good, he thought fuzzily, between throbs of pain so intense, despite the meds, they blotted out all thought. She was redolent of soap and sweat and leather, like the barracks, like home: good clean smells.
"I counted six warrior-drones," she said, looping his arm over her shoulder, "and they're all on the small side. The rest are just dinky little techs of some variety I've never seen before. I took a couple out and they've pulled back for the moment. At any rate, if we can avoid the big ones, I can take the rest."
"How—many?"
"Twenty—twenty-five, maybe. I couldn't get a good count crawling around on my belly." She studied the terrain, then started downhill.
He followed her lead as best he could, hopping on one leg, though his sight was distorted. After half an hour of stomach-wrenching sliding and stumbling down uneven terrain, she eased him to the ground and looked around, hands on her hips. Her chest heaved and her uniform was soaked with sweat. She blotted her forehead with the back of her wrist. "I can't believe it. There's no sign of them now."
His head spun and he felt far too cold for this tropical climate. Somewhere high above them on the mountain, he heard something small scream and die in the claws of a predator. "They must be up to something," he said as a relentless ink-black tide encroached upon his vision. "They're probably following us, hoping we'll lead them back to the rest of the squad. They wouldn't lose us that easily, not flek."
"Maybe they had orders," she said. "They could have had a time limit and had to return through the grid."
"If so," he said, "they'll be back."
He felt her knife cutting away his pants leg, then the air assaulted his raw burned flesh. His fingers clawed the moist earth, then a spinning darkness swept him away.
Heyoka kept a close eye on Mitsu as they worked their way up from the lowlands to the abandoned camp. The sun beat down and he felt utterly lifeless under its glare, but she kept pace, looking more fit and confident than he'd seen her since before Anktan. He wondered if she had regressed to an earlier time when flek were just the enemy, abstract and unknown, and she had never betrayed him or the Confederation or herself.
It was by no means certain the flek would sweep back over this world, once Confederation forces pulled out of their current position, but she had to come off it, in case they did. She was a danger to herself and everyone else, including the timid laka, in this condition.
He led her away from their former route, keeping well clear of the recently unearthed entrance to the cave. No point in stoking her delusions, he thought. The wind had switched at dawn and now bore the mysterious, wet smells of the rain forest that blanketed this side of the mountains.
"We'll collect Montrose and Onopa," he said as they skirted a mountain stream rushing over stair-step rocks on its way down to the sea. "Then we'll establish a camp higher on the mountain, somewhere we can set up a base station to communicate with any Confederation ships that come in range. The Marion is probably long gone by now, but sooner or later, someone will come back, even if just to gather data." They paused for a cool drink. Kneeling, she bathed her smudged face in the stream, while he poured water on his head and tried not to think about internal parasites.
Her black hair kept straying into her eyes and she tore a strip for a headband out of the tail of her shirt. "What about the flek?" she asked. "You don't think they're just going to sit on their so-called hands while we four play Ranger up in the heights?"
His ears flattened. "We'll worry about that if, and when, they land."
She examined a long thin scratch on her arm. Her mouth quirked. "They're already here, furface."
"Those were laka." A muscle jumped in his jaw. "Not flek."
"They were flek," she said stolidly. "Even if I didn't know one from the other, which I do, I read the reports back at base. Laka don't attack, not even with provocation. Their brains aren't wired for it. They let the flek nearly wipe them out once before and never raised a feeler!"
"They don't have feelers," he said, feeling desperate. "And that whole mess was my fault. They kept blocking me when I was trying to reach Montrose, so I finally lost my temper and jumped one, injured it badly too, I'm afraid. I seemed to have triggered some sort of mildly aggressive response, but even that was ineffective."
She fell silent, staring off up at the riot of green that covered the low mountains, then grinned. "You're so full of it, Blackeagle! You almost had me going there for a moment."
Let it go, he counseled himself. Maybe later, she'd be ready to listen. He'd try again in a few hours. For now, she was just too caught up in her delusions.
Above them on the hillside, Heyoka caught a flash—the metal barrel of a rifle, perhaps? The wind was in his face, but he couldn't detect any familiar scents. It had to be Montrose or Onopa, though. Who else would be lurking up there armed?
"Did you see that?" He pointed out the flash to Mitsu. She snatched the rifle out of his hand, dropped to one knee and sighted in. "No, it's Montrose!" he said in alarm. "Don't fire!"
She squinted, held her breath, then he took the rifle back and toggled the safety on. "There are no flek!" He gripped her shoulder with his free hand and flexed his claws through her uniform. She flinched and tried to pull away, but he held on and stared down into her ice-blue eyes.
"I know what happened to you on Anktan was worse than anything I can imagine, but you have to move on. This is Oleaaka. The flek may be on their way, but they're not here yet!"
She dropped out from under his grip, whirled and took up a fighting stance. She was breathing hard and two bright red patches surfaced in her cheeks. "Don't ever do that again!"
"Mitsu—"
"I'm not crazy!" She backed away. "I know what I saw, and you should trust me enough to believe me. They were flek!"
He stared at her in silence. If she bolted, either now or later, it might take days to find her. She was an expert, trained in both sabotage and losing herself in rugged terrain. Even a nose like his might have a hard time if she got a proper head start. Once she started stalking the defenseless laka, they wouldn't have a chance. Given enough time, she could easily exterminate the entire population of this island by herself.
"Okay," he said. The wind down from the mountains ruffled his fur the wrong way, a prickly sensation. "I believe you."
Her eyes darted around, as though seeking an escape route.
"Let's find Montrose and Onopa before the flek do," he said. "Then we'll draw up a strategy for doing the most harm with what little resources we have."
"I want my rifle," she said, still unmoving.
He tossed it to her and hoped he didn't regret it before the end of the day. Her mouth tightened and she flipped the safety off.
Kei dug his claws into crevices in the crumbly black rock and climbed straight back up the cliff, a feat that taxed even his powerful frame. There, he reported to Skal about the flek and the two Rangers.
The Leader prowled back and forth beneath thick overhanging greenery, considering, while Naxk and Bey snarled with eagerness. "There is a pattern here," Skal said. "Perhaps storm/against/stone, or undue/transformations."
"Whatever this pattern is," Kei burst out, "we don't have the time to sniff it out! Our enemy waits below!"
Skal leaped at Kei with open claws and the big black ducked, his own handclaws springing free. The two squared off and regarded each other with foolhardy directness, while the other four stepped back and looked on in silence.
The blood thrummed in Kei's ears, whispered of power, chances to be taken, honor to be regained. He could take Skal. The certainty beat through him. The big black and white was a careless fighter. He had seen that over and over in training.
"You were not so eager for battle down in the cave when you encountered the flek," Skal said, his tone caustic.
Shame flooded through Kei and he was forced to look away. He had run back in the cave, and it did not matter that he'd thought he had no choice. He had lost his honor in that moment, and until he found a way to regain it, he did not deserve to lead. He had no right to Challenge Skal or anyone else now.
Without another word, the black-and-white Leader picked up his rifle, specially adapted for hrinnti double-thumbed hands, and led the five of them back down the hillside, his ears canted forward.
Kei stationed himself at the rear of the pack, puzzled that any humans had remained behind on this world. During his relatively short contact with the species, he'd found them to be sticklers for human patterns like orders, chain of command, and regulations, and the major had commanded everyone to be on that shuttle.
They entered the camp, bristling with anticipation of a fight, but found it empty, both of humans and flek. The pervasive stink of their enemy was everywhere though, and the trail led downhill toward the sea. Human spoor ran in the same direction, overlaid by the flek.
Kika looked up from examining the ground. "They're tracking the Rangers." As always, the pale-gray female ran slightly apart from the others, a peculiar preference that had marked her out for scorn back in training.
At the head of the pack, tawny Naxk froze, her ears flattened, then gave the familiar spread-fingered hunt gesture for them to disperse. She had evidently detected recent tracks. "This way," she said in a rattling whisper that was half snarl and the others automatically spread out, filtering down through the gullies and ravines, leaving no route unexplored.
Kei unslung his rifle from his shoulder and chose his footing carefully. A set of boulders loomed, half buried in the rich black earth and he passed them on his right. The scent was very fresh here, both flek and human, very intense. Then a human head, topped with black hair, popped up from behind the rocks. "Kei!" An arm waved.
He started to respond, then heard the whisper of feet, many feet, in the long grass. He leaped forward and flushed three diminutive flek from a weedy clump. Unarmed, they scuttled away in a panic, as though fleeing an overturned rock. Kei forgot the rifle and raked the nearest with bared claws.
It hit the boulders with a sharp clack and slid to the ground, legs kicking. The other two got away, but he heard Naxk snarling with eagerness. At least one had crossed her path.
Onopa scrambled out from behind the rocks and fired at the injured flek at close range. It emitted a single high-pitched squeal, then lay dead and smoking.
How strange. When he'd fired upon the one in the tunnel, the beam had just ricochetted without doing the enemy any damage. Onopa was already on the move, quartering the immediate area, trying to surprise more of the enemy. Kei searched himself and found Montrose unconscious, one of his legs laser-burned.
Then he was as good as dead, he thought dispassionately, staring down at the human. He'd certainly never run again with a leg that badly damaged, and they had no restorers to even attempt to mend the injury. As for human doctors, well, he'd seen the mess they'd made of the Black/on/black's leg after he'd been injured by flek fire and even humans thought there was no place in war for a cripple. He rubbed the ropy scar across his own muzzle, remembering. He'd run afoul of a flek weapon himself as a youth.
Up ahead, Kika squalled as a wave of the smaller flek swarmed her. Kei signaled Bey and they charged as the team they'd always been until earlier today, converging from opposite directions.
He heard something hard scrape against rock from higher up on the hill and whirled, ears flattened. A green laser bolt seared the spot where he had been standing. The scent of earth and melted rock permeated the air and a thick, red rage exploded behind his eyes. He surged up the hillside, sending clods flying. It was the marked flek he'd seen in the tunnel. This close, though, it was obviously undersized. Its stink filled his nostrils and he threw aside the rifle, remembering how this one had taken a direct hit down in the tunnels to no avail.
He leaped and it collapsed beneath his weight, squealing, its four hands flailing. He raised his claws to slash its throat, but that area was protected by the same special coating and resisted his claws.
Onopa's head appeared above the rocks. "Stand aside!" she called.
Kei threw back his head and roared. "This kill is mine!"
"Stand aside, dammit!" She had a bloody welt across her face and her black hair flowed loose across her shoulders like a mane. "It took down Montrose!"
"The rifle won't work," he said. "I fired on it in the cave and the beam just bounced off!"
The flek convulsed into a quivering hard ball, legs and arms in the middle, head ducked against its chest, eyes closed. Kei tried his claws on it again, but the protective coating was too tough. With a snarl, he kicked it away in disgust.
As soon as she had a clear shot, Onopa fired upon it. The beam bounced off and melted a furrow in a nearby boulder. She stood staring, eyes wild, chest heaving.
Kika, Visht, Bey, and Skal climbed into view a moment later, rifles in hand, then Naxk approached from above. They gazed down at the enemy they had crossed light-years to find, an enemy who destroyed worlds with the same casualness that a hrinn might crush a tiny black nit, an enemy who, apparently, could no longer be killed by ordinary means.