Weird Space 2: Satan's Reach (4 page)

He moved his right arm and found that the Ajantan scrip was no longer in his jacket pocket. Also his data-pin was missing. He reached up to find his tricorne gone, but his ferronnière, thankfully, was still lodged in his tangled curls. He dragged the band from his head and stuffed it into his trouser pocket. He tried to move his left arm, only to find that it was gripped by paralysis. He reached over with his right hand to check that he still had his wrist-com, and then discovered why his left arm seemed to be paralysed. It was trapped painfully between his neighbour – a foul-smelling old woman – and the body beneath her. He tried to tug it free but lacked the energy. He collapsed back onto the body beneath him and tried not to give in to despair.

He turned his head and squinted along the length of the barge. A squat figure sat cross-legged on the point of the prow, and he realised with a jolt of shock that the creature was a native alien. It sat with its bowed back to him, its head hidden from sight, and appeared to be staring down into the water cleaved by the barge’s prow.

Harper looked to the rear of the boat, expecting to see further aliens. There was no sign of any more green men, as Zeela had called them... and he felt a sudden surge of hope. If he could free himself, summon the energy to make his way forward and attack the Ajantan...

But with what? The aliens were fleet and lithe, according to the starship captain he’d spoken to on Murchison’s Landfall, and possessed a fearsome set of barbed teeth which they used to good effect.

He wondered where the barge was heading, and how long it might take to reach its destination. What had Zeela said about the Ajantans’ subterranean lair?

Zeela... he wondered if she were at the spaceport now, waiting for him. Or... had she seen his collapse in The Rat and Corpse, and Rasnic carry him from the premises?

On any civilised world he might have expected Zeela to have summoned the judiciary, but he was on Ajanta now. No human police force kept order here; it was a lawless world governed by the inscrutable edicts of the green men. Humans were here on penance, the descendants of the starship crash five centuries ago, and as such knew no better.

He tried again to tug his arm from under the obese crone, and gave up seconds later when the cartilage of his shoulder threatened to snap.

Unbidden he recalled the images he’d gleaned from Zeela when he’d briefly accessed her thoughts. He vicariously shared her horror of what, one day, would happen to her. He could not shut out her fear, or the attendant images: a slithering mass of green Ajantans taking their pleasure with comatose humans. The vision made him retch.

He recalled the words of the old space captain.
“The Ajantans take their pleasure with you when you’re living, and then when you succumb to the poisons in their... secretions, let’s say... you go into painful paralysis. This lasts up to a week, during which you still suffer the indignity of the aliens’ lust. Then, mercifully, you expire. But, you see, there’s a preservative in the Ajantan’s jism that keeps you fresh for a month while they continue to take their pleasure...”

A hot wave of nausea rose from his midriff. He tried to vomit but evidently he’d emptied his stomach earlier. He closed his eyes and drifted into unconsciousness, smiling at the thought of the atolls of Amahla.

A sound brought him to his senses.

He turned his head with difficulty and stared through the bars behind him. Something splashed in the water. A bellyfish, perhaps, anticipating an early feast of human corpses.

The canal appeared calm, but he made out a slim shape just beneath the surface, swimming towards the gunwale. It rose from the water beside the boat in a sleek cascade.

He almost cried out in alarmed surprise, but Zeela gripped the bars beside his head and, with her free hand, pressed a finger to her lips. “Shhh!” she whispered. “We are one kilometre from the caves where the Ajantans will unload you. We must work fast.”

“Fine, but...”

She gripped the bars with both hands, her pointed chin just above the surface of the water. “Under no circumstances,” she warned, “attempt to overcome the green man. They are ferocious and he would kill you in seconds.”

“I had no intention of attacking it,” he said.

“Are you still drugged? Can you move?”

“A little,” he hissed. “But I feel...” It seemed weak to admit to feeling sick, so he held his tongue.

Zeela removed a hand from the bar, slipping it beneath the material of her dress. “Chew this,” she said.

She passed what looked like a twig into the cage. He took it with his free hand. “Chew?”

“It will counter the effects of the dhoor and give you energy.”

He took a bite and tasted liquorice, or something similar. He chewed, then swallowed the resultant saliva, and within seconds his nausea abated.

Zeela said, “The bars are flimsy. They can easily be prised apart. The Ajantans expect none of their drugged cargo to try to escape.”

“There is just one slight problem,” he whispered. “My left arm is lodged tight beneath...” He indicated the bloated human to his left. He tugged on his arm to illustrate his plight.

Zeela twisted her mouth in a frown, assessing the situation, then quickly reached through the bars. Her hand found the woman’s face and covered her nose and mouth. Seconds later the crone spluttered, thrashing as she fought for breath.

Zeela flashed him an imperative look. He took the hint and, as the woman struggled, he reached out with his free hand and attempted to push at the doughy bulk, at the same time pulling his left arm.

It came free suddenly, robbed of all feeling from being crushed for hours. Seconds later he felt the painful, tingling sensation of pins and needles. He rubbed his arm vigorously, attempting to massage life back into the useless limb.

Zeela lost no time and set to forcing the bars apart. Ahead, the Ajantan’s attention was still on the water. Harper slipped his shoulders through the gap, and Zeela took his arm and eased him head first into the tepid water. He slipped the rest of the way with a splash, submerged, and came up seconds later trying not to splutter.

He trod water and glanced at the barge. It was sailing slowly away, engine puttering. He made for the bank, swimming in Zeela’s wake.

He was allowing himself to feel the first flutterings of relief when, as he pulled himself from the water, he heard a cry from the boat.

He turned in time to see the Ajantan leap to its feet and aim a weapon. A bolus of fire leapt from the rifle’s splayed muzzle and burst against a tree beside Harper’s head.

Zeela gripped his wrist. “Run!”

Then he was stumbling at speed through the jungle, the night rent with the fluting cries of the alien and the accompanying blast of its incendiary weapon. Behind them the jungle blazed.

There were no incandescent insects here to light their way, just the glow of the fire which grew fainter as they ran. Soon they were crashing through pitch black jungle. He felt vines and tendrils whip and slash at his face and arms and found his ankles clutched by barbed undergrowth.

“Do you know...” he panted, “exactly where we’re heading?”

“Approximately,” she shouted, “to the spaceport.”

“How far?”

“Again, approximately, ten kilometres.”

He ran on, considering their plight. A minute later he glanced over his shoulder. There was no sign of the pursuing Ajantan. The fire was faint, a distant glow in the darkness.

“Okay,” he gasped, “slow down. I have an idea.”

She came to a sudden halt, still gripping his wrist, and he almost barrelled into her. He heard her breathing a matter of inches from his face. “Yes?” she asked.

“A better... better idea than trying to make for the ’port through... through all this,” he panted. “I can summon the ship to me.”

“You can? Then do it!”

He slumped to the jungle floor and heard Zeela squat beside him. He fingered his wrist-com in the absolute darkness and cursed the jungle canopy. Where was the light of just one of the planet’s seven moons when it was needed?

He activated his com and got through to
Judi
.

“A slight change of plan,” he said. “Get a bearing on my current position.”

“You are eleven point two kilometres south west of the ’port. I judge that you are in the jungle, but surely that is incorrect?”

“Think again,
Judi
. That’s just where I am. I’ll fill you in later. Now, I want you to leave the ’port and make for my position, understood?”

“Affirmative.”

“The landing might be rough, but no matter. And come down twenty metres north of where I am, or you’ll fry us.”

“Understood. I’m on my way.”

He cut the connection. Zeela’s gripped tightened on his wrist. “Your co-pilot?”

“Something like that.”

“And now?”

“We sit tight until she gets here.”

Her fingers bit into his arm as if she were afraid of letting him go.

He said, “Thank you for saving my life.”

“And thank you for agreeing to take me away from here.”

He smiled in the darkness. “That makes us even, doesn’t it? Always assuming we
do
get away from here.”

He listened for sounds of pursuit, but heard only anonymous animal noises near and far: low moans and high piccolo notes, then something booming deafeningly not too far away.

“How long will your ship take to reach us?” Zeela asked.

“There are various procedures to go through with the ’port authorities. They should take five minutes, no more. After that...
Judi
should take only a matter of minutes to find us. So perhaps in another ten, fifteen minutes at most.”

She leaned against him in the darkness. He was aware of her odour, a sweet scent combined with sweat. She murmured, “I still find it impossible to imagine a life away from Ajanta. I fear a last minute tragedy, the green men finding us or your ship not being allowed to leave.”

He smiled. “There is no risk of the latter. I booked the ’port berth for a temporary stopover. The ship’s leaving now will arouse no comment.”

“And then?”

“And then we will phase into the void and never look back.”

“Bound for...?”

“I had been thinking of a holiday on the atolls of Amahla, before Rasnic robbed me.”

“Maybe you will be able to go there, after all,” she said.

He stared at where he thought her face should be. His vision had adjusted to the darkness, but even so he could make out only the vague outline of her oval face. “Meaning?”

She gripped his arm suddenly. “Shhh! Listen. I thought I heard...”

He tensed, listening.

“There!” she hissed. “That long, high note. There are more than just one of them. They are combing the jungle, and heading this way. Oh, I knew it was too good to be true!”

Among the cacophony of other animal noises – which sounded like an undisciplined orchestra tuning up – he made out long fluting sounds coming from the direction they had fled.

Zeela bounded to her feet, dragging Harper with her. “This way!” she cried, and was off.

They ran side by side, Zeela still clutching his wrist. The heat was oppressive, the humidity murderous. Harper dragged in lungfuls of fetid air. He wondered if the Ajantans’ hearing was acute. Certainly he and Zeela were making enough noise, as they thrashed through the undergrowth, to alert any but the most stone deaf of pursuers.

As if to abet their chances of capture the canopy high overhead became patchy and two sailing moons sent long silver searchlights probing down into the jungle. Harper saw grotesque shapes to right and left, growths more like tumours or goitres than anything arboreal. It was a nightmare landscape, and it seemed entirely appropriate that they were fleeing for their lives from aliens bent on eventual murder – once they had had their fun.

He shut out that thought and concentrated on running.

At least
Judi
would be monitoring his progress and would intervene in due course – but how long might that be? He’d lost all sense of time. He seemed to have been running for ten minutes or more, or did it just seem that long because the aliens were giving chase?

He heard a roar, and his heart leapt with elation. The braking jets of his ship’s auxiliary engines... He must have exclaimed aloud, as Zeela hissed at him, “What?”

“I heard my ship. It can’t be far away now.”

“Your ship?” Zeela cried. “No – the green men’s fire-guns, more like.”

The sound came again, and he knew that the girl was right. He looked over his shoulder. The jungle bloomed as the goitrous growths burned like phantasmagorical candles. He saw a dozen tiny figures swarming in pursuit, perhaps a hundred metres away. One fired again, and a couple of metres to Zeela’s right a tree trunk exploded like a defective firework. Sparks and timber shrapnel peppered his head and chest.

Zeela yelped and dragged him around the burning tree. She pulled him to the right, and he saw her reasoning. Behind them the tree was billowing smoke which concealed their flight from the chasing aliens.

He wondered whether it was too soon to hope that they might escape with their lives.

Zeela jinked again, using the cover of the smoke to take off on a trajectory almost at right angles to their original flight. Harper looked over his shoulder but saw no sign of the Ajantans or evidence of their fire-guns.

He activated his wrist-com and yelled, “Where the hell are you,
Judi
?”

“Five hundred metres from your current position, Den. Veer to your left and keep going. I estimate landing within thirty seconds.”

His heart kicked. Zeela was pulling him to the left, through whipping vines. She had relaxed her grip on his arm now that salvation was almost in sight.

Brightness bloomed before them, and Zeela stopped suddenly with a scream. From the jungle ahead, three squat Ajantans appeared and levelled their weapons. Harper turned in panic and saw a further six aliens step from the jungle.

Zeela was in his arms now, sobbing. Over her shoulder he saw a small Ajantan step forward and raise a weapon, this one unlike the other fire-guns. The tree frog depressed the firing stud, and Zeela spasmed in pain and screamed. Harper looked down and saw the flight of a dart embedded in the small of her back.