The Valley of Thunder

"Oh. Jesus," Annabelle cried. "It's armed!"

  The laser burned through leaves and branches as it sought its target. Nog leapt away, but the scouting unit immediately tracked his sudden motion. The laser sliced a swath through the vegetation in the rogha's direction, cutting across his torso in midleap. Nog screamed, then plummeted to the ground, bouncing off branches on the way down. He was dead long before he reached the jungle floor.

  The remaining rogha howled their rage. As they began to move in toward the scouting unit. Annabelle tugged on Chobba's fur.

  "No!" she told him. "It will kill you all. We have to go deeper into the jungle, where the branches grow too thick for it to follow. Maybe some of the bigger animals'll screw up its heat sensors. Chobba, please.

  The rogha hesitated. He started to shout out an order to the others, but when he saw Tarit launch himself at his twin's killer, Chobba leapt forward as well. All Annabelle could do was cling to his back.

  The scouting unit swiveled in a quick circle, momentarily distracted by the presence of so many different targets. Shriek chose that moment to throw one of her well-aimed hair spikes at the ball-like machine.

  The spike bounced harmlessly off, but it brought the party on the ground to the machine's attention. It dropped from the sky, laser burning up the floor of the game trail in a straight line that led directly for Shriek.

  Sidi stepped in and threw his spear. It was a clean miss as the scouting unit spun on its axis and darted to one side to avoid the weapon, laser cutting the spear in two. Shriek threw more spikes, then plunged into the nearest undergrowth as the unit turned back to her. It dropped at a sharp angle, laser searing the brush as it looked for her. Then, suddenly, Tomàs was there.

  The unit turned, sensing his presence, but the little Portuguese was too fast for it. He swung his spear like a bat. The weapon hit the unit with a sharp crack that sent it spinning out of control. It hit a tree, then dropped to the ground, laser spraying a random pattern all around it. Before it could correct itself, Tarit dropped to the game trail beside it.

  The scouting unit tried to turn in the dirt to train its laser on the rogha, but Tarit simply smashed the machine with his club. He pounded it into the dirt, arm rising and falling. He wept as he continued to club the unit, crying Nog's name. The unit had split open under his blows, flashing with sparks and smoking.

  Chobba drooped to the game trail and set Annabelle on the ground. She staggered, her right leg giving out from under her. Tomàs stepped quickly forward and put his shoulder under her arm.

  Jesus, she remembered thinking through her pain. First he saves our asses, and now he's helping me. What's the matter with the guy?

  The other rogha descended from the trees and joined Chobba and Tarit in beating what was left of the machine. They kept it up for long moments, then finally stepped away from the small ruin of wiring, circuitry, and metal. Tears streaked their facial fur. Tarit disappeared into the forest to return with Nog's body. He laid it gently on the ground.

  Giving Tomàs her thanks, Annabelle hobbled forward under her own steam. "God, I'm so sorry," she said. "I never thought anybody'd get hurt...."

  "Nog die like cheef," Chobba said.

  The other rogha all cried Nog's name again.

  "We go now," Chobba told her.

  Tarit clasped his twin's corpse under one arm and swung back into the trees, followed by Chobba and the other rogha. In moments they were gone.

  Annabelle turned slowly to look at her companions. Lukey, who was still with them, sat down on the side of the trail and put his back up against a tree.

  "What's happening now?" she asked him.

  "He was a real good monkey-man," Lukey said. "Hell. I really liked him."

  "Lukey, where have they gone?"

  "To bury him. rogha-fashion. They'll stick him up in a treetop—the highest they can climb—an' leave him there so's his soul can rise up into the sky real easy."

  "What was this thing?" Sidi asked, toeing the remains of the machine.

  Annabelle glanced at him. "A kind of scouting device. A mobile unit—remote-controlled. It'd have a kind of an eye in it, so whoever sent it's gonna know we're here. We've got to get moving. When will the rogha be back. Lukey?

  The old man shrugged. "A day or two. I guess. They've got ta talk through his life up there where they leave him, so that the ancestors know who he is an' can see he's the kind a' guy that they should take up there inta the sky with 'em. Takes time."

  "You say whoever sent this thing knows we are here?" Sidi asked.

  Annabelle nodded.

  "Then, we must go. Can you travel?"

  Annabelle rubbed her leg. It ached something fierce. Her ankle, where the rope had encircled her leg, was rubbed raw. She tested her weight on it. That first moment on the ground, when it had buckled under her, had been due more to surprise at the pain than because the leg wouldn't hold her weight.

  "I can manage," she said. "But what about the rogha? We can't just take off on them, after all they've done for us. And poor Nog...."

  "If we stay here," Sidi said, "won't the Quanians just send more of these things?"

  "I guess...."

  We should go on. Shriek said. Immediately.

  "Yeah," Annabelle said. "Are you coming with us. Lukey?"

  "Don't have a whole lot a' choice, seems."

  "We should travel quickly, sim?" Tomàs said. "By river, perhaps?"

  Annabelle and Sidi exchanged puzzled looks. Neither of them could figure Tomàs's sudden shift in mood, from surly to friendly.

  "Are you feeling okay?" Annabelle asked him.

  "I feel fine," Tomàs said. "Why do you ask?"

  "You're just not acting like yourself."

  "I have been thinking. You—Sidi and Shriek—we are all in this place together—eomaradas, sim? So we must be good amigos and help each other."

  Annabelle found that she distrusted this new face of Tomàs's more than the old, but she didn't let any of that show. She simply nodded.

  "Well, thanks for the vote of confidence." she said.

  "Vote—sim." the Portuguese said, obviously remembering Annabelle calling a vote back on the cliffs to separate the two parties. It was clearly a new concept to him. "I vote we go by the river. This path is muito perigoso. Too dangerous."

  It turned out that they were much closer to Quan than they had supposed. They waded through the water by the river bank, and after only an hour or so, they came upon a sudden drop in the land. They left the river where it turned into rapids, and made their way to a vantage point where they could look down on the clearing that lay ahead of them.

  Quan.

  It was a collection of mud and wattle huts, except for a white stone building at the far side of the village. Aerials and a satellite dish protruded from its roof. To one side of the building was the ghost stone of which Finnbogg had told them. It was a tall white column of rock, sticking out of the ground much like a Celtic standing stone. Figures moved about the village. They flickered strangely, winking in and out of view as the party watched.

  "I can't figure this place at all." Annabelle said. "I mean, they've got the tech for a satellite dish and that mobile scouting unit, yet back on the trail they're screwing around with primitive traps and— Look at this village—mud and straw huts. What gives?"

  Her companions weren't nearly so blasé.

  "There really are ghosts." Sidi said.

  Surprised. Annabelle looked at him. "Those aren't ghosts. They're just 3-D holograms—sort of like moving pictures, except they've got depth, as well. But whoever's running this show's working with faulty equipment, 'cause those things shouldn't be flickering like that."

  "They aren't ghosts?" Sidi asked.

  Well, why am I surprised? Annabelle thought. Sure, Sidi was smart and capable, but he did come from the nineteenth century—nineteenth century India, to boot. How the hell was he supposed to know about these kinds of things?

  "They're projections." she explained. "Paintings th
at move, made by a machine—that's all. They can't hurt us."

  "But something can," Lukey said. "Someone wants to hurt anyone who comes near a' this place."

  "I suppose," Annabelle said. "But I've got a gut feeling that everything's just running on a program that someone set up. If there's anybody left, it's just a skeleton crew to run the place, and they're not doing such a good job."

  "Tell that to Nog," Lukey said.

  Annabelle's face clouded. "Yeah," she said softly. "There's that. So we gotta go careful. I wonder where the gateway is."

  She returned her attention to the village. The ground sloped steeply from their vantage point in a rough rock face that ran from the jungle where they were hidden, down to the cleared fields around the village. The river was on the left. On the right and behind the village, the jungle marched on again.

  Although they were high up, her acrophobia wasn't bothering her here. It only hit her bad when she was in an exposed position—like a tall bridge, or up in a tree. Here, with lots of good, solid earth around her, all she felt was a vague sense of wanting to lean out far—really far.

  She pulled herself back and looked at her companions. "So, what do we do, kids? Check it out, or go back the way we came?"

  Shriek pointed forward. That is where our road lies, Being Annabelle. Not behind us.

  "One vote to go on." Annabelle said. "What about the rest of you?"

  Tomàs and Sidi both nodded their agreement. Lukey said nothing.

  "I feel bad about just taking off on Chobba and the others without saving goodbye." Annabelle added. "They were good people."

  Lukey sighed. "Hell. I'll say your goodbyes for you."

  "You're not coming?"

  He shook his head. "I'm too old ta start all over somewhere else." he said.

  "We should make a plan." Tomàs said.

  Annabelle nodded. "I'm not big on exploring this place, myself—who knows what kinda booby traps they've got rigged. I'm for finding the gateway and getting outta here."

  It will either be in that building. Shriek said, or below us, at the bottom of this cliff. I see no other choices.

  "'Cept that stone," Annabelle said.

  They waited until dark, and then, after saying their farewells to Lukey, cautiously made their way down the rock decline. Although the angle was fairly steep, there were so many handholds that it was not much different from going down a ladder. Even Annabelle had no trouble with it. When they reached the bottom, they carefully checked it for a cave or opening, foot by foot, but came up blank.

  "Looks like it's the building." Annabelle whispered.

  Even though she knew the figures were holographs, the idea of walking among them didn't exactly appeal to her. But she didn't see any other options. They decided to circle around by the river and approach the building from the left, but as they passed the standing stone, its surface began to glow.

  "What the hell...?" Annabelle murmured.

  In the middle of the stone's pale white glow, a dark opening was appearing. The gateway, Annabelle thought. It had to be. Cautiously, they approached it. Fingers tingling with nervous anticipation, Annabelle reached out toward the dark, door-shaped opening. There was a momentary buzz of a shock—no stronger than picking up static electricity from a carpet—and then her fingers entered the rock.

  "This is it—" Annabelle began.

  At that same moment, the alarms went off.

  Bells rang. A piercing siren sounded. Floodlights awoke from the sides of the white building, turning the night into day all around them. Figures in metallic bodysuits issued in a stream from the building. They carried laser rifles. When they fired, the air around the party crackled.

  "We've got no time to pussyfoot around." Annabelle cried. "Let's go!"

  She stepped inside and found herself on a small platform, the others following on her heels. She'd been expecting it to be dark inside, but a dull, phosphorescent glow lit what appeared to be a vast cavern. The roof and sides stretched impossibly huge all around them—as did the drop below. There was only the small platform on which they wore standing, and a narrow band of a path that led straight across the chasm. It was no more than a foot wide, dropping immediately on either side to unguessed depths.

  Platform and path. There was no other place to go.

  "I can't do it," Annabelle said.

  She was already trembling violently.

  "We have no choice," Sidi cried.

  Behind them, the sirens and alarms were still sounding. They could hear the voices of the Quanians raised in angry shouts.

  "I ... I just can't...." Annabelle mumbled.

  Twenty-three

  "We are simply going in circles," Guafe said after long hours in the maze.

  "I don't think so," Smythe said. "I don't sense the walls of the cavern to be that close to us anymore. I believe we've come a good way through."

  Guafe shook his head. "We—"

  "It's just the winding of our route," Smythe broke in, "that's giving you that impression. Besides," he added, glancing at Clive, "the major knows what he's doing."

  I wish. Clive thought. But he had to be doing something right. By either facing the "moon," or keeping it to his left shoulder whenever there was a choice to be made in their route, they'd fared steadily, if tiresomely, onward. There had been no blind alleys, except for the one time Guafe had argued that they should take a different turn from the one Clive had chosen for them, and they'd wound up in a dead end.

  The cyborg had kept his own counsel after that—at least, until now.

  "There seems to be a kind of a spiral effect." Clive said in answer to Guafe's comment, "but I think we've come a fair distance across—even with the twisting back and forth."

  Finnbogg nodded. "Who knows how big this place is?"

  But Guafe had lost his patience again. "You say we turn right here," he said, "but I believe the other side of the cavern lies straight ahead—down this central corridor."

  "The last time we followed your lead." Smythe said.

  "We wasted a good half-hour backtracking our way out of that dead end."

  "No maze can be as large as this one appears to be." the cyborg replied. "We are going in circles, and getting nowhere. I say we go straight now."

  Finnbogg and Smythe both turned to Clive, who simply shrugged. They had been traveling through the maze for a very long time, and all he was using to lead them was old advice from a mysterious voice he'd heard in another maze when he was a child. While the voice's advice had been enough to free him from that hedge maze, and had helped him again since then, there really was no logical reason that it should be effective here as well. And while it was true that they hadn't run into any dead ends following his route, they didn't really seem to be getting anywhere, either.

  "We might as well try it," he said.

  Guafe nodded brusquely, pleased to be leading, and set off at a brisk walk down the corridor he'd chosen. It twisted and turned on them, but there were no branches running off, and they did seem to be generally heading in one direction. When they reached the first split, the party paused while Guafe studied each corridor.

  At length he nodded. "Left, I say."

  It was not what Clive would have chosen, but he said nothing.

  Guafe gave them each a questioning look, then. Satisfied that he was still in charge, led them on again. A half-dozen paces down the new corridor, it took a sharp right turn. As they entered it, one of the stone blocks shifted under their weight.

  A loud grinding noise arose all around them, like sudden thunder.

  "Move!" Smythe cried.

  He gave Clive and Guafe a shove forward, then darted after them, Finnbogg hard on his heels. The stone that had been underfoot dropped away with a resounding, hollow crash, and one of the walls behind them groaned, then slid across the corridor, effectively blocking any retreat.

  Stone dust filled the air, the motes dancing in the light of their lantern. They coughed and stared back through the dancing
cloud at the new wall that filled the corridor behind them.

  "Well, that's done it." Smythe said, turning to Guafe. "Well-led."

  "Finnbogg want Clive-friend to lead." the dwarf said.

  For once, the cyborg seemed completely taken aback. "I had no idea..." he began.

  Though he agreed with the others, Clive saw no reason to take it out on Guafe at this point. The deed was done now, and there was nothing they could do about it.

  "We've no choice now but to go on." he said.

  Finnbogg turned to him. "Yes, but—"

  "There's nothing we can do about that." Clive said, indicating the new wall blocking their retreat. "Lead on, Chang." he called ahead.

  Guafe nodded and led the way once more, but the corridor soon ended against another blank wall.

  "I fear my miscalculations have done far more harm than good," he said.

  It was the closest Clive had ever heard him come to an apology.

  "It wasn't your fault." he told the cyborg. "We're all going blindly in the dark here, and—"

  "Hsst!" Smythe said suddenly.

  They could all hear it—a whispering sound, like a great soft weight being pulled across the stone floor.

  "Is it those creatures? Clive asked softly, reaching for the pry-bar in his belt.

  Smythe shook his head. "No. It doesn't sound quite right."

  He took the lantern from Finnbogg, who had been holding it, and held it up at arm's length to investigate the walls above them. He moved the lantern slowly along until he saw what looked like a break in the stone, high up in one part of the wall. It was a place where the stones weren't set quite properly together, leaving an indentation between the blocks.

  "Could you lift me toward that?" he asked Guafe.

  The cyborg nodded. "What do you mean to do?"

  "Get us out of this trap you've put us in. If I can get up on top of the wall—" he tapped the sheet of canvas that he'd been carrying all this time in a rolled-up bundle "—I could lower this to the rest of you and pull you up."

  "And we could follow the maze simply by walking on top of the walls." Clive finished. "That's a capital idea. Horace."

  With Clive holding the lantern and Finnbogg bracing Guafe, Smythe stepped onto the cyborg's shoulders. Guafe straightened to his full height, but the mis-set blocks Smythe was aiming for were still out of reach. Guafe slipped his hands under Smythe's feet and then straight-armed him up.