Even from the higher vantage point provided by the top of the wall, which he finally gained fifteen minutes later, the rampart showed no signs of abating or tapering off. In the clear, unpolluted air, he could see for quite a distance. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he thought he could detect a slight curving of the structure off to the southwest, but he couldn’t be sure. Ahead, the by now familiar green dunes and dry washes and bluish hillocks gave way to an unexpected, unprecedented jumble of broken rock and bizarre protrusions. From the air, the terrain might well have appeared impassable. But from his much more intimate location he could see winding pathways penetrating the formations. Gratefully, he realized there would be shade. That would make a nice change from walking beneath direct sunlight, and he would be able to make much better progress during the day—provided he could find water. Gathering himself, he started down the inner slope of the artificial ridge.
The wall had long since been lost to sight behind him when he happened to stumble against one of the eccentric structures among which he was walking. Somewhat to his surprise, he discovered that it was composed not of native stone but of the same singular dark material as the barrier he had just crossed. So was the utterly different shape next to it, and the one behind. Pausing in the convenient shade provided by the curious contours he was examining, he knelt to scoop sand from its base. He soon saw that the construction did not emerge from ground, but from a slightly ribbed, lightly warped surface of similar but distinctively different material. When a stray shaft of sunlight struck the glossy seam he had exposed, it seemed to absorb the light and respond by throwing back half a rainbow composed of artistically subdued hues.
For the first time since he had abandoned the ruined shuttlecraft, he found himself walking on and through a wholly artificial environment. What its purpose might be he did not know. If it was an ancient alien city lost to time and buried in sand and adhesive grit, then where were the houses, the workshops, the meeting places and temples? Entombed beneath him? What were the functions of the thousands of strikingly misshapen structures among which he was meandering? Their vermicular shapes and convoluted outlines failed to convey their function. He could only continue to stagger onward, and wonder.
Chapter 10
Another wall.
It wasn’t much of a wall, no more than a couple of meters high, but it was enough to stop him. He stood swaying slightly, sweat streaming down his face, looking older than his years and staring at the new obstruction as if it were Mount Takeleis back on Moth. He was nearing the end of his strength.
He still possessed enough sense to reflect on the irony of it all. Considering what he had been through, taking into account everything he had experienced in his short but intense life, for him to perish ultimately of thirst, of a simple lack of water, could be seen as almost a blessing. In death he would finally achieve the homely humanness he had sought for so long. He was sorry only for Pip, whose devotion to him would result in her unsought and near-simultaneous demise. On the whole, however, he would prefer not to die.
Struggling to summon hidden sources of strength, he made a tentative run at the wall. His hands scrabbled for the crest, found no purchase, and slipped. As his weakened body fell back, he lost his balance and found himself sitting instead of standing on the sandy surface. Where he struck, the grains had been shoved aside to reveal more of the enigmatic ribbed black material beneath. Not for the first time since he had descended into the jumbled maze he felt there was something almost familiar, indeed well-nigh identifiable, about his surroundings. Unfortunately, at the moment his brain was not functioning any more efficiently than the rest of him.
An attempt to stand failed. He remained sitting, Pip fluttering apprehensively in front of him as he struggled to recall the taste and tactility of plain water. The memory did nothing to comfort his desiccated system. Aside from the fact that the top of the wall now seemed out of reach, if he did not find liquid by the end of the day he knew he was not likely to see another dawn. It had to be here somewhere, he felt. Collected in a hollow beneath one of the gray-black contours, or running just beneath the surface of the porous sand. It was only a matter of finding it.
That, however, meant rising, walking, and searching—all activities that all of a sudden seemed beyond him. Without him having to open his mouth, Pip could sense and appreciate his distress. But he could not tell her to find water. Not that he had to. She was as in need of the life-giving fluid as he, and would go straight to it if a source was encountered.
Glancing up, he sighed heavily. If he could not go over this latest obstacle, he would have to go around it. Cursing gravity, he struggled to his feet. It took him a moment to be certain he was standing upright and to secure his balance. Then he resumed walking, this time to his right. The slightly pitted ebony wall curved away from him, and he followed the ribbon of unknown material as if it were a trail beneath his feet. Around him, other shapes and contours contorted against a cloudless blue sky while alien scavengers swooped low, checking on their impending two-legged meal as they avidly monitored its increasingly laggard progress. His vision was beginning to blur.
A dip appeared in the crest of the unbroken rampart. Breathing shallowly, he tensed himself and leaped, arms outstretched. Hooking his fingers over the top of the smooth rim, he somehow pulled himself up and over. The far side of the wall proved to be as slick and smooth as the one he had just surmounted. Unable to slow his momentum, he lost his balance and felt himself falling, falling. The wind-swirled sand rose to meet him.
Nightmare shapes pursued him through the unending maze of black monoliths and colonnades, enigmatic obelisks and waves of liquid soot frozen in time. They twitched threateningly, extending ebon pseudopods to try and trip him as he fled from something monstrous that was darker than dark. Like black pudding, the maze threatened to congeal around him, suffocating his debilitated form from pore to nostril. It coagulated around his feet, holding him back, sucking at him with a vacuous evil the likes of which he had never encountered before. Had he possessed the strength, he would have whimpered in his stupor.
He did not know whether he awoke from a deep sleep or had been knocked unconscious by his fall. Regardless, it was the sound of voices that roused him from insensibility. They were sibilated, inquisitive, and convicted. They were also not human. He retained just enough presence of mind to lie still, eyes closed, unmoving, as he listened to the querulous conversation that was taking place above and nearby his prostrate form. Pip’s coils formed a tense weight on his spine, between his shoulders. Inhuman emotions impinged on his feebly perceptive consciousness.
Fortunately, he understood as well as spoke reasonably fluent AAnn.
“. . . ssfwach nez pamaressess leu ciezess we sshould let it die,” the slightly deeper of the two voices was insisting.
“Agreement. Iss nothing to be gained by keeping it alive,” the other responded all too readily.
“Do you think it knowss about the transsmitter?”
Hesitation, then the second voice replying, “I do not ssee how it could. But then, I cannot imagine what the creature iss doing here anyway. The quesstion will be obviated by itss passing.”
“That iss sso.”
The sound of footsteps turning away shushed in Flinx’s ears. He fought to rouse his weakened, moisture-starved body. AAnn or no, they represented his only, perhaps his last, chance at survival. True, he might only be postponing death from thirst for a more painful, lingering demise under interrogation at some unknowable future date. But as Mother Mastiff had always taught him, survival even under unpropitious circumstances offered far more choices than death under the best of circumstances. Managing to partially prop himself up on one elbow, he waved feebly and opened his eyes.
They focused on the dorsal sides of two AAnn in the process of striding away from where he was lying. Each was clad in a light, buff-toned jumpsuit festooned with pockets, some of which bulged with unknown contents while others lay flat against the gracile, muscu
lar bodies. Dark brown tails streaked with yellow and flecked with golden highlights protruded from holes in the back of the jumpsuits. Both figures traveled burdened with multihued equipment packs diverse in size, shape, and composition. Accustomed to and evolved for life on desert worlds, they wore neither hats for shade from Pyrassis’s powerful sun nor artificial lenses to reduce the glare. Though they had no external ears, their hearing was excellent, as was demonstrated by the sharpness with which they turned at the sound of his voice.
Curled up on Flinx’s back, an enfeebled Pip nonetheless stirred, preparing to defend her companion so long as she could spit. He whispered to her, trying to keep her calm, hoping his commands made sense. He perceived no overt maliciousness in the AAnn. Only the usual muted enmity, and a general indifference to whether he lived or died.
“I . . . need water. You . . . you can’t let me die.” The whispery AAnn phrases emerged with difficulty. Someone had coated his throat with a tacky varnish to which half a kilo of dust seemed to have adhered.
From their slightly stooped posture and the muted color of their scales, he judged that both the male and female AAnn gazing down at him were mature specimens. Quite mature. In fact, he decided through dry, throbbing eyes, they were downright elderly. What were they doing out here, in the middle of nowhere, amidst the inscrutable ebony maze? Though both wore highly visible sidearms, they had neither the aspect nor the attitude of soldiers of the Empire. His erratic talent chose that inopportune moment to quit on him. As abruptly as if someone had turned off a switch, he found that he could no longer sense their feelings.
He could still hear their voices well enough, however. As he squinted at the male, Flinx noticed that the service belt containing his salvaged tools and endural pistol lay draped loosely over one sharply raked alien shoulder. Without his gun, he stood no chance of extorting water from the two aliens. Instead, he would have to rely on a contradiction in terms—AAnn mercy.
Its tone more academic than curious, the male responded impassively to Flinx’s desiccated, raspy-voiced entreaty. “Why sshould we not? Why sshould we waste preciouss liquid on a dying human?” Sharp teeth flashed in the wide, reptilian mouth as eyes that were scimitars of chalcedony regarded the prone biped without emotion. “Even on an educated one who understandss the language of Empire.”
His hastily concocted rationale had better be accepted, Flinx knew. Mostly because he did not have the strength to prepare another one. He tried to sit up, managed to make it halfway. Showing the alarming extent of her dissipation, Pip did not take to the air. Instead, she slid off him and lay nearby, coiling weakly on the sand beside him but still ready to strike.
“Because if it becomes known to the military that you allowed an intruding human to die before they had the opportunity to question him, it will go hard on you.”
The female gestured third-degree inquisitiveness. “How do you know there iss any military on thiss world? It iss an empty place.”
“Very empty,” he agreed. It was hard to hold a conversation and participate in a discussion of differences, he reflected, while barely lingering on the borders of consciousness. He had to keep going. If he fell back into insensibility, he knew they would turn once again and walk away from him for good. “But Pyrassis is an AAnn world, and no world the AAnn claim is ever ungarrisoned.”
The male hissed grudging assent. “That doess not mean any hypothetical military iss any more aware of our pressence than it iss of yourss.”
“Are you willing to take that risk?” Flinx prayed the argument would not last much longer, because he couldn’t.
In the silence that ensued, he dreaded their abrupt departure. Though he fought to keep his eyes open, even the reduced glare within the maze was almost too painful for his enervated system to stand. He was certain he had closed them for only seconds when something struck him full in the face with shocking force. Something cool, unexpected, and magnificently damp.
Water.
It hit his cracked lips with the force of liquid stone, simultaneously outraging and soothing his parched throat. Slim, muscular coils writhed about his face and neck as Pip rushed to partake of the grudgingly proffered bounty.
“More!” he gasped as he tried to keep his mouth directly beneath the spout of the AAnn waterpak.
“Dissgussting.” The male indicated second-degree revulsion as he continued to pour water into the human’s open mouth. “Look how much it takess.”
The elderly female clicked her teeth. “Mammalss. It iss a wonder they can ssurvive at all in a decent climate. And they pride themsselvess on their adaptability.”
Eventually the flow ceased. Evidently water was not a problem for the two AAnn. Had that been the case, despite their lesser personal requirements they would not have been so lavish in their dispensation of the precious liquid to a traditional foe. They must have ample supplies with them, a rapidly reviving Flinx decided. Even better, they might have a distiller. With Pip once more coiled securely about his shoulder, he rose and wiped at his mouth and face. Able to perceive clearly again, he was struck anew by the comparatively advanced age of his reluctant saviors. What were they doing here, in the middle of emptiness, on the nowhere world of Pyrassis, so far from the centers of AAnn culture and civilization? Not that the desert-loving endotherms would be uncomfortable in such surroundings. The heat and lack of humidity would be entirely to their liking.
The male continued to hold the waterpak. His companion held something smaller and more lethal, its muzzle focused on the now erect Flinx. “How did you find out about the transsmitter? It iss an archeological disscovery of the utmosst importance.”
“Ssuch wise, it is to us.” The male’s accompanying gestures suggested first-degree importance tinged with excitement. “There are thosse in the Department who will believe otherwisse.”
The female’s tail switched like a metronome as she talked, the steady side-to-side movement quietly mesmerizing. “It iss interessting, if not particularly flattering, to have our convictionss confirmed, if only by an intruding human.”
Flinx offered no comment, letting them ramble. As they chattered away, the two AAnn were doing an excellent job of carrying on the conversation without the need for any uninformed input from him. Every time they opened their scale-lined, tooth-filled jaws, they were unwittingly providing him with the basis for sustaining future conversation. Furthermore, their ongoing physical proximity combined with certain subtle hand gesturings suggested a relationship that went beyond the bounds of the merely professional.
He felt his initial supposition confirmed: They were not military operatives. Had that been the case, they would have said as little as possible. Their manifest lack of martial sophistication allowed him to believe he might even have a chance, however slim, to slip away to continue his search.
Any such possibility lay in the future, because the female continued to keep her small but contemporary-looking weapon trained on his midsection. That they were unaware of the minidrag’s lethal capabilities was evident by the lack of attention they paid to Flinx’s coiled, revivified companion. It was potential he decided to hold in reserve, unless and until they gave him no choice but to reveal it.
“Naturally,” he said when they finally finished, “I also believe in its importance.”
He addressed them matter-of-factly in his fluent AAnn, wondering as he did so what the hell he was supposed to be talking about. They had alluded to the existence of some kind of transmitter. True, his powers of observation had been weakened by his recent ordeal, but up until yesterday he had felt himself still capable of recognizing any type of device that even vaguely resembled a transmitter.
The elderly reptiloids exchanged whispered, hissing comments. “We had believed that recent confirmation of the field’ss exisstence wass known only to oursselvess and a few otherss in the Department. How did the Commonwealth learn of itss exisstence?”
“Oh, you know,” he murmured confidentially. “Information travels in mysterious ways
. In these days of modern long-range communications, secrets are difficult to keep.”
“Truly,” the female admitted. The muzzle of the gun did not waver from his belly. “Sso you came to carry out field sstudiess for yoursself.”
“Truly.” Stepping into deeper shade, Flinx took a seat on a frozen rope of black ceramic-like material. Still weak, he tried to recall which AAnn foods were suitable for human consumption. “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”
The male gestured absently, a fifth-degree gesticulation at best. He seemed reluctant to believe that their secret was out. He would have been most unhappy to learn that it was he and his mate who had revealed its existence, and that very recently indeed.
“Of coursse. As you can imagine, our ressourcess are limited by the sskepticissm with which our reportss have been greeted.” This time his gesture was much broader, encompassing a wide area in multiple directions. “It iss difficult for our ssuperiorss in the Department to accept the exisstence of a transsmitter of unknown dessign that iss more than one hundred qaditss in extent.”
Keeping his expression carefully neutral in case either of the AAnn was skilled in the interpretation of human facial contortions, Flinx did some hasty calculations. A hundred AAnn qadits was . . . They were talking about a “transmitter” nearly two thousand square kilometers in area. His heart raced. No wonder he hadn’t seen any transmitter.