“You be a good soldier and go after the Riddick. The Marshal hasn’t given you much of a choice, anyway. Do your job and terminate the breeder, or bring him back. Meanwhile, I’ll find out why the Lord Marshal is so threatened by him. And what the Elementals have to do with all this. There are wheels within wheels here, my dear commander, and I need time to translate the squeaking.”
Leaning toward him, she thrust her tongue toward the back of his mouth while her perfect teeth simultaneously nibbled teasingly at his lips. Her hot exhalation surged down his throat.
In the face of an argument like that, he could do naught but comply.
IX
It was a stark and blasted world, wobbling uncomfortably on its axis. Too close to its sun, one hemisphere was presently roasting in the heat of Hades while the other shuddered in the death grip of mortal cold. In between lay the terminator, a band of tolerable twilight that was wider and moved more slowly than on most human-inhabited worlds.
Approaching from the night side, a small ship descended through an atmosphere incapable of holding moisture and therefore devoid of comforting clouds. No markings identified it, the insignia of no system flared proudly from its flanks. The same might be said of its crew.
Automatically, cryotubes retracted from selected arms and legs. While the rest of the mercenaries slept, the copilot detached herself from remaining monitoring links and life-support conduits. Rising from her place of repose, she stretched until the air in her joints popped. Forcing herself through the prescribed regimen of wake-up exercises, she then proceeded to check on her colleagues. They would be reviving soon. A quick run-through of systems showed that everything aboard the compact little craft was functioning normally. Pleased, she was about to signal their presence to the ground prior to initiating preliminary procedures for touchdown when she remembered there was one other on board whose status she ought to check on.
As was proper, their cargo was still out. Of course he was. It was absurd to think he might have emerged from cryosleep on his own. An interesting specimen, even if he did represent nothing more than a quick and satisfying cash-out. His origin was a mystery to her. Toombs might be their leader, but he hadn’t provided much in the way of information about their captive. Just that he was one more in a long list of the recovered. Toombs was nothing if not boastful.
Not that it mattered to her. All that mattered was payday. Which, assuming no trouble with the authorities on the ground, ought to be forthcoming very soon.
Still, she could not entirely repress her natural curiosity. There had been that intriguing but brief verbal interplay between the prisoner and Toombs, for example. And those goggles the man wore: she’d never seen a pair quite like them. Much more than simple sunshades, of a design that was new to her and a composition that suggested a need to do more than merely dampen sunlight, they intrigued her almost as much as the comatose man who was wearing them.
Edging closer, she reached out a wary hand. There was no movement, no response to the approach of her fingers. Were the inside of the lenses as distinctive as their exterior? She lifted the goggles.
And nearly fell backward and down. A pair of eyes was staring straight back at her; a pair of eyes that glinted with a hint of the kind of devious surgical modification that in polite society was more often whispered than spoken about. So calm and controlled moments earlier, her breath now came in sudden, short gasps.
Riddick turned his head ever so slightly to one side. “Do you know that you grind your teeth when you’re in cryosleep? Makes one wonder what you’re dreaming about. Sexy.”
Though it was right behind her, she fled to the safety of the copilot’s seat and the unchallenging familiarity of the console’s instruments.
Gradually, one by one, the rest of the crew slowly emerged from the extended rest and biochange that were required to allow the fragile human form to endure the rigors of extended supralight travel. Disdaining the health of his own body, or maybe completely confident in its ability to handle anything that might come its way, Toombs ignored the appropriate, recommended rehydration regimen in favor of gargling with a bottle of tequila.
What was wrong with his copilot? There seemed to be an uncharacteristic trembling in her voice as she reported on their status. He did not press for an explanation, however, and as they continued to make their descent, it soon went away.
“I make almost seven hundred degrees on the hemisphere in daylight,” she was reporting as she scanned readouts, “and maybe three hundred below on the night side. Vacation heaven.”
Knowing from Crematoria’s reputation what to expect, Toombs stood next to Riddick and nodded slowly. “Lemme tell you: if I owned this place and hell, I’d rent this out and live in hell. At least in hell, the climate’s consistent.”
Something beeped within the forward console. Checking the readout, the copilot announced evenly, “We’ve got permission to land.” She eyed her colleague. “What’s with the caution? I don’t recognize the code.”
The pilot was busy disengaging specific instrumentation. “Means no automatics permitted. Security measure. Don’t ask me why. I wasn’t the nutcase who decided to put a slam here.” He flipped off another series of contacts, activated others. “Switching to manual control as per ground directives.” The ship responded with a slight jolt.
“Coming up on terminator,” the copilot announced briskly.
“Running behind sked. They won’t like that, down below.” The pilot adjusted his own attitude as well as the ship’s. “Let’s line this up fast, and get it over with.” He eyed the solar monitor. The readings there were much, much too high for his liking. As a pilot, he valued the information sent back by harakiri solar probes. He just didn’t want to become one himself.
It grew very quiet within the little ship. Riddick said nothing, missed nothing, his eyes taking in the readouts, the monitor screens, the pilots’ technical back-and-forth. Clocking everything. Filing it for later.
“Destination lock on,” the copilot announced tightly. “One, two . . . go.”
The pilot jammed controls forward. Usually, all he had to do was sit back, watch, and monitor touchdown. Not here. Not out in this deity-forsaken backwater piece of hell itself. For a change, his life and that of his passengers resided in his own hands instead of a bunch of unfeeling circuitry.
Coming in to almost any other world, it would have felt good.
Riddick felt himself slammed back into the rear of his prison as the ship dipped into atmosphere. His situation differed little from that of his captors, who were similarly pressed back into their chairs. A couple of the mercenaries howled with bravado, trying to cover the fact that they were struggling not to soil their shorts.
On the desolate landscape below, something was moving. It was active, but not alive. Among obsidian mountains and fields of cracked and cooled glass, safely distant from volcanoes whose lava flowed downslope in other directions, a pair of doors were opening. Fashioned of a special alloy of ceramic and titanium, they parted to reveal an underground hangar that marked the terminus of a specially fabricated runway. Within the area open to the atmosphere, nothing moved.
A towering pillar of natural stone marked the general location of the hangar. The pilot nosed for it, wishing he could use the automatics, knowing that if he did so those on the ground were likely to react unkindly, and perhaps lethally. The ship dropped steadily—not quite fast enough.
The sun came over the horizon.
Stunned atmosphere shocked the descending vessel. Unequipped with the special stabilizers used on regular Crematoria resupply ships, the mercenary craft heaved wildly. Recoiling from the sun despite the special goggles he was wearing and the muting effect of the foreport’s automatic polarizers, the pilot fought to maintain control. Behind him, someone uttered a panicked obscenity.
The hangar was coming up way too fast. But if they slowed gradually, they’d be subject to more of the brutal solar effect. Without waiting for instructions, the copilot sl
ammed her open palm down on a large, red plunger someone had hand labeled PARTY POPPERS.
Instantly, a pair of emergency atmospheric engines deployed behind the ship. Gulping atmosphere, they burned it and solid fuel in twin blasts that fired in the opposite direction the ship was taking. Immediately, it began to decelerate and drop faster.
They cut out just before the ship slid to a hard stop—in the center of the runway and slowing to safety inside the hangar. Wisps of smoke and vaporized hull protection rose from the side that had been sun blasted. Inside, nervous laughter mixed with expressions of relief.
Sighing heavily, the pilot tiredly removed his protective goggles and rubbed at his eyes. “And that’s why I hate this run.”
One of the other mercs asked hesitantly, “What happens if you miss the first approach and have to go around again?”
The copilot squinted up at him. “You like fried food?”
There was no one to greet them. No reason for anything organic that valued its water to hang out in the vicinity of the runway and landing hangar. Exiting the ship once the soaring doors had shut behind them, they made their way to the small underground transport terminal. On other worlds, such a locale was often decorated with murals, photonic projections, adaptive flora. Like the rest of the installation on Crematoria, here it was wholly prosaic. The tunnel wall was bare stone that had been chiseled and melted out of the surrounding bedrock. The transport vehicle itself was a flat, utilitarian slug of a sled. Two of them, actually: main in front, secondary smaller one in back, for cargo. Their sole function was to go from one end of the line to the other while breaking down as infrequently as possible. That was the extent of the designers’ intentions, the ultimate aim of its exceptionally well-paid builders. Importing labor to Crematoria was even more expensive than importing raw materials.
“Get in, meat!” The mercenary who shoved the tightly bound Riddick into the cargo sled might have received a murderous glare from any other prisoner, or at least a mumbled curse. Riddick said nothing, not even when the merc followed the push by landing hard himself on the big man’s chest. The others took seats on the main sled.
Reduced to basics, the sleds had neither roof nor doors: a necessity of design since it was used for transporting goods and material as often as people. At a touch from the pilot, the lump of metal and plastic began to accelerate. Before long it was racing beneath the wretched surface at speeds approaching 300 kph. On the very rudimentary console, an odometer was ticking off kilometers. Long-lasting hanging lighting fixtures fastened to the ceiling of the tunnel kept it reasonably well lit.
Riddick’s attention was focused on these fixtures as they flashed past overhead with almost hypnotic effect. Perhaps the evenly spaced lights had a similar effect on the merc who was sitting on his chest. Perhaps he was already bored. Maybe he was convinced that the man on whom he was sitting was going to cooperate and ride quietly. After all, what else could he do, chained and pinned to the bottom of the cargo sled?
What Riddick did was arch his entire body in one single, convulsive muscular spasm. It boosted the startled mercenary upward. Not far. Just, however, far enough.
The next lighting fixture caught the back of the startled mercenary’s head before he could so much as utter a startled shout—and removed it, simultaneously sending the decapitated body flying over the back of the sled.
By the time anyone else in the speeding vehicle noticed the absence of their comrade, many kilometers had passed. It was the copilot who happened to glance back and, espying Riddick seated calmly and alone in the last row, raised the alarm.
“Where’s Dahlven?”
Her companions joined her in searching for the missing merc. It took about twenty seconds to ascertain that he was nowhere on the sled. Toombs stared hard at Riddick. With those damn goggles he wore it was impossible to tell where the big man’s attention was focused. But he did shrug a response, as if to say, beats me.
Toombs hesitated, then burst out in a screaming cackle. “Four way! Four-way split!” Hell, he’d never much liked Dahlven anyway. Dumb ass had a real dangerous tendency to react before he thought. Though the mercenary leader didn’t know the details, he had a strong feeling that was just what might have happened. As the sled began to decelerate, he turned and sat back down in his seat.
It docked hard, the exceedingly low-tech absorptive bumper at the end of the line sucking up the last of their forward momentum. Toombs leaped up onto the platform and headed for the containment door that led, if memory served, to the prison control center. Douruba, the slam boss, was there to greet him. Beyond gruff, he snapped disappointedly at his visitor as the other mercenaries unloaded their cargo.
“This is all you bring me? After coming all the way out here? Just one?” Practiced, experienced eyes studied the prisoner, sizing him up.
Toombs was not put off. He’d anticipated the reaction. “One expensive piece of highly-priced ass. Got room, don’tcha?”
In the distance beyond the control room doors, something unearthly howled as if in expectation. Douruba shrugged. “Oh, we always got room for more. Nobody likes to admit that we’re here, and nobody wants to do without us. Always a place for a setup like Crematoria.” Turning, he led the way into the control center. Toombs and his comrades followed, cargo in tow.
“How’s business?” the head mercenary inquired conversationally.
“Pretty good,” Douruba replied. “Just enough residents to keep things running smoothly, not too many to impact adversely on the bottom line. A good balance.” He looked over at the merc. “Your one boy won’t upset things.”
Toombs grinned. “Wait till you see the line on him. You might think different.”
The slam boss pushed out his lower lip. “Can’t cost that much.”
Unpleasant as ever, the mercenary’s grin grew more crooked. “Wait till you see.”
Runaway Nature had provided the basis for the prison in the form of a gaping volcanic throat whose subterranean source of lava had long since shifted elsewhere. Multiple levels had been sliced into its circular sides. From there, tunnels and accessways, storerooms and cells, punched deep into the solid rock, forming hollow spokes that extended outward from the central cavity. One side of the old volcano had been devastated by a small, rogue lava flow that had broken through and poured into the depths below. Now hardened as solid as the untouched rock around it, it entombed more prisoners than the supervisors had been able to count. But that had been a long time ago.
Prison control was located at the top of the circular hollow. At the bottom, several guards noticed the ceiling aperture grinding open. One never knew what might be coming down. Since it was too early for a shift change, the lift might be sending down supplies, tools, extra rations—or something new. Numerous eyes regarded the expanding opening with interest. On Crematoria, anything new was worth studying.
A single figure rode the service hoist. Unusually, it was suspended from its wrists instead of riding down on a platform. A bit out of the ordinary, but not unprecedented. Either the newcomer was being punished for something, or else he was being handled with extra care. If the latter, the guards would be taking special interest in him.
The figure was only part way down, however, when its progress came to a jerking, unexpected halt.
In the control room above, Toombs had just moved to halt the winch that had been lowering Riddick. The mercenary did not look happy. Behind him, his crew looked confused.
“What in the bowels of Christ are you talkin’ about? ‘Seven hundred K’? Where on this bare arse of a dirt ball did you come up with that figure?”
Relaxing near a control console, Douruba glanced at his first assistant. “Remind him.”
In between popping and masticating some kind of light green nut, the other man proceeded to elucidate. “Look, you know how it works, Toombs. The Guild pays us a caretaker’s fee for each prisoner, each year. We pay mercs like yourself twenty percent of that total fee, based on a certain life exp
ectancy and work output. Out of that, there are all manner of peripheral costs that have to be deducted and . . .”
An angry Toombs took a step toward the lethargic speaker. “I wired this in at eight-fifty. Nobody at that time said anything about ‘peripheral costs.’ I know as well or better ’n you how the system operates.” He gestured in the direction of the unseen sky. “Any other slam in the Arm would deal me that much right now, no shit.” One finger pointed in the direction of the prisoner, who had not descended very far from the control level.
Douruba was not impressed. “This isn’t any other slam, is it?”
Across the room, a guard tech glanced up from the console over which he had been laboring. “Don’t take this one, boss.”
The slam boss nodded at his subordinate, then smiled at his increasingly irate visitor. “How about that, Toombs? Anatoli here has a nose for trouble. What I’m reading from him is that this one”—he jerked a finger toward the silently dangling prisoner—“this ‘Riddick’ guy, is—”
“Big trouble,” the guard tech finished for him. Turning back to his console, he perused the latest readout. “He don’t come with a record, this one. He comes with an encyclopedia.”
Nodding appreciatively, Douruba restarted the winch. Like so much else in the prison complex, like the sled transport system, it was intentionally low-tech. Advanced electronics and similar devices did not survive long on Crematoria. Where a seal applicator might easily clog or overheat and fail, for example, a simple hammer would not. It was a design philosophy that not only saved money, it kept the prison going.
“Seven hundred K is good money,” Douruba reminded Toombs.
Outside the control station and once more dropping steadily again, Riddick glanced up and barked at his captor. “Better take it, Toombs.” The mercenary just glared down at him, watching his former prisoner winch farther and farther out of reach.