He had plenty of time to give loud voice to them later, when he was strung up inside the ice cave alongside the dead and defeated Urzo giganticus. Radically different physiognomies notwithstanding, both man and monster looked equally unhappy.
As he ran, Riddick seemed to float along above the snow, when in reality he was plowing purposely and powerfully through it. At times diverse, right now his thoughts were purely linear. Casual contemplation of multiple subjects was all very well and good—when one was sitting in a warm room with belly full and the only weapons in the vicinity your own. Survival precedes cogitation.
Pausing between drifts that marched across the landscape like fossilized waves and a distant line of rocks, he checked the ship locator. The line he had been following indicated he was very close to something now. He could only hope that it was not a decoy, set by a perverse mind to deliver a last dose of despair to anyone sharp and fast enough to acquire the device from its original owner. Riddick was only slightly concerned. Toombs was good, but the big man didn’t think he was that good. Proof of the latter evaluation lay in the mercenary’s present condition—hung out to dry. Or rather, freeze.
Flipping the ship locator closed to protect its vital innards from the weather, he let his thumb slide over the red contact near its base. In a moment he would know whether Toombs would have the last, cackling laugh. The indications were that what he was searching for lay near at hand. How near, or if at all, he would know in a moment. He nudged the control.
So close in front of him that he took a reflexive step backward, snow began to fall upward.
It was a better ship than he expected that rose out of the drift, sloughing off gravel and ice crystals as it slowly ascended before him. A Flattery C-19 under-cutter—low-slung, handsome, contemporary construction manufactured on a world noted for skilled engineering. Adaptable and tough, it was exactly the kind of versatile transport a pack of mercenaries would utilize, if they could afford it. In addition to traversing interstellar space and a variety of atmospheres, it could also burrow or swim. Doubtless it had cost Toombs and team a pretty credit or two. Now it belonged to someone else: him. That’s the way the comet crumbles, he thought to himself as he pulled out the locator and ran a subsidiary check. Unless the information he sought was being masked, the ship was empty; devoid of life-forms. No reason to mask the interior, he decided as he started toward it. Not with the maskers among the recently departed.
It didn’t matter. He always preferred to rely on his own judgment and instinct, turning to machines only when necessary or when left with no choice. The locator said the ship was empty. He entered through the obeisant port as warily as if the compact craft were crammed to its outer shell with a contingent of waiting, heavily armed representatives of the law.
It was exactly as empty as the locator insisted it was.
Settling himself into the command chair, he methodically coaxed quiescent instrumentation to life. Though no professional pilot, he knew what to do to survive. One of these talents involved piloting small spacecraft. Though some of the indicator markings were new or unfamiliar, the controls were basic enough.
At his command, protective internal screens whisked aside. The main distorter drive powered up. With the ship alert and awaiting instructions, he paused to delve into its internal supplementary databases. Another talent. He almost, but not quite, smiled as his own record appeared, glowing softly with the details of his personal history. Alone, as usual, he read silently to himself from the section catalogued under “LEADS.”
“. . . Now known to have survived emergency reentry and subsequent vessel crash on double-star system M-344/G. Likely killer of Class-I mercenary William J. Johns. Possible sighting on Lupus III. Reported seen on . . . Reported seen on . . .” There was quite a lot of the latter. This time he did smile. To have been everywhere he had been reported seen, there would have to be twelve of him.
An unsealed can of protein rope sat on the deck between his seat and the co-pilot’s chair. Popping the lid, he pulled out a length, bit off a mouthful, and chewed as he scrolled through the readout. It didn’t take long to find the one labeled “PAYDAY.”
The list of worlds where he was wanted exceeded those where he had reportedly been sighted. Unlike those, this second list was not fanciful. A lot of people in a lot of places wanted him incarcerated for a variety of reasons. The justification didn’t matter to mercenaries. Only the potential payoff was important. Each individual prison or facility had been handicapped by Toombs and his team. Different slams would pay different fees for delivery of the desired quarry. The rates ranged from three hundred thousand K up to seven-fifty. One glaring exception made Riddick take notice.
One point five million. Universal denomination or specific currency of choice. Hard cash.
Spitting out a piece of the protein rope that had been processed from part of an animal that would better have remained anonymous, he opened the file associated with the oversized cash offer. The place on the screen before him that was normally reserved for an image of the bidder was empty. The accompanying banner bleated PRIVATE PARTY. That was nothing new. Even slam directors and their administrators liked their anonymity. In contrast, the originating source was a bit of a surprise.
PLANET: HELLION PRIME. REGION: NEW MECCA.
“So even holy men have their price,” he murmured to the screen. It did not reply. The lack of a response did not trouble him. He was tired and in no mood to talk to anyone. Not even a machine.
The compact ship boosted effortlessly from the surface of a world Riddick would just as soon forget as quickly as possible. Once clear of atmosphere and a sufficient number of AUs out, he entered the coordinates for Helion Prime and prepared for the long haul. There was no reason for him to remain awake and every reason to enter cryosleep. Without artificial aids, humans didn’t last long under the stresses of supralight travel. When a ship went into That Other Place, any long-term passengers needed to be properly prepped.
Soon-to-be-unnecessary lights dimmed. The special malleable substance of which the vessel’s outer skin was fashioned warped slightly, actually altering its molecular structure. Cryosleep tubing latched onto its single occupant like so many benign snakes, adjusting his internal chemistry, taking over functions, preparing him to cope with the stresses of extended deepspace travel. His eyelids fluttered, closed.
It was good to sleep. He had not been able to do so comfortably and without concern for a long time. Safe in the cocoon of the pilot’s chair, nurtured and looked after by the ship’s life support systems, he could at last relax. Meanwhile, the small but sturdy vessel went about its business.
As part of the latter, notation of inhabited systems within a certain range automatically appeared on a monitor even though no organic eyes were active to observe them. When one identified a passing system as Furya, the unconscious man in the pilot’s chair stirred slightly.
“They say most of your brain shuts down in cryosleep. All but the animal side.”
With an effort, he dragged his eyes open. A glance showed that he was as alone as before. Screens and telltales working silently did not supply the information he expected to see there. Something was wrong. Or if not wrong, at least not right. He had heard a voice. He did not mistake such things.
There was a reflection in one screen. A suggestion of movement. Nothing on the ship ought to be moving. At a touch, the pilot’s chair spun around.
A lesser individual might have screamed at what he saw. Or started babbling uncontrollably. Riddick did neither. Just sat there, tubes and connectors still leeched to his body, staring, studying, trying to make sense of the sight before him. He was having a hard time doing so.
He was, after all, no longer alone.
Though slender and attractive, the woman conveyed an inner hardness that was more sensed than seen. He felt he ought to know her even though he had never seen her before. The impossibility of her presence registered strongly. It was negated by the fact that he knew he was
not insane. Dreaming perhaps, but not insane.
Behind her, the ship was gone. It had been replaced by a world of trees that were utterly alien yet somehow oddly familiar. Small skittering things darted furtively through the undergrowth while lightning-fast fliers zipped between the peculiar branches. The ground was littered with objects whose purpose and shape had changed little in thousands of years: gravestones. He had no time to study wildlife or monuments: the woman was talking to him.
“I am Shirah. Think of this as a dream, if you need to.”
His mind fought violently against what he was seeing even as his senses accepted it. As he struggled, more and more of the ship vanished, to be replaced by additional forest and more gravestones. There were a lot of the latter. Too many. Where ship met specter, perception blurred.
“But some know better. Some know it isn’t a dream. Some of us know the true crime that happened here, on Furya.” Drifting dreamily, one hand indicated the nearest of the gravestones. “We’ll never have them back. But we can have this world again. Someday.”
Riddick’s brain had been tuned to coping with the unlikely, the unreasonable, the unacceptable. It refused to dismiss the information his eyes and ears insisted on conveying.
“Once you remember, you will never forget.” Placing one hand over her chest, the woman waited until it began to glow softly. Riddick thought he could catch glimpses of the bones of her fingers. Approaching, she reached toward him, fingers extended . . .
Something jolted him awake. Hadn’t he been awake? A dream. He’d never had a dream where the other occupant had told him to think of the experience as a dream. What he knew to be true conflicted with what he knew ought to be true. Priding himself on his ability to resolve seeming contradictions and unable to do so this time, he grew tense.
A glance at the ship’s instrumentation solved the problem for him. He was closing on his destination. Now was not the time to ponder the source of implausible visions.
Clearing its electronic throat, the ship’s communicator snapped him forcefully back from nebulous realms inhabited by memories of distant dreams and fading visitations.
The voice that barked at him via the communicator was an odd mix of emphatic and anxious. “Repeating . . . all spaceports and all landing facilities of Helion Prime, including those designated for emergency service, are closed to flights that have not originated from this locale. Unauthorized craft are prohibited from landing. Infractors will be fired upon. These regulations are in force until officially countermanded by the government of Helion Prime. Repeating . . .”
Something went bang and the merc ship bounced violently. As it had not yet entered atmosphere, this was more than disconcerting. Whatever had struck Riddick’s craft had blown a chunk of communications gear right off the front. Hopefully, that was all that had been blown off. Nothing was yelling for his attention, and a rapid scan of monitoring instrumentation showed that hull integrity was still intact. Swiftly, his fingers began to dance over the manual controls.
There was only one ship on him. It was a wicked-looking little one-pilot job, its external elegance more reflective of the advanced state of Helion technology than any demand of design. A second bump jolted Riddick, but instead of a proximity charge this one was caused by the merc craft’s swift dive into atmosphere. He was going down too steep and too fast. Even as the hull’s external temperature began to rise sharply, the ship’s dispersion field proceeded to compensate by dissipating the intense heat.
At such speeds, only advanced computational navigation systems allowed the Helion fighter to materialize right alongside the merc ship. He could see the pilot, grim-faced, motioning for him to descend. Riddick nodded compliance and moved to adjust his position. Ever so slightly was all that was needed.
Before the other pilot, or his inboard predictive gear, could react, the merc craft slipped underneath and into it. Debris flew from both craft. Riddick had timed the contact perfectly. Too much, and even at suborbital velocity both ships would have disintegrated. Too little, and he would simply have flashed past his attacker to emerge on the opposite side. But just enough, and one vessel or the other was likely to be severely disabled.
As Riddick had intended, it was the other.
The Helion fighter spiraled away, damaged and possibly out of control. Whether it would manage a successful touchdown or not now depended on the skill of its pilot and not the calculations of its instrumentation. Watching it disappear into the distance, Riddick shook his head slowly.
“Never mess with a guy with a loaner.”
He checked the monitors. The merc ship had sustained some damage from the deliberate collision. The longer it flew, the more likely that the damage would become severe, then fatal. That didn’t trouble him. Right now, all he wanted to do was get down in one piece. Whether the ship did so in sufficient shape to rise again or not concerned him considerably less. While maintaining the too-steep descent, he punched in some evasive maneuvers just in case the now departed pilot happened to have colleagues in the area and in the air.
The ocean was green. Riddick had seen oceans of liquid methane as different in hue as they were brilliant. Green suited him. He’d always had an affinity for water. As he fought to slow the heavily vibrating ship, blue-green waves gave way to those colored yellow and white and beige: sand dunes, rangy and extensive.
It wasn’t the gentlest of touchdowns, but the hull held as he slammed right into the thickest dune he could find. Blackness covered the viewport. External visuals began to go dark. Forward motion ceased. Following prescribed and preprogammed merc procedure, concealware took over. A battery of small powered devices adjusted the ship’s hull. To an onlooker, of which there presently happened to be none, it would have appeared as if the vessel was shimmying itself into the sand. When relevant instrumentation deemed the procedure complete, all was dark within. Outside, nothing appeared to have changed. It would have taken more than a sharp eye to determine that the shallow rut that now ran the length of the sand dune’s crest had been caused by anything other than the wind. Riddick let out a deep breath and slipped out of the pilot’s harness. He had arrived.
Somewhere else. Again.
III
The immense dome that dominated the skyline of Helion Prime’s capital city was impressive, but it was dwarfed by the beacons, the temples of light, that dominated the sprawling metropolis. Shafting skyward, they bespoke the nature and power of Helion’s achievements in culture as well as in technology. Famous in this part of the galaxy, at least, they were an unmissable expression of all that was Helion. On its neat, clean streets, citizens went about their business with the air of those who believed themselves just slightly superior. In its skies, transport craft of every imaginable size and description hurried along their predetermined paths. Helion Prime was a crossroads.
The makeup of its citizenry attested to that. The city was home to every variation in stature, shade, and sensibility of contemporary humanity. It was reflected in the city’s art, in its commerce, in its entertainment venues.
It was also amply evident in its politics, which at the moment were undergoing an upheaval that found them uneasily balanced somewhere between the fractious and outright hand-to-hand combat. Uncommon to Helion government, yelling and shouting filled the outer chambers and anterooms of the capitol dome.
Pulling on a cloak, one man fled the cacophony. His expression showed him to be as disgusted as he was depressed. Curious beyond restraint, an aide intercepted the fugitive as he strode from the dome. With a nod of his head, he indicated the barely controlled chaos that presently filled the interior.
“Delegate Imam, I have worked for this government for twenty years. Never have I heard or seen such signs of serious dissention. What’s happening in there?”
The delegate paused, glanced back. “When all is said and done? Much will be said—and nothing will be done.”
Cloak swirling around him, he swept away. Behind him, the aide stared back toward the towerin
g doors that opened into the dome. Like the majority of his Helion brethren, he was keen on order and predictability. The shouting and arguing within did not bode well for a continuation of such things. It was just as well he was not privy to the debate raging inside. More than a few of the comments and observations being made would have unsettled him a good deal more than he already was.
The defense minister was adamant. She was also louder than most of her fellow officials. Even in an age of advanced technology, a strong voice still had its uses.
“Shut down the beacons!” she roared. “We need to save the energy, save all resources for this world! We cannot continue to export at a time of such uncertainty, when planetary defense should be everyone’s first priority.”
Steramad disagreed, as he usually did. “We can’t be slaves to fear. What kind of message would that send to the people? Helion Prime is expected to set an example for the lesser nearby worlds. A specific threat must be identified before radical action is approved. We cannot react in panic to every rumor that—”
The respected clerical delegate ar-Aajem cut him off. “Rumor? Is it rumor that we have lost communication with another world?” He gestured emphatically to his colleagues. “One such incident suggests communications failure. Multiple ones suggest something far more sinister. You all know to what I refer.”
Someone shouted, “We should try and make contact, negotiate with them.”
“Them?” another delegate countered. “Who’s even seen ‘them’? Who even knows what they want? If ‘they’ even exist. There could be other explanations, as Steramad says.”