Part 18 (1/2)
They didn't know about Unseeli. Silence knew. He'd been here before, ten years ago, when the Ashrai came sweeping out of the forest in endless waves, slaughtering every man and woman in their path. He remembered the awful things they'd done, and the worse thing he'd done to stop them. The Ashrai were dead now. Extinct. Along with every other living thing on the planet.
The pinnace lurched suddenly to one side, the roar of the engines seeming to falter for a moment before regaining their normal rhythm. Silence spun round in his chair and glared at the displays before him.
Warning lights were flaring red everywhere, but there was no sign of any actual damage yet. He accessed the sensors again, and the s.h.i.+p seemed to go transparent before and around him. Dark storm clouds boiled around the pinnace, streaming away to either side with breathtaking speed. The s.h.i.+p lurched again, and Silence's stomach quivered in sympathy as the pinnace changed course and speed with reckless indifference to its pa.s.sengers' sensibilities. Glowing metal trees appeared and disappeared around them, come and gone in a flash, but Silence could tell it wasn't just the trees that the pinnace was trying to avoid. There was something else out there in the storm. Something that had waited a long time for revenge, and didn't give a d.a.m.n that it had been dead for ten long years.
Ghostworld.
”Marines, man the guns,” said Silence harshly. ”Investigator, access the sensors and tell me what you see. Esper, I want a full psionic scan, as far as you can project. I need to know what's out there.”
The marines' faces went blank as they accessed the pinnace's firing controls through their comm implants, their eyes filled with what the gunsights showed them. The Investigator's cold face hardly changed at all as she looked quickly around her at bulkheads that were suddenly transparent. The esper looked at Silence uncertainly.
”What exactly am I scanning for, Captain?”
”Something, anything; for whatever's out there.”
”But . . . there's nothing there, Captain. It's just a storm.”
”No,” said Silence. ”It's not just the storm. Run a scan, esper. That's an order.”
”Aye, sir.” The esper's eyes became fixed and unseeing, and her face was suddenly blank and untenanted as her mind leapt up and out beyond the pinnace.
The storm boiled around her, but could not touch her. Metal trees burned in her mind like brilliant searchlights plunging up through the clouds, guttering here and there as automated mining machinery tore through a tree's roots. Apart from the trees, there was no life anywhere in range of her esp, and yet it seemed to her that there was something at the edges of her mind, sensed only as swift flashes of movement and an occasional feeling of being watched. Diana forced her esp to its limits, pus.h.i.+ng at the range of her scan, but was unable to get a clear view of whatever it was. If there was anything at all . . .
Stasiak grinned nastily, feeling the pinnace's guns swivelling back and forth, responsive to his thoughts.
Four disrupter cannon, state of the art and fully charged, were scattered the length of the pinnace and ready to kick a.s.s at his command, or merest whim. But there was only the storm and the wind and the endless b.l.o.o.d.y trees. According to the sensors, there was nothing out there worth firing at. He found a secure line and patched into Ripper's comm implant.
”Hey, Rip, you see anything?”
”No. But that doesn't mean it's not out there.”
”Yeah, sure. You ask me, the Captain's got ants in his pants over nothing. This world's dead, Rip; everyone knows that.”
”Maybe. There's nothing on the sensors. But I still keep getting the feeling that we're not alone up here.
Stand ready, Lew. I don't like the feel of this at all. And if it does all hit the fan, don't waste your shots; place them carefully. Remember, these cannon take four minutes to recharge between each shot. A lot can happen in four minutes.”
”Yeah, right,” Stasiak stirred unhappily in his seat, trying to look every way at once. Now that Ripper mentioned it, he could feel it too. Something waiting, watching, hiding just out of range of his sensors. His mind caressed the fire controls, feeling them respond like hounds straining at the leash. The pinnace's AI was programmed against activating the guns itself except in the direst emergencies, to keep it from getting ideas above its station, but it too sensed something was wrong about the storm, and in its own way was just as eager for action as Stasiak was.
Investigator Frost looked across at the Captain. ”Sensors all report negative. There are no life signs registering anywhere within their range.”
”I didn't think there would be,” said Silence, staring unblinkingly out at the storm. ”Odin, how long till we touch down?”
”Twelve minutes and forty seconds, Captain,” said the AI promptly. ”a.s.suming nothing interferes with my flight plan.”
”Get us down fast, Odin,” the Captain ordered. ”Marines, stand ready. Something's coming.”
And then the pinnace lurched suddenly to one side, the slender craft thrown violently off course as though some giant hand had reached out from nowhere and swatted it. The s.h.i.+p bucked and heaved as the AI fought to keep it from cras.h.i.+ng into the tightly packed trees. Dark shapes loomed up out of the boiling storm clouds, huge and threatening.
”Odin, raise the force screen,” said Silence, his voice calm and steady, though his hands were closed into white-knuckled fists. ”Marines, pick your targets carefully. Investigator, what do you see?”
”Still nothing, Captain. Sensors are adamant there's nothing out there.”
”Same here,” said Stasiak urgently. ”There's nothing to aim at!”
The pinnace shuddered as something impossibly huge pounded against the force screen, again and again.
Silence watched tensely as his displays showed mounting pressure building up against the screen from all sides at once. Glowing trees whipped past faster than ever as the AI sent the pinnace racing through the metallic forest, heading for the landing field. But despite the pinnace's increasing speed, the dark presences stayed with them, battering at the force screen with vicious determination. Silence scowled, and licked his dry lips.
”Marines, lay down a field of fire on both sides. Random selection of targets. Do it now.”
The marines' replies were lost in the thunder of the disrupter cannon, and blinding energy leapt out from the pinnace, striking through the screen and shattering the metal trees. Great metallic shards flew like shrapnel. And still the unliving presences pressed close around the screen, the pressure rising impossibly moment by moment.
”Our guns are useless now until the energy crystals recharge,” said the Investigator quietly. ”And the force screen isn't going to last long enough for us to reach the landing field. It's taking more and more of the s.h.i.+p's power just to maintain the screen, and we don't have that much power to spare. Not if we ever want to get off this planet again. What's out there, Captain? Why don't they show up on our sensors?”
Silence looked at her. ”Because they're dead, Investigator. Because they're dead. Odin, time to touch down?”
”Ten minutes, twenty-two seconds, Captain.”
”When I give you the word, drop the force screen and channel the extra power to the engines. Do whatever you have to, Odin, but get us down. If we survive the landing, we can always recharge the s.h.i.+p's batteries at Base Thirteen. Marines, stand ready to fire again, on my order.”
”But there's nothing out there!” said Stasiak. ”There's nothing to aim at!”
”Keep the noise down, Lew,” said Ripper calmly. ”Ours not to reason why, remember? Just do what the nice officer says. At least he seems to have some idea of what we're up against.”
Stasiak sniffed mutinously. ”They're not paying me enough for this.”
Silence glared out at the storm, then looked back at the Investigator. ”Anything on the sensors?”
”Negative, Captain. No life signs of any description. As far as the instruments are concerned, we're alone up here.” The Investigator looked at him with cold, hard eyes. ”You were expecting this, weren't you, Captain? That's why you came down with us. You know what's out there.”
”Yes,” said Silence. ”I know.”
”Guns are powering up, sir,” said Ripper. ”Ready to fire again soon. Just find us a target.”
”Stand by, marines. Esper, talk to me. What do you see out there? Esper!”
They were huge and awful and they filled her mind, blazing like the sun. Too strange to measure, too vast to comprehend, they gathered in the storm like ancient vengeful G.o.ds, striking at the pinnace with thunder and lightning. Diana Vertue struggled to maintain her own sense of ident.i.ty in all that rage and fury, but her human mind was a small and insignificant thing in the midst of such intense, bitter hatred. She retreated behind the safety of her mental s.h.i.+elds, fighting to keep out the inhuman thoughts that roared and howled in the storm outside the s.h.i.+p. One by one her defensive barriers slammed into place, and suddenly she was back in the pinnace again, and Captain Silence was shouting at her.
”It's alive,” she said dully, her mind feeling slow and awkward now that it was working only on the human level again. ”The storm's alive, and it hates us.”
”Have you made contact with it?” asked Silence. ”Could you communicate with it?”
”Communicate with what?” said the Investigator sharply. ”If there was anything alive out there, the sensors would show it!”
”They're too big,” said Diana Vertue. ”Huge. Vast. I've never felt such hate.”
”Try,” said Silence. ”This is why I brought you with us; to talk to . . . what's out there.”
”No,” said Diana, tears burning in her eyes. ”Please. Don't make me . . . the hate hurts so much . . .”