Part 36 (2/2)

”It's over,” Stinger whispered, in the voice of Mack Cade. Jessie had heard Daufin's cry, and she started to turn around and s.h.i.+ne the light ahead. But Mack Cade's voice was a harsh command: ”Throw your weapons away! All of them! If you don't, I'll break her neck!”

Jessie hesitated. Glanced at Tom. He stared at her, gripping the rifle to his chest.

”Throw your weapons away,” Stinger repeated. The replicant held the child between itself and the lights. The dog's head writhed in its chest. ”Throw them down the pa.s.sage as far as you can. Do it! ”

”Oh, Jesus!” Curt fell to his knees in the muck, rocking back and forth. ”Don't kill me! Please... I'm beggin' you!” His eyes were wild with terror. ”Please don't kill me!”

”There's bug bravery!” Stinger shook Daufin, and droplets of blood fell from the cuts on the back of her neck. ”Look at them! There're your protectors!”

Curt was still rocking back and forth, making sobbing sounds. ”Get up,” Rick said. ”Come on, man. Don't let this piece of s.h.i.+t see you beg.”

”I don't wanna die... I don't wanna die...”

”We're all going on a nice long trip,” Stinger said. ”I won't kill you if you do what I say. Throw your weapons down the pa.s.sage. Now.”

Tom drew a deep breath, his head bowed, and tossed the rifle away. He winced when it splatted into the ooze. Curt threw the hogleg Colt down the tunnel. Rick's rifle went next. ”The lights too!” Stinger shouted. ”I'm not a fool!”

Curt's light went first. Then Rick's, and Tom's lantern. Jessie threw the wired-together lamps away, and it landed near the blown-up scorpion creature.

”You have something else,” Stinger said quietly. ”The weapon that shouts and burns. What's it called?”

”Dynamite,” Jessie told him, one hand pressed to her face.

”Dy-na-mite. Dynamite. Where is it?”

No one spoke. Curt was still huddled over, but making no sound.

”Where? ” Stinger demanded, and shook Daufin so hard it brought a grunt of pain from her.

”Give it to him, Curt,” Tom said.

Curt straightened up, slowly took the knapsack off. ”The dynamite's in here,” he said, and tossed it toward Stinger. It landed at Jessie's feet.

”Take the dynamite out and let me see,” Stinger said.

Jessie picked up the knapsack and reached in. Her hand found not the last two sticks of dynamite, but a pack of Lucky cigarettes.

”Let me see!” Stinger demanded.

”Go on.” Curt's voice had a nervous edge. ”Let him see what he wants to.”

”But... this isn't-”

”Show him,” Curt interrupted.

And then she understood, or at least thought she did. She brought out the pack of cigarettes and held them in her palm. Stinger's eyes watched her over Daufin's shoulder. ”Here it is,” Jessie said. Her throat was dust dry. ”Dynamite. See?”

Stinger made no sound. The blue Mack Cade eyes stared at the pack of Luckies in Jessie's palm. Blinked. Then once more. Processing information, Jessie thought. Maybe searching through the language centers of all the brains it had already stolen. Would it know what dynamite was, and what the explosive looked like? A hissing sound came from Stinger's throat. ”That's a package,” Stinger suddenly said.

”Open it and show me the dynamite.”

Jessie's hands were trembling. She tore the pack open, and held up the remaining three cigarettes so he could see them.

There was a long moment in which she thought she would scream. If Stinger had any information on dynamite, it might be the same definition Daufin knew: an explosive compound usually formed into a cylinder and detonated by lighting a fuse. The cigarettes were cylinders, and how would Stinger know any differently? She could almost see the gears turning rapidly behind the creature's counterfeit face. Stinger said, ”Put the dynamite down. Step on it until it's dead.”

Jessie dropped the cigarettes and pressed them deep into the slime. A quick smile flickered across the thing's mouth, and Stinger lowered Daufin but kept his hand clenched on her neck. ”Now I feel better! Good vibes again, ya'll! Everyone walk in front of me. Go! ”

Jessie let out the breath she'd been holding. Curt Lockett had gambled on the fact that Stinger had never seen dynamite before. But where were the last two sticks?

Curt stood up. His red cowboy s.h.i.+rt had been b.u.t.toned almost to the throat. He followed Rick along the tunnel, his arms close to his sides and his back slightly stooped like a dog afraid of being beaten. Stinger shoved Daufin into the muck. Hauled her up again, shoved her roughly forward. She'd already seen what was clamped between the dog's jaws: her lifepod. Stinger grabbed a handful of her hair. ”I knew the bugs would draw you out. Oh, we're going to have a nice long trip together. You, me, and the bugs. Think on these things.” He shoved her again, and followed the others into the dark with his spiked tail thras.h.i.+ng.

57 Stinger Revealed

Cody looked upon Stinger in the dank light of a violet sun, and the world seemed to freeze on its axis. Stinger-the bounty hunter from a distant planet-was a snaky length of mottled dark and light flesh. Its body shone with slime, and it moved on hundreds of small silver-clawed legs, propelling the bulk forward with wavelike undulations. Like a fat, oily centipede, Cody thought; but it had two large hinged and clawed forelegs that looked like the shovels of a living bulldozer. It was those forelegs that had dug the tunnels and smashed through the floors of houses.

Its head was a duplicate of the thing that had burst out of the horse-thick, elongated jaws and four amber eyes with thin black pupils in a flattened, almost reptilian skull. Except the jaws did not hold needle teeth. The mouth was a large, wet gray suction cup, like the underside of a leech. Stinger's body continued to glide into the chamber. Cords of elastic red muscle emerged from its sides and connected it to the breathing machine, which Cody figured must reel the cords in and out automatically; but it was clear that Stinger was tethered to the machine, and might even be part machine itself.

But the worst was that in some places Stinger's flesh was almost transparent, and Cody could see what was in there: corpses, drifting as if in a macabre ballet. What looked like hundreds of ropy filaments had wrapped around the corpses and seemed to be feeding them into the organs. A horse floated in there, drifting as if on an obscene tide. Flashes of what might have been electricity jumped along the filaments, illuminating the dead in that corpse-swollen body as if by strobe lights. A woman's pickled face pressed up against the scaly flesh, red hair floating, and then she tumbled backward in terrible slow motion. More bodies moved in Stinger's internal currents, and there were other faces Cody recognized and wished he did not. He pressed a hand against his mouth, fighting on the edge of the Great Fried Empty.

It knows my name, he thought, and that almost sent him over. Finally, Stinger's tail slid through the portal. It had a wrecking ball of spikes, just as the horse creature's tail had. The tail twitched with horrible life, and the hundreds of legs carried Stinger's bloated, twenty-foot-long body across the floor with a noise like sliding razor blades. Cody couldn't move. The portal was clear now, though slimed with Stinger's ooze, and they might be able to make it. But what if they couldn't? The breathing machine was reeling fleshy cords out again as Stinger slithered toward the far side of the chamber. Cody looked over his shoulder at Miranda and Sarge; both of them were pressed against their shelter, and Sarge's eyes had bulged with terror. He motioned for them to stay where they were, then crawled out of cover on his stomach to see where Stinger had gone.

The thing had reached the wall of geometric symbols. It reared up, eight feet of its body leaving the floor, and the legs on its lower length pushed it onward. The flesh of its belly was smooth and white, like the flesh of a maggot. It looked vulnerable in comparison to the scaly upper body, Cody thought. Like you could punch a hole in it with a good shotgun blast.

But he had no shotgun, and all he could do was watch while the thing's small claws began to touch the symbols with blurred speed, each one moving independently. As the symbols were activated, their violet glow went out. Stinger's head lifted, the eyes peering up, and Cody looked up too. Far above, the spinning cyclone of the force field at the s.h.i.+p's apex had begun to slow its revolutions. As Stinger manipulated another series of symbols, the cyclone of light slowed... slowed... and extinguished. The force field had been turned off. Instantly, the suspended violet sun brightened. There was a ba.s.s grinding of machinery. The two metal arms were lowering the small pyramid to the floor. As it came down it opened, and within was a compartment that looked like a control center, full of rows of metallic levers. The pyramid settled to the floor with a slight jarring thump. Stinger continued to touch the symbols, all its attention focused on the work. Mechanisms whined and whirred in the walls, and the entire s.h.i.+p vibrated with a pulse of power. Cody crawled back to Miranda and Sarge. ”We've got to get out now! ” he whispered urgently. ”I'm going first. I want you right behind me. Understand?”

”Yes.” Miranda's face was still chalky, but her eyes were clear. Sarge nodded. ”We can't forget Scooter! Got to bring Scooter with us!”

”Right.” Cody peered out again, marking Stinger's position, then at the portal. The time to go was now. He tensed, about to leap up and run like h.e.l.l.

Before he could, Jessie Hammond staggered through the portal. This new shock froze Cody where he was. She was followed by Tom Hammond, Rick Jurado, and...

”Oh, Christ,” Cody breathed.

His old man came in, stoop-shouldered. Right behind him was Daufin, her spine rigid and head uplifted defiantly... and then the spike-tailed nightmare that looked like Mack Cade with one arm and a dog's head growing from its chest. Miranda leaned forward, saw Rick and started to shout, but Cody pressed his hand over her mouth and pulled her back behind the machinery. Rick's stomach lurched. He'd seen the thing standing at the wall, and he felt the blood drain out of his face. Jessie glanced quickly back at Curt; beads of sweat glittered on his cheeks and forehead. Tom took Jessie's hand, and Daufin turned to the one-armed replicant.

”You have me now,” she said. ”And my pod. Let the humans go.”

”Prisoners have no right to demand.” The replicant's eyes were supremely confident and contemptuous. ”The bugs wanted to help you so much, they can go to prison with you.” Daufin knew it spoke with Stinger's thoughts, but Stinger was busy with the lift-off preparations and didn't turn away from the programming console. Evidently Stinger thought so little of her and the humans that it saw no need for more replicants to guard them.

”Where's my sister?” Rick forced himself to look into the creature's face. ”What've you done to her?”

”Liberated her. And the two others, just as I've liberated all of you. From now on, there will be no more waste in your lives. Where you're going, every moment will be productive.” The gaze slid to Daufin. ”Isn't that right?”

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