Part 3 (1/2)

'Towards them!'

'Sorry.' Chris banked sharply, pointing the craft down and narrowly missing a jutting walkway as he levelled out a few feet above the water. 'This place seems smaller.'

'It hasn't been that long,' snapped Roz. 'Eyes open, bogies ahead!'

They were rearing up from the shadows, appearing out of unexpected nooks: muscled soldiers in heavy combat armour, firing nightmare science-fiction weapons, sending thin lasers crackling past him in a confining criss-cross pattern. Chris jerked the control stick from one side to another and tried to run the deadly, fast-as-light gauntlet, knowing that only dumb luck was keeping him alive. Dumb luck and Roz Forrester.

24.She stood upright in her seat, loosing blast after crippling blast at random targets through the subterranean gloom. There were so many that even she couldn't miss them all, and where her shots impacted, terrified men leapt whimpering for cover. In a few seconds they were through and Roz was blowing imaginary smoke from her gun muzzle. 'Only the big one to go, then this call's wrapped up. Take the next turning but one left.'

Chris obeyed instinctively, but the direction led him to an area which he had not seen before. The mist seemed denser and he eased off the power, barely able to see three metres ahead for obstructions. 'I thought you were supposed to be the speed freak,' said Roz with irritation. 'Don't slow down now, we're on top of it.'

'I'm not sure -' Chris caught something in his throat and choked. A strong smell, worse than the customary dank odours of the Undertown, a.s.sailed his nostrils and coaxed water from his eyes. Ammonia and blood. His neck hairs were standing rigid; the flesh beneath was tingling.

The monster came at them from nowhere. A giant insect, horribly mutated. Black, double-jointed legs like stanchions reached out to ensnare them. Chris recoiled from their coa.r.s.e hairs, matted and wet with the lifeblood of fresh victims. With a gurgle of fear he brought the flitter round, upsetting his partner's balance so that her carefully aimed shot ricocheted off a moss-covered wall. 'What the h.e.l.l are you doing?'

'You can't seriously fight that!' Six yellow globe eyes glared from beneath a thick carapace and Chris averted his gaze, afraid they might mesmerize him, draw him into the creature's embrace.

'Too right,' she said. 'It's our job, remember.' She was already clambering out of the flitter and, too late to stop her, Chris saw what she intended.

'No!'

There was nothing he could do. With a wet smack, Roz's body hit the water.

'I'm sorry, Politik Darnak, but the Superior is sleeping.' The administrator spoke with affected preciseness, allowing her 25 voice to betray just the right measure of condescension. 'And I'm sure you know that she mustn't be disturbed for anything less than a purple or green-grade emergency.'

Darnak gritted his teeth, resisting the urge to punch that segment of the commu-screen on which the woman's sneer was displayed. 'I'm telling you,' he insisted, 'it's important. I wouldn't be calling this late if it wasn't!'

'Is it a purple or green-grade emergency?'

'Well, no, but -'

'Then I cannot disturb the Superior. I suggest you wait the few remaining time segments until light-on, then call again.'

The administrator reached out and flicked a switch. The screen went blank. Darnak gave in to temptation and thumped it.

Sucking his bruised knuckles ruefully, he turned back to his visitors. He was shocked to see how much of a mess the older man had already made on his office floor. All manner of paraphernalia, from nails to coat-hangers to . . . was that a jack-in-the-box? . . . lay tangled in the white fibres of the deep pile carpet. The alien was beginning to pull some of the objects together, to form the most outlandish and asymmetrical contraption that Darnak had ever seen.

The young man - Jason - was staring, amused by his outburst. 'd.a.m.n bureaucrats!' he spat, as some sort of justification.

'Never mind,' said Jason. 'When your President person wakes up, he'll find you've solved the lizard monster problem by yourself.'

'That's right.' The rumbling tones of Jason's friend drifted up from behind the desk. The man himself followed, jumping to his feet and grinning broadly. 'In fact, I think it better the Superior doesn't know about us at all. Alien visitations can play havoc with planetary politics, I often find.'

Darnak frowned, weighing up the pros and cons of that argument. The main pro, of course, was that he would be able to take all credit for the visitors' work.

Then Jason interrupted his train of thought. 'Well? Aren't you going to look at what we've done?'

26.'Done?' Darnak looked, but all he could see was Jason hoisting up that jack-in-the-box, of all things, into which the older man's construction had apparently been forced. The only external difference was that a large red plunger had been attached to the thing's lid with sellotape.

The older man smiled, took the device from Jason and turned it so that Darnak could see the letters, picked out in red felt-tip, on one of the box's vertical surfaces: ACME LIZARD-MONSTER ERADICATION DEVICE.

Darnak turned pale and was suddenly glad he hadn't woken the Superior after all.

Roz was out of sight, already swallowed up by black water and the hungry fog. Chris cursed her for her mindless bravado. He had to turn back, despite the awful feeling that to do so was to sacrifice his life. But as he guided the flitter, without warning, something sharp and painful whipped across his eyes and Chris cried out as he realized that one of the insect's flailing tendrils had found him.

He was blinded. His face was an itching mess, hot tears rolling down his cheeks. He couldn't help now, all he could do was get out or be killed. He silently wished his partner luck, then gunned the engines and retreated as fast as the protesting vehicle would allow. If he could get his information to the Adjudicator Secular, perhaps he could do something . . .

He found the turning, straining to see through one swollen, half-closed eye. He banked right and caught his breath as the ground rose sharply beneath him and decrepit buildings leaned in and cut down his manoeuvring s.p.a.ce on both sides. The tunnels were definitely shrinking!

A shrill chirruping burst out too close for comfort, and Chris put his foot down and began to mouth a prayer that they might both survive this blighted mission.

He was halfway through the first line when the flitter collided head-on with a wall. An explosion of colour slammed sickeningly into his closed eyelids. Then warm blackness reached out to enshroud his thoughts.

27.Kat'lanna hugged herself against the growing cold and made a token wish that she'd been a.s.signed to something more productive. At other times, she had been more annoyed by Mort's insistence on keeping her away from danger - and thus, from action. Today, she felt almost too numb to care.

She looked down at the placard by her side. Mort had left it for her; one of his people had painted it in crooked blue letters on a white background of torn cloth. EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL. Their lifelong struggle, and the lizards' too. Both races united against the selfish and privileged human over-caste.

The handheld communicator on Kat's belt squawked. She grabbed it and almost dropped the makes.h.i.+ft device, her hands were shaking so. Her voice too. 'Receiving. Yes?'

Her brother's voice erupted in a burst of static. 'Now!' One simple word, so much meaning behind it. Mortannis's rebels had crossed the security blockade and reached the power lines.

They would sever them in one segment's time, just as the Citadel's occupiers were beginning to respond to their empire's fall. More rebels were positioned by the front of that great marble edifice; their demonstration would begin now, distracting the authorities with painted and chanted slogans of defiance. As soon as she confirmed to Mortannis that the lizard attack had begun, Kat would be joining them, and him, at that front.

The reptile leader had overheard Mort's message. He looked to Kat, politely waiting for her to relay the signal. She couldn't talk. She just nodded, and the soldier's lips pulled into a leering smile. A tense silence spread through the armoured ranks and two hundred yellow slit eyes turned expectantly upon their commander.

'For freedom!' he yelled, as he punched the sky. 'And equality!'

The a.s.sembled lizards roared: a bloodcurdling outburst of savage and long-repressed determination. Kat'lanna, suddenly frightened, shrank back into the dust and cast about longingly for a sight of Thruskarr.

The attacking army surged forward, crested the hill and set 28 the human Citadel in their malevolent sights.

'I don't know why you're being so funny about it!' Jason stormed. 'I mean, read the label: it's obvious what it does!'

Darnak read the label again. He still didn't believe it.

'You can't tell me that piece of junk is going to wipe out the lizard problem overnight,' he protested.

'Why ever not, Politik Darnak?' the older man asked sweetly.

'We are talking about alien technology, are we not? How much do you know about that subject anyway?'

'Well, nothing. But -'

'There you are then.' He proffered the box once more. 'I think it should be up to you to operate the device, don't you?

It's quite a simple process.'