The Valley Beneath the World: The Fugitive Future - Book One Page 5

  Behind the door turned out to be an office. A big office, with people coming and going across the room, and seats all along the sides facing terminals and screens. In the middle a man sat behind a desk as big as I am. Of all the people in the room, he was the only one who looked up when we entered, even though one of the women in my group was still holding my rifle on me. We marched up to the desk and stopped.

  "Has he said anything?" the man behind the desk asked. It was the first time I'd heard any of these people speak, and it was in the same kind of half-speech, half-telepathy that everyone I knew used.

  "Nothing," the woman in the group who was not holding the rifle admitted. She glanced at me. "In fact, he's been very cooperative."

  "Hm. His ship?"

  "We've sent a team out to look at it, but it's large. I doubt we could fly it in. We'll probably have to strip it."

  Now that didn't sound good at all.

  "Excuse me," I said forcefully, "but that's my ship you're talking about. I was hoping to fly it out of--" I looked around --"here."

  The man behind the desk gave me an appraising look. "So you can speak if you want to."

  "Are you surprised?" My mother would have told me to keep my mouth shut, but this might be my only chance to say anything.

  "No, I just wondered what you might to have to say for yourself." He passed a hand over his desk, and the images in his desktop screen vanished. They weren't holographic; they were flat, I realized when they were gone. They were meant to be seen by him alone. He leaned forward, steepling his fingers.

  "Who are you?"

  "My name's Arlen Timash."

  "Where are you from?"

  "Dure."

  His eyes never left my face, but I had the unmistakable impression of a sudden bolt of mental inquiry, as if he had asked one of his subordinates in the room a silent question. A moment later, I saw his desktop light up again. He gave it a quick glance.

  "Ah." Another hand swipe erased the images. "I apologize. We try to keep up with the general state of affairs in the outside world, but I can't keep the geography straight." He didn't sound the least bit sorry. His attention seemed to wander, and I found myself getting irritated. I was short on sleep; I'd just crash-landed an airship, and now this clown--

  What were you doing in Dure? How did you get here? What are you doing here?

  "Ahh!" His mental demands hit me like a rock between the eyes and I staggered backward. Several hands clapped me on the back and shoulders and pushed me to the front again. I blinked.

  "What the hell was that for?"

  The man behind the desk hadn't changed expression. There was no sign of the telepathic attack he had just launched against me, as strong as I'd ever felt, and that's saying something.

  "I asked you a question. I'm still waiting for an answer."

  I blew out a breath. "You mean you tried to mind-read me and you couldn't get through my shields." He was quickly climbing to the top of my list of least-favorite people. "Where I come from, that's considered rude."

  He twisted his lip in a manner that said he didn't really care what I thought. "And where I come from, it's the fastest way to get information from strangers who drop from the sky. I'll admit, we don't see too many strangers here, but on the other hand, most of the ones we do see are spies.

  "I don't have time for him. Take him outside and let him go."

  The rifle poked me in the back. "Let's go," a voice said behind me. As I turned around, I heard one of the others ask the man behind the desk:

  "Should we give him anything?"

  "Give him back his rifle. Leave one charge in it. We're not barbarians."

  One charge for my rifle. They were going to let me go, but they didn't think I'd be able to find my way back to the ship, and they were leaving me a way out. Mighty nice of them, although I was hoping I wouldn't need it.

  Rose had said it was summer at the South Pole; if it hadn't snowed since we'd been inside, the ship shouldn't be covered yet--not to mention the long scar it would have left when it landed. As long as I could remember which way to turn when I got outside, I figured I had at least a 50-50 chance of locating Rose. Better, if I could find some footprints.

  Whether Rose would be able to fly was another question. If not, slow freezing or a quick shot would be my only choices. How long would I have to choose?

  Maybe longer than I thought…

  "Uh, guys, isn't that the way to the elevator?"

  They didn't answer, and they didn't let me stop, change directions, or even slow down. We hadn't gone much further when I was sure something was up, because one of those huge glass walls was right in front of us, and there was another door at the base of it, this one flanked by six guards.

  I frowned as we stopped. After a word, a couple of the door guards covered me while I heard from behind the sound of my rifle's charge being drained off. The woman who had been holding it came around in front of me.

  "I left you a couple of charges extra." She wouldn't look at me. "I'll toss it to you when you're in the airlock. Don't bother trying to shoot your way back in. You'll just waste ammunition."

  The door slid back and they motioned me inside. Another door formed the far barrier. The woman whistled and I turned around in time to catch my rifle and see the airlock door slam shut.

  The outer door slid open and warm scented air wafted in. I stepped outside gingerly, still not quite believing that I wasn't walking on crunchy sub-zero ice. The ground was soft beneath my boots, and I craned my neck trying to see where the light was coming from.

  I stood there, trying to get my thoughts together. Outside--on the surface--it was freezing cold. Here, it was warm, sweet, and light. So why, I asked myself, have these guys locked themselves in behind glass walls and blaster-shielded airlocks?

  And why had the woman holding my rifle made a point of telling me she had left me three charges instead of one?

  Ten seconds later, the rifle was empty and I was using it as a club.

  XI

  Three of them had charged me, huge black dogs the size of ponies, with onyx fangs and no barking or howling, no sign that they were going to attack until they were ripping your throat out. They would have gotten to me but they hesitated in mid-charge, just long enough for me to see them coming and get off my three shots.

  I only killed two.

  The third one was too close, and while the blast startled and blinded him, he didn't need his eyes to find me, and I'd made him really, really mad. I was frantically batting at him with the rifle, but he kept swinging his big head back and forth and I couldn't connect hard enough to stun him. Meanwhile he was snarling and tearing at me with his teeth and he wouldn't need to connect very hard at all to strip the fur from my bones.

  He raised his head and I slammed downward with the rifle and he grabbed it with his teeth and snatched it out of my hands.

  Unarmed, I jumped backward and faced him down. He crouched, lip quivering over his black teeth while he issued a low growl. I crouched too, letting him see my fangs, and matched him growl for growl. He tensed, about to leap.

  And then he exploded.

  More accurately, his ribs caved in one side of his body and exploded out the other, driving his carcass half-way across the clearing. I stood there with my arms outstretched, a half-snarl still on my lips, and looked slowly back the way I had come, to where a now-familiar woman was holding her own rifle.

  "Get back in here!" And she disappeared into the airlock. I didn't need any more encouragement to follow her.

  "What were those things?" Only now did I realize I was shaking from head to toe, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. That dog would've torn my arm off if she hadn't shot it.

  The inner door had cycled open and she rushed through, leaving me to follow. I hesitated at the sight of the guards, but their attitude toward me seemed more relaxed. My new friend called to me without turning around.

  "Follow me unless you want to go outside again!"

  I followed. Ve
ry closely.

  The man behind the desk looked about as happy to see me as he'd been the first time.

  "So? I see he's still alive."

  My friend was holding her rifle, but it wasn't pointed at me any more, and nobody seemed all that worried that I might suddenly start tearing the place apart. Something was definitely going on, and this time I decided to keep my mouth shut and see what it was.

  "We put him outside. He had no idea what was going on."

  That got his attention. "Really." He swept his hand over his desk display slowly, as if he was thinking about something else. His eyes flicked to the woman's rifle, then up to her. "You seem sure of yourself."

  "I've seen his ship, Vollan. If they had anything like that, we wouldn't be here. He's from outside. And I mean outside."

  "Very well, then." Vollan nodded. "He's your responsibility." He finally gave me the benefit of his attention. "My name is Vollan. I am the manager of this sector. Your new minder here is Tierse. She'll be responsible for you, at least until you can get yourself established."

  I felt my eye ridges furrow. "Get myself 'established'? I wasn't planning to stay that long. If you can point me to my airship I'll be out of here."

  Vollan's eyes moved away from me as he spoke. "I'm afraid that you won't be able to do that. I had your ship inspected before it was buried; they reported that all systems were dead."

  I felt heat rising through me and the hackles on my back started to rise. "'Buried'? When did that happen? Who did that?"

  "No one did it," Vollan protested. "There was a storm. My people barely got back here. When they went back to where they found your ship, it was gone. Their best guess was that you had landed over a crevasse under the ice. The heat from your ship melted the ice and your ship fell through." He paused. "I'm sorry, I thought you knew."

  How could I have known? I wanted to scream at him, but I was very aware of Tierse standing behind me, and all the others. Just because I couldn't see any more guns didn't mean there weren't any. And besides, there was a little voice whispering inside of me: Get hold of yourself. He's lying. If you don't keep calm, you'll never find out why.

  I don't know where that little voice was coming from, and I don't know why I believed it; reading humans has never been a strong point for me, no matter how long I'm around them. But I did believe it. Vollan was lying to me. I had hardly been gone long enough for him to assemble a team of technicians, let alone for them to reach the ship, examine it, and report back.

  Rose was still out there, and while Vollan may honestly have thought she was dead, I knew better. Her root systems were still contained in that diagnostic tool; whoever he had rummaging through my ship wouldn't have known that. Even if the airship couldn't fly, even if I hadn't been able to fix it, Rose was alive, and I was going to get her back. I had to.

  Because she was the only friend I had within five thousand miles.

  XII

  I'll give her credit; Tierse tried her best to be my friend, or at least to help me "establish" myself. And to give myself credit, I let her try. After all, there was no guarantee Vollan wasn't telling the truth, or at least part of it. And there was no way, even if I got back to the surface, that I could find the ship by myself. Chances were, I wouldn't last ten steps without Tierse or someone else to guide me. So if she wanted to try to be my friend, as long as I was stuck here, I was willing to go along.

  "Here" turned out to be Tanar, one of the several city-states that existed beneath this partly-artificial dome under the Antarctic ice.

  "Three hundred years ago, this whole valley was a series of research stations built in what had been a hidden ice cavern until the roof partially collapsed and they saw what was underneath. They were scattered all over, each station specializing in a different discipline. They replaced the upper ice with a retractable dome, and they used to leave it open sometimes if it wasn't snowing. When the Nuum invaded, and they stopped getting bulletins from the outside world, the scientists gathered up as many of their family members and colleagues as they could and sealed the dome permanently. We've been here ever since."

  We were sitting in the communal dining room on the fourth floor of the administration sector. Vollan was sitting four floors below us. I had to wonder if I dropped something if it would hit him on the head--metaphorically, anyway.

  "How many people live here now?"

  Tierse chewed while she thought. "Hard to say. Nobody was ever really sure how many there were to start out with. For the first fifty years or so, all the stations worked together as one unit, but over time they broke up into factions. Now there are four independent settlements: Tanar, Udar, Gost, and Kur. As far as we know, however," she waved her arm to indicate our surroundings, "we're the biggest."

  I let her have her pride. I know everything's relative, but I'd toured most of the complex in a day. It wasn't the size of Tehana City, let alone Dure.

  "Okay, but that doesn't explain what's going on out there." I pointed through the glass wall to the outside, peaceful in appearance, but I'd learned since the first day that no one ever went out there without a good reason and a gun.

  Tierse sobered up. "About thirty years ago, Kur got a new leader. He's kept his name from us, but not his ambitions. Kur was originally a bioresearch station, and they've always lived by coming up with more efficient ways to raise food and selling it to the rest of us. We can all grow food, of course, but Kur specialized in it. Then when the new man took over, Kur went from growing food--to growing monsters."

  She must have been able to read my surprise even on my non-human face.

  "We didn't realize at first what was going on, and a lot of people died. Even then, we didn't know Kur was behind it; nobody could figure out why anyone would want to render the valley completely uninhabitable. In the beginning, before we knew it was deliberate, we thought something had gone wrong at Kur, and we sent scouts--armed like hunting parties. We thought we could solve the problem and earn Kur's gratitude, never a bad thing in a trading partner.

  "None of those scouts came back. We sent out bigger parties, and they came back, but they never made it anywhere near Kur. We were getting worried about them--until we got a message. We were being extorted; the valley was denied to us so long as we refused to submit. And here we are thirty years later, still stuck inside our glass cage."

  I took a long look at the trees. Something was rustling the branches, but I couldn't see what it was and I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

  "What's out there? I mean, those dogs were vicious, but they couldn't take down a loaded hunting party. I shot two of them myself."

  Tierse smiled. "I remember. Too bad there were three of them."

  I smiled, too, and Tierse shrank away from me. I closed my mouth; I'd forgotten how some humans react to me smiling the first time.

  "Sorry." She reached for a bit of food with her fork, then put it down. "I haven't seen teeth like that since the last time I--was outside. It was a little disconcerting."

  I apologized, too. "If you don't mind my asking, when were you outside? It doesn't sound like something you do for fun."

  Tierse went back to picking at her food. "Uh… Once in a while we still go hunting. Just nearby. Sometimes even monsters are good to eat."

  Yeah, if they don't eat you first. Keryl and I had gone toe-to-toe with a thunder lizard once; it wasn't something I wanted to do again, no matter how good he might taste. Suddenly I frowned and looked down at my plate.

  "Say, we aren't…?"

  "No!" Tierse laughed. "Just locally-grown stock. But it gets boring after a while."

  I glanced outside. "I like boring. I can live with boring."

  "You? You flew across the South Pole alone. I don't think you and 'boring' make a good match."

  "I tried to fly across the South Pole. I didn't make it."

  "Yes, we saw you come down, and then we watched you for a while. What were you doing, anyway? Scraping something off your hull?"

  "Yeah, actually." I expla
ined to her about the high-flying gossamer creatures that got caught in the ship's control surfaces and caused me to crash-land. I didn't explain why I was stuffing all of the material into a crack in the hull.

  "Ah," she said. "We've seen those when we were outside on the surface. They're called hhoonom. They look like really high thin clouds, but if you watch them for a while you can see them moving across the wind. I had no idea they could bring down an aircraft."

  "Well, I had no idea they even existed until they practically fell on top of me."

  Tierse rubbed her chin. "Hmm. They must have sensed the heat. We've wondered for a long time what kind of sensory apparatus they could have. Interesting…"

  I grinned, and caught myself in time keep it from becoming too scary for her. "You sound like a scientist. I thought you were a soldier."

  "I am. Both. Well, more of a soldier than a scientist," she admitted. "But if you want to go outside the wall, you have to learn some things first, if you have any plans to live long enough to come home. So I've studied some biology. Besides, there aren't enough of us here to do all the jobs that need to be done, so doubling up is encouraged."

  That sounded like a lot of work to go through just to take a hunting trip, but I kept my mouth shut. I was learning; Mother would be proud.

  "Speaking of doubling up," I said, "I don't mean to be rude, but why does everybody here only have one name?"

  Tierse gave me a narrow look. "You only have one name."

  "No, I only use one, but I have two. I don't get the impression you folks do it that way."