The Caverns of Mare Cetus (56 page)

   Richelle suddenly sprang in front of Renata as if she had materialized out of the air. She grabbed ahold of the outstretched tentacle that held Renata's face and fell down on it with all of her weight. "You monster!" she shouted as the tentacle grew taught. "Let go of her! Let her go!" While she continued to press herself over the tentacle, she started pounding on it with the side of her right fist, and after a number of vicious blows, blood was spraying from her hand. She stopped, glanced at her injured hand, then began slamming the tentacle with the handcuff on her left wrist, causing a clanging with every blow.

   Another tentacle instantly shot out of the front of the TERAD and whacked Richelle in the head, causing her to stop her onslaught. The tentacle grabbed Richelle's right hand, and as she struggled against it, it briefly pulled her hand toward the robotic. Then quite to Renata's surprise, the tentacle released Richelle's bloodied hand and began slowly retracting into the machine.

   As soon as the tentacle was back inside the robotic, Richelle again began frenziedly beating her handcuff on the tentacle that held Renata. "You're not going to hurt her! You're not going to get away with this…"

   Meanwhile, Trent had shaken off his daze. He glanced at the women and Edison, then jumped for the Iravano, which was laying a meter away from him. While he was lying on the ground, he took aim at the Central Controlling Module of the TERAD, which was the middle and largest of the three "garnet" heads. The CCM was now spinning slowly in a clockwise direction, the two flanking modules spinning in the opposite direction and at a higher rate of speed. He shot twice, hitting the CCM squarely, sparks spraying everywhere, pounding echoes reverberating through the passage, but he didn't even damage it. A tentacle shot toward him, throwing the back of his head into the wall; he slumped to the ground.

   Renata at once felt terribly sick again. Richelle stopped hammering on the tentacle and began to cough and gag as she hung her chest over it. Renata looked at Edison who was gagging and coughing like Richelle. Six tentacles were now tightly wrapped around his arms and legs, his feet dangling above the floor. Renata's eyes became focused on Arielle. She was barely moving, only an occasional twitch from her legs, but it looked like there was vomit trailing down the side of her jacket.

   Renata became hysterical. If she threw up now, she was going to smother in her own vomit—the tentacle was completely blocking her mouth. She began breathing deeply through her nose, trying to quell her stomach, but she started to gag. She tried to stop the gagging, but she couldn't. Her stomach suddenly let loose.

   At that instant, the tentacle in her mouth pushed down on her lower lip, exposing her open mouth, and she spit up on the ground. Then the tentacle began sliding its way off her face the same way it had wrapped around her. When it had almost let go of her, it snapped her head violently, throwing her into the wall, face first, her hands slamming into the rocks, her right ring finger snapping back and instantly firing with pain. She fell toward the ground in a daze, landing on top of Trent.

   Her eyes glazed with tears, she glanced around. Edison was grunting and using his tremendous strength to fight with the tentacles that held his arms, pushing them this way and that as they tried to press his arms against the wall. A dozen tentacles were crisscrossing Arielle's body. The one around her neck seemed to have loosened, but the others held her firmly to the ground. Arielle's eyes were closed, her arms stretched out above her head—it looked like she had passed out…

   Renata's eyes were suddenly drawn to Richelle.

   She was standing, her hands held on her hips, her gaze directed up at the robotic, not a tentacle anywhere near her. "Let them go!" she shouted.

   A number of sensors appeared out of the CCM of the TERAD, as if by magic. The CCM abruptly stopped spinning, the two flanking modules slowing down as well. The robotic moved toward Richelle, stopping about a meter in front of her as it hovered a short distance above the ground.

   "Let them go!" she shouted again. "I know it's me you want."

   Renata began slapping Trent's face, trying to bring him to. After several slaps, he raised his hand and grabbed her arm. He looked at her right finger and winced; it was already bruised and swollen. Then he looked around, his eyes stopping on Richelle. "What the hell…"

   Renata got to her feet and moved up behind Richelle, placing her hands on Richelle's waist. "Don't do this. You don't need to do this."

   As Renata's eyes focused on the TERAD, she gave it a good look from top to bottom. None of the modules were spinning now, and the TERAD's body, which sat on a thin pentagonal base that housed its magnetic propulsion system, had at least two dozen tentacles spilling out of it from various places on its frame.

   "Let the girl go!" ordered Richelle. She took a step toward it, Renata following.

   Several tentacles began to slowly pull off Arielle's body.

   Richelle pointed at Edison. "Put him down!"

   Immediately the TERAD lowered Edison to the ground.

   As sensors began to pull inside the robotic, others coming out to replace them, it looked as if the TERAD was in some kind of quandary. One by one, it began slipping its tentacles off Arielle and Edison and pulling them back toward it.

   Arielle opened her eyes. She looked at the TERAD, then rolled on her stomach and started hurriedly crawling away from it. Edison groaned as he fell on his side. He picked up the Machine Cutter and began moving toward Trent while hugging the wall, glancing repeatedly at the robotic.

   In a sudden reversal, the tentacles that had been pulling back toward the TERAD changed direction and slithered along the ground toward Richelle and Renata. After a moment, the ground beneath them was covered with a worm-like pile of tentacles. Then a tentacle began squirming its way up Richelle's right leg. Renata tried to pull her back, but Richelle stood firm, her vision remaining fixed on the robotic. Just as the tentacle had completely wrapped itself around her leg, from her foot to her upper thigh, it began unraveling and came off her leg as quickly as it had gone on.

   A cluster of sensors snapped out of the TERAD's CCM, which was again rotating slowly, the two flanking modules precisely matching it in speed and direction; the "crystal" faces of all three modules were now completely synchronized.

   Then abruptly the modules stopped spinning, and as they did, a long knife-like blade shot out at Richelle from the TERAD's body, going right between her slightly spread legs. She flinched, then looked down at the blade as it retracted into the machine. Then another shot out, coming close to her other leg. Again she looked down, watching it retract.

   Renata felt like her eyes were going to pop out of her head. Both blades had just missed Renata's legs by a hair. She positioned her legs exactly behind Richelle's and set her hands on Richelle's shoulders. "God, I love you, girl," she whispered. "You are the bravest woman I've ever known."

   "I love you too," cried Richelle softly. "But I think I just wet my pants. I'm petrified. Why am I doing this?" She glanced at Renata. "Please don't say I'm crazy. I'm not crazy. I'm far from crazy."

   "I know you're not crazy," whispered Renata. She glanced at Trent. "What sadistic bastard put blades on this thing?"

   "I forgot to mention," said Trent, looking embarrassed. "The TERADs also function as military weapons—Novia's first line of robotic defense against an invasion. But obviously they're not supposed to be attacking Novians."

   Renata slid her hands down to Richelle's upper arms. "Let's back away, slowly." They began moving back, one step at a time.

   As the tentacles were quickly sucked back inside the robotic, eight long sword-like blades popped out of its body with a series of clacks, all of them pointing at the women.

   As the robotic started moving toward them, Renata quickly backed up as she continued to drag Richelle with her. Then she whirled Richelle around, and they started to run.

   "Look out!" cried Trent. He began firing round after round at the TERAD, emptying the handgun. He pulled a clip out of his pocket to reload.

   Renata had Richelle by her side; she could sense the robotic was right behind them. She pulled Richelle down to the ground, both of them landing on their hands, intense pain driving up Renata's arm from her injured finger. The TERAD swooped over them. Renata looked up. It had flown past them and was continuing down the passage.

   She got to her feet, dragging Richelle up with her, her eyes continually glancing at the robotic, which continued to move away but seemed to be slowing. She and Edison helped Trent to stand, just as Richelle and Arielle came up beside them. Renata picked up Arielle's Iravano, then looked down the passage again. The TERAD had stopped and had turned back toward them.

   "Run!" she cried. "Run!"

   The group scrambled down the corridor, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the TERAD as they could. As Trent monitored his Vimap, continuing to tell them the TERAD hadn't moved, they raced through one stretch of passage after the next, possessed with a resurgence of energy. An hour passed, then several more. Trent noted the TERAD had moved a distance toward them, but it had curiously stopped again.

   All of a sudden Renata realized they had reached the section of smooth cavern walls near the entrance to the Laramax. They were only a short distance from getting out of the caves. Renata let out with a cry of relief and began leading the way.

*****

After Hunter had checked out Kalo Four's functionality as best as he could, both he and Ramon crossed their fingers as he brought it back online. When the unit was up, he set it to search for the easiest hiking routes to the near-surface passage.

   As the men ran through some online diagnostic routines, as neither of them truly trusted the robotic, Hunter noticed Devon had no fear of it. She kept moving up to it and petting it as if it was a dog while Ramon repeatedly shooed her away for her safety.

   Once the diagnostics were complete, indicating the unit was functioning as designed, Hunter and Ramon found the command to force the Kalo to eject its clawed appendages. Hunter entered it, and there were four loud pops as the appendages were ejected one-by-one from the unit and fell to the ground.

   Hunter then commanded the unit forward at a low speed, and it started moving, its rows of lights sending shimmers of green off the cavern walls.

   Despite what the Vimap told him about the Kalo, Hunter eyed the unit warily as they hiked behind it. He had only his electra, and if the Kalo turned against them, they'd have little means of defending themselves, especially with the injuries they had sustained. When he mentioned his concerns to Ramon, Devon told them not to worry about it, but she wouldn't explain why. In fact, she seemed to be completely fascinated by the robotic now, at times walking directly behind it.

   As the hours passed, every so often the Kalo would get a distance ahead of them and would slip out of sight as it turned a corner or went into a side passage. Each time that happened, Hunter would hurry the others forward, expecting the worst, but each time the robotic would be waiting for them, just as he had ordered it to do. After this happened a number of times, his fears about malfunctions in the robotic began to fade.

   Once they had hiked through a number of long, narrow, mostly upward-leading passages, they came upon an expansive rustyorange room that had hundreds of whitish-orange stalactites hanging down majestically from its high ceiling. There were also numerous mirroring stalagmites on the floor beneath the stalactites. Several deep pools of water were present on both sides of the room, and there were dozens of very thin rivulets of muddy water trailing sinuously down the walls, then into the pools or into cracks in the rocky floor that likely led to deeper sections of the cavern.

   Hunter had the Kalo move into one of the shallower pools and powered it down. The three sat down near a group of magnificent stalactites that hung over a captivating bluish-green pool. As they admired the beauty around them, Hunter handed out some food from his pack.

   "You need to eat something more than that," said Ramon, noticing Devon nibbling on a cracker. He slipped off his backpack and took out some small bluish-gray swistra fruits. He placed them in her hand. "Try these. Not only are they primo, they're loaded with potassium."

   She forced down a couple of the flattened, oval fruits, gagging several times as she did, a pained expression on her face. She followed them with a big drink of water.

   "Now that's just not right," said Hunter. "Swistras aren't supposed to make you do that. They're prized delicacies. And very rare. You won't find them on the menu of many exploration parties, I can tell you that."

   Devon wiped her mouth with her sleeve. "Why not?"

   "Because there's only one Abby Kensington, and she runs our company the way a company should be run. Did you know we have an entire department devoted to food just for the field programs?"

   "Yeah. You won't find any horrid KNA in our supplies." Ramon put his hands around his throat as if he was choking himself. He spoke in a hoarse voice. "If that ever happened, that would bad news. For everyone."

   "Well, I've got some news for you," said Devon.

   "What's that?" asked Hunter.

   "This Abby woman. She doesn't run your company."

   "What's that supposed to mean?" asked Hunter.

   "Exactly what I said." She stared at the three fruits remaining in her hand as if they were poison. "What's this KNA crap you're talking about? Will it make me sick?"

   "You should be so lucky," said Ramon. "I heard about this wedding party a few months ago. Somehow some KNA got mixed into their hors d'oeuvres. After dinner, a bunch of guests had to be rushed to a med facility. Some of those poor bastards were hospitalized for months."

   Devon pushed her hair away from her eyes. "You said bastards. Does that mean KNA doesn't affect women?"