Shasti
rounded the corner and slammed into a Shellycoat.
The monster, made of brick and other debris,
fell backward from their combined weight.
Shasti fell forward, losing Fenaday, who tumbled bonelessly to the
ground.
She hit the ground in a shoulder
roll and blazed away with the carbine at point blank range.
For once, the Shellycoat was brightly lit
directly under a large bio-panel.
She
saw fragments of pale, almost translucent material shredding as the weapon tore
apart the stuff of its body.
Ectoplasm
or such, she wondered, remembering Fenaday’s description of the sensation of
struggling with a Shellycoat in Duna’s darkened library.
The
Shellycoat fell apart as another lurched out of a darkened doorway.
Shasti blasted it.
Her carbine clicked on empty.
Even the particle beam power-pack was
exhausted.
Shasti clawed at her ammo
pouch.
Empty and no time to switch
batteries.
She reversed her grip on the
carbine, preparing to club with it as a third Shellycoat appeared.
Laser
light winked into the Shellycoat, caressing it up and down its middle.
It fell.
She turned to see Fenaday, dazed but awake, up on one knee, the laser
still tied to his wrist by the lanyard.
She
ran over and helped him to his feet.
“What
happened?” he asked hoarsely.
“Where is
everyone?”
“We’ve
got to go, come on.”
Fenaday
followed still shaky and uncertain.
“Li
and Telisan went back the way we came, dragging Mmok.
I don’t know if he’s alive.
We lost Connery and maybe Belwin.
I didn’t see him fall.
All the HCRs are gone, and there are just two
of the crab robots.
The robots are with
them, but so are hordes of Shellycoats.
“Did
you set the timer?” she asked as they scrambled up the roadway.
“No,”
he replied.
“I only opened the first
interlock before the thing moved.
Then
it had me in its control.
Its mind
linked to mine.
I know who he is.”
“Can
that help us?” she asked eagerly.
“No,”
Fenaday said, a great sadness in his voice and eyes.
“He was once a hero of his kind, the greatest
of them, a decorated veteran of a holy war.
But he was sick and insane before our ancestors drew on cave walls.
There is no way to reach through that, not
even his own people could when they imprisoned him here.
“Shasti,
I’ve got to go back to that chamber and try to set the bomb off.”
She
shook her head.
“It’s impossible, at
least for now.
It’s alive with
Shellycoats.
Maybe later; this thing
seems erratic.”
“He’s
almost gone, senile, distracted and weak,” Fenaday said.
“At his full strength, he could rip up the
crust of a world.”
“He’s
still too much for us,” she countered ruefully.
The road became a steep spiral.
They rushed up it, exiting onto one of the broader plazas, which usually
meant a shopping district.
A
dull boom sounded over them.
Walls
shook.
The storefront alongside them
bowed outward, then gave.
“Look
out—” Fenaday shouted.
The weakened
sections of storefront and walls collapsed in with a spray of froth.
A broken water main must have undermined it.
The blast’s harmonic finished the job.
Shasti
moved, but for once, not fast enough.
Falling debris caught her legs.
She went down, and he lost sight of her as the passageway filled with
dust.
Fenaday scrambled back toward her,
choking on dust, searching with his hands in the low light.
“Shasti,” he called in sudden terror.
“Here.”
She
lay pinned under the deadfall.
A metal
beam pressed down on her leg.
“Is
it broken?” he demanded.
“Doesn’t
feel that way,” she gasped, struggling, “but I’m pinned.”
She
had little room to push at the beam, but lent her strength to his, as he
struggled to shift it.
It wouldn’t
budge.
Fenaday searched around for a
tool.
He grabbed a piece of metal
shelving and began digging under the beam.
Careful as he was, an occasional indrawn breath by Shasti let him know
when he was too close to her leg.
“Try
and contact the others,” he gasped.
“My com
unit is fried.
Maybe they can find a way
to us.”
Before
Shasti could say a word, a dragging, thumping sound came from behind them.
Something was coming up the spiral way behind
them.
“Shellycoats,”
she hissed.
He
redoubled his efforts, knowing there wasn’t time.
Shasti
grabbed his shoulder.
“Run,” she
demanded, “run, now.”
“No,”
he snapped, shaking her off and digging.
“God
damn you,” she said, “I’m dead already.
You’ll never find her if you die here.
Go.
Please, go.”
The
sound grew louder, metallic and dragging.
They must be at the last turn,
he thought.
“Go,”
she screamed.
Fenaday
stopped digging and drew his laser.
There might be enough power for one or two shots, maybe three.
He felt oddly calm.
“I have a grenade left,” he said, as if to
reassure her, “we won’t suffer.
I just
want to get a few shots off first.”
Shasti
looked back at him furiously, then her eyes softened and dropped.
She touched a hand to his arm.
“Robert,” she said gently, “you were the only
friend I ever had.”
He
smiled back, touching her hand, then passed the grenade.
His laser came up aimed in the approved
Weaver grip.
Shasti closed her fingers
on the grenade tab.
A
shape came up the curved path in a disjointed rush.
The bioluminescent panels illuminated the
man-shaped target for him.
Just as his
finger tightened, he recognized the scorched and battered shape.
“Cobalt,”
he breathed.
Reaction struck him.
He sank against Shasti, eyes dimming for a
moment.
Shasti put the grenade into her
breast pocket.
Her hand might even have
shaken a little.
“Affirmative,”
Cobalt replied.
“I am damaged to level
A-7 and out of communication with HCR controller.
Request extraction and repair.”
“Me
too,” Shasti said.
“Don’t
tell me that wasn’t a joke,” Fenaday said, gathering himself together.
“Cobalt, get over here.
Analyze this beam and lift it with minimum
risk of bringing down the rest of it on Shasti.
I will pull her directly away.”
The
robot’s CPU analyzed the requests, and Cobalt bent over the beam.
It began to lift.
Shasti hissed in pain as more debris started
to fall and shift.
Fenaday seized her
under her shoulders, pulling as soon as he could see clearance.
She came free.
He had to drag her backwards as more of the
wall came down, threatening to catch them again.
Cobalt warded off the biggest pieces as they
retreated.
Fenaday got his shoulder
under the tall woman’s arm.
They made
the next crossway before stopping.
“Cobalt,”
Shasti asked, pain twisting her face, “do you have X-ray capability?”
“Affirmative.
Left ocular only.
The right is disabled.”
“Scan
my right leg.
Don’t exceed rads safe for
a standard human.
Is there a fracture?”
“Negative
on fracture,” Cobalt returned.
“Good,”
Shasti said.
“Robert, help me up.”
“Are
you sure you don’t need a splint?” he asked anxiously.
He looked around for something to use as a
crutch, but there was nothing nearby.
“Won’t
be necessary,” she said, strain still present in her voice.
“We Engineered have two settings: on and
dead.”
She climbed to her feet with
Fenaday’s help.
They started off with
the robot trailing.
Her height made it
easy to lean on him, but she weighed more than he did, so they made progress
slowly.
“No
more chocolate for you, young lady,” he said wryly.
She rewarded him with a trademark Shasti
glare.
“Well, perhaps less pasta.”
“Better,”
she replied.
“I can lean on the HCR if
you prefer.”
“No,”
he said.
“Cobalt, take my laser.
Provide security.”
Cobalt
took the weapon from him, examining it.
“Permission to direct feed to the laser.”
“Huh?”
he said, as they started forward again.
“The
gun is nearly empty,” Shasti reminded him, grunting a little as she put more
weight on the leg.
“The HCR can run a
power cable into it and power the weapon off its own reactor.
You have got to learn to pay more attention
to these details.”
“Nag,
nag, nag,” he said.
“Okay, Cobalt,
permission granted.”
They
made their way through a cross-corridor.
By the time they’d gone a mile, Shasti, to Fenaday’s amazement, could
walk on her own, though with a limp.
“My
body is better designed than yours,” she modestly reminded him.
“I hardly have a shock mechanism.
My metabolism generates its own
anti-inflammatory agents, painkiller and antibiotics.”
“And
you’re pretty too.”
“Nice
of you to notice,” she replied.
Aided
by Cobalt, they continued upward.
Shasti
found a long pole for a combination of staff and cane.
The robot’s sensors made their path sure,
saving them many a blind alley.
No more
Shellycoats attacked.
The roaring sound
of the monster’s mind faded to where they were no longer sure if they hadn’t imagined
it.
It seemed the Prekak had slipped
into inactivity.
For now Fenaday refused
to plan farther ahead than reaching the surface, sunlight and air.
They would somehow have to reattempt the
chamber, when they were rearmed, healed and rested.
Yet, Fenaday doubted they would have the time
or strength for a second attempt.
He
began to hope only to die in the open.
As
they neared the surface, Shasti pointed ahead of them.
“Look,” she demanded, “Telisan and Li.”
“Hey,”
Fenaday yelled.
“Over here.”
Telisan
gave a cry of joy at seeing his friends.
The two stopped dragging Mmok on a travois they’d improvised from their
jackets.
Gently, they laid Mmok down as
Fenaday and Shasti hobbled up to them.
The survivors all embraced.
“We
feared thee both were dead,” Telisan said.
“Hey,
top soldier,” Li grinned, slapping Shasti on the arm.
She smiled back and thumped the man on the
chest with a playful fist, almost knocking him down.
“How
is Mmok?” Fenaday asked, kneeling to look at the unconscious cyborg.
He seemed as burnt and battered as Cobalt.
“Still
unconscious,” said a clearly exhausted Telisan.
“We fought our way back, pursued almost every step of the way.
When the robots ran out of ammunition, we
ordered them to self-destruct, collapsing the tunnels behind us.
We ran into a few more Shellycoats, but we
were able to destroy them.
They’re not
as tough as the ones in the chamber, or we would never have made it.”
“Let’s
get to the surface,” Fenaday said.
“We’ll
regroup up there.”
With
Cobalt’s help, they picked up the travois and made their way to the
surface.
They came up not far from where
they entered, though by another subsurface roadway that opened onto a
hillside.
Relief and joy at seeing the
sun and sky temporarily removed the bitter taste of their defeat.
Telisan’s
com came to life with a crackle.
“This
is Duna.
Is there anyone left?
This is Duna.”
The
Denlenn’s leathery face convulsed.
“Belwin, where are you?”
“My
son, my son, you live,” came the whispered voice.
“Oh, I am so glad.”
“Where
are you?” Telisan demanded.
“We will
come for you.”