Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra (64 page)

By the time they finished eating, night covered them with its blanket of stars. Treet and Calin followed Crocker's example and fished their pallets from the robocarrier and unrolled them next to the fire. The pallets were made of a soft foam bottom layer bonded to double layers of a heat-reflective blanket material. Weary travelers would slip between these blankets and sleep comfortably all night.

But Treet did not sleep well. He lay for a long time listening to the enormous silence of the hill country, watching the impossibly bright stars glaring down at him from a firmament that shone like the inside of a burnished iron bowl.

He could not stop thinking about what lay ahead, could not help but think that he was hopelessly unequal to the task and foolish for even considering that what he might do could make any difference. He had no plan, no weapons, no help that he could count on. Visions of futility shimmered in the flames beside him as he lay on his arm, gazing into the fire.

The fire had burned itself out when he awoke again. The night was bright with stars, and he sat up. Calin kneeled over him; her touch had awakened him—that and an odd sound: someone moaning pitifully.

“What?” he asked. “Crocker?”

The pilot groaned again, this time a deep, guttural sound like that of a wild animal—a wolf perhaps, readying itself to attack. Treet pulled his feet from the pallet's envelope and went to Crocker, put his hand on his shoulder, and jostled him gently. “Crocker, wake up. You're having a bad dream. Crocker?”

The man growled again, savagely, and came up, muscles tense and rigid, teeth flashing in the cold starlight. “No!” he shouted. “No! Ahh!” His eyes bulged. Sweat glistened on his forehead.

“Take it easy, Crocker,” said Treet. “You're having a nightmare. It's over now. You're here with us. You're safe.”

In a moment Crocker relaxed, the tension leaving his muscles all at once. “I—don't know what came over me,” he said, shaking his head and rubbing his neck. “It was like a—I don't know—like I was frozen inside a block of ice, or fire, or something. I couldn't break out. I was dying.”

“It was only a dream. You're okay now. Take a deep breath.”

He lay back down and was asleep seconds later. Treet was not so lucky. He lay awake waiting for Crocker to dream again, but heard only the heavy, rhythmic breathing of deep sleep. After a while he felt a light touch on his arm and glanced up to see Calin's face above his. “No, I'm not asleep,” he said softly.

The magician came around and bent close to him. Treet lifted the blanket and let her slide in beside him. He wrapped his arms around her and held her body close. The comfort in that simple act sent waves of pleasure washing through his soul. Entwined together, they slept until morning.

Crocker
sat watching them when Treet awoke. The sun was barely touching a pearl-gray eastern sky, and a light wind stirred the longer blades of grass on the hilltops. Treet came fully awake the second he saw Crocker's face—half of it was smeared down, as if someone had run a torch over the left side of a wax mannequin's face. His eyes were lusterless, dead. His mouth pulled down on one side and up on the other in a ridiculous, ghoulish grimace.

“Crocker!” Treet cried. Calin started from sleep and looked up, cowering.

Treet disentangled himself from his bedroll and got to his feet. The pilot looked at him dully and then began to laugh. It was a ghastly sound—hollow, disembodied, half mocking, half pitying. He stopped abruptly, like a recording switched off.

“What's wrong with you? What's so funny?” asked Treet, shaken. Calin cringed.

“Wrong? Nothing's wrong.” His voice was soft. Too soft. “I was just thinking … what a shame to waste it… eh?”

“Waste what? What are you talking about?” Treet took a step closer. Crocker threw up a hand to stop him.

“Your girlfriends—I don't see what they see in you.”

Jealousy? Was that it? Crocker had never shown anything like that before. “Look,” Treet said, “you had us worried last night. You had a nightmare—remember?”

Crocker rose, yawned, stretched his arms out wide. Treet noticed the tremendous reach of those long arms. “I slept like a baby.” His lips twitched into a wolfish grin. “So did you, it looks like.”

“She was scared,” said Treet, then wondered why he was explaining. “So was I. You really had us going.”

“Speaking of going …” Crocker stooped, rolled up his pallet, and stuffed it into the carrier. “Let's get it over with.”

He watched while Treet and Calin put away their bedrolls, then turned and headed off. When he had passed from earshot, Treet whispered to Calin, “We've got to keep an eye on him. Something's wrong.”

She nodded, but said nothing, and they started off once more.

By midmorning they had reached the halfway point, Treet estimated. They sat down on a hilltop to eat some dried fruit. “We ought to be able to see it soon,” he said.

Crocker nodded, chewed silently, and swallowed.

“We should probably talk about how we're going to get inside.”

“Plenty of time later,” said Crocker.

“Okay. Sure. Later.”

When they moved on, Crocker fell behind them, shuffling along flatfootedly now, where before he'd swung his long legs in an efficient, ground-eating stride. Calin hung close to Treet's left hand, glancing back at regular intervals. Treet refrained from looking back, but once, when he could stand it no longer, he peered over his shoulder to see Crocker's mouth working silently, as if he were debating with himself. Crocker stopped when he saw that Treet was looking.

They stopped a few hours later for their first good look at Dome. The sun was high overhead, blazing in the crystal facets of its enormous webwork with white brilliance. From this distance, it would have been easy to mistake the structure for a glass mountain whose peaks and tors glittered as the sun's rays played over its polished surface. From a closer vantage point, individual sections of dome clusters would be seen, giving Dome the appearance of a mound of soap bubbles dropped on an endless flat lawn.

“There it is,” said Crocker through his teeth. He turned to Treet, but looked through him.

Treet glanced away. “We can be there in a couple of hours. We'll have plenty of time before sundown to find a way inside …
if
Tvrdy is still watching, that is.”

They started down the hill to the last valley before the long, gradual climb to Dome's low plateau. Crocker fell behind again, and Treet halted when he reached the bottom of the hill to wait for the pilot to catch up. Crocker waved him on. Treet, with Calin stuck like a second shadow to his side, continued on, growing increasingly worried. Something was terribly wrong with Crocker, he knew. What? Nerves? Treet was nervous himself; it wasn't that. It was something deeper, more sinister.

After walking for an hour or so, now beginning the trek up the slope to the plateau, Treet looked around to see Crocker, his back turned, standing over the carrier. “Anything the matter?” he hollered back.

“Yeah, this robot is jammed up. It can't make the climb. We'll have to leave some of the gear.”

“Stay here,” Treet told Calin under his breath.

Calin, staring down at Crocker, nodded. As Treet turned away, he felt her hand on his sleeve. “Be careful,” she whispered.

“What's the problem?” he asked as he joined Crocker. The man was sweating through his clothes.

“I don't know. I heard it laboring, and I looked back and it was stuck.”

“We've had tougher climbs than this. It always made them before.”

The pilot shrugged. “Maybe its gears are shot.”

“Let's take some of the stuff out and see if that helps.” Treet bent over the carrier and started undoing the straps that held down the webbing. “Are you going to stand there or are you going to help?”

Crocker stood rock still.

Treet stooped, pulling articles from the three-wheeled robot. “Well?” He looked back just in time to see Crocker's arm swinging down in a murderous stroke, sunlight gleaming on the object in his hand. Calin screamed.

Treet ducked, but the blow caught him on the top of his right shoulder, missing his head, but smashing the median nerve into the clavicle. His arm fell to his side, paralyzed. Blinding pain flared from the shoulder a microsecond later.

Treet collapsed and rolled on his back to avoid the next strike. He started screaming “Crocker! What are you doing! It's me, Treet! Treet! Crocker! Stop! Sto-o-p-p!”

The metal bar blurred in the air. Treet squirmed on the ground, dodging away as best he could, as the improvised weapon dug a little furrow in the dirt bare centimeters from his left temple.

Treet heard another shout and saw Calin flying to his aid, arms flailing. She attacked her heavier adversary with her claws, raking red welts into the side of his face and neck. The pilot threw her off, but she was at him again, scratching like a she-cat. A slashing backhand blow sent her spinning into a heap.

The diversion had allowed Treet to get to his feet, however. He lunged toward Crocker, his useless arm dangling. He thought to knock the mad pilot off-balance and somehow wrest the bar away from him.

Crocker, with the quickness of the insane, roared and jumped to the side, wielding the short length of metal in a deadly arc. The swing grazed Treet on the lower jaw, tearing a ragged gash along the jawline. Blood spilled down the side of his throat. “Crocker,” he said, gulping for breath, “in the name of God, give it up.”

The pilot lunged again, a strangled, inhuman sound bubbling from his throat, his eyes flecked with blood. With dreadful clarity, Treet's pain-dazzled brain registered that Crocker meant to kill him. His only hope now was flight; he could try to outrun his assailant and escape, or at least put some distance between them until Crocker came to his senses.

He turned to flee, shouting, “Run, Calin! Run for it!” The magician had circled around Crocker and now stood only a meter or two to Treet's right. She did not move. Her eyes were half-closed and her face rigid in concentration. “Calin!”

Treet flung out his good hand, snagged Calin by the arm, spun her around, and shoved her forward all in the same motion. He felt a sharp jab in his upper back, and then the force of the thrust wheeled him sideways. He tripped over himself and fell headlong to the ground.

He landed on his right side. His dead right arm failed to break his fall, and he hit hard. The air rushed from his lungs in a terrific gasp. Black circles with blue-white edges dimmed his eyesight. He heard himself yelling for Calin to run for it.

Standing over him now, Crocker, with a mighty snarl of rage, brought the metal bar down with both hands from high over his head. Too late to dodge, Treet threw his left hand up to divert the blow, expecting to see his forearm splinter as the heavy bar slashed down upon it. The second stroke would crush his skull like an eggshell.

Instead, he saw the metal bar fall with lethal accuracy only to glance aside at the last second. One instant it was a deadly blur descending toward him, the next it was sliding away. He was untouched.

Crocker appeared dazed. The weapon dangled in his hand. Treet threw himself at it, grabbed. With only one hand, Treet could not hope to hang on. The weapon slid by centimeters from his fingers as Crocker's superior strength overcame his single-handed grasp. The pilot kicked out; Treet's knee buckled and he toppled.

The pilot staggered back, clenching the bar in his upraised hands. Howling, he swung the bar down. Treet's eyes closed reflexively. Again the bar bounced harmlessly aside before impact.

Crocker roared in pain—like a berserk rogue elephant stung by the dart of a keeper. He whirled away.

“Calin!” Treet struggled to his knees. The magician stood with one hand upraised, her eyes closed, sight turned inward. Treet recognized the posture as her trance state. “Calin, look out!”

Crocker's furious lunge drove the end of the metal bar into Calin's neck. They both fell together, Crocker sprawling headlong over his victim. The metal bar rolled on the ground. Treet scooped it up with his left hand and swung blindly at Crocker's huddled form.

The bar, awkward in his hand, slipped as he struck out, catching the pilot on the hip. Treet glanced down and saw his hand dripping red; the bar was slick with Calin's blood.

Crocker gathered his long frame to spring. Treet braced himself, raising the bar. The pilot rushed forward with a howl, his face twisted almost beyond recognition: eyes bugging out, mouth gaping, jaws slack, tongue lolling. The bar thumped ineffectually on Crocker's chest and bounced out of Treet's grasp as he stumbled backward.

He lay facedown, panting, knowing that even as he thought it, the metal bar was closing on his skull. He waited. Rather than the sound of metal singing through the air to splatter his gray matter over the turf, he heard an odd grunting noise and the faint whir of a machine. Treet glanced up to see the demented pilot limping away, the little robocarrier rolling after him.

Crocker's body jerked spasmodically, arms loose, legs stumping woodenly, shoulders rolling. He looked like a puppet whose strings were fouled. As he lurched along, a loathsome gagging sound came from his throat. With a shudder, Treet realized the pilot was weeping.

On hands and knees he crawled to Calin's side and gathered her up. The wound was deep. The bar had been plunged into the soft flesh of her throat and ripped upward, leaving a ragged hole. Blood streamed from the hideous wound; her jacket was drenched in crimson and sticky to the touch.