Was Once a Hero

chapter Sixteen





Before seeking his bed, Fenaday made a tour of the guard posts. Nothing moved in the tomb Barjan had become. The sky remained clear. Stars formed unfamiliar constellations over his head, crowned by a view of the galactic core unblocked by nebula or clouds. Enshar’s moonless but brilliant night sky gave him an extra feeling of security—their enemy seemed to prefer full darkness.

After he reviewed the defenses, he headed for ambassadorial quarters. Rank, after all, did have some few privileges still attached. He collapsed onto the bed gratefully. He was nearly asleep when he heard someone enter the room.

Without speaking, Shasti joined him on the bed. He turned toward her, looking a question. She laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. With the padding of four feet and the clicking of nails, Risky joined them. He circled at the foot of the bed a few times before settling in with an immense yawn on the rug. Fenaday dropped off instantly.

When he woke some hours later, he reached for her, still half asleep, and said Lisa’s name.

“No,” she whispered.

It brought him fully awake. “God, Shasti, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she replied. “I am not trying to take anyone’s place. I am here, now, and for my own reasons.” She reached for him. They made love, quickly and urgently, both believing it might be the last time, the last touch.

They fell asleep again in each other’s arms. Then something wet and cold touched Fenaday’s butt. He jumped. Claws clicked on the floor. Risky was awake, too. Shasti struggled to smother a laugh.

He glared at her in the semi-darkness of the room. “A thing like that can give a guy a complex.”

Shasti lost her battle with the laugh and it burst out, a surprisingly high-pitched and girlish laugh for Death’s Angel.

“Oh well,” he grumbled, “I might as well get up. It’s near three, and I doubt I could fall asleep again after that.”

The showers at the embassy still worked. Embassies serving different species had to be, for necessity, nearly self-sufficient little fortresses. Even on a world as friendly and civilized as Enshar, the embassy followed the standard pattern with its own gravity-fed water supply. Shasti joined him in the shower. They enjoyed the utter luxury of being completely clean. When they came out, they dressed in the fresh uniforms that had been among the last supplies dropped in by the Wildcats. They left their old clothes in a pile for the laundry detail to collect, as no one knew how long they would be down-world. The little details of being alive, from toilet paper and soap to ammunition, all required tending.

Their personal weapons they kept with them. The rest of the gear they would pick up downstairs. It felt odd, he thought, sitting on the bed and sorting uniform parts. Here we are getting ready to crawl into a dead city, on the hope of blasting some unseen monster to bits with an atom bomb, and the day begins with trying to find two socks that fit. The ordinariness of it seemed bizarre. It felt more like going away on a camping trip. The heartsick fear that gripped him on the night before the landing was missing. He didn’t know why; maybe it was that ‘good day to die’ people talked about.

Shasti was her usual contained self. She gave him the look she sometimes used for a smile, though he could see her mind was already on the task ahead. Concentration was rarely less than total with Shasti. In that much, she proved true to the sports-minded founders of Olympia.

Risky wagged his tail, clearly figuring himself as part of the adventure, but they had no plans to take the dog. K-9s were highly trained, but Shasti had not had him long enough for the dog to recognize her as his handler. He might bolt. They could not afford such distractions.

As if reading his mind, Shasti looked up from petting him. “There’s no reason he can’t stay with us through breakfast,” she said.

“None,” he replied, “provided he keeps his nose to himself.”

They left the room, which had been a little island of warmth for them, and headed downstairs. Fenaday’s chronometer read 2:17 A.M. The other members of the team would be awake soon. Telisan had organized a mess hall the day before. Food, and more important, fresh hot coffee awaited them. Fenaday grabbed a few sausage and egg sandwiches while Shasti made up a bowl for Risky.

Telisan, who never seemed to need sleep, sat at a table sipping coffee, a human vice he acquired in the Confed navy. He smiled broadly at the two of them as they came down the stairs. Fenaday tried to forgive the Denlenn for his morning cheerfulness. At least he was quiet about it.

“Sleep well?” Telisan asked.

“Yes, very,” Fenaday replied.

“Ah, good,” said the Denlenn, smiling.

Shasti joined them on the couch. The Denlenn grinned even more broadly at her. She looked back at him, “Something?” she asked.

“Mere envy,” Telisan sighed.

Fenaday began to wonder if he had their room bugged. To his surprise, Shasti returned the Denlenn’s grin.

Duna padded down the stairs next. Fenaday did not know what a sleepy Enshari looked like, but he suspected it looked very much like Belwin Duna. Next came Connery, Li and Mmok. Only the half-cyborg looked in any condition to face the day. He always radiated a metallic coldness, crisp and alert. Daniel Rigg walked in almost on their heels.

With the arrival of the others, the Shasti of last night disappeared, replaced by her expressionless, no-nonsense self. She finished her food and left to check equipment. Everyone began doing last-minute teardowns and cleaning of weapons. Fenaday checked each person for full canteens, a day’s rations, reloads, flares and torches. They went over the detonation procedures. Mmok made them simple but impossible to do by accident.

After everyone had their gear on, Rigg walked with them down the main hall to the front entrance. Guards on the windows called out good luck. Fenaday was surprised to see a cluster of people at the entranceway. The Tok brothers stood there. They had bitterly protested being left out of the assault force, but Hanshi was their only other pilot and Lokashti walked with a bad limp. Most of the medical team with Dr. Mourner showed up along with Rask, Bernard, Fury and Morgan.

The Tok bothers took their leave of Shasti, gripping her by both arms. Fenaday shook hands with the doctors and the others. “Go get 'em, skipper,” Bernard said.

Angelica Fury looked at him. “I’ll see to Micetich,” she said, “if there’s a need.”

“Thanks, do that,” he said.

“Best of luck, Robert,” Mourner said, echoed by Yamata and Vashti. They shook hands with each member of the team.

Shasti held Risky’s collar and snapped an improvised leash on him. She handed it to Daniel Rigg. “Look out for him if we don’t get back,” she said.

Rigg nodded. “You’ll do okay,” he said with the casual assurance sergeants dispense before battles. “We’ll see you on toward nightfall. I don’t have to tell you anything. You’ll be okay.”

She nodded. “Look after him anyway, though.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. If you don’t make it back though, he may be looking after us. He’s got the track record on survival.”

“I hate long good-byes,” Fenaday said impatiently.

“OK, let’s go to work, people,” Telisan announced, lapsing into Confed military slang, from his normally formal standard. They boarded the M-2 Rask brought to the front. All three surviving HCRs stood around the truck, motionless in the pre-dawn light. The utility robots, including the one with the bomb on board, latched themselves into position. Eight other crab assault models already hung off the truck. It looked as if flat-gray beach creatures were consuming the vehicle.

Fenaday and the other spacers boarded the M-2. Mmok’s saucer-like reconnaissance robot circled overhead on guard. Duna, Telisan, Shasti and Fenaday rode in the armored box of the cargo platform, glad for their leather flight jackets. Barjan had something in common with the desert: it was windy, and with the sun down, the wind was damn cold. Shasti slid up and into the ring containing the light caliber cannon Rask had mounted, hitting the charging handle on the weapon.

The M-2 hummed to life, pulling away from the embassy. A cheer went up from the spacers left behind. As the M-2 rumbled down the driveway, the gate guards pulled down the barrier wire to let them through the perimeter. Shasti’s Landing Force troops joined the ASATs in a salute.

“There is rather an air of finality about these farewells,” Duna observed pensively.

“Well, we have very little chance,” Shasti said.

Fenaday looked at her.

“But maybe we’ll get lucky,” she added.

Telisan shook his head ruefully.

“It could happen,” Fenaday insisted.

Duna grumbled something in Enshari that made Telisan laugh and went back to surveying the landscape. Fenaday rested his tri-auto on the cab, watching the HCRs pace the slow-moving M-2 as they wove around debris and vehicles, heading for the city.

The domes and half-domes of the city became clearer as the morning light strengthened. Half-domes were generally industrial or offices. They rose to considerable height but had none of the dizzying perspective of a Terran skyscraper. There were a few ruined towers as well. Up closer, the devastation was more evident. Bones lay everywhere. Empty window frames gave the domed buildings a skull-like appearance. They grew used to the crunching sound of tiny Enshari bones under the M-2’s bulletproof wheels. Fenaday consoled himself with the knowledge that the dead wouldn’t mind the desecration, knowing their mission of vengeance. Still, the scene was oppressive. The courage of morning coffee and a full breakfast faded before the evidence of their unseen enemy’s power.

Fenaday turned to Telisan. The Denlenn seemed the most affected by the sight of the dead city. Maybe it reminded him of what he had seen, or perhaps even caused, during the war. The grim countenance of his usually optimistic and self-assured friend worried Fenaday. He had come to rely on the Denlenn’s sense of humor when things looked dark.

“When we get out of this,” Fenaday said abruptly, “we’ll go up to where the fighters augured in. We’ll locate your folks, your friend’s brother and give everybody a decent burial. Least we could do, I think.”

The Denlenn turned his golden, cat-irised eyes toward the human. “I thank thee, my friend. If we live, we shall do that, but in truth I do not think we will live. A whole world fell to this enemy.”

“If Duna is right,” said Fenaday slowly, “if we’re facing this ancient enemy he suspects, it must be very old. I’ve been trying to remember what I felt when I was in physical contact with the Shellycoat we fought in Duna’s library. I told you before that it felt like I was in communication, receiving something from it. It’s difficult, like recalling a dream after you wake up. The more you concentrate on it, the more it fades. You’re left with the doubt that you dreamt anything at all.

“I felt a sense of great age and a terrible anger. The anger, I think, was directed at the Enshari rather than any of us. There’s more, much more, but that’s what I have the most trouble remembering. It’s easier to gather impressions than images. I recall a feeling of weakness and confusion, a lack of focus in the thing. Otherwise, I think it would have killed me.”

Fenaday looked the Denlenn in the eye. “After two hundred thousand years, is it possible that our enemy might be senile?”

“Who knows?” murmured Telisan. “It might be. It just might be the case. The attacks on us have varied, some with intelligence and at least a degree of cunning, some not. None displayed the coordinated brilliance of the original two assaults.”

“Let’s hope the thing doesn’t have a lucid moment while we’re trying to put it to sleep permanently,” Fenaday said. “It wouldn’t take much more to finish us off.”

They came to an area impassable to the vehicles. Bones and bits of bodies were strewn everywhere. Vehicles of all descriptions, from trucks and aircars to small motorcycles, formed a nearly solid mass.

“We’re within three hundred meters of the main roadway leading down to Barjan Old Town,” Mmok said. “From here, we walk.”

Crab robots popped off the truck like fleas and moved up to join the three human-form robots. Utility robots, carrying supplies and the warhead, came off the truck more slowly. Fenaday and the others picked up their equipment and shouldered weapons. They formed up in the center of the robot force and began to walk down the sloping road to the tunnel entrance, where the roadway dropped into the earth.

As they reached the entrance, Fenaday stopped, looking around a last time at the sunlight and sky. Then, taking a deep breath, he stepped across the terminator thrown by the roof of the tunnel. They started down the gentle slope, around wrecked vehicles and in some cases, over them.

The humans stuck close to the Enshari. He steered Mmok. Mmok steered the robots. Spotlights popped from the crab robot’s bodies lighting up the area. The spacers saved their torches and lanterns for later need. The robot’s power supplies were more than adequate for months of such use.

As Duna had promised, the lights proved unnecessary. The bioluminescent panels the Enshari were so fond of dotted the roof of the tunnel, though the light was dimmer than humans liked. As they crunched through a vast bone yard, hunting an enemy that might form around them in a nightmarish second, they were happy for the spotlights.

Shellycoats were not the only enemy to be feared. They faced bad footing, flooding, and decay in the city itself. Barjan had suffered many fires. Without intelligent agency to stop them, the fires caused widespread damage.

The smell of old smoke filled their noses, as did the smell of damp and rot. These eased only when they passed a shaftway. Fortunately, shaftways were common both for light and ventilation. Some penetrated only dozens of meters. Others dropped off to unguessable depths.

They wound down the roadway until they reached a collapsed section. Then Duna began to take them down the side streets of the city. As they moved, Shasti drew luminous ranger marks at every turn. The robots and Mmok could find the way back with ease, but Fenaday wanted to take no chances of becoming lost.

Animal life constantly skittered away from them. Enshar’s equivalents of rats, mice, bats and other burrowing life had moved unchecked into the city’s corpse. Mmok’s robots could sense further than the humans and were programmed to fire on moving targets closing on them or standing their ground. The non-enhanced members of the group found themselves starting at sounds, snapping up weapons at any sound or movement. Fenaday finally ordered everyone but Shasti to shoulder their weapons for fear of wild shooting.

“I thought it would be silent,” said Shasti, at one rest stop.

Fenaday looked at her in surprise, realizing she was correct. His brain had tuned out most sounds, other than those of the animals. Barjan was far from silent. Metal creaked and groaned as it expanded and contracted. Water dripped. Air currents wafting past them emitted a soft sound as well, nearly flute-like. He looked up to see a small bundle of pipes on the ceiling.

Duna caught his gaze. “My people developed in caves and caverns,” he said, “the song of wind through rocks is almost lulling, part of the ambiance.”

“My people feel the same way about wind chimes,” said Li, from his seat on a small powered cart.

“On Denla we prize the sound of the ocean,” Telisan said. “We make many different types of machines and waterfalls so that the sound of rushing water is always near.

“What sounds are the Irish fond of?” Telisan asked.

Fenaday thought a moment. “Potatoes growing.”

Shasti sighed.

“Now, Captain, you know it’s the bagpipes that make the sound of Eire,” Connery said.

“What does that sound like?” Duna asked.

“Imagine a man strangling a cat,” replied Li, “while biting it on the tail.”

“I will try,” Duna said dubiously.

Fenaday smiled. “It’s time to go.” He turned to Duna. “Which way?” he said, looking at the bewildering maze of tunnels and caverns around them.

“We designed our cities for mass transit,” Duna said, standing and brushing dust off his uniform, “with an abundance of walkways and trams. None of these still operate though. I fear we must simply travel by the underground streets.”

The streets started off as broad thoroughfares in the commercial areas, where small carts supplemented pneumatic tubing as a means of delivering goods. As the spacers moved into residential districts in their downward course, they began to narrow. On either side of them, stacked up in the thirty-meter diameter passageways, stood Enshari apartments. Occasionally, a well-off family had a separate, circular home, with a small garden of fungus or other dark-loving plant life.

The thought of all the slaughtered families lying in the underground apartments nearly broke their nerves. They forged forward, close to each other, casting anxious glances in all directions. Only Shasti and Mmok seemed unaffected by the oppressive atmosphere. Mmok idly kicked bones out of his path in a move that made Fenaday’s teeth grate.

“Have a care with your feet,” he finally snapped at the cyborg.

“Quit giving me orders, pirate.” Mmok glared contemptuously. “I work for Mandela.”

Fenaday felt his own temper flash in response. He dropped a hand to brush the holster of his weapon. Mmok’s single eye noted the gesture. He smiled coldly. His wolfish grin dimmed as he noticed Rainhell’s weapon already on him. Shasti smiled back equally coldly. The robots stopped moving.

“I fear,” Duna said, “that you are not seeing Barjan at its best. It was not always such a darksome place. It was filled with light and laughter when I was here last. Very reminiscent of your Paris, Captain.”

“Never been there,” Fenaday said tightly.

“You should go, when we get back,” said the little Enshari, as if nothing were wrong. “Mr. Mmok, if I read my map right, we go down this spiral stairway to the next level.”

Mmok and the robots started moving again.

Fenaday spotted Telisan. The Denlenn had drifted to where he had a clean shot at Mmok. His heavy laser pistol sat in its holster, but Fenaday spotted something small and black in Telisan’s long-fingered hand. The Denlenn palmed the device and walked up to pat Fenaday on the shoulder.

“He is good. Is he not?” Telisan said.

“He’s got my vote,” Fenaday whispered back.

Their larger feet managed the broad, shallow Enshari stairs easily and they dropped another level. The side of the combination road-stairwell opened to the left. As if to back up Duna’s earlier assertions of Barjan’s beauty, it yielded a view of a wide cavernous space. In it they could see a formerly prosperous section of Barjan, lit by Mur’s light pouring down the shaftways. Arches buttressed the roof sections. Hundreds of the larger Enshari domes dotted small plots of lawn, like delicate mushrooms in creams and gold. A fountain sparkled under a shaft of sunlight, too far away to be heard. Fenaday wondered what kept it going. Perhaps it was gravity fed, like the embassy. There was a hushed, cathedral-like feeling to the scene. It looked as if any moment, people would begin to stream, quietly and orderly, into view. The space was large enough for a cold wind to be blowing.

“Tis a damned shame,” Connery said suddenly. Li nodded and zipped his jacket against the breeze.

“Yes,” Fenaday agreed, shivering despite his jacket.

“Thank you, my friends,” Duna said, his voice low.

“We should get moving,” Mmok said. “We have to settle the hash of whatever did this so it does not happen again.”

Fenaday looked at him. “No argument there.”

They continued down the broad staircase with glances at the ruins of Barjan. The next level was particularly dark, and they moved through it cautiously, splashing through ill-smelling puddles when they could find no way around.

Duna turned, coming out of a narrow side street onto a broader roadway. “We are just above Barjan Old Town now. The area will be, for the most part, smaller and older. In some places, it will be uncomfortable for you, Shasti, because of your height. The temperature should remain fairly steady. Do not fear its older appearance. The area was always well maintained. Modern engineering supports the roof sections.

“I hope to reach the area of new construction soon. It will be more comfortable for you large folk. It will also mean we are near the site of the archeological dig. They were erecting new homes when they found the vault.”

“We are going to feel real damn silly,” Mmok said, “if we get there, and there is no bogeyman.”

“It’ll be worse than that,” Fenaday added. “Where do we go looking for our enemy then?”

Mmok grunted.

They walked into the oldest section of a city built before the other species of the Confederacy discovered fire. An atmosphere of age was omnipresent. Carved or painted decorations covered every square inch of the walls around them. Smaller Enshari structures served as museums or shops. Fewer Enshari dead lay underfoot. The spacers saw no evidence of powered vehicles. Here and there, a cart or pedicycle stood among the bones of its former owner.

The team walked on for the better part of an hour, descending through levels in various stages of preservation.

“These levels were once very near the surface,” said Duna, “back in Barjan’s youth. Like Earth’s Troy, the city has been built and destroyed several times and settled in on itself. The original rock and wood would have made for perilous mining, but there are no greater subterranean engineers than the Enshari. Look up.”

They all gazed at the ceilings. Broad beams of metal ran through them, with spider webs of thinner metals radiating off them.

“Engineered lattices of nuclear dense metals,” continued Duna, “indifferent to loads, hold up the city above. It is a very good thing that tectonic plate movements on Enshar are so docile. The rare earthquakes that have happened were utter disasters in our history, and one of the reasons the city had been rebuilt and re-dug several times.”

The team broke out into a wider, open section, lit by the ever-present bioluminescent panels.

“Here is the new section I promised,” said Duna. “You can see the homes here are of different styles than the usual domes.”

“Yes,” said Telisan. “I see one that looks like a Denleni design.” He pointed to an elven construction of delicately carved wood and stained glass against one wall.

Fenaday saw a house that looked vaguely Colonial-human. The Enshari who had sought to recolonize the preserved and abandoned old town area were non-traditionalists in every sense.

“Open up your intervals,” Mmok growled. “One grenade would get all of you.”

They spread, out glad for the space. Mmok sent Vermilion, fleet and silent, ahead to scout. They walked on, alert, moving slowly.

Suddenly the robots stopped. Mmok raised a hand in a signal, sinking to one knee. Everyone’s hands flew to weapons as they leapt for the nearest cover. Fenaday squatted next to Mmok. The man turned his metallic, artificial eye toward Fenaday. “I am looking through Vermilion’s scanner. I see open ground and digging equipment.”

“We have arrived,” Fenaday whispered.