Deepsix

PROLOGUE

October 2204

"They went in there." Sherry pointed.

The afternoon was quiet and deadly still The sun rode in a cloudless sky, It was not, of course, a bright sun. The dusty Quiveras Cloud, within which this system had drifted for three thousand years, prevented that. Randall Nightingale looked around at the trees and the river and the plain behind him, and considered how rare, in this equatorial place, was a summer's day.

In his mind, he replayed the screams. And the staccato sounds of the stinger blasts.

His pilot. Cookie, was checking his weapon. Tatia shook her head, wondering how Gappy could have been so dumb as to wander off. She was redheaded, young, quiet. Her usually congenial expression was bleak.

Andi watched the line of trees the way one might watch a prowling tiger.

Capanelli and his two colleagues had started just after dawn, Sherry explained again. They'd entered the forest despite the prohibition against getting out of sight of the lander. And they hadn't come out.

"But you must have heard what happened," said Nightingale. The three members of the party had been wearing e-suits and talking to each other on the allcom.

She looked, embarrassed. "I went in the washroom. Tess called me when it started to happen." Tess was the AI. "When I got out, it was over. There was nothing." Her lip trembled, and she looked on the edge of hysteria. Tess had recorded a few seconds of screams. And that was all they had.

Nightingale tried calling them, and heard only a carrier wave. "Okay," he said. "Let's go."

"All of us?" asked Andi. She was blond, chunky, usually full of wisecracks. One of the boys. At the moment, she was strictly business.

"Strength in numbers," he said.

They spread out across the hardscrabble grass, glanced at one another for mutual support, and started toward the tree line. "There," Sherry said. "They went in there."

Nightingale led the way. They proceeded cautiously, drawing together again, weapons at the ready. But these were researchers, not trained military types. To his knowledge, none had ever fired a stinger in anger. Seeing how nervous they were, he wondered whether they didn't have as much to fear from themselves as from the local wildlife.

The sunlight dimmed beneath the canopy, and the air temperature dropped a few degrees. The trees were tall and fleshy, their upper branches tangled in a canopy of vines and large spade-shaped leaves. Thick cactuslike growths were everywhere. The ground was covered with vegetable debris. Overhead, an army of unseen creatures screeched, scratched, ran, and flapped. As was the case in forests everywhere, he knew, the majority of animals would be found living in the canopy and not on the ground.

The e-suit reduced his olfactory sense, but imagination came to his rescue, even in this curious woodland, and he could smell the pines and mint of his native Georgia.

Biney Coldfield, the starship's captain and pilot of the third lander, broke in to inform him she was approaching and would join the search as soon as she was down.

He acknowledged, letting his irritation show in his voice. Cap-naelli had embarrassed him, ignoring the established guidelines and plunging into an area with such limited visibility. It made them all look like rank amateurs. And had probably gotten him killed.

Nightingale scanned the ground, trying to spot footprints, or any sign Gappy's group might have left in passing. But he saw nothing. At last he turned to the others in his party. "Do we have a woodsman, by any chance?"

They looked at one another.

"Where were they going?" he asked Sherry.

"Nowhere in particular. Straight ahead, I guess. Following the trail."

Nightingale sighed. Straight ahead it was.

Something raced up a tree. At first glimpse he thought it resembled a squirrel, but then he saw it had extra legs. It was their first day on Maleiva III.

A couple of birds circled them and settled onto a branch. Red-birds. They looked like cardinals, except that they had long beaks and turquoise crests. The colors clashed.

"Wait a minute," Sherry said.

"What?" demanded Nightingale.

She raised her hand for quiet. "There's something behind us." They whirled as one and weapons came up. In their rear, a tree limb fell. Nightingale backed into something with spines.

Cookie and Tatia went back and looked. "Nothing here," they reported.

They moved out again.

There was little space for walking. They were constantly pushing through bushes and fighting their way past brambles. He pointed out a couple of broken stalks that suggested something had come this way.

Then he stepped into a glade and saw them.

All three were lying still. Their force-field envelopes were filled with blood. Their faces were frozen in expressions of terror and agony.

Sherry came out behind him, gasped, and started forward.

He stopped her and held her until she calmed down a bit. The others scanned the trees for the attacker. "Whatever it was," said Tatia, "it's not here now."

Sherry freed herself from him, approached the bodies, moving progressively more slowly, and finally dropped to her knees beside them. He watched her whisper something. Watched her rock back on her haunches and stare into the trees.

He joined her, put a hand on her shoulder, and stood wordlessly, looking down at the carnage.

Andi came up beside him. She'd been a close friend of Al White's for years. She sighed and began quietly to sob.

Tatia remained at the edge of the glade, glancing first at the bodies and then hardening her gaze and surveying the ring of trees.

Biney, listening from the third lander, broke in: "What's going on, Randy?"

All the Wood was trapped inside the Flickinger fields, so it was difficult to make out details of the wounds. But each of the three looked as if he'd been jabbed, bitten, gouged, whatever, numerous times. The wounds looked small, he thought. The attacker had been small. Attackers. There had certainly been more than one.

He must have said it aloud. "Small?" said Biney. "How small?"

"Rat size, maybe. Maybe a little bigger."

Whatever they had been, they'd succeeded in tearing off a few pieces of meat, although they hadn't been able to eat any of it because they couldn't extract it from the e-suits.

The area had been the scene of a battle. Scorch marks on some of the trees. Pulp blasted away from the soft-bodied vegetation, and a green viscous liquid bleeding out. Several overhead branches were blackened.

"They were shooting up," said Nightingale.

They, gathered almost unconsciously into a circle, backs protected, and stared at the trees and the canopy.

"Man-eating squirrels?" said Andi.

Several shrubs were burnt-out. One tree down. But no corpses or other remains of large predators. "There's no sign of whatever did it."

"Okay," Biney said. "We're just setting down. We'll be there in a few minutes. You might want to head out. Forthwith."

"Can't leave the bodies. And we don't have enough muscle here to move them." Cookie was the only full-size male. Nightingale himself was barely as big as Andi, the smallest of the women.

"Okay. Wait for us. We'll be with you as soon as we can."

A couple more birds settled onto a branch. The ugly cardinals.

"You all right, Andi?" asked Nightingale, putting an arm around her.

"I've been better."

"I know. I'm sorry. He was a good guy."

"They were all good guys."

Tatia's head came up. "Over there," she said.

Nightingale looked, but saw only trees.

The e-suit tended to dampen sound. He turned it off so he could hear better. The cold bit into him. But something in that direction was padding around.

Nightingale's instinct was to get everyone out of the woods. But he couldn't just leave everything. The stinger had a comfortable heft. He glanced at it, felt the hum of power inside the grip. It would bring down a rhino.

He pushed past Tatia. Cookie whispered to him to stay put, but he felt that his position as leader somehow required him to lead. To get out front.

Something moved rapidly, squealing, through the canopy. At ground level, a pair of eyes watched him through heavy shrubbery.

Cookie moved up beside him. "Lizard, I think, Randy. Wait-"

"What?" asked Tatia.

It came out into the open, a long reptilian head with a crest, followed by a thick mud-colored body. It had short legs and nictitating eyes. Its jaws were open, and it was watching Nightingale and Cookie.

"Croc," said Cookie.

"Croc?" Biney's voice.

"Same general order," said Nightingale. "More like a small dragon."

"Is it what killed Gappy?"

"I don't think so." It was too big. Anyhow, this thing would gore and mangle. Gappy and the others appeared to have numerous puncture wounds.

Its tail rose slowly and fell. He wondered whether it was issuing a challenge.

Nightingale reactivated his e-suit. "What do you think, Cookie?"

"Don't do anything to provoke it. Don't shoot unless it attacks. Don't make eye contact."

His heart was pounding.

The dragon snorted, opened its jaws, and showed them a large gullet and lots of razor teeth. It pawed the ground.

"If it takes another step toward us," said Nightingale quietly, "take it down."

The dragon's gaze shifted. It looked above them, toward the upper branches of the trees. Its jaws opened and closed, and a serpentine tongue flicked out. Then it was backing away.

Backing away.

Nightingale followed its gaze.

"What's happening?" asked Cookie.

"I'd swear," said Nightingale, "something scared it."

"You're kidding."

"I don't think so." A couple of the furry spiders were chasing each other through the canopy. One leaped across an open space, caught a branch, and hung on for dear life while the branch sank halfway to the ground. There was nothing else up there. Save the redbirds.

Biney was a tall woman, almost as tall as Cookie. She had hard humorless features, a voice loaded with steel, and the easy grace of a linebacker. She might have been attractive if she'd ever loosened up. Ever smiled.

She arrived with the full complement of her team, two men and a woman, all with weapons drawn.

She more or less took over, as if Nightingale no longer existed. And in truth he was pleased to hand over responsibility. This sort of thing was more in her domain than his.

She directed Tatia and Andi to stand guard, and assigned everyone else to construct slings from branches and hanging vines. When the slings were ready they laid them on the ground, placed the bodies within, and began the cumbersome effort of withdrawal.

She gave crisp directions, ordered the march, kept them together. There'd be no wandering off and no idle sight-seeing.

The trees forced them to travel single file. Nightingale was assigned a position at the rear, behind Cookie, who had charge of Gappy's body. It was hard not to stare at the corpse as they walked. The terrified expression of the dead man held him in a kind of tidal lock.

Biney had brought a laser cutter, which she wielded with grim efficiency, slicing away the undergrowth. Nightingale, as the smallest of the men, or possibly because of his position as project director, had been spared the effort of trying to drag one of the slings. When he offered to help, Biney told him on a private channel that he'd be more useful as a lookout.

So he watched the tiny forest denizens, the ubiquitous spiders and redbirds and a dozen other animals. A barrel-shaped creature literally rolled past, apparently oblivious of the presence of the rescue force.

It was an intriguing beast, but there'd be no further investigation on this world. At least not for Nightingale. He knew that Biney would insist on allowing no one to return to the surface until the incident had been reported to the Academy. And he knew how the Academy would react. They'd have no choice, really.

Come home.

To his right, a half dozen of the big-footed redbirds sat on a branch. There was something in their manner that chilled him.

Their beaks were the right size.

Had it been redbirds the dragon had seen?

Their heads swung as the party passed. The forest grew deadly still.

The trees were full of them.

As they walked, birds in their rear took flight, glided beneath the canopy, and descended onto branches ahead.

"It's the redbirds," he said softly to Biney.

"What?"

"It's the cardinals. Look at them."

"Those little critters?" Biney could scarcely keep the derision out of her voice.

Nightingale picked out a branch from which four, no, five, of the animals were watching. He sighted on the middle one, set the intensity low since it was such a small creature, and knocked it off its perch.

As if it had been a signal, the redbirds descended on them from a dozen trees. Off to his left, Tatia screamed and fired her weapon. They were like scarlet missiles and they came in from all sides. Stingers crackled and birds exploded. A cactus erupted and burned fiercely. The air was filled with feathers and fire. One of the people who'd come in with Biney, Hal Gilbert, went down.

The stinger was a discriminating weapon. You had to aim it. That meant it wasn't of much use against this kind of attack. But Nightingale used his as well as he could, keeping the trigger depressed, and just swinging it around his head.

Biney's laser was a different matter. He saw it flash through the air, watched whole legions of the redbirds spin wildly and go down. Down in flames, you sons of bitches.

Other cactuses blew up as the stingers touched them.

Then something ripped into his back. He bit down a scream and fell to his knees, thinking he'd been hit by one of the weapons. But when he reached behind, his fingers closed on a feathery thing, which struggled frantically to get free. He crushed it.

The injury was in an awkward place, near his shoulder blade. He tried to reach it, gave up, and fell down on his back, gaining some relief by pressing it against the ground. He got off a couple more shots when something hit him again. In the neck.

The edges of his vision turned dark, his breathing slowed, and the world began to slip away.

Tatia was bending over him. She smiled when she realized he was awake. "Glad to see you're back with us, boss."

They were in the lander. He was on a couch. "What happened?" he asked.

"Here." She produced a mug from somewhere. "Drink this." Apple cider. It tasted warm and sweet. But his back and neck felt stiff. "We had to give you a painkiller."

He tried to look past her. Saw only Cookie. "Did everybody make it back?"

"All of Biney's people." She squeezed his arm. "But not Biney. Not Sherry. And not Andi." Her voice caught.

"There were swarms of the goddam things," said Cookie. "We were lucky any of us got out of there."

"It was horrible." Tatia shuddered. "They were coordinated. They'd hit us, and back off. Hit us, and back off. They came in waves, came from every direction."

Cookie nodded solemnly.

Nightingale tried to get up, but the painkiller hadn't taken hold.

"Careful." She held him in place. "You got jabbed a couple of times. You were lucky."

He didn't quite see how he was lucky. And my God, Biney was dead. How was that possible? And the others. Six all told.

It was a disaster.

He tasted the apple cider, let it slide down his throat.

"Will says you'll be okay." Will was Wilbur Keene, who'd been with Biney. He included an M.D. among his credentials, the principal reason he'd been selected for the voyage.

"They followed us all the way back," Tatia said. "Kept attacking."

"The bodies are still out there?"

"We waited until it got dark," she said. "Then we were able to recover them."

"Will says they had venom," said Cookie. "Thank God for the e-suits. He says it would have worked on us. Paralyzed us. Sent the nervous system into shock."

He slept. When he woke again they were getting ready to leave. "Who's in Tess?" he asked. He was talking about Gappy's lander. Its pilot and all its original passengers were dead. But they didn't want to leave it down here.

"Nobody," said Cookie. "But it's no problem. After we're on our way, I'll just tell her to come home."

The AI.

The cabin was dark, save for the soft illumination of the instrument panel. Tatia sat silently on the far side, staring into the darkness.

He watched lights blink on outside and lift into the night.

"Okay, folks," said Cookie. "Looks like our turn."

It occurred to Nightingale that Cookie, as the surviving member of the command crew, was now the captain.

The harness, adjusting for his prone position, slipped down over his thighs and shoulders. It was fortunate that it did, because a sudden gust of wind hit them as they started up, rocking the spacecraft.

"Hold on," said Cookie. Nightingale couldn't see much of what was happening, but the pilot's movements suggested he'd taken manual control. The lander steadied and rose toward the stars.

No one spoke. Nightingale stared at the illuminated instruments. Tatia sat with her head thrown back, her eyes now closed. The reality of it was hitting home. Andi's absence was a palpable quality, something they could touch.

"Tess." Cookie spoke to the remaining lander. "Code one one. Accept my voice."

Nightingale listened to the wind rushing over the wings. Tatia shifted slightly, opened her eyes, and glanced at him. "How you doing, boss?"

"Pretty good."

"Will they send another team, do you think?"

He shrugged reflexively and felt his neck pull. It was numb. "They'll have to. I mean, this is a living world, for God's sake. There'll be a settlement here one day." But there'd be some political fallout, too. For him, responsible for the mission, for its people, there'd be hell to pay.

"Excuse me," said Cookie. "Randy, I'm not getting a response from Tess."

"That's not so good. Are you telling me we have to go back for the lander?"

"Let's see if we can spot what happened." The displays lit up and Nightingale was looking at a vid record, the woods in daylight. The view from their lander. A flock of redbirds flew across the face of the screen and vanished. People were coming out of the forest. One was being helped, one was being carried. A swarm of the birds ripped into them.

Nightingale saw Remmy, one of Biney's people, covered with blood, holding a hand to his left eye. He was down on one knee, firing away. Biney stood over him, providing as much cover as she could.

He saw himself, cradled in Hal's arms. Cookie appeared in the picture, swinging a branch.

Biney's laser cut everywhere, its white beam slashing through the afternoon. The birds fell to earth whenever it touched them.

"There," said Cookie. The laser grazed Tess, scorched her hull, moved up, and sliced off the communication pod. The pod exploded in a shower of sparks.

Cookie froze the picture.

"How'd Biney die?" Nightingale asked. "She was there at the end."

"She stood outside the airlock and held them off until we got everybody else in." Cookie was shaking his head. "We'll have to go back down."

No. Nightingale did not want anything more to do with this world. Under no circumstances would they go back.

"To get the lander," said Cookie, mistaking Nightingale's silence for indecision.

"Leave it, Cookie."

"We can't do that."

"It's too dangerous. We aren't going to lose anybody else."