Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs (44 page)

“A lidi for him,” I said sourly, “and nothing but trouble for us.”

Meanwhile the voice droned on in my head. It ended with,
“Seeding was successful. Initiated maneuver to increase habitable area. Harvesting can begin soon.”

“ ‘Harvesting’?” I said in a low voice. I had no explanation in the telepathically implanted data. “That wasn’t mentioned before. Harvesting what? The vines?”

“No,” Perry said. His expression was grim as he shook his head. “Us.”

The horror of that thought was just taking hold when the panel to the elevator hissed open again. Perry and I jumped in, and it automatically began its decent.

I checked my revolver again. “We’d better be ready.”

Perry nodded. He looked as uncertain as I felt. Who or what would greet us when we arrived?

But instead of Fashioners, we were met by Koort.

“No one is here!” he cried.

“Impossible!” I said. “Are you sure?”

He motioned us to follow him.

“Not so impossible,” Perry said as we made our cautious way through the craft—lit with the same red glow as the Dead World’s interior—with our weapons at ready. “Everything else is automated. Why not that ship?”

He had a point.

Koort could have warned us about the smell. Then again, a man who rode a lidi all day probably had calluses on his olfactory nerve. The interior lay silent as a tomb all about us.

No, not silent. I heard metallic scuttlings echoing in the dark recesses. Cleaning spiders? No surprise there.

I began to believe it might well be a tomb of sorts when I spotted the dull splotches on the otherwise gleaming floor.

I nudged Perry and pointed to the nearest. “What is that, do you think?”

He touched it with the toe of his boot, then leaned closer. “The finish has been damaged.” He looked around. “In quite a few places.”

The splotches reminded me of the marred finish left by the cleaning spider’s solvent in the hall above.

“This may sound far-fetched, I said, “but could this be all that’s left of the crew?”

“Not so farfetched. If they died, the spider automatons would have dissolved their remains . . .”

“Some sort of sickness, perhaps? A plague?”

He shrugged. “Who can say for sure? Viruses get into enclosed environments and run wild.”

“But one hundred percent fatal?”

“It could have been a blast of interstellar radiation they were not shielded against. We could speculate forever on the cause, but the fact is there is no one here.”

I heard more scuttling in the recesses, then Koort reappeared, swinging his club back and forth with obvious frustration.

“I will never see my lidi replaced.”

“Lidi? You should be celebrating that no one will be harvesting you!”

Perry said, “I’m afraid we will have no one to celebrate with if we don’t find a toxin to kill those vines.”

Exhaustion settled on me like a shroud. “So far, the only way we know to kill it is with sunlight. We’ll have to return to Pellucidar, get some samples, and—”

Just then a spider automaton appeared seemingly from nowhere and sprayed its turquoise fluid on my boot. Immediately the leather began to bubble and run.

“What—?”

As I danced away from it, I heard a howl of pain from Koort. Another spider had squirted his bare lower leg. His skin was smoking and bubbling. A third was racing toward Perry. He took no chances. Reversing his musket, he smashed the butt down on the thing, crushing it.

My own spider was still pursuing me, leaving me no recourse but to use my revolver: I put a bullet through its domed carapace, stopping it in its tracks. Koort flattened his attacker with his club.

I looked down the dimly lit hall he had just exited and saw a wave of the things scuttling our way.

“Back!” I shouted. “Back to the elevator!”

Perry led the way while I helped the limping Koort. A patch of his left lower leg had been stripped of its flesh down to the muscle and was oozing blood. He was moving as fast as he could, leaving a crimson trail. That proved to our benefit. The spiders were rapidly closing on us until those in the lead stopped to clean up his blood. They seemed to have no choice. Their imprinted instructions were to keep the ship clean, and so they did just that.

But the ones behind merely crawled over those who had stopped and continued the chase.

Up ahead Perry stood in the elevator entrance, frantically waving us forward.

“Hurry! They’re gaining on you!”

I wasn’t exactly lollygagging along, and I could hear the clatter of countless metallic legs growing louder and louder, closer and closer. But Koort was weakening and becoming an increasing burden. I would not, however, leave him to be dissolved alive. Unthinkable.

I poured all my strength into my pumping legs and practically knocked Perry back against the rear wall as we stumbled through the entrance. A look back showed a charging horde of the things nearly upon us before the door slid shut. Koort groaned and sagged against the wall as the cab began to rise. He had to be in agony, but he’d made not a single complaint.

“We’ve got to do something about that leg,” I said, panting.

“I packed a first-aid kit before we left,” Perry said.

I had to smile. “Always thinking. I’ll retrieve it from the balloon and we’ll patch him up. But meanwhile . . .” I looked at Perry. “What happened down there?”

He gave his head a baffled shake. “Could something have gone wrong with their programming? Could they have turned on their masters? I can only speculate.”

“Well, I guess the
why
doesn’t matter—they’re down there and we’re up here. I don’t know about you, but I am
not
going back to that ghost ship for
any
reason.”

We stopped and the door slid open on the Dead World’s girdling hallway. It almost felt like home. As we helped Koort to his feet, we heard faint scratchings against the floor of the cab. Perry and I stared at each other.

“They couldn’t have . . .” I said.

The door closed as we exited the cab, shutting off the sound. As soon as we made Koort comfortable, I moved to the floor windows and peered down at the elevator shaft. Through its transparent wall I could see hundreds of the spiders—hundreds!—all trying to get to us.

“How does that feel?” Perry said as he taped a final piece of gauze over Koort’s wound.

“Better. It feels better.”

Perry joined me where I was keeping watch on the spider-filled shaft.

He said, “If they could dissolve their way through the floor of the elevator, they would have done it by now. Their liquid appears to be effective only on organic matter.”

“What if the automatons already in the hallway turn against us?”

“If that were the case, we’d know it by now.”

I rose and went to the screen that showed the vines spreading into the enlarged shadow and the mist surging beyond it . . . toward my home . . . toward Dian.

“How do we stop it, Abner? How do we—?”

An epiphany struck me dumb.

“What’s wrong?” Perry said.

“Sunlight! The Dead World was rising toward the sun a short while ago. What if we found a way to keep it rising until it crashed into it?”

Perry shook his head. “First off, I am quite sure the Fashioners put fail-safes in place to prevent that. And even if we could do as you say, who knows what kind of catastrophe that sort of collision would trigger?”

He had a point, but . . . “The risk is less than the certain end of life as we know it if that mist keeps spreading.”

He raised a fist. “We
can
poison the vine—I’ll find a way or die trying.”

I remained convinced that sunlight was the key. And then I saw a surefire solution, almost as radical as my first idea—
if
I could make it work.

We stood at the console and studied the controls, made for tentacles rather than human hands. I pointed to an oblong groove near the left edge.

“I think that’s it.”

Perry grunted. “And I think this is reckless and dangerous.”

“It’s risky, I’ll grant you that. But help me here. Is it your interpretation of the schematic that this will unlock the Dead World from the beacon buried in Thuria?”

Perry studied the console. “I believe so, but belief is not enough at a time like this. What if it unlocks
everything?
What if it causes this whole thing to plummet onto Thuria?”

“Then we’ll have possibly saved Pellucidar.”

“And killed ourselves!”

I imagined Dian remaining alive and well, and knew I had no choice.

“Take the balloon,” I said.

Perry harrumphed. “I’ll do nothing of the sort.”

“Go ahead. I’ll wait till you’re off.”

“And let you die a hero while I’m safely away? I should say not. Do it.”

I gave him a sidelong glance. “You’re sure?”

“Not in the least. In fact, I’m quite nervous about the whole prospect. But get it over with.”

I glanced back at Koort who stood across the control room staring at the screen that showed Thuria. I wondered if I should give him the choice, but he’d be helpless aboard the
Dinosaur III
. He’d have to stay.

“Very well.”

I laid my left forearm in the groove and pressed down. If I was right, the Dead World would maintain its fix on the sun but lose its lock on Thuria.

Nothing happened. I pressed again. Still nothing—no vibration, no sense of movement. Nothing.

What was wrong? Was it malfunctioning? I’d been so sure—

A cry from Koort. “The Awful Shadow is moving!”

I rushed to the screen, Perry close behind. The Dead World’s shadow seemed to have moved away from the observation tower.

“The shadow isn’t moving!” I cried. “But Thuria is!”

The Dead World was still fixed in its relation to the inner sun but was now unmoored from Thuria. Its momentum would keep it moving for a little while, but soon the resistance of the atmosphere would bring it to a halt. Meanwhile, the rotation of the Earth would carry Thuria farther and farther away from the Awful Shadow.

“You’ve done it, David!” Perry said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Let us pray direct sunlight is as toxic as we think.”

We wouldn’t be able to tell for twenty-four hours, when the Earth had completed its rotation. Meanwhile, we were about to experience an unprecedented aerial tour of Pellucidar.

As Pellucidar rotated beyond the screens, Sari passed beneath us early on. I thought of Dian—the woman I loved, the woman whose life I was trying to save—and how mystified she must be to see the Dead World drifting above her.

We hung silent and suspended over seas and continents I’d never heard of. I wondered what the natives in those far-off lands thought when they looked up and saw their sun eclipsed for the first time in their civilizations’ histories—how it must have terrified them.

But as I watched, a terrifying question rocketed through my brain.

“Perry! The Fashioners sent one ship for ‘harvesting.’ If it doesn’t return, they’ll likely send another.”

His smile faded. “Great heavens! You’re right. And I doubt they’ll wait another three-hundred million years to do so!”

I knew from the data fed into my brain that the Dead World was not only a dock, but a beacon—a directional device that the Fashioners could home in on. If we extinguished that beacon . . .