Volcano Island Ch12
by Nancy Smith and Linda Garrick
12
Thoroski eased open the door of the armored vehicle and peered cautiously out.
Nothing moved, nor did any sounds of human presence reach his ears. The stealthy rustle of leaves drew his attention -- probably some kind of native animal, he decided, but at least no one from the Leviathan was nearby. The movements of his men through the brush was loud enough to wake the dead.
Something croaked loudly, and from the distance he heard a muffled boom. The ground quivered slightly.
Lyla had been right, as psychics usually were. He clambered through the hatch and reached back to help his companion to the ground. She smiled up at him and he slipped an arm around her, feeling suddenly like a giant beside her.
"Can you walk okay?" he asked. "No dizziness or anything?"
"I can walk," she said, looking confidently up at him. "You've been wonderful, Sven."
Again, he felt the infuriating blush creep up his neck, and was thankful that the darkness probably concealed it from her. "No problem," he said. "I couldn't let Pomothvor get his hands on you. He's bad -- he loves to make you feel like a worm, and it doesn't take anything to set him off."
She studied Thoroski's battered features soberly. "I can see that."
He shrugged. "What's a few bruises? What's worrying me right now is how he's going to react if the Underground finds the archives before he does." He began to clear the way for her through the vegetation. They reached a clearer area, where the luxuriant jungle growth had not been able to force its way through the pavement of the thoroughfare, except in a few places, and led the way across. "He's going to be upset, to put it mildly."
"What will he do?" she asked, obviously concerned. "Will he take it out on you?"
"Maybe. I doubt he'll dare kill me. I'm a pretty hard guy to replace."
"But he might hurt you pretty badly. I don't like it." She paused, obviously thinking. "We could take you back with us -- as a prisoner," she suggested tentatively. "Or maybe we can somehow keep him from finding out that we found them." She stopped, her gaze caught by the building beside them. Thoroski looked at the grinning gargoyle figures decorating either side of the broad, crumbling steps and also stopped.
"Do you suppose this could be it?"
She was frowning. "I don't know. It might. Let's go look."
They went up the steps, her fingers lightly clasping his. Thoroski didn't mind. Even bedraggled as she was, he found her one of the most attractive women he had ever met.
Quickly, he turned his thoughts from that. It wasn't safe to think such things about a telepath.
They reached the top of the steps and Thoroski wrestled one of the big doors open. She stopped and then shuddered slightly. He put his arm around her. "What's the matter?"
"It's the aura of the building. I can block most of it out, but it has a creepy feel to it."
"What's an aura?"
"This building has an aura -- something happened a long time ago that gives it a really bad feel to a psychometrist. Psychics died in here. Lots of them."
"Oh." Thoroski realized now, for the first time, what it meant to be a psychometrist. This tiny woman beside him could sense things that had happened hundreds of years ago. The events affected her, even though it had been the enemy that had died. "If it's too bad, we should get out of here."
She shook her head. "I can handle it. Colonel Westover showed me how to channel the impressions so that they aren't so bad. We need to find out if this is the place." She looked up at him. "Just stay with me, all right?"
"You bet. I'll be right beside you."
They entered the building slowly. Lyla drew in her breath as they crossed the threshold but trod resolutely forward. Thoroski flashed his light around the room's interior.
Bones. Bones everywhere. They littered the floor so thickly that it was impossible to move without stepping on them. What the devil had happened in here?
Thoroski swallowed, his hard patrolman shell cracking for a moment. Lyla looked around and shuddered, and he flicked off his light quickly.
The darkness was worse. "Turn it back on," Lyla whispered.
He obeyed. "Let's get out of here. I don't see any archives."
She nodded. "This was some kind of public building, but it's not a library. Some kind of shelter. But it wasn't enough --" She stopped abruptly.
Thoroski turned, not releasing her, and started to step out the door.
A tremendous concussion shook the building and a report rent the air. Thoroski cursed and staggered backward, dragging her with him as the floor heaved in the throes of another quake. The ground was vibrating so hard that he lost his balance and sat down hard on a pile of bones. Lyla landed almost in his lap. Before them, the doorway caved in with a deafening crash.
Somehow, he made it to his feet once more, dragging her up with him. The floor heaved like a ship at sea. The entrance was totally blocked by the cave in and more stones crashed down from somewhere to their right. The air was full of dust particles, dancing in the beam of his handlight.
He flashed the light around and at last located a side door. Grasping Lyla by one hand, he sprinted forward, kicking bones. He reached it at last and charged through, hearing another deafening crash behind them.
They were in a hallway, also littered with bones. It ran in two directions and he paused, irresolute. If he turned the wrong way it might well mean the death of both of them.
"Left!" Lyla gasped. "Go left!"
He obeyed, charging down the wide corridor, stumbling on bones and cursing breathlessly. A doorway opened before them and he bolted for it. From somewhere came another hair-raising crash.
**********
"Sven! Sven! Please wake up!"
Thoroski opened his eyes. Someone was tugging at his arm and in the dim light he made out the features of Lyla Watson. She had an arm under his shoulders and was trying to lift him. He was lying on his back and buildings towered over them. The ground still shook. He couldn't have been out for more than a minute or two, he thought, pushing himself up on his elbows and trying to ignore the throbbing in his head.
"We have to get out of here," she said. "Can you walk?"
He nodded and began to struggle to his feet. A tremendous jolt shook the ground, knocking him off his precarious balance, and suddenly the ground was solid once more.
For a long moment neither of them moved. Then Lyla let out her breath. "Are you all right?" she asked finally.
"Yeah." His voice sounded a little breathless and the world took a slow turn to the right. He reached up, fumbling at his chin strap and pulled off his helmet. There was a sore spot on one side of his head, just above one ear. "What hit me?"
She reached suddenly for his belt and he felt her remove the blaster from its holster. "What --"
"Can you walk?" she asked, and he thought she was controlling her voice with an effort.
"Yeah. I think so." He managed to get to his knees and stagger to his feet. "What --"
"A rock from one of the buildings hit you. You were only out a minute." She was facing away from him, he realized all at once, and he saw that she held the blaster before her, steadied in both hands.
As quickly as he could manage, he bent -- allowing for the slight dizziness that still afflicted him -- and picked up the handlight that lay on the ground by his foot. He flashed it in the direction that Lyla faced.
Four large, very unfriendly-looking animals were gathered to one side of the roadway. Two of them were obviously carnivorous and the other two were of undecided tendencies. But all of them watched the two Terrans with obvious interest.
"Sven --" Lyla's voice shook slightly.
"Yeah, I see 'em." Thoroski kept the light directly on the creatures. One of them took a slow step toward them, and then another. The blaster Lyla held hummed softly. With a surprised growl, the thing collapsed on the ground.
"Good." Thoroski put a hand on her arm, careful not to joggle the weapon she held. "Back away now, slow. Come on."
Hands white from her grip on the weapon, she obeyed. Thoroski, his legs still slightly unsteady, led her down an alley. He was filled with respect for the way she had kept her head during the emergency. Using the stunbeam to subdue the animal had shown added courage and presence of mind. The crack of a blaster in the silence that had succeeded the quake would have brought every patrolman within earshot on the run.
An open doorway presented itself. It was the building directly across the street from the one they had just exited so abruptly. Thoroski steered Lyla inside, seeing the creatures follow. All three of the remaining ones had stayed with them. Holy space! Maybe they were all predators! Even if the second pair were scavengers, lots of scavengers weren't above killing their prey if they thought they could get away with it, he knew.
Lyla shuddered slightly, but the blaster never wavered. "Burning," she whispered.
He reached down to take the blaster from her, centering it at once on the animals. "What's burning?" he asked softly.
"People -- in this building."
The building shook slightly as the ground quivered again, and pebbles rained down on them. Thoroski took her by one wrist and they backed toward a side exit, the blaster in his hand trained on the forest denizens. They followed, their mouths open and drooling slightly.
They emerged from the building onto another wide street, somewhat obstructed by the luxuriant jungle growth. The animals appeared in the doorway behind then, their eyes reflecting red in the distant light of the volcanoes. Thoroski glanced quickly around, trying to get his bearings.
From what he could see, which wasn't much, he surmised that they were only three or four streets down from where he had first found Lyla, but apparently the search parties from the ship had not reached this area yet. The group that had passed by while he had been trying to get into the armored vehicle was evidently no longer in the vicinity either, since he had heard no shouts or screams during the last quake.
He settled the helmet on his head once more and switched on the helmet receiver.
Instantly there was a babble of voices and, in the background, the agonized screams of an injured man. Someone was calling for a rescue team to free a party of four men who had been trapped by a collapsing roof. None of the trapped men were responding on the com.
Thoroski switched off the unit. "Sounds like they'll have their hands full for a while. We can take our time." He stopped, watching Lyla with sudden interest.
She was staring fixedly at a building beside them, barely seen in the darkness and covered by a tangle of jungle growth. It was built close to the ground and was quite unremarkable in appearance, but Lyla seemed quite interested in it, and Thoroski felt a little prickle of anticipation run over him.
"Lyla?" He kept his voice to a whisper. "Have you found it?"
Her eyes snapped toward the animals, and then went back to the building again. "I don't know." She stepped back with a gasp as one of the things advanced, its lips drawn back in a snarl.
Thoroski felt a sudden flash of anger. Dammitall! Wasn't it enough with all the volcanoes, quakes, crumbling buildings, the Patrol, not to mention that unmentionable Jil, without the forest denizens harassing them as well?
He voiced a low growl and made a lunge toward the advancing animal. It retreated quickly, cringing and snarling. Thoroski felt a little tug of pride. Maybe he didn't make such a bad Tarzan after all.
Lyla giggled. "Good for you, Sven!"
He grinned at her. "Now, what about that building?"
She turned to look at it again. "It's different." Her voice sounded slightly strange, as though she wasn’t actually speaking to him. "I think we'd better check it out."
"Lead on. I'll keep an eye on our jungle friends here."
"Okay." She put her hand on his arm and started toward the building. One of the animals followed them, but the other two apparently had decided that their prey was too formidable, for they turned suddenly and vanished back into the jungle.
The remaining animal, finding itself alone, snarled angrily, flattening two long, pointed ears back against its head. Thoroski bared his teeth at the thing and snarled back.
The predator dropped flat to its belly, its yellow eyes narrowing to slits. Thoroski grinned, no longer afraid of it, and charged.
The animal turned and ran.
Lyla was giggling. "Oh, Sven, if only you could have seen yourself! That was priceless! You should be in the tri-dees! You'd make an absolutely marvelous Tarzan!"
Thoroski felt smug. "You think?"
She nodded vigorously. "That was incredible!"
"Well," he said, "at least it got rid of our stalkers. Let's go see about your building."
Her hand touched his arm. "Are you sure you're all right, Sven? There's blood all over your cheeks."
He swiped at them, surprised at the warm stickiness that appeared on his hand. "Yeah, I'm all right. Head wounds always bleed like crazy."
Lyla appeared to hesitate for a moment and then nodded. "I guess so. It feels like you're all right, so I guess you are." She started toward the building again. "But you got a good knock on the head. It scared me for a minute." She came to a sudden halt, feeling before her with one hand. "A forcefield."
"Damn," Thoroski said. "Are you by any chance a telekinetic?"
She nodded. "Not one of the best, but I should be able to turn it off if I can just find the right control." She began to feel her way along the uneven wall. "I wish Alan was here. He's better at everything than I am."
Thoroski grinned. "That ain't saying much. From what I hear, Alan's better than everybody else, too. It's a good thing he's such a nice guy or he'd have a lot of psychics hating him."
"Nobody hates Alan," Lyla said. "In fact, most of the women at the base are in love with him."
Thoroski snorted. "I'm not surprised." He treated himself to another good look at her. He'd been right on his first evaluation. She was certainly worth looking at. He hoped that she wasn't one of the women in love with Alan Westover.
She didn't notice his appreciative look, her expression blank as she felt her way along the wall. She must have her shields open now, he thought, if she was using clairvoyance to locate the forcefield control. He hoped the Jil would hold off on his scans for a few minutes until she could finish.
"How did you happen to join the Underground?" he heard himself asking her. "You know all my history, but I don't know any of yours. Did you do something spectacular and get your name in the newsstrip or something?"
She paused, looking at him, her eyes enormous in the dimness. "I don't know your history, Sven. Alan told me you were one of us when the Underground received that message, but you couldn't have been on our side for very long, especially since you let Alan go through all those interrogations without trying to help him. With your shielding and position, you'd have been able to manage something without being caught. You weren't like the -- the other agent, who just had to sit by and watch."
"Yeah." Thoroski regarded the toes of his boots. "It tore me up, though. I think I started to have doubts while all that was going on. He took those interrogations without saying a word. I guess I started to wonder about it -- everything, really -- my whole life. But I was in too deep to back out -- at least I thought so at the time." He paused, chewing his lower lip. "Then Halthzor ordered the execution of a Terran colony. My sister and her husband had colonized there a year before." Again he paused and Lyla was silent, watching him. He found himself swallowing at the memory of that terrible day when he had failed to save Helena. "We'd always been close, even though she was much younger than I was." He stopped. "She was only nineteen. One of the patrolmen on the ship -- Parks -- killed her before I could stop him. She died in my arms."
Lyla's small hand closed gently on his wrist. "I'm sorry, Sven. I can't imagine how horrible it must have been."
"That was the turning point," he said, surprised at the harshness in his voice. "Lyn Parnell had been taken prisoner and we were to transport her to Corala. I was officially on leave and had planned not to return. But I couldn't miss my chance to join the Underground and I was after Parks' hide anyway. We were about the same height and coloring, and looked a bit alike. I mugged him and took his identity." He nodded at the building. "We don't have time for this, though. You'd better find that forcefield control and get rid of it."
"I have found it," she said. She closed her eyes, concentrating. The unseen wall beneath Thoroski's hand vanished. She smiled at him. "Okay."
They stepped through, and Lyla reached down to touch a small device mounted on a metal pillar beside them. The forcefield came back on.
"Sven!" Her voice shook with excitement. "I think this is it! It has a different feel to it -- not sad or menacing like the other places -- just different! Oh, Sven! We've found it!"
**********
tbc
