RAEFF (Jim Able: Offworld Book 6) by Ed Charlton (best books to read fiction .TXT) 📗

He felt sure they would be seen. Tamric guided him down the steep slope of a gully. They splashed their way down irregular steps of moss and lichen swamped with rainwater. Jim did not catch his breath until they were sheltered under an outcrop of rock, with a swollen stream cascading an arm’s length beyond.

“Well done!” he said to Tamric, who smiled but said nothing.

What dim light there had been faded. The noise of the rain and the stream continued to crash around them, but they could see nothing.

Night had fallen over Marlolori.

Chapter Nine

Even before he opened his eyes, Jim knew the storm had ended: the noise of the stream was farther away, the wind had died down, and parts of him were only damp rather than wet. He looked out at a dim, gray morning. The sun was already over the edge of the gully; it wouldn’t get any brighter. To Jim’s eyes the sun seemed disappointingly small. He remembered Marhan’s warning about Tanna Gul’s wider orbit. That’s why it’s so damn cold too.

“Good morning, my friend,” whispered Tamric. “Are you hungry?”

“Damn right I am,” replied Jim softly. “What’s cooking?”

“Sterilized protein supplement, specially wrapped in individual convenience packages.”

“Yummy.”

They both ate the tasteless rations in silence. Jim guessed that Tamric had been awake early and seen to his morning prayers.

“How far away are we from where we need to be?” Jim asked when they had eaten.

“I don’t know. I downloaded the maps and the sensor information; I’m analyzing them now to see where we are.”

Tamric studied the small panel on his pad and shook his head. “Sorry, Jim, you can’t get there from here.”

The young monk broke into an infectious smile. Jim lay back against the rock and laughed, “Okay, so we get to take the day off instead.”

Tamric nodded and said, “That sounds good.”

After a few minutes of study, he continued. “There is a main road several hours’ walk north-northwest of here. It goes two-thirds of the way around that lake our analysts thought suspicious. It connects to other main roads to the west and the east. However, I see no sign of any population center around the lake.”

“Major roads are a good clue that there’s something there.”

***

They set off down the gully. Jim was enjoying the silence until he noticed the lack of birdsong.

“Where are the birds?”

“What birds?” asked Tamric, concerned.

“There’s usually something that communicates by sound. I don’t hear any birds, or insects for that matter.”

“You’re right. I have seen nothing flying.”

They walked on in silence for a while.

“Jim, when we get to the lake, there are several points where there may be roads going under it. Do you have any preference now as to which one we make for?”

“The nearest.” Jim hoped that the sooner they started their reconnaissance, the sooner they could recover some good from, what seemed to him, an unfolding disaster.

Tamric checked the pad and the direction-finder. “Then let’s leave the protection of this route and go more to the north.”

Jim stopped and looked up and down. The gully was widening into a steep-sided ravine. “Does this get us nearer to a different road with more cover?”

“Yes, but it will take slightly longer.”

“Let’s do that. We should keep the cover.”

“I hope they think we perished in the flier. But you are right; we must assume the worst.”

Their walk was uneventful. When the ravine turned away from the road, Jim and Tamric climbed up to a line of dead and blackened trees. They began to hear the noise of traffic.

They crouched among the stumps for several minutes and surveyed the scene before them. The trees marked the boundary between the ravine and a broad, flat plain. The land sloped gently upward to a road built on stilts and laid ramrod-straight across the plain.

“Oh great!” breathed Jim. “So much for cover.”

“It looks like nothing has grown on this ground for many years.”

“We have to wait for dark before we can cross it. How far do we follow the road?”

Tamric studied his map again. “To the right is where we might have gone for the nearer access. To the left...” He craned his neck and squinted into the dim, dusty air. “I can’t see it. We should be able to see it.”

“We’re neither of us used to planets this far out. Our eyes will eventually adjust. Listen, if we break out my pack, I could probably rig up something using the infrared rifle sights. I threw in a couple of extras.”

Tamric did not reply. He was still staring into the distance.

“Tamric?”

“Do you hear that?” the monk asked quietly.

“I hear the traffic in the road.”

“There is a louder noise. I think it is coming from behind us.”

Jim turned and strained to hear. “There’s an engine of some sort.”

“I hear voices too. But I can’t tell where there are.”

“Keep still. I wish I’d done the infrared sights before.”

Tamric squatted down, his shoulder against Jim’s as they looked up and down the ravine over the tree stumps. Jim could feel the monk trembling.

“Relax,” he whispered. “Nothing can go wrong.”

A flier rose to their level from deeper down the ravine. Footfalls sounded behind them across the dust of the plain.

Chapter Ten

“Remain still!” commanded a voice from the flier. It then made a similar-sounding command in what may have been several other languages.

“There!” came a voice from behind them. “What the stench are those?”

“Ugh! Pug-nosed monkeys! What are they doing here?”

Jim and Tamric stood to see a line of heavily armed uniformed canids. The soldiers laughed at a few remarks in their own language; one stepped forward.

“Either of you female? Maglan here says he gets to screw you first.”

Another called from behind him, “If you’re not, he’ll do it anyway!”

Amid laughing barks, the soldiers stripped them of their backpacks and made them walk out onto the plain. The flier hovered overhead as the captain led them back, parallel to the ravine edge. Soon they came to a group of three armored vehicles. With weapons trained on the two aliens, the soldiers