Colony by Benjamin Cross (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📗

a nearby cove, with just enough power left to make it to the base on Nagurskoye. He would have to alter his story somewhat, in order to account for recent developments. But there would be plenty of time for him to contact his associates and formulate something suitable en route to the base. He would also need to get a reliable clean-up team to Harmsworth ASAP. All dead bodies and helicopter wreckage would have to be removed quickly, restoring the deceit that all hands, save his, had gone down with the Albanov. Again, it could all be arranged. The most important thing now, he reminded himself, was that he had the data stick.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Darya whispered, her voice trembling.

“Shut up and keep moving.” He urged her forward, digging the side of the knife blade into her neck. She had been raving on about some fairy-tale creature or other ever since they’d entered the cavern, and it was starting to grate.

“You fool! Can you not see them? They are everywhere.”

His mind ticked over. Hadn’t Lungkaju mentioned something about strange animals on the island? Something about a lizard bird? Volkov had paid little attention to his babbling at the time, though, in hindsight, it was unusual for the level-headed Lungkaju to have been quite so excited by an idea. Perhaps there might have been something in it after all.

Out of curiosity, he cast his eyes around the walls and up over the ceiling. Nothing. He couldn’t see anything at all, because there was clearly nothing to see. This was surely proof enough that it was all madness. Doctor Lebedev said that they were there right now, all around him. Yet there was plainly nothing but rock and flame. She was delusional.

“What exactly should I be looking at?” he growled. “These supposed prehistoric beasts?”

“Talk quietly,” she urged him, her voice a breathy whisper. “They are everywhere.”

“They are nonsense! I have seen nothing of the sort on this island because they do not exist, Miss Lebedev. You are delirious. Now keep moving!”

He took another stride forward. As he did so, he kicked against a dump of pale rocks, and a single one dislodged itself and rolled towards his foot. It was oval, with an uneven, cream-coloured surface. Intrigued, Volkov extended his boot and gave it a kick. To his surprise, the exterior shattered and a viscous fluid glooped out, followed by the head of a baby bird.

Volkov found himself repulsed by the look of the creature’s face as it writhed, fighting to free the rest of its under-developed body from what he now realised to be a shell. Eggs. What he’d considered to be a spread of rocks was actually a clutch of large bird eggs, perhaps thirty or forty strong. He cast a glance around. There were similar clutches on each of the adjacent islands. Perhaps twenty in total, making as many as eight hundred eggs.

He searched the roof of the cavern. Not a single bird.

“It’s one of them,” Darya whispered. Her eyes were wide as she gazed with evident horror at the remains of the shattered egg. “This must be the nest.”

He scoffed.

“Mr Volkov, please listen to me. This is not a trick. We need to leave here right now!”

“Nonsense,” he replied. Sweating profusely in the intense heat, he pushed the head of the baby bird to one side with his toe and watched as it squirmed. It was a pink, veiny blob. Its limbs were flushed purple and dripping with albumen. Its beak was dark and globular, and its eyes were fastened tightly shut, as if glued. “You may be the ecologist, Doctor Lebedev. But that is a bird. I’ll grant you it is rather larger and uglier than most, but it is clearly just a bird of some description. Now enough of this! I do not want to hear another word about fictitious creatures!”

“Mr Volkov, no!”

It was too late. In one quick motion, he curled his foot around the back end of the broken egg and scooped it over the edge of the island. As it fell, the chick’s varicose body broke free from its shell. It pumped its arms in vain. Its large eyes unbonded and opened wide. Its still-forming beak gaped with panic, and it let out its first and last scream.

3

Around the chamber, the walls erupted into life as the sound of the doomed chick awoke the rest of the colony. Koikov dragged the other two down onto their fronts and they watched as the creatures unfurled themselves from their huddles, scurried down from their perches and leapt to their feet.

A cacophony of screeching, braying and clicks tore through the air. All eyes, Troodon and human alike, were now locked upon the island of stone and the two intruders at its heart. Volkov and Darya stood side by side, throwing glances in all directions. Any second and Callum was certain that the thousands of enraged creatures would swarm out onto the platform. If they weren’t barged over into the magma, Volkov and Darya would be torn to shreds.

He threw a panicked glance at Koikov. Then he raised his rifle, preparing to take out as many of the creatures as he could. The soldier also shifted. He thrust his rifle at Ava, who didn’t hesitate to accept it. Then he pulled the bazooka from behind his back and pointed it down into the chamber.

All three held their breath and waited for the attack to begin.

But nothing happened. Around the edges of the magma pit, the swarm of creatures continued their vocal assault. They paced up and down in agitation, bowing their heads, grinding their teeth and erecting their plumages in display.

Their feathers flushed as only Callum and Darya had seen them before, with vibrant reds and oranges, ambers and whites, until it looked as if the magma had seeped up and around the walls of the cavern. But still they maintained their position around the perimeter, posturing, jostling, but refusing to approach the nests.

“Why aren’t they