Deathstalker

And these were the creatures the Empress wanted him to capture and train as shock troops.

'I don't think we'll show this to the troops at their briefing,' said Stelmach. 'It would only upset them.'

'I've already shown it to them,' said Silence. 'It's my experience that informed troops last longer.'

'Then with your permission, Captain, I'll set things in order for the drop. I still have arrangements to make.'

'Do whatever you have to,' said Silence. 'We drop on the hour. If you're not ready by then, you can walk down.'

Stelmach nodded briefly and left the bridge. Frost sniffed.

'That man needs more fiber in his diet. Are you sure we haven't got any more footage of the first contact?'

'This is all that's viewable. I don't think I could stand much more. I don't think I've ever seen anything as vicious and deadly as those creatures.'

'Damn right,' said Frost, grinning broadly. 'I can't wait to go head-to-head with them. Been ages since I had a real challenge.'

The trouble is, Silence thought dryly, I think she means it.

* * *

The surface of Grendel was even more depressing in reality than it had been on the viewscreen. The great sea of ash stretched away in all directions, smooth and featureless and dead. There was more ash in the air, diffusing the pale crimson light of the sun, till it looked like the sky itself was bleeding. The five pinnacles from the Dauntless touched down one after the other on the specially constructed steel landing pads floating on the ash and waited just long enough for the contact team to disembark before taking off again. Captain Silence looked about him, getting the feel of the new gravity. Bit heavier than he was used to, but he could manage. The recreate built into his uniform's collar surrounded his head with a bubble of fresh air. Even if he could have breathed the vomitus mixture Grendel called air, the ash suspended in it would have blinded and choked him in seconds. He watched the departing pinnacles arrow up through the bloody skies with mixed feelings. Without them, he really was on his own.

He looked back at his team, noting without surprise that it had already split up into its three components of marines, espers and Wampyr. They still all looked to him for orders. As though he had any better idea what to do than they did. Still, when in doubt, sound confident.

'All right, pay attention! There's an elevator to take us down to the buried city attached to the underside of these rafts, courtesy of the mining equipment. Bad news is it'll only hold fifteen at a time, so the marines will go down first to check things out. Once they've given the okay, the Investigator will go down with the espers, and then Stelmach and his Wampyr. Weapons in hand, ladies and gentlemen. If it moves and it's not us, shoot it. You don't have to wait for my permission. And watch yourselves once we get down there. The alien technology can have a somewhat disquieting effect on the human mind. Just concentrate on the mission, and you should be fine. Any problems?'

'Do you want the bad news, or the really bad news?' said Frost.

'Give it to me straight,' said Silence heavily. 'What's gone wrong now?'

'First, we've lost all contact with the Dauntless. Something in the city below is interfering with our comm systems. That's a new development since the first team was here. Which means, if we need to leave here in an emergency, we're stuffed. We can't call for help, reinforcements, or a pickup. We're stuck here till the pinnacles return at the agreed time. Which is four hours and counting. You might care to consider that the first team lasted a grand total of two hours and seven minutes.'

'And the really bad news?' said Silence after a moment.

'The mining machinery's broken down. The elevator's still working, but the shaft extends only to the edge of the underground city. That leaves us with at least an hour's walk through the city before we reach the Vault.'

Great, thought Silence. Just great. The one thing he'd been counting on was being able to avoid long exposure to the city's alien technology and its effects on the human mind. It also meant that they had that much less time to cope with whatever came out of the Vault. Silence thought hard.

'Do we have any idea of why the mining machinery's broken down?'

'No. Telemetry's out, along with the comm systems. The slightly good news is that at least the elevator's still working. For the moment.'

'So that even if it gets us down to the city, there's no guarantee it'll still be working when we want to come back up?'

'You got it.'

'Marvelous. All right, we go ahead with the mission as planned. Unlike the first team, we've got battle espers and esp-blockers on our side. Hopefully one or the other will protect us from the city's influence. If not, we get to find out just how tough we really are. Get the marines moving, Investigator. Time is not on our side.'

The trip down in the elevator turned out to be something of an anticlimax. It was crowded, hot and stuffy, and distinctly claustrophobic, but since everyone was busy considering the horrors to come, nobody really noticed. With the comm systems out, there was no point in waiting for the marines' all clear, so Silence and the Investigator accompanied the first batch of espers down and hoped for the best.

The city itself seemed quiet and peaceful, but Silence couldn't help thinking of it as the quiet of the graveyard. The marines had already set up a perimeter, with bright lights pushing back the darkness in all directions. They carried their guns at the ready and looked more than willing to use them at the first opportunity. Frost hummed something cheerful as she set off to inspect the perimeter, and Silence moved the espers off to one side. For the moment, he had all three of his esp-blockers working, hoping their field would be strong enough to protect the entire team. But, just in case, he briefed the espers on maintaining a full psionic screen, should it prove necessary. They agreed easily enough, their eyes elsewhere. Silence couldn't blame them. It was all he could do to keep from turning round to stare out into the darkness. Anything could be out there. Anything at all.

The Wampyr waited patiently for orders. Stelmach was too busy looking around with an open mouth. Apparently seeing the city on a viewscreen was quite a different thing from seeing it up close and personal. He caught Silence looking at him and closed his mouth with a snap. He barked out orders, and the Wampyr moved unhurriedly to take up a formation around him. Whatever else happened, Stelmach was clearly determined on surviving to tell everyone else about it. Silence smiled crookedly. It wasn't a bad idea, surrounding yourself with a wall of Wampyr. He just wished he'd thought of it first. Frost came back from the perimeter, and he put on his best cool, calm and confident look. Though he didn't know why he bothered. It had never fooled her before. She nodded casually and moved in close, her voice little more than a murmur.

'Perimeter's secure, for the moment. Nothing on the motion trackers, but the long-range sensors are malfunctioning. We have to consider the possibility that ail our tech could fall foul to the city's influence. No guns, no force shields, no anything. We could end up going one-on-one with the Sleepers armed only with our swords and bad intentions. I'm not even going to think about the repeaters breaking down. Of course, there's always the Wampyr. They're pretty deadly in themselves, and their strength and speed aren't reliant on tech. Maybe our superiors did know what they were doing when they insisted we include the Wampyr on our team. How are the espers holding up?'

'Hard to tell. They're acting pretty spacey, but that's hardly unusual with battle espers. I'm relying on the esp-blockers to protect them and us for the moment. Let's get the troops moving. Investigator. The less time we spend down here, the better.'

'Spoilsport,' said Frost. 'You never want to do anything fun.'

The marines took the point, guns at the ready, lights blazing on their helmets. The cameras on their shoulders were still working, even though they couldn't transmit live to the Dauntless. The only way a record of this expedition would survive would be if someone returned to the surface with it. Frost moved with the marines, eyes alight, just waiting for some enemy stupid enough to start something. Silence came next, with the espers, if only because he wanted to keep an eye on them. They ignored their surroundings and trudged along with their heads hanging. Whether this was due to the oppressive nature of the city or the numbing