In my heart, though, I’d already known what I was dealing with. Only an Eight-Warrior would have pursued me so relentlessly, so mechanically.
And an Eight-Warrior was going to be very hard to kill.
The alien squatted lower, compressing its legs like springs, hugging its segmented body close to the rock. Then leapt off from the summit, a squirt of thrust from its suit aiding its flight, sailing out over the cliff, beginning to fall along a gentle parabola. I watched it wordlessly. Terminal velocity was very low in seven hundred atmospheres, so the alien seemed to float downwards more than fall, descending until it had passed out of view behind the furthest intervening summit.
I stood my ground, certain of the maggot’s plan, but needing confirmation before I acted. A minute passed, then five. After ten a metallic glint appeared over the crest of the summit, a mere seventeen kilometres away. The maggot had leapt off one rock, touched down on some ledge or outcropping of the next, climbed all the way to the top.
With my suit-missiles depleted I only had one effective asset at my disposal. I unshipped the mine from its stowage point under my chestplate. It was a self-burrowing cylinder, angled to a point at one end so that it could be driven into the ground. Multimode selector dials: variable yield, fuse delay timer, remote trigger.
Being ahead of the maggot was my one advantage. I hefted the mine, wondering if this was the place to embed it, setting a trap for the alien. At full yield it would shatter the top of this mountain, so the maggot wouldn’t need to be following in my exact footsteps. But we were only at seven hundred atmospheres now. Such a pressure was well within the tolerance factor for my suit, and doubtless the same was true for the maggot. If it caught the edge of the blast, it might survive.
But if I led the maggot deeper, pushed both our suits to the limit of crush depth …
Well, it was another plan.
I reached the next mountain and climbed to its summit, then made my way over the crest and down a gentle slope. Nine hundred and fifty atmospheres– well into the danger margin.
Good.
I paused and for the second time unshipped the mine. This time I entered its settings, armed it, knelt to the ground–my suit lights created a circle of illumination around me—and pushed its burrowing end into the terrain. The mine jerked from my glove, almost as if it were eager to get on with destroying itself. In a few seconds it had buried itself completely, invisible save for a faint red pulse which soon faded into darkness. I checked my suit trace, confirming that it was still reading the mine, ready to send a detonation signal as soon as I gave the order. I had locked the yield at its maximum setting, deciding to take no chances.
Having done all I could, I rose to my feet and set off. The maggot could not be far behind now, and I imagined its quick metal scuttling, the hateful single-mindedness of its thoughts as it closed in on its quarry. I had timed things so that the alien would be ascending the far face of the nearest mountain as I laid the mine, screened from a direct line of sight, but that meant cutting my advantage to a very narrow margin. Everything depended on the next few minutes.
I scrambled my way down to my next jump-off point. Beyond the void was another, smaller mountain, and I was confident I could reach its upper flanks with the remaining propellant in my tank. It was lower than this one, though, and the increase in pressure would push my suit close to its limits. Once there, I would feign slowness, encouraging the maggot to cross ground more hastily.
Perhaps I would not need to feign it.
My suit was already beginning to warn of low power thresholds. Locomotion and life-support would be the last to go, but in the meantime I could help matters by shutting down as many non-essential systems as I dared. I blanked down my faceplate readouts, then dimmed my suit lights, the darkness rushing in from all sides. My suit already knew where I wanted to jump; being able to see where I was going would serve no purpose until I was nearly at the other mountain.
I had known many kinds of darkness in my military career. There is the darkness of deep space, between systems. But even then there are stars, cold and distant as they may be. There is the darkness of the immersion tank, as the lid clamps down and the surge gel floods in. But even then there are faint glows from the inspection ports and medical monitors. There is the darkness of the birthing vats, before we are assigned our living roles. But since we have known nothing but darkness until that instant of awakening, it is light that sparks our first understanding of fear.
This was not the same kind of darkness. When the last of my lights had faded the blackness that surrounded me was as total and unremitting as if I had been encased in ebony. Worse, I knew that this darkness was indeed a solid, crushing thing. It was the unthinkable pressure of all the layers of atmosphere above me, still more below. Air becoming liquid, then a kind of metal, denser and hotter than anything in my experience.
Slowly my eyes adapted–or tried to