That dome far overhead, it allowed those mantis ships access to the universe. Sealed now. Perhaps that power grid, or control board, whatever the fuck controlled it at one time. I glanced at it again, to the side, with all its knobs and dials. Could it still work? If I could make a break for it, steal a ship—
Balt prodded me with his R6.
This was a graveyard, a mausoleum of death.
This depot once, was a vast factory of something, some repository of human specimens. I knew it, from what Mong had maundered on earlier about. But where in the hell was it? With no windows or portal to something for reference, it was impossible to gauge where in the cosmos we were. We could as easily be inside a small moon as on a space station, or in some madman’s dream. The green glow of the weird water of the few intact tanks was the only source of light.
I noticed a cable dangling from the stopper at the top of the insect’s tank. It hung to the floor, as if hinting of some feeding apparatus that Mong had described. To feed what—the Mentera? Or the trapped insect to feed something else? Why was one of their own kind imprisoned in the tank?
It was enough to make me retch.
I turned to back away and kept backing up, my entire being sickened by it all. I kept backpedaling, only to smell a more pungent odor of decay. I lifted a hand to shield my nose, nearly stumbled over a body, caught myself at the last instant.
I balked, did a double take, for in that withered face of the human figure, I thought to recognize a person of the past. I gasped. “That’s Mitch! I knew him. From way back on Brisis 9 when Marty and I had heisted the amalgo. Poor fuck must have starved here.”
“Yeah? Well, he’s maggot food now,” muttered Balt.
There, at his side, lay the crumpled black and white cap Mitch’d last worn. I remembered how he’d gripped one of those phasos and then poof, was gone, blasted into some forsaken dimension with no way to get back. The phaso ride he had taken back in Baer’s warehouse must have plopped him into this complex. Never occurred to him he could get back via the amalgamator in the other room. Then again, how could anyone have known that, or even how to use it?
This amalgo was tuned to the same destination as the phaso that Mitch’d touched. However long he’d clawed his fingers bloody trying to escape this place of lunacy, only the goblins of the past knew. Mitch had no inkling the magic U-shaped amalgamator in the other room could have transported him back.
I scanned the ships that lurked in the dim peripheries among the hundreds of tanks and skeletons. Mantis-like prows with big smooth, curving hulls like monsters of the deeps waiting to pounce. Perhaps one might offer a chance of escape? Yet the beetle-like turrets with their bug eyes sent shivers down my spine.
The place was dead. Not a flutter of movement. It had lain dormant for centuries. A part of me swayed, as if suddenly ready to fall head first from a high mountain. I bolted, trying to chase that image from my brain. Tanks swept by me like phantoms.
Balt gave a sharp yelp and caught up to me and ground me to a halt, pushing the R6 in my ribs. He prodded me back toward the two intact tanks. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going? Dimwit. Playing hide and seek on me in the dark? Another stupid move like that and I’ll plug you full of shells. Mong will be interested in these tanks.”
“He’ll likely want to play grabass with old Grover back there.”
“Shut up and move. Don’t waste my time. Mong should’ve blasted you from the start. Help me haul these two tanks back over to the transporter.”
I blinked as if he were speaking another language. “Your crazy master already has a couple of these.”
“So? Not with bugs in them. Move!” He struck my shoulder with his rifle, causing me to wince and gasp.
He kneed me toward the nearest tank, forcing me to start pushing it from behind. I leaned my shoulder into it, groaning in agony as the glass brushed against my mangled hand. The water inside the tank sloshed. I could hear the thud of hard chitin of the insect’s shell knocking against the side. It creeped the hell out of me. “Pure insanity what we’re doing here.”
“Quit your bellyaching.” Balt snapped me again with the end of his gun. “You’re such a baby. Mong can be a real hardass. Be thankful you have me. He had me lifting concrete blocks with a broken ulna.”
“Bully for you. Maybe you two can suck each other’s dicks as return favors.”
He sprang at me with a snarl of rage, pinning my arms down on the floor with his knees, shoving the barrel of the gun in my mouthpiece. “Only reason I don’t blow your fucking head off, Rusco, is Mong’d have my balls for breakfast. Consider this: ‘So, Balt, why’d you waste, Rusco?’
‘Because he was a dumb fuck.’
‘Well, I wanted him kept alive.’
‘Yeah, easier said than done—’
Bang—”
“So, consider yourself lucky. Now help me move this piece of shit out, and keep your mouth shut!”
He took an end and wiping my stretched lips, I helped him lug the bulky tank back the way we came.
We got it up the ramp and I pleaded for rest, hissing breath through my teeth through my awkward mask. I shook the pain out of my hand. Balt ignored me. We pulled it the rest of the way to the transporter room. I stepped back.
