“You and whose army?”
“Come up here and find out.”
“Not right now. I’ve got more important things to do.”
And he clucked, making chicken noises run through the implant, until I wanted to laugh out loud.
“Child,” I said, and was brought rudely back to the present when Easrick spoke.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, coming up to stand in front of me, and I realized my smile had leaked into a grin.
The way he was positioned put him right between me and the pre-fab. It also trapped me between him and the crawler where I presumed my trigger-happy guardian was still aiming point-blank at my head. And it let him stay side on to the firing slit and the mesh gate, which was a direction his eyes barely strayed from.
“Well?” he asked, when I was silent.
I thought fast.
“I was just wondering how many other contractors have gone before me?” I answered, keeping as close an eye on his face as I could.
He frowned, but didn’t reply, so I pushed a little bit more.
“I mean this footage of her heading into the elevator has got to be at least two months old, and I don’t imagine his lordship is a very patient man. He’d have had someone on her trail just as soon as he’d found out what she’d taken.”
Again, Easrick didn’t respond, so I sighed.
“So,” I wheedled, “how many have there been?”
He snapped his head around, giving me the full benefit of his glare, and I wondered exactly how many troops had been frightened by similar looks in the past. It only made me want to start a fight, since I wasn’t going to let myself be intimidated by anyone—not after Delight, or Odyssey, or even Mack. Nope, never again. I glared back.
“Was it in the briefing?” he asked, clearly unimpressed.
I cocked my head, and put my hands on my hips. He was only half a head taller than me, nowhere near as imposing as Mack’s seven feet.
“You lose any men because something was left out of a briefing, and some bastard wouldn’t share?”
It was a challenge, but it was something that hit home. For a moment, his expression rippled, and I thought I might be getting somewhere, but then his face hardened, and he handed me my pack, and the box holding my gear.
“What might and might not have been lost doesn’t change my orders,” he said, and I knew he’d chosen his side and wouldn’t be shifted. “His lordship didn’t tell you how many had gone before, or if any even had? Then I’m not free to divulge.”
He glanced at the gate.
“And you’re wasting daylight. You want to be a good ways from here before the night cycle hits, because this cavern will be crawling.”
“Ants?” I asked, packing my weapons back into the places they belonged, unstrapping the holsters, and then dragging the suit of light combat armor on, before climbing back into the weapons rig.
“You wish.”
I wanted to ask him exactly what sort of crawling he might mean, but really didn’t have time—and Easrick was clearly not in the mood.
He watched, and I sensed him going over the harness with a practiced eye. He might not be running a manual check, but he couldn’t help checking I’d put things on right. I checked my blades, and then pulled my boots on. It felt good to have something between my feet and the hard stone floor. When I was done, we headed for the gate.
Behind us, I heard boots hit the pavement, followed by the crawler door slamming shut. I guess my guardian had decided I didn’t need shooting any more... or he had to move to clear his line of fire. Either worked.
When we hit the gate, Easrick looked down at the guards on either side.
“Nothing, sir. Looks clear.”
“Crack the gate.”
He didn’t move, save for a slight movement of the head as he surveyed the cavern beyond.
“Tunnel you want, is that way,” he said, lifting his chin in the required direction. “You’ll need your goggles.”
Like I hadn’t already worked that out.
I didn’t say a word, just pulled the dark-vis goggles into place, and stepped through the foot-wide opening between the gate-edge and the plassteel frame supporting it. This time, Easrick let me take the lead—and he didn’t follow. He just pushed the gate closed behind me, and sealed the locks. I turned around to ask him if that was the same tunnel he’d pointed out to everyone else, but he’d already turned away.
All I got was a good look at the business end of half a dozen blasters, with not a look of sympathy from any of the men holding them.
“I’ll be going, then,” I said, and walked out into the dark. “Bastards.”
13—The Place is Crawling
Crossing the cavern, with an armed outpost at my back wasn’t as easy as it seemed. For one thing, I had no guarantee that any one of those boys would open fire, if I was attacked. As far as I could tell, their duty was to protect the mines, not me. And, for a second thing, whatever stim Mack had given me seemed to have worn off, and I could no longer access the map in my head, while navigating to where I wanted to go.
Life can be a real bitch, sometimes.
I didn’t let that stop me, just kept a good, close eye on the dark, and moved carefully over the unfamiliar terrain. This part, the floor was mostly smooth, with just the odd bit of rubble or debris lying on the floor. Those bits were enough to stub a toe, or roll an ankle, on, but they were nothing to what I expected to find in the caverns proper. Those suckers, after all, didn’t need to have roads for mining vehicles, or men; they just were.
I moved swiftly and easily towards the tunnel Easrick had indicated, my ears aching as they strained to hear anything beyond the sound of my own footsteps. When I’d reached the other side and eased my way just
