Web of Sand

Chapter Nine

"It's gone!" Hine straightened from the sonarscope. Beneath the transparency of his helmet his face was strained, dewed with perspiration. "By God, it was close! What happened?" He scowled as Dumarest explained. "You went into the tunnel?"

"Two or three steps only, and I made no noise. The tunnel just fell in ahead of me as I watched. The sannak?"

"Probably. It often happens when one comes too close. In any case the fall must have covered any noise you made getting clear." Hine listened, adjusted a dial, then released his breath in a sigh. "It's quiet enough now, thank God. You and Carl had better get some sleep."

"Later." Dumarest pointed to the tunnels he had seen in the far wall. "After we get up there."

"You want to climb?"

"Those tunnels must be old but in rock they'll be firm. We'd be more secure in one of them-this cavern must act as a sounding board. I've checked the wall and we can make it with luck."

"Cut steps?"

"No. We'll rig a grapnel and throw it into the lowest tunnel. We climb and repeat." Dumarest gave them no time to object. "Carl, you stand guard. Maurice, Zarl, pack the gear. What have we to use as a grapnel?"

He fashioned it from thin metal rods bent to form a bent cruciform with rope lashed to the central joint. Standing back from the wall he swung it at the dark mouth illuminated by Kemmer's lantern, heard the guide curse as it missed and fell with a rasp to the sand.

"The noise! Careful, Earl!"

Again Dumarest whirled the grapnel to send it flying high and this time accurately. Gently he tugged at the rope, felt it catch then suddenly yield. Ignoring Hine he tried again, this time with success. Keeping the rope taut he climbed, boots hard against the wall, walking as he took the strain with arms and back.

The tunnel, like the wall, held a dull polish, the floor clean of tranneks. Dust rested thick on the curved bottom but the wall remained intact beneath the rasp of his gloved hand. In the blue glow of his lantern he saw it sweep in an upward curve, the wall broken in one place where another tunnel sliced across it. Returning to the mouth he signaled to the others to ascend, stacking the packs and gear well back from the entrance.

As Sartis drew up the rope Dumarest explained, "We don't need to climb higher. This tunnel will take us. We need to find a junction which is both firm and even. A spot giving us clear views and alternative escape routes. If this rock is as riddled as I think it must be we won't have much trouble finding such a place."

"You intend to camp at a junction?" Hine echoed his doubts. "Man, you're asking for trouble. Each noise will be magnified as if we stood in the pipe of an organ."

"But dispersed," said Dumarest. "That's why we need a junction. And if anything comes we've a chance to fight and run." He added, "Trust me, Zarl. It will work."

As Jwani had hinted and Dumarest's own experience certified. Hunters such as Hine worked to a rigid pattern and were too close to the wood to see the trees. They found a mouth and searched single tunnels risking falls at every moment. Risking too being scented by a sannak and being crushed, eaten, buried alive. Fear had blinded them to what Dumarest had recognized.

"When moving, a sannak makes noise," he explained. "It can't avoid it. So the safest time for us to move is when one is passing close. In the rock we are in less danger than in the sand and can get better soundings from the more solid material. We'll camp, search for a feeding-node and when we find one we'll move in."

"Just like that?" Hine was sarcastic. "Earl, how long do you think we'd last?"

"Long enough." Dumarest was curt. "All we want to do is to get in, get what we came for then get out. The longer we hang around the greater risk we run. Now let's arrange a schedule."

Sleeping, eating, resting out of the suits. Standing watch in the eerie dimness of the tunnels and checking the findings of the sonarscope. Dumarest had other, more selective apparatus and he moved far from the camp to squat in stygian darkness, listening to the whispers and rustles and murmurs transmitted through the pierced and riddled stone.

Giants had made those tunnels, long, sinuous shapes gnawing and grinding in an eternal search for food. Mating, breeding, roving wide. The city must rest in a leached out part of the desert; the surrounding area devoid of the essential minerals the sannaks craved. The mountains and beyond would provide but no matter how daring and foolhardy the hunters might be they could only reap a fraction of the desired harvest.

Dumarest thought of the wealth which must lie locked deep beneath the sand. The voiding of thousands of the creatures over uncountable years. Entire mountains perhaps crushed and pulverized in the relentless attrition which had followed natural cataclysm. Forces which had turned a fertile world into a barren ball of arid dust laced with remaining ridges of jagged stone.

A thousand years, maybe less, and even they would be levelled and nothing remain but a restless sea of wind-blown grit. And the sannaks? Would they survive, burrowing deep, deeper, searching out the last vestiges of essential ores?

A whisper suddenly swelled into a scratching. A rustle became a roar. Murmurs became shouts and Dumarest spun dials to cut down the gain as a thunder of noise echoed from the pickups clamped to his ears. It held, continued as he felt the rock tremble beneath him, then the grinding roar began to fade and he was up and running back to the camp.

"Earl!" Kemmer came running toward him. In the blue glow of a lantern his face was ghastly. "Thank God. I thought-"

"Get packed!" The man had been on watch and Dumarest snatched the rocket-rifle from his hands. "Where's Carl? Get him to help. Zarl!" The guide was at the sonarscope. "Did you trace the direction?"

"Earl, the noise-"

"To hell with that! The thing can't sense us over that racket and we can't waste time. Did you check? Give me the figures."

Dumarest sat, comparing them with those he had taken, setting one against the other and gaining direction, depth and approximate distance. The small sounds he'd plotted from what had to be a feeding-node had come from the east and the sannak had headed in that direction. Other soundings traced the path of the creatures south and away from the ridge. As he'd guessed, the position they were in was barren, the multiple tunnels now serving to amplify distant vibrations.

"Here." His finger touched a position on a map. "About three miles to the east and maybe a quarter down."

"Three miles!" Kemmer sucked in his breath. "So far?"

"If it was nearer they'd be all over us. Zarl?"

"It's about as you say, Earl. A small node, I'd guess, and that could be in our favor. How do we get there? Up and over then down and chance we find an entry?"

"What are the chances?"

"Not good if the node is deep. We'd have to spread out and search for a mouth then take a chance on its remaining firm. That's the usual method."

There was another but he didn't mention it, watching as Dumarest calculated the probabilities. To climb out of the caverns back to the upper ridge, to walk along it, then to descend would take time and expose them to the outside and, if a storm was blowing, render them immobile until it was over. But to press on through the tunnels was to risk getting lost in a maze and, the nearer they approached the node, the more dangerous it would be.

"We'll go through," said Dumarest.

"Through these tunnels!" Kemmer was against it. "Why man, what's the point? It's taking risks for the sake of it. What if we get lost?" A vision of a nightmare of endless walking, starving, dying of thirst, waiting for the moment when destruction would strike. He added pleadingly, "Let's play it safe."

"Carl?"

"There's no point in going out just to come in again. I'm with you, Earl."

Hine said, "I'll ride along. You seem to know what you're doing. We can use the node as a guide and it's possible that some of these later tunnels could run straight toward it. How do we operate? Point, porters and rear guard? Right, I'll take the point." He paused as if waiting for argument; then, as none came, said, "We move in an hour."

It was like a dream he'd had when young; a nightmare which had afflicted him when, after his first hunt, he had seen his uncle buried beneath a fall and had wandered for hours in a mesh of tunnels. That had been at the foot of Peak 14 and he had never hunted there since. Hadn't hunted at all for years when financial need had driven him back to the Hills to earn enough to pay off his first debt. Then the second child and another loan and then the illness and the trouble and now the endless moving through tunnels made long before he'd been born.

But safe-Dumarest had been right about that and Hine wondered why he and others had never thought of it for themselves. Habit, he guessed, old ways die hard and when it's a question of land and search and grab and run and think yourself lucky if you manage to stay alive-God grant they be lucky!

He paused as they reached yet another junction and shone his lantern from one opening to another. The dust was a trifle thicker in one but it sloped up and they needed to head down. One had an appearance he didn't trust, the rock had run into veins of impacted sand and it could fall or be blocked farther ahead. The other? Should he lead the way into the other?

Dumarest said, "We'll halt for a while, Zarl. I'll check the readings."

"No. I can manage."

"You can and will but Santis needs a rest and Kemmer's bushed." A lie, but too near the truth for comfort. The trader, burdened with gear, was dragging his feet and Santis couldn't maintain concentration while battling fatigue. As the guide hesitated, Dumarest added, "You've made good time but we could lose everything if you make a mistake. Tent up, now, and rest."

As he obeyed, Dumarest moved to the junction, squatted, set up his apparatus and listened. The blur of noise was louder now and he judged they must have covered two-thirds of the distance to the node. A hard two miles, stretched into seven by turns, rises, blocked tunnels and diversions. Hours of painful progress marked by frozen halts and stealthy movements. Caution dictated by Hine and followed by the others. And twice they had found tranneks.

Dumarest looked at them, glowing in the blue shine of his lamp. Smooth pebbles enriched with fluorescence created by the ultraviolet. Kemmer had found one and Santis the other, both had been buried deep, both exposed by a passing boot. Perhaps, if they roved the tunnels, they would find more but he could not afford to spare the time. And, at best, the harvest would be difficult to reap with the stones buried deep beneath settled dust.

Time and money-to escape he needed both. He leaned back, switching off the lantern, seeing little flecks dance in his retinas from lingering images. Flecks which formed a pattern and became the fifteen units of the affinity twin. The secret Kalin had given him, one handed to her by Brasque who had stolen it from a secret laboratory of the Cyclan. Her gift which had made him the hunted prey of the organization which dominated worlds. One which offered incredible power. With it the intelligence of one could be placed in the body of another so that the subject-host would be ruled and controlled in every sense by the dominant factor. An old man could be given a new, young, virile body. A raddled crone be fresh and attractive and desirable again. New life. New bodies-a bribe none could resist.

And with the intelligence of a cyber ruling their mind and bodies none of power or influence could do other than dance to the tune the Cyclan chose to play.

And he had it, the secret they wanted so badly, the one they would move worlds to obtain.

The basic units they knew-but the sequence in which they had to be assembled they had lost. And to try to test each possible combination would take millennia. Time they wanted to save. Time he could give them.

And, once within their power, he would have no choice. They would take him and probe him and tear his mind apart and when they had done with him he would be eliminated as so much unwanted rubbish. To save his life he must escape the trap. And only the node could help him.

They reached it five hours later, inching forward through a narrow fissure, a chimney blown by some age-old venting of volcanic fury to crouch, helmets touching, staring at what lay below. A cavern as vast as the one they had first entered, the walls crusted with masses of crystalline protrusions which glowed with a cold, unwavering, greenish light. In it the sannaks feasted.

"God!" Kemmer's voice carried a stunned disbelief. "Look at those things!"

"Like worms," whispered Santis. "Giant worms."

But worms had no scales, no rasping, multi-toothed jaws, no eyes which gleamed like prisms beneath transparent protective membranes. And no worm could ever have been as large or as noisy.

"A feeding-node," said Hine. "I've heard of them but this is the first I've seen." His voice dimmed in the rasp of scales passing over scales, of jaws gnawing at the deposits. "Chitney," he said. "And, yes, elmish. See, over there. The dark purple stuff. That's what holds tranneks."

"Let's get them and go," said Kemmer. "Before those things spot us."

"They aren't to be found in a node-I told you that." The guide was impatient. "They don't void where they feed. We'll have to swing round and head out so as to search their runs."

"Go down among them? That's crazy." The trader appealed to Dumarest. "Earl, we can't do that. It's suicide!"

If not exactly that certainly an invitation for a quick and merciless end. Dumarest edged forward and looked over the area below. Sannaks ate to turn and plunge back into the sand; some lying coiled, others resting motionless half in and half out of their runs. In the cold, green light their scales shone with a winking, prismatic splendor.

"The runs," said Hine. "We've got to search their runs."

"Perhaps not."

"Earl?"

"Animals don't usually void at random," explained Dumarest. "Mostly their droppings form a marker to warn others to stay clear of their territory. My guess is that this particular node belongs to a section of the herd. If so they could well have set up void-points to isolate and identify the area."

"So?" Kemmer, no hunter, failed to understand. "What of it?"

"If Earl's right it means there could be heaps of tranneks just waiting to be collected," said the mercenary. "But what about the ones found in the runs?"

"Odd droppings," said Hine. His mind was dazzled with the possibility that Dumarest was correct. "And usually far from the node." His excitement grew as he thought about it. "It's possible! There are stories from the old days about big deposits having been found and, come to think of it, why else was the city founded? They must have harvested more than a few at a time like we do." And, with the passing of the years, the surface deposits had been cleaned, the sannaks driven deeper, the way to make an easy picking forgotten. He sobered as he looked below. "But how to reach it? A fortune could be waiting and we can't get near it."

"There might be a way," said Dumarest. "Well have to make a diversion."

Back in the cramped confines of the tent he explained his plan. Basically it was simple. They would provide bait to draw the sannaks away from the cavern, run down a selected tunnel, find and collect the tranneks and return before the creatures came back to resume feeding.

Kemmer, sweating, his torso marked with chafes and blood marking a spot rubbed raw by the collar of his suit, said, "What the hell could we use for bait?"

"Water and what food we can spare. Break the cans and let it spill. That and noise should do it."

"Timing?" Santis listened then nodded. "It's damned close but if we work in unison it could be done." He added, grimly, "If the sannaks take the bait."

And if the tranneks could be found before they returned.

Dumarest said, "It's a risk and I know it. I may have more reason than the rest of you to want big money fast so if you want out I'll understand. Carl?"

"Once in jail was enough. I'm in."

"Me too." Hine, eyes bright, rubbed hands together in anticipation. "One big strike and I'll be made for life. My kids'll be proud of me and-I'm in!"

"So how can I stay out?" Kemmer shook his head. "If I live through this I'm going to find a nice, quiet, well-watered world and settle down as far from mountains and sand as I can get." He became practical. "About the bait, Earl. One spot or two? If we can spare the water and food it might be wiser spread out a little. And the noise? How do we arrange that?"

"The run," said Hine. "We've got to pick the right run. One which leads to a void-point. How to decide?" He frowned. "Maybe we can figure it if we study them long enough."

"That'll be your job," said Dumarest. "You know them better than we do, but make sure the tunnel is firm and close. Maurice, break down the gear and make up emergency survival packs. Carl, you help me to arrange the diversions. Can you build time-fuses from what we have? Good. I'll want four with variable settings and what charges you can make up."

"Now?"

"Now." Speed was essential, both to minimize discovery by the sannaks but equally as important to avoid the others realizing just how slim the chances were. "We move as soon as set."

Waiting was never easy but during the course of his life Santis had learned how to wait. On Clemantis he had waited for three months before firing the twenty-seven shots which had been the sum total of his participation in a small but furious conflict which had divided a nation and had sent him to the hospital with burns on his legs and stomach. Regrafts had later removed the scars as tissue-plants had replaced an eye, a hand, the lower part of his jaw in the years which followed. Decades marked with pain and fury and the inevitable periods of waiting. But never before had the waiting seemed so hard.

The enemy, he thought. The creatures below which could attack at any moment. Would surely attack unless something happened soon. And what chance would he have with only a rocket-rifle as defense?

Below the mercenary, crouched with Hine in a fissure, Dumarest was just as strained. Mentally he counted the passing of seconds, wondering if the fuses had been as accurate as Santis had claimed, if the charges he had set could have been better placed. Wads of wrapped explosives culled from the rocket shells, set in crevasses, placed next to the cans of water and food sacrificed as bait. Now? Now?

A distant rumble as the first charge detonated. A growl as falling debris added to the vibration and, below, pointed snouts lifted, questing for the source of the scent which had attracted them, the odors of food and water which dominated all. Water, that contained in veins or cans, it was all the same.

A second quiver and now, the sannaks had moved to the side of the cavern, plunging into the sand, the mouths of tunnels gaping to show their passing. Twice more the ground shook and again Dumarest was mentally counting.

Seconds measured by him as by the others to unite their movements. Time carefully calculated to allow the sannaks to depart, to let the noise of their passage drown their own, the diversion to take full effect.

"Now!" Hine was on his feet and running. "Now!"

Dumarest followed, cursing the guide for his eager impetuosity. Seconds too soon-maybe they would make no difference but his life depended on that possibility.

"Maurice! Carl!" The need for silence was gone for these few, savage moments. "Into position! Fast!"

They were moving even as he shouted, Santis armed, the trader, like Hine, carrying a fabric bag and a lantern. They would search and collect while the mercenary and Dumarest stood watch. A double attack and a double chance of one team at least finding a void-point. Splitting forces was a weakness but, now, it didn't matter. Four could die in a run as easily as two.

"Here!" Hine slowed, trained caution finally taking over. "If my guess is right we'll score down in this run. Walk steady now. Don't keep in step. Don't touch the walls."

Don't talk, don't cough, don't do anything which could bring down the roof. Just keep moving and try to ignore the screaming need for haste. Walk and count each step, each second while the lanterns threw their blue glare on the floor before them. Search and forget the tons of sand which could fall, the creatures which could come driving through the wall or down the tunnel from behind or be waiting in the run ahead.

Hine led, Dumarest following, rifle poised for use in case of need, knowing how useless it really was. Even if the discharge didn't bring down the roof or the impact and the following explosion the writhings of the injured beast surely would. The main value of the weapon was psychological; a prop to bolster courage.

"Slow down," said Dumarest. The guide was loping at almost a run. "Save breath for the return." A warning he had driven into the others. Older, they would be able to travel less fast, less far. "We still have time."

A margin which diminished as the tunnel stretched before them, the floor clean, nothing fluorescing in the blue glow from the lanterns.

"They've got to be here!" panted Hine. "They've got to be!"

A chance taken, his reputation at stake, if he'd drawn a blank his life was ended. He speeded, running now to where the tunnel curved, lifted, dropped to lift again. The dip shone with a scintillant blue fire.

"Earl! They're here! Here!"

"Hurry!" Time was passing and they had come too far. "Grab and run! Move!"

"A fortune!" Dust plumed as Hine dug gloved hands into the heap. "Earl, it's a fortune!"

"Hurry!"

It was talking to the wind. Dazzled, Hine could see only the pile of tranneks, a vision of riches come true. He wanted them all, each and every one, collected, safe inside the sack, the sack safely tied. Not one must be left for later regrets at money lost. The heap must be cleaned, sifted, searched- never would the chance come again.

"Zarl!" Dumarest snarled his anger at the man's stubbornness. "Come on, man! We're running out of time!"

To drag the man from the heap was to invite a struggle, vibrations which would signal their presence if not create a fall. Dumarest dug at his waist, slipped a thin rod from his belt, thrust it into the side of the tunnel and, jerking open his helmet, gripped the end between his teeth.

Bone conduction carried the sound of rumbling growing louder. Of vibration getting too close.

"I'm going!" One hand snatched at the guide's shoulder, jerked, pulled him back and away from the pile. The other slammed the muzzle of the rocket-rifle against the helmet, metal clicking as it touched the transparent plastic. "You hear me! I'm leaving!"

"No! You can't! There are more-"

"They can stay. We've got enough. Now move before I blow your damned head off! Move!"

Dumarest had reseated his helmet but the diaphragm carried his anger and his face his intent. If greed was to kill him then he would be revenged before he died. Hine stared, recognized his danger, shuddered as a shower of sand fell from the roof.

"I'm sorry! I-let's run!"

More sand fell as they raced down the tunnel; thin plumes broadening to showers, into avalanches which heaped grit high behind. Scented, they were prey for the sannak burrowing toward them. The drumbeats of their running feet echoed their position.

"Earl!" Hine staggered, one hand pressed to his side, breath rasping as he fought to inflate his lungs. "Cramp! I can't-"

"Move!" Dumarest reached the guide and thrust with the heel of his free hand. "Move, damn you! Move!"

There was no time to be gentle. Unless the man forced his body to respond he would fall and to fall was to die. Sobbing, bent double, he lurched on. Before them glowed a circle of soft green luminescence; the mouth of the tunnel, the cavern beyond.

A circle suddenly blurred by falling sand.

Dumarest saw it. Saw too the great snout which thrust from the side of the tunnel a short way ahead. As Hine, in the lead, instinctively slowed he reached the man, clamped his free arm around his waist and, with the fury of desperation, lunged forward with all his strength and speed.

A race which he almost lost as the thrusting head narrowed the passage, barely won as he darted past, feeling the rasp of scales on the suit at his back. But won only for a moment-the creature was fast.

It followed in a shower of sand as Dumarest reached the cavern. The head lowered, swung in a vicious arc, a blow which smashed against Hine and sent both men to the floor. Dumarest rolled, half-stunned, stars blurring his vision and the taste of blood strong in his mouth. The rifle lay to one side away from the fallen man and he reached it as the head prodded at the guide. Rising he aimed and fired; a thread of fire reaching from the muzzle to touch the scaled body, to penetrate and explode with a muffled report, to create a gaping wound oozing with green ichor. A hole large enough to take the head of a man but small against the sinuous bulk of the forty-foot beast.

Yet one which hurt.

Dust rose as the sannak writhed over the cavern floor toward its tormentor. Dumarest backed, firing, adding more holes to the first. The magazine fell empty and he searched for more charges to reload. Before him the head lifted, jaws gaping, eye-plates glowing with reflected green light. An emerald which suddenly blazed in vivid fluorescence.

"Earl!" Santis stood close to the fissured rear wall, legs straddled, rifle firm against his shoulder. Beside him Kemmer aimed the blue glow of his lantern at the wounded creature. As it stilled the mercenary called, urgently, "Down, Earl! Down!"

"No!" Santis had the chance of a clean shot but the sannak was no longer alone, Another had burst through the sand and, even as Dumarest shouted, it was joined by a second. "Cover me!"

A chance and he took it. The sannak, hurt, dazzled by the projected ultraviolet, was confused and would be slow to react. Hine, lying where he had fallen, stirred as Dumarest reached him.

"Zarl, can you stand?"

"I don't know." The guide sweated as he tried. His guts burned and it was agony to breathe. "No! No, for God's sake!"

He screamed as he was lifted and thrown over Dumarest's shoulder. Through the helmet he had glimpses of nightmare; menacing shapes, threads of fire, the blossoms of explosions and points of blazing green fire. Above all was the pain- dear God, the pain!

Darkness came as a blessing and he sagged, one hand closing with a grip of steel on the bulging sack slung at his waist.