In Space No One Can Hear You Scream by Hank Davis

Author:Hank Davis
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2013-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

The hideaway from which Corvin Wergard had been keeping an observer’s eye on events in the Depot was one of a number he’d set up for emergency use shortly after their arrival. He’d selected it for operations today because it was only a few steps from an exit door in the building, and less than a hundred and twenty yards from both the control section and the outer barrier lock—potential critical points in whatever action would develop. Guiding Danestar back to it took minutes longer than either of them liked, but the route Wergard had worked out led almost entirely through structures shielded from the alien visitor by section defense screens.

She sat across the tiny room from him, enclosed in one of the bulky antiradiation suits, the shortcode transmitter on a wall shelf before her, fingers delicately, minutely, adjusting another of the instruments she had brought back from Hishkan’s office. Her eyes were fixed on the projection field above the instrument. Occasional squigglings and ripples of light flashed through it—meaningless static. But she’d had glimpses of light patterns which seemed far from meaningless here, was tracking them now through the commband detector to establish the settings which would fix them in the visual projection field for study. That was a nearly automatic process—her hands knew what to do and were doing it. Her thoughts kept turning in ðnightmare fascination about other aspects of the gigantic raider.

What did they know about it? And what did it know about them?

That living, deadly energy body, or its kind, had not built the signaling device. If it was not acting for itself, if it had hidden masters in the Pit, the masters had not built the device, either. Regardless of its origin, the instrument, though centuries old, still had been in use; and in the dust cloud its value in establishing location, in permitting free purposeful action, must be immense. But whoever was using it evidently had lacked even the ability to keep it in repair. Much less would they have been able to replace it after it disappeared—and they must be in mortal fear that mankind would discover the secrets of the instrument and return to meet them on even terms in the cloud. . . .

So this creature had traversed deep space to reach Mezmiali and recover it.

Volcheme, conditioned to success in dealing with human opponents, still believed his resourcefulness was sufficient to permit him to handle the emissary from the Pit. To Danestar it seemed approximately like attempting to handle an animated warship. The thing was complex, not simply an elemental force directed by a limited robotic mind. It had demonstrated it could use its energies to duplicate the human shortcode system, and the glimpse she’d had in the detector’s field of one of its patterns implied it was capable of much more than had been shown so far. And it might not have come here alone. There could be others of its kind undetected beyond the Depot’s barrier with whom it was in communication.

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