L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future 26 by L. Ron Hubbard

Author:L. Ron Hubbard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction & Fantasy
ISBN: 9781592128570
Publisher: Galaxy Press
Published: 2010-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

Poison Inside the Walls

The vein of fungus wound through the sand and rocks like a crimson serpent, deliberate and steady in its climb up the rugged hillside. The swollen bulbs pressed each other for shoulder room, each a ripe boil crowded among hundreds of its brethren.

One by one, the mushrooms’ taut flesh wilted, wrinkled, darkened. The edges browned, then blackened in seconds. The hemispherical bodies crumpled, turned to ash and vanished in the wind, leaving nothing behind but a black streak of carbon from the flame that destroyed it.

Ashia watched the row of boils dissolve under the heat of her flamer. She glanced over her shoulder. The rest of the scout squad was busy eradicating their own patches of boils, the closest woman still thirty meters distant. Ashia pulled the center grenade off her belt and unscrewed the false top, revealing the hollow compartment within. She glanced again. Still clear. She snatched a handful of boils off the rock and crammed them into the secret canister. She resumed her torching long enough for a third glance, stuffed another handful and screwed the lid back in place.

“Ashia!”

Had she been spotted? Ashia snapped the contraband into her belt before replying to the voice in her helmet. “Go ahead.” Her voice seemed shaky. She took a breath and turned.

One of the younger soldiers, a girl named Gretchen, ran toward her, still far enough away for Ashia to dispute whatever the girl might have seen. It would be foolish for so green a soldier to challenge the word of an older woman. Ashia stood her ground and awaited the accusation.

“A hole,” Gretchen said instead, pointing the way she had come. “I found a hole. You said to report—”

“To the lieutenant, not me.” So the girl had not witnessed anything. Good. But a hole in the ground could mean even bigger problems. “How big is the hole?”

“Large enough for a human.”

“Is it large enough for a Kree?” Ashia contemplated the young soldier’s vacant stare. “Show me.”

The hole was large enough for Ashia to crawl into. Could a Kree work its broad shoulders through it? Not quickly, but perhaps. She called the lieutenant, who agreed. Time to go. The squad was back in the scout pods and mobile within a minute.

A gas team would saturate that hole and an air strike would collapse it before any ground troops returned. There probably weren’t any Kree in there, but it would be suicide to go in for confirmation, even with a full battalion. The humans of Tora had learned that the hard way half a century ago.

Ashia’s eyes slid between the horizon and the mushroom-covered crags that lined the route back to the city of Echo. Already the patches of red were thinning, replaced by powder gray residue of scorched boils. Gray spaces were safe; no Kree burrow was ever more than a few meters from a crop of their only fare. Each of the five cities on Tora sat inside such a sooty ring, islands burnt into a sea of scarlet.

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