The Moreau Quartet: Volume One: 1 by S. Andrew Swann

Author:S. Andrew Swann
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2015-08-03T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 27

The one at the valve had finished his job, and Nohar could hear the hiss of the methane.

The creature had half-turned toward him when Nohar heard a soft “phut” from the hole behind him. A small tube had planted itself in the folds under the creature’s chin. There was a bubbling groan from the creature, and it raised a flabby white arm to the tube stuck in its neck.

Three more “phuts” and similar tubes embedded themselves in the other aliens. There was a shuddering moan from the first one. Its arm had stopped halfway to its neck. There was a tearing sound as the pink clothes gave way and the thing collapsed into a shapeless white mass. There was a clatter as its eyes, fake plastic orbs, rolled off the mound of shuddering flesh. A pair of pink dentures followed.

The others collapsed as well.

They weren’t dead, so much as reverted to some natural state. They still moved, though in a shuddering, rhythmic fashion—occasionally throwing out a multitentacled pseudopod from their mass, only to be reabsorbed into the mound of flesh a moment later. They now looked like the amoebic form of life Manny had described.

Isham came through the hole behind Nohar and went to the valve on the cone, shut it off. She was talking to herself. “. . . cave dwellers, lots of heat vents and volcanic activity. Dim red-yellow sun, thick atmosphere, probably high gravity. They could survive very heavy acceleration. Could have ridden in on a nuclear rocket not much more advanced than our own. Gems are probably synthetic . . .”

Nohar hadn’t realized how tightly he was holding the shotgun until he tried to drop it. His hands didn’t want to move. “Damn it, Isham. Where did you come from, and what took you so long?”

Isham squatted and was looking at one of the quivering mounds of alien flesh. She poked it with the end of an air rifle she was carrying. The white flesh rippled like a water balloon. “We were staked out at Midwest Lapidary ‘headquarters.’ NuFood seemed too small to rate notice. Our team got word from the DEA. McIntyre and Conrad have been two steps behind the Zipperheads all night, ever since the rats jumped a cabbie at the airport. They radioed your message, and my team had to scramble all the way from downtown. I was point, got here about two minutes after you did—”

“What?” Nohar had spoken too loudly. He was suddenly out of breath and felt faint.

She activated her throat-mike. “Aerie, this is Bald Eagle—nest is clear, send the Vultures in with the cleanup. We need a local ambulance, with our own medics. Out.”

She stood up and looked into one of the niches in the wall. She reached in and took out a diamond. It glinted red facets of light.

“I had to tape them just in case the drug killed them. Otherwise, their rapid decomposition would be hard to explain to Washington—”

“You were there.” Nohar was fighting alternating waves of pain and nausea.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.