Doctor Who_ Last Man Running - Chris Boucher [9]
Rinandor dropped her equipment pack and rummaged around in it for her communicator unit. She had always taken a perverse pleasure in not keeping things neat and well ordered but there were times when it was a definite problem.
‘What are you doing?’ Pertanor said.
She finally found the palm-sized voice link and pulled it out of its dark-wrap. ‘Time to tell our brilliant leaders that we’re short one ship.’ The light-sensitive aerial began to deploy.
Pertanor hurried back to her and clapped a hand over the activator before the unit could start tuning itself in to Kley’s coordinator. ‘What about the comm silence?’
‘What about it?’
‘You want to be accused of tipping the runner?’
Rinandor gestured around with her free hand. ‘You don’t think he knows about us already?’
‘Come on, Ri, suppose this wasn’t him.’
‘Suppose it doesn’t matter. Without a ship we can’t take him.’
‘What about his ship?’
‘It’s a write-off. You saw the orbit projections and the imaging.’
‘So you trust the data on that, then.’
Rinandor pushed his hand away. ‘I can’t believe you’re standing there making debating points.’ But she put the communicator back in its pouch.
‘Even if they got that one right,’ Pertanor said, ‘he’ll have another ship hidden somewhere or else he’ll have one coming for him. He’s not suicidal and he’s not stupid. That crash-down was part of his plan.’
‘You’ve been thinking, Pe. It’ll stunt your growth,’ she said, and smiled. ‘And all chances of promotion.’
Pertanor went back into the centre of the clearing, scuffed back the heat-shrivelled vegetation and kicked at the scorched soil. ‘You don’t suppose...?’ he said.
‘What?’ asked Rinandor.
‘Nothing. Stupid idea.’
Before she could tell him how irritating she found that sort of self-censoring, false-sounding modesty the noise of slithering pursuit suddenly got louder, much too loud to be ignored any longer. With it there was now a keening note pitched on the painful upper limit of audibility.
‘That is a squad snake,’ she said. ‘That’s the telepathic strike, isn’t it?’ Already her optic nerves were being triggered and agonising flashes were interfering with her vision. Soon the snakes, which had vestigial telepathic links and hunted in organised groups of up to a hundred individuals, would be in range and producing the fully disorientating sound that paralysed nerve centres in warm-blooded prey.
‘Come on!’ Pertanor grabbed up her pack and pulled her towards the far side of the clearing. ‘Run!’
The five-foot-long snakes could spit nerve toxin as well as inject it through hinged fangs but in a straight chase they could not cover the ground as fast as a frightened quadruped of any reasonable size or even a terrified biped the size of a man. But a hundred snakes acting as one animal was a horribly efficient killer and if it managed to delay its prey long enough to surround it then a kill was inevitable.
‘I can’t,’ she gasped, stumbling after him. Her legs felt heavy, achingly sluggish. ‘They’re all round us.’
‘No they’re not!’ he yelled. ‘Concentrate on running! Move!’
He shoved her into the jungle. She forced her legs to work, dragging and pushing one in front of the other. Pertanor tried to help, pulling and half carrying her away from the sound of the snakes. As they struggled on she wasn’t sure whether they were really escaping or whether the snakes were driving them into some sort of supernatural trap. But gradually the keening did not seem as loud, the weakness in Rinandor’s legs began to ease and she found she could move without Pertanor’s help. Progress became faster and easier until she was almost running.