Maker - Michael Jan Friedman [59]
“Very well,” he told the Magnians. “We will do it your way. However, my transporter operator will have orders to beam your people up at the first sign of trouble. Is that understood?”
Daniels nodded. “It is.”
The captain would have preferred to attack Brakmaktin from a distance. But if the Magnians’ approach stood a better chance of success, so be it.
Nikolas thought Brakmaktin had worked quickly on the warship, but that was nothing compared to the speed at which he was working now.
Stalactites and stalagmites were building at what had to be a centimeter a second, awash with water dripping steadily from the cavern ceiling. Each deposit seemed to yearn for its opposite, lovers too long denied each other.
Nikolas could see this happening by the cavern’s only real light source—Brakmaktin himself, his body aglow with an energy that had shriveled and finally disintegrated his clothing, and was probably responsible for his hair falling out. The Nuyyad stood in the center of what had been a stark, featureless vault, arms held wide, head thrown back in triumph.
At last, he could create what he had been constrained from creating before—whatever its significance. Nikolas still didn’t know what the cavern meant to Brakmaktin, though it was clear it made him feel better to be in its embrace.
The only other faint spot of light in the enclosure was in one of its corners, where the sun’s rays angled down along a straight, smooth-walled shaft. It was by this means that Brakmaktin and Nikolas had reached that depth in the first place.
There was no longer any possibility of the human’s escaping his captor. Even if Brakmaktin forgot about him, he would never make it up the shaft.
So he sat there on the cavern floor and watched, and wondered what further horror would befall the Ubarrak of that world when the Nuyyad finished his masterpiece.
Suddenly, everything shuddered. Nikolas looked around, wondering what had happened. Then the cavern shivered again, but this time with greater force.
A milky, half-grown stalactite plummeted from above and shattered on the stone floor, not three meters from Nikolas’s foot. Then there was a third vibration, as if an immense hammer was striking the planet’s crust.
An earthquake? Nikolas wondered.
Brakmaktin looked up, his eyes glowing fiercely. “We are being attacked,” he said, his voice immense in the confines of the cavern.
Attacked by whom? Nikolas wondered. The Ubarrak?
Of course. They had located the pest that had dug a hole in their world and were trying to exterminate him.
Despite the danger to himself, Nikolas wholeheartedly cheered the effort. He was happy to die if it meant Brakmaktin would die as well. That was a trade-off he could accept.
The cavern vibrated with another volley, cracking a few more fledgling cones off the ceiling. As they smashed themselves to pieces around the Nuyyad, he pointed a thick, stubby finger at the unseen source of the attack.
But before he could strike back, the cavern took its worst pounding yet. The ground shivered and cracked around them, and stalactites fell like rain.
Clearly, the Ubarrak knew the kind of power they were up against, and they were giving their countermeasure everything they had. But would it be enough?
Nikolas was still wondering when something appeared at the opposite end of the cavern. Wondering what it might be, he scrambled closer to get a better look.
What he saw was a thick, twisted piece of metal, dark gray in color. Considering the shape it was in, Nikolas could only guess at its original dimensions: a couple of meters across, maybe three in length?
He saw Brakmaktin looking at him, a cruel smile on his face. Clearly, he found the object amusing.
“What is it?” Nikolas asked.
“A section of hull,” said the alien. “From one of the fighters that attacked us.”
As he spoke, a second such object appeared. And then a third. And they were followed by a great many more, so many that Nikolas soon gave up counting them.
And the pounding had stopped. The cavern