Planet X - Michael Jan Friedman [33]
Robinson looked at the security officer. He shrugged. Together, they went out into the corridor and looked to see where the sound was coming from.
What Sovar saw was a pair of battered-looking figures—Worfand the X-man called Wolverine—negotiating the hallway with a tired air about them. The black exercise clothes they wore were ripped and stained, and Worf had big, purple bruises on his face.
Wolverine elbowed the Klingon in the ribs. “That was a good workout.”
Worf winced and shot the mutant a look of mock admonishment. “Just be careful you do not puncture my lungs as you did our opponents.
Wolverine pointed a finger at his companion. “Never can tell who you’re gonna have to fight next.”
The Klingon broke into a savage grin.
As the two of them walked by Sovar and Robinson, they appeared to realize what a sight they must have been. The mutant stopped to look at Worf. Worf looked at the mutant. Then they shrugged and started down the corridor again.
“Carry on,” the Klingon told Sovar and Robinson. Then he followed his companion around a bend in the passageway.
The security officer turned to his friend. “That Worf … he finds family everywhere, I think.”
Robinson didn’t say anything. She just rolled her eyes, took Sovar’s arm, and led him in the direction of the ship’s lounge.
Chapter Eleven
IT WAS AFTER midnight when Erid and the others reached the outskirts of the city. Despite Rahatan’s boasts about making Verdeen their place, the earthmover opted for a more conservative course of action.
He asked a transformed named Cudarris, who had lived in Verdeen until he was almost fifteen, where they might find an area with some condemned buildings. Cudarris described a district called the Old Quarter, where a whole block’s worth of residential structures was gradually being razed and replaced with new housing.
Rahatan said that sounded good to him. He asked Cudarris to lead the way, but to take the least-traveled route possible.
The transformed didn’t travel all together, either. They would have been too easy to spot that way. They walked in groups of three and four, keeping the group ahead of them in sight and avoiding illuminated windows wherever they could. Luckily, they didn’t run into any inquisitive hovercar drivers, and they never saw even a sign of the city guards.
At last, they came to a series of half a dozen likely tenements. None of them were big enough to hold all the transformed, but together they would do the trick.
As they gathered in an alley near the buildings, Rahatan called for a transformed named Inarh, who turned out to be the man with the luminous eyes. Inarh came to the front of the group.
“What can you see?” asked the earthmover.
Inarh regarded the buildings for a moment. “They’re not entirely unoccupied,” he said. “There are drifters in every one of them. Not too many—two or three in each.”
Erid knew then what the man’s power was. He could see things … at a distance, in the dark and maybe right through solid objects. It was a handy talent to have under the circumstances.
“Unfortunately,” Inarh continued, “the power’s gone. No light, no heat.” He chuckled. “Strangely enough, the water’s still on. Nothing like the efficiency of city government, is there?”
“I don’t mind it a bit,” Rahatan told him, “as long as it works to our advantage.” He rubbed his chin for a moment. “Take Leyden, Denara, and Erid and clear out the first building. When you’re done, let me know and you can start on the next one.”
“Understood,” said Inarh.
As it happened, it didn’t take long to evict the building’s tenants. When they saw Leyden and Erid, their eyes opened wide and they ran away.
In the long run, Erid thought, the drifters would prove their undoing. They would say something about a man with skin like an insect’s shell, and another man with huge, purple veins, and someone would use that information to trace the transformed to the Old Quarter.
But in the meantime, they would all have a place to sleep. That wasn’t a bad thing at all.
As Erid and the others