Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [27]
Most of all, Robb talked about Tasia Tamblyn. Of course she must consider him dead by now; Tasia was a tough girl, not given to believing in silly fairy tales. Everyone here had similar longings for their loved ones.
Outside, multicolored chemical and polymer mists drifted through the bizarre geometric metropolis like tendrils of fog. The amorphous quicksilver hydrogues moved like lumps of molten metal, going about their incomprehensible purposes. One of the captives, Anjea Telton, whistled to alert the captives. A trio of flowing hydrogues was coming toward their curved cell.
“This can’t possibly be good,” said Gomez. Robb didn’t argue with him.
The hydrogues rarely communicated with them, and then only with terse commands. None of the human prisoners could understand what the deep-core aliens wanted from them.
Beyond the bubble wall, the three ominous beings rose up and shaped themselves into identical forms they had copied from their first victim, who looked like a Roamer skyminer. Two of them carried the halves of a perfectly transparent shell about the size of a coffin. It was empty.
The deep-core aliens stepped against the curved wall and slowly pushed, easing themselves through the membrane. All the captives shrank away to the opposite side of the chamber, but the hydrogues moved forward. In the confined space, the humans had nowhere to run.
The hydrogues selected one of the prisoners at random, Charles Gomez, and closed in, carrying the opposite halves of the man-sized container. The third hydrogue gestured the other prisoners away. Gomez tried to flee, but could not get around the creatures. The drogues encircled their hapless subject like hunters using nets to capture a specimen.
“What are you doing?” Robb shouted at the aliens. “What do you want with him, or any of us?” The hydrogues went about their business without saying a word, as if simple communication was beneath them.
Robb threw himself forward. “Leave him alone! Leave us all alone!” He closed with the third hydrogue, landing a punch against its quicksilver amorphous body. His fist unexpectedly sank into the shimmering liquid metal.
He let out a shriek as unbearable cold shot through his fingers, hand, and wrist. Staggering back, he withdrew his arm from the quicksilver creature. The skin of his hand crackled with ice, steaming as it began to thaw. Nerve pain continued to scream into his brain, but he couldn’t move his fingers. He sank to the floor, nursing his hand.
Robb looked back up in time to see the two halves of the coffin container seal tight, trapping Charles Gomez inside, like a mummy in a sarcophagus. The walls of the container must have been thick, for though the victim thrashed and pounded and shouted, no sounds escaped.
The hydrogues carried the coffin container to the curved wall, where they slowly melted back through. The chamber membrane shimmered and then solidified behind them, allowing none of the external pressure in. Robb cradled his aching hand and joined his fellow captives as they pressed against the transparent wall.
Outside, another group of hydrogues had hauled a much larger object forward, something made by non-hydrogue hands. Despite the horror and confusion around him, Robb’s face lit up. “That’s my encounter chamber! The hydrogues kept it.”
A flood of unreasonable optimism rushed through his brain. “What if they’re taking Charles into the diving bell? Maybe they’ll pressurize it and let him go.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Anjea Telton.
Robb shook his head, refusing to give up hope. He had experienced too much despair over the past months of being trapped here. But even if the diving bell was shot back up to the clouds—of whatever planet they were inside now—how would Gomez ever get to a human settlement or even another ship?
“They might’ve arranged some sort of hostage transfer,” Robb said. “The military has