The Chronicles of Riddick - Alan Dean Foster [55]
“You be a good soldier and go after the Riddick. The Marshal hasn’t given you much of a choice, anyway. Do your job and terminate the breeder, or bring him back. Meanwhile, I’ll find out why the Lord Marshal is so threatened by him. And what the Elementals have to do with all this. There are wheels within wheels here, my dear commander, and I need time to translate the squeaking.”
Leaning toward him, she thrust her tongue toward the back of his mouth while her perfect teeth simultaneously nibbled teasingly at his lips. Her hot exhalation surged down his throat.
In the face of an argument like that, he could do naught but comply.
IX
It was a stark and blasted world, wobbling uncomfortably on its axis. Too close to its sun, one hemisphere was presently roasting in the heat of Hades while the other shuddered in the death grip of mortal cold. In between lay the terminator, a band of tolerable twilight that was wider and moved more slowly than on most human-inhabited worlds.
Approaching from the night side, a small ship descended through an atmosphere incapable of holding moisture and therefore devoid of comforting clouds. No markings identified it, the insignia of no system flared proudly from its flanks. The same might be said of its crew.
Automatically, cryotubes retracted from selected arms and legs. While the rest of the mercenaries slept, the copilot detached herself from remaining monitoring links and life-support conduits. Rising from her place of repose, she stretched until the air in her joints popped. Forcing herself through the prescribed regimen of wake-up exercises, she then proceeded to check on her colleagues. They would be reviving soon. A quick run-through of systems showed that everything aboard the compact little craft was functioning normally. Pleased, she was about to signal their presence to the ground prior to initiating preliminary procedures for touchdown when she remembered there was one other on board whose status she ought to check on.
As was proper, their cargo was still out. Of course he was. It was absurd to think he might have emerged from cryosleep on his own. An interesting specimen, even if he did represent nothing more than a quick and satisfying cash-out. His origin was a mystery to her. Toombs might be their leader, but he hadn’t provided much in the way of information about their captive. Just that he was one more in a long list of the recovered. Toombs was nothing if not boastful.
Not that it mattered to her. All that mattered was payday. Which, assuming no trouble with the authorities on the ground, ought to be forthcoming very soon.
Still, she could not entirely repress her natural curiosity. There had been that intriguing but brief verbal interplay between the prisoner and Toombs, for example. And those goggles the man wore: she’d never seen a pair quite like them. Much more than simple sunshades, of a design that was new to her and a composition that suggested a need to do more than merely dampen sunlight, they intrigued her almost as much as the comatose man who was wearing them.
Edging closer, she reached out a wary hand. There was no movement, no response to the approach of her fingers. Were the inside of the lenses as distinctive as their exterior? She lifted the goggles.
And nearly fell backward and down. A pair of eyes was staring straight back at her; a pair of eyes that glinted with a hint of the kind of devious surgical modification that in polite society was more often whispered than spoken about. So calm and controlled moments earlier, her breath now came in sudden, short gasps.
Riddick turned his head ever so slightly to one side. “Do you know that you grind your teeth when you’re in cryosleep? Makes one wonder what you’re dreaming about. Sexy.”
Though it was right behind her,