The Chronicles of Riddick - Alan Dean Foster [87]
“Boss,” he muttered, nodding in the direction of the shaft. Wordless agreement passed between wary superior and valued subordinate. Douruba spoke curtly to the man on his right.
“Malak, grab a look. Check out the flowers.”
The guard protested. “What the shit for? There’s nothing up there. All the slugs are boxed up back in slam. Why waste the time? Because Anatoli says so?”
The slam boss was in no mood to argue. “Because his nose says so.”
Grumbling under his breath, Malak turned to comply. Douruba ignored his muttered curses. In a job like this, in a place like this, a man needed to be able to let off steam. Let off steam on Crematoria, he thought. That was pretty funny. Nothing much funny had happened ever since that last fuckin’ quick-tempered merc crew had arrived at his place with their one unsettling package.
Well, it would all work out. They had all the payoff money on hand and the mercs would get blamed for the destruction. The assorted powers that be who needed and funded a shit hole like Crematoria would bitch and moan about the cost of replacement. Then they’d sigh, suck it up, stick their constituents with some artfully hidden special tax, and come in and rebuild. He wouldn’t be around to see it, though. He intended to take his share of the money and retire. To someplace cold. Where it snowed.
Still complaining, the guard at the bottom of the shaft activated the self-powered lift mechanism. There was a grinding sound as the metal cap elevated on screws that were miniatures of the ones that raised and lowered the slam control room. Punching through accumulated crust and dust, it hummed to a halt half a meter above the surface.
Resigned to the work, the muttering guard climbed up and cautiously positioned himself beneath the cap. From there he had a more or less 360-degree view of the surface terrain. A check of his chronometer showed that the sun was still below the horizon. If it wasn’t, he wouldn’t be up here. No sane person would.
But someone was.
His jaw dropped as he spied the moving shapes. Their movements too loosey-goosey for machines, they had to be human. While their sanity remained a matter for conjecture, there was no question that they were advancing, and advancing fast. They shouldn’t be advancing anywhere, he knew. They should be dead.
That was a correctable anomaly. Bringing up his rifle, he started to level it with the intention of sighting in on the first figure. But just before he could lock on, the advancing column made a sharp turn and disappeared into a fissure. Had they seen him? That seemed impossible. Nobody could spot ground-level movement at such a distance. Or could they? Malak’s thoughts turned, unwillingly, to a certain recently arrived inmate to whom Douruba had referred repeatedly.
“What the hell’s going on up there?” came the impatient voice of the slam boss. Malak looked down.
“Better see for yourself, boss!”
In a moment, Douruba and Anatoli had made their way up to join the first man. Crowded together at the top of the molehole and at first seeing nothing in the still dim light, it took a moment for their eyes to focus and register on the figures that reemerged from the distant fissure, still moving forward but on a tack that kept them well out of range. Only one of them was readily recognizable, and the slam boss wished it wasn’t.
“Riddick . . .”
“No way,” mumbled Malak. “No way. He was down in the tiers when we broke out. How in the hell . . . ?”
“This is hell, remember?” snapped Douruba. He started hurriedly back down the shaft.
At the bottom, the new and unexpected development prompted a hasty conference. Various suggestions were mooted, some more hopeful than practical. Those Douruba ignored. If nothing else, he had always been a practical man.
“No chance do they get to the hangar first,” Malak declared vehemently. “No chance.”
“Nothin’ but rock between here and there,” another man put in. “They’re in the crap zone. Black lava everywhere. They’re toast.” On Crematoria, such an assessment was not metaphorical.
“I dunno,” the man standing next