The Chronicles of Riddick - Alan Dean Foster [9]
“Your life or your ship,” the quarry murmured matter-of-factly into Toombs’s ear. “You decide, shot-caller. And just for the file? My name’s Riddick. Richard B. But you can call me anything you want.” The barrels pressed harder against the underside of the mercenary’s jaw. “You probably will. I don’t care. Ship locator. Now. Or I can sort it out for myself.”
Toombs’s hands began to move, quickly and carefully. All manner of hardware began hitting the snow as he emptied his utility belt, pockets both visible and hidden, side pouches. None of them distracted Riddick; none of them fooled him. Seeing how the snowflakes and the shit were blowing, a resigned Toombs finally dropped the locator. At the same time, he did conjure a few choice new names for his former quarry—but despite the big man’s seeming indifference, the mercenary was careful to keep them to himself.
He had plenty of time to give loud voice to them later, when he was strung up inside the ice cave alongside the dead and defeated Urzo giganticus. Radically different physiognomies notwithstanding, both man and monster looked equally unhappy.
As he ran, Riddick seemed to float along above the snow, when in reality he was plowing purposely and powerfully through it. At times diverse, right now his thoughts were purely linear. Casual contemplation of multiple subjects was all very well and good—when one was sitting in a warm room with belly full and the only weapons in the vicinity your own. Survival precedes cogitation.
Pausing between drifts that marched across the landscape like fossilized waves and a distant line of rocks, he checked the ship locator. The line he had been following indicated he was very close to something now. He could only hope that it was not a decoy, set by a perverse mind to deliver a last dose of despair to anyone sharp and fast enough to acquire the device from its original owner. Riddick was only slightly concerned. Toombs was good, but the big man didn’t think he was that good. Proof of the latter evaluation lay in the mercenary’s present condition—hung out to dry. Or rather, freeze.
Flipping the ship locator closed to protect its vital innards from the weather, he let his thumb slide over the red contact near its base. In a moment he would know whether Toombs would have the last, cackling laugh. The indications were that what he was searching for lay near at hand. How near, or if at all, he would know in a moment. He nudged the control.
So close in front of him that he took a reflexive step backward, snow began to fall upward.
It was a better ship than he expected that rose out of the drift, sloughing off gravel and ice crystals as it slowly ascended before him. A Flattery C-19 under-cutter—low-slung, handsome, contemporary construction manufactured on a world noted for skilled engineering. Adaptable and tough, it was exactly the kind of versatile transport a pack of mercenaries would utilize, if they could afford it. In addition to traversing interstellar space and a variety of atmospheres, it could also burrow or swim. Doubtless it had cost Toombs and team a pretty credit or two. Now it belonged to someone else: him. That’s the way the comet crumbles, he thought to himself as he pulled out the locator and ran a subsidiary check. Unless the information he sought was being masked, the ship was empty; devoid of life-forms. No reason to mask the interior, he decided as he started toward it. Not with the maskers among the recently departed.
It didn’t matter. He always preferred to rely on his own judgment and instinct, turning to machines only when necessary or when left with no choice. The locator said the ship was empty. He entered through the obeisant port as warily as if the compact craft were crammed to its outer shell with a contingent of waiting, heavily armed representatives of the law.
It was exactly as empty as the locator insisted it was.
Settling himself into the command chair, he methodically coaxed quiescent instrumentation to life. Though no professional pilot, he knew what to do to survive. One