The Human Blend - Alan Dean Foster [47]
“Nobody here, sergeant. The place is empty.” The young officer reporting was not out of breath. It was just that while impressive for a private, one-man operation, the techrap and integrated living quarters did not occupy a great deal of floor space. Checking the interior had required only a short time.
“Not unexpected.” The sergeant was disappointed but not surprised. Similar simultaneous raids were taking place all over Greater Savannah. Still, given its level of importance this was one collar every commanding sergeant wanted to make. Word had seeped out of the Center that whoever brought in the Meld called Whispr could look forward to not just a commendation but possible immediate promotion. Why the low-class Meld was such a catch she could not imagine, unless he had somehow managed to seriously offend someone important.
Not her job to wonder, she reminded herself. Only to apprehend. Despite the succession of negative reports from the members of her squad she was loath to quit the riverside techrap so quickly.
Opening his eyes, the commtech spoke up. “Auto-hunter reports are all negative, sarge. Same from our people on the river.”
“The river.” It was a short mantra, but one worth investigating. She turned to her squad. “Check the lower floor.”
“This place is a one-story, sergeant.” The officer who spoke up sounded apologetic.
“Then check the understory,” she snapped. “Check the friggin’ mud. You find anything bigger than a crawfish, I want to talk to it.”
They fanned out anew. It wasn’t long before they found the camouflaged trapdoor.
“Think they’re down here?” The patrolwoman spoke as she knelt and began tracing the fringes of the locked opening with her scanner.
Holding his riotuss casually, her companion shrugged. “Could be. Good place to hide from infrared pickup.” He nodded at the almost imperceptible lines that marked the edges of the portal. “If so, they sure are being quiet.”
Something on the underside of the barrier clicked and the lightweight but strong panel popped upward a centimeter or so.
“That’s got it,” she murmured. Rising, she drew her sidearm, aimed it at the portal, and glanced at her partner. “Ready?” Raising the muzzle of his riotuss, he nodded. The ammo gauge on the crowd-control weapon read full.
With the toe of her right boot she flipped the door up and open. It fell backward on the floor with a soft bang. The riotuss’s search beam illuminated a slick surface below: water black as onyx.
“Kowalski, Calloway—come on out! Game’s over.”
There was no response from below. No sound, no movement. Looking to her left, the officer who had opened the doorway fastened her gaze on a dog-sized storage cylinder. Pushing it with her left foot she shoved it toward the opening until it tumbled in. There was nothing sham about the splash that resulted. The river below was real and not a projection. She edged toward the silent gap.
“I’m gonna have a look.”
“Slow,” her companion advised her unnecessarily.
With a nod she dropped silently to her knees, then to her stomach. Lying prone, she stuck the muzzle of her weapon and then her head into the opening. The light built into the end of the barrel swept the underside of the techrap.
“Nothing,” she reported just before the Orinoco crocodile shot like a missile from the depths of the dark water, clamped its jaws shut around her head, and dragged her screaming into the water below.
At this point the erstwhile occupants of the complex who had been the subject