All the bugs stopped moving. The carrier line, the bugs on the Messerschmitt, the two in front of Wennda and Yone.
Screw it. Farley raised the pistol. He brought his left hand to his right to steady his aim. The bug nearest him in the carrier line dropped the access panel it was holding and scurried to him, the faint patter of its nimble legs like light gravel on a tin roof. Farley could not believe how fast it moved.
The thing halted in front of him, its left-front walking leg six inches from his knee. Farley held the pistol steady. The bug studied him. That was how it felt. Farley saw now that the half-dome carapace was set with paler ovals that glittered as they subtly shifted. Insect eyes, inspecting him. Or camera lenses. The forelegs were as long as the other four legs, but they were whiplike and supple, not segmented and angled. Other than the light tap of its footfalls it made no noise as it moved. Even this close up Farley could not have said if the thing were a creature or a machine.
He looked past it at Wennda. His eyes had adjusted enough to see that she was watching him now. Beside her Yone watched also. A dark patch glistened along one side of his face.
The other bugs had not moved.
Farley tightened his grip on the pistol and took a deep breath and tried to watch the bug in front of him in his peripheral vision as he aimed at the bug in front of Wennda. He saw a spark from his pistol, then felt a shock through his wrist and heard something clatter on the ground. He thought the gun had gone off. But there’d been no flash, no recoil.
Then he saw that he was holding half a service .45. The front half lay on the ground between himself and the bug, which held a supple foreleg poised to strike again. The tip of the tendril now ended in two thin and narrow blades or claws.
Farley held completely still. Past the transfixed line of bugs he saw Wennda staring wide-eyed. She gave a small shake of her head.
Farley’s fist shook as he lowered the cleanly severed hunk of sidearm. He set the pistol fragment in front of the bug and showed his empty hands. It looked like a gesture of surrender. It was.
The poised tendril retracted and the bug stepped closer. The tendril came up and swept steadily down Farley’s body as if the thing were cleaning a windshield. The bug went still a moment, then stepped back and snatched up the pieces of gun and turned away. It returned to its place in the halted line, and the line resumed its downslope crawl. The bugs on the Messerschmitt returned to their methodical salvage.
The two bugs in front of Wennda and Yone turned toward one another and tapped their supple forelegs against each other like lodge brothers trading a secret handshake. Then they turned back to Wennda and Yone and swarmed them.
Yone yelled and tried to scuttle away. Wennda flinched, and the back of her head hit the sloping rock wall. Farley pushed himself to his knees and forced himself to stay upright as each bug swept a tendril the length of the trapped humans’ bodies the way Farley’s bug had done with him.
Wennda’s bug slid both forelimbs around her nerve rifle and gently tugged on the chunky weapon as if taking a live hand grenade from a baby. The gunstrap across her back went taut and the bug stopped. It lifted the gun and tilted it experimentally. Then it dropped the gun and picked up Wennda and tucked her tight against its underside.
Farley jumped to his feet.
The bug joined the line, Wennda slung tight beneath it. She pounded and yelled and tried to grab the thin legs. The bug marched downhill unperturbed.
Farley went after them. His ankle screamed bloody murder and a fresh wave of nausea washed over him. He ignored it all and ran, passing bugs carrying airplane parts. The crevice quickly darkened as he descended. Something brushed the top of his head. He could no longer stand upright. It didn’t matter. He was going to get to Wennda. Behind him Yone was yelling something but he couldn’t make it out.
The work line slowed. Farley made out Wennda not ten feet ahead. She was no longer yelling or beating on the bug. The crack was now so narrow that Farley had to turn sideways to sidle between the bugs and the wall of the crevice. The bugs paid him no attention. Up ahead the clustered bugs were silhouetted by a crooked wedge of brighter light. They were crowded up against some constriction.
Farley dove between the legs of the bug behind Wennda and crawled forward like a sapper. He called out to Wennda and then he was sliding under her. Her back was to him and the tendrils bound her to the underside of the bug like cables. Farley grabbed hold of one and pulled. Nothing doing. He held on and let it drag him along.
“I’m here!” he said to Wennda’s back. “I’m right behind you! Can you hear me?”
Her muffled voice said, “Can’t. Breathe.”
Farley glanced up. The wedge of light was three or four bugs away now. It looked to be an opening out into a larger space.
Farley dragged along the rough crevice bottom as he slid his free hand along the gunstrap across Wennda’s back, following the strap to the metal clip that joined it to the stock of the gun wedged against Wennda’s hip.
The bug dragged them through the opening and into some larger and brighter space.
Farley worked the clip free of the catch and the strap dangled free. He let go of the bug and hit the ground and grabbed the strap. The bug kept going and the strap grew taut and the gun began to slide out and then caught on something. Farley got to his feet and worked the strap from side to side as if playing some nightmare fish.
Then the gun came free and he fell backward. He lay there a moment, surprised. The oncoming bugs veered around him. Farley got up and ran to the bug that held Wennda and he aimed her rifle at it. The bug stepped out of the line and turned to face him. Beneath it Wennda’s mouth worked silently.
Farley held his ground. The bug dropped Wennda and nearly pulled Farley off his feet as it snatched the weapon away from him. It turned back around and hurried off, holding the rifle high like a trophy.
Wennda curled up on her side and gasped for air. Farley knelt beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you hurt?” he asked. “Can you talk?”
She pointed to her stomach and Farley understood she’d had the breath knocked from her. He sat her up and held onto her and looked back at the line of bugs emerging from the narrow crevice in time to see Yone crawl out. Yone picked himself up and saw Farley and Wennda. Farley gave him a thumbs-up. Yone returned it and gave a pained smile. He looked like something beaten with a rake.
Then his expression changed and his hand lowered. He was looking past Farley. Bloodied and beaten and suddenly awed and afraid. Some unwilling heretic dragged to the temple of a vengeful god.
Farley turned to shield Wennda, assuming the bugs were coming back for them. But the bugs weren’t coming back. They were marching in an orderly line that led across the level floor of a great and dimlit space, marching toward the vast and lethal bulk of the Typhon a hundred yards away.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Jerry Broben studied the faintly luminous Redoubt wall a thousand yards away, spread like a green glass dam across the canyon. He made out what might have been street lights, constellated geometries he supposed were buildings, and a gliding cluster of lights at ground level that was probably some kind of vehicle. City in a box.
In the center of the wall at ground level was a huge, recessed rectangle that he hoped was an equipment door. It certainly was big enough to admit a B-17.