The Queen's Pardon (Alexis Carew Book 6) Page 3

  When the rain began building she’d thought the surface water would drain into the ravines, but it didn’t — each of those had a lip of stone around the edge, as though the collapse of the ground within had raised it. That kept the water from draining, save for a few trickles and streams through cracks in the resulting wall.

  That must be what was keeping the water falling on the plateaus from draining down to the main surface, as well, for that came down in streams similar to those in the ravines.

  Alexis measured it, and, in all, the water rose until it the space between hummocks was over the average man’s calf and the sucking mud added several centimeters to that, making every step an effort of pulling one’s boot from the grasping muck. As for herself, she was nearly knee deep in it at the worst, and the cold slimy feel of it seeping in through every gap in her vacsuit liner and boots made for an unpleasant day.

  Effort aside, the men’s boots were never made for such an environment — they were intended for shipboard life and an occasional foray into a civilized port.

  Landings or crashes in uninhabited areas of a hostile planet were not something the Navy’d planned too greatly for. It was a thing that didn’t happen often enough to bother with, at least not more than a few tents and blankets. If a ship were disabled in darkspace, they’d make due in the boats until help came along — or the food ran out, one — but crashes on planets were rare enough that there was little in the way of planetside supplies aboard the boats, save the tents, survival blankets, and the single radio.

  The water and mud crept into those shipboard boots, soaking her feet and squishing mud between her toes with every step.

  She’d have to find some way to let the men get their feet dry before too long — their feet and the rest of them, as well, for the constant wet had her vacsuit liner chafing at her in places and there was a danger in that too, aside from the discomfort. Most of Erzurum’s bugs and germs would have no more effect on humans than its beasties could digest them, but it only took one, those things adapted quickly, and raw skin was vulnerable to such things.

  The colonists here would have either adapted to it, or come up with vaccines and treatments in the colony’s first few years, but she had no access to that, nor a doctor or medical lab to come up with one.

  Their food was also a consideration, as the ration bars would not take them much farther. Their supply would have been adequate for the short march to a nearby settlement where she hoped they could take control and commandeer some sort of transport to get them to an area the privateers controlled, but as it was — she checked her tablet’s compass, noting that they were still going nearly perpendicular to their desired direction and had been for some time. Well, as it was, there was no telling how long and far they’d have to walk.

  If this went on too long, she might have to try and lure one of the searching boats into landing and attempt to take it — but how to do that without its pilot alerting his fellows to their location she hadn’t come up with yet. Or risk a transmission to the rest of her forces and hope for rescue.

  Or, and the possibility made her shudder, set to hunting and eating one of the snake-things in the hopes its flesh would offer some nutrition.

  The problems were mounting and she saw little solution to any of them, leading her to wonder if —

  A cry sounded to her right, nearer the ravine they were paralleling. At first, she thought it would be another of those snake-things, but there were no shots and the cry went on, though fading. The shouts of surrounding men confirmed her worst fears before she’d managed to half-run, half-hop through the mud to the ravine’s edge.

  “Look out, sir! Stay back!”

  Alexis had been about to push her way through a gap in the line of staring men, for they were several meters from the ravine’s edge.

  “It’s not stable, see?” Hickson, the one who’d warned her, said.

  He pointed and she could see a seeming hole in the very ground. Here the lip of rock around the ravine’s edge was wider than usual, by several meters, for a space, but some ways onto that ledge a man-sized hole had opened into empty air below.

  “Who has a rope?” she asked. She’d seen to it that there were several coils of ships’ line laid out in the supplies to be carried along, but couldn’t tell in the constant dripping just who was nearby. The bloody rain misting down from the canopy made anything beyond a few meters a blur.

  “Who was it?” she asked. “Did anyone see?” Headshakes were her answer. “Well, sound off then! Check your mates — who’s missing?”

  “Here, sir,” Dockett said, approaching. He had two coils of light ship’s line, collected from somewhere, over his shoulders, obviously having had the same thought she did. He leaned closer to her and whispered. “These ravines is steep and deep, though — I’ve little hope to find the man.”

  Alexis nodded. She’d had that same thought too, but if he were within reach, perhaps unconscious from a blow to his head, which would explain why he wasn’t calling out to them for help, then she must check at least.

  She took one of the coils from Dockett as they reluctantly obeyed. Bloody superstitions again, as though the longer they were unsure who had gone over the edge, the longer it might not be one of their mates.

  “Here, sir, weren’t thinking for you to — let me have one of the topmen do it,” Dockett said, seeing her loop one end of the line around her waist.

  Alexis shook her head. “No, I’m the lightest by far, so less risk of more of the edge giving way and less effort to haul me back if it does. I’m just as agile as a topman.” She gave Dockett a quick grin. “Not so far removed from my midshipman days of running the yards.”

  The name of the missing man came back, causing Alexis’ grin to fall, as everyone sounded off and checked their mates — Tubbs, able spacer, and one of her boat crew.

  Hickson sighed. “I thought it’d be him, sir. Took to walking on the ledges where he could — no never mind to the drop. Said his feet was turning soft from the wet already and then that snakey-thing set him right off.”

  Alexis nodded, jaw tight. She should’ve considered the men would want to avoid the water more and warned them against trusting the edge of the ravine where they’d be out of it. Perhaps should have thought to have those who preferred to walk on the edge rope themselves together so as to provide some protection should one go over the side.

  There were too many things she was ill-prepared for in the situation they found themselves in. She knew Dalthus and its backwoods well, but her homeworld was nothing like this. There were no bearcats here, which were the primary danger on Dalthus, and there was nothing on her home that told her how to keep her lads safe from what lurked in these waters.

  She belted the line around her waist, noting with some satisfaction that she’d chosen the right knot and tied it properly, though it had been some time since she’d had to do that herself.

  At least I still know the things I know.

  Dockett sighed, but perhaps had served with her long enough to know not to argue with her about it. She handed him the rest of the coil.

  “Do have them keep a tight hold on it, though, will you?” she reminded him.

  Alexis edged her way out onto the ledge of stone carefully, deciding to go on hands and knees to distribute her weight more. She glanced back and saw the line held by every able-bodied man in the group.

  She sighed. She’d asked Dockett to see the line well-held, but did they really think two dozen were needed to hold her up? She was only a bit over forty kilos and there must be over a ton of beefy spacers all grasping the line and —

  Sweet Dark, are they bracing themselves to take my weight?

  They were. Each man’s hands on the line, well-apart, with legs spread wide, the one to the front straight and the back bent to take the strain and heave, as though they were set to haul the mass of a yard into place.

  Or the most lop-sided tug ever.

  It was enough to laugh at if the situation weren’
t so serious.

  She crawled toward the hole, noting that the surface of the stone here wasn’t solid at all. It was cracked into pieces like a puzzle or a cobbled yard. There was enough dirt and debris spread over it that it appeared solid, but she was close enough and the rain had washed enough debris away that she could see they were individual stones and not a solid whole.

  Alexis paused and frowned.

  Individual and not at all matched. Even wet and dirty she could tell that.

  She got closer to the hole and approached slowly, inching her face over the edge to peer down.

  The ledge was shockingly thin, though she supposed she should have expected that, what with a man falling through it. It seemed nothing more than the layer of individual rocks and a goodly portion of dirt held up by the gnarled, intertwined roots of the surrounding trees.

  The ravine below was obscured by mist, but she was able to see that this was, indeed, a sort of ledge and not the true side of the ravine at all. Those sides were meters away, back where the lip of rock gave way to mud and water — what she was on, and what Tubbs had fallen through, was a thin facade over the depths below.

  They were so far from the sides that there was no chance the man had landed on a ledge and could be got up unless the ravine itself was shallower than she thought.

  Alexis lowered the end of the second line she’d dragged with her, its end weighted with a short, heavy branch.

  She let out the line’s full length, nearly a cable with what she held, and felt no bottom. Even if they could string two lines together and make the descent, there was no chance for Tubbs to have survived the fall.

  Alexis looked back to the anxious faces, fuzzy in the mist, all hoping she’d tell them there was some sign of their mate and some way to retrieve him, and slowly shook her head. She edged her way back to what seemed more stable ground, despite the mud, and searched around the ravine’s edge.

  “Is there a more stable edge?” she asked. “Somewhere we might use both lines together?”

  “Here, sir,” Veals called, perhaps looking to make up for his near loss of their valuable capacitors.

  Alexis let Dockett take the lines from her and quickly knot them together. Veals lowered the lines, hand over hand, with mates to either side grasping his waist in case this edge gave way.

  Dockett caught her eye and they walked a few steps away, leaving the men to gather around and stare at the hole Tubbs had gone through.

  “It’s worse, sir, than just Tubbs,” Dockett said quietly.

  “I thought we’d accounted for everyone but him.”

  “Aye, sir, but —” Dockett took a deep breath. “It were Tubbs’ turn on a heavy pack, sir, likely why he was so keen to stay out of the muck. Radio and antenna both today.”

  “No bottom!” Veals called. “No bottom with this line!”

  Alexis closed her eyes. She hated the feeling that the loss of some bit of equipment struck harder than one of her lads, but there it was. That radio was their only link to the wider world, until they could get in range of some network connection and she could utilize her tablet. They were cut off, with no way of knowing how their fellows fared against the pirates, nor any way to alert those fellows that they were still alive.

  Five

  O’, pull me hearties, pull me mates,

  This tale’s growing darker.

  It's not for your bloody hair and beard

  When I speak of the Barbar.

  “We therefore commit his body to the Dark, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body — when the Dark shall give up its dead — and the life of the world to come, through our Lord; who at his coming shall change our vile body, that it may be like his glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself.”

  Alexis slid her tablet back into her vacsuit liner’s pocket.

  The crew, massed near the edge of the ravine — but not too close, as they were all wary of the edge now that Tubbs had gone in — unbowed their heads, murmured such words or made such signs as their own beliefs mandated, and stepped away.

  She hoped she’d chosen the right hymn — at least Tubbs was of a religion that had one in the dozen or so contained in her tablet. This one though had variations — for burial in the Dark, on planet, and for a proper stop in normal-space to fire one’s body off into a star. The one for earth hadn’t seemed right to her with them being unable to recover Tubbs’ remains — and the swirling mists obscuring the bottom of the ravine did, to an extent, resemble a darkspace storm.

  Stepping back herself, she tried to judge the light. It was late in the afternoon and Erzurum had shorter than standard days, so they’d have to camp soon for the night; but not here, so near to where Tubbs had perished.

  She shook her head.

  Bad luck for the man, trying to avoid the mud and its perils to then fall through a spot that looked so solid but was only held up by woven roots. Bad luck for all of them he’d had the radio pack.

  Alexis turned away from the ravine, then paused and frowned.

  “Mister Dockett!” she called. “Bring me that line again, will you?”

  It was dangerous, foolishly so, perhaps, but she wanted another look at that hole. Such a structure made little sense, now that she thought about it — roots growing straight out from the ravine’s edges and then, somehow, catching rock and dirt, the rocks all different and laid like cobbles? Or, perhaps, the roots grew that way originally, there was certainly enough water near the surface here that they needn’t drive too deep, and the ravine had fallen away?

  That did make more sense, but it nagged at her. She’d been concentrating on any chance to save Tubbs when she looked before and hadn’t truly examined the hole.

  Dockett started to object, but she waved him away without explaining. There was no sense worrying the crew about phantom possibilities.

  “You’re not thinking of trying to retrieve the radio, are you, sir?” Nabb asked as she waited for Dockett to return.

  Alexis shook her head. “No, there was no bottom with the line I tried and with so much water pouring into these ravines I’d have little hope for what the bottom’s like.”

  “Then —”

  “I just wish to examine something once more.”

  So once again she found herself crawling out onto the ledge of rock toward the hole Tubbs had disappeared through.

  This time she took a close look at its edges and what she could see of the layers. Woven was a very good description of the roots — which she now saw had branches interwoven as well — and, while those around the hole were broken from where Tubbs went through, she could see where the others were not all long and natural. Some were cut, long ago, but with straight, sharp edges.

  Alexis crawled back to solid ground — though solid under a layer of mud — and began feeling around the lip of the ravine. Where the lip of the ravine would be if the rock extended no more than was typical, and not the wide ledge. She pulled up a stone, then another, revealing the solid formation of the ravine’s lip underneath, as well as the edge of the wooden lattice, its framework not growing into the ravine wall itself, but cut and formed to rest there and support the whole.

  “Bloody hell,” Warth muttered, peering over her shoulder.

  Alexis nodded, meeting the poacher’s eyes.

  They were not alone in Erzurum’s swampy forest, and their neighbors were ones to set traps.

  “Some sort of trap, you think sir?” Dockett asked.

  They trudged on, Alexis wanting to put some distance between the false ledge and her group before stopping for the night — both to allay the memory of Tubbs and now because of what they’d found out.

  “I don’t know, Mister Dockett. I’m not sure what good it would do as a trap, but can think of no other purpose.”

  “Did well enough for Tubbs,” Nabb muttered from her other side.

  “It did,” she agreed, “but we’re alert to it now — none of the me
n will go walking out on a ledge like that again, I think.”

  “So what purpose then?”

  “I cannot fathom,” she admitted.

  They’d examined the thing further and it seemed like only portions of it would support a man’s weight. Others, by design or by poor design, would support barely anything and send a walker plummeting through.

  The whole group walked more warily now, if that was possible, alert to both the snake-things in the water and to the possibility of other sorts of traps.

  As Warth had pointed out, “There’s more’n one sort o’ way t’gig a man dishonest-like.”

  The decision to move on proved good, as they came upon a hummock larger than most. Large enough for all of them to get out of the muck in one spot, which was relief to those craving to have more than one or two mates about them as they slept. Though the smaller hummocks were separated only by a few meters of water and mud, the men seemed to view that as a chartless sea filled with serpents.

  “Here be dragons,” Alexis muttered, staring out into the mist in the last of the day’s light.

  A cry and the crack of one of their rifles woke her, followed by several more and shouts of alarm.

  Alexis scrambled to her feet and made her way to the commotion, the place made clear by handheld lights and the din of voices all shouting for their own explanation.

  “Make a lane, damn your eyes!” she yelled, short after too little, too restless sleep and the sudden thought that she’d spent half her time in the Navy staring at the backs of those taller than she while she tried to get somewhere.

  The men parted, revealing those at the fore all shining their lights out into the misty darkness.