M. Planck - The Kassa Gambit

They crept through the growing dark, sticking to the valleys and low-lying patches. There was no vegetation to shield them, but the rock formations were complex and jumbled. In the fading light, they almost looked like trees or houses.

A glow from ahead told him they were getting close. The reflected light from the domes hovered like a halo in the sky.

He stopped the buggy at the foot of a small hill.

“I’m going up on foot to see if I can get a clear line of vision. You wait here and cover our line of retreat. You can drive the buggy, can’t you?” he asked as an afterthought, cursing himself for forgetting to check that detail.

Bobby shrugged. “Sure,” he said. He was a terrible liar.

Lugging the camera and its telescopic lens, Kyle clambered up the steep slope. The hill was treacherous, carved with pits and sinkholes. It resembled a coral reef more than a lump of rock.

Creeping over the top, he saw the valley spread out below. The various domes in the complex glowed invitingly, gentle warm yellow leaking through their transparent tops. Kyle had planned his route to bring him to the backside of the one place in the sector the corporate recruiting literature didn’t brag about. He knew all about the suites and recreational facilities of the rest of the complex. By the process of elimination he had figured out this one undescribed patch had to be where the bigwigs lived.

A distant shadow to the right caught his eye, but when he stared that direction, he saw nothing. The twilight was affecting his vision, too. Aiming the camera at the dome below him, he scanned it, looking for clues, hints, or just an uncurtained window.

Stakeouts were a matter of patience. Typically one waited days for something interesting to happen. Kyle had rented the equipment for a week. But when he saw a person standing in an observation deck, looking up at the stars, he accepted his good luck. He felt he was owed some.

The man was the right height and weight for a twin of Dejae. Clicking the zoom factors up, Kyle narrowed in on the face, running the vid recorder at maximum resolution. And blinked. The man was wearing a mask, an extravagant tribal affair with feathers and glittering gems. He appeared to be having a conversation, but a few minutes of observation convinced Kyle that the man was alone in the room, talking to a comm unit.

Was he getting ready for a party? Maybe life in the executive dome was one wearying masked ball after another.

The man turned, as if interrupted, facing a closed door on the other side of the room. The man crossed the room to open the door, his back to Kyle, and as he walked, he took off the mask and hid it behind his back.

A servant was on the other side of the door. She handed him a drink from a silver tray, curtsied, and left. He closed the door. Before he turned around, he put the mask back on.

Kyle was dumbfounded. There was clearly no one else in the room. The conversation on the comm unit was over; the man relaxed on a divan, alone, sipping his drink.

While wearing a mask.

Kyle recorded the whole insane performance, the masked man finishing his drink, setting down the glass, and wandering out of Kyle’s view. A second later the room went dark. Without backlighting, Kyle couldn’t see through the reflectivity of the dome.

He popped the data chit out of the camera and stuffed it in his suit pocket. Slotting in another chit, he prepared himself for a long wait. His luck hadn’t changed, after all.

Why would someone wear a mask, alone in their own house? His futile speculation was cut short by a sound that was not the wind.

Immediately Kyle began slithering down, trying to escape the view of the dome complex, while looking frantically for the source of the harsh click. To his left a monstrous shape appeared, blotting out the horizon. Kyle jumped, heedless of where he would land, and the hulking brute landed where Kyle had been a heartbeat ago.

Sparks flew from the ground as stone chipped and sprayed outward. In the momentary illumination Kyle could see glittering fangs, bristly hair, and legs. Too many legs. A spider twice the size of a man, with faceted eyes that revealed no humanity.

Kyle crashed back to earth, halfway down the hill. The spider gathered itself, a giant barrel sprouting hideous limbs. A meter wide at the body, with legs twice as long. Its claws clattered on the stone, and when it hissed at him, he could see the faint reflection of silver. Its fangs and claws were capped in metal. He could imagine it in the cockpit of the deadly little fighter-craft on Kassa, searching for targets, seeking out men and women to kill.

And now it was coming for him.

Kyle had faced many weapons, thugs with guns and knives, and once, a jar of acid. He had stared into the eyes of men who wanted to hurt him, to make him suffer and die. But he had never feared being eaten before.

The terror was atavistic. Scrambling madly, Kyle plummeted down the hill, seeking escape or just a place to hide, every step in the heavy gravity like wading through a nightmare. He threw himself into the first narrow crevice he found.

The monster pounced again, sealing Kyle in his tomb. Its fangs gnawed at the narrow lips of stone. It was trying to stick its horrible maw in to bite him, instead of just fishing him out with its legs.

The radio whispered in his ear.

“What on Earth is that?” Bobby was on the edge of panic, his voice trembling and wet. Paradoxically, his terror rallied Kyle.

“GO!” Kyle hissed over the radio. “Get the fuck out of here! While it’s still occupied with me—I don’t think it can catch the buggy. Go, damn you!”

The creature began flaying the stone with its claws. It was going to dig him out.

“Is that what attacked my world?” Bobby was asking intelligent questions, and it was pissing Kyle off.

“Get the fuck out of here! Go get help!” Kyle didn’t have a weapon. He didn’t have room to fight, even if he could get his heart to stop pounding long enough to think about fighting. He couldn’t see anything except the dark bulk of the monster, blotting out the sky.

It stopped, freezing perfectly still. Its motion had been unnatural, inhuman, alien; now it was almost comical. One leg stretched out, claw-first, reaching down to him. It had finally figured out that all that was required was a single puncture of Kyle’s suit.

A flare of light. Sobbing in fear over the radio, Bobby unleashed the plasma torch on the creature, having crawled up the hill unnoticed. Instantly the monster reverted to mindless spider, and sprung on him. The two of them rolled down the hill, disappearing from Kyle’s sight.

He kicked his way out of the crevice. He was too late.

On the plain below him, the spider straddled Bobby, pinning him with half its legs, rising up on the other half. Futilely Bobby cradled the plasma tank for protection, trying to hide behind it. The fangs descended like a jackhammer while Kyle cried out in helpless rage.

Sparks of metal on metal, and then the tank exploded.

The flare was blinding. For a moment Kyle could not tell ground from sky. When contrast returned, all he could see was the horizon, a cardboard cutout standing against a starry background. On his hands and knees he slipped and slid down the hill, every bump rising up to punish him, every hole trying to suck him down.

He collided with something that was not rock. A leg. Groping, he found another. Scraping his helmet on the ground, he tried to bring the scene into the horizon. Above the legs was nothing. Sparkles slowly began to appear. Parts of bodies were burning, but Kyle’s vision could not identify them.

His hearing returned, and he realized the clicking sound was not part of the ringing deafness in his ears. Somewhere out there the creature still moved, trying to stand. That it was severely injured was deducible only by the fact that Kyle was not yet dead.