Angelo was the first to
come to, pulled back from his pit of dreams by a beautiful melody threading
through the sands and caressing him back to consciousness. He sat bolt upright.
‘Rose,’ he thought. It had to be Rose. Pushing himself painfully to his feet he
stood unsteadily and took in his surroundings. There wasn’t much to see. The
sand dunes blocked his view. He tested
himself to see if there were any bones broken but apart from a few bruises he
was okay. Then he began the slippery crawl up the side of the nearest dune. It
was two steps up and one step back as he clawed at the shifting sands that
threatened to bury him if he lost his grip. Breathing heavily he finally made
it to the top and gazed upon a scene of devastation. The wreckage from the
Tartarus was scattered for thousands of yards across the dunes and scrubland of
the desert. The main fuselage had broken into three pieces, spreading the
shattered nacelle and engine parts far and wide. How it hadn’t caught fire was
a miracle. From what he could see he was a good half mile from the impact
point. He’d been thrown clear when the ship had broken up, and he wondered if
the others had been so lucky. He couldn’t see any bodies lying around.
“HALLOOO!” he shouted as
loud as he could. He was almost immediately answered by the rasping caw of a giant
Batasaur circling overhead. His blood ran cold as the bird’s shadow flitted
over him. ‘Not a good sign,’ he thought. If they were anything like vultures it
wouldn’t be long before the whole lot of them would be here. He slid quickly down
the dune and made his way towards the epicentre of the crash.
He found Sam lying face
down in the sand and turned him over, half hoping he hadn’t made it. But no
such luck. His heart and breathing were fine and he had no obvious injuries. He
was just unconscious. Then he heard a groan from some wreckage nearby and made his
way over to a mangled fuselage casing.
“Hi,” said Belle with a
little wave of her hand. She was sitting up with her back against a buckled
steel plate. “I think I’ve broken my ankle. It looks awfully swollen.”
Angelo stooped down
beside her and put his first-aid training to the test. He held the ankle firmly
and twisted it one way and then the other, listening for the rasping sound of
bone on bone.
“Wiggle your toes.”
“Ouch,” she said, but
managed to twirl them around a bit.
“Seems okay. Far as I
can make out it’s just a sprain. I’ll try and find something to bind it with,
but you’ll have to keep your weight off it.” She also had a few scrapes and
bruises but nothing serious. “The lizard lady is missing,” said Angelo.
“Gennetta.”
“Yes.” How come women
always remember the small details?
Then Sam began to cough
and splutter.
“Of course there’ll be
nothing wrong with him,” Angelo said uncharitably.
“I don’t understand,”
were Sam’s first words.
“You crashed us. What
else is there to understand?”
Sam shook his head to
get rid of the grogginess and sat up, looking about himself in dismay
“Tartarus never crash,”
he said. “Would give warning anyway. Something strange this place. Something
interfere with ship. Not possible.”
“Well never mind that
now. We need to find some water and we need to find Gennetta.”
“Lizard lady?” said Sam
getting heavily to his feet. He also wasn’t very used to normal gravity. “I
hate walk. I hate this planet. Now we f….”
“…we’re in a lot of
trouble if we don’t find water. I suggest you go that way, I’ll go this way.
And keep a look out for the lizard lady.”
“You got lots bossy
attitude. What you, Alpha-male all of a suddink?”
“You got any better
ideas?”
“No.”
“Well?”
“Okay. Buggerrit. Lousy
planet. Stupid desert kill my plane.”
Gennetta was barely
breathing when Officer Angelo found her a few hundred yards away hidden behind
some wreckage. He didn’t know what was wrong with her and he didn’t know how to
treat her. The reptile constitution was a mystery to him, and he didn’t want to
make things worse. Of course she was also one and a half times his size so
there was no chance of moving her anywhere. Angelo scouted round till he found
some insulation sheets from the plane and built a shelter over her to keep out
the sun. Batasaurs were beginning to gather in great numbers now, riding the
thermals that rose from the hot desert sands. Angelo’s main thought was getting
them out of there but with two of the party unable to walk they were seriously
hampered. Then he found part of the launch tube for the torpedoes that would
work perfectly as a sled. He could probably drag Belle quite comfortably on
this, the idea being to bring her back here and get everyone together in one
place. A bit more scrounging around and he came up with a decent length of
con-fibre rope and tied it to the sled.
The sun was starting to
burn the back of his neck as he headed back to Belle, dragging the empty sled
behind him.
“Found her,” he said,
collapsing in a heap next to Belle. “She’s still alive but unconscious.”
Belle didn’t have much
to say in reply.
“Where’s Sam?” asked
Angelo.
“Haven’t seen him. Thank
god.” She shrugged her shoulders.
“Anyway, I think I
should try and get you to Gennetta,” he said, pointing at the sled arrangement.
“Keep us all together.” He tried to stay upbeat and positive but he couldn’t
stop thinking about what would happen when night came – when the ice came. They,
Sam and Belle, had no idea what horror’s awaited them when the sun went down. He
shivered and shook off the thought. ‘Just stay in the present. Something might
turn up’, he said to himself.
Unfortunately it was Sam
that turned up just then.
“Look what I got,” he
said, shrugging an alloy container off his back.
“Water. Not nice taste.
Only half recycle. Taste like piss actually, but still good.”
Belle looked at him in
horror. This was a long way from sipping martinis at Jo’s. She was beginning to
think she’d have been better off as an escort.
“I’d rather die,” she
said simply, and Angelo’s face echoed her sentiment exactly.
“Suits yourself. I don’t
mind. I survive.”
Angelo turned his back
on him and began tearing strips off his gown for bandages.
“So what we do Mr
Boss-man?”
“I found the lizard lady
but she’s unconscious. I’m taking Belle across to her. See if we can help her.”
“I had pet lizard once,”
said Sam. “Also nearly die. But I fix.”
“How?” asked Angelo,
despite his repugnance for this man and his ideas.
“Water,” said Sam,
holding up the can.
With every drop they
poured into Gennetta’s mouth Angelo thought he was going to be sick. He had no
idea he was so squeamish. Sam noticed this and took an extra big swig from the
can just to taunt him. Belle just refused to watch any of this.
“And don’t put lizard
lady in shade,” said Sam. “Lizard like heat – get energy from sun.” And he
began dismantling the shelter Angelo had constructed around Gennetta.
Then there was nothing
to do but wait…and hope, the Batasaurs circling above…waiting for them to die.
Angelo nearly jumped out
of his skin when he first heard the noise. They had been dozing under whatever
bits of wreckage afforded any shade when the sound snuck into Angelo’s dream
and woke him up with a near heart attack. ‘The ice is coming’ was his first
thought, but he managed to calm down somewhat when he realized it was still
midday. But the noise persisted. A sliding, slithering sort of sound – much
like listening to the sand running through the neck of an egg-timer.
“It’s the snake,” said
Gennetta, getting delicately to her feet. She was obviously in pain, but very
much conscious now. Everyone paled in the light of her revelation. Sam and
Belle had also woken up and sat listening to the sound in trepidation. Slowly
they all stood up and began walking to the top of the nearest dune.
There it was. On the far
south-eastern horizon a cloud of dust spiralled into the sky, growing larger by
the second. Angelo had escaped the worm once, but he knew his chances of surviving
a second time were virtually nil. He was tempted to hope that somehow it would
not find them, but he knew it already had. It was just a matter of time.
“That one big snake,”
said Sam, shading his eyes to get a better look. By now they could see the
great moving hump of sand travelling towards them, like a giant gopher
tunnelling just under the surface –moving at tremendous speed.
“That one big bugger and
no laser,” he said, patting his hip. “Not do nothing without laser. We dead.”
“What is it?” asked
Belle, still not quite getting the whole horror story.
“It’s a worm,” said
Angelo. “A large sandworm. I think it’s got the sniff of us.”
“Is it going to eat us?”
“I am afraid so.”
“Perhaps I find
torpedo,” said Sam, and started running around, looking under bits of wreckage.
And then it was there; a
towering dune of sand slowing to a majestic stop not fifty yards away. Belle
screamed and fainted as the sand cascaded down and fell away to reveal the head
of the giant snake, looking with half blind eyes upon the little huddle on the
hill. A forked tongue flickered from between its thin flat lips, tasting the
air in anticipation. Angelo and the snake stood calmly staring at each other.
“Wery ugly worm,” said
Sam.
