Read Weird Space 2: Satan's Reach for Free Online

yelled, “Where the hell are you, Judi ?”
    “Five hundred metres from your current position, Den. Veer to your left and keep going. I estimate landing within thirty seconds.”
    His heart kicked. Zeela was pulling him to the left, through whipping vines. She had relaxed her grip on his arm now that salvation was almost in sight.
    Brightness bloomed before them, and Zeela stopped suddenly with a scream. From the jungle ahead, three squat Ajantans appeared and levelled their weapons. Harper turned in panic and saw a further six aliens step from the jungle.
    Zeela was in his arms now, sobbing. Over her shoulder he saw a small Ajantan step forward and raise a weapon, this one unlike the other fire-guns. The tree frog depressed the firing stud, and Zeela spasmed in pain and screamed. Harper looked down and saw the flight of a dart embedded in the small of her back.
    He felt something stab his right bicep and seconds later released his hold on Zeela and slumped to the jungle floor.
     
     
    H E CAME AWAKE suddenly, and his first thought was for Zeela. He must have murmured her name. She replied, “I’m here.”
    He turned sluggishly, the alien drug retarding his movements. The girl was lying a metre away. He reached out a hand and she gripped it.
    “Where are we?”
    She smiled at him with infinite sadness. “In the Ajantans’ underground lair.”
    “Ah...”
    He blinked and his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Ten metres away was a glowing insect, its light illuminating a small cavern. Here and there in the concave rock wall were dark patches which he guessed must be exits. As his vision adjusted to the half-light he made out perhaps twenty human figures lying around the cavern. Immediately to his left was his old friend, the adipose crone.
    He sat up, massaging his shoulder where the dart had impacted. “We’ve got to–”
    Zeela said, “They have armed guards on all the tunnels leading from here. Earlier I tried to find a way out.”
    He touched his left arm, alarmed. His wrist-com was missing.
    “What?” Zeela asked.
    He told her.
    She squeezed his hand. “I knew it would end like this.”
    He shook her. “It hasn’t ended, just yet. The Ajantans’ are small. I could easily overcome...”
    “They guard the tunnels in groups of three. And they are armed. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”
    They fell silent, each staring at the mossy floor. At least there was no sign, yet, of their tormentors. That horror was to come.
    A few minutes later Zeela said in a small voice, “And I thought I was doing the right thing when I followed Rasnic from The Rat and Corpse.”
    He smiled. “You were. You were very brave.”
    She smiled in return. “I kept to the shadows and followed him to the Ajantan quarter. He had you on his back. Your hat fell off... I considered stopping to pick it up, but feared he’d get away. From a distance I saw him bartering with the Ajantan bargee. Money changed hands, but not before Rasnic went through your pockets and stole the notes he had given you, and something else.”
    “My data-pin.”
    “Then he dumped you in the barge and walked away, whistling at a job well done.”
    “I wonder if that was his motive all along? He lured me to Ajanta with the spurious order of a steamboat engine, but meant to sell me to the green men?”
    “Of course. And once you were as good as dead he’d steal your starship and whatever goods he’d ordered. It is a well known fact that Rasnic bribes the ’port officials.”
    “Oh, how I’d like to get even with him, one day.”
    “That’s what I thought,” Zeela said, “so I followed him.”
    He stared at her. “You what?”
    “I followed him. The barge was not due to set off until midnight, and anyway it travels so slowly that I’d catch it up in no time. I followed him to his house on Pie-Maker Row. He was still drunk, weaving this way and that, and as he passed into the shadows between glowbugs I seized my opportunity. I tripped the ape and he fell