[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

guess we have a long story of our own."
Noguchi nodded, scanning the trees behind them with the practiced ease of
someone used to battle while Lara spoke. "And I'm interested in hearing it,
but we're going to need more weapons," she said.
"Stay here."
Without waiting for a response, she turned and walked quickly back around the
mammoth nose of the alien ship, disappearing through the dancing, smoking
shadows that twined through the broken trees.
" 'Hunters?' " Lara said quietly. "What are they hunting?"
Jess shook his head. "Us. I don't know. Maybe she can help us find Ellis, at
least . . ."
He trailed off, wondering if Lara had considered the possibility that the kid
wasn't lying in the dirt some-where, knocked out. The way he'd acted just
before the platform crashed, guilt-ridden and near hysteria maybe he'd run
off, his fragile emotional state finally hitting overload.
Or could be he got killed by one of these alien friends of Ms. Noguchi's . .
.The sudden appearance of the woman didn't seem real, even though the proof
was right in front of them, twenty-plus meters high.
Jess tried to think of something to say to Lara about the newest addition to
their little party, feeling like they should have some exchange before she
returned.
What's to say? She's here, and we're not in a position to turn away help, no
matter how strange the helper.
"You think she's okay? Trustworthy?" Jess asked finally.
Lara hesitated for a second, then nodded. "Yeah. My gut says yeah."
Jess nodded, glad they agreed on her basic inten-tions if nothing else.
Noguchi might be certifiable, but she obviously meant well.
Before they could talk any more, the woman reap-peared, striding through the
long grasses of the partial clearing. She held two riflelike weapons in
addition to the one strapped to her back. They looked something like old-style
machine guns with oversize grips.
"These are, uh, burners," she said, handing Jess one of the heavy weapons, the
other to Lara. She un-shouldered her own, holding it up for them to see the
long, flat button on the front grip.
"Trigger. There's no safety, so be careful. No kick, either, but they ride
high. They're kind of they shoot a semiliquid pulse of ... explosive
particles, I guess. I've I'm not much of a scientist, you'll have to forgive
my lack of knowledge here ..."
Jess held the ungainly "burner," remembering how big the creature that had
Page 73
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
attacked him had been;
Noguchi handled hers easily, obviously comfortable with the overlong barrel
and thick grips. Jess was sud-denly extremely glad that she'd decided to show
up; she was something else . . .
Noguchi cleared her throat, looking between the two of them, smiling nervously
again. "I'm sorry, I
haven't even asked your names."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Amazing. She crashes a ship, shows up talking about traveling with a pack of
aliens, and still blushes when she talks.
Lara gripped the burner tightly, speaking calmly to the anxious woman. "I'm
Katherine Lara, this is
Mar-tin Jess. The third member of our group is Brian Ellis; when the platform
crashed, we lost track of him. As for any others ... a private shuttle and I
think a couple of transports got away before the station went down, so maybe
they're already safe."
Jess nodded, realizing that .Noguchi would need some background for their
little saga to make sense.
He picked the story up, trying to keep it short. "There are these
creatures aliens that have been discovered all over the colonies. They're
extremely dangerous, they can adapt to any environment, and they breed like
nothing you've ever seen. Lara, Ellis, and I were part of an extermination
team that was sent to a space station a little over a week ago, to wipe out a
nest of them. What we didn't know was that the station had been de-liberately
infested . . ."
Jess hesitated, feeling the same old rage rising up. ". . . by the company we
work for. They wanted to see how long it would take the aliens to kill four
hun-dred people.
Families."
He suddenly wished desperately that Briggs was still on Bunda, the rush of
anger blocking out all other concerns. Lara touched his shoulder gently,
taking over. "We lost two members of our ground team, and ended up here. They
sent a suit an executive to see if we had the information about the nest
spread, but we don't, it got blown up along with the station and about a
thousand aliens. Bugs, we call them "
Noguchi had listened to them without expression, but now she nodded,
apparently unsurprised by their story and what she said next was a shock that
re-minded Jess of his earlier idiotic assumption, that meet-ing this woman was
the strangest thing that had happened, that could happen.
"I call them that, too. We have more in common than you know. To the Clan, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]