though a veil had been ripped from them. “Antimatter, Mr. Cawdor. I believe that
might do the trick. Implode, and the foul fiend will be undone—it will separate
from its source.”
J.B. banged one gloved fist into the other. “Implosion grenade. Turn that
chiller inside out. Yeah. Koll?”
“What?”
“You got the implo?”
“Yeah. Couple.”
“Go hurl them into the middle of that bastard fog. Right in, far as you can
throw.”
“Sure,” said Ryan. “You got about the best arm, Koll. Go close as you can, then
get the heat out of there.”
Koll lowered his hood, wiping tiny gems of steel-gray ice from his long
mustache. He unhooked the two implosion bombs, with their distinctive scarlet
and blue bands around their dull tops.
“Chill it, Koll,” whispered Hunaker, patting him on the arm.
The towering mist, with the strange pale light throbbing at its center, had
retreated once more until it hung precisely where they had first seen it,
countless small tendrils creeping from its base as though tasting the air for
the scent of an enemy.
Koll crouched like a runner readying for a sprint, a grenade in each fist. He
drew in a number of deep breaths, composing himself. Ryan stood at his heels.
“Not too close, Koll. No dead heroes on War Wag One, remember.”
Koll nodded his blond head. Five more breaths, faster and more shallow. He
powered himself up the trail, boots sending chips of stone and ice flying back
into the watching group. For some seconds the fog showed no sign of awareness of
the threat. Then it began to move.
Faster than before.
Koll skidded to a halt less than fifty steps from the nearest tentacle of the
fog, looking up at its shimmering bulk for a second or two, as if he was
hypnotized.
“Now!” yelled Ryan Cawdor at the top of his voice. Breaking the spell.
Koll lobbed the first of the implo bombs into the fog. For one sickening moment
Ryan wondered if it would simply stick there, like a pebble in fresh dough, but
it vanished deep within. The second one followed it, thrown with all Koll’s most
desperate strength.
“Back,” said Doc calmly, speaking in a conversational tone to the eight others
who stood near him. He led the way by shambling quickly around the bend of the
trail, behind the rock wall.
“Koll!” shouted Ryan. “Get the…” but the words died in his throat and for a
moment he closed his eye, turning away.
The fog had sensed the threat to its existence. The tendrils had shot from its
base, faster than a shooter drawing his blaster. They slapped at Koll’s feet and
legs, before he could take more than a half dozen steps toward safety.
Ryan was the last of the party to move with Doc out of sight, and he saw it all.
As the first coiling arm of the fog touched Koll, sparks flew from the man’s
flesh. Orange and blue fire sprayed out into the cold day as if from a welder’s
torch. Koll dropped his rifle and screamed, rolling onto his back and kicking.
For the briefest of moments he managed to break free from the caressing tendril.
One fell across him, not hard, but more flames spat from Koll’s body, at the top
of his thighs, near the groin. He arched back, and the scream rose higher and
higher. Smoke and the smell of burning filtered through the crackling air. The
screams continued, thin and piercing, like a stallion’s at the gelding.
Another tendril lashed at Koll’s face and he raised his hands to take the
impact, thrashing at the unknown power. Now there were a dozen or more of the
thick gray tendrils enshrouding him, cording and swelling. Koll was lifted into
the air by them, drawn toward the main expanse of the fog.
All this occurred within the eternity of seconds before the first of the implo
grenades went off, followed a second later by the other. Ryan ducked away at the
familiar hollow boom, bracing himself for the bizarre sucking feeling that came
from the antimat bombs. He and the Trader had found a small supply of them years