The sickly sweet smell of death blended with the scents of the flowers, following them for some way down the path. Krysty had noticed how the creepers across the forest floor had already started to entwine around the corpses, preparing to bury them beneath, turning them to a mulch that would fertilize the earth. How long, she wondered with a shudder, before the vines got greedy and started to ensnare the unwary and alive as they passed?
The party was large, and even moving in almost total silence made a considerable sound in the quiet forest. The creeping vines squealed in echoes as the footfalls of the war party crashed down time and again. The undergrowth on both sides of the narrow path was pushed back with a rustle as people passed, then sprang back for the next member of the war party passing to push it back once more, creating a continuous wave of sound.
That made Ryan uneasy. He looked back over his shoulder and caught J.B.’s eye. The Armorer made a small inclination of his head, a minute gesture that communicated his displeasure with the circumstances of their progress. The sounds of the creepers and of the moving undergrowth could mask any sounds made by an ambush party.
Ryan had mentioned that to Alien as they began their journey, but the baron had deferred the matter entirely to his sec chief. Harvey had listened to Ryan’s concerns, then dismissed them out of hand. “Those fuckers’ll be back in their shitpit still licking their wounds and asking their dumb god what the fuck to do, Cyclops. Trust me—I’ve been here all my life, and you ain’t been here for shit.”
There had been an implied threat and put-down in the words that Ryan noted but chose to ignore for now. At one time, his hot blood and temper would have pushed him into a fight with the sec man. But now there was too much at stake for a battle with an uneasy ally. Save that score for later.
So Ryan and his people concurred with Harvey, and joined the vast war party as it tramped through the forest. All the same, Ryan didn’t have to tell any of them to be on triple red, just in case Sunchild wasn’t as dumb as Harvey supposed. There was no way Ryan could call Sunchild using more stickies than his own people for the retaliatory raid a stupe move. Sunchild may well be an insane mutie, but that wasn’t quite the same as being dumb.
The trees and shrubs closed in on them, seeming somehow to loom overhead with a hidden threat as the war party made its way through the forest. The flowers, with their heavy scent, swayed in the ripples of the massed movement, their heads bobbing as though to strike. The moving forest canopy overhead created a disorienting strobing of what little light could penetrate if you looked up too long; yet to look down you could see the creepers moving beneath your feet, bending and twisting under the heavy tramp of rough-shod feet.
The humidity seemed to wrap them in a blanket of damp mist, clinging to the pores of their skin and preventing them from sweating.
“There’s too many of us in too small a space,” Ryan said softly to Krysty, who was walking at his side. She had left her heavy coat back at the ville, knowing that it would be more of a hindrance than an aid. Her jumpsuit clung to her body, molded to her shape by the damp air and the sweat of exertion. Her titian hair was plastered to her head, the limp tendrils swirling against the skin of her throat and neck.
“Makes the forest heat worse,” she agreed. “Trouble is, I can’t say I’ll be glad when we’re out of here, ’cause it just goes from one set of problems to another.”
Ryan nodded. “I’m not sure we should do this during the day. It’d be much cooler in the night, and offer us more cover.”
“Night by the time we get there—mebbe that’s what Harvey’s figuring on,” Krysty mused. “Mebbe he feels we’ll all have cooled down by the time we get there. Except that we’ll all be exhausted.”