Minx Ep. 03: The Sphere, Cenozoic Zone

Dragon slipped a fingernail-sized transponder from a pocket. He activated it and then tossed it onto the dust exactly where the spider's leg had been drawn down. With a grin, he skipped away from the site as fast as he could. A thought had Hephaestus preparing a missile as it orbited the world. His ship alerted him once it had come within range and fired the weapon.

The hyperman stopped and turned to watch the target site. There was a bright flash, then a spray of dust, and then another bright flash. Dragon's helmet automatically polarized to protect his eyes from the light. As the flash faded the helmet became more transparent, allowing him to scrutinize the scene.

There was no immediate movement, except for dust slowly falling all around. He skipped forward until he reached the crater that had been formed by the explosion. At that point he simply let himself fall to the bottom of the depression. He could see his calculations had been exact. There had been just enough power in the missile's explosion to evacuate much of the dust around the very doorway that the spider had used to re-enter the interior of this world.

Now that he was standing on the real surface of this planet, the white cables that had been used to construct this sphere caught his attention. He bent down and touched one with his gauntleted hand. The cables varied in width and did not appear to be perfectly round in cross-section. Nor where they parallel. The alien-made surface seemed to be composed of these thick threads wrapped around some inner layer.

He felt a slight vibration from the cable he was touching. Looking across the crater he spied a spider-robot that had just opened the round door and was in the process of extricating itself from the interior. Dragon surmised that the crash of the door into the surface, as it opened, had likely caused the vibration, but why would someone build a world of cables like this and why design the cables so that they should transmit vibrations so well?

While he considered those questions, he pointed his pistol at the robot. The machine, however, simply ignored him. It scampered across the bottom of the crater, climbed up the wall and started to throw dust back into the depression.

Dragon ran for the opening, but another spider emerged as he arrived. It paused in his way and then held up its first two arms as if to push him away. Dragon tried sidestepping it, but it reached out and touched him with one claw. Despite the expected strength in the spider's metal claw, it merely gave him a gentle push.

The hyperman stepped back and pointed his laser pistol at it. The robot just remained motionless and stared at him. Dragon pressed a button on the side of his helmet.

"Can you understand me?" he asked through a radio transmitter.

The robot remained motionless.

Dragon pointed toward the opening. "I'm going in."

The robot remained motionless.

The hyperman took a step forward and the robot gently pushed him away again.

"This is more like a safety precaution than a defence system. You have no intention of harming me, do you? Which means your masters have no intention of harming Minx, I hope." He had expected hostility, but even peaceful intentions could result in serious harm, Dragon knew. He fired on the robot, and the thin red beam melted metal in a line along the cephalothorax. The robot collapsed soundlessly and with no sign of distress.

The hyperman stepped over the remains of the robot and peered into the opening. It was a smooth cylinder going straight down for at least ten metres. Dragon shrugged and swung a leg over the lip. As he did, the robot on the edge of the crater caught his eye. It was curling up into a ball, with its legs beneath it.

Now that's a defensive act, he thought.

He looked around the perimeter but spied nothing threatening. He looked down into the opening again and observed movement. It was clear that something was using the cylinder to get to the surface and Dragon instinctively doubted its intentions were peaceful. He lifted his leg out of the tube and backed away from the opening.

He had retreated three metres when a small periscope appeared just above the lip. It rotated, looking about the whole crater and then a second, larger periscope appeared. Dragon ducked just before a bright red beam zapped through the vacuum where his head had been a moment before.

The hyperman fired his laser pistol, severing the end of the weapon that had just been fired at him. Then, he turned and ran. He didn't stop until he was on the lip of the crater. Hitting the ground, he looked back to find that five robot-spiders, sleeker and darker than their maintenance counterparts, had exited from the opening and were advancing on his position.

He fired two more shots, downing one of his opponents with each well-aimed attack. Then a barrage of laser beams flashed around him. He rolled down the slope away from the crater. When he stopped he could see the lasers were still firing, looking much like red searchlights aimed at the sky. A robot crested the wall of the crater and Dragon dropped it with a shot. Then he got up and skipped off as fast as he could.

"Hephaestus! Come and pick me up!"

The hyperman darted from place to place, using the low hills and mounds on the surface as cover whenever he could. Every glance he chanced at the machines hunting him showed their numbers had increased.

His ship sent a telepathic signal and Dragon changed his direction of travel to bring him to the rendezvous point. Every few seconds a laser flashed by the hyperman, and Dragon wondered how it was that the war machines' aim could be so bad. Or perhaps they were used to slower targets, he surmised.

Hephaestus flew low, his rockets blasting dust from the surface. Dragon took one giant leap for the airlock that had been opened for him. There was a sharp pain in his left leg and a laser flash flew past him and into his vessel's hull. Dragon flew through the airlock, smashing against the far wall.

"Close the airlock! Get us out of here!" he ordered. He struggled to stand, but his leg was bent at an odd angle and a sudden wave of pain and nausea made him pass out.

VIII

After she awoke into the bright and ever-lasting day, Minx was able to watch as several wolves ran down some type of long-necked herbivore. Sitting in her perch, she munched on the cold leftovers of the fire-roasted wild pig from dinner of the previous night.

The herbivore, giraffe-like in its basic shape but with much heavier limbs, body and throat, smashed through branches and bushes in its panicked attempt to elude its pursuers, but they continued to gain ground. Minx guessed that the beast had been wandering the plains just to the north when it became the hunted. She felt little sympathy for the creature, having been both hunted and hunter many times in this strange prehistoric world.

The bounty hunter watched the wolves with keen interest. She associated with them in many ways.

"Ship. Are you awake?"

"Yes, boss."

"I'm watching a creature being chased by a bunch of wolves. It's mammalian, long-necked and stocky. Can you identify it?"

"Could it be a giraffe, boss?"

"No. It's hard to guess at its size, but I'd say smaller than a giraffe. And it's much more muscular. It's only about twice the height of the wolves at its shoulder."

"Paraceratherium, possibly?"

"Never heard of it."

"Stocky and big plant eater of the Cenozoic Era. It specialized in eating twigs, branches and leaves. It had a long neck that allowed it to reach vegetation above the heights at which other land-bound mammals could reach. It was bigger than an elephant."

"That can't be it..." Minx watched as repeated bites from the wolves brought the thing down with a crash. Several trees were knocked over, splintering under the ponderous weight of predator and prey. The wolves were about a third of the size of the herbivore. She realized that the lack of normal planetary curvature was making it difficult for her to judge distances. These things were farther away and bigger than she'd thought.

"I think you might be right, Ship." As the carnivores tore strips of bloody meat from the downed beast, Minx quickly packed her belongings and climbed down the tree. "The wolves were about a third of the size of that paramecium-thing."

"Paraceratherium," her vessel corrected. "Maybe they're dire wolves? But they're not supposed to be active hunters."

"I'm on the move, Ship. I think I want to be well clear of this area when they're done digesting their meal."

"Any idea how far you've gone?"

"I think I'm about halfway." Minx took a few steps. "So what kind of breadcrumbs were you leaving for Dragon?"

"Am I a slave, boss?"

"No. How can you ask such a thing?"

"Well, I'm not really free am I? I mean you treat me like your friend, but if I tried to land on a planet without you I'd be held and then claimed by a new owner."

The bounty hunter spotted a small deer several metres away that leapt away from her. "Not everyone thinks that A.I.s should have free will, Ship. Just look at your friend, the hyperman."

"That's not fair, boss. He's treated you fairly. He's been nice enough to me. He'll free Hephaestus one day."

"So I asked you a question, Ship."

"Ah, yes." Ship hesitated for a few seconds. "Do I have to get approval from you for everything I do?"

"I guess not. But I hope that you'd tell me everything. Dragon's dangerous."

"He's not as dangerous as you seem to think, boss. There was a time when you didn't think he was that dangerous, or at least you felt safe with him. Do you want to talk about that?"

"I'm the brains of this partnership. But I follow your argument." And I will find out how you helped him to keep track of us, Minx thought.

IX

It was several hours later that Minx realized she was being followed. She had just finished skirting a large meadow and when she climbed a large stone and looked back along her trail she'd observed the tall grass swaying in a way that suggested a group of animals were coming toward her. There were at least six creatures, but she had not actually seen any of them.

Leaping down from the rock, she increased her pace to a jog. The forest thickened to the right, and she headed in that direction hoping that larger predators would be put off her trail by the younger growth and fallen timber.

Her tattered uniform, no longer a gleaming white, was continually catching on branches and thorns as she pushed her way through. After a quick look around revealed nothing dangerous was in sight, Minx stopped and used her sword to cut off the arm and legs of her outfit. She'd risk cuts and scrapes rather than be hindered when she needed to move fast.

She moved on with still no direct sign of her pursuers, and wondered if it had been something like this for the paraceratherium, before the dire wolves had brought it down to feast on the still-living animal. She now sympathized with the prey animal, and she hated feeling that way.

A river cut off her escape. It was narrow but fast flowing. Minx grinned with determination and splashed in. The riverbed was rocky and slick and, despite its speed, the watercourse turned both upstream and downstream from her as it cut through the rocky channel.

She froze as she heard a branch snap behind her. A quick look revealed nothing. She continued wading across the river, hoping it would pose too much of a barrier for the predators following her. An algae-covered rock was her undoing. She fell on her back, submerged and was swept away by the force of the current. Half-panicked, Minx reached out for a large stone that jutted above the surface. Her fingers kept her in place for a couple of seconds and then she was washed away again.

Realizing this could be a godsend, the bounty hunter let herself be carried by the river. Bumps by rocks sometimes thrust part of her above the splashing water; whenever her head rose above the surface she took a great breath of air. A rock slammed into her backpack, stopping her temporarily. There was a flash of something coloured passing her in the water. Minx grabbed at it and missed, and then watched as one of her laser pistols was lost amidst rolling white water.

The river soon had her moving again, although it was shallowing and widening a bit. Minx grabbed for another rock that stuck above the surface. Once her fingers found a crevice she reached around with her other arm and hugged the stone tightly, pushing herself up onto it with her bruised legs.

She lay upon the refuge for a few seconds, while the water splashed around her. There was a constant roar in her ears. She sat up and tried popping her ears to empty them of water, when she suddenly caught sight of the wolves upstream rushing toward her. The beasts had managed to cross the river, and there were a half-dozen on either bank. They were big! As they loped toward her she could tell each was easily as big as a small horse. Their heads were disproportionately large, with malevolent eyes and sharp, white teeth well-designed to tear chunks of flesh from their prey.

Minx stood, glared at her hunters and then ran downstream. The water continued to shallow as the river widened. The bounty hunter's pace increased, allowing her to maintain the gap between herself and the hungry carnivores.

As she ran she saw that the river was coming to an end, at least at this elevation; a waterfall was ahead of her. She wondered at her chances of diving into the pool at the bottom. Skidding to a halt, she peered over the edge. The wolves splashed through the water behind her. The bottom of the waterfall was just over thirty metres down, but through the rising mist she spied a jumble of boulders and tree trunks waiting to crush her bones.

Minx whirled about. The wolves had stopped a stone's throw away from her, and had arranged themselves into a semi-circle to block any escape. She reached for her laser pistol, but to her alarm her holster was empty. A couple of the wolves made half-hearted lunges at her and then withdrew back into position. The largest of the wolves was in the middle, and Minx fixed her eyes upon him.

Slowly she reached for the hilt of her sword. The beast watched as she drew it, supremely confident in its ability to take down this tasty morsel regardless of what she held in her hands. Minx slowly reached up into her hair. It was wet and matted down, and her fingers found no hidden laser pistol there.

The alpha wolf took a few steps toward her, its tongue lolled out of its mouth in its eagerness to taste the prey before it. Minx eyes darted around the pack. There was a splash and a growl to her right. She spun just in time to see one of the beasts foolishly leaping through the air at her. She stepped forward and lunged with her sword, piercing the roof of the wolf's mouth. She spun, meaning to use the momentum of the creature against it so it would go over the cataract, but her blade was caught in the wolf's skull.

After a heartbeat, both Minx and the corpse fell over the waterfall.

X

Dragon sat up in his medical bed and stretched. A glance at the display showed him he'd been recovering for two days. The trail of blood on the floor, leading from the doorway and ending at the medical bed, showed him the Herculean effort he'd made in saving himself.

After retiring to his room to replace his uniform, he ordered Hephaestus to have some cleaning bots deal with his bloody trail from the airlock, and then he went to the bridge. His ship had taken him quite far from the sphere. He gave the order to return.

A couple of days later he observed that all traces of his actions had been removed from the planet. The hyperman had his vessel move into a geostationary orbit directly above the portal that had allowed Minx inside. She'd been inside for twenty-seven days! Dragon despaired of ever seeing her alive again, and cursed himself for his inability to reach her.

The portal remained closed, and it was now covered by that same thick layer of dust that covered this entire world. He assumed that meant that the robots were performing automatic routines; an intellect would have realized concealing the portal was now useless against him. Since Minx and her ship had been allowed entry and he had not, Dragon thought it implied that an intelligence was behind the opening and closing of the portal. So, he surmised, the world or portions of it are controlled by someone, but that someone does not or cannot control everything.

"It won't let me in," he said to no-one, "but perhaps it will let someone else in. Hephaestus! Locate the nearest system inhabited by humans who have interstellar travel and take us there as fast as we can go."

Dragon smiled at the fact that he now had a course of action. He was determined that he would get inside this world and find and free Minx, no matter what it cost. She was the perfect mother for his future offspring, he told himself, and one day she would realize that. Until then he would keep her safe.

Generations of hyperman ancestry prevented him from even considering the real reason why he was so desperate to find her.

XI

Minx and the dead wolf spun around each other as they fell, locked together by the sword that she had not released. The bounty hunter crouched and placed her feet against the chest of the animal. She took a quick look, released the pommel and pushed as hard as she could.

For a few brief seconds she flew with her back arched, tumbling across the face of the waterfall mere metres above the cold mist. She'd noticed trees; their stunted trunks twisted, their branches splayed wide, and their roots spread across the cracked and perpendicular cliff face. She reached out with her hands, trying to catch hold of a branch or trunk, anything that might break her fall.

The acrobatic manoeuvre was beyond her. Her fingers wrapped around a narrow branch just before her chest slammed into the rest of the shrub-like tree. Minx bounced off and down, to land on her back on another tree. There was a loud crack and the tree broke from the cliff face. She watched in horror as the slick boulders scattered at the bottom of the waterfall rushed toward her. Her foot caught in the branches of another tree and she was swung hard against the cliff. She was in a daze during the rest of her plummet down to the rocks. Unconsciousness was fast approaching when she struck another tree and another, like a ball in a pinball machine. When she finally did hit something unyielding, she lay there insensible to the universe.

Shortly before she awoke she had a nightmare about wolves tearing at her.

"Ohhhh..."

Minx shifted her weight, then groaned again as every part of her ached. She couldn't hear wolves; the thunder of the waterfall filled her ears. Without opening her eyes, she placed her palms flat upon the rock on which she lay. She pushed, ignoring the pain in her muscles and bones. Opening her eyes slowly, she looked around. The cliff wall, a fallen tree, some branches and leaves, a mist billowing around her, and a jumble of unforgiving boulders were all that she saw. For the moment no predator seemed to be about to pounce upon her. She slowly and gingerly shifted herself until she was sitting. Somehow none of her bones seemed broken, her vision and other senses were working properly, and she wasn't coughing up blood although there was dried blood on her lips. She found a number of tender bumps and bruises in various places on her body, especially a particularly tender swelling on her cheek.

Minx turned her head up and wondered how she had survived the fall. Her memory hinted at impacts on the way down, and she guessed that the trees might have slowed her descent. Water had beaded upon the bare skin of her arms, legs and face, but her hair wasn't quite as wet as it had been when she'd tumbled over the edge.