The Moldy Dead by Sara King Read Free Book Online Page A

out of proportion
with its long, dome-shaped body.  Its eyes were even more of a mystery. 
Completely black, yet they somehow conveyed more emotion than the other seven
combined.
    When Crown learned they were
heading in his direction, he grew excited.  He knew it was embarrassing for a
Philosopher to lack that kind of discipline, but he couldn’t control his
curiosity.  He was tired of subsisting on thoughts passed through a million
others before it reached him.  He was tired of listening to second-hand
accounts, tired of theorizing, tired of hypothesizing, tired of imagining.
    Crown wanted to see them. 
     
     
    #
     
    They began to explore the shoreline first, putting
off wading through the endless acres of black mold as long as possible. 
    The Ooreiki youngsters, desperate to find some form
of life on the planet other than the omnipresent black mold, picked up several
odd-shaped stones and suggested they were broken carapaces of aquatic critters,
that possibly the dominant species of the planet lived in the oceans and not
the land.
    Esteei and Nirle, the only two
survivors who had been on a Congressional envoy before, gave them the benefit
of the doubt, though it was painfully obvious to both of them that the stones
were just that.
    Bha’hoi was not so tactful.
    “Those are rocks, you ignorant
Ooreiki furgs.  Jreet hells, I’ve had enough of this.  I’m going back before
their stupidity rubs off.”  Frustration flaring off of him, the Huouyt Overseer
then turned and stormed back to the ship, leaving the seven of them alone on
the beach. 
    The young Ooreiki dropped their
prizes dejectedly, their expressive faces wrinkled in shame.
    Prime Commander Nirle lifted his
rifle and watched Bha’hoi go through the scope, his anger hot against Esteei’s sivvet . 
Tempers had flared ever since they’d learned their destination, and for a
horrible moment, Esteei thought the Ooreiki was going to fire.
    “Two hundred credits says I can
kill him in six shots,” Nirle said, still watching the Huouyt’s narrow back
through his rifle.
    Esteei was curious, despite
himself.  “Why six?”  He knew a Huouyt was hard to kill, but Nirle had been
trained in Planetary Ops, of the Ooreiki Ground Force.  They prided themselves
in their weapons mastery.
    Still watching the Huouyt with his
weapon, Nirle replied, “I’d have to blow his legs and arms off first.” 
    The younger Ooreiki hooted.
    Esteei, who had not been trained in
the arts of killing Huouyt, was lost.  “Why?”
    “Because it would hurt more,” one
of the battlemasters answered.  “Five for the limbs, then the last one for the
brain.”
    Nirle grunted and dropped his rifle
again.
    They moved on, dutifully scouting
the empty shore for life—an endeavor that was obviously becoming more pointless
with every tic that passed.  Eventually, the younger Ooreiki became more
animated, their shame disappearing with their Prime Commander’s anger.  They
even began picking up odd-shaped stones again.
    An hour or two later, a sudden, odd
rush of anxiety slammed into Esteei’s sivvet , almost knocking him over. 
He frowned, glancing at his companions.  “Is something wrong?”
    Nirle grunted.  “Yeah.  I didn’t
pull the trigger.”  The squat brown Ooreiki was looking back towards the ship
wistfully.
    Esteei glanced at the younger
Ooreiki, all of whom were watching him with curious, sticky brown eyes.  Which
one of them was anxious?  And why?
    His sivvet continued to
burn, the acidic-metallic taste right before fear.  None of them, though,
seemed to be worried.  As Esteei scanned the endless expanse of black mold that
seemed to be creeping toward them as they stood there, shock hit his sivvet like a cold splash of liquid nitrogen, more powerful than anything he’d ever
felt before.
    Nirle noticed his glances and
frowned, his stocky body tightening.  “Boys, let’s get our Emissary back to
base.  If there was something here, he would’ve felt