Authors: Mercedes Lackey
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #historical, #dark fantasy
Dragon's Teeth (3 page)
Still; if this really worked, it would be worth it all.
If . . .
“Now how could you possibly doubt me?” asked a genteel voice from behind him.
Lester jumped a foot, and whirled. Mr. Lightman sat comfortably at his ease in the uncomfortable green plastic chair beneath the swag-lamp at the window. Lester thought absently that only a demonic fiend could have been comfortable in that torture-device disguised as a chair.
He was flushing red with acute shame, and terribly aware of his own physical inadequacies. Mr. Lightman cocked his head to one side, and frowned.
“Shame?” he said. “I think not. We’ll have none of that here.”
He gestured—not with his index finger, but with the second. Suddenly Lester’s shame vanished, as if the emotion had been surgically removed. And as he looked down bemusedly at himself, he realized that his physical endowments had grown to remarkable adequacy.
“A taste of things to come,” Lightman said easily. “You must be a perfect specimen, you know. People trust those who are handsome; those who are sexy. Think how many criminals are convicted who are plain, or even ugly—and how few who are handsome. People want to believe in the beautiful. They want to believe in the powerful. Above all, they want to believe.”
Lester nodded, and lowered himself down onto the scratchy bedspread. “As you can see, I’m ready to deal,” he told the fiend calmly.
“So I do see.” Lightman snapped his fingers, and the neatly-typed pages of Lester’s contract appeared in his hand. He leafed through them, his mouth pursed. “Yes,” he murmured, and, “Interesting.” Then he looked up. “You seem to have thought this through very carefully. Brother Lee was not quite so—thorough. The late Brother Lee.”
Lester nodded; then took in the rest of the sentence. “The—late?”
Lightman nodded. “His contract ran out,” the fiend said, simply. “Perhaps he had been planning to gain some extra years by bringing you into the flock, but he had not written any such provision into his contract—and a bargain is a bargain, after all. The usual limit for a contract is seven years. I rarely make exceptions to that rule.”
Lester thought back frantically, and could recall no such provision in his own contract.
But then he calmed himself with the remembrance of his loophole. The very worst that would happen would be that he would live a fabulous life and then die. That prospect no longer held such terror for him with the hard evidence of an afterlife before him. With the Devil so real, God was just as real, right?
That beautiful loophole; so long as he repented, merciful God would forgive his sins. The Adversary would not have him. And he would repent, most truly and sincerely, every sin he committed as
soon as
he committed them. It was all there in the Bible, in unambiguous terms. If you repented, you were forgiven. That was the mistake everyone else who made these bargains seemed to make; they waited until the last minute, and before they could repent,
wham.
He wouldn’t be so stupid.
But Mr. Lightman seemed blithely unconcerned by any of this. “I’d like to make a slight change in this contract, if I might,” he said instead. “Since Brother Lee’s empire is going begging, I would like to install you in his place. Conservation of effort, don’t you know, and it will make his flock so much more comfortable.”
Lester nodded cautiously; the fiend waved his hand and the change appeared in fiery letters that glowed for a moment.
“And now, for my articles.” Lightman handed the contract back, and there was an additional page among the rest. He scanned them carefully, including all the fine print. He had expected trouble there, but to his surprise, it seemed to be mostly verses from the Bible itself, including the Lord’s Prayer, with commentaries. It looked, in fact, like a page from a Bible-studies course. He looked up from his perusal to see Lightman gazing at him sardonically.
“What, have you never heard that the Devil can quote Scripture?” The fiend chuckled. “It’s simply the usual stuff. So that you know that I know all the things people usually count on for loopholes.”
That gave him pause for a moment, but he dismissed his doubts. “I’m ready to sign,” he said firmly.
Lightman nodded, and handed him a pen filled with thick, red fluid. He doubted it was ink.
He was the most popular televangelist ever to grace the home screen; surpassing Brother Lee’s popularity and eclipsing it. His message was a simple one, although he never phrased it bluntly:
buy your way into heaven, and into heaven on earth.
Send Lester Parker money, and Lester will not only see that God puts a “reserved” placard on your seat in the heavenly choir, he’ll see to it that God makes your life on earth a comfortable and happy one. He told people what they wanted to hear, no uncomfortable truths. And there were always plenty of letters he could show, which told stories of how the loyal sheep of his flock had found Jesus, peace of mind, and material prosperity as soon as they sent Lester their check.
Of course, some of those same people would have been happy to ascribe a miraculous reversal of fortune to their “personal psychic” if they’d called the Psychic Hotline number instead of Lester’s. Above all else, people wanted to believe—wasn’t that what both sides said?
He had a computerized answering service for all his mail; no dumping letters into the trash at the bank for him, no sir! He had a fanatically loyal bunch of part-time housewives read the things, enter the letter’s key words into the computer, and have an answer full of homey, sensible advice and religious homilies tailored to the individual run up by the machine in about the time it took to enter the address. Every letter came out a little different; every letter sounded like one of his sermons. Every letter looked like a personal answer from Lester. The computer was a wonderful thing.
They could have gotten the same advice from Dear Abby—in fact, a good part of the advice tendered
was
gleaned from the back issues of Dear Abby’s compiled columns. But Abby didn’t claim to speak for God, and Lester did.
He also preached another sort of comfort—that hatred was no sin. It was no accident that his viewers were nearly one hundred percent white; white people had money, and black, yellow, and red ones didn’t, or if they did, they generally weren’t going to part with it. That’s what his Daddy had taught him. He sprinkled his sermons with Bible quotations
proving
that it was no sin to hate unbelievers—or to act on that hatred. After all,
those
people had placed themselves beyond the pale of God’s forgiveness. They had not and would not repent. They should be purged from the body of mankind. “If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out!” he stormed, and his legions of followers went out looking for offending eyes, their own blind to mirrors.
Most of his prosperity he owed to his own cleverness, but there were times when he needed that little helping hand—just as he had thought he might. Like the time when his network of informers let him know that
Newsweek
had found his ex-wife, and she was going to spill some embarrassing things about him. Or that one of his many ex-mistresses was going to write a tell-all biography. Or that the IRS was planning an audit.
All he had to do was whisper Lightman’s name, and his request, and by midnight, it was taken care of.
By twelve-oh-one, he was truly, sincerely, repenting that he had ordered his wife’s murder—or whatever other little thing he had requested. Truly, sincerely, and deeply, confessing himself to God and showing that repentance in concrete sacrifices of tears and cash. From the beginning, he had told himself that he
was
acting on God’s behalf, spitting in the face of Satan by tricking the Great Trickster. He told himself every time he prayed that he
was
working for God.
It was a foolproof scheme, and the seven years flew by. During the last year, he was cautious, but resigned. He knew that Lightman would arrange for his death, so there was no point in trying to avoid it. And, indeed, on the very instant of the seventh-year anniversary of the contract, he had a heart attack. As he prayed before his video-congregation. Just like Brother Lee.
Lester stood beside the body in the expensive hospital bed and stared down at it. The monitors were mostly flatlined; the only ones showing any activity were those reporting functions that had been taken over by machines.
Strange,
he thought. The man in the bed looked so healthy.
“Ah, Lester, you’re right on time,” Lightman said genially, stepping around from behind a curtain.
Lester shrugged. “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be?” he asked, just as genially. He could afford to be genial; after all, he wasn’t going to be leaving with Lightman.
“What, no screaming, no crying, no begging?” Lightman seemed genuinely surprised. “Normally your kind are the worst—”
Lester only chuckled. “Why should I be worried?” he replied. “You only
think
you have me. But I repented of every single one of those crimes I asked you to commit. Every death, every blackmail scheme, every disgrace—I even repented the small things, repented every time I accepted someone’s Social Security check—every time I arranged a special-effects miracle or convinced someone to leave me everything in their will—”
But he stopped as Lightman began laughing. “Oh yes, you did,” Lightman told him merrily. “And my Opponent has forgiven you for those sins. But
you
didn’t read the fine print.” He handed Lester the copy of his contract, and pointed to the last page. “Read the commentary, dear boy. Carefully, this time.”
The words leapt off the page at him.
Sins repented will
be
forgiven by the Opposition, but forgiveness does not imply repayment. All sins committed by the party
of
the first part must
be
repaid to the party of the second part regardless of whether or not forgiveness has been obtained.
“These are the sins you’ll be repaying, my boy,” Lightman said pleasantly, waving his hand. A stack of computer forms as tall as Lester appeared beside him. “But that is not why I am truly pleased to have you among us—”
Another stack of computer forms appeared, impossibly high, reaching up as far as Lester could see, millions of them.
“This stack—” Lightman placed his hand on the first pile “—represents all the sins you committed directly. But
this
pile represents all those you encouraged others to commit, with your doctrine of salvation through donation and hate-thy-neighbor. And those, dear boy, you did not repent of. You are a credit to our side! And we will be so happy to have you with us!”
The floor opened up, and Lightman stood in midair. “Learn to enjoy it, dear Lester,” he chuckled, as the demons drew the false prophet down among them. “You’ll reach your depth soon enough.”
Lightman smiled as the mountain of sin forms buried Lester Parker. “So I believe.”
Larry and I are members of the North American Falconry Association and federally licensed raptor (bird of prey) rehabilitators. We have to be pragmatic and scientific—when you take care of predatory birds, they eat meat, and when you teach them to hunt so that they can be released, they have to learn how to make kills on their own. There is no shortcut for that process, and no way to “fake” making a kill. Needless to say, we Do Not Do Politically Correct, although we have not (yet) suffered harassment at the hands of people with Way Too Much Spare Time On Their Hands that some other rehabbers and fellow falconers have. Nevertheless, we’ve gotten very tired of seeing people who have never lived next to a field of cattle claim that cows are gentle, harmless, and intelligent—or try to raise their dogs on a vegetarian diet. So when Mike Resnick asked us for a story for
Dinosaur Fantastic
, we knew immediately what we were going to write for him.
Last Rights
Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon
Two men and a woman huddled in the wet bushes surrounding the GenTech Engineering facility in Los Lobos, California. Across the darkened expanse of expensive GenTech Grasite lay their goal; the GenTech Large Animal Development Project. It was “Grasite,” not “grass”; this first product of GenTech’s researches was a plant that was drought-resistant, seldom needed mowing, and remained green even when dry; perfect for Southern California. Sadly, it also attracted grasshoppers who seemed to be fooled by its verdant appearance; they would remain on a Grasite lawn, hordes of them, trying valiantly to extract nourishment from something the texture and consistency of Astroturf, all during the worst droughts. Anyone holding a garden party in Hollywood had better plan on scheduling CritterVac to come in and sweep the premises clean or his guests would find every step they took crunching into a dozen insects, lending the soiree all the elegance of the wrath of Moses.
But Grasite was not the target tonight; these three had no argument with gene-tailored plantlife. In fact, they strongly supported many of GenTech’s products—RealSkin, which reacted to allergens and irritants exactly the way human skin did, or Steak’N’Taters, a tuber with the consistency and taste of a cross between beef and baked potato. But all three of them were outraged by this assault upon helpless animals that GenTech was perpetrating in their new development lab—
Mary Lang, Howard Emory, and Ken Jacobs were self-styled “guerrillas” in defense of helpless beasties everywhere, charter members of Persons In Defense of Animo-beings; P.I.D.A. for short. There was nothing they would not do to secure the rights of exploited and abused animals. This year alone they, personally, had already chalked up the release of several hundred prisoner-rats from a lab in Lisle, Illinois. It was too bad about the mutated bubonic plague spreading through Chicago afterwards, but as Ken said, people had choices, the rats didn’t. Tonight, they were after bigger game.
DinoSaurians. Patent Pending.
Real, living, breathing dinosaurs—slated to become P.O.Z.s (Prisoners of Zoos) the world over. And all because some corporate MBA on the Board of the San Diego Zoo had seen the attendance numbers soar when the Dunn traveling animated dinosaur exhibit had been booked there for a month. He had put that together with the discovery that common chickens and other creatures could be regressed to their saurian ancestors—the pioneering work had already been done on the eohippus and aurochs—and had seen a goldmine waiting for both the zoos and GenTech.
“How could they do this to me?” Mary whined. “They had such a promising record! I was going to ask them for a corporate donation! And now—this—”
“Money,” Ken hissed. “They’re all money-grubbing bastards, who don’t care if they sell poor animals into a life of penal servitude. Just wait; next thing you’ll be seeing is DinoBurgers.”
Howard winced, and pulled the collar of his unbleached cotton jacket higher. “So, what have we got?” he asked. “What’s the plan?”
Ken consulted the layout of the facility and the outdoor pens. It had been ridiculously easy to get them; for all the furor over the DinoSaurians, there was remarkably little security on this facility. Only signs, hundreds of them, warning of “Dangerous Animals.” Ridiculous. As if members of P.I.D.A. would be taken in by such blatant nonsense! There was no such thing as a dangerous animal; only an animal forced to act outside of its peaceful nature. “There are only three dino-animopersons at the moment, and if we can release all three of them, it will represent such a huge loss to GenTech that I doubt they’ll ever want to create more. There’s a BrontoSaurian here—” He pointed at a tiny pen on the far northern corner of the map. “It’s inside a special pen with heavy-duty electric fences and alarms around it, so that will be your target, Howard. You’re the alarms expert.”
Howard looked over Ken’s shoulder, and winced again. “That pen isn’t even big enough for a horse to move around in!” he exclaimed. “This is inhuman! It’s veal calves all over again!”
Ken tilted the map towards Mary. “There’s something here called a ‘Dinonychus’ that’s supposed to be going to the San Diego Zoo. It looks like they’ve put it in some kind of a bare corral. You worked with turning loose the rodeo horses and bulls last year, so you take this one, Mary.”
Mary Lang nodded, and tried not to show her relief. The corral didn’t look too difficult to get into, and from the plans, all she’d have to do would be to open the corral gate and the animal would run for freedom. “Very active” was the note photocopied along with the map. That was fine; the rodeo horses hadn’t wanted to leave their pens, and it had taken
forever
to get them to move. And she’d gotten horsecrap all over her expensive synthetic suede pants.
“That leaves the Tricerotops in the big pasture to me.” Ken folded the map once they had all memorized the way in. “Meet you here in an hour. Those poor exploited victims of corporate humanocentrism are already halfway to freedom. We’ll show the corporate fat cats that they can’t live off the misery of tortured, helpless animals!”
Howard had never seen so many alarms and electric shock devices in his life. He thought at first that they were meant to keep people out—but all the detectors pointed inward, not outward, so they had all been intended to keep this pathetic BrontoSaurian trapped inside his little box.
Howard’s blood-pressure rose by at least ten points when he saw the victim; they were keeping it inside a bare concrete pen, with no educational toys, nothing to look at, no variation in its environment at all. It looked like the way they used to pen “killer” elephants in the bad old days; the only difference was that this BrontoSaurian wasn’t chained by one ankle. There was barely enough room for the creature to turn around; no room at all for it to lie down. There was nothing else in the pen but a huge pile of green vegetation at one end and an equally large pile of droppings at the other.
Good God,
he thought, appalled,
Don’t they even clean the cage?
As he watched, the BrontoSaurian dropped its tiny head, curved its long, flexible neck, and helped itself to a mouthful of greenery. As the head rose, jaws chewing placidly, another barrel of droppings added itself to the pile from the other end of the beast.
The BrontoSaurian seemed to be perfect for making fertilizer, if nothing else.
Well, soon he would be fertilizing the acreage of the Los Lobos National Park, free and happy, and the memory of this dank, cramped prison would be a thing of the past.
Howard disabled the last of the alarms and shock fences, pulled open the gates, and stepped aside, proudly waiting for the magnificent creature to take its first steps into freedom.
The magnificent creature dropped its head, curved its neck, and helped itself to another mouthful of greenery. As the head rose, jaws chewing placidly, it took no note of the open gates just past its nose.
“Come on, big boy!” Howard shouted, waving at it.
It ignored him.
He dared to venture into the pen.
It continued to ignore him. Periodically it would take another mouthful and drop a pile, but except for that, it could just as well have been one of the mechanical dinosaurs it was supposed to replace.
Howard spent the next half-hour trying, with diminishing patience, to get the BrontoSaurian to leave. It didn’t even
look
at him, or the open door, or anything at all except the pile of juicy banana leaves and green hay in front of it. Finally, Howard couldn’t take it any longer.
His blood-pressure rising, he seized the electric cattle prod on the back wall, and let the stupid beast have a good one, right in the backside.
As soon as he jolted the poor thing, his conscience struck him a blow that was nearly as hard. He dropped the prod as if it had shocked
him,
and wrapped his arms around the beast’s huge leg, babbling apologies.
Approximately one minute later, while Howard was still crying into the leathery skin of the Bronto’s leg, it noticed that it had been stung. Irritating, but irritation was easy to avoid. It shifted its weight, as it had been taught, and stepped a single pace sideways.
Its left hind foot met a little resistance, and something made a shrieking sound—but there had been something shrieking for some time, and it ignored the sound as it had all the rest. After all, the food was still here.
Presently, it finished the pile of food before it and waited patiently. There was a buzzing noise, and a hole opened in the wall a little to its right. That was the signal to shift around, which it did.
A new load of fresh vegetation dropped down with a rattle and a dull thud, as the automatic cleaning system flushed the pile of droppings and the rather flat mortal remains of her savior Howard down into the sewage system.
Mary approached the corral carefully, on the alert for guards and prepared to act like a stupid, lost bimbo if she were sighted. But there were no guards; only a high metal fence of welded slats, centered with a similar gate. There was something stirring restlessly inside the corral; she couldn’t see what it was, for the slats were set too closely together. But as she neared the gate, she heard it pacing back and forth in a way that made her heart ache.
Poor thing—it needed to run loose! How could these monsters keep a wild, noble creature like this penned up in such an unnaturally barren environment?
There were alarms on the gate and on the fence; she didn’t have Howard’s expertise in dealing with such things, but these were easy, even a child could have taken them off-line. As she worked, she talked to the poor beast trapped on the other side of the gate, and it paused in its pacing at the sound of her voice.
“Hang in there, baby,” she crooned to it. “There’s a whole big National Park on the other side of the lab fence—as soon as we get you loose, we’ll take that big BrontoSaurian through it, and that will leave a hole big enough for a hundred animopersons to run through! Then you’ll be free! You’ll be able to play in the sunshine, and roll in the grass—eat all the flowers you want—we’ll make sure they never catch you, don’t you worry.”
The beast drew nearer, until she felt the warmth of its breath on her coat sleeve as she worked. It snuffled a little, and she wrinkled her nose at the smell.
Poor thing! What were they feeding it, anyway? Didn’t they ever give it a chance to bathe? Her resentment grew as it sniffed at the gap between the metal slats. Why, it was lonely! The poor thing was as lonely as some of those rodeo horses had been! Didn’t anyone ever come to pet and play with it?
Finally she disabled the last of the alarms. The creature inside the corral seemed to sense her excitement and anticipation as she worked at the lock on the gate. She heard it shifting its weight from foot to foot in a kind of dance that reminded her of her pet parakeet when he wanted out of his cage, before she’d grown wiser and freed it into the abundant outdoors.
“Don’t worry little fellow,” she crooned at it. “I’ll have you out of here in no time—”
With a feeling of complete triumph, she popped the lock, flipped open the hasp on the gate, and swung it wide, eager for the first sight of her newly freed friend.