First Command (12 page)

She turned to the corporal, her face white, her eyes blazing. “You. Had the wolves come when you left the . . . the Exposure?”

“No, sir. But they’re never long in hearing the cries and winding the scent.”

She was on her feet, pushing her bench away so violently that it toppled with a crash. “Get a move on, Brasidus. If we hurry, we may still be in time.”

Brasidus was sickened by her reactions, by her words. Exposure was necessary, but it was not something to take pictures of, to make records of. As well join the scavengers in their filth-eating rounds of the city streets.

“Come on!” she flared.

“No,” he said stubbornly. “I’ll not help you to make a film that you and your shipmates can gloat over.”

“Make a film? “ Her voice was incredulous. “You fool. We may be in time to save them.”

And then it was Brasidus’ turn to experience a wave of incredulity.

Chapter 17

“No!”
said Brasidus.

“Yes!” she contradicted him. But, incongruously, it was not the borrowed pistol that she was leveling at the two men, but a camera. Brasidus laughed—and then the slim hands holding the seemingly innocuous instrument twitched ever so slightly, and from the lens came an almost invisible flicker of light and, behind the policemen, something exploded. There was a sudden, acrid stench of flash-boiled wine, of burning wood.

That deadly lens was looking straight at Brasidus again.

“Laser,” he muttered.

“Laser,” she stated.

“But . . . but you were supposed to leave all your weapons behind.”

“I’m not altogether a fool, honey. And, oddly enough, this is a camera, with flash attachment. Not a very good one, but multipurpose tools are rarely satisfactory. Now, are you going to drive me out to the Exposure?”

She’ll have to bring along the corporal, thought Brasidus. And the two of us should be able to deal with her.

And now the deadly camera was in her left hand only, and the borrowed stun gun was out of its holster. She fired left-handed, and at this short range she could hardly miss. The corporal gasped, made one tottering step forward, then crashed untidily to the floor. The belled muzzle swung slightly and she fired again. There was the sound of another heavy fall behind Brasidus. That, he guessed, would be the innkeeper. There would be no telephone calls made to the city for several hours. The goatherds were notorious for their reluctance to assist the forces of law and order.

“Get into the car,” she said. “I’ll ride behind. And make it snappy.”

He walked out of the inn, into the afternoon sunlight, deliberately not hurrying. He consoled himself with the thought that, even though he was falling down on the job as a sergeant of Police, he was earning his keep as a lieutenant of Security. He had been told to find out what made these aliens tick—and he was finding out. In any case, if the wolf packs were as ravenous as usual, there would be nothing left but a scatter of well-gnawed bones.

He climbed into the driver’s seat, thought briefly about making a dash for it, then thought better of it. He could never get out of range in time. He heard her clambering in behind him. He wished that he knew which way that so-called camera was pointingthen he succeeded in catching a glimpse of it in the rear mirror. If the firing stud were accidentally pressed, it would drill a neat, cauterized hole through his head. Or would the water content of his brains explode? In that case, it would not be so tidy.

“Get going,” she said. And then, as an afterthought, “I suppose you know the way.”

“I know the way,” he admitted. The car lifted on its air cushion and proceeded.

“Faster. Faster.”

“This is only a goat track,” he grumbled. “And this isn’t an armored chariot we’re riding in.”

Even so, deliberately taking the risk of fouling the fan casings on projecting stones, he managed to increase speed. Rather to his disappointment, the vehicle still rode easily, sped over the rough terrain without making any crippling contacts.

And then, ahead of them, seemingly from just over the next rise, sounded the ominous howling and snarling of the wolf pack, and with it, almost inaudible, a thin, high screaming.

“Hurry!” Margaret Lazenby was shouting. “Hurry!”

They were over the rise now. Once before, Brasidus had watched an Exposure, and the spectacle had sickened him, even though he had realized the necessity for it, and appreciated the essential justice of allowing Nature to erase its own mistakes in its own way. But to rescue one or more of these mewling, subhuman creatures—that was unthinkable.

The car was over the rise.

And then it was bearing down on the snarling, quarreling pack, on the carnivores too engrossed in their bloody business to notice the approach of potential enemies. But perhaps they heard the whine of the ducted fans and, even so, remembered that, on these occasions, Men never interfered with them.

The car was sweeping down the slope toward the mêlée, and Margaret Lazenby was firing. Brasidus could feel the heat of the discharges, cursed as the hair on the right side of his head crisped and smoldered. But he maintained a steady course nonetheless, and experienced the inevitable thrill of the hunt, the psychological legacy from Man’s savage ancestors. Ahead there was a haze of vaporized blood; the stench of seared flesh was already evident. The howling of the pack rose to a frenzied crescendo but the animals stood their ground, red eyes glaring, slavering, crimsoned jaws agape. Then—an evil, gray, stormy tide—they began to surge up the hillside to meet their attackers.

Brasidus was shooting now, the control column grasped in his left hand, the bucking projectile pistol in his right. Between them, he and Margaret Lazenby cleared a path for their advance, although the car rocked and lurched as it passed over the huddle of dead and dying bodies. Then—“Stop!” she was crying. “Stop! There’s a baby there! I saw it move!”

Yes, there, among the ghastly litter of scattered bones and torn flesh, was a living child, eyes screwed tight shut, bawling mouth wide open. It would not be living much longer. Already two of the wolves, ignoring the slaughter of their companions, were facing each other over the tiny, feebly struggling body, their dreadful teeth bared as they snarled at each other.

Margaret Lazenby was out of the car before Brasidus could bring it to a halt. Inevitably she lost her balance and fell, rolling down the slope, almost to where the two carnivores were disputing over their prey. She struggled somehow to her knees just as they saw her, just as they abandoned what was no more than a toothsome morsel for a satisfying meal. Somehow, awkwardly, she managed to bring her camera-gun into firing position, but the weapon must have been damaged by her fall. She cried out and threw it from her, in a smoking, spark-spitting arc that culminated in the main body of the pack. Even as it exploded in a soundless flare of raw energy she was tugging the borrowed stun gun from its holster.

Once she fired, and once only, and one of the two wolves faltered in the very act of leaping, slumped to the ground. The other one completed its spring and was on her, teeth and taloned hind paws slashing. Brasidus was out of the car, running, a pistol in each hand. But he could not use his guns—animal and alien formed together a wildly threshing tangle, and to fire at one would almost certainly mean hitting the other. But the Arcadian was fighting desperately and well, as yet seemed to be undamaged. Her hands about the brute’s neck were keeping those slavering jaws from her throat, and her knee in the wolf’s belly was still keeping those slashing claws at a distance. But she was tiring. It would not be long before sharp fangs found her jugular or slashing talons opened her up from breastbone to groin.

Dropping his weapons, Brasidus jumped. From behind he got his own two hands around the furry throat, his own knee into the beast’s back. He exerted all of his strength, simultaneously pulled and thrust. The animal whined, then was abruptly silent as the air supply to the laboring lungs was cut off. But it was still strong, was still resisting desperately, was striving to turn so that it could face this fresh enemy.

Margaret Lazenby had fallen clear of the fight, was slowly crawling to where she had dropped her pistol.

She never had to use it. Brasidus brought his last reserves of strength into play, heard the sharp snap of broken vertebrae. The fight was over.

He got groggily to his feet, ready to face and to fight a fresh wave of carnivores. But, save for the Arcadian, the squalling child and himself, the hillside was bare of life. There were charred bodies, human and animal, where the laser weapon had exploded; the other wolves, such of them as had survived, must have fled. The stench of burning flesh was heavy in the air.

At a tottering run, Margaret Lazenby was hurrying to the child, the only survivor of the Exposure. More slowly, Brasidus followed, looked down at the little naked body. He said, “It would have been kinder to let it die. What sort of life can it expect with that deformity?”

“Deformity? What the hell do you mean?”

Wordlessly he pointed to the featureless scissure of the baby’s thighs.

“Deformity? This, you fool, is a perfectly formed female child.”

She got down to her knees and tenderly picked up the infant. And, as she did so, it became somehow obvious that the odd mounds of flesh on her chest, fully revealed now that her shirt had been torn away, were, after all, functional. The baby stopped crying, groped greedily for an erect pink nipple.

Peggy laughed shakily. “No, darling, no. I’m sorry, but the milk bar’s not open for business. I’ll make up a bottle for you when we get back to the ship.”

“So,” muttered Brasidus at last, “so it is one of your race.”

“Yes.”

“And those . . . lumps are where you fission from.”

She said, “You’ve still a lot to learn. And now give me your tunic, will you.”

“My tunic?”

“Yes. Don’t just stand there, looking as though you’ve never seen a woman before.” Brasidus silently stripped off his upper garment, handed it to her. He expected that she would put the child back on the ground while she covered her own seminudity. But she did not. Instead, she wrapped the baby in the tunic, cooing to it softly. “There, there. You were cold, weren’t you? But Mummy will keep you warm, and Mummy will see that you’re fed.” She straightened, then snapped in a voice of command, “Take me back to the ship, as fast as all the Odd Gods of the Galaxy will let you!”

Chapter 18

SO THEY DROVE BACK
to the ship swiftly, bypassing Kilkis—Brasidus had no desire to meet again the village corporal—taking roads that avoided all centers of population, however small. Peggy was in the back of the car, making soft, soothing noises to the querulous infant. Achron, thought Brasidus sullenly, would have appreciated this display of paternal solicitude—but I do not. And what did he feel? Jealousy, he was obliged to admit, resentment at being deprived of the Arcadian’s company. Perverts the doctors in the créche might be, but these aliens could and did exert a dangerous charm. But when it came to a showdown, as now, they had no time for mere humans, lavished their attentions only upon their own kind.

Suddenly the child was silent. The car was speeding down a straight stretch of road, so Brasidus was able to risk turning his head to see what was happening. Peggy had the stopper out of the wine flask, was dipping a corner of her handkerchief into it, then returning the soaked scrap of rag to the eager mouth of the baby. She grinned ruefully as she met Brasidus’ stare. “I know it’s all wrong,” she said. “But I haven’t a feeding bottle. Too, it will help if the brat is sound asleep when we get back to the spaceport.”

“And why will it help?” demanded Brasidus, turning his attention back to the road ahead.

She said, “It’s occurred to me that we have probably broken quite a few laws. Apart from anything else, armed assault upon the person of a police officer must be illegal.”

“It is. But you carried out the armed assault. We did not.”

She laughed. “Too true. But what about our interference with the Exposure? It will be better for both of us if your boss doesn’t know that the interference was a successful one.”

“I must make my report,” said Brasidus stiffly.

“Of course.” Her voice was soft, caressing. “But need it be a full report? We got into a fight with the wolf pack—there’s too much evidence littered around on the hillside for us to lie our way out of that. I’ve a few nasty scratches on my back and my breasts.”

“So that’s what they’re called. I was wondering.”

“Never mind that now. I’ve got these scratches, so it’s essential that I get back on board as soon as possible for treatment by our own doctor.”

“I thought that you were the ship’s doctor.”

“I’m not. I have a doctorate in my own field, which is not medicine. But let me finish. We had this fight with these four-legged sharks you people call wolves. I fell out of the car, and you jumped out and saved my life, although not before I was mauled a little. And that’s near enough to the truth, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Now, the child. She’ll fit nicely into the hamper you brought the provisions in. The poor little tot will be in a drugged stupor by the time we get to the spaceport, so she’ll be quiet enough. And with your tunic spread over her, who will know?”

“I don’t like it,” said Brasidus.

“That makes two of us, my dear. I don’t like having to conceal the evidence of actions that, on any world but this, would bring a public commendation.”

“But Diomedes will know.”

“How can he know? We were there, he was not. And we don’t even have to make sure that we tell the same story, exact in every detail. He can question you, but he can’t question me.”

“Don’t be so sure about that, Peggy.”

“Oh, he’d like to, Brasidus. He’d like to. But he knows that at all times there are sufficient officers and ratings aboard
Seeker
to handle the drive and main and secondary armaments. He knows that we could swat your gasbags out of the sky in a split second, and then raze the city in our own good time.” There was a long silence. Then, “I’m sorry to have gotten you into quite a nasty mess, Brasidus, but you realize that I had no choice.”