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“That’s it, chum. You’ve got the very tone. They might be honest, sure. Or they might be waitin’ for the minute Walton eases up his watch on ’em, to jump him.”
Flandry glanced out. The stars flashed impersonally, not caring that a few motes of flesh named them provinces for a few centuries. He saw that part of this planet’s sky had no stars, a hole into forever. Kit had told him it was called the Hatch. But that was only a nearby dark nebula, not even a big one. The clear white spark of Rigel was more sinister, blazing from the heart of Merseia’s realm. And what of Ogre, tawny above the trees?
“What do you think will happen?” Kit’s voice could scarcely be heard through the engine grumble.
“I don’t even dare guess,” said the driver. “Maybe Walton’ll negotiate something — might leave us here, to become wolf-cattle, or might arrange to evacuate us an’ we can become beggars on Terra. Or he might fight in space … but even if he doesn’t attack their forts here on Vixen, we’ll all be hostages to Ardazir, won’t we? Or the Ymirites might … No, ma’m, I’m just drivin” my truck an’ drawin’ my pay an’ feedin’ my family. Shorter rations every week, it seems. Figure there’s nothin’ else any one person can do. Is there?”
Kit began to cry, a soft hopeless sobbing on Flandry’s shoulder. He laid an arm around her and they sat thus all the way to Garth.
X
Night again, after a short hot winter day full of thunderstorms. Flandry and Emil Bryce stood in the pit blackness of an alley, watching a nearly invisible street. Rain sluiced over their cloaks. A fold in Flandry’s hood was letting water trickle in, his tunic was soaked, but he dared not move. At any moment now, the Ardazirho would come by.
The rain roared slow and heavy, down over the high-peaked roofs of Garth, through blacked-out streets and gurgling into the storm drains. All wind had stopped, but now and then lightning glared. There was a brief white view of pavement that shimmered wet, half-timbered houses with blind shutters crowded side by side, a skeletal transmitter tower for one of the robotic weather-monitor stations strewn over the planet. Then night clamped back clown, and thunder went banging through enormous hollow spaces.
Emil Bryce had not moved for half an hour. But he really was a hunter by trade, thought Flandry. The Terran felt an unreasonable resentment of Bryce’s guild. Damn them, it wasn’t fair, in that trade they stood waiting for prey since they were boys — and he had to start cold. No, hot. It steamed beneath his rain cape.
Feet resounded on the walk. They did not have a human rhythm. And they did not smack the ground first with a boot-heel, but clicked metal-shod toes along the pavement. A flash-beam bobbed, slashing darkness with a light too blue and sharp for human comfort. Watery reflections touched Bryce’s broad red face. His mouth alone moved, and Flandry could read fear upon it. Wolves!
But Bryce’s dart gun slithered from under this cloak. Flandry eased steel knucks onto one hand. With the other, he gestured Bryce back. He, Flandry, must go first, pick out the precise enemy he wanted — in darkness, in rain, and all their faces nonhuman. Nor would uniforms help; the Ardazirho bore such a wild variety of dress.
But … Flandry was trained. It had been worth a rifle, to have an excuse for entering local invader headquarters. Their garrison in Garth was not large: a few hundred, for a city of a quarter million. But modern heavy weapons redressed that, robotanks, repeating ca
And now Clanmaster Temulak, as he had called himself, was going off duty, from headquarters to barracks. Bryce and others had been watching the Ardazirho for weeks. They had told Flandry that the invaders went on foot, in small armed parties, whenever practicable. Nobody knew quite why. Maybe they preferred the intimacy with odors and sounds which a vehicle denied; it was known they had better noses than man. Or perhaps they relished the challenge: more than once, humans had attacked such a group, been beaten off and hunted down and torn to pieces. Civilians had no chance against body armor, blast-weapons, and reflexes trained for combat.
But I’m not a civilian, Flandry told himself, and Bryce has some rather special skills.
The quarry passed by. Scattered flashbeam light etched the ruffed, muzzled heads against flowing dimness. There were five. Flandry identified Temulak, helmeted and corseleted, near the middle. He glided out of the alley, behind them.
The Ardazirho whipped about. How keen were their ears? Flandry kept going. One red-furred alien hand dropped toward a bolstered blaster. Flandry smashed his steel-knuckled fist at Temulak’s face. The enemy bobbed his head, the knucks clanged off the helmet. And light metal sheathed his belly, no blow would have effect there. The blaster came out. Flandry chopped down his left palm, edge on, with savage precision. He thought he felt wristbones crack beneath it. Temulak’s gun clattered to the pavement. The Ardazirho threw back his head and howled, ululating noise hurled into the rain. And HQ only half a kilometer away, barracks no further in the opposite direction—
Flandry threw a karate kick to the jaw. The officer staggered back. But he was quick, twisting about to seize the man’s ankle before it withdrew They went down together. Temulak’s right hand still hung useless, but his left snatched for Flandry’s throat. The Terran glimpsed fingernails reinforced with sharp steel plectra. He threw up an arm to keep his larynx from being torn out. Temulak howled again. Flandry chopped at the hairy neck. The Ardazirho ducked and sank teeth into Flandry’s wrist. Anguish went like flame along the nerves. But now Temulak was crouched before him. Flandry slammed down a rabbit punch. Temulak slumped. Flandry got on his back and throttled him.
Looking up, gasping, the man saw shadows leap and yell in the glow of the dropped flashlight. There had been no way to simply needle Temulak. He was wanted alive, and Flandry didn’t know what anesthetics might be fatal to an Ardazirho. But Bryce had only to kill the guards, as noiselessly as possible. His airgun spat cyanide darts, quick death for any oxygen breather. And his skilled aim sent those darts into exposed flesh, not uselessly breaking on armor. Two shapes sprawled in the street. Another had somehow jumped for Bryce’s throat. The hunter brought up one boot. It clanged on a breastplate, but sheer force sent the alien lurching backward. Bryce shot him. By then the last one had freed his blaster. It crashed and blazed through rain. Bryce had already dropped. The ion bolt sizzled where he had been. Bryce fired, missed, rolled away from another blast, fired again and missed. Now howling could be heard down the street, as a pack of invaders rallied to come and help.
Flandry reached across Temulak’s gaunt body, picked up the Clanmaster’s gun, and waited. He was nearly blind in this night. The other Ardazirho’s blaster flamed once more. Flandry fired where it showed. The alien screamed, once, and thudded to the street. Scorched hair and meat smoked sickly in the wet air.
“Out o’ here!” gasped Bryce. He sprang erect. “They’re comin’! An’ they’ll track us by scent—”