Jem

What they were bringing in was a body. It was female, and that was all you could say. The face was unrecognizable. When they dropped her down, it was plain that not only the face had been attacked. One arm was shredded up to the shoulder, and there was a bullet hole between her breasts.

“Krinpit,” snapped Major Santangelo.

“Krinpit don’t have guns,” said Colonel Me

“Yes’m.” He spun around, took Corporal Kristianides’s gas-operated recoilless away from her, and picked three from his squad at random while Colonel Me

At twenty-second intervals they dogged it across the open space that was the field of fire, reforming under the arch of a many-tree. As Sweggert waited for the others, he could hear the rattle and moan of some shelled creatures, but not very near. The next man in heard it too and turned a questioning face to Sweggert, mouthing the word Krinpit. Sweggert nodded savagely and motioned silence. When Colonel Me

Fucking hairy, thought Sweggert. It was like that bitch to pick him for something like this! She’d had it in for him ever since he had it in her. He hand-signaled the rest of the patrol to move up one at a time, two on one side of the trail and the other with him and the colonel on the other, and when they had made their run he waited ten seconds and then sprinted to drop down beside the colonel. “That’s where they got her,” he breathed, pointing ahead on the trail, where half a case of fluorescent tubes lay crunched and scattered on the ground.

“I see that, sergeant! Keep moving, I don’t want Santangelo ru

“Yes’m.” He stooped low, dodging through the underbrush, and flopped down. The distant Krinpit rattle was still audible, but not closer. The patrol leapfrogged through the jungle until the bulk of the resupply ship loomed ahead, with its tramped-down clearing before it. He waved to catch Colonel Me

What he saw was the base of the ship, and right in front of it the bodies of the other two grunts. They had been savagely mutilated. There was no sign of Krinpit, and the sounds he had heard seemed to have gone farther away.

Sergeant Sweggert began to feel a little better. Why the fuck should he worry about Krinpit? They were noisy bastards; there was no way one of them could get within twenty meters with him hearing it. And then the GORR would take care of it. Of course, he speculated, maybe they weren’t alone. Maybe there were a couple of Greasies with them. But what did that matter? Greasies were Greasies — they were spies, Ay-rabs, or limeys — and the day hadn’t come when he worried about meeting one of them in the woods. He pushed his cap back and settled down. If anything showed up in that clearing he would blow its ass off, and meanwhile he had the entertaining spectacle of Margie Me

The faintest of sounds behind him made him freeze.

A little too late, he comprehended a mistake in his thinking. Krinpit and human beings were not the only creatures on Jem. As he started to turn he saw a ski

Marge Me

She met him at the door. Good man, he was trotting over half-dressed, but he had the case with him. “Open it up,” she snarled. “They’re arming the Creepies against us, guns and glasses. That’s what Tinka was trying to get back to tell me. Move it, man!”

“Yes’m.” But even the stolid Major Vandemeer fumbled as he undid the snaps. “Ready, ma’am,” he reported, fingers poised.

The red fury in her mind was balanced by the warmth spreading at the base of her belly. She scratched vigorously and snapped, “Take ’em out!”

“Who, ma’am?”

“The Greasies! Bust their birds, all of them!” She watched the complicated ritual and then frowned. “While you’re at it, take the Peeps’ out too.”

NINETEEN

GODFREY MENNINGER woke up wondering who was shaking the foot of his bed.

No one was. He was alone in his room, exactly like a hundred thousand Holiday I

It was 6:22 on the clock.

Me