Cheerpt thought Kkaacgh was lying. He wanted to attack the Clumsy Ones' roost and take all the weapons at once. Who should he believe? What should he do?
He decided.
"We will send another scouting party. This time it will be accompanied by two hundred warriors so if we find that we can attack we can do so immediately. I will lead." He did not pluck stones from his perch for his advisers.
"They should have killed him."
"Who should have killed who, Hammer?" Corporal Dornhofer asked.
"Corporal Kerr and his men. The alien."
Hayes tried to keep from looking at Schultz. He found the man's constant, barely contained violence a strain to be around. He was afraid he'd start shaking and drooling if he looked at Schultz and Schultz looked back at him. He managed to keep watching the desert, rotating his screens through naked-eye, infra, and magnifier. The three Marines were manning an observation post at the end of the next ridge to the east, a couple of kilometers away from what the Marines were beginning to call Smuggler's Ridge. Even wearing their chameleons and effectively invisible, they were behind a low ripple of rock. Directly behind them the rock rose a meter and a half to a narrow ledge, then continued up in a steep cliff.
"Not a good idea, Hammer," Dornhofer said laconically. "We're not supposed to let them know we're here, remember? If we flamed one of them, others would come looking for him and might find us."
Schultz raised all shields and spat. "Can't see us." He dropped his chameleon shield back into place, left the others up.
"Kerr thought that one saw them."
Schultz grunted, but didn't say what he was thinking—that Kerr's mind wasn't right yet, and it might never be right again. He had been very nearly killed a while back, and his physical recuperation had taken a long time. The experience had left his self-confidence shaken and made him too susceptible to fear. When a combat Marine lacks self-confidence and has a tendency to fear, he makes mistakes. Mistakes in a hostile situation can get Marines killed. Schultz had once admired Corporal Kerr. He no longer thought Kerr could be fully trusted.
Instead of saying what he thought, Schultz said, "They're aliens. We have to kill them before they have a chance to kill us."
"Hammer," Dornhofer said, his patience wearing thin, "you were at the same briefings and classes I attended. Weren't you listening? These birdmen are way behind us. In technology, in philosophy, in basic science. Everything. They don't even know the stars are suns and have planets. They aren't like the skinks. There's no way they can get to us. The scientists on the station never have any problem when they come planetside. They aren't a danger to us." He watched Schultz raise his screens to spit again and then lower the chameleon back into place. That bothered him. In the years he'd known him, he'd only known Schultz to use his chameleon screen twice before. The first time was when 34th FIST was on Wanderjahr and Schultz saw the horrifyingly large animals of that world. The second time was when they fought the skinks on Waygone. Schultz had to be afraid, and that scared Dornhofer. Schultz was never afraid of anything.
"Human-designed projectiles," Schultz said in the shorthand in which he normally spoke.
"So they've got projectile rifles. Big deal. You can't shoot something if you don't know where it is. We're in our chameleons. They can't see us."
"Kerr thought that one did."
Dornhofer went to lift his shields to spit in disgust. His hand froze just short of the shields. "Traffic," he said to his men, then concentrated on the message coming over his helmet radio. He rogered his receipt of the message and instructions, then said to Schultz and Hayes, "Look alert. Sensors picked up a large number of bodies headed our way from the east." He paused, then added, "Might be a couple hundred of them."
"How far away are they?" Hayes asked. Now that Schultz wasn't talking about the need to kill the aliens, he felt able to talk.
Dornhofer looked at the heads-up display that was transmitted to him as part of the message. "About four kilometers. If they keep coming, they should reach us in about fifteen minutes."
"They're moving pretty fast," Hayes said. "Any identity on them?"
"No. We shouldn't worry, though. They could be grazers, migrating to a new feeding ground."
"That's fast for migrating grazers." Schultz's fear had rubbed onto him.
"Maybe they're running from a predator."
"That's slow for running from predators."
Dornhofer sighed. "They're aliens. We don't know how fast or slow they move for whatever reason."
Hayes thought about that. Avionia was only the fourth world he'd been on. Like most Marines, he'd never left home before he enlisted. He really didn't know from experience or personal observation how fast animals traveled when they were migrating or fleeing predators. But he'd read and studied. On most worlds colonized by humans, grazers migrated much more slowly than this group was approaching, and ran much faster when trying to avoid becoming dinner. He hunkered lower. Those weren't grazing animals approaching them. In addition to learning about grazers, Hayes had spent a goodly part of his childhood and youth watching histo-entertainment vids. A couple hundred, Dornhofer had said. They had to be a Cheereek war party. Was he about to get into his first combat? He ran his hands over the not-very-familiar weapon he'd been issued, to make sure it was ready—a nonlethal weapon, he reminded himself uncomfortably. Three of them and two hundred nomadic warriors. He didn't think that many Cheereek had to be able to see the Marines in order for their bullets to hit them. And the Marines weren't wearing body armor.
Kkaacgh, Chief of Scouts, reined in his eeookk at the end of a ridge and twisted around to see how close Graakaak was. The High Chief was pulling up beside him.
"The next Bower Bough, High Chief," Kkaacgh said. He stretched his neck high in speaking to his leader, but didn't aim his face at the sky. "When we reach its end we will be able to see the Bower Bough where the Clumsy Ones had their roost."
"Why do we stop?" Graakaak demanded.
"High Chief, I stopped so if you wanted to send scouts ahead to see if any demons are where they can see the toe of the next Bower Bough, I can send them forward."
Cheerpt joined them in time to hear Kkaacgh explain the halt. "There are no demons," he said.
Graakaak looked to the next ridge and tried to picture the Bower Bough beyond it. Today was the first time he'd ever been close enough to the Bower Curtain to see the true size and texture of a Bower Bough. He was too unfamiliar with them; he couldn't picture something he'd never seen.
"What difference does it make if two or three scouts go to the next Bower Bough or we all do? If there are demons, they will see us however many come."
"High Chief, I would send scouts along the side of this Bower Bough." Kkaacgh pointed along the base of the ridge where they had stopped. The foliage there was higher than the spotty scrub of the steppe floor. "My scouts could go around until they reach a place where they can climb the side of the next Bower Bough and not be seen. Then, if there are no demons that can see us here, they will cross directly back, or stand where we can see them and signal us to advance. If demons are there, the scouts can come back unseen and we make a different approach." Or go away before the demons see us, he thought.
Graakaak regarded the length of the ridge to where it met the mountainside and saw how long the roundabout was. He estimated how long the scouting trip would take.
"You make us wait for nothing," Cheerpt shrilled.
Graakaak glanced at his Captain of Guards. He agreed. "Too long," he said to Kkaacgh. "We cross. The demons have no reason to be looking here." Graakaak, High Chief of the Cheereek, raised a hand and dropped it forward. The mass of warriors and their thin screen of scouts surged forward.
Kkaacgh gulped and led the way. Who knew what demons had reason to do or not to do?
"Here they come." Dornhofer dropped his magnifier into place. The Cheereek were more than a kilometer and a half away, but the shield made them appear less than a hundred meters distant. "Looks like Cheeree
k," he said. He toggled on the command circuit and reported the sighting. "They're just trotting in the open like they don't have a care in the world;" he finished. Then, "Roger," in reply to the instructions Bass gave him.
"The Skipper wants a head count," he told Schultz and Hayes when he got off the radio.
Schultz made a noise deep in his throat. He sounded like he wanted to spit, but wasn't about to raise his chameleon shield with the aliens in sight. He glared at the zapper he twisted in his hands, furious that it wasn't a killing weapon. Well, he still had his knife, still had his hands. When the aliens got close enough, he could still kill them.
When the distance closed to less than a hundred meters, Dornhofer hopped onto the ledge behind their position and stood up against the face of the cliff. He needed the elevation to be able to count the Cheereek. The way the chameleon effect worked, he should be completely indistinguishable from the rock face, even to someone who knew how to see a chameleoned man.
Kkaacgh resisted the impulse to spin around and flee when the demon hopped up on the face of the Bower Bough. "High Chief," he trilled, "do not look at the toe of the Bower Bough. A demon stands there."
"I saw it," Graakaak trilled softly in a high, startled register. "Yet we live!"
"Don't let it know you saw it," Kkaacgh chirped back.
"There are no demons!" came Cheerpt's angry voice from only a few strides back. "If that was a demon, we'd be dead." But he had also seen it, and was now looking directly at the reddish blur that showed where it was. One-handed, he pointed his Clumsy Ones' weapon and pulled the trigger. The weapon roared thunder and bucked in his hand. His eyes followed the shiny it kicked out to the side. When he looked back, the demon wasn't there—and he was still alive!
"It's a Clumsy Ones' trick!" Cheerpt cried in triumph. He heeled his eeookk into a full galumph toward the toe of the Bower Bough.
Before he reached it, two sizzling pops sounded and he tumbled backward off his eeookk. At the same time, the riding beast was flung forward as though one of its legs hit a trip wire. The eeookk landed with a thud, bounced once, and momentum slid its body forward. Its outstretched neck and head caught against something and didn't move with its body—there was an audible crack as its neck broke. The eeookk's body spasmed and it emitted one feeble "eeookk" before it became silent. But its legs kept scrabbling at the ground as though it was trying to stand.
The Cheereek had never before heard sounds like the two sizzling pops. They saw the Captain of Guards tumble backward and his eeookk fly forward to its death. They cried out in fear and spun their mounts about to flee. They got in each other's way in their panic and briefly milled about, slamming into each other, before they untangled and raced away. During that brief moment three more sizzle-pops sounded and three more Cheereek fell to the ground. One was trampled into mush under the feet of the eeookks.
The Cheereek were so terrified by the demon's wrath that none of them saw Cheerpt rise to his feet and lurch about disoriented. Cheerpt's head cleared quickly enough for him to realize his scrabbling eeookk was dead and the rest of the party was abandoning him. He staggered after them, still so dazed he didn't even realize he didn't have his Clumsy Ones' weapon in his hand.
Chapter 20
Corporal Dornhofer was concentrating so intently on mentally sorting out the weaving, trotting Cheereek to count them that he didn't immediately notice the one pointing a rifle at him. When he did, he instinctively stepped off the ledge and went for cover. The move might have saved his life; it certainly lessened the injury. Just as he began dropping, a bullet slammed into his shoulder—it would have hit him in the chest if he had stayed on the ledge. When his feet hit the ground he staggered and dropped to his knees. He gritted his teeth against the pain and groped one-handed for the first aid kit on his belt. He didn't know how badly he was hurt, but blood was pumping from the wound and flowing down his arm so he knew he had to stanch the flow quickly. At the moment, he wasn't paying any attention to what his men were doing.
Schultz couldn't make out enough details in the milling mass of riders. Their constant movement and counter movement confused the eye and made it difficult to concentrate on any one of them, so he didn't see the alien point its rifle. But he heard the crack of the shot, then saw one alien burst from the flock and charge their position. He snapped his zapper around to bear on the alien and fired. The alien flipped backward. Next to him, he heard the sizzle-pop of Hayes's zapper and saw the now-riderless biped fall forward, vestigial wings flailing. The other aliens suddenly began twisting and weaving in an even more confusing pattern, meanwhile emitting sharp cries that sounded too much like the screeches of startled birds. He tried to shoot another of the creatures, but their rapid movement kept him from drawing a bead on any of them. In frustration, he fired without aiming—even a random shot into that flitting mass had a good chance of finding a target.
An alien pitched from its mount. Schultz fired again, and a second alien flipped to the ground. He heard Hayes fire again, and a third alien went down. Then he stopped at a weak cry behind him.
"Cease fire," Dornhofer croaked. "Cease fire." He held a field dressing to his wounded shoulder but was unable to pull the adhesion tabs on the bandage. He watched the Cheereek flee, then turned his attention to Hayes, who saw the blood oozing around the edges of the bandage. Hayes immediately put his zapper down and reached to complete the bandaging of Dornhofer's wound.
Schultz, seeing that his fire team leader was being taken care of, turned back to the aliens, ready to zap more of them.
"I said cease fire, Hammer," Dornhofer said. "They're running away. Let them go."
"We have to kill them before they come back," Schultz snarled. But he turned back to Dornhofer and locked eyes with him.
"You know the rules, Hammer. Force only ‘in extremis.’ They're running now. It's no longer extremis."
Schultz lifted his shields to spit. Except for a brilliant swath of crimson that painted his upper left arm, Dornhofer was invisible in the visual.
"That's a bullshit rule and you know it."
"Maybe, but it's still the rule." Dornhofer's voice was stronger now that he wasn't concentrating on holding the field dressing in place. It also helped that an analgesic flowed into his system from the bandage to dull the pain, along with the usual battery of antiseptics. "We let them go." His gaze briefly flicked past Schultz and he saw three of the Cheereek who'd been zapped stagger away—and a bloody mass that might be another. One of the riding beasts lay closer. He didn't want Schultz to see the fleeing Cheereek and take off after them so he kept talking to focus Schultz's attention on something other than the Cheereek who were still in range of the zappers.
"We have to report this," he said. "Somehow, either they saw us or they knew we were here. Then we have to stay here until someone comes to relieve us."
"We have to move," Schultz snapped, "They know where we are."
"Negative on moving. I don't think they're coming back anytime soon, not the way they ran away." By then the staggering Cheereek were well beyond zapper range. He flicked his radio to the command circuit to report.
Schultz swore when he turned and saw the last of the aliens making their stumbling retreat. He could have gone out there and killed them with his knife; he'd had time when they were closer. He ignored the eeookk; it was dead. He spat again and glared at the aliens. Why didn't the fools up the chain of command realize the danger the aliens represented? Some day a lot of Marines and other people would get killed because they weren't allowed to kill the aliens now. He glared at Dornhofer for distracting him while the aliens got away, but he didn't say anything.
Hayes shifted his position, drawing back from Schultz.
A Dragon roared up minutes later, throwing up a cloud of dirt and dust from under its skirts as it settled. Captain Conorado was the first man off. He quickly scanned the area, then went to Dornhofer. Gunny Bass and Sergeant Ratliff, the first squad leader, joined them.
"That it?" Cono
rado asked, jerking a thumb on an uncovered arm toward the bloody mass sixty meters away.
"Yessir." Dornhofer's voice was weak, the drugs supplied by the field dressing kicking in full force.
"Tell me what happened." Conorado stepped aside for one of the two corpsmen who came with him.
Dornhofer shook his head. "They saw me. They had to have seen me or it wouldn't have known I was there, wouldn't have been able to shoot me." He described what happened.
The corpsman ignored the conversation and gave Dornhofer a quick exam and treatment while he reported. "You'll live," the corpsman said when Dornhofer had completed his report to the company commander's satisfaction. "Hell, Dorny, I don't even know why you wanted a house call. I've seen Hammer cut himself worse shaving." He splinted Dornhofer's arm and bound it to his side while he talked.
Dornhofer chuckled. "Hammer could probably shake off a traumatic amputation."
"You could be right." The corpsman stood. "Let's get you aboard that Dragon. Take you someplace where we can check for broken bones." He looked around for Lance Corporal Chan, whose fire team had come along, and signaled him for help getting the wounded man into the Dragon.
While Conorado and the corpsman were dealing with Dornhofer, Bass and Ratliff were talking to Schultz and Hayes. Schultz complained bitterly about the ineffectiveness of the zapper.
"It's supposed to knock them down and keep them down. It didn't do squat."
Bass looked at Hayes.
Hayes swallowed. He was afraid to contradict Schultz, but Schultz hadn't given an accurate report of what happened. "It knocked them down for a few seconds," he said with a sidewise glance at Schultz, "then they got up and staggered away."
"Were they in fighting shape when they got up?"
Hayes shook his head. "I don't believe so. They forgot to pick up their weapons."
Schultz didn't say anything. He locked his jaw and glared at the one corpse, wishing it were a couple hundred flamed crispers.
Technokill Page 21
