"I can't, boss. The boulder's too steep. We're trapped!" Bolion screamed back.
"Kat, Art, Jum, draw your weapons," Patch ordered. "We're going to get out and slag a way through that rock. Anybody shows his head over the embankment, flame his ass."
They clambered out into the narrow defile, weapons at the ready. All was quiet in the gully. "They thought better of it." Patch grinned and confidently stepped toward the boulder. Then a hundred Cheereek warriors descended on the quartet in a solid mass. Not a single shot was fired, but even disarmed, Sam Patch was still a tough customer. Dust flew everywhere as Patch lay about him, smashing faces and breaking arms and cursing. A well-aimed spear-butt to the back of his head finally brought him to the ground.
"Secure them firmly!" Cheerpt ordered. He picked up Patch's weapon and examined it carefully. He pressed a stud where a trigger might have been and a small ball of flame shot out of it. The ball bored a black-rimmed hole through one of his warriors, bounced straight back off the defile wall behind him and engulfed him in a ball of flame. The warrior flapped his arms in agony and rolled on the ground, blazing intensely. A pall of burnt roast filled the air.
Cheerpt watched the dying warrior in wide-eyed astonishment. "I knew they kept better weapons to themselves," he mused. "Now I know how to use them. Excellent!"
Two of the Cheereek emerged from the landcar, Herbloc in tow. "Heerk-kloock!" they announced victoriously. Another displayed his soft parts to Cheerpt. "And we have the Gun chelk, Captain. And his tools." Cheerpt's guards had watched Gunsel closely as he repaired weapon malfunctions, noting which tools he selected for each job and how he used them. They understood perfectly the concept of interchangeable parts, and with the tools in their possession, Cheerpt was confident he could always maintain a corps of riflemen whose weapons would function.
Patch had now recovered from the blow that knocked him out of the fight. Blood streaming down the side of his head, he shouted at Herbloc, "Goddamnit, fatass, tell these stinking birdmen who I am. They'd be nothing without me, I supplied the goddamned rifles! Tell them they're making a big mistake, Herbloc, a big mistake. Tell them, goddamnit, tell them! What am I paying you for, you silly old bag of farts?" An unfamiliar tone of panic had crept into Patch's voice. Herbloc enjoyed it.
"Ah, Heerk-kloock," Cheerpt said, addressing Herbloc who now stood before him, his arms firmly secured with cords. "What is that loud Clumsy One saying?"
Herbloc answered without hesitation. "Honorable Guard Captain, he says you are the entrails of a Gwak, your anus is plugged with stones, and you have the sex organs of a diseased female fledgling. He says you reek of the excrement of the Aawk-vermin, which you eat with great relish, and that your own excrement—"
"Cease, Heerk-kloock!" Cheerpt squawked imperiously. He heaved his shoulders and ruffled his feathers. "You come for the stones, Heerk-kloock? You shall have them, then. For his insults, the loud Clumsy One shall have all he wants, if he can find them. Strip them of their coverings," he ordered his warriors. In seconds the five humans stood naked before the Captain of Guards. "What is this one?" he asked, gesturing toward a seething Kat.
"That's a ‘woman,’ a female of our kind, Captain. Its function is to provide pleasure, domestic comforts, and fledglings for our warriors." He couldn't help breaking into a grin as he spoke.
Kat did not miss the grin. "What are you telling him, you limp-dick bag of turds?" she shrieked. Herbloc grinned even wider.
"It is surpassingly ugly, Herrk-kloock, uglier than you even," Cheerpt observed.
Herbloc stretched his neck as high as he could. "That is indeed ugly, Greatest of Warriors, Most Generous and Wisest Councilor."
Cheerpt preened himself for a moment, deeply pleased by Heerk-kloock's words, which all of his men had heard and understood. And fully agreed with, of course.
"Bring the eeookks!" he commanded, "We are going to the pit!"
"Where are they taking us?" Patch shouted.
"Where you will get what you want, Sam, boy-o, what you came here for," Herbloc answered, and then laughed outright. Patch lunged at him but was instantly restrained by his guards.
"Herbloc, you worthless shit, when I get loose I'll cut your goddamned cock off and feed it to you!"
"Indeed, boy-o? Indeed?" Herbloc laughed.
They smelled the pit long before they reached it. Here and there, Cheereek squatted on the latticework erected over it. A few looked up in surprise. Cheerpt's guards seized them. A platoon spread out to watch the trail approaching from the rookery. He could not afford now, so close to success, to have someone blunder into them and warn Graakaak of what was going on.
The humans stood on the edge of the vast stew, gagging on the acrid stench that rose from the viscous lake of excrement accumulated over generations.
"Throw the loud Clumsy One in!" Cheerpt ordered. The guards holding Patch lifted him up and tossed him lightly over the edge. The humans watched in horror as he plopped feet first into the effluvia and went right under. An instant later his head burst through. His entry had released a wave of indescribable stench that now wafted over the onlookers, who choked on the acrid fumes that burned their eyes and made them cough. His bonds had separated and Patch flailed about in the muck helplessly. He screamed once and went under a second time, but he managed to break through to the surface again. This time his hair was gone, eaten away by the caustic guano.
Kat watched her partner, fascinated by his agony; his screams sent shivers of pleasure through her body. She twisted free of her guards, stepped close to the edge and shouted down to him. "Not such a big man now, are you, Sam? How's that big cock of yours doing, little man? Shriveled up, I bet. I can hear those big nuts of yours singing a different tune now. You're screaming beautifully darling, far better than when I used to whip your bony ass. How sweet it is, how sweet it is!" She laughed.
Herbloc, standing behind her, lurched forward, placed his foot on her rump and shoved hard. Kat teetered on the edge of the pit. Lithe and athletic, she managed just barely to keep her balance. "Aaah, aaahh!" she screamed.
"Fair return is fair play," Herbloc said, nudging her gently with his shoulder, pushing her finally over the edge.
Gracefully, like a pirouetting ballerina, she plunged down into the jakes. She landed face first with a loud splat. Her bonds separated and she spread her arms and legs wide in an effort to keep herself afloat. By then Patch had gone down for the last time. Kat managed to roll over and rise to a half-sitting position as she too sank quickly into the bowelage. With one hand she clawed wildly at the feces burning her eyes, nose, and mouth; with the other she beat in futility at the rising excrement. Great patches of her hair began to fall away from her head. As the tide engulfed her magnificent breasts, she stretched her neck to take in one last breath of fetid air, and in a pure ecstasy of terror Katrina Switch slowly commenced her final sadomasochistic epiphany.
Her last scream echoed for a long time, it seemed to the three men standing above the pit.
"It's our turn now," Gunsel whispered, his voice quavering. "Godawful way to go."
"Maybe not," Herbloc answered. He had never felt more confident in his whole life than he did right now. "Great One," he addressed Cheerpt, aping as best he could the Cheereek submission posture and speaking in a powerful voice. "Eagerly, we await your pleasure! Should you deign to spare us, which you shouldn't because we are totally worthless creatures, we shall never trouble you again." The warriors murmured approvingly. Heerk-kloock had courage, and he knew the proprieties of dealing with a great leader.
Cheerpt did not respond at once. "Go!" Cheerpt ordered the trio at last. "Go and never return! Tell your kind the Cheereek wish never to see them again. Tell them Cheerpt rules in this land now and he is a terror and an avenger and any of your kind who come here again shall end like those two in there." He gestured toward the pit. "Go! Go, before the Mighty Cheerpt changes his mind."
"Beat feet," Jum Bolion whispered as a guard released his bonds. He waste
d no time trotting off in the direction of the ancient lake bed. Gunsel and Herbloc turned and followed him. It was a very long walk back to the Marquis de Rien, and they might die of dehydration before they reached it. But even that was better than the pit. Bolion and Gunsel hardly noticed that Herbloc chuckled to himself almost all the way back.
Chapter 23
"They'll be back," General Cazombi said.
"How do you know?" Dr. Hoxey snapped. "Do you know who they are? Are you in touch with them that you know their plans?"
Cazombi gave an eyebrow a quarter raise. "Doctor," he said in a very soft voice, "I don't need to be in contact with them to know they'll be back. They are greedy men who see the chance to gain incalculable riches. No risk is too great for them to take. Besides, they probably think the Marines left when we found the smugglers had gone. They might think it's safe to come back."
Hoxey snorted. "Poachers are cowards. They sneak around and only go where they think there is no danger to them."
Poachers aren't cowards, Cazombi thought, they're hungry, desperate people. He knew that poaching was often the difference between life and death for them. And smugglers were willing to take huge risks for huge gains. Both could be very dangerous. He gave Hoxey a speculative look and wondered if she knew the difference between poachers and smugglers, if she deliberately used the term that originally meant hunting on a royal preserve instead of the term that meant traffickers in contraband. He wondered if the official charges against them meant poaching in that classical sense.
"I'll have the Marines ready for them when they come back," Cazombi said. "But I have to launch more satellites to spot them if the Marines aren't allowed planetside."
"No! Absolutely not. You simply cannot put out that 'string-of-pearls.' There's too great a chance of the indigenous population seeing the satellites and realizing they're being observed. Think of the devastation that would cause, how horribly their cultural development would be disrupted!" She glared at him, remembering how he had already launched a satellite without her authorization, and how much trouble the navy seemed to have withdrawing it when she learned of the device. She believed the navy was in league with the general and deliberately delayed retrieving that satellite—but she couldn't prove it.
Cazombi nodded. "Yes, I understand why we can't deploy the string-of-pearls. That's not what I want. A half-dozen orbiters and one geosync stationed over the smugglers' area of operation will do everything we need."
Hoxey's eyes popped. Did he really think she'd give permission for so many satellites? "Don't be absurd. You can't launch satellites. There's entirely too much danger of their being seen and upsetting the development of the indigenous population."
He again quarter-raised an eyebrow. Even if seen by the creatures, who were rarely awake at night, a satellite could easily be taken for a meteorite shooting across the night sky. It would certainly be less disruptive than a clearly visible "new star" that suddenly appeared and wobbled against its background—and might even show a disk to the Avionians' sharp eyes.
"All right, then, four orbiters and a geosync."
"Nonsense! It can't be done. No satellites. None at all."
In the end Cazombi got Hoxey to agree to two satellites in high orbits. It was less than he wanted, but the worst case scenario was the smugglers wouldn't be spotted until it was too late to intercept them.
On the Khe Sanh, the Marines trained for a rapid launch. General Cazombi had Captain Conorado set up a rotation. One blaster platoon, reinforced with a corpsman, was on standby at all times, in chameleons with all combat gear, in a compartment near the ship's welldeck. The ready platoon could launch on fifteen minutes notice.
Third platoon was on its third rotation as the ready platoon when one of the satellites detected a ship touching down. Twelve minutes later an Essay holding third platoon in two Dragons and a third, passengerless Dragon ejected from the Khe Sanh's welldeck and headed for that "high speed on a bad road" that was a Marine planetfall. The Essay touched down seventy-five kilometers from the spot where the satellite showed the smugglers' ship had touched down—only a few kilometers from Smuggler's Ridge.
The original plan was for the ready platoon to head straight to the smugglers' ship, apprehend everyone aboard, and hold them for Special Agent Nast. But the satellites showed the smugglers had almost immediately headed for the Cheereek encampment in a landcar. Third platoon set out to intercept them. But Guard Captain Cheerpt sprang his ambush while the Marines were still three klicks away.
"Do not intervene," General Cazombi ordered. "Stay out of sight and see what they do. First platoon is ready to launch. Special Agent Nast is with them."
The Marines dismounted and followed irregularities in the steppe floor to where a few of them could watch the encampment while the rest of the platoon remained out of sight.
Gunnery Sergeant Bass set two flank observation posts, each a hundred meters from where the platoon waited in defile. Sergeant Ratliff took Schultz and Hayes to man the one to the left—Corporal Dornhofer's wound was severe enough to keep him out of action for at least two weeks. Sergeant Bladon sent his second fire team—Corporal Kerr, Claypoole, and MacIlargie—to the right. To augment the satellite coverage being fed to him, Bass himself used a collapsible periscope from his position in the middle. The Marines watched helplessly as Cheerpt's guards manhandled the captive humans.
"What are they doing?" PFC Hayes asked when he saw the Cheereek line up the five naked humans at the edge of the pit. Even at that distance they could detect the stench. He gasped when they picked up a man and threw him into the muck. Next to him Schultz bit off a howl of fury and twisted his hands on his zapper as though he were strangling the ineffective weapon.
Hayes was so shocked he couldn't make a sound when one of the men kicked the woman into the pit. A moment later he looked at Sergeant Ratliff for an explanation when the Cheereek appeared to send the remaining humans away.
Ratliff shook his head; he had no explanations. They watched the three naked men shrink into the distance.
"What are we waiting here for?" Schultz snarled. "We should be going after them."
Hayes couldn't tell from Schultz's voice whether he meant the men or the Cheereek, and didn't know whether Schultz wanted to rescue the humans or arrest them.
Then Gunny Bass's voice came over the all-hands circuit: "Look alert. Something's happening down there."
In the encampment, in an open area a short distance from the pit, a gaudily ornamented Cheereek accompanied by a phalanx of Cheereek armed with the human-manufactured rifles, confronted the group that had held the humans. An iridescent sash shimmered across a massive pectoral that glittered and flashed in the sunlight on his chest. A bonnet of brilliantly dyed feathers adorned his head, and more iridescent material bound his loins. Obviously the chief, he stood with his feet planted wide apart, legs straight, torso and long neck stretched parallel to the ground, arms splayed. One hand gripped a rifle, the other a short spear. The Marines could just hear his shrill cawing.
One of the Cheereek who'd killed the two humans hopped out of his group and mirrored the chief's stance. His pectoral was smaller than the chief's but larger than any of the other Cheereek present. His hands were empty but his shrill caws no less loud than the chief's.
"You killed two Clumsy Ones!" Graakaak bellowed. "I did not tell you to kill Clumsy Ones! For that, you die!"
Cheerpt hissed at the High Chief. "No, Graakaak, you old hen's dropping. I do not die, you do! You are content to perch quietly and let the Clumsy Ones bring what droppings they deign to give us. We should attack them as I have said. Then we would have their even greater weapons, the weapons that will allow us to attack and conquer the entire world, not just the Aawk-vermin and the Koocaah-lice."
"Back!" Graakaak snapped at the guards who'd begun to advance to arrest their captain as soon as they heard his treasonous words. "Cheerpt is but a frill-mite, yet he dares insult the High Chief. If he were a fledgling, I would g
ive him to the females to discipline. But he has masqueraded as the Captain of Guards for too long to give to the females." He shook the weapons he held. "I will kill him myself!"
The guards who supported Graakaak formed a semicircle behind him, facing the guards who stood with Cheerpt. More guards skittered to the commotion, saw what was happening, and took sides. The sides were about evenly matched, most of them carrying short spears as well as Clumsy Ones' weapons. Oouhoouh arrived with a cohort of warriors. Graakaak gave him a quick sign, and the Chief of Staff ordered the warriors to form a circle at a distance around the two groups. Chief Councilor Tschaah joined Oouhoouh.
Silence settled over the Cheereek rookery as word got around and everyone rushed to the pit to see. It seemed that everyone wanted to be present when the drama played out.
"The Clumsy Ones do not have more powerful weapons!" Graakaak cawed when the silence had filled to breaking. "Cheerpt the frill-mite spins old hens' tales. We have seen their demons, and not even their demons have weapons as powerful as these!" He shook his rifle again.
Cheerpt smiled and curved his neck back. His tongue protruded mockingly between his hard lips. "You are wrong, Graakaak. They do have more powerful weapons. I have some of them. Here is one." He pulled the hand-blaster he'd taken from Sam Patch from his sash, pointed it at Graakaak, and pressed the firing stud.
The plasma bolt passed close enough to blister the High Chief's shoulder, and Graakaak leaped backward, screeching in pain. To his rear a guard squawked in agony when the bolt struck his shoulder. The aroma of freshly cooked meat filled the air. The two groups of guards instantly sprang at each other, wildly firing their rifles and jabbing with their spears.
Tschaah put a gnarled hand on Oouhoouh's arm to stop him from ordering the warriors into the fray. "Let them fight," he said. "If we back one and the other wins, we will be slaves."
"But—" Oouhoouh protested.
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