A Call to Arms

by Alan Dean Foster

  As soon as it neared the ground, half a dozen towering Massood soldiers leaped from the interior to take up defensive positions behind a burned-out truck. Will followed more cautiously. Had they landed in the States there would have been dogs or watchmen to deal with. In Belize barbed wire was sufficient to deter would-be thieves.

  He found a place where the branch of a tree had pushed down the single strand of barbs atop the chicken-wire enclosure. After checking as best he knew how to ensure it wasn’t electrified he scrambled to the top and straddled the limb.

  The Massood had followed. Now they milled about beneath him, murmuring among themselves. Anxiously Will scanned the yard.

  “C’mon. What’s the holdup?”

  “We cannot do that,” Jaruselka hissed up at him.

  “Can’t do what?”

  “Climb as you have.”

  Will gaped down at her. The fence was maybe ten feet high, stout and easy to get a grip on.

  She held up her right hand. “Our fingers are not strong enough to support our upper-body weight in such a position.”

  “The devil you say.” The yard was still empty and silent. If there was a watchman, he might be asleep or drunk. “Burn the fence.” He knew that the weapons they carried could easily make a hole in the chicken wire. They would just have to hope it wasn’t noticed before morning.

  Once through they advanced fast and quiet, the Massood hurrying along hunched over to minimize their great height. While Jaruselka operated the tracking device that was leading them to their quarry, Will mentally composed and hummed music appropriate to the moment.

  They avoided detection by keeping to dark alleys and dirt paths, save for a terse encounter with a single tottering local who, upon encountering a group of giants in the middle of the night, thoughtfully turned and hurried away without uttering a sound.

  Jaruselka paused alongside a wild hedge and gestured with the tracker. “They are in there.”

  The narrow alley served as backyard to a rambling two-story wooden structure. Water trickled from a PVC pipe that protruded from the underside of the building, which was raised off the ground on two-foot-high concrete stilts. Mud and garbage glinted beneath. Mist coagulated on the corrugated roof and trickled earthward, collecting in rivulets that pooled up in the nearby drainage ditch.

  Eight or nine wooden stairs led to a tiny covered porch and screen door through which a dingy hall was visible.

  “Let me have the tracker,” Will told Jaruselka. She hesitated, then handed it over. “There’s a light in the hall. If anyone’s moving around, you’ll be seen. I’ll go in and try to find out what the story is.”

  “They have the weapons,” she reminded him.

  “That doesn’t mean they know how to use them. My bet is that they’re thinking about selling the technology.”

  “I am coming with you,” Caldaq whispered decisively.

  “You can’t. What if somebody sees you?”

  “This is my responsibility. Remember who is in charge here.”

  “All right, it’s your party.”

  Caldaq murmured to his people. One soldier stepped forward to join him. The rest concealed themselves behind and within the hedge.

  The screen door was not locked. This was Belize, Will reminded himself. Not Chicago. Following the tracker, they entered and turned up a flight of stairs.

  “What are you going to say?” Caldaq whispered from behind. “How do you intend to approach them?”

  “Depends on their reaction. I’m not a Wais.”

  A naked low-watt bulb feebly illuminated the second-floor landing. The walls were shedding huge strips of cheap brown wallpaper that reminded Will of chocolate shavings on the side of a yellow cake.

  The tracker led them to the rearmost room. After motioning for Caldaq and the other soldier to wait in the shadows, Will rapped on the door loud enough to wake but not alarm. When no response was forthcoming he tried again, louder.

  The voice that replied from within was tentative and none too friendly. “You know what time it is? Already we pay for the goddamn room.”

  “My name’s William Dulac. I’m not with the hotel, I’m from the base.”

  A pause, then, “What base?”

  “It’s too late for games.”

  The door clicked as it was opened. Will took a wary step backward. The heavyset, unshaven man who looked him up and down did not glance up the hallway.

  “How did you find us?” Will sensed movement in the room behind the speaker. He didn’t recognize the man. Not one of the original ten recruits then. For some unknown reason this discovery pleased him.

  “You’ve got weapons from the base. Don’t you know that no Weave technology is allowed to be brought ashore?”

  “I hear something like that.” He opened the door wider. “Look, mes amis, why don’ you come in and we discuss it?” A smile parted the stubble. “You alone?”

  “No.” Will glanced up the hall. Caldaq and the soldier stepped out of the shadows.

  The man slumped when he saw them. “Should’ve guessed. Hans think you might have way of finding us. All right, entrez, the lot of you.”

  The two Massood had to duck to clear the doorway. It was not much of a room. Sink, cracked mirror, a pair of rumpled beds.

  “That’s Hans,” said the man who’d opened the door, indicating the lanky individual lying on the far bed. “Miyoshi’s in the john. I’m Jean-Pierre. Have a seat and I explain.” Will took a chair. The Massood remained standing.

  “I ask again. How you find us?”

  “All weapons from the base can be traced. You don’t need to know how.”

  “You don’ trust me, eh? Well, I suppose I can’ blame you.”

  A toilet gargled behind a door, which opened to reveal a short, unattractive Oriental woman. She held a pistol in each hand. Caldaq’s fingers eased toward his own sidearm, froze when she aimed one of the weapons at him.

  The taller man slid to the floor and removed a pair of rifles from beneath his bed, tossing one to his companion while focusing the other on the Massood.

  “We can’t kill them here,” the woman was saying. “If the bodies were found it would attract too much attention.”

  “They’ll cooperate.” Jean-Pierre eyed the aliens. “You don’ want to give away your presence any more than do we.”

  “I do not understand,” said Caldaq. “Why would you want to kill us? We do not wish you harm. Only to bring back the weapons.”

  “But you can’ have them back.” The man did not smile. “We took them because we need them, ne c’est pas?” He looked over at the woman. “As long as we have these they can track us.”

  “Let them try it in New York, or Nagoya.” She gestured toward the door.

  Will instinctively raised his hands and started for the exit. “I don’t get it. What’s the idea?”

  The one called Jean-Pierre checked the hall before leading the way. Hans and the woman followed behind, their weapons trained on the three prisoners.

  “We hear about you. You that musician fellow who been helping the rats and the lizards from the beginning. For a supposed smart guy you pretty slow. It never occur to you what somebody could do with a couple energy rifles and a field masking suit? Take out an armor car without breathing hard, my friend.”

  So there were no complex plans afoot here, Will thought. It was all very primitive, very basic. Very Human.

  “These people are common thieves,” he said in Massood. “They’ve taken the weapons so that they can steal money.”

  “Your obsession with artificial means of exchange again.” Caldaq started down the stairway. “Do they want more gold? We can give them more gold.”

  “You don’t understand. Some people can never get enough. Besides, I don’t think they’d trust you.”

  “Why not? It would be a fair exchange from our point of view.”

  “They simply wouldn’t believe anything you’d say, Caldaq. Or me, or anyone else. They’d be afraid of
being tricked, having their memories adjusted like those recruits who change their minds and are returned to normal life. They’re in control right now and people like this don’t exchange control for promises.”

  “But I would keep the promise. It would be worth it to us.”

  “They can’t understand that. People like this don’t think like that.”

  Jean-Pierre paused at the bottom of the stairs, muttering. “Let’s take them out the back. We can get a car, a truck, take them out and dump them in a swamp somewhere.” He glanced at Will. “Good of you to come in to talk to us. We don’ want any shooting in here. People might see things.”

  “Why not just give it up?” Will was trying to control his emotions as they approached the screen door. “Turn the weapons back in and rejoin your recruitment group. The Massood will forgive you. No harm done.”

  “Non. I think we stick with our original plan.”

  “Then let us go. We’re not going to come after you. This isn’t as important as what we’re doing at the base. Surely you realize that much.”

  “We were told about the war,” said the woman behind him. “We have our own scores to settle.”

  The only thing that surprised Will was that something like this hadn’t happened sooner. Not all those recruited for training were altruistic or even merely greedy. There were malcontents and iconoclasts with shady histories. Unhappy folk, individuals trying to avoid the light of society, couples on the run from their pasts.

  Thus far all had found a new direction, a new life in the service of the Weave. These three seemed suited to that task. Instead they had chosen, at the risk of their lives, to make war on their own kind. For money. He sympathized with Caldaq’s confusion.

  Jean-Pierre opened the screen door and stepped out onto the porch, checking the alley in both directions. Will held his breath. He beckoned for them to follow. It was excruciatingly difficult to avoid looking toward the hedge.

  “Shoot them here,” the woman said. “I’ll roll them into the ditch and cover them up while you and Hans go look for a truck.”

  Jean-Pierre nodded, led them toward the bushes. “Nothing personal, mes amis, but we don’ really have a choice.”

  “We’ll be missed,” said Will. “This is Caldaq, the base commander.”

  Jean-Pierre eyed the tall Massood sharply. “Commandant, eh? Too bad.”

  “They’ll come looking for us,” Will went on. “They’ll find you no matter what you do.”

  “Better find us quick. We got a morning TACA plane to Mexico City. I got a feeling they can’t trace these toys across the whole world. That wouldn’ make no sense.”

  “You think you can smuggle guns like these through customs?”

  “Why not? They don’ look like real guns. We tell everybody they’re movie props. Bet you it work swell.” They were almost to the hedge. “I say we got nothing to declare, they don’ even open our…”

  He never finished the sentence. Massood materialized on all sides. Something made a noise like a giant electric spark. The humid night air was filled with the odor of burned flesh.

  Never having had any military training, Will did the most helpful thing he could by dropping to the ground. Rifles and pistols had been knocked or pried loose, leaving Humans and Massood rolling together in the mud. One soldier went flying through the air. Someone yelped as bones broke.

  To his horror Will saw that the three renegades were winning. The Massood had never faced their own allies before. They might be fester over a distance, but running counted for naught in hand-to-hand combat. The compact, heavily built Humans were not only stronger but quicker.

  Caldaq and two colleagues managed to wrestle Jean-Pierre into restraints. The rest were having a difficult time with the woman. One Massood lay holding her broken leg while another lay unconscious in the drainage ditch. This left the one called Hans free to make a dash for his rifle.

  Looking around wildly, Will spotted the pistols, which had been knocked out of the woman’s hands. Instinctively he picked one up and pointed it at the tall German. It felt like a toy in his hand, light and featureless.

  “Don’t do it!” he shouted. “It’s over!”

  The younger man either didn’t hear the warning or chose to ignore it. He picked up the rifle and started to turn.

  Looking back on it later Will found he could not recall the exact sequence of events. He remembered the man aiming the heavy weapon at the three Massood clustered around the cursing Jean Pierre. His finger rested in the notch on the side which served as a trigger. Both his posture and expression revealed his intent.

  So Will fired first. A Cajun boy learns how to use a gun early. There was no recoil.

  A thin purple line struck Hans as he was sighting the rifle. A sound like a fat man’s suspenders snapping accompanied the burst.

  Hans twitched violently, once, and crumpled to his knees. The muzzle of the peculiar rifle dug into the ground, supporting him briefly, before he tumbled onto his side, knees drawing into his chest as his muscles contracted.

  Will rose, staring dumbly at the recumbent shape. It seemed that Caldaq was yelling at him. Then the tall, slim alien was alongside, his musk pungent in the moist air.

  “Thank you, Will.” Gray cat eyes and toothy snout were in constant motion, black nose twitching. “Are you all right, my friend?”

  A stunned Will struggled to make sense of Massood words. “Yes. Here, you take this.” He handed over the pistol.

  A steady stream of curses in at least three languages issued from the two uninjured thieves as their restraints were secured. Caldaq barked an order and two soldiers hefted the body of the man Will had shot. Even though the coroner’s department of the city of Belmopan might not be blessed with an extensive imagination, it was better not to leave anything that might inspire awkward questions.

  On their way back to the wrecking yard the woman made an attempt to break free, kicking the soldier immediately in front of her behind the knee and hurdling his crumpling form before anyone could grab her. But she could not outrun a Massood, and with her arms bound behind her, her options were limited. She was hauled back, swearing in disgruntled Japanese, while a temporary crutch was rigged for the unfortunate soldier she’d injured. After that, the Massood watched their two captives more carefully.

  It was a tired, hurting group that finally reboarded the tender with its prisoners. The pilot eyed the returnees nervously, anxious to be away. Masking was not half as effective in broad daylight.

  The Massood were as exhausted emotionally as physically. They knew that if Will hadn’t brought down the third Human they might have been overwhelmed despite their numerical superiority. Until now they had been the best, the Weave’s frontline troops, the people the Wais and Hivistahm and S’van had relied upon to drive back the Amplitur hordes. Less than half their number of Humans had nearly wiped them out: Humans with preliminary training and no combat experience. What if the renegades had been experienced veterans of the fight for Vasarih? It had been a numbing, humbling experience.

  But there had been only one death: a Human. Slain by another Human. This realization was not lost on anyone.

  Will brooded all the way back to the base. As a child he had hunted in the back bayous, had killed for food, had watched his grandfather gut and flay critters for their skin and meat. He had intervened to save his friends as much as himself. Quickly. Instinctively.

  It bothered him a great deal.

  Several armed Humans were among those waiting to greet the tender upon its return to the base at Lighthouse Reef. They angrily took charge of their wayward brethren. Those few Massood who did not require medical attention followed behind. They strode slowly up the corridor, the familiar jauntiness absent from their step. The experience had cost them more than just energy and sleep.

  It would be important to keep the incident as quiet as possible, Will reflected. Not to prevent a recurrence—a tighter watch had already been put on all sidearms—but to prevent a collap
se of confidence among the Massood.

  The bench he slumped onto hummed as it adjusted itself to his height. He’d stopped hyperventilating but was still sick at his stomach. The image of the man felling, curling into a fetal position on the ground, becoming motionless, replayed itself endlessly in his mind.

  “You had no choice.” Caldaq stood over him. “Had they succeeded in escaping to a large urban area it might well have proven impossible for us to go in after them. Everything we are doing here would have been jeopardized.”

  “I know that.” Will’s voice was barely a whisper.

  The Commander sat down next to him and the bench obediently knotted in the middle to accommodate the second, larger frame.

  “Where did you learn to shoot? Since first we met you have done little save tell me how much you abhor violence of any kind.” Absently he felt of the large welt on his right thigh, where he’d been struck.

  Will sighed heavily. “Where I grew up every kid learns how to hunt as soon as they can walk.”

  “I see.” Caldaq looked up the corridor. The prisoners and their escort had vanished around a distant corner. “If you had not killed the man all might have been lost. Three against eight, and we would have lost. You did what was necessary.” He paused.

  “None of my people here have been on Vasarih. They have never seen a Human in combat. They were not prepared for—” He hunted for the right words, switched to the translator, “—for the ferocity of the resistance.”

  “Someday I hope to see what a fully trained Human soldier can do. Humans who have made a profession of soldiering against their own kind, who enjoy what they do and strive to be the best at it. It is a thought I find simultaneously exhilarating and frightening.” The lips on the right side of his snout drew back to indicate humor.

  “The Crigolit do the majority of fighting for the Amplitur cause. I think they are due a great surprise. I am not even sure I would take odds against an exceptional Human fighter in single combat against a Molitar.” He looked evenly at Will.