by E. E. Knight
Valentine joined him in the cacti, saw a blanket spread out with a big water jug, a signaling mirror with a hole in the center, and a fire starter. He uncased his binoculars and made a slow survey of the valley below them from cover. Nothing. Of course, that didn't mean the Jaguars weren't approaching. There was ample cover in the dry washes and brush.
"You picked a good spot." Valentine broke out the preserved chow.
"I've had to set down before. Never flipped my bird, though. I'm sure the squadron's having a good laugh. That's a nice rifle."
"Steyr Scout," Valentine said.
Hornbreed checked his wounded hand. "Hope I don't have to see it in action."
"We've got two options, Equality," Valentine said. "Wait for your friends to show, or try to make it to the interstate you passed over. There's a convoy that'll be passing through at first light tomorrow. We can hitch up with them and drop off at the next crossroads and make for Yuma."
"We'll be easier to pick out if we move. I'm supposed to stay with my ship unless I have to evade."
"The Jaguars—"
"There are Jaguars in this valley? I thought they'd cleared out."
"Change your mind?" Valentine asked.
Hornbreed searched the skies. "No. Generally it's best to wait for help to arrive."
Valentine moved to the other side of the cactus-shrouded enclosure. "I'm not one for waiting. But you know your fliers."
"There are more pilots than there are operational ships. But I'm a wing leader. My pilots will come."
Valentine scanned the ground around the overturned plane again. Was there a new shadow next to the brush in front of the engine?
"I like your confidence," Valentine said.
"Stay put and wait," Hornbreed said. "I was a Youth Vanguard leader up Provo way. Worked my way up from larva to scout ant to warrior-guard. We'd go out on squat clearance, burning old homes and buildings outside of town, finding hidden livestock and fields. One time we came on—sheesh, I don't know what to call it. I guess a pilgrimage. Thousand people or more on foot heading for California, hauling stuff on bicycles and handcarts. Our leader decided to follow 'em, see what they were up to. We just walked up and asked where they were going. They got rounded up, of course, and boy, did we hear it from the Churchmen when they found us dogging the column. They kicked the leader right out of the Vanguard. Worked out for me, though, I was the one who argued that we'd been told to burn down houses and we shouldn't go mixing with deadfeets. Were you in the Vanguard?"
"I grew up off the grid, more or less," Valentine said, still scanning. "I did help teach in a Churchman's one-room schoolhouse." His eyes caught a brief flurry of bouncing brown balls. By the time he got his glasses up and located, the might-bes had vanished into an arroyo.
But the heads were on course for the wreck.
Hornbreed let out a little gasp. "Huff. I always fell asleep somewhere between collective rights and mankind's atrocity catechism."
Definite movement at the wreck now. Through field glasses Valentine watched a scout explore.
"Well, the Jaguars are at your wreck," Valentine said.
Hornbreed shrugged.
The scout entered the overturned craft, which tipped a little as his weight changed its center of balance. A minute later he emerged again, eating from the broken jar of plums. With the sun now fully behind the mountains the desert flats turned blue. The clouds above warmed into reds, golds, and pinks and purples.
Valentine decided he could get used to desert-country sunsets, but he kept his attention on the wreck. More Jaguars had shown up and were now tearing the little ship apart, salvaging everything from bits of wire to the seat covers. Hornbreed took one brief look and handed the glasses back. "Savages. I can't watch any more."
A Jaguar in much longer furs, cut about his shoulders like a cape made of animal tails, with a spotted headband around his forehead and furry-trimmed sandals, began a rampage. With a good deal of gesturing toward the mountains behind Valentine he gave his tribesmen a dressing-down, put them in a staggered line like a top sergeant with well-trained recruits, and hustled them away with a glance or two behind.
Valentine couldn't help but turn and look at the darkening peaks behind.
"What do you know about these mountains?" Valentine asked Hornbreed.
"Some farms and ranches on the other side. Pretty well organized, typical Aztlan stuff. There are collar towers below the ridgeline— they're easy to spot from the air."
"Collar towers?"
"Keeps the peons on their ranchos. The collars tighten if they start to stray. Top-quality Korean electronics."
"What about this side?"
"Sheep. Mud pueblos."
Had these mountains turned into a choking, deathly place according to local legend? Then why did the medicine man have to remind his tribesmen?
Hornbreed stretched out, pulled his reflective survival blanket up. "Long, bad day. I'm going to try to sleep off this headache."
"Should we set a watch?"
"You're my rescuer. If anything's going to happen, it'll happen whether we set a watch or not. They outnumber us twenty to two." He blew his nose again. "You wouldn't know it to hear me, but I am a healthy specimen. Just spring air."
Valentine watched the valley until darkness made it impossible, then admired the stars and planets. He hadn't seen them so bright since he'd been at sea in the Caribbean.
The memories that evoked turned him sour and gloomy. He slipped out of the cactus thatch—his old Wolf habit of changing positions after darkness was so deeply ingrained he did it even if it was only a shift of twenty feet or so—and listened. A distant coyote howled in the valley. Others took up the chorus, but none called from the mountains he and Hornbreed rested against.
Too uneasy to really sleep, he dozed, sitting cross-legged with his rifle against his lap, small of his back pressed up against a sun-heated rock. The air had turned cold with astonishing speed, a desert feature he was still getting used to.... The moon came up, so bright it looked as though an artist had painted it on the sky with radium.
He heard Hornbreed come out of the cacti, mumble something about pinching a deuce. Valentine saw him move off into the bushes, heard him stumble, curse, right himself.
Seemingly moments later, Valentine came fully awake, though he couldn't say why. How long had it been since Hornbreed had stepped behind the bushes?
"Hornbreed?" he said quietly. He raised the gun to his shoulder and came up to one knee.
"Hornbreed?" Louder this time.
The bushes didn't answer.
Valentine touched the sword at his back, tested the slide of the blade in its sheath.
"Hornbreed!" Valentine said, coming up to a crouch.
He advanced, well clear of the bushes.
No sign of the pilot. A white packet shone in the moonlight. Hornbreed had picked a sandy spot for easier burial. Valentine studied Hornbreed's footprints, placed in the expected position to either side of his—well, with a mule deer it would be called "spoor." The white packet was a little cardboard-banded issue of "field hygiene paper" courtesy of High Sierra Paper Products.
No body. No sign of the Jaguars. And no Reaper.
Strange divots stood out in the sand here and there, like little craters. Near-perfect circles. If they were tracks, only an unusually hard-stepping big cat like a mountain lion would make them. But there were no drag marks away from the bootheels and TP.
Ten thousand dollars in gold—and more importantly, a key to the mercenary pilots of Pyp's Flying Circus—had been spirited away without a sound or a cry of distress.
Valentine felt a cold sweat that had nothing to do with the Arizona night. It occurred to him that he'd been meaning to ask Hornbreed why they called him milkman.
Something glittered in the night a few feet away. Valentine knelt, saw loose coins scattered in the rocks and sand. Valentine picked one up, a "five-dollar" piece marked azt-con. He'd seen them before, in plastic Baggies ho
lding Texas Quisling prisoners' possessions. He'd been told the coin was good over much of the Southwest and northern Mexico.
Valentine guessed that Hornbreed, literally taken with his pants down, had lost whatever change was rattling around in his pants. At least now he could guess in which direction the mysterious tracks went.
The lack of blood gave him some hope.
As he followed the tracks there were other signs—the creature must have been of some size, at least that of a small tractor. It had snapped off cactus stems in several spots over two meters apart.
It also left an odor, vaguely musty and yet ammoniacal. He traced the source of the smell, an object that looked a little like a hollow-reed thorn, in a vaguely green brown polished-turtle-shell color. Some sticky material coated one end, and Valentine hazarded a guess that it was a quill or spine.
Had a giant Arizona porcupine made off with Hornbreed?
The trail led up into the mountains. The mystery of the Jaguar leader's imprecations against hanging about the wreck had been explained. Anything big enough to approach and then make off with a sizable man in silence was a foe to be feared.
The musty-ammonia smell grew stronger, and Valentine realized that the dark of the mountainside had a darker spot. A cave opening, shaped like one of the little lateen sails he'd seen on fishing boats in the Caribbean. Valentine looked around, got his bearings, and listened to the cave mouth. A bat fluttered somewhere above.
A metallic clang sounded from the cave mouth and Valentine went flat, his senses sparking like a downed line. Valentine heard low snorts and growls and watched three Grogs emerge from the cave, heavy sacks across their shoulders. They waited, standing back-to-back, and Valentine felt a fresh chill. A Reaper emerged from the shadows, carrying a long staff that made the robed figure a scarecrow caricature of a desert prophet. It hissed at the Grogs and followed them on a westward-leading path.
The sensible thing to do would be to hotfoot it back to the convoy, leave these mountains crawling with assorted enemies, and let fate have its way with the fatalistic Hornbreed. Duvalier, had she been with him this trip, would no doubt be resting in some hidey-hole with a good view of the interstate, waiting for the roar of truck engines and the rumble of tires.
But dammit, he needed Hornbreed—and the promised reward, provided Flying Circus would be willing to negotiate, not amount, but kind. He slipped off his backpack, extracting a small, tough flashlight with a clip that allowed him to hang it on a pocket or attach it to the underside of his gun. Something in him had to know. He fixed the light to his carbine, coaxing himself into making the attempt by getting his gear ready. If he squatted here much longer, he'd freeze up and come up with more reasons not to try it....
Valentine stepped into the ammonia smell.
A big metal locker, whose door was the source of the clanging sound, he guessed, stood just inside the cave. Electrical cable ran down the top of the cave and into it. The locker was fixed by a simple bolt. Valentine drew it back and opened the locker, smelling Grog sweat.
Long objects like fishing poles rested there, six of them, thick handles fitted into sockets and a battery case where the reel normally stood. Valentine read the pictograms on the poles, saw the electrical insulation. They were like overlong cattle prods. Valentine lifted one up and blue LED bulbs lit up at the end. They offered just enough light for him to see a few feet into the cave, which sloped down precipitously. Someone had tacked down rubber mats to improve the footing.
Valentine guessed what the big red plastic switch at the "reel" end was. He turned it on and touched the end to a rock. A spark like a photo strobe jumped and Valentine smelled ozone. Capacitors whined faintly as they recharged.
Cattle prod.
Valentine slung his rifle and took two from the green-lit sockets, wondered if the Miskatonic had tested electricity on a live Reaper. Of course, had someone suggested they try it on Blake ...
Movement behind and Valentine whirled.
An arachnophobe's nightmare stood framed by the desert stars, brighter than ever when contrasted with the cave mouth. Shock turned it into a Picasso sketch of limbs and stingers and spines, and Valentine found himself backpedaling, throwing the steel bulk of the locker between himself and the creature, his illuminated prods waving in front of him like drunken fireflies—
It paid him no more attention than it did the locker next to him and clattered down the hole. It had six spiny legs, three to a side, and two "arms"—though perhaps they were vestigial wings, as they swept up and out, folded, and were tipped with a sharp curved point. Its head—Valentine didn't know what else to call the front end—resembled a big tongue more than anything, and held a limp, white-eyed sheep in thousands of mushroomlike organs coating its underside, a carpet of organic Velcro.
Whatever it was, it didn't have a strong "defend the nest" instinct. Valentine wondered if the result would have been different if it weren't already carrying a sheep. Were these some big version of the sand bugs the Kurians used to kill the trekkers' cattle in Nebraska?
Valentine said the kind of prayer typically uttered in atheist-free foxholes and followed it down. It didn't have much of an abdomen— usually the largest segment in a terrestrial insect—just a rutted organ that reminded him a little of an oversized, rotting cucumber. The motion of its legs fascinated him as it negotiated the slope with ease, using the tiniest of projections from the cave wall as steps.
The tricky down shaft lasted only fifteen meters or so. Valentine found himself on an easier-to-negotiate downslope. He wondered where he would hide in the narrow space if another bug showed up, and smelled the bat feces littered about. Maybe the ammonia smell came from bat droppings accidentally picked up here. The cave ceiling came down low enough that Valentine had to crouch.
Red glinted in the dim light of the LEDs on the cattle prods. What Valentine's brain identified as a big rat turned into a little six-legged creeper, shooting out of a crack toward him, wing limbs telegraphing a code he couldn't begin to understand. Valentine put his prod between himself and the explorer and it scurried off.
The cavern opened up, and there was dim electrical lighting ahead, or perhaps an opening to the moon and stars. Valentine found himself crouching in a much larger cavern, curving off into darkness and other chambers like a cow's stomach, lit here and there by panels that gave off a faint yellow glow from behind thick screens.
He scooted out of the low passage, not wanting to block access for the hunter-gatherers. A small horde of the little ratlike creepy-crawlies were massed under a sheep, holding it in their collected top arms, bringing it to the ceiling of the cavern.
Valentine heard—worse yet, felt—a presence overhead. He saw dozens of sacks hanging there, reminding him of a laundry he'd patronized in New Orleans with its rows of canvas bags hanging from the conveyors. Valentine saw a sheep hoof sticking out of one, an emaciated human hand hanging from another. Some of the bags hung from long stems, others shorter, and the scientific bit of Valentine's mind observed that the shape of the sacks turned into a more regular teardrop the closer they got to the floor. Fat, white wormlike creatures fixed their mouths to the lowest-hanging bags and suckled there.
Something vast, glistening, and dark moved among the bags at the ceiling.
Valentine took three cautious steps, careful of where he placed his feet, and found a shriveled teardrop of a bag. It was next to another empty stem, cut neatly off. A faint, sweet corruptive odor came from the bag, but it wasn't the smell that fascinated him—it was the curious, shiny weave of the bag.
He touched it to make sure. Reaper cloth! These creatures produced—wove, even—a rough version of the fabric.
Valentine was tempted to chop off the nearly empty teardrop. But he had to find Hornbreed.
Valentine searched the walls and ceiling, waving the LEDs at the end of his prods, probing corners. He explored deeper into the cave, felt one of the worm things nudge his foot.
He jumped, and came fac
e-to-face with Hornbreed's upturned face. Dozens of the smaller creepy-crawlies were passing the pilot up a living conveyor belt to the ceiling, where the shadowed mass rubbed its limbs against one another expectantly. Sightless eyes looked past him into darkness, but Valentine heard the faint wheeze of Hornbreed's lungs, and drool ran out of the corner of his mouth.
"Sorry, Equality," Valentine said. He reached and struck Horn-breed in the buttock with the cattle prod.
Flash-tzzap! The body convulsed, broke away, and fell as its handlers broke contact, or had their pincers torn loose by the muscle spasms. The thud of Hornbreed hitting the cavern floor sent the white larvae humping away.
A rattling like dry bones falling from a crypt crèche, and Valentine looked insectoid death in the not-face. Eyes like gemstones glittered in the reflections of the LEDs on his prods.
"Noogh . . . enoogh . . . havin' a heart attack," Hornbreed bubbled.
The two upper front limbs on the hunter-gatherer struck down and forward. Barbed stingers missed as Valentine dived out of the way, lunging with his prods, but the hunter-gatherer matched him in their dance, keeping the eye clusters toward him. The red tip of the tongue-carrier retreated farther into its forebody.
Valentine lunged for the red mark like a dueling Musketeer, scored a palpable hit. Flash-tzzap!
The hunter-gatherer collapsed, legs twitching. Valentine's world whirled as he was jerked off his feet by jointed arms that enfolded him in a firm, irresistible, yet gentle embrace. Twin stingers pinched him at his chest, but couldn't penetrate, emptying themselves uselessly on his leathers. The prod he'd just used fell where his feet had been a second before.
Valentine struck wildly behind with his other prod, convulsed as the current traveled up the hunter-gatherer's limbs and across his chest. Heart stalled, then pounding in shock, he fell to the ground, suddenly at war with his body. None of his limbs seemed to remember how to function.
The hunter-gatherer who'd got him from behind batted at him with one of its legs, but it was just a reaction to the charge. Valentine managed a roll toward Hornbreed.
