by Mel Odom
A line of figures huddled on the riverbank. Moonlight glistened from rifle barrels. None of them moved like 'Chine. One of them held a bulls-eye lantern and played it over the beached ferry.
Stampede raised his voice. "Are you Wroths?"
There was a hesitation; then a man's voice replied. "We are."
"My name's Stampede. I'm a trail scout."
"We've met. You knew my father."
"Is he out there?"
"No." The voice broke. "Those 'Chine killed him. We came down here hoping to kill the 'Chine."
"They're all dead." Slowly and carefully, Stampede stood up in the lantern light. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes.
"Krissa. Get that light out of his face." The speaker was a woman who was used to being obeyed. "I'm Twyla Wroth."
Hella remembered the woman as one of the elder Wroths.
"We've met, Mrs. Wroth." Stampede walked out onto the outer deck but kept his rifle ready.
"Those 'Chine killed my husband." The woman's thin shadow stepped forward, and the moonlight revealed the hard planes of her face. She wore her hair pulled back and carried a rifle.
"All of the ones on this ferry are dead."
"You blew up the anchor posts?"
"It was the only way to keep the 'Chine on the ferry."
One of the males grumbled loudly. "Gonna be a lot of work putting everything back to rights "
"Shut up." The second male voice was deeper and sounded older. "Those 'Chine taking the ferry out on the river with the current running like that, they'd have probably gotten all four anchor posts busted. They weren't going to cross the Coyle tonight. They were just too stupid to know that."
Twyla Wroth walked over to the river's edge in muddy boots. "How did you get to be here tonight?"
Stampede twitched his ears. "That's a long story."
"Do you want to stand out here in the cold and the wet? Or do you want to sit by a fire?"
"If a fire's offered, I'll take the fire."
"Then come on out of there."
Stampede hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "I've got cargo in here I need to pack out."
"Bring it and we'll get you settled."
Before they could join the Wroth family inside the house, Hella and Stampede helped the survivors gather their dead family members from the mud and the river. They'd lost seven, and two of the bodies had gotten washed downriver.
Packing the corpses back to the main house was sad work, and Hella watched as Twyla Wroth stoically tended to her dead husband, a teenage son, and a daughter. The rest were people the Wroths had brought into their clan as helpers and to keep the family gene pool fresh.
They laid the bodies to rest on a concrete pad, covered them in branches, and set them alight. When Hella started shivering while the family stood outside to watch their loved ones burn, Twyla Wroth walked over to her. "You go on inside, girl. Before you catch your own death." Tears screaked the older woman's face. "There's a fire, fresh-baked bread, and pot of venison stew we keep ready all day."
"I can wait."
Firelight played over the old woman's face. "These are dead, and we'll do right by them, but this isn't your family. You see to yourself and leave us with our grieving."
Hella glanced over at Stampede. He nodded and stepped off first. She followed and the wind turned her drenched clothing to ice.
"I've got clothes back here you can wear." The woman wasn't a blood relative of the Wroths, but she had the same hard look that living and working on the river brought to anyone who made a home there. "I don't know if we can save yours, but we can try."
"Thank you." Hella followed the woman to the back rooms of the Wroth house. Mechanically she stripped off her clothing in the bathroom and took a quick standing shower in hot water. The nanobots had already clotted the wound on her face. By morning she wouldn't have even a scar.
"Take as long as you need." The woman spoke from the other side of the door. "The hot water tank's powered by the generator, and it takes care of a large family"
Hella stood under the needle spray till the heat burned away the cold. Then she got out and found a dress hanging on the door. That stopped her. She'd never worn a dress. She pulled on the underthings then stuck her head out the door. "This dress?"
The woman waited in the hallway and looked at her. "Doesn't it fit? I thought it would."
"I don't... I don't wear dresses. I've never worn a dress."
"Oh. I'll be right back." The woman went into one of the other rooms and returned with a pair of jeans and a shirt "Everything else fit?"
"It did. Thank you. I'm sorry."
"Ain't no reason to be sorry."
Gratefully Hella took the folded clothes and pulled them into the bathroom with her.
If the situation hadn't been so dire and so sad, Hella would have burst out laughing when she saw Stampede sitting near the stone fireplace with a blanket wrapped around his waist. He was so big that all his clothing had to be specially made or they had to find really large clothes. None of the Wroths came anywhere close to his size.
When he saw her, he evidently sensed what was going through her mind because he scowled deeply and his ears twitched. His hooves held fresh chips from the night's action. He drank stew from a wooden bowl and chased it with milk. The Wroths kept cows too and defended their small herd by keeping them inside the lower floor of the home.
The metal man sat on his side in a corner of the room near Stampede.
"Here." One of the younger Wroth children handed Hella a wooden bowl filled with stew and a slab of bread smeared with churned butter.
Despite all the violence and horror she'd seen, or maybe because of it, Hella was ravenous. Part of that was brought on by the energy depleted by the nanobots as they kept her weapons fed. She joined Stampede beside the fireplace and enjoyed the feel of the heat soaking up through the flagstones as well as from the fireplace.
Eight small children sat at the big table in the long room. The room was meant for family, made simple and roomy, with the table and bench seats. Flame-retardant board covered the walls, and pictures drawn by children occupied several places. All of the children watched Stampede expectantly.
"They've seen you before." Hella blew on a spoonful of stew.
"Not like this." Half naked, Stampede was a testimony to the hard and violent life he'd led. Scars crisscrossed his massive body and left pink and gray tracks in their wake. Fur no longer covered several areas where the cuts had been too numerous or he had been burned.
"They tried to put me in a dress."
Stampede grinned. "That would have been funny."
"Not to me." Hella pointed her spoon at the metal man. "Anybody ask about your cargo?"
"They thought it was 'Chine at first."
"So did you."
Stampede shrugged and wiped milk from his chin with a furry forearm. "I still don't know that it isn't."
Hella cocked her head and looked at the metal man. "A long fall like that, on fire and everything, you'd expect he would have taken some damage. Burned. Melted. Gotten bent and twisted. Something. And it's not like he went untouched when the EMPs and the incendiary went off in that passenger compartment."
Stampede cocked an eyebrow. " 'He'?"
"Yes. He's a he."
"It's a machine."
"A male machine."
"If you say so." Stampede scratched under his chin with a forefinger. "I don't know what Pardot expects to get out of the thing."
Hella shrugged and continued with her meal. She thought about Daisy, knowing the mountain boomer was doubtlessly off her leash. She hoped the big lizard wouldn't wander far.
After long minutes of silence and eating, her stomach full, Hella stretched out her legs and put her back to the fireplace wall. She didn't mean to, but she laid her head back and closed her eyes.
"Hey, mister." One of the children finally found his voice.
"What?" Stampede sounded half asleep.
"Make it stop."
"Make what stop?"
"The 'Chine."
That popped Hella's eyes open. Her hands instantly morphed into weapons, and Stampede pulled his rifle over to him. She scanned the windows, thinking maybe some of the mechmen had survived after all. But only darkness filled the windows.
She looked at the small boy. "What 'Chine?"
The boy pointed at the metal man.
When Hella turned to look at him, the metal man stared back at her with iridescent silver eyes. Then he opened up out of the fetal position and started to get to his feet.
The children cried out in alarm and scattered like field mice avoiding the sudden swoop of an owl.
CHAPTER 19
Effortlessly rising to his feet, Stampede pointed his rifle at the metal man. "Stop."
The metal man ignored Stampede. Moving slowly, the metal man reached his knees and started to push himself up further. His emotionless face revealed nothing of his intentions, but his head swiveled so his gaze took in the entire room. He opened his mouth, possibly to speak, but only a high-pitched grinding issued.
Mercilessly Stampede thrust the rifle butt into the side of the metal man's head. It connected with a loud clank. The metal man flew backward and bounced off the wall, but he looked more surprised than hurt when he caught himself on hands and knees.
Stampede towered over him. "Stay down."
The metal man looked up then tried to get to his feet once more.
Stampede lunged forward and put more effort into the second blow. Ready for it, the metal man evaporated into a million bright points of light. The rifle butt thudded into the wall and knocked a hole in the wallboard. Almost instantly, the cloud of bright lights flew behind Stampede and re-formed into the metal man. The bisonoid was still head and shoulders taller than the metal man, but the metal man didn't act afraid in the least.
Instead he opened his mouth, and the strange noise came out again. When Stampede tried to swing once more, the metal man caught the bisonoid's elbow and stopped the effort. Stampede wrenched free and swung the rifle. The metal man's head separated from his shoulders and allowed the rifle barrel to pass through without connecting. Before Stampede could pull the weapon back, the metal man closed his fist on the barrel.
Shifting, Stampede released the rifle and swung his left hand toward the metal man's face in a fierce backward thrust. The metal man evaporated, and when he solidified again, he stood beside Hella. Before she could move, he wrapped one hand around her upper body and covered the side of her face with his other hand.
Electricity shot through Hella's brain, mixing up her senses and making her sick. Just as she felt her knees go slack, the metal man released her. She fell forward onto the floor, barely able to raise her hands to keep from smashing her face. Panicked, barely able to move, she rolled sideways. Stampede stepped forward and over her with one foot to protect her.
The metal man held his hands up, palms out. His voice sounded like a rusty screech when he spoke, lacking the proper timbre for anything human. "No. Harm. No harm. No harm."
"Wait." Hella caught Stampede's leg and held him back.
"Don't know if I could hurt him anyway." Nervousness sounded in Stampede's voice. "I've heard of things like him." He paused. "Not exactly like him. But something like him. Made up of a lot of things. Faust swore he saw one in Dallas that was made out of rats."
The metal man spoke more slowly, more like a human. "No. Harm."
Despite her spinning senses, Hella got to her feet and stared at the metal man.
"Why'd he go for you, Red?"
"I think it's because of the nanobots. Somehow, he's able to connect with them." Hella's thoughts ran rampant. She'd never met anyone like her, and she'd lived in fear of the nanobots coursing through her. But the metal man seemed drawn to them.
"Don't go there." Stampede's voice was gruff. "Whatever he is, that's not where you came from. You're not like that. Not by a long shot."
"No harm." The metal man's eyes darted back and forth between Hella and Stampede. Even though his face didn't move, his body language, the upraised hands and the pensive glancing, spoke of desperation.
"No harm." Hella nodded. "We get it. No harm." She glanced at Stampede. "Do you think maybe it would help if you lowered the rifle?"
Hesitantly Stampede dropped the rifle barrel but held the weapon in the crook of his arm. "Sure. I can do that. Mainly because hitting him doesn't hurt him, and I'm not convinced that shooting him would either."
Without another word, the metal man walked over to a corner of the room. He flew into a million pieces again for an instant, and when he re-formed, he was sitting in the corner.
Stampede scratched his chin and twitched his ears in irritation. "You know, if he decides to leave, we can't stop him."
"I'm more interested in why he's deciding to stay." Hella crossed the room and sat cross-legged in front of the metal man.
He watched her, but he rested his hands on his thighs and didn't move. "No harm. No harm."
"He could be some new kind of 'Chine." Martin Wroth, the eldest of the family, stared at the metal man with black-eyed suspicion. "Just because he doesn't look like anything we've ever seen before doesn't mean he isn't one."
"Doesn't mean he is either." Even though the family had suffered terrible losses during the night, Hella was quickly tiring of the hard way they treated the metal man.
He sat there, as quiet and brightly alert as a small bird, with a calm face and watchful eyes. His metallic skin borrowed some of the brightness from the flames in the fireplace, and occasionally ripples ran through his body, as though his metallic flesh shifted into more comfortable space.
"I say he's trouble."
Hella shot Martin a warning glance.
Martin Wroth was in his late forties, only a few years younger than his deceased brother. He was thin faced and balding and had tan skin from constant exposure to the elements.
Hella knew the man was in shock and probably in touch with his own mortality. It could have just as easily been he who died earlier as it was his brother, niece, and nephew.
"He's not a 'Chine." Twyla Wroth sounded satisfied about that.
"What makes you so sure?"
"Because for one thing you keep referring to him as 'he.' You, and everybody I've ever talked to about those hellish things, refer to the 'Chine as 'it.' " She nodded at the metal man. "This is a man."
Martin sat forward like a hound on point. "I'd feel better if I knew who he was, where he came from."
Hella stared into the silver depths of the metal man's eyes. Every time she'd touched him, there had been some kind of connection. He had known it too. That was why he'd gone for her, used her to learn the words he'd needed to stop Stampede.
"Hey." She spoke softly then lifted a hand with her palm facing the metal man, and she leaned forward. "Can you talk to me?"
The metal man turned his head quizzically then lifted his hand as well. "No harm."
"No harm." Hella sighed and hoped she didn't regret what she planned to do. "Learn." She pushed her hand forward.
He pulled his hand back tentatively. "No harm."
"No harm." Gently Hella caught his hand and held on despite the electricity that shivered through her.
The metal man seemed to grow a little more shiny. "No harm." His fingers curled around hers. They felt warm and supple, no longer as hard and unrelenting.
Hella touched her free hand to her chest and thought of herself. "Hella."
Tilting his head, the metal man watched her.
"Hella."
The metal man's voice sounded scratchy again then leveled out in a more human monotone. "Hel. La."
In spite of the electricity that raced through her at just within tolerable levels, Hella grinned. She pointed at Stampede and said his name. "Stampede."
"Stam. Pede."
Some of the Wroth children clapped at the success. The death of their family members had stunned them, but that had happened before and
would again. Everyone knew that. Death was accepted, but a metal man in their big room was something they didn't see every day.
Even though she had seen children react in similar manners before, Hella still marveled at the resiliency of their minds. It's survival. She knew that was true. As long as a person was alive, he or she concentrated on living. Death waited around every corner. She turned her attention back to the metal man.
"Right." Encouraged by the improvement, Hella smiled.
The metal man smiled back, but the expression was a mirroring reflex, not genuine at all. Then he closed his hand over hers in a viselike grip. "Learn."
Adrenaline spiked through Hella's system. The nanobots screamed. Her senses whirled and everything went black.
"Hey."
The fiercest headache Hella had ever known pounded at her temples. Tears slid down her face as she struggled to remember where she was and what had happened.
Someone nudged her again. "Hey."
She recognized Stampede's voice and opened her eyes. She lay on her side and stared into the Wroths' fireplace. When she tried to speak, her voice was dry as dust. "Did you kill him?"
"Who?"
"The metal man."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Can you sit up?"
"Don't want to."
Stampede wrapped his arms around her and helped her up to a sitting position.
The metal man sat in the same corner he'd been in the previous night. He appeared relaxed and well rested. Obviously he didn't have a headache that threatened to split his skull. He gazed at her speculatively but didn't move toward her. If he had, Hella was certain she would have shot him without hesitation.
She braced herself against the wall. "Give me a minute, and I'll kill him myself."
The metal man smiled.
For the first time, Hella realized she was squinting against the light streaming in through the windows. Several of the Wroth kids had bedded down in the big room, all snoozing in sleeping bags.
"Maybe killing Scatter isn't such a good idea. Here. Drink this." Stampede pressed a cup into her hands. He was dressed, his clothes worse for the wear but clean and dry again.
