Stellar Ranger

by Steve Perry

  Cinch dismounted and walked in front of the mare, leading her over the now-muddy ground. The footing was bad, and if somebody was going to step into a hole, better it was him–his legs were a lot sturdier than the horse’s. The storm had been pounding at them for more than an hour with no signs of letting up, and it was dark enough so that pulling up or stopping the mare from a misstep while he was mounted might be iffy. Better to walk and see the terrain than to ride and not.

  A few minutes earlier Cinch had spotted a mother ularsinga leading a trio of her young to higher ground away from their water-filled burrow. If the big reptile had seen him she hadn’t let on, just hustled her babies up a slight rise toward a stand of wind-blown bushes.

  Of the cattle herd there was no sign and he hadn’t checked the transponder readings lately. The air had a slight ozone odor in it, probably a lightning hit somewhere close. This proved to be the case when, a few hundred meters later, Cinch and the mare passed a shattered tree. The fresh tan of the inner wood gleamed wetly. Big splinters lay around, including a couple stuck into the ground like spears. The lightning had boiled the sap instantly and, having no place to go, the superheated liquid had blown the tree apart like a hand grenade. Two cows lay on their sides next to the tree, and the smell of burned meat had not quite been washed away by the downpour.

  The horse wanted no part of the tree or those who had stupidly sought shelter under it. Cinch didn’t blame her. They veered away.

  The blueweed field lay just ahead, another hour or two’s walk even at this pace. It would be night by then; and if somebody stumbling across him in the rain was unlikely, then the same thing happening in the rain at night was less so.

  The film was still holding, save for that wet splotch on his pants that looked as if he’d peed on himself. And so far, he hadn’t seen anything worth comlining home about. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for, except that in the same way a terrier knows a rat, he would know it if he saw it. Maybe there was nothing to see. He shrugged. Even so, that meant something. The more you knew about your quarry, the better.

  Through the sound of the steady rain and gusty wind, there came another sound: an aircraft. Cinch stopped. The sound was almost right over him, very close. He’d never get the camo-tent out in time.

  Cinch blinked away rain and tried to pinpoint the sound. If somebody were below the rain ceiling, he or she ought to be worrying about a wind shear that would smack them into the ground. And what kind of idiot would fly below the ceiling? If they were above the ceiling, they probably wouldn’t be able to see him if he shot of a while magazine of flares.

  He saw the hopper, though. It went past no more than a hundred meters to his right and about that high, moving diagonally away from him. The hopper was a good-sized vessel, a ten-seater, with fans and repellors thrumming at full power. As he watched, a blast of wind hit the craft and shoved it to within fifty meters of the ground. The pilot compensated, the fans roared louder, and the hopper shot up into the clouds. The engines rumbled for a little while, then faded.

  Damn. What the hell were they doing? That was stupid flying, sure enough, very risky. Anybody with half a brain would know better than to pilot aircraft in this kind of weather unless he had to. And–had they seen him?

  He doubted it. When no sounds but rain and thunder reached him for the next half hour, Cinch felt better, though.

  * * *

  “No sign of ‘im,” Lobang said. “I circled the Twist patch three times.”

  Even though the comlink was coded and shielded, Tuluk winced at. Lobang’s use of the name. The man’s mouth had to be bigger than his brain.

  “All right. It’ll be dark soon. Might as well come on in.”

  The rain had finally begun to ease up. The musical drumbeat on the roof had slowed and grown quieter. Well. As far as the ranger went, there was nothing to be done for it. In the clear light of morning, he’d have Lobang go looking again.

  * * *

  Cinch reached the edges of a blueweed field about the time the rain slacked to a halt. Good thing, too, the film on his clothes was starting to peel and flake into powder.

  The rows between the plants were wide enough to drive a small flitter, so keeping the horse far enough away from the leaves to avoid being soaked was easy. Interesting stuff, blueweed, from what he had gotten in his briefing about it. And if what Gus had told him about Tuluk was even close, the man could spend more money than Cinch made in a year each and every day for the rest of his life and never notice it. What, he wondered, what cause a man with that kind of disposable income to want more to the point where he would try to drive his neighbors away to get it?

  Cinch directed the mare around a particularly deep-looking puddle ahead of them. Guessing the motivations of others was always a problem, especially rich people. It wasn’t, in his experience, only that they had more money than the rest of the galaxy, it was also that they did think differently.

  Ah, well. That wasn’t his problem. Let the headshrinkers worry about such things. His job was to enforce the law; more, to enforce the spirit of the law. Figuring out if the laws were being broken was the first thing to be done. Stopping those infractions, if indeed they were such, came next. Why was important, of course, but for a ranger that sometimes didn’t come in until later.

  Keeping the horse out of the next puddle was more important than any of it at the moment, though. Cinch paid his attention to their path. One step at a time.

  “BOSS, somebody broke into the supply shed in the Southwest Quadrant. They ripped off a bunch of stuff and trashed the rest.”

  Tuluk sat at his dining table eating breakfast. Thin beefsteaks, rare, an omelette made from a dozen quail eggs, panfried bortol, a kind of tuber that looked and cooked like hash brown potatoes but tasted like a cross between apples and carrots. He chewed on a bite of the omelette and nodded at Lobang. “How did they get past the alarm system?”

  “Power went out during the storrn. Every other alarm on the station went off. I sent crews to shut ‘em down and bv the time they got to the Southwest the thief had come and gone.”

  “That would be our friend Pan Meritja,” Tuluk said. “The little twit.”

  “You don’t think it was the ranger?”

  “No, I don’t think it was the ranger. He might break in to snoop around, but why would he steal anything? Or trash the place?”

  “To make us think the raj did it.”

  Tuluk blinked at Lobang, Damn, an answer that actually made sense. The sense of well-being he’d felt during the storm turned sour. The food on his plate suddenly seemed too much. He pushed it away.

  “Take the hopper and go look around that area. Tell Brilly to take a flitter and go check on the Twist.”

  “The springdog is there,” Tuluk said. “It’ll take care of anybody not in its recognition circuit.”

  “Just tell Brilly to go look.”

  Lobang shrugged.

  * * *

  When the comsat was in just the right location to give him an added security on his shielded pipeline, Cinch put in a quick call to Gus Kohl.

  “ ‘Morning, son. Where are you?”

  “I’d rather not say. I just wanted to let you know I’m taking good care of your horse.”

  “Got a little wet, I expect.”

  “A little. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Cinch folded the com and tucked it away, broke his fireless camp. He had used the camo-tent, now configured to the color of the weed, and he packed it and saddled the mare. It had been passing damp, but the sun was already drying the air and plants, not a cloud in sight.

  As he rode along, Cinch stayed alert for any sound of air or ground craft. The blueweed made for a dull vista. It all looked the same save for the occasional stunted plant or broken stalk. Now and then some small animal would scamper across the lane ahead of him, and he could hear its chittering as he pass
ed. The air held the cut-grass smell he’d noticed in Kohl’s field. He supposed there were worse ways to spend his time than riding horseback on a still-cool sunny morning, far enough from civilization so that it might as well not exist. It made him wonder what the pioneers might have felt out here, knowing they were very nearly alone in all this empty country.

  * * *

  “Any sign of him?”

  “No, sir,” Lobang said. “We’ve crisscrossed the Southwest Quadrant like a Denseweb spider. If he’s there, he’s invisible and the same temperature as the ground.”

  “Where is Brilly?”

  “He’s at the Twist shack. Nothing there.”

  “Keep looking.”

  Tuluk shut the com off and stepped into the shower.

  * * *

  As the day wound down toward darkness, Cinch began to think about finishing this trip. So far, he hadn’t seen anything worth worrying about. He’d found and explored a couple of shacks set in the weed, nothing unusual about the small buildings. The blueweed seemed to go on forever, given his circuitous route. A flyover would have given him a broader picture, but he’d wanted to poke around at eye level. You sometimes saw things that way you’d never notice whipping past at air speed.

  Cows and crops, that was all that was here, and Cinch had had about enough of both by now. He didn’t know what he’d expected to find, but there weren’t any contraband nuclear weapons plants or corrals full of slaves. Too bad. That would have made things more black or white, easier to deal with.

  When it got too dark to see anything else, he’d make camp again. Tomorrow he would head back toward Kohl’s station and see what else he could think of to do.

  * * *

  “He’s still out there,” Tuluk said.

  “How do you know that, boss?”

  “I know, Keep looking.”

  * * *

  Cinch had given the mare a slack rein and she was ambling along when she stopped. Her ears flicked forward.

  Cinch stared into the darkness. He couldn’t hear anything, save for the odd insect buzzing past and a slight stirring of the weed under a small breeze.

  The horse snorted and backed up a couple of steps. “What is it, Mada? What’s out there?”

  Nothing.

  He swung himself off the saddle and dismounted. Pulled the carbine. “We got us another lizard, girl?”

  He felt rather than heard the thing approaching. A vibration in the ground, something heavy. Something on wheels. It was in the lane ahead of him, not showing any lights.

  Cinch got a quick flash of memory: Gus Kohl’s prize bull, strung out in chewed flyblown bits.

  Springdog!

  Cinch moved fast. There was a plate of armor-piercing ammo tucked away in his saddlebag. He dug around for ito

  The sound of the dog’s motors came, a thin hum growing louder. It hadn’t begun its attack-mode yet, it was still checking him out. Wouldn’t take long, though–

  The mare snorted and danced backward half a dozen steps.

  “Damn, hold still!” Cinch lunged after the mare. Without that AP ammo, he was in trouble. The dog was plated and effectively bulletproof against ordinary hunting rounds.

  The hum of the dog’s motors cycled up.

  Now it was in attack-mode. It would be on top of him in ten seconds–

  The horse turned and bolted.

  Fuck!

  Cinch ran from the lane between two rows of the blueweed. He forced his way through the plants, banging the rifle and his arms on the thick stalks.

  Behind him, the springdog came on. It would probably be programmed for a direct attack on an intruder. Therefore it would try to follow him. As powerful as it was, it was much too wide to plow through the weed easily. That should slow it down some.

  Cinch dodged, plants thumped against his body. He could likely outrun the thing as long as he gave it plenty to run over, but sooner or later he would get tired. The dog wouldn’t. It would chase him until it caught him. And if it didn’t catch him fairly quickly, it would shift into a tracking rather than a chase mode. It would move up and down the narrow lanes, positioning itself, waiting. A self-contained biomech like the dog could run for weeks before it needed recharging.

  Shit.

  * * *

  The call woke Tuluk from a sound sleep. He grabbed the com. “This better be good,” he said.

  It was Brilly. “M. Tuluk, the springdog is chasing somebody out in the weed.”

  Tuluk sat up. “Who?”

  “I dunno, I ain’t gone to look yet.”

  “Well, go look, idiot!”

  Tuluk slid from the bed and hurried to get dressed. He paused long enough to com Lobang, who’d also been asleep judging from the sound of his voice.

  “Huh?”

  “Get dressed. The spring dog is chasing somebody at the Twist patch.”

  “I’ll get the limo,” he said.

  * * *

  Cinch had to get back to the horse and those saddlebags.

  Already he was winded, and smacking into the heavy stalks and leaves of the blueweed wasn’t doing him any physical good, either. He worked his way back toward the main aisle, hoping to catch up with the mare.

  Behind him the springdog flattened more of the plants in its way. It was gaining.

  As Cinch managed to clear the weed and regain the lane where he’d left the horse, the rifle caught a stalk crossways. He was moving fast and the weapon was jerked free.

  Oh, man!

  The dog was almost on his heels. He couldn’t stop to retrieve the carbine.

  He sprinted in the direction of the horse, unable to see her. They could probably outrun the thing if he could get mounted in time. But she could be half a klick away by now.

  Behind him the dog cleared the weed and achieved the aisle.

  Cinch slid to a stop. He’d never outrun it on flat ground. The rifle was gone, the horse too far away to help. It was going to catch him unless he went back into the weed. But if he did that, it would catch him pretty soon, anyway. He was already tired.

  Fuck.

  * * *

  “Brilly? Brilly, answer your damn com!”

  In the back of the limo, Tuluk, his shirt still hanging outside the cor-line of his trousers, tried to raise the guard.

  Lobang had the limo moving at speed.

  “Why the hell doesn’t he answer?”

  “Probably gone to help the springdog,” Lobang said.

  “Damn, damn, damn! Can’t you go any faster?”

  “Topped out now, Boss. Don’t worry. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  * * *

  Cinch spun to face the springdog, Almost without thinking he snatched his pistol from its holster and brought it up to a two-hand hold. The starfish slugs would flatten like blobs of clay on the dog’s armor, they wouldn’t even slow it down–

  The dog was ten meters away and coming fast.

  Wait. Wait–!

  The eyes!

  Mounted next to the steel jaws, one on either side, were the cameras that let the dog see. The lenses were inside an armored tube, but the photomutable gel itself had nothing but glass plates directly in front of them–

  Cinch put the sight dot on the left eye and fired three times as fast as he could.

  The first shot missed clean. The second shot hit the jaws and spanged away harmlessly.

  The third shot split on the armored eye tube; he saw it splatter. Enough of the bullet went into the lens to rupture the gel.

  The dog spun toward the left. Stopped. It would compensate in a second, switching all input to the remaining cam.

  Cinch’s instinct told him to tum and haul ass as fast as he could. Find his horse and ride the hell away.

  But while the dog was stopped and recovering, it wouldn’t take long to jigger its prog
ram.

  Instead of running away, Cinch ran toward the dog. When he was a meter away, it turned back toward him.

  The first shot was dead on. It blew out the other eye. Cinch put both his remaining rounds into it to be sure.

  The dog froze. Motors whined. It would be switching to sound pickup now, but springdogs were programmed to work visually, It could hear him if he made any noise, even track him that way, but in theory it wouldn’t attack because it wasn’t set up to do so by sonics. Its computer recognition program wasn’t that good.

  Cinch found he’d automatically pulled a spare magazine and reloaded his pistol. When he dropped the empty, the springdog oriented itself toward the sound of the mag hitting the ground.

  The ranger backed slowly away. It heard him and turned, but did not move.

  “Freeze, dickhead!”

  Cinch jumped a meter to his left, turning in the air as he moved,

  The thug named Brilly stood five meters away, pointing a pistol. He fired, and the sound and muzzle blast seemed to be aimed right between Cinch’s eyes. But the bullet zipped past, missing.

  Cinch shoved his own pistol out one-handed as if punching with it. He fired.

  The slug took Brilly high on the right side of the chest, almost at the shoulder. He spun away from the force of it, his pistol flew. It didn’t look like a fatal wound, no major organs there but it put him down. He started yelling, cursmg.

  Cinch started forward to help the wounded man.

  The springdog beat him there.

  Cinch emptied the rest of the magazine at the dog but it was a waste of time and ammo.