Callendar snorted. "I'll kiss his ass and give you twenty minutes to draw a crowd."
"You know, I can see your teeth through that hole in your cheek, Lieutenant," Rhys observed. Gingerly, Snodgrass placed a forefinger in the hole. Sure enough, he could feel his gums through the hole.
"I wonder why it doesn't hurt," he said.
"I don't know," Rhys answered. "But I had this professor once—"
"What? You went to college?" Snodgrass exclaimed.
"Yeah. I got a master of arts in English lit," he said offhandedly.
"It was never obvious," Snodgrass said.
"If you're going to be a pirate, you don't get far running around quoting Shakespeare."
The skinks were still milling around. The sun beat down mercilessly, and Snodgrass was suddenly aware of how thirsty he'd become. But the conversation was steadying his nerves. All thought of fame and promotion had evaporated from the lieutenant's mind now. In a few moments the skinks would advance again and he would die. He reached down to remove the knife from Labaya's boot and placed it on the rim of the hollow, where he could reach it easily. He realized then that he wasn't afraid of the skinks anymore.
"Where the hell did they all come from?" Rhys asked no one in particular. "I thought the Marines greased almost the whole bunch the other night, and they're chasing the only survivors." Snodgrass could only shrug.
"Probably left over from the attacking force, and now the Marines are between them and home base," Callendar said. The minutes dragged by slowly. The skinks continued to mill around just within pistol range, but the men held their precious fire.
"So why did you guys become pirates?" Snodgrass asked.
"Same reason you become a navy officer: I was stupid, needed money, and love guns," Callendar said with a chuckle.
Snodgrass grinned back at him. "I become—became a navy officer because I wanted to see the universe and be famous." The other two laughed. "How about you, Rhys?"
"Me? Oh, I just sort of fell into the trade, you might say. Took a job with a school system on one of the newer worlds—doesn't matter which one—I was gonna prey on my girl students while writing my dissertation."
"Dissertation? On what topic," Snodgrass asked.
" ‘The Sunshine Motif in the Lieder of John Denver.’ Very hot topic."
"The classics!" Snodgrass cried.
"I even had some interest from a publisher. But on the way in-system our ship was taken. I got friendly with my captors and opted to stay with them when the exchange was made. Then I just drifted around several systems for a while, earning a reputation, you might say, and wound up with Scanlon.
"How about you, Lieutenant? I had you figured for a prize navy asshole, a real prima donna. You sure acted the part convincingly enough there for a while. Now you pull this Medal of Heroism shit. And you fried that bastard Lowboy." Briefly he told Snodgrass what Lowboy had planned.
"Would you have gone along with that plan?" Snodgrass asked.
Rhys shrugged. "Yeah. I am a pirate, you know."
"Well, it never would've worked. Your ship wasn't in orbit when we got here. If you'd taken the Essay, you'd only have cruised around the planet a few times before the Fairfax would've taken you."
"How?" Callendar asked.
"I'd have told them to," Snodgrass answered firmly. "Gunny Bass would've figured out a way to get a boarding party onto the Essay." There would be no more criticism of Gunnery Sergeant Bass from him.
"Yeah, I guess that's the new you, huh?" Rhys replied. "What gives with you? How'd you grow up so suddenly?"
"I really don't know," Snodgrass answered, surprised, now that he considered it. "I—I just figured the wounded had to be protected. I don't know." He shrugged.
"Hamlet," Rhys answered with conviction. "You're just like Hamlet. When he stopped to think things through, he always screwed them up, but when the chips were down he—"
"Uh-oh, college boys, somebody's coming," Callendar warned.
"—was a man of action," Rhys finished. "Just stop thinking, Lieutenant, and you'll be okay. Thinking never did anybody any—Jesu, what in hell is that?" They all stared at the spectacle in front of them.
From out of the tree ferns on the far side of the clearing an extraordinary figure emerged, a skink, but it walked erect and purposefully, just like a man. In one hand he carried a long rod, obviously an acid gun of some kind, but he swung it rapidly back and forth as he walked, as if he were a swordsman testing the balance of his blade.
The other skinks, who had been grunting and hissing among themselves, now fell silent. The officer skink gestured with his weapon, and the nine surviving attackers fell into a straight line. The men could clearly hear his sibilant hissing and grunting as he addressed his troops.
"Ten skinks, and we got six shots among us," Callendar whispered. "Better make every shot count, and then..." he patted the knife at his belt. "Hey!" he said suddenly, "look at that officer. He's just waving his acid gun around. You know what? I bet they're as low on ammo as we are! Sure! They used up most of their basic load and they can't resupply because Bass has cut them off from their base. Hey, maybe we've got a chance after all."
"What if it comes down to hand-to-hand?" Snodgrass asked. "Some of those skinks are pretty big."
"Fight dirty, then," Callendar responded.
"Go for their eyes," Rhys advised. He turned to Snodgrass and put out his hand. "You got my vote, Lieutenant. We sure have put up one hell of a fight. Been nice knowin' ya." They shook.
"Let them get almost up to us, and then get out of this hole and in among them," Callendar advised. "That way they won't be able to use their guns without hitting another skink."
The officer skink shouted something. It sounded to the men like "Bungee!" He repeated the word three times, and the nine skinks shouted, "Bungee! Bungee! Bungee! "The officer took his place in front of the line, raised his gun over his head, and they charged.
"He's mine," Rhys whispered.
"You take the right of the line, Lieutenant, and I'll take the left," Callendar shouted.
The skinks came at them quickly, covering half the distance in only a few seconds. The three held their fire to be absolutely sure of their shots. At thirty meters they fired their last bolts. The officer skink disappeared in a flash. So did five others. The remaining four came on. They did not fire their weapons but held them like spears.
"They are out of ammo!" Snodgrass said in amazement.
"Knives!" Callendar shouted, throwing his blaster down. With a scream of triumph he drew his wicked blade and jumped out of the hole. "Aarrggh!" he screamed and ran at the nearest skink. Two skinks jumped on him, and the three fell into the mud in a tangle of arms and legs, the skinks grunting and hissing and Callendar screaming and cursing. He sliced open one skink with a vicious slash of his blade, but the other pinned the pirate under its powerful legs and began smashing its empty weapon into his face.
Rhys thrust with his knife at a huge advancing skink. Though twice his size and grunting with the effort of running, the skink seemed light and agile on its feet. It parried Rhys's knife thrust and rammed the point of its spear deep into the center of Rhys's chest. Rhys staggered back, taking the embedded weapon with him. He stared down at it in surprise. The skink closed in, its arms held open to grab the dying man in one final deadly embrace. Rhys lurched forward, his knife thrust out in his right hand as he tried to pull the spear out of his chest with the other. They collided with an audible thud, and the knife buried itself in the skink's midsection. The heavier skink impelled Rhys backward. Rhys thrust desperately with his legs to stay upright and with all his remaining strength drove the knife downward, slicing the skink's belly wide open. Reeking tendrils spilled out in heaps. The skink gurgled and hissed and thrashed about wildly before dying.
Rhys crawled out from under the mess and staggered to his feet, swaying drunkenly, just managing to keep his balance. With his left hand he continued trying to pull the weapon out of his chest.
No good. He was too weak. He dropped his left hand to his side and staggered over to where the other skink was pounding Callendar's head into mush. With one last supreme burst of effort, Rhys plunged his own knife to the hilt into the thing's back and fell heavily to the ground. Hissing and snorting violently, the skink rose to its feet to reach around and pull out the knife, but a dark brown fluid gushed out of its mouth, it gave up a snorelike groan, then fell on its side.
Breathing heavily, completely oblivious to the fight going on around him, Snodgrass had dropped his blaster and drawn his knife. Now he concentrated on the skink weaving and bobbing just out of his reach. It too breathed in gasps, and the lieutenant could smell its fetid breath. They circled one another warily. Snodgrass was finding it difficult to keep his footing in the slick mud as the skink danced back and forth lightly on its splayed toes. Clearly, mud was its element.
Suddenly, it dashed forward and rammed at the lieutenant with its weapon. Snodgrass sidestepped and sliced at the thing's neck. His blade struck flesh, and blood, surprisingly-red, spurted from one side. The skink staggered and dropped its weapon, clasping both hands to the wound in the side of its neck. Seizing the advantage, Snodgrass stepped in and plunged his knife into the creature's side, once, twice, a third time. But the knife stuck in the skink as it tried to whirl away from the attack, leaving Snodgrass unarmed. He jumped out of its way as the thing staggered about in the bloodstained mud, hissing and gurgling. Finally it collapsed and lay still.
For years—his whole life till then—Argal Snodgrass had been an arrogant, snot-nosed punk, and he had just taken it all out on this alien. In those brief moments of desperation, the old Snodgrass had evaporated like a blasted skink.
He stood, panting heavily, perspiration streaming off of him, and looked down on his vanquished attacker. Wearily, he stumbled over and checked Rhys and Callendar. They were both dead, as were the four skinks.
Out of the corner of his eye Snodgrass caught a glimpse of movement. A skink appeared from among the ferns on the opposite side of the clearing, from the same spot the attack had been mounted. Snodgrass gasped—the skink was carrying a blaster.
Purposefully, the skink walked toward Snodgrass, who backed off, wondering if there was a way he could charge the skink, dodging the bolts it was sure to fire at him any second. The skink stopped ten meters from the site of the hand-to-hand fighting and deliberately pointed the blaster at one of the skink corpses. The corpse flared up. Methodically, ignoring the human, the skink switched aim and flamed another of the corpses.
Snodgrass watched in disbelief as the skink flamed all of the dead skinks, then turned the blaster on itself and vaporized.
The adrenaline that had held him keyed up throughout the fight suddenly drained out of him and, totally exhausted, he collapsed unconscious.
Argal Snodgrass floated up, up, up. He felt no pain. He was wrapped in a wonderful white cloud of cotton. He wanted to stay there forever, forever. No more goddamn fitness reports to worry about, no more smirking subordinates, no more supercilious superior officers, no more of the chickenshit he once thought was so important. If this is death, he thought, where have you been all my life?
Suddenly, consciousness came back to him like a huge fist in the face. He was back on Society 437 and he hurt everywhere, everywhere. He gasped and groaned. He was being held up by two Marines. A voice said, "He's coming to." Another said, "It's about time; he's not hurt." The voices hurt his head. In front of him stood a blurry figure. He blinked. It was Bass, the remnant of a Clinton stuck in one corner of his mouth.
Hands on his hips, Bass leaned close to the lieutenant's smashed nose and grinned. "Horatio, I don't know how the hell you did it, but sure looks to me like you held this bridge."
Chapter 28
"No friendly casualties except the pirates—all of them are dead," Bass reported to Commander Tuit a few minutes later, thinking only of the pirates who'd fought alongside Snodgrass. "The medical team is okay." He glanced at Dr. Bynum for confirmation and she nodded. "The previous casualties are stable. No friendly casualties other than the pirates. I think it's safe to land the Essay now and get the wounded and the med people up to you."
"What about you, Lander?" Tuit wanted to know. He thought the Marines should lift off as well and they should all get out of there. Leave the string-of-pearls in place so it could gather information during the time it would take the Confederation to mount a full-scale expedition to Society 437. He thought one platoon of Marines simply wasn't enough to properly handle the situation. The Marines were tough, but they already had one dead and four wounded, and three of the casualties were seriously injured.
"We've got to find those things and deal with them," Bass said.
"They can wait, Gunnery Sergeant. They're probably stranded here. The Confederation Navy can mount another operation to come and capture them."
"Sir, I don't think they're stranded. I think they were left behind deliberately to attack and kill whoever came to investigate what happened to the science mission."
There was a pause. Tuit had spent more time than Bass studying the satellite data that showed the landing of the alien ship, or shuttle, whatever it was, and then its return to whatever nebulous place it had come from. Damn those scientists! Why hadn't they had anything looking outward? There was no information on where the alien ship had come from or where it went. The little information they had told Tuit that Bass was probably right. The skinks were a defense garrison, left to kill whoever came after the BHHEI mission. Eventually, he suspected, more of the murderous aliens would come to Waygone and reinforce the garrison. If the Marines found and destroyed the garrison, it might discourage the aliens in the future, convince them that perhaps it would be better to talk.
"All right, Commander Ground Force, you have my go ahead to find the aliens' base of operations and destroy it. Try to take prisoners."
"Aye aye, sir." Bass almost smiled.
They waited long enough for the Essay to complete its orbit and touch down. Once the casualties were safely offworld and the Marines had a chance to snatch an hour's worth of badly needed sleep, they set out again. Bass had tried to send Dr. Bynum and her medical team back to the Fairfax, but she wasn't having any of that.
"Gunnery Sergeant," she said levelly and with a stern face, "don't make me pull rank on you."
"Doctor," Bass said just as levelly, "you can't. As ground forces commander, I outrank you no matter what our rank insignia say." But he smiled as he said it.
"Charlie," Dr. Bynum said, returning his smile, "I somehow don't think you're the kind of man who'd manhandle a woman to make her do something she didn't want to do."
Bass dropped his smile. "Lidi, you might be surprised what I'd do to a woman if it meant saving her life."
They stared at each other for a long moment.
"Charlie, you or your Marines might—probably will—need me when you find the skinks. And speaking as a scientist, if I can get my hands on one, we can learn a lot about them. If I'm not with you, I don't believe I'll get that chance."
"I appreciate your position, Lidi. Everything you just said is true. But today will probably be too dangerous for a woman. Besides, I'm keeping two of your corpsmen, they can take care of any casualties. And if they can save one of the skinks from getting slaughtered, well, they can keep him."
"Not good enough, Charlie Bass. Besides, you're letting that Minnie come with you."
Bass shrugged. "She's a civilian, I don't have any jurisdiction over her."
"Bullshit, Charlie. You have jurisdiction over anybody on this planet you want to. And she's a pirate, you already put her under arrest. She belongs to you just the same as that Baccacio, or Cameron, or whatever name you want to call him."
"Well, yeah, but—"
"No ‘Well, yeah, but,’ Charlie Bass. I'm going with you and that's final."
After that the argument petered out.
Bass had everybody mount up on the Dragons and they headed into the sw
amp. They rode as far as the day before, then the Marines dismounted and resumed wading. They didn't take time to check the bivouac.
Schultz led the platoon ever deeper into the swamp. When he could, he trod across dry ground covered with Waygone's ubiquitous springy ground cover or along the firm mud bars that stood above the water. When there wasn't ground above water, he led them through shallows that were ankle, knee, thigh, sometimes chest deep. Part of his attention was divided between visual scouting of where to go next and feeling with his feet to make sure he had firm footing. The rest of his attention was focused on seeking signs of skink passage and watching for danger. He ignored the recognized signs of native fauna. His path finding usually worked. He saw enough sign of skinks to be confident the Marines were on the right trail, and he never saw danger, including any more of the big worms. The occasional surveillance reports from the Fairfax agreed with Schultz's decisions.
The swamp was redolent with odors emitted by rotting vegetation. The Marines coughed from time to time because of the irritation the gases caused in their noses and throats. The members of the medical team, most of whom were still unused to the exertion, coughed more. Everywhere they stepped, their feet squelched, sloshed, or splashed. The mating and territorial croaks of swamp amphibians sent shivers up many spines and helped keep everyone alert.
"Maybe the swamp critters know there are things too tough for even them," Claypoole replied when MacIlargie wondered aloud why they never ran into more of the large carnivores.
Kerr gave no sign of having overheard the byplay, but he approved of MacIlargie's caution and Claypoole's confidence.
In early afternoon Bass decided to rest the platoon and told Schultz to find a defendable elevated spot. Nearly a half hour later, still looking for and occasionally finding skink spoor, Schultz stopped on one of two adjacent hummocks.
"I need to set up an oxygen tent," Dr. Bynum gasped when the platoon stopped near dusk. "These gases, it's too hard to breathe, everyone's respiratory system is getting too irritated." She paused frequently, since talking was hard in the miasma of the swamp. "They need, we all need, some relief."
Blood Contact Page 30
