As soon as he had free running space everywhere but toward the town, he slowed.
Windsplitter and the lead horse were blowing and puffing. He walked them until they caught their breath, casting his eyes restlessly up and down the edges of the town behind them.
Then he caught the roaring again. He strained his eyes, watching. There it was!
It slid out from among the buildings and started straight toward him.
He put the horses up to a trot. The thing was closing the distance. He put the horses up to a run.
The thing not only closed the distance but started to pass him.
Jonnie swerved at right angles.
The thing banked into a turn and flashed by him, went well ahead, turned and blocked his way.
Jonnie pulled up. There it was, ugly, roaring, gleaming.
He turned around and began to run away from it.
It let out a blasting roar, scorched by him and again stopped, blocking his way.
Jonnie's face tightened into determination.
He took his biggest kill-club from his belt. He put the thong solidly on his wrist. He cast off the lead horse.
Walking Windsplitter, he went up ahead of the thing. It didn't move. He went about a hundred feet in front of the thing. It didn't move. He carefully spotted the position of a slitted eye.
He began to whirl the kill-club. It swooshed in the air.
He put a heel to Windsplitter and they raced straight at the thing.
The kill-club, carried with the full speed of the running horse, whooshed down straight at the slitted eye.
The crash of impact was deafening.
Jonnie slowed beyond the thing. It had not moved.
He trotted Windsplitter back to the original position, a hundred feet in front of the thing. He turned and made ready for a second run.
The lead horse came up behind him to its habitual place. Jonnie glanced at it and then back at the thing. He calculated the distance and the run to strike at the other slitted eye.
He touched a heel. Windsplitter plunged forward.
And then a great gout of yellow bloomed out from between the eyes. Jonnie was struck a blow like all the winds of Highpeak rolled into one.
Windsplitter caught the full force of it. Up into the air went horse and rider. Down they came with a shuddering crash against the earth.
Chapter 13
Terl didn't know what he was looking at.
He had bunked down in the car in the outskirts. He had the old Chinko map of the ancient city, but he had no curiosity about it.
With a few shots of kerbango, he had eased himself off into sleep, intending to be gone with the dawn, through the city and into the mountains. Senseless, even risky, to go on in the dark.
The car, however, had grown hot with the morning sun before he awoke. And now he stared out at an odd thing in the street before him. Maybe it had been the footfalls that had awakened him.
He didn't know what it was. He had seen horses– they were always falling down mine shafts. But he had never before seen a horse with two heads.
That's right. Two heads. One in front and one in the middle.
And a second animal of similar sort behind. Only this one only had a second body in the middle, as if the second head was bent down out of sight.
He batted his eyebones. He shifted over into the driver's seat and stared more intently through the armored windshield.
The two beasts had now turned around and were walking the other way, so Terl started up and began to follow.
It became apparent to him at once that the beasts knew he was after them. He took a hasty look at his ancient street map, thinking he could flash around a couple of blocks and head them off.
But instead it was the beasts who turned.
Terl saw they would dead-end and knew they would circle a block. It was elementary indeed to handle that.
He glanced again at his map and spotted the right buildings to make a barricade.
The firepower of the old Mark II was not very heavy but it was surely enough for that. He adjusted the force lever with a fumbling and inexperienced paw and steered the tank into position. He hit the fire button.
The resulting explosion was extremely satisfactory. A whole building tipped over to make a barricade.
He jockeyed his throttle and wheeled around and went down the street, turned, and sure enough! There they were. He had his quarry trapped.
Then he sat with slack jawbones to see the beasts go straight up over the smoking rubble and vanish from view.
Terl sat there for a minute or two. Was this any part of what he was trying to accomplish? He was puzzled by the beasts but they didn't have anything to do with the business he was in.
Oh, well. He had lots of time, and hunting was hunting after all. He pushed a button and fired off an antenna capsule set to hover three hundred feet up and then turned on his picture screen.
Sure enough, there were the beasts, tearing along, zigzagging around blocks. He watched their progress while he ate some breakfast. That done, he took a small shot of kerbango, engaged the drive train, and following the picture was soon out in open country with his quarry in plain sight.
He raced around in front and blocked them. They turned. He did it again.
What were they? The second beast still had his head down, but the one in the lead definitely had two heads. Terl decided he had better not talk about this in the recreation room. They'd roast him.
He watched with curiosity when the beast in the front stopped, took a stick out of his belt, and began a run at him. His curiosity turned to amazement. The thing was going to attack him. Incredible!
The crash of the club against the windshield was deafening. His earbones rang with the assault. And that wasn't all. There was an immediate atmosphere sizzle.
A wave of dizziness hit Terl. Bright lights popped in his skull. Air! Air was getting into the cab!
This old Mark II had seen better days. The supposedly armored windscreen had come loose in its mounts. Terl gaped at it in disbelief. The side gasket had given way!
He panicked. Then his eye caught the sign about face masks and he hastily snatched the mask and flask of breathe-gas off the gunner's seat and snapped it over his face, opening the valve. He inhaled deeply and the dizziness lessened. He took three deep breaths to clean the damned air out of his lungs.
Terl stared anew at the strange beast. It was lining up for another run!
His paws fumbled with the firepower. He wanted no recoil of the blast blowing back through the opened windscreen and he pulled the force lever low to “stun.” He hoped it was enough.
The beast started the run. Terl hit the fire button.
It was enough all right. The ions sizzled and glared. The beasts were slammed back, lifted clean off the ground.
They fell.
Terl watched intently to make sure they kept on lying where they had fallen. Good! They did.
He let out a shuddering sigh into his mask, winding down. And then he sat up straight in new amazement. He had thought, when they were hit, that he was dealing with two four-legged beasts. But lying on the ground they had come apart!
Terl swung a side door wide and crawled out. He checked his belt gun and then rumbled over to the game he had hit.
Three beasts, maybe four!
The two four-legged beasts were two. On the one behind, a bundle of something had fallen apart. That maybe made three. The nearer one definitely was two different beasts.
What a confusion!
He shook his head, trying to clear it. The effects of air were not wearing off fast enough: little bright sparks were still popping in front of his eyes.
He lumbered over to the more distant one, pushing the tall grass away. It was a horse. He had seen plenty of horses; the plains were full of them. But this horse had had a bundle tied on
its back. Simple as that. The bundle had come loose. He kicked it. It wasn't anything alive, just some skins, some animal hides, an
d nonsense bits of other things.
He walked back toward the tank through the high grass.
The other thing was also a horse. And over to the right where it had fallen clear...
Terl pushed back the grass. Well, luck of the gold nebula! It was a man.
The Psychlo turned the man over. What a small, puny body! Hair on the face and head but nowhere else. Two arms, two legs. White-brown skin.
Terl was unwilling to admit that Char's description fitted. In fact, he resented the fact that it did come close and promptly rejected it.
The chest was moving– only slightly, true– but it was still alive. Terl felt fortunate indeed. His excursion was successful without his even going up into the mountains.
He picked the man up with one paw and went back to the tank, throwing the man into the gunner's seat, which engulfed it. Then he set to work repairing the windscreen gasket with some permastick. The whole side of the glass had been dislodged, and although the glass itself was not even scratched, that had been quite a blow. He looked down at the small body swallowed in the seat. A fluke. It was the age of this tank, the brittleness of its gaskets. Sure was a ratty car; he'd find something wrong and put it in Zzt's records– misplaced parts or something. He went over the other gaskets, the doors, and the other screen. They seemed all right, if brittle. Well, he wasn't going underwater and there would surely be no more attacks from things like that.
Terl stood up on the driver's seat and looked all around the horizon. All clear. No more of these beasts.
He banged down the top and settled himself. His paw hit the compression change, and the hiss of air exhausting from the cab and the gurgle of breathe-gas entering was welcome. His face mask was sweaty in the growing heat of the day and he hated the thing. Oh, for a proper-atmosphere planet, a planet with right gravity, with purple trees-
The man-thing went into a sudden convulsion.
Terl drew back, alarmed. It was turning blue and jerking about. The last thing he wanted was a raving mad animal inside the cab.
Hastily he adjusted his face mask, reversed the compression, and kicked open the side door. With one bat of his paw he knocked the thing back out onto the grass.
Terl sat there watching it. He was afraid his plans were going up in a puff. The thing must have been more heavily affected by the stun blast than he knew. Crap, they were weak!
He opened the cab top and looked over at one of the horses.
He could see its sides moving. It was breathing and wasn't in any convulsion. It was even recovering. Well, a horse was a horse, and a man might be...
He suddenly got it. The man-thing couldn't breathe breathe-gas. The bluish color was fading; the convulsions had stopped. The chest was panting as the thing gulped in air.
That gave Terl a problem. Blast if he was going to ride back to the minesite in a face mask. He got out of the car and went to the farther horse. It was recovering, too. The sacks were lying near it. Terl rummaged through one and came up with some thongs.
He went back and picked up the man-thing and slammed it up on top of the car. He arranged it so its arms stuck out to each side. Tying piece after piece of thong together he made a long rope. He tied one end to one wrist of the thing, passed the rope under the car– grunting a bit as he lifted it up to do so– and tied the other wrist. He yanked it good and tight. Then he pushed at the man-thing experimentally to see whether it would fall off.
Very good. He threw the sacks onto the gunner's seat and got in, closed up, and restarted the atmosphere change.
The nearest horse was lifting its head, struggling to get up. Aside from surface blood boils caused by the stun gun, it seemed to be all right, which meant that the man-thing would probably recover.
Terl stretched his jawbones in a grin. Well, it was coming out all right after all.
He started up the car, turned it, and headed back toward the minesite.
Part II
Chapter 1
Terl was all efficiency, great plans bubbling in his cavernous skull.
The old Chinkos had had a sort of zoo outside the compound, and despite the years that had intervened since the Chinkos were terminated here, the cages were still there.
There was one in particular that was just right. It had a dirt floor and a cement pool, and netting of heavy mesh strung all around it. They had had some bears there that they said they were studying, and although the bears had died after a while, they had never escaped.
Terl dumped the new beast into the cage. The thing was still only semiconscious, getting over the shock of breathe-gas most likely. Terl looked at it lying there and then looked around. This had to be just right, all precautions taken.
The cage door had a lock on it. It was open to the sky and there was no netting over the top– what bear could climb a thirty-foot set of bars?
But there was a possibility that this new beast might tamper with the cage door. It wasn't probable. But the door didn't have a good lock on it.
Terl had dumped the bags in the cage, having no place else to put them. And the long thong rope he had used was lying on the bag.
He decided it would be wise to tie the beast up. He passed the thong around the neck of the thing and tied it there with a simple rigger knot and tied the other end to a bar.
He stood back and checked things again. It was fine. He went out and closed the cage door. He'd have to put a better lock on it. But it would do just now.
Satisfied with himself, Terl ran the car into the garage and went to his office.
There was not much to do. A few dispatches, just forms, no emergencies. Terl finished up and sat back. What a dull place. Ah, well, he had started wheels rolling to get off it, to get back home.
He decided he had better go out and see how the man-thing was getting along. He picked up his breathe-mask, put a new cartridge into it, and went out through the offices. There were a lot of empty desks these days. There were only three secretarial-type Psychlos there, and they didn't pay much attention to him.
Outside the compound, he reached the gate of the cage. He stopped, his eyebones rattling.
The thing was clear over to the gate!
He went in with a growl, picked the thing up, and put it into its original place.
It had untied the knot.
Terl looked at it. Plainly it was terrified of him. And why not? It only came up to his belt buckle and was about a tenth of his weight.
Terl put the thong back around its neck. Being a mining company worker, accustomed to rigs and slings, Terl knew his knots. So this time he tied a double-rigger knot. That would hold it!
Cheerful once more, Terl went to the garage and got a water hose and began to wash down the Mark ll. As he worked, he turned over various plans and approaches in his head. They all depended on that man-thing out there.
On a sudden hunch, he went back outside to look into the cage. The thing was standing inside the door!
Terl crossly barged in, carried it back to its original position, and stared at the rope. It had untied a double-rigger knot.
With fast-working paws, Terl fixed that. He put the rope around its neck and tied it with a bucket-hoist knot.
The thing looked at him. It was making some funny noises as if it could talk.
Terl walked out, fastened the door, and got out of sight. He wasn't a security chief for nothing. From a vantage point behind a building, he levered his face mask glass to telephoto and observed.
The thing, in no time at all, untied the complex bucket-hoist knot!
Terl rumbled back before it could get to the door. He went in, plucked the thing up, and put it back on the far side of the cage.
He wound the rope around and around its neck and then tied it with a double-bucket knot so complex that only a veteran rigger could loosen it.
Once more he went off to an unseen distance.
Again believing itself unobserved, what was the thing doing now?
It reached into a pouch it was wearing, took out somet
hing bright, and cut the rope!
Terl rumbled off to the garage and rummaged about through centuries of cast offs and debris until he found a piece of flexirope, a welding torch, a welding power cartridge, and a short strip of metal.
When he got back, the thing was over by the door again, trying to climb the thirty-foot bars.
Terl did a very thorough job. He made a collar out of the metal and welded it hotly around the neck. He welded the flexirope to the collar and welded the other end into a ring, hooking the ring over a bar thirty feet above the dirt floor of the cage.
He stood back. The thing was grimacing and trying to hold the collar away from its neck, for it was still hot.
That'll hold it, Terl told himself.
But he hadn't finished. He wasn't a security chief for nothing. He went back to his office storeroom and broke out two button cameras, checked them, and switched them to the wavelength of his office viewer.
Then he went back to the cage and put one button camera way up in the bars, pointing down, and put the other one out at a distance where it could view the exterior.
The thing was pointing at its mouth and making sounds. Who knew what that meant?
Only now did Terl feel relaxed.
That night he sat smugly in the employee recreation room, responding to no questions, quietly drinking his kerbango in a very self-satisfied way.
Chapter 2
Jonnie Goodboy Tyler stared in despair at his packs across the yard.
The sun was hot.
The collar on his burned neck hurt.
His throat was parched with thirst. And he felt hungry.
In those packs, just inside the cage door, there was a pig bladder of water. There was some cooked pork, if it hadn't spoiled. And there were hides he could rig for shade.
At first he had just been trying to get out.
The very idea of being caged made him feel ill. Sicker even than the lack of water and food.
It was all so unknown. The last he really remembered was starting to charge the insect and being blown into the air. Then this. No, wait. There was something after he was first stunned.
Battlefield Earth Page 6
