Bloodhype

by Alan Dean Foster

  “Surely now, the weaponry we stock, even though designed for dealing with devil-fish and subsand crawlers and the like, is sufficient to handle your ‘monster.’ ”

  “A point by way of information, your Governorship,” countered Porsupah. “Two well-equipped submersibles from this city, fitted out with precisely that sort of equipment and manned by able men thoroughly familiar with it, were destroyed by this creature as though they were no more than dreamsmoke. I saw it. I observed gelite torpedoes and armor-piercing projectiles utilized against it. They might as well have tried to annihilate it with feathers. And the crew of the submersible that escaped does not desire a second encounter.”

  The Governor had another ready reply, but this time Orvenalix broke in. He waved a sheaf of faxed reports at the fuming executive.

  “Perchance, has the Governor found the time to scan any of these reportings. Which have been flowing in with distressing frequency for the past two days now?”

  Washburn cocked an eye at the sheets.

  “I receive innumerable reports daily. Which are these?”

  Orvenalix thumbed through the sheets, his pincers moving easily from one to the next.

  “A minor consortium of four fishing vessels returned to the same place where per deuce-week, for the past year and a half, they have caught between four and five thousand kilos of edible seafood. Their take this last time barely was worth weighing in . . . The jet skiff Lady Laughing with a family of four on board outbound from Repler Harbor disappeared while headed south-southeast at latitu . . . well, that doesn’t matter. They’ve not been sighted or heard from since . . . Two trawling submersibles disappear in a fog off Isle Ellison . . . undersea garden of Hon. Yaphet McKnight Luttu, retired, is devastated in a single night . . . shoal of migrating stone-skippers hurl themselves ashore at Isle Royal and suffocate . . . dozens of similar sightings, reports, remarks from reliable, frightened sources, Governor. At first the tone was one of curiosity. Not now. Word gets around. Fear shows.”

  “On a planet as recently settled and relatively unexplored as Repler, disasters and strange occurrences take place daily, by the bushelful,” the Governor replied. “Mind, I’m not saying that your monster might not be responsible for one or two . . .”

  Thranx numbered among their virtues phenomenal patience. Under exceptional, rare circumstances, it could be lost.

  “Governor, semantic evasion of a problem will never eliminate it! In fact, if I may delicately point out, if you do not squarely confront this situation, it will confront you!”

  “I do not understand, Major.”

  “I’ll try and make it as simple as possible, your Governorship,” Orvenalix pushed a laminated sheet of irradiated plastic across the desk. Tiny yellow dots glowed within the three-dimensional map.

  “All disaster reports and sightings have been plotted on this chart. Both confirmed and suspected. Excluding those obviously the product of hysteria, they form a rough, zig-zagging path from the AAnn Concession towards Repler City. Since our agents escaped from there, by the way, we haven’t been able to raise a signal from it, vidcast, radio—nothing. Should the line continue at its current pace, Governor, whatever is at this end of it will be here in three days. At which point you will have the opportunity to debate a question that has become purely academic!”

  Washburn considered the map, considered the stocky insect across from him, considered the befurred officer sitting placidly in a corner. He slumped slightly. A good deal of hot air disappeared along with the bravado.

  “I see. Yes, well, you do make some strong points, Major. Strong. Perhaps . . . perhaps some few precautionary measures—nothing extreme or alarming to the populace, you understand—ought to be carried out?” He looked hopeful.

  Orvenalix sighed.

  “Yes Governor. With your permission I believe I can—”

  “Yes, yes, Major! Very good, excellent! I can leave the matter in your hands, then?”

  “Yes sir.” Orvenalix made a point of glancing at his desk chronometer. “In fact, sir, if you hurry, I think you can still make the unveiling of that new processing plant. I’ve taken the liberty of having a skopter made ready for you. Second deck-level. The pilot is already warmed up. If you hurry, you should make it with minutes to polish your speech.”

  “Why that’s very thoughtful of you, Major!” Washburn relaxed, beamed. “I’ll remember it, you can be sure. And now, gentlebeings . . .”

  Orvenalix and Porsupah stood as the Governor left the room. When the door had snapped shut behind the planet’s chief executive, both eased back into their seats.

  “It is not in my crop to be angry at the man. He is one of those who refuse to recognize the possibility of their own impotence.”

  Porsupah looked at his superior curiously. “Do you think you can do anything, Major?”

  Orvenalix swiveled and depressed several studs on a panel set flush into the desk. The triangular head turned slightly, compound eyes faceting the light.

  “No more than I think our good Governor will make his unveiling. That chronometer is set forty minutes slow. Two things, Lieutenant. Firstly, while I believed your report, I confess to having some hesitation . . .”

  “But sir, we . . .!”

  “Relax, Lieutenant, relax. Understand thy position. Visitations by alien monstrosities are not common in our well-organized universe. But then I received these . . .” He pushed a sheaf of reports across the table, over the map. “Following all those disaster claims, I decided to try and obtain visual corroboration. I ordered a pair of aircraft to imago the AAnn station, agreement or not. Such proof would also provide backing for any action I felt required to take—with or without his Governorship’s permission. But it’s better this way . . . Apparently some of the automatic weapons there are still in operation, because the two planes were fired upon. However, imagos and frozepix of the island were obtained. The devastation is incredible. Not a structure left standing, half the vegetation flattened, great gaping holes in the ground—utter chaos . . .

  The second thing is this. On returning, the two pilots were ordered to criss-cross the undersea route the creature is believed to be taking. Even if the thing stuck to deep water, it was hoped they might get a glimpse of it . . . Only one plane returned. The pilot was completely catatonic. When he didn’t respond, the controllers took over and landed the plane on automatics. The healer’s can’t do a thing for him. That’s where he is now, in the Rectory hospital. I’m told he may never recover . . . Something burned out his brain, Lieutenant. Too much input. Cerebral overload.”

  The speaker set into the desk at the Major’s right crackled, formed words.

  “Your straight-line call is now being put through, sir. Channels have been cleared. There will be a normal delay.” Something beeped and the voice went away.

  “Priority call?” queried Porsupah, interested.

  “The nearest task force of respectable size, Lieutenant, is based on Tundra V. Further off than I’d like, but there’s no reason for anything closer. And I’m not going to fool around asking for a cruiser from here, a korvette there. This requires action at the fleet level, and I intend that we shall have it!”

  “A task force? But our resurrected advisor claims that any physical attack on our part will only provoke the monster to action.”

  “I’ve heard of this other. Be that as it may,” said Orvenalix softly, “what else am I to do? Should I fail to defend my nest post I would be forever barred from it. I am nest-mother here by proxy. I will not sit idly by while this thing approaches and not prepare to meet it. Warning or not.” There was a second beep, high-pitched, from the speaker.

  Speaker and vidscreen cleared together. An elderly thranx, with curved-in antennae and chiton aged a tyrolean purple, gazed out at them. There was no hint of age in his voice, though. Although it was hazy from being bounced through at least a dozen relay stations.

  “Ashvenarya here.”

  “Orvenalix, Major, commanding Rectory,
Repler III. How are you, Admiral?”

  “Let you know after you explain this nonsense about a class one emergency in your spatial vicinity requiring task-force response.”

  “I doubt if you’d believe it if you saw it, Admiral. Though I haven’t and I do.”

  “So far you haven’t convinced me of much, Major.”

  “Class one requires no explanation, sir. Even priority transfer can leak.”

  There was a brief pause at the other end.

  “All right, Major. You’re proper and correct. I’ll have a cruiser and a squadron of stingships dispatched . . .”

  “Negative, Admiral. Full task force, with every battlewagon you can muster. I said class one, I mean class one. Full task force, or it might as well be a complimentary card expressing best wishes for my health. Stingships haven’t the firepower.”

  “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone argue with stingships’ firepower. That I can use as justification. I hope you’re not just knotting your antennae, Major.”

  “I’m perfectly sane.”

  “Yes. Well, the ships will be on their way to you in one hour, HH standard. And I also hope, Major, that you can back up this request to the task-force commander, or you’ll be back at central student HQ doing logic terminations.”

  “I think I can do that sir.”

  “I hope so, because I’ll be commanding it.” The connection snapped off.

  “Sir,” came another voice from the speaker, “Tundra V has broken communication. Shall I attempt to restore . . .?”

  “Thank you operator, no. Communication ended.” He turned to face Porsupah. “Do you pray, Tolian?”

  “Occasional meditation. I haven’t the inclination for prayer.”

  “Then it might be an idea to find someone who does, because I can’t suspend belief long enough to, either. And I like to be covered all ways.”

  “I’ve never heard a class one call before, sir.” In spite of himself, Porsupah was a little awed.

  “Class three’s a threat to the Commonwealth. Class two a threat to the Church. Class one is a threat to the race.”

  “Any particular race?”

  “Ought to read the Book, Lieutenant. The race of reason, of course.”

  The AAnn did not sweat, so the engineer’s exhaustion was not particularly visible, except to another AAnn. “The transmitters still work, Excellence, Oasis knows how. And we have some emergency power.”

  “Thank you, Engineer First.” The Commander limped slightly. His left leg had been badly bruised by a falling beam as he and the others had scrambled for the safety of the maximum security shelter buried in the center of the island.

  The shelter had been built to take thermonuclear attack and anything else short of direct hit by a SCCAM shell. It had—apparently—protected them from the overwhelming fury of the monster. Perhaps thirty had survived. Thirty, out of the complex’s entire complement. Thirty, plus one.

  “You sure did have something you wanted kept secret, didn’t you?” said Dominic Rose. The old man’s talent for surviving had preserved him once more. When the destruction began, he’d stuck close to the Commander, reasoning correctly that the most important being on the island would head straight for the safest place. In a fair fight he’d have done just the opposite, knowing the AAnn. Parquit noticed he still held the slim, deadly metal case in one hand.

  “ ‘Pears your brain-boys didn’t calculate too well.”

  At another moment, drug or not, Parquit might have turned and with great pleasure ripped the human from throat to groin. As it was, he had neither the mood nor the inclination.

  “To say we have underestimated the creature and its abilities would be an understatement of sufficient magnitude to make the Lord of all Nests shudder in his cave. We knew some of the thing’s talents, yes, but little of its potential. And we believed its intelligence that of a high-order domesticated animal. We were wrong. Wrong everywhere. I confess to puzzlement as to why it does not continue on and destroy us as well. I have not the faith in that shelter some did.”

  “Seemed like a pretty secure sheltering to me,” Rose said.

  Parquit spared him a contemptuous glance, waved at the destruction all around. “For a manifestation of the normal universe, yes. Do you really believe mere metal and alloy saved your miserable life? I think it not. The monster left for reasons of its own. For which I am grateful. It gives us a chance.”

  He stepped gingerly over a flat length of metal that had been one of the foundation beams supporting a transparent roof. It was flattened like straw.

  Parquit reached the remains of control. The Tower was completely gone, but some of the equipment in the lower portions had survived. He leaned over the engineer fourth working there. “Well, manipulator, what say you to a link-up?”

  “If our orbiting station can handle the first connection and boost what’s left of our signal sufficiently, I say yes, Excellence.”

  “And what does the orbiter say?”

  “He says maybe.”

  “Do this thing, and I will lay first sand in your lodge with my own hands. And feed your first-born from the Emperor’s preserves.”

  “It will be done, Excellence!”

  The entity Parquit was so anxious to talk to, with the ruins of his command still smoking about him, was named Douwrass N, Prince-of-the-Circle, the Emperor’s Long Fang for the fourteenth quadrant of the Empire.

  The request he made had fewer light-years to travel than that of a certain officer of the Church, but was essentially the same. For example, preservation took precedence over protection.

  Prince-of-the-Circle agreed. He also questioned, for he had stronger reason than Ashvenarya.

  “Your life is balanced in this, Parquit RAM. Not that that is of consequence.”

  “Naturally, Highness,” said Parquit.

  “But mine also will go under the Emperor’s paw for consideration. That is of consequence. Yet I cannot argue with your need. I have access to the original reports of discovery of the creature and have been following your special project with some little interest. I regret its demise and that there are none responsible left to chastise properly among the so-called scientists.”

  “Do not blame the Passed, Highness. They were outclassed. We all were.”

  “Perhaps. One thing worries me, though, Commander. It is not to be anticipated that the humanx will react with welcomes and hosannas to the appearance of an AAnn battle fleet in one of their frontier systems. Not to mention a subsequent request for said fleet to use nuclear engines on the territory.”

  “Logical,” Parquit replied. He winced. The pain in his left leg was worse. “Yet I believe they’d eventually be thankful. Not that we can expect a lower species to act in a civilized fashion. That is not the important thing. What I must impress upon you, Highness, is that the destruction of this creature supercedes everything else. There is a belief that it is somehow capable of traversing interstellar and possibly even intergalactic space. It grows daily in power. It must be destroyed now, here, before it can manifest abilities we cannot begin to comprehend . . . You may have noticed in the reports how it ignores the fury of a full laser with seemingly no ill effects. It is apparently also immune now to enormous electrical impulses and various other destructive energies.”

  “It was right that you contacted me,” said the Prince. “Instructions will be relayed to the Eighth battle fleet to proceed at maximum displacement to Repler. I place my good hand, the Baron Riidi WW, in command. An attempt will be made by shuttle to remove you and the other survivors from the station.”

  “We are grateful, Highness.”

  “It is not a matter of gratefulness,” the Prince replied sternly. “You and the others are all who remain who have observed the creature first hand. I expect it to be destroyed on the planet. Yet I must consider all possibilities, including the impossible. If feasible, your knowledge should be saved.”

  “It is so recognized, Highness. It is not to be inferre
d that I slavishly offer thanks. I shall be grateful because I should be most amused to hear the humanx not only agree to, but request, bombardment by ships of the Emperor of one of their own planets.”

  “I had not considered so,” said the Prince. “The Axis of the Universe is Irony. Clean killing, Commander.”

  “Clean killing, Highness.”

  The Vom had arrived in the waters outside Repler City. It floated near the surface like a thick oil slick, roiling, folding in and out upon itself, feeding on the small lives of the bottom and the larger silver swimmers. In the several hours since it had made a cursory inspection of the water-front, more out of curiosity than purpose, it had been fired on by a multitude of exotic weaponry of different types and theoretically murderous capabilities. Peot’s fears had not been realized, and in some ways it was worse because of that. The monster had ignored the efforts of the humanx defenders. It could take them when it wished and made the fact obvious. It was depressing.

  The harborfront had been sealed off by police when the creature had appeared. The majority of the citizenry was aware only that something unusual was taking place at the harbor. A minor disturbance, perhaps a devil-fish attack. Nothing to get excited about. Go about your business, citizens.

  It could not be concealed for long, however, that there was no devil-fish smashing insanely into boats and rafts and that the nuisance was in fact anything but minor. At that point Orvenalix, peaceforcer Mailloux, and the Governor would have the additional burden of a general panic on their hands.

  Although it was a frightening thing to observe the monster’s complete indifference to repeated assault, Orvenalix was prepared for it. Porsupah told him such would likely be the result.

  What did disturb him was a related incident with more sinister implications.

  While the creature was prowling half-submerged about the docks, a single shuttle was launched on its way skyward. The craft had managed to gain only a few hundred meters when it had abruptly wavered, veered crazily, and crashed into the shallow water north of the shuttle-port. All inquiries from the port controller had been greeted with deathly silence.