“Bad dog,” I grunted. The beast howled and dropped to the ground writhing in pain and clutching at its ruined eyes.
Around us the raid continued, although the sounds had already begun to diminish. Real resistance is something that these curs prefer to avoid. At the edges of my awareness I could feel, rather than see, a number of the wolfoids had already pulled away from the village, leaving only small pockets of ongoing combat.
One of the remaining wolfoids bit down onto the left hand of Steven-26, seeking to tear flesh and rip the delicacy loose. There was a gristly crunch and blood sprayed from the mutant’s mouth. My eyes widened as bits of broken teeth sprayed out and its pain-filled eyes rolled in its head. The wolfoid howled in agony. Steven-26 cut its cries short, catching it by the neck with the very same hand and squeezing, methodically closing his fingers more and more tightly, crushing the wolfoid’s throat.
The flesh on the back of Steven-26’s hand hung in tatters. Beneath the veneer of wolfoid blood I could see that Steven-26 was not merely “not human,” but not truly “alive” either. Now I knew the secret of the Stevens – they were androids.
“Interesting,” I muttered to myself.
The android shot a look in my direction, clearly having heard. He clamped his right hand over his left and gave a belated cry of pain. He shot me a wink. I returned it in kind. One of the important survival tricks I’d picked up over the years is that discovering secrets tends to be far less fatal if you can be trusted to keep those same secrets. Fortunately, Jan-Tar had been too preoccupied to notice.
Just as the last of the wolfoids was driven back, I saw the lights in the dark-cycle sky. I looked to Jan-Tar and he too was staring upwards, slack-jawed as something sped by high overhead. It moved far too quickly to give chase, but we both could see the direction from which it had come. I glanced towards Steven-26, his left hand already covered with a bandage fashioned from his tunic. He gave me a shooing motion.
“Go,” he said. “It’ll be coming back this way in roughly three hours. Take the head start you’ve got and make the most of it.”
I looked towards Jan-Tar and he nodded. “They can tend to their wounds. We still need to track that thing to its lair.”
Jan-Tar still thought we were hunting some unknown beast, but I knew better. As the lights passed overhead I caught the scent: a faint whiff of ozone.
***
In retrospect, rushing off into the darkness that had so recently been occupied was a poor move on our part. It would stand to reason that a wolfoid hunting party, recently repelled from a village, might seek to avenge such an indignity on anyone that they came across. So when we – literally – ran into the group of wolfoids? Well, what happened wasn’t good.
I quickly lost track of Jan-Tar amidst the confusion. Some wolfoids had scrambled for weapons while others had simply rushed to attack. I did what I could to fend them off while trying to catch a glimpse of my man. When I finally tried to leap to safety, I was caught in a net and bludgeoned unconscious.
When I awoke, I found myself lying on the ground, bound tight. Nearby I could hear a number of the wolfoids arguing about what to do with me. Since they are partial to the flesh of humanoid mutants, I wasn’t high on their list of things to eat. In fact, some seem positively repulsed by the idea of eating the “bug-dog”. Others though were positively drooling at my all-too-human left paw. I blinked a few times in an attempt to clear my throbbing head. I was lucky to be alive. I caught the scent of Jan-Tar next to me and my heart raced. I struggled to roll over to face him and my heart stopped.
The scent was coming from a severed left hand clenched in the muzzle of a lone wolfoid, obviously left to guard me. He tore away a particularly tasty bit and swallowed it with relish as he stared down tauntingly. He made eye-contact, a fatal mistake. As he opened his jaws to howl in pain, I froze the interior of his mouth. He gagged on icicles made of his own saliva. I felt no remorse and offered no pity; he died in silence. Working quickly I froze the ropes binding my forelegs and then untied myself and fled. It wasn’t long before the wolfoids noticed my absence and gave chase. Battered and injured, I knew I could not evade them forever. I needed a plan. I offered a silent prayer to the Cap’tahn as I rushed through the cool dark-cycle air.
The answer to my prayer nearly killed me.
***
Belcher toads can kill most things that they come across. Nearly two meters in length, the massive amphibian could have swallowed me whole, but that wasn’t the greatest danger. The mutant’s back seethed with a number of softly glowing warts capable of releasing clouds of deadly reproductive spores.
I was saved by the fact that the toad was facing away from me as I came upon it, and it was unable to simply lash out with its tongue and envelop me. As it hoppingly turned towards me, I went sailing over its head. The wolfoids behind me found themselves charging directly at it. The first one died instantly. I figured the killer spores would finish the rest. There were no sounds of pursuit. I raced through the darkness.
I was alone.
***
The dark of the sky above receded with the coming of the light-cycle’s glow. I had not seen the lights pass by overhead again, but I couldn’t be certain of how long I’d been an unconscious prisoner of the wolfoids. I was exhausted, my fur matted with blood and filth. My gear harness hung low, one strap dug into my flesh while the other flagged loosely. I stopped and pulled it from me, dropping it to the ground before me. I dug through what little remained and found some dried meat. I sniffed it - sh’poid. Pretty pungent sh’poid, at that. Way too pungent. I sniffed the air again.
The scent wasn’t that of the jerky.
I fought the urge to bark, swallowing the excited exclamation and instead crept forward through the brush. I bumped into something I couldn’t see, some sort of invisible wall. After the initial surprise, I pushed back in, turning my head so I could press an eye against the unseen blockage. Beyond the brush, and the barrier, was a pasture filled to near overflowing with sh’poids and, on a small rise in the middle, stood a single shepherd. As I watched, the shepherd turned his gaze towards where I lay hidden and raised a fist towards me. He uncurled one finger as he rotated his hand, and beckoned me towards him.
It turned out that the invisible wall was more of an invisible fence that was merely a meter high. It was tall enough to contain the sh’poids, but not enough to pose any real imposition. Moving through the flock, on the other hand, was a different story. The sh’poids were pressed together, jostling one another while they tried to graze. I struggled to push through them. I’d never seen so many sh’poids in one place. After a few minutes I arrived at the oddly-clear rise and looked up at the shepherd in his striped robe.
The shepherd smelled like the Stevens.
He looked down at me, his gaze moving across the multi-colored bands on my forelegs. “Greetings Engineer Porter, Officer Hanshaw, Doctor Cooper, Ranger Collins, Administrator Hadden, and Colonist Penisi.” The shepherd paused and scowled ever so slightly. “You are only one individual, yet you have many identities. Explain.”
I stared at the shepherd for a moment, my muzzle agape. The android just might be crazy. “I am none of those people. I’m Mitzi.”
The shepherd nodded for a moment and looked again at my bands. Was it my imagination, or did the strange symbols on them briefly flicker with light?
“Intriguing,” he said. “Designations now corrected and properly encoded, Engineer-Officer-Doctor-Ranger-Administrator-Colonist Mitzi.” He paused again before resuming his questioning. “How may I be of assistance, Engineer-Officer-Doctor-Ranger-Admin…?”
“Just call me Mitzi,” I interrupted. “It will save us a great deal of time.”
The shepherd turned his gaze back outwards towards the flock. “Agreed. How may I be of assistance, Mitzi?”
“Well,” I started, “I suppose you could return the stolen sh’poids to their villages.”
Without looking at me, the shepherd responded, “Al
l misappropriated sh’poids have now been returned to Pasture A47/12.” There was a long silence before he… it continued. “I must inquire as to why you think that there are sh’poids incorrectly designated to this pasture.”
“I followed the sh’poids here.” I edged away from the shepherd slightly, “They don’t belong here.”
That got the shepherd’s attention. “Despite missing data tags, genetic scans have confirmed that this is indeed my flock. I have merely brought them back to their designated pasture.”
I sighed. Sure, that was an explanation. It was an explanation that made no sense, but the shepherd seemed to think that it sufficed. “People need those sh’poids, they want them back.” I gently explained. “Those are their food, their sources of clothing, things that they rely on for survival.”
For the briefest of moments, the shepherd’s eyes flashed red.
“I will defend my flock from all threats.” Its intonations hadn’t changed, but there was a sense of menace to its words. “If need be, I will preemptively take action against the possibility of future predation.”
“Meaning what?” I asked.
The android turned its gaze to me. “Meaning I will simply eradicate all of the predators that pose a risk to my flock.”
The not-so-veiled threat hung in the air between us. We locked gazes. I looked away first. The shepherd unnerved me and this conversation was getting me nowhere. I needed to try something new. We were silent for about an hour while it looked over its flock and I struggled to find a new line of conversation. The stillness was broken by the sound of my stomach rumbling.
The shepherd addressed me, its gaze never wavering from the flock. “You may find sustenance below…Mitzi.” There was a grinding sound and a part of the mound opened up to reveal a ramp descending into near darkness.
I may have released another small trace of fear.
***
Pleased as I was to be away from the shepherd, the area below was unnerving. Lit by a dim glow, the ramp went 10 meters before leveling out somewhere beneath the pasture. It was like a small village here, if the world were reversed, a world were broad expanses were replaced by containment and only the interiors of the village existed. The world was closing in on me and I most certainly did not like it.
Still, I was amidst a wealth of artifacts that looked to have been undisturbed since the time of the ancients. I struggled to wrap my mind around how much good this trove could bring if brought out and used. There were things I recognized – such as the pale boxes with the dark crosses on them – and many things that I did not. Sitting back on my haunches, I finally ate my piece of jerky (actually sh’poid, as it turned out) and contemplated the state of things.
I was sitting in the underworld amidst a treasure trove, while above, an android shepherd watched over the primary food supply taken from at least four villages. While I could certainly attempt to overpower the shepherd, watching the wolfoids try to take down Steven-26 made me realize how unlikely success at such an endeavor might be. Further, it might cause the shepherd to “preemptively take action against the possibility of future predation.”
I shuddered.
Its meaning was clear. If pressed, it would just start killing anything that it saw as a potential threat, and anyone trying to lay claim to some of the sh’poids would certainly fall into that category. I rose and began to meander through the subterranean system. A voice came from the darkness.
“Greetings, Engineer-Officer-Doctor-Ranger-Administrator-Colonist Mitzi.” The voice had similar inflections to those of the Stevens and the shepherd. “Welcome to Dining Hall C47/12b. What may we serve you?”
“Hello?” I called out tentatively. There was no ozone scent in the air, and I didn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean much. “Who’s there?”
“Invalid response, please clarify. Welcome to Dining Hall C47/12b. What may we serve you?” The voice seemed to emanate from the very walls.
I paused and pondered. Was this voice asking me what I wanted to eat? “I don’t know,” I finally replied.
“Serving today’s menu selection: chicken with boiled potatoes and carrots.”
There was a painful sounding grinding noise as a portion of the wall fought to open, slowly sliding to one side. Out of it emerged a tray covered in several forms of foul smelling mush, followed by another tray, and another. Each tray of muck pushed the prior tray of muck off of a small ledge and onto the floor. The stench was overwhelming.
Even as I recoiled from the smell, my mind was turning. I had, perhaps, a solution.
***
“Welcome back, Mitzi,” said the shepherd. “I hope you are refreshed from your meal.”
I nearly dry heaved, thinking about that putrescence as a meal. “I am,” I lied. “But I was giving thought to your problem while I was eating.”
“Problem?” The shepherd turned towards me. “I am unaware of any problem. Explain.”
“Oh, I was unaware that you hadn’t understood the gravity of your situation.” I couldn’t resist the dig. I may be “man’s best friend,” but even my patience has its limits, especially within hours of losing another human. “You have too many sh’poids in a confined area. This pasture cannot support this many and soon they will starve – if disease and stress from overcrowding don’t kill them first.” There, I had him. All I needed to do now was press my line of reasoning and—
That’s when the wolfoids arrived.
The belcher toad hadn’t killed them after all. They did seem momentarily nonplussed by the invisible fence, and no few of them tripped over it before they understood what was happening, but once they understood, they began simply leaping over it and into the pasture. As I watched, I realized that there were a lot more wolfoids than there had been previously. The survivors had gone for reinforcements. The wolfoids now moved through the flock of sh’poids, beginning to kill feverishly and indiscriminately.
The shepherd was not amused. “Initiating primary response for widespread predator pack incursion.” It moved, almost as if simply taking actions by rote. It took its crook in both hands and held it aloft. “Engaging.”
A thin beam of energy lanced out in an arc in front of the shepherd, striking a number of the wolfoids. Their pale fur darkened where the energy struck them, but then, when the arc of energy halted, their fur lightened again. There had been no effect. I scanned the pasture and noted that wolfoids were closing in from all sides, at least two of them carrying artifacts that I presumed to be weapons.
The largest of the wolfoids looked down at its fur and gave a growling laugh. It stopped, sweeping a device upwards and pointing it at the shepherd. I recognized the device to be a protein disruptor and immediately leapt away from the shepherd and into the flock. The bolt caught the shepherd square in the chest, dissolving the upper fleeces of several sh’poids along the way. The shepherd’s simple robe was destroyed and its flesh was boiled away.
I don’t know who was more surprised by what had just happened. The shepherd certainly hadn’t expected that, but the wolfoids and I were likely equally astonished by the grim metal thing that stood in the shepherd’s place. Was that what androids really looked like under their skin?
The confident look on the wolfoid’s snout faltered and I could smell a trace of fear come from it as what once had been the shepherd simply moved through the sh’poids as if there was no obstacle. In moments the shepherd stood before the massive beast. There was a blur of motion and then the android was still again, blood dripping from its crook. The wolfoid’s fur darkened again, but this time the lines continued to spread as the mutant slid into a number of pieces.
The rest of the pack howled in rage and charged both the shepherd and, since I was between some of them and their target, me. My hackles raised as strange energies crackled through the air. I ducked down onto my belly, using the sh’poids for cover but knew that would only provide a momentary respite. I felt, rather than saw, one of the wolfoids close in. Without thinking, I bit him,
clenching my teeth into his leg. The creature howled and drew his leg back, leaving me a mouthful of fur and flesh. I spat it out. If this was to be the end, I’d face it with shining teeth.
Across the pasture, the android held a number of the wolfoids at bay, weaving an array of destruction around itself with the crook. As it did, it continued uttering strange incantations and I can only presume that the Cap’tahn himself responded. The sky overhead darkened, the air filled with strange energies, the temperature fluctuated wildly, and at one point a swarm of black motes – each just an inky black pinprick in reality – rained down against the android’s assailants. Some of its attacks were successful, but just as many of them weren’t. The wolfoids were gaining ground against it while a second and third wolfoid joined the one trying to root me out.
I closed my eyes for a moment to make my peace with the Cap’tahn before the end came.
There was a sudden roaring cry from the edge of the pasture, and there, standing on the fence with his spear raised aloft in his one hand, stood Jan-Tar. Then in that reckless, fearless, and absolutely glorious way that only a human can, he charged into the fray. The Wolfoids pressing me were momentarily distracted and I took the opportunity to redouble my efforts. I wasn’t going to roll over; Jan-Tar and I were going to fight side by side once more.
As my human and I fought tooth, claw, spear, and fist against our foes, the very cornerstones of reality seemed to be unraveling around the rest of the combat: sh’poids briefly floated into the air before dropping back down, fire and steaming hail showered from above, the flesh of one of the wolfoids ran like hot wax before solidifying.
As Jan-Tar and I stood back to back, I realized that the greatest danger to our people was not the wolfoids. It was not even the loss of the sh’poids. It was the shepherd. Could we really co-exist with a creature capable of wielding such powers? Wave after wave of enraged wolfoids were throwing themselves against the android and, while they were slowly forcing the android backwards, dozens of them lay dead or dying. If they’d had a large enough pack, perhaps – just perhaps – they might’ve been able to defeat it, but right now it was just a matter of time before they all joined the pile.
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