by James Axler
“Damn this creature, why does it not respond our directions?” Markos yelled as he and Elias tried to form a pincer movement that would direct the creature back toward its own pen. To the sec boss’s intense annoyance, the goat failed to yield to his direction. With a bleat of fear mixed with triumph, it slipped under his outstretched arms and ran free once more.
“It is a free spirit, and not one of your lackeys that you can direct like a machine,” returned Elias with a throaty laugh as he watched the creature circle the pigpen, scattering squealing pigs in his wake.
“Then if it is like you, think like the goat and give me a suggestion that has more practicality,” Markos snarled in frustration.
“Things not going so well?” Mildred announced her arrival with a comment that failed to keep the amusement from her voice.
“I’m glad that you find it a source of pleasure that we struggle to prepare for our travels,” Markos snapped with a petulance and pomposity that showed how hard he was struggling to keep his dignity.
“Lighten up.” Elias laughed. “Man versus beast and beast is winning…there’s a lesson in there somewhere, I’m sure.”
The goat came hurtling out of the pen, yelping after a bite on its hind quarters from an enraged pig had left it floundering. Sensing their chance to drive it out, the pigs had united into a driving force that had, like a sentient battering ram, forced it toward the gate of the pen.
The terrified creature, skirting around Markos and Elias, too startled and surprised to react in time, headed for the open woods beyond the pens. It was also heading straight toward Mildred.
In the fraction of a second she had, Mildred dropped to her haunches and looked the goat in the eye. Its wild, glassy eyes showed nothing except terror. It wasn’t seeing anything in front, merely running blind. Unfortunately, it also gave her little idea of which direction it would take to get past her.
She would have to guess. The goat was upon her, and on some instinctive level she saw it begin to sway toward the left as it shifted balance to swerve around the obstruction in its path. As it passed, she threw herself to the right and grabbed it around the neck. She had only the one chance and she had to make it count. She grasped the tensed muscles of the creature’s neck, feeling the hardness of its tendons and flesh beneath the greasy coat. It resisted her attempt to dig in for a firm hold, and she found her fingers slipping on the heavy oil of the goat’s hair.
“Oh, no, you bastard, you’re not getting away and making me look like an idiot,’ she muttered as she clung on for dear life, wrapping herself around the beast, slowing its momentum and dragging it down. She felt it wriggle and whip like a snake beneath her, bleating in a mixture of fear and anger as it found itself constrained.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry, it’s okay,” she repeated over and over in soothing tones as she held on to the goat. Around her, the livestock farmers were penning those pigs that had escaped and calming those that had remained. Things were returning to a calm mirrored by the creature she still held: its thumping heart against her own chest beginning to slow.
“I think you may cease to grip so closely. I’m sure Markos won’t want you to smell too much of goat. Or maybe he would,” Elias said with heavy humor and a sly glance at the sec boss as he took the goat by the neck, gently guiding it back toward its own pen after Mildred released her grip.
“I know one thing for sure. I could do with a bath already,” she said as she rose, attempting to dust herself down but finding she was covered in an almost adhesive layer of goat grease and farm yard mud.
“Why are you here?” Markos asked brusquely and without ceremony, trying to cover his embarrassment at Elias’s blatant amusement.
“Sineta sent me to check how things were going. She’s with her father again.”
Markos nodded solemnly. “I fear it cannot be long now.”
“Frightened he’s going to buy the farm without naming you?” Elias asked as he returned to them. Although his tone was seemingly light, there was an element of malice shot through.
“You would dare speak of the baron in such a manner—” Markos began, visibly bristling.
“It doesn’t matter how he speaks of him,” Mildred cut in. “It doesn’t change what’s happening or why I’m here. So, how are things going?” She was in no mood to listen to the two men sparring for points, and her last question was delivered in a manner that would brook no argument.
Markos told her briefly that the penning of the livestock was going well, had been going very well until the point at which she had arrived, and that they were on target to be ready for the appointed date. He then pointed out that he should be elsewhere, and excused himself.
“Seems like he can’t wait to get away,” Elias remarked as they watched the sec boss leave. His implication was clear and Mildred found herself taking a strong dislike to the giant beside her.
“Might be more than one reason,” she said pointedly. “So, you want to stop being interested in things that aren’t your concern and show me what I want to know?”
Elias nodded and began to lead her around the pens and the area covered by the livestock farm. Sensing the guarded hostility in her stance, he changed his tone and was serious as he gave her a full report of the livestock farming activities. When he had finished, and they had come full circle, he excused himself, saying that he had to carry on with his allotted task. It was only then that a certain amount of sarcasm filtered through into his voice, causing Mildred to watch his back with a degree of skepticism as he turned and walked away.
Something told her that his anger and dislike of Markos had been turned on her, as well. There was something about the giant that made her wary, but it wasn’t anything that she could pin down exactly, which made it all the more unsettling.
Mildred stood watching him for a moment, then turned and walked back toward the ville. To return to the baron’s quarters and Sineta, she had to walk through the housing on the edge of the ville. At this time of day—it was now midmorning—this part of the ville was deserted, the populous being either occupied at the center, the beach, the farms, or out hunting. It was quiet, and Mildred walked freely, pondering what role Elias played in the drama of Pilatu. She was aware that he was Markos’s rival for Sineta’s hand, and why Barras had made him such; she also knew that the baron’s daughter didn’t trust him. To what lengths would he go to gain power now that the Pilatans were to move to the whitelands, particularly in view of his rival Markos’s own opinions?
It was a measure of Mildred’s distraction at the manner in which she had become embroiled within the culture and politics of Pilatu that she had slipped into a reverie despite the attack a few nights before. Her attention wasn’t focused on the outside world, and it was only when chippings from the adobe wall to her left hit her ear, and she saw the cloud of dust thrown up by impact, that she realized that she was being fired upon.
Any cogitation on island politics was pushed to the back of her mind as instinct took over. Mildred threw herself forward into a roll, eyes darting back and forth for a place to take shelter. Where the hell was the firing coming from? Another shot pockmarked the earth in front of her, throwing up another cloud of dust.
Mildred thanked the Lord that whoever was firing at her had lousy aim, and tumbled toward the doorway of a house. She was acutely aware that whoever had fired had access to the armory for the simple reason that the shots had made no sound. Whoever was shooting had a blaster with a fitted silencer. Even in the almost total silence of the deserted street, there was no sound to alert her or to give her an indication of position. The only thing she was able to determine was that her assailant must be some distance away for even a silenced blaster to be silent.
She jerked away and narrowly avoided receiving a splinter through her eye when the next shot took a chunk out of the door frame where she was taking shelter. Time to move out.
As she scuttled across the street, keeping low and moving quickly, trying to present as small and
awkward a target as possible, she figured that he had to be firing from somewhere over to the right. From the low angle of the shots, he had to be fairly high. In one of the houses or on top? Taking a second to glance up as she moved, she could see no one on the rooftops. But could she stop to scan enough to take in distance? After all, he had to be some distance away.
No time. Another shot hit the dirt in front of her, kicking up a cloud.
Where the hell could she go? There were no open doors, and if the ones she tried were locked, she would present an easy target in the time it would take her to find this out. Dammit, where could she go? Maybe she could double back and try to make the last alley she had passed. If she took the one on the right, it would make for an almost impossible angle and her assailant would have to reveal himself in some way to get a better shot at her.
She turned back, spinning on her heel. It was a clumsy maneuver when she was still trying to keep low and small, but the sudden change of direction should—she hoped—compensate for how slow it would make her. A hope that was confirmed when the next shot hit the wall of a house farther in front of the direction she had turned from. It could buy her the few moments she would need to make the alley.
However, the assassin had to have had reflexes that were better than his aim, as the next shot hit the wall beside her.
“Shit!” she cursed, not expecting to have her direction tracked with such speed. She could see the alley up ahead to her left after she had reversed direction. It was only a few yards away.
Mildred felt a stinging blow across her forehead, as though someone had tried to carve their initials with a red-hot poker across her head. She was aware of nothing else except the ground coming up the short distance to meet her.
She didn’t feel herself hit. She was already unconscious.
IT WAS ONE HELL of a headache. She didn’t think she had been out for long, but it had been long enough—certainly long enough for two sets of footsteps to approach her from the same direction.
Part of her wanted to cry out to them for help, but a small voice inside told her to play possum until she was sure they were friend not foe. It was the right call.
“Is she chilled?” someone murmured. It was a voice she couldn’t quite identify because it whispered, but it was familiar. The other, when it replied, was immediately identifiable.
“She’s not moving, and not talking, and that’s something for which we must be joyous,” Elias said in a quiet voice barely louder than his companion’s.
“This is not the time for humor,” snapped the unidentified voice. Mildred desperately wanted to open an eye to see who it was, but knew this would bring certain death.
“Who said I was being particularly funny?” Elias returned. “She talks too much, and is a pain in the proverbial ass, whether you mean posterior or animal. She’s come between Barras, Sineta and my attempts to wheedle my way into that loathsome woman’s favor. The only good thing I can see about her, as far as I’m concerned, is that she’s taken your brother’s mind off being my competition.”
“Do not bandy words or push whatever luck you may have left,” the second voice raged, attempting to keep a low voice despite the level of rage causing his words to be little more than a venomous hiss.
So the second voice belonged to the albino Chan? Mildred found it hard not to show any amazement as she lay there. The arbiter of integration and the prophet of separatism made for strange bedfellows. What could have brought them together, and why was their venom directed toward her?
More to the point, what the hell was she going to do lying here playing possum with two enemies upon her, at least one of whom was armed?
They were within feet of her now and would soon determine that she was still alive. Not for long, she was sure. But as long as they kept arguing, it gave her some time to think.
“I wouldn’t get overexcited if I was you,” Elias said with that sardonic calm that Mildred had found so infuriating earlier and that seemed to have the same effect on his uneasy ally. “I believe it was my shot that actually claimed the bitch, rather than yours. That gives me the moral advantage, I believe.”
“You?” Chan spit. “You have no idea of what the word even means. Do not talk to me of such matters. This is pragmatism, pure and simple.”
“Of course, whatever you say…and your motives are pure at heart, are they?” Elias mocked.
“My motives are not your concern, although they are fuelled by the likes of yourself.”
Elias sighed. “Whatever you say. I would suggest, however, that rather than discuss philosophy with this creature sprawled in front of us, we would be better employed disposing of her.”
Chan snorted. “We haven’t even checked whether or not she is breathing.”
“Then all the more reason to do so. If she’s still alive, we carry her off and finish the job where we’re going to dispose of her. I don’t have any particular desire to be caught with the half-chilled or chilled by any of your brother’s lackeys. Even you would find that hard to explain to him. Besides, I have plans for her.”
There was something in the tone of his voice that made Mildred want to shiver, something she was barely able to suppress. At least they didn’t plan to chill her then and there when they inevitably discovered that she was still alive. It would buy her a little more time, and that was all she had.
She felt a foot prod at her, tentatively, and with some disgust that managed to communicate itself even into that gesture. She stayed limp and allowed the sharp toe of the booted foot to jab her several more times in the ribs without giving way to the desire to gasp at the pain.
“Still breathing—I can see that—but not responding. She’s either unconscious or playing. If the latter, then I’ll just emphasize to you that you keep that blaster trained on her and blow her fucking head off at zero range regardless if she so much as makes a move,” Elias commented.
She stayed still and silent, allowing the giant to turn her over. He was as strong as he looked, for she felt the lightness of his touch as he flipped her over with ease. She felt blood from the crease along her forehead run back into her plaits and was thankful it didn’t run down to her eyes. That would make the next part of her act easier.
“No surprise that she is unconscious,” Chan muttered, “not with a graze such as that.”
“Pity it wasn’t a straighter shot and took the bitch out with a blast through the brain,” Elias returned with venom. “Now, my sweet little child, let’s just see how far from conscious you really are.”
As he spoke she felt the hard pad of his thumb on her eyelid. She rolled her eyeball back into her head, which took considerable effort to keep it there as he held her eye open for some time. She wasn’t sure how long she could keep it rolled back.
“Yes, I would say that she is well and truly unconscious,” Elias pronounced with some satisfaction. “Now we should get her out of here. It’s far too public for my taste. There will be some blood on the ground. When I lift her, scuff the earth to cover it.”
“I am not as stupe as you seem to believe,” Chan returned petulantly. “I had already considered this point.”
Mildred felt herself be lifted up by the giant Elias as though she were nothing more than feather, and was flung unceremoniously over his shoulder. He strode off, each step bumping her stomach on his hard shoulderblade. She could hear the scuffling of Chan’s feet as he covered the bloody signs of her shooting, and then the patter of the lighter man as he ran to catch up with Elias.
Elias was dangerous because of his size and strength. Chan was a lightweight in every way. She had already sized him up as neurotic. But they were two, and she was alone. More than that, she was quite possibly concussed from the bullet crease and may find it hard to act quickly when called upon. And, finally, they were both armed, and she wasn’t. The only advantage she had was surprise, as they believed her to be unconscious. Somehow, she figured that it wouldn’t be enough.
They walked for some distance, t
he two men bickered all the while. The longer they walked, the more she would learn. But to what end?
“I don’t like this. We should have finished the job there and then,” Chan said.
“And let her be found? There would be an investigation and sooner or later it would be discovered that we have nothing in the way of an alibi. Where would we be then? Would you be able to talk your way out of that with your brother?”
“But the longer we are in possession of the accursed woman, the greater the chances of being caught,” Chan argued.
“Not this way,” Elias said with confidence. “I have watched carefully the patterns of the security patrols, and I know for a fact that there is no work going on out here. The wood for the boats has long since been felled. All we have to do is keep things relatively quiet. Not difficult with these silenced blasters,” he added. “I thought it rather a master stroke to use the one-eyed man’s blaster. If anyone checks the armory, they’ll find it has been recently fired.”
“Would anyone?”
Mildred felt the giant shrug beneath her. “I doubt it, but it would supply a neat and rather confusing finishing touch.”
“You have approached this entirely with an unbecoming sense of humor,” Chan snapped.
“Oh, come now,” Elias replied calmly, “is not the whole thing quite absurd in many aspects? Who would consider the prospect of either of us deigning to work together? You are well-known for your bigoted and inflexible views, whereas I am known for my forward-looking attitude.”
“I—You are the most—”
“And your complete lack of a sense of humor. I really should have added that,” Elias cut across the albino’s protest, almost musing to himself. “However, I will grant that you showed a commendable streak of ingenuity when you came to see me.”
