Through the Reality Warp

by Donald J. Pfeil

  “I don’t give a damn how sore or cut up or tired or weak you are,” Billiard told his protesting gunner, “we’ve got both army and Redhats after us. And if we’re going to get off this ball of mud alive, we’d best haul ass.”

  “Sorry,” Santha murmured once she had a chance to break into Billiard’s tirade, “but I don’t think I can make it.”

  Anger and contempt showing in his expression, he stared at Santha. “Listen,” he said in a deadly voice, “this isn’t some kind of game. We aren’t back on Sutet IX playing bedroom games. If we don’t get off this rock, you’re dead. Not captured, not taken into custody and slapped on the wrist. You’re dead. Nobody told you knocking over the empire was going to be easy. It isn’t—and some of us are going to die doing the job. Eventually we’re all going to die, and probably not of old age. All we can do is stay in there swinging as long as we’re breathing. Well, you’re breathing, and so am I—and now I’m going to start saving my breath for running and hiding and trying to get off this damned planet. And when I can’t run anymore, I’ll go out doing what I came here to do—killing as many Redhats as I can before they kill me.

  “Not that killing them would make any big difference. If we killed every Redhat on this damn planet it probably wouldn’t shorten the war by a day, and it certainly wouldn’t earn us any points in whatever hereafter there might be. But I’ll kill them because that’s what the revolution is all about: a revolution is a simple case of killing or being killed, and sometimes both. But for now we’re damn well going to act like we’re winning this fight. We’ll eat something and drink something, and then you’ll get moving again while I leave our friends a present or three.”

  Even as his anger at Santha’s willing surrender to fatigue and pain churned through his blood, a cold, analytical part of Billiard’s mind was reminding him that what he was saying simply wasn’t true. What was important to him wasn’t the revolution, but the safety of Earth. Billiard knew he would betray the revolution, and even Santha, if need be, to ensure the success of his mission in this universe.

  IV

  When they finished eating, Billiard spent ten minutes rigging booby traps from the explosives he had salvaged from the boat, wrapping each small tube of plastic with sharpened pieces of a bamboo-like reed cut from the side of the trail. He scattered the wrappings from their rations in plain sight. He wanted to make sure that whoever was following them would stop and probe around some in the small clearing. That was all it would take: the explosives were wired together, so setting off one would set them all off. Billiard only hoped they would not have a sole man too far out front as scout.

  The traps set, Billiard caught up with Santha, walking back down the trail toward their pursuers—the direction Billiard had sent her—and led her for the next quarter-mile. Then, in an area of extra-thick trees and brush, he motioned for her to follow and they turned off at an angle. He wedged rather than cut his way this time, an inch at a time, through the heavy growth, falling and stumbling, but clawing his way through the jungle-like growths without leaving a trail. For more than an hour they twisted through brush and vines until they reached a tiny, mud-filled clearing.

  Billiard stood in the center of it, his sides heaving, his flight suit drenched and clinging to him like a clammy second skin. It took him a full five minutes to catch his breath, and only after a long pull from his canteen did the blinding red pain begin to fade from his head. Twenty minutes later, he pulled Santha to her feet and again set a course due north.

  Throughout the day the terrain had changed from forest to swamp, then back again. Now they were moving through what could only be called a bog, black mush into which their feet sank, the mud at times rising over the tops of their flight boots. Billiard, saving his breath, did not speak to his lieutenant; and Santha, hardly able to keep up the punishing pace, could not speak. Every hour, Billiard called a short break. They would then throw themselves down into the muck, gasping for breath, even ignoring the nerve-eaters that tried to penetrate their suits and the small flying spiders that bit their exposed faces and hands. Such distractions no longer mattered. When they stopped, Santha just lay where she fell, her face showing clearly the pain that was coursing through her body. Billiard sat quietly, taking small sips from his canteen, but his sunken cheeks were beaded with sweat. He was clearly exhausted.

  After six hours of working their way through the bog they stumbled up to the edge of a shallow river that was thirty feet wide and scarcely moving. Along the sandy banks, they could walk without having to fight for every step. The trees did not arch over this stream as they had over the first. For the first time since leaving the crash, they were able to see the sky overhead—a splotched gray and black, and looking like the skies of hell, but a blessing after the dank darkness of the jungle swamp.

  Billiard led Santha along the waterway for half a mile, then halted. They rested at the water’s edge, Santha disinterestedly eating a field ration while Billiard studied the orbital map he had brought with him.

  “There’s not enough detail on this for me to be sure,” Billiard said more to himself than to the woman, “but if this is the river I think it is and if we crashed where we might be waiting in ambush. And then we cut river turns northeast in a couple of miles, so we’ll have to leave it then. But the land, I believe, flattens out into some rolling plains, and they’ll be a lot easier to cross than the swamp. Furthermore, there should still be enough forest cover to keep the Redhats from spotting us from either the floaters or from orbit.”

  He folded the map and stuck it securely into one of his flight-suit pockets, then pulled out a ration and began to eat.

  “We might… actually make, it,” Santha said suddenly, her first words in hours.

  “Yes, we just might,” Billiard answered. “The army troops back where we crashed were waiting for a jungle squad to arrive. And I’d say that even if they brought them in on a ballistic shuttle, it would have been at least ten or eleven, ship’s time, before they started after us. Then half an hour or so of scouting to pick up our trail north. And they’ll be moving fairly slowly, I hope, uncertain of what to expect from us, so I doubt they’ll reach the spot where we ate much before dark. They’re going to take losses there from my little presents, I predict. After that I figure they’re going to be pretty nervous about following us in the dark, not knowing how many other traps I might have set, or where we might be waiting in ambush. And then we cut off, later, through, the brush at an angle. I’d say we have at least a ten-hour start on them if we stop and rest for the night, sixteen if we push on and they don’t.”

  “Sounds like we’re home free,” Santha said, a smile in her voice, her face showing some signs of animation for the first time since Billiard had pulled her out of the crashed combat boat.

  “Could be, honey. Could be. But there’s also a chance they might send in the troops ahead of us, hoping to cut us off. I doubt it, since in this kind of country it would be too easy for us to slip through—but it’s still a possibility.”

  Billiard grunted as he climbed to his feet and walked over to the edge of the river, to a spot where low foliage grew right down to the water. Some tall bamboo-like plants grew there. After examining several, Billiard cut two with his survival knife, trimmed them, and came up with light but strong and springy walking sticks, an inch and a half in diameter and four feet long. Walking back to where he had left Santha, Billiard grabbed the pack he had made up back at the boat, slung it over his shoulder, then stooped down to help the girl to her feet.

  Suddenly alert, Billiard froze in that bent-over position. With a quick hand movement he motioned the woman to be silent. He was sure he had heard someone moving in the water behind them, following their trail.

  Moving as quietly as he could, he led Santha back into the trees and brush. When they were twenty yards from the river and out of sight of the place where they had rested, Billiard crouched down under a fern and waited.

  Soon he heard what he’d been expec
ting: the sound of an empty field-ration carton falling to the ground after being inspected. He was cheered, though, by one thing he did not hear: voices. No talking meant just one person was on their track, and one person Billiard was sure he could handle.

  Followed cautiously by Santha, he wormed his way south, through the brush. It took them nearly five minutes to reach a spot, fifty feet back parallel to the trail they had followed next to the river, from which they could see—from behind and, therefore, safely—what had made the noise. When Billiard saw what it was, a cold chill ran down his spine. Tracking them, in full Redhat field uniform so there could be no doubt which side he was on, was a Vwrung’n.

  Vaguely humanoid—with four arms, two legs, and a lump of bone and muscle that served as a head mounted atop a grotesque torso—the Vwrung’n stood six feet tall, was almost four feet wide, and seemed to have muscles on his muscles. Covered almost completely with coarse, dirty-looking gray hair—parted to show dirty-white skin where his field uniform was sealed to his body—this tracking specialist from a planet which had avoided complete assimilation by the Lorian Empire through sheer ferocity in battle looked as if he had not been born but had simply been poured and allowed to set. Billiard was sure that hitting him would be like hitting a rock and that whatever he hit would clot.

  Santha was as familiar with the reputation of the Vwrung’n in battle as Billiard, so she carefully began to work her way back again into the trees. Billiard did not move. After edging back a few feet, she stopped, then reached forward and plucked at Billiard’s pant leg.

  “Let’s get out of here before he spots us,” she whispered fiercely. “Or else laser him down, if that’s what you intend to do.”

  Billiard shook his head and began to edge forward, closer to the ugly hulk, who was examining a map, his back to the humans.

  “Are you out of your mind? If he spots us, we’re both dead,” Santha gasped.

  “He has a map undoubtedly clearer and more detailed than our orbital one,” Billiard whispered, “and we need it. Our only chance of getting off this planet is to reach the Goromi enclave. Our best chance of getting there is with that map.”

  “He’s a scout,” Santha said through clenched teeth, “and you don’t know how far in front of the main force he is. You might have guessed wrong about how long it was going to take them to catch us, you know. They might be close enough to hear if you shoot him with the slugger, they can track the laser battery’s electrical discharge if you try to sizzle him, and they’d be here before we could get away with your precious map.”

  “I don’t intend to shoot him,” Billiard said simply.

  “You’re crazy! He’ll tear you apart if you try to take him with anything less than the recoilless.”

  “He’s not a monster. He’s just big. And the bigger they are,” Billiard said with a smile, “the harder they fall.”

  “And when he falls, if he falls, he’ll mash you right into the mud, and probably into the granite underneath as well.”

  “That’s a chance we’re going to have to take. You stay here and cover me. If it looks like he’s going to kill me, shoot him, and to hell with where the main force might be. If it looks like I’m already dead, sneak away and try to make it to the enclave by yourself. And, I don’t know just how to say this, but…”

  “Never mind.” Santha smiled sadly. “Just make sure you come back.”

  Billiard reached one hand back and ran his fingertips over her cheek, then he began crawling forward, toward the Vwrung’n.

  He pulled one of the staffs he had cut along with him. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but Billiard hoped it would be enough. Even though he had his survival knife on his belt, he would opt to try to stun the being with a blow to that lump of a head. If the brain proved to be elsewhere, at least the sensory inputs—wrinkled flaps of skin that fanned out to serve as ear trumpets; small, hard eyes completely surrounded by a bony protective ridge; and a one-inch hole that served as a nose—were in the lump on top of the mountainous shoulders. Perhaps a shock to them could even up the coming fight a bit. At least Billiard hoped so. That was his best chance.

  Billiard slid forward until he was completely out of the screen of bushes; then he stood, took a firm grip on the end of his staff, and ran straight at the back of the preoccupied creature.

  The alien must have heard or sensed something just at the last moment, because his head came up and he started to turn as Billiard reached him. Billiard brought the staff around in a sweeping blow to the side of the Vwrung’n’s head, but the turning creature brought his shoulder up and the bamboo bounced off heavy, corded muscle. The Vwrung’n let out a whoop of rage and, continuing his turn, slammed a five-pound three-fingered fist into Billiard’s stomach.

  The Earthman felt as if his gut had exploded as he went down.

  The gray Vwrung’n now came close to him. In desperation, Billiard kicked up at the creature’s stomach, but it was like kicking a metal bulkhead. The subhumanoid reached down and grabbed Billiard, pulling him to his feet and trying to set him up for a blow that probably would have put him back into orbit. Billiard ducked, breaking the hold the alien had on his flight suit, and aimed a blow at the fur-covered throat. The Vwrung’n lowered his head and Billiard only took skin and flesh off his knuckles on the bone-hard face.

  Suddenly Billiard fell forward, trying to lock his arms around the too-thick body. He sunk his teeth into one of the fleshy flaps that served the Vwrung’n as an ear and bit hard, tearing the flesh with a twist of his head. The creature yelled in agony and tried to gouge Billiard’s eyes. Now they fell and rolled and scrabbled and clawed at each other.

  They finally rolled into the river, then broke apart, rose, and lunged at each other again.

  As he got up Billiard scooped a handful of loose dirt and sand, and threw it in the Vwrung’n’s face, hitting at the same time with long, punishing blows that cut the alien’s flesh and brought out pale-pink blood. The creature came right back however, trying to use his weight advantage to end the fight. When he dropped his head in an attempt to butt the Earthman, Billiard brought his knee up, feeling flesh tear in the alien’s face.

  A moment later, the Vwrung’n smashed a heavy fist through Billiard’s guard, catching him on the side of the head and knocking him spinning to the ground.

  Billiard tried to rise, but for an instant did not know which way up was. The alien, sensing Billiard was in trouble, leaped forward, lashing out with a club-like foot to try to kick his opponent in the head. Billiard rolled away from the kick. He staggered to his feet but then went down again as the alien rushed him. The creature fell, however, tripped by his own impetus, and the two locked again and rolled, raining blows on each other. Billiard’s flight suit ripped open as he managed, at length, to separate from the Vwrung’n and stagger to his feet. He lurched away, trying to get his breath.

  The Vwrung’n, realizing by now that the human he fought was strong, and not about to fall over just because he was fighting one of the legendary warriors of Vwrung, stood back and began to fire long lefts and rights. Again and again the big, three-fingered fists crashed into Billiard; again and again the Earthman struck back, with somewhat less than half the force of the alien but nevertheless hurting him. Both were now bleeding profusely. Both were ripped and torn. Both had one thought in mind: Kill!

  Billiard, tiring, guarded himself as best he could and struck back whenever he had the chance. He knew the Vwrung’n was still out there because something kept hitting him. The fact that something was still there was all the incentive he needed to keep fighting.

  A blow to his forehead sent him staggering backward momentarily, and he tripped over something as he fell on his back. The Vwrung’n rushed him, driving one foot into his side. The pain was so great that Billiard screamed, but he rolled, caught the foot as it came in again, and yanked upward with all his strength. The Vwrung’n went crashing over backward.

  As Billiard crawled forward, his hand touched what he had tripped o
ver: the long and smooth bamboo club he had tried to take the Vwrung’n out with what seemed like five years before. His fingers closed around it as the alien staggered to his feet and lurched at him once more, then he smashed the Vwrung’n with the staff across what passed for a throat.

  The creature stopped, stared, a bubbling froth of blood trickling between the bony ridges that served as lips and teeth in one, then toppled like a felled tree. Billiard staggered to his feet and brought the staff up, swinging it down again and again, pulping the skull and smashing the face, battering the alien head until gray brains mixed with off-white flesh and pink blood in an unrecognizable mass.

  Then, suddenly, Santha was there. She slapped a dazed Billiard across his bruised face, not hard, but softly as if slapping a child, then took the staff from his grip. He stood looking down at the fallen Vwrung’n for a minute, then turned and walked away, back into the brush. Santha walked over to pick up the fallen map, then followed Billiard back into the gloom.

  “Looks like I blew it,” Billiard said after staring at the map for several minutes. “We’re at least twenty miles south of where I thought we were, and we’ve got a big chunk of really open country, plus what looks like a line of mountains, we’re going to have to cross. According to this map, this area hasn’t been too thoroughly explored.”

  “Anything’s better than the swamp,” Santha said with a shudder, looking back the way they had come as if afraid a Redhat patrol might show up at any minute.

  “Not really. We’ll cross while it’s still dark. They’re sure to have air patrols out during the day, when we wouldn’t stand a chance of getting across. I’m not even sure we can make it at night. If they’ve got aircraft enough, or satellite-mounted electronic manhunters, they’ll grab us with an air-drop before we’ve covered half a mile.”

  “Can’t we lay up now?” Santha asked. “It must be close to midnight. If we spend the night here in a secluded place where they can’t spot us from the air, we can rest all day tomorrow and then get across tomorrow night, when we’re fresh again. The way you look now, I’m not even sure one day of rest is going to help all that much.”