by Steve Perry
Wilks lost it. “I tried to fucking warn you! I tried to keep you away from him! You wouldn’t listen to me! Yes, he’s an android. The whole platoon, all of them, they’re all androids! Created for a mission like this. How do you think they managed to breathe that thin air and keep going?”
Billie stared at the screen, not blinking, not moving.
Blake zigzagged, cleared the APC’s gun line, and stood, Bueller still on her back. Half of Bueller. The crewman was right behind her.
“That’s why they had to go back into the mound,” Wilks said, feeling very tired all of a sudden. “They couldn’t let the humans die. It’s the First Law.”
Billie stared straight ahead.
“They’re faster, stronger, cheaper than we are to maintain. Some people didn’t like working with them, so the new experimental models were made to pass for human. They eat, drink, piss, act, and even feel like humans. They can hate, fear, love, just like we do. From the outside, even an expert can’t tell. Everything external looks just the same. But I guess you know that, don’t you?”
Finally she turned to look at him. He could see her pain, it went all the way to her core. She had fallen in love with an android, had slept with him. For some people, that would be the same as falling in love with a dog or a farm animal and having sex with it.
“The pirates didn’t know,” he continued. “That’s why the aliens weren’t in any hurry to attack the marines and use them for incubators. Their flesh wouldn’t support the babies. They look the same, feel the same to the touch, but apparently they don’t taste very good.
“I’m sorry, kid.”
When she spoke, her voice was as cold as deep space. “Why didn’t you tell me, Wilks?”
“I tried. You didn’t want to hear it.”
“You never said anything about androids.”
“By the time I realized I should, it was too late. What was I supposed to say? You’re in love with an artificial person? He was born in a vat and put together like a puzzle by a bunch of androtechs? You wouldn’t have believed it.”
“You should have told me.”
“Yeah, well, my life is full of things I should have done and didn’t. This mission is screwed, and we’re leaving. The rest of it we sort out later.”
Billie turned back to the screen. Blake and the crewman had what was left of Bueller cradled between them and were approaching the APC at a quick jog. Behind them the mouth of the aliens’ nest erupted with dozens of the things. The robot gun worked its deadly magic, hammering the creatures with chunks of armor-piercing death, battering them to pieces; still, they boiled forth like angry fire ants, ran into the wall of metal, and shattered against it. Dozens, scores, hundreds of them—they kept coming.
The robot gun was state of the art, it locked on to the acquired targets, calculated for local gravity, windage, movement, then fired efficiently and dispatched them. But no matter how efficient a weapon, it could only live as long as it was fed.
The last of the ammunition ran through the electronic machinery. The control panel lit with a flashing red light. The gun, said the computer, was empty. Since further identified-by-image targets were in evidence, the computer hereby advised the primary operator that reloading was now required for continued operation. Since the spare ammunition module had already been expended, the primary operator was hereby notified that additional modules would have to be manually inserted for continued operation. Meanwhile, the system would remain on standby, identifying and tracking i-b-i targets.
Wilks shook his head. Bad news. The APC had shot up all the ammunition it carried. Nobody had figured a lot of air-to-air combat would be happening on this mission. And the aliens kept bounding out of that damned nest like giant black termites stoked on steroids and amphetamines. Must be fifty of them heading toward the ship, despite all the ones the gun had blown away. More of the things climbed over the piled bodies as he watched. Time to leave.
Blake and the crewman and Bueller were only fifty meters away from the ship. Wilks ordered the outer hatch open.
“Triple time, marine,” he said to Blake. “There’s a shitload of company behind you coming up fast and I want to shut the door real soon now!”
They were close enough so Wilks could see their expressions now. The crewman turned and looked over his shoulder, and apparently didn’t like what he saw. He was the limiting factor, Blake could run probably twice his best, even carrying Bueller. The crewman speeded up, and Blake matched him.
For no reason he could think of, Wilks was reminded of an old joke, one that he’d heard as a kid, about sheep herders. Come on guys. What say, let’s get the flock out of here…
* * *
Billie was numb, all the way to her soul. Wilks had slapped her, but she couldn’t feel anything but a little heat where his palm had struck.
Lies. It was all lies. Everything. How could Mitch have done it? Why hadn’t he told her the truth?
Bootsteps clattered up the entry ramp. They were here.
Blake entered the cabin. She squatted and carefully eased Mitch onto the deck. There was an aid kit on the wall, but Blake passed it and pulled a plastic box from a cabinet instead. Of course. A human aid kit wouldn’t help.
The crewman said, “Go, man, get us the hell out of here!”
Wilks was in the pilot’s seat. “Strap in,” he ordered.
Only the crewman hustled to obey. Billie stood over Mitch. His eyes were closed. He ended at the waist and what spilled from his torso was ugly to look upon.
“Sit down, Billie!”
She still didn’t move.
Mitch opened his eyes. For a moment they were unfocused, but then she saw him recognize her. “I—I’m s-s-sorry, B-Billie,” he said. His voice bubbled, as if he were talking underwater. “I—I w-was going to t-t-tell you.” He gasped, trying to get more air to work his voice.
Blake had the box open. She pulled several small electronic devices out and slapped them against Mitch’s shoulder and chest. Another one on his neck, yet another to his temple. She ran a tube from a plastic bag of clear fluid into the device on his neck. The liquid began to flow through the tubing. Blake pulled a plastic can out and sprayed a bluish foam all over the torn waist. The foam crackled and bubbled and quickly settled into a thick film that changed from blue to a bright green, coating all the exposed nodules and tubing.
“Is he going to die?” Billie asked.
“I don’t know,” Blake said. “His system valves have shut down all the torn circulators and the self-repair programs are running. It’s a lot of damage, but we’re designed to withstand a lot.”
“Sit the fuck down!” Wilks roared. “We’ve got to lift, now!”
Billie moved to a seat, still watching Blake work on Mitch. Blake hooked one hand under a stanchion, the other she put against Mitch’s chest. “I’m anchored,” she said. “And I’ve got him held stable. Go.”
Wilks cycled the hatch closed and initiated the lift program. The ship’s repellors cycled up, whining as they came on line. “Sequencing for lift off,” he said. “Stand by—”
Something slammed into the APC, hard enough to jolt the vessel, to make it ring with the impact.
“Shit!” the crewman said.
More impacts. Three. Five. Ten of them.
“They are all over us!” the crewman yelled.
“Fuck ’em,” Wilks said. “We’re gone.” He punched a control.
Nothing happened.
“What the hell?” the crewman began.
“One of them is blocking a thrust skirt tube,” Wilks said. “The computer won’t fire it. I’ll have to go to manual—”
There came a screech as metal tore.
“They’re digging through the hull,” Billie said.
“That’s impossible!” the crewman said.
Another grinch! of metal being clawed by something harder than it was.
Wilks tapped controls. The APC shook, but lifted, wobbled a little, but rose slowly. Went up a couple hundred meters, B
illie could see through the forward screens.
“All right!” the crewman yelled.
“We’re too heavy,” Wilks said. “We’ll have to shake the fuckers off—”
The ship lurched, dropped, twisting to port as though a heavy weight had landed on that side. A siren began screaming from the control panel. Wilks worked frantically, hands dancing rapidly back and forth. The APC began to level but it continued to settle. “That’s the left repellor,” Wilks said. “Emergency brake-lock. Something is inside the housing. I can’t override.”
“But—but the housing is armored!” the crewman said.
“The intake is protected by a finger-thick wire mesh,” Wilks said. “But something went through it. The computer knows the danger. The carbon-boron blades are supercooled, they’re brittle. They hit something bigger than a few grams, they’ll shatter and blow us to pieces. I can’t compensate enough with the other repellors to get us into orbit. We’ll have to land and clear the housing.”
“You mean go outside?”
Wilks stared at the crewman. “Unless you got a better idea.”
“Oh, man!”
Thumping continued on the hull, more squeals as the metal bent or gave up the fight.
Billie stared at Mitch. He looked at her, his eyes clear. She didn’t know what to say. She’d lain naked with this man—no, not a man, an android—had shared her body with him, had told him her secrets. Had given him her truth, for whatever it was worth. And he had responded as a man, but he had also kept from her the biggest truth of all.
As she watched him lay there, possibly dying, she felt outraged, felt sick, felt that if she never saw him again it would be too soon. And yet.
And yet, another feeling stirred deep inside her mind, at the threshold of her perceptions. It was a feeling she could not deny, despite what he had done. She didn’t want to look at the thing looming there, didn’t want to know about it, didn’t want to acknowledge it. She tried to close the door between her and that stirring, to make it go away, but looking at him, she couldn’t.
Well. It didn’t matter. They were all going to die here. It wouldn’t be long before the aliens clawed their way in. Billie looked at the weapons Blake still carried. Wilks wouldn’t let the things take them alive. It would be quick, if it came to that. So it didn’t matter what she was feeling about Mitch. No. Nothing mattered. Her short and mostly unhappy time was about to come to its end. Except for the few hours when she’d thought Mitch was other than he turned out to be, it hadn’t been much of a life. Maybe she should tell him that, since they were going to die.
Or maybe not. What difference did it make?
The APC reached the ground, settled unevenly.
“Maybe we crushed a couple of them underneath,” Wilks said.
Billie stared at him. That didn’t matter either.
They were all going to die. The way she felt at the moment, it would be a relief.
25
The thumps against the hull increased. The external pickups were mostly blocked by the alien forms as they mindlessly beat against the ship, as if it were alive and they were trying to kill it.
Wilks looked at the others. Billie was sunk into a stunned silence. The crewman was so frightened he had wet himself. Bueller drifted in and out of consciousness. Blake was the only one he could depend on for help; she was the one to guard his back while he went outside to clear the grid.
Wilks smiled wryly. Right. Opening the hatch would be fun. They didn’t have enough firepower in the APC to keep the things off him long enough to do what had to be done. He’d been too rattled to think earlier. The reasonable thing was to get the ship into the air again, move it ten or fifteen klicks away from the nest, and deal with the few aliens that hung on to them once they landed.
Except that they didn’t have much fuel to play around with here, and a miscalculation would leave them shy of what they needed to reach the ship in orbit. He had locked the Benedict’s comp into the nuclear scenario; it wasn’t going to be altered from the APC, couldn’t be. He’d wanted to be sure, in case something happened to them.
Well, looked like worst had come to worst.
“Sarge?”
He looked at Blake. “No, going outside isn’t real swift. I’m going to take it up again, do a roll, and move us far enough away so we can put down without company.”
Blake nodded. “Makes sense.”
“If we’re light on fuel after that, we’ll gut this sucker and toss out everything that adds unnecessary weight.”
Wilks worked the controls. The ship trembled, but didn’t go anywhere.
“Oh, shit!” he said.
“Sarge?”
“Either too many of ’em on us or they’ve jammed up the other grids. Looks like we’re back to plan A.”
Metal screeched.
“Damn.”
“I wouldn’t want to bet on us pulling this off, Sarge.”
“Yeah, me neither. I don’t see as how we have any choice. Listen, Blake, if they get me alive, you punch my lights out, you copy?”
“I can’t, Sarge, you know that.”
“Oh, yeah, right. Never mind. I got Massey’s grenade here. I’ll pull my own plug, it comes to that.”
“Billie.”
She looked at him, her eyes dull. “What?”
“Take this pistol. If we don’t come back—”
She nodded, understanding.
The ship rocked. Raised up on the starboard side, fell back.
“Uh-oh,” Wilks said. “They’re working together. Enough of them will tip us over. Get to the hatch, Blake.”
She nodded. Unslung her plasma rifle and switched off the safety.
The ship rocked again. Slammed back into place.
“Billie. Look, I’m sorry for getting you into this.”
“It’s okay, Wilks. I didn’t have anything better to do.”
For a second their gazes locked and they smiled at each other. The borrowed time they’d both been living on was about to expire.
Fuck it, Wilks thought. He took a deep breath. “Let’s do it—”
The ship thrummed, a sound unlike anything Wilks had ever heard washed over them, vibrating every surface in the APC, battering at his ears like padded pugil sticks. He dropped to his knees and clapped his hands over his ears. He felt the vibration to his core; it made the marrow in his bones hum.
“Chreesto!” the crewman screamed.
Abruptly the sound died.
Wilks stood, shaken. What the hell had that been?
“Listen,” Blake said.
“I don’t hear anything,” the crewman said.
Wilks nodded. “That’s right. The aliens have stopped attacking us.”
It was as quiet as an isolation chamber.
They all looked at Wilks.
“Let’s take a look, Blake.”
Wilks took a couple of deep breaths, then moved to the hatch. He held the carbine ready, Blake with her rifle right behind him. The hatch went up.
“Oh, man,” Blake said.
Wilks was speechless. At least fifty of the aliens lay sprawled on the ground around the ship. They looked… melted, as if all their edges had run together. Dead, Wilks didn’t doubt it for a second. That was pretty incredible. But what he saw standing a dozen meters away was even more incredible.
“What the hell is that?” Blake said.
Wilks just stared.
Some kind of suited figure stood there. It was easily seven or eight meters tall, bipedal, with a clear helmet on the E-suit it wore. Wilks could see the thing’s face behind the bubble covering, and it looked like nothing so much as an elephant might appear, were it to evolve to a two-legged animal. It had pinkish-gray skin, a ridged nose or maybe a trunk that vanished in a long chamber down the front of the suit, with what seemed to be a pair of small tentacles, one to either side of the larger trunk. It had a short extension of the suit behind it, and Wilks guessed that it had a tail in the tube, shaped like a skinny pyramid. A
closer look and Wilks realized the thing wasn’t exactly standing.
The heavy boots it wore had a central split, as if the thing had hooves, and they didn’t quite touch the ground. It was actually floating a couple of centimeters above the surface.
It was close enough so he could see its eyes. The pupils were shaped like crosses, wider than they were high. They looked dead, those eyes.
The thing held a device in its gauntleted hands and Wilks would bet ten years pay against a toenail clipping it was some kind of weapon.
The air was thin and Wilks had to take big gulps of it to get enough oxygen. He glanced over and saw that Blake was slowly bringing her rifle around to bear on the thing.
“Negative on that,” he said softly. “I think this thing just flattened all the local bad guys with whatever that gear is it’s holding. I don’t want it to think we mean it any harm. If it can knock down that many of those suckers all at once, we’re way outgunned here.”
Blake let her rifle droop, to point at the ground.
The thing—another alien, and sure as shit not from around here, Wilks knew—pointed its own weapon downward.
“Hello, spacer,” Blake said softly. “You must be new in town.”
Behind them, Billie screamed in terror.
* * *
Billie was back on Rim.
She was a child, sitting in the front of her father’s scout hopper, watching the near featureless gray pass by the observation port. So far the ride had been dull, but her father had said there was something out there they had to go look at and he brought her and her brother Vick along. Her father’s assistant, Mr. Zendail, was also there. Her father called him Gene, but she wasn’t supposed to call him that. And her mother was there, too.
“Holy Sister of the Stars,” her father said.
“Russ? What is it?” her mother said.
“Our detectors just went off the scale. There’s something huge down there, in the Valley of the Iron Fingers.”
“How can that be?”
“I don’t know. But we’re talking about megatonnage, a mixed signal. Got to be man-made. Gene?”
“I got it, Russ. Lord, Lord. I can’t get a configuration ID on it. Look at the specs.”
