by Rod Walker
That meant the fence was now telling any tromosaur within range that wounded, defenseless prey was within. If those ill-fated biologists of the past expedition were correct about tromosaur hunting cries, that should drive the creatures into a total frenzy.
“Valier,” said Tanner. “This is Security Director Winston Tanner of Safari Company. I would like to request a meeting to discuss terms and conditions for surrender.”
There was a pause.
“Splendid,” said Valier. “I am pleased that you are able to see reason. My terms are this. You will lay down your weapons, exit the building immediately, and put yourselves into the custody of my security forces.”
Tanner snorted. “You know, for a politician, I think you’d be better at negotiating.”
“I am an excellent negotiator,” said Valier. “You see, the ability to make demands in a negotiation is predicated upon one’s position of strength. You don’t have any strength in this negotiation.”
“That’s strange,” said Tanner, “because I seem to see a lot of guns and bombs nearby.”
“Which would serve you well if this were a simple firefight,” said Valier. “It is not. I need only crash one of the ships into the administrative building to rid myself of you. Perhaps you were the reason poor Alexander Toulon didn’t make it back to Outpost Town? Well, he was always a reckless one. I’m sure it would amuse him to know that his overpriced chrome-plated yacht avenged his death.”
“I’m afraid you’re misinformed,” said Tanner. “We also have our own strengths in this negotiation.”
“Oh?” said Valier. “This ought to be amusing. Do explain, Mr. Tanner.”
“The various bombs,” said Tanner, “that we have hidden around Outpost Town will be going off soon. Perhaps you would like to know where they are in exchange for letting us go.”
Valier scoffed. “Come now, Mr. Tanner. The destruction of Outpost Town would, in fact, make the rest of my day easier. That is not much a threat.”
“Depends on where the bombs are,” said Tanner. He grinned. “Have you looked at where you are standing, Minister Valier? You might want to move a couple of yards to the left. Or take cover.”
It was nonsense. It was total nonsense, but Valier bought it. Or at least he considered the danger. Through the security cameras I saw the EMSOs in front of the main doors move, looking around them, and in their midst, I glimpsed Valier himself.
“Perhaps a discussion is warranted,” said Valier.
“Come on inside and we’ll have ourselves a little chat,” said Tanner.
Valier chuckled. “I am not that gullible, Mr. Tanner. You may come outside, and we’ll speak. I will permit you to say your piece and then return to the administrative building. If you wish, you can bring two or three of your companions for security.” His voice hardened. “Just so long as two of them are Colonel Cassius Argent and Ian Royale.”
“Why?” said Tanner.
“I would very much like to speak with them,” said Valier. “There are certain matters that merit discussion.”
Tanner looked at Argent and Mr. Royale, who both nodded.
“Fine,” said Tanner. “We’ll meet you outside in half an hour.”
“Make it fifteen minutes,” said Valier. “My guests will get impatient, and I might wish to entertain them with a fireworks display.” Valier’s chuckle echoed over the speakers. “I suggest you be on time.”
The call cut off with a click and a burst of static.
“Right,” muttered Tanner. “Charles, any idea how long it will take for the tromosaurs to show up?”
“I do not know, Security Director Tanner,” said Charles. “The tromosaurs will almost certainly respond to the hunting call at once, but there is a considerable distance from the fence to Outpost Town proper. It may take them some time for them to follow the frequencies here.”
“He’s probably lying,” I said. “If we step outside, he’ll try to kill us.”
“Maybe,” said Tanner. “We can make it harder for him, though. There is a small armory in the security station here with some grenades, and we can take those. Plus, the longer we keep him talking, the longer we have.” He looked at Mr. Royale and Argent. “If he wants to talk to you, I assume it’s because he wants something from you. The longer we can keep him fishing for it, the better our odds.”
“I’ll go with you,” I said.
Mr. Royale frowned. “You’re volunteering? We might well get shot.”
“Yeah,” I said. I didn’t want to mention that getting shot was a better way to die than getting eating by a tromosaur. “Well, I want to see this to the end. Plus, I did spray a mustache on Valier’s face. Maybe I’ll get to try the real thing.”
Tanner snorted. “You’re an optimist, Spraycan. Let’s go.”
We hastened through the corridors of the administrative building. Tanner unlocked the door to the security station, and we equipped ourselves with grenades. We also took pistols, since they were quicker to aim than the heavy Avengers, though we kept our rifles slung over our shoulders as well. The pistols only held fifteen rounds in their magazines, not nearly as many as the Avengers, but even with the Avengers, Valier had us outnumbered and outgunned.
After arming ourselves, we stopped in one of the offices behind the lobby.
“All right,” said Tanner, handing a tablet to Charles. “This will give you lock/unlock control over the front doors. Let us out, and then lock the doors behind us again. Don’t let us in again until it’s clear. Keep an eye out on the video.”
I swallowed as Charles took the tablet.
“I will follow your instructions to the letter, Security Director Tanner,” said Charles.
Tanner grinned and the two men shook hands. “I know you will, Hiram.”
“Mulger, Thompkins, cover us from inside,” said Argent. Both Security Ministry officers still had their rifles out. “If this goes bad, be sure to take out Valier.”
“Sir,” said Mulger.
With exactly one minute left, we walked into the lobby. The massive doors of transparent metal stood closed, and through them, I saw the glare of the Arborean afternoon. The glare served to illuminate the dozens of EcoMin operatives standing in the street outside the administrative building, along with about a dozen of the bodyguards of Valier’s various guests. A few of them were overequipped posers like Toulon’s bodyguards. But some of them were older, and looked like combat vets more dangerous than any EMSO.
Charles unlocked the doors, and I followed Tanner, Argent, and Mr. Royale into the street. A moment later the doors thumped locked behind us. We walked a few paces into the street and stopped, and every single gun the EMSOs and bodyguards had in hand was aimed at us.
I remembered a video I had seen as a kid, a story about a showdown in the street on ancient Earth and hoped no one was feeling trigger-happy.
Four of the EMSOs marched forward, flanking Ecology Minister Paul Valier as he stopped a dozen yards from us.
I had seen him from a distance several times, but up close, he looked almost exactly like his portrait, tall and lean and commanding. His elegant suit looked as if it had cost as much as Uncle Morgan’s farm would have commanded on the open market, and his dark eyes were amused as he looked us over.
“Well, well,” said Valier. “Colonel Cassius Argent. I should have known you would have been behind this. You’ve been nipping at my heels for years, like a dog chasing a truck. Of course, you know what happens to the dog that catches the truck.” He clapped his hands together. “The Transport Ministry scrapes it off the road the next day.”
“Big words,” said Argent, “from a man who likes to shoot at people who can’t shoot back.”
“Don’t be absurd, Colonel,” said Valier. “That’s the best time to shoot at people.”
“You would know,” said Argent.
“Well, yes, I would,” said Valier. “That’s the entire point.”
“A corrupt criminal like you,” said Argent.
“Criminal?” said Valier, his amusement plain. “Colonel, you miss the entire point of my efforts. Do you really think I’m doing this for personal enrichment?”
“Yes,” said Argent, Tanner, and Mr. Royale in unison. I blinked and then nodded my agreement.
“How very small-minded of you,” said Valier. “But I shouldn’t be surprised. You are all small-minded men.” He pointed at Argent. “The policeman, carrying out laws he is too stupid and stubborn to understand.” The finger shifted to Tanner. “The hired thug, too stupid even to make it as a policeman.” His finger moved to Mr. Royale. “And the capitalist.” He frowned at me. “I don’t know who you are, boy.”
“I defaced your official portrait,” I said.
Valier blinked, a little surprised, and promptly decided to ignore me. “You are all small-minded men of little vision.”
“So why don’t you tell us about that vision?” said Argent.
Valier kept talking. That surprised me, but maybe it shouldn’t have. The man was a politician, so obviously he was fond of the sound of his own voice. And as a politician, he was a professional liar. I had the feeling he found it refreshing to tell the truth for once.
“I am saving humanity,” he said, “and I am saving the interstellar environment from humanity. We are rather like an interplanetary virus. We have spread, and spread, and spread until there is no corner of the Thousand Worlds that we have not touched, no natural environment that we have left unaltered. Mankind is a disease, a plague, a pestilence to be managed, from the macroplanetary perspective.”
“Right,” said Tanner, his skepticism plain.
Valier kept talking, his eyes coming alive with passion, and his gestures became more and more animated. I realized that he really believed what he was saying.
“There are too many excess and useless people,” he said. “Far, far too many. We need to reduce the human population drastically, if we are to restore the interstellar environment to its pristine state. That is the real reason for Safari Company, Argent, the reason you were too blind to see. The excess human population desperately needs to be managed and culled… and what better way to do it than to get rid of a few reactionaries in the process?”
“Like me, I assume?” said Mr. Royale.
Valier sneered at him. “You, and your detestable machines! They have defaced the streets of Wilson City. Everywhere I go, I see those vile machines crouching upon the street corners like ugly, garish, metal mushrooms! Everywhere! It is appalling. You wax fat upon the useless eaters, and line your pockets on the backs of a population fit only for culling!”
“Lining my pockets?” said Mr. Royale. “I’m not the one organizing murder hunts on unpopulated planets for millions of credits a pop.”
“And you say there are too many humans anyway,” said Tanner. “Royale’s just feeding them. Someone’s got to do it! Granted, maybe KwikBreets aren’t my first choice for lunch…”
“Winston!” said Mr. Royale, sounding betrayed.
“But he’s feeding people,” said Tanner. “You just want to kill them.”
“Feeding useless people useless, low-quality garbage,” said Valier. “It’s all an exercise in recycling waste!”
“Low quality?” said Mr. Royale. He seemed more offended by that than anything else Valier had said so far. “Low quality? I will have you know we spend months negotiating for the best prices on the highest-quality ingredients, and…”
“Shut up,” said Valier.
Mr. Royale kept talking. “And I personally visited over seventeen farms in search of the best prices on wheat for the tortillas, and as for the teriyaki sauce, I–”
“Shut up, you filthy predator!” said Valier. “I don’t care about your stupid grease cylinders. No. This is about the future. A future where mankind is properly controlled and governed and contained, and where men like you,” he gave a disdainful gesture in our direction, “are obsolete and unnecessary.”
“If that’s true,” said Tanner, “then why are you talking to us in the first place?”
“Because,” said Valier, “I’m going to give you a choice.”
“And what choice is that?” said Argent.
“Those three shuttles that took off earlier,” said Tanner. “Tell them to land and surrender, now.”
“Or what?” said Tanner.
I thought I saw something move behind the rows of EMSO soldiers, and I tensed. At the same time, there was a scream somewhere in the distance. Tanner and Argent exchanged a look, and Tanner nodded. They’d heard it too.
“Or,” said Valier with a wide smile, “I’m going after your families. Almost all of the employees of Safari Company have family back on New Princeton, don’t they? And all your men have families back home, don’t they, Colonel Argent? All those women and children with lives and careers and dreams, all of them so easy to shatter. We won’t execute them, there is no need for that. We’ll just drive them to despair and self-destruction, perhaps even suicide. I’ll have their assets seized, their property forfeited for environmental crimes, real or manufactured. I’ll have them driven from their jobs, and if they’re on Basic Income, I’ll put so many restrictions on them that they’ll wind up in prison. Look, you know you are all walking dead men already. Surrender now, and I’ll leave them alone. Resist, and you’ll all die anyway, and guarantee the destruction of the lives of every single person related to every last Safari Company employee.”
I saw more flickers of movement behind the EcoMin operators and the bodyguards. All the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
“Hey,” I said. “Tanner. I think you should call Charles. I think you should call Charles now. Right now.”
Tanner frowned at me, and then his eyes widened.
“Yeah,” he said, taking several steps back. “All right, I don’t think we’re going to do that, Valier. It’s been nice talking to you. You’re just as charming as everyone says.”
Valier frowned. “Where do you think you’re going?” He was clearly confused by Tanner’s sudden change of demeanor.
“Back inside,” said Tanner.
Valier shook his head. “You’re not going anywhere.” He gestured, and the four Ministry men flanking him lifted their weapons.
Right then, three different tromosaur packs attacked in unison.
I wasn’t sure, but I think they had been creeping up the street during the negotiations. Valier’s men hadn’t been watching for them, of course, and the tromosaurs’ stealthiness allowed them to move unseen through the town. Suddenly, the air on the street rippled, and the sleek black forms of dozens of tromosaurs appeared. They hit the EMSOs from behind, and in a heartbeat more than a dozen of them went down, tromosaur claws ripping at their armor to get at the flesh beneath. Shots rang out, followed by screams, but the shooting was haphazard and ineffective. Two or three tromosaurs went down, but the off-worlders didn’t know what they were fighting, or how to fight them, and so the advantage of surprise was with the alien predators.
In that instant, the orderly scene in the street dissolved into bloody howling chaos as more tromosaurs rippled into sight, leaping into the fray. They were already in a feeding frenzy, and in that state they wouldn’t stop hunting and killing for anything.
In that instant, Valier’s expression transformed from smug contempt to naked shock. He was too astonished to even be afraid.
Yeah, being the hunted is way less fun than being the hunter, isn’t it?
“Charles!” roared Tanner, and we turned and ran for the doors. We had planned to take prisoners, but it was obvious that had been a futile idea. The tromosaurs were ripping through the soldiers and the bodyguards and the various guests like a hailstorm through one of Uncle Morgan’s wheat fields, and if we didn’t get inside right away, we were going to die alongside them.
We sprinted towards the doors as screams and shouts and roars and gunfire crescendoed behind us . I heard the clang as the doors unlocked, saw Mulger and Thompkins hurrying to push them open. Their guns came
up, and for a moment I thought they were aiming right at us, but then they opened fire, covering our retreat. I glanced back and saw Valier spin and cry out as a round struck him in the shoulder, but I also saw a tromosaur rushing towards me, its evil yellow eyes fixated on me. I didn’t know it was possible for me to run any faster, but I managed it anyhow.
We reached the doors and threw ourselves through the gap as Mulger and Thompkins pulled them closed. Charles locked them with a loud clang, and an instant later I heard the thump as a tromosaur slammed into the transparent metal behind me, its claws squealing as it raked them across the doors. It felt it glare at me through the doors, but it didn’t glare for long.
Not when there was fresh meat at hand. Valier had pushed himself back up and was staggering in our direction, one hand pressed against the gunshot wound in his shoulder, the other reaching out towards us in desperation.
The beast turned and leaped upon Valier. When it started to feed, even Argent looked away.
“I think,” said Tanner at last, “we had better turn the fence back on.”
I did. It didn’t help much. Hundreds of tromosaurs were already inside the fence, and there were hundreds of prey for them to hunt within the perimeter of Outpost Town. The surviving EcoMin men retreated to one of the buildings across the street, a utility garage that housed landscaping drones. As a defensive position, it was terrible. Most of the garage doors were open, and the smaller doors had large glass windows. The tromosaurs methodically encircled it, battering at the windows, and sometimes I saw flashes of gunfire as the trapped men within opened fire. More than once, a panicked man burst out from the doors, trying to flee for his life. I have no idea where they thought they were going.
It was stupid. The tromosaurs had no trouble running them down.
“It appears the tromosaurs are breaking into two groups,” said Charles, looking through the doors with a pair of collapsible binoculars he had produced from a pocket. “One group is attacking the utility garage, and I suspect the rest are trying to find their way into the convention hall.”
Tanner grunted. “The largest number of prey in both those places, I suppose.”
