Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

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Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 191

by James H. Schmitz


  Afterwards, brief sharp letdown. No Tuvela, no Guardian. Simply a scared human in a potentially very bad spot, with much too much at stake. If she’d fumbled this in any way, made the slightest slip—

  Now she was somewhere between those states, back to normal, worried enough but again busily balancing possibilities, planning as much as could be planned here.

  One of the factors she’d been considering was this room itself. It was long, wide, high, located somewhere near the top of the overall structure—she’d come up another level after leaving the chamber. It had a door at either end, probably locked now. The last could make no real difference since there was bound to be a gaggle of armed Oganoon outside each door to make sure the Guardian and her scientist didn’t walk out on the conference. From the door at the left a raised walkway led to a platform some four feet above the floor near the center of the room. The Palachs, Ticos had explained, customarily stood there when they’d come to have dealings with him.

  Lighting came from conductor rods in ceiling and walls, primitive but efficient. Ventilation arrangements, while equally simple, met the lab’s requirements perfectly. There was a large shadowy rectangle enclosed in a grid up on one of the walls just below the ceiling. Behind the grid was an unseen window, a rectangular opening in the wall. The salty-moist many-scented freshness of the floatwood forest swirled constantly about them. Enclosed without it, many of Ticos’s research specimens would have died in days. But the storm gusts which occasionally set the blockhouse structure quivering were damped out at the window, and almost no sound came through.

  So the shadowy rectangle was a forcescreen. It would let out no light, and certainly it was impenetrable to solid objects such as a human body. The screen controls must be outside the room, or Ticos would have indicated them to her. But there was a knobby protrusion on either side of the grid which enclosed the rectangle. And beneath those protrusions were the screen generators—

  Which brought up the matter of tools, and weapons or items which could serve as weapons. Her UW would be hard to replace in either capacity. But one could make do. Ticos had left a small cutter-sealer on the central worktable back of them. A useful all-around gadget, and one that could turn into a factor here. Another potential factor was the instrument studded with closely packed rows of tiny pushbuttons, which Ticos carried attached to his belt and through which he regulated various internal balances and individual environmental requirements of his specimens.

  The only obvious weapons around were the guns in the hands of three Parahuan guards who squatted stolidly in two feet of water in the partitioned end of the room at the right. From the platform, Nile had looked in briefly across the dividing wall at them. Two were faced towards the wall; one was faced away towards a long table near the second exit. None of them moved while she studied them. But they looked ready to act instantly. The guns appeared to be heavy-duty short-range blasters, made to be used by hands four times larger than hers. On the table stood Ticos Cay’s communicator.

  The guns weren’t factors, except as they could become negative ones. But with a Sotira racing sled moving within close-contact band reach, the communicator was a very large factor. The Everliving in their nervous ambivalence had decreed it should be available at a moment’s notice in case they were forced to open emergency negotiations with the Tuvelas through Dr. Cay. The guards were there to blast death into anybody who attempted to use it under any other circumstances.

  Ticos Cay himself was, of course, an important factor. Physically he could become a heavy liability if matters didn’t develop well. He’d lost his wiry bounciness; he was a damaged old man. His face looked drawn tight even when he smiled. He’d been holding pain out of his awareness for weeks; but as an organism he’d been afflicted with almost intolerable strains and begun to drift down towards death. Of course he knew it.

  Mentally he didn’t seem much impaired. His verbal responses might be a trifle slowed but not significantly. Nile thought she still could depend on him for quick and accurate reaction, as she might have to do. Because the final factor in the calculation here was Ticos Cay’s collection of floatwood life. On the worktable, next to the cutter-sealer she’d mentally earmarked, lay several objects like hard-shelled wrinkled gray fruits, twice the size of her fist. Ticos had taken them out of a container to explain the purpose they were to serve in his research, left them lying there.

  They were called wriggler apples and the shells showed they had ripened. The thing to know about ripe wriggler apples was that they remained quiescent until they received the specific environmental stimulus of contact with salt water. At that moment they split open. And the wrigglers came out . . .

  At best, the apples were a dubious research item. And they were not at all the only specimens in that category here. At a rough estimate, one in fifty of the life forms which cluttered the shelf stands and walls had caused Nile to flinch inwardly at first glimpse or whiff of identifying odor. Floatwood stuff she’d been conditioned against almost since she was big enough to walk. It wasn’t all small or unobtrusive. Dominating the center of the room was a great purple-leafed inhis, the pale blue petals of its pseudoflowers tightly furled. A rarity, to no one’s regret. In the forests, Nile wouldn’t have come willingly within thirty feet of one. By classification it was a plant form. A vegetable, with lightning reactions. The sledmen, with good reason, had named it the Harpooneer. For some weeks it had loomed above and just behind the Palachs who had come and squatted on the platform, staring down at the human prisoner . . .

  It was dormant now, as were most of the other unreliable specimens—totally innocuous, metabolism slowed to a timeless pulse. In biological stasis. It would remain innocuous until it was given the precise measured stimulus, massive enzyme jolt or whatever, that broke the stasis.

  And who could produce such stimuli? Why, to be sure, Dr. Cay with his pushbutton control device. He’d made certain that when it came time to die, he should have the means of taking some of the enemy with him.

  Which might not be a detached scientific attitude but was certainly a very human one . . .

  Nile flicked another glance at her watch. Forty-three and a half minutes.

  The door at the left clanged open.

  The Palach Moga came first along the walkway. The bag into which the UW had disappeared swayed at his side, its strap slung over his shoulder. That detail might have been reassuring if the group behind him had looked less like an execution squad.

  Nile stood with her back to the worktable, feeling tensions surge up and trying to show nothing. Ticos gave her an uncertain, questioning look, then turned and moved off slowly along the table, stopping a dozen feet away to watch the Parahuans. The fingers of his right hand fiddled absently with the control device. Moga was approaching the control platform in his grotesquely dainty upright walk, webbed feet placed carefully for each step. Two Oganoon guards came behind him, staring at Nile, massive short-barreled guns held ready for action. Two unfamiliar Palachs followed, moving in an uncompromising Parahuan waddle. Their strap harnesses were an identical crimson; and each carried two sizable handweapons, one on either side, grips turned forward. Another pair of guards concluded the procession. These had their guns slung across their backs and held items like folded black nets. A fifth guard had stopped inside the door, which had closed again after the party passed through. He had another kind of gun with a long narrow barrel, attached to a chunky tripod. He set the tripod down with a thump on the walkway, squatted behind it. The gun muzzle swung around and pointed at Nile.

  She didn’t move. She’d given them some reason not to trust her.

  The group reached the platform, spread out. Moga stood near the platform’s edge. The red-harnessed Palachs flanked him, hands clamped on their gun grips. The guards with the guns took up positions to either side of the Palachs. The guards with the black nets remained a little to the rear, at the left side of the platform. There were, Nile thought, indications of as much nervous tenseness as she was able
to make out in a Parahuan visage—silently writhing speech slits, blinking atmosphere eyes. And all eyes were fixed on her, on the Tuvela. Nobody looked at Ticos Cay.

  “Guardian, I shall speak first for myself,” Moga’s voice said suddenly.

  Nile didn’t answer. The voice resumed. “I am in great fear for Porad Anz . . . When you agreed to address the Everliving, I was certain that your mission would succeed and that the balance would shift to reason. And the response of the Assembly was strongly favorable. Your logic was persuasive. But there has been an unforseen development. By violence the Voice of Action has assumed control of our forces. It is against all custom, an unprecedented Violation of Rules—but that appears to be no longer important. Here, on the Command Ship and elsewhere on this world, many Great Palachs and Palachs lie dead. Those who survive have submitted to the Voice of Action which now alone speaks for the Everliving. I have come to inform you of what has been decreed. And having spoken for myself, I shall speak now with the words of the Voice of Action.”

  Silence.

  The group on the platform remained tautly motionless. Nile watched them; they stared at her. So the red-harnessed Palachs represented the Voice of Action . . . The thought came suddenly that these must be very courageous creatures. They’d entered the laboratory to confront a legend. They were braving gromgorru. They waited now to see what the Tuvela might do in response to Moga’s statement.

  The Tuvela also stayed silent and motionless.

  The Palach to Moga’s right began speaking abruptly in a series of fluctuating Parahuan hootings, eyes fixed on Nile. After perhaps half a minute he stopped. Moga promptly began to translate.

  “Whatever you call yourself, you are a Tuvela. We know this now. You have threatened Porad Anz in the name of your kind. That cannot be tolerated. You have told us that in any hostile encounter with the Guardians the Everliving must be defeated. Once and for all, that lie shall now be disproved . . .”

  Moga’s voice ended. The red-harnessed Palach spoke again. His fellow turned his head for an instant, addressed the two Oganoon holding the nets. The two took the nets from their arms, shook them out. Black straps dangled from their rims.

  Moga took up the translation.

  “The Voice of Action offers you and Dr. Cay the death of Palachs. It is painful but honorable. If you accept, you will submit to being enclosed by the confinement nets. If you attempt to resist, you will be shot down and die here like Hulons. In either case, Tuvela, your defeat and death signal the beginning of the hour of our attack on your world. And now, if it is within the power of a Tuvela to defy our purpose, show what you can do—”

  Beyond the group, the Parahuan at the door sagged silently forward over the gun, head and upper body obscured by the curling green fog lifting from a specimen on the wall beside him. The armed guards on the platform had pointed their guns at Nile. The red-harnessed Palachs drew their weapons. A dozen or so of the Harpooneer’s pseudoflowers behind the platform quivered and unfurled in a flick of motion like great yellow-blue eyes blinking open. Nile dropped flat.

  There had been at least two guns aimed directly at her in that instant; and fast as the Harpooneer was, it might not be fast enough to keep the guns from going off.

  They didn’t go off. There were other sounds instead. Something landed with a thump on the floor not far away. With a brief shock of surprise her mind recorded the bag Moga had been carrying. She was coming back up on her feet by then, scooped two of the gray-shelled wriggler apples from the worktable, lobbed them across the partitioning wall into the flooded section of the room. She heard them splash. A detached part of her awareness began counting off seconds. She looked around.

  They were dead up there, nervous systems frozen, unlidded double-lensed eyes staring hugely. Embedded in their backs were bone-white spikes, tipping the thick coiled tendrils extended from the pseudoflowers. Four still stood swaying, transfixed, long legs stretched out rigidly. Three had been lifted from the platform, were being drawn over to the Harpooneer. Nile upended Moga’s bag, shook out the UW, had it clipped to her climb-belt as the part of her mind that was counting seconds reached thirty and stopped. There’d been a few violent splashings from beyond the partition, but she heard nothing now. Ticos, holding the control device in both hands, face taut and white, gave her a quick nod.

  The climb-belt was at half-weight as she reached the partition wall. She jumped, clapped her hands to the top, went up and over.

  Seven years before, she’d seen a wriggler swarm hit a human diver. It was largely a matter of how close one happened to be to the apple when it tumbled down out of the floatwood forest, struck salt water and split. In the same moment thousands of tiny writhing black lines spilled from it and flashed unerringly towards any sizable animal bodies in the immediate vicinity, striking like a cluster of needle drills, puncturing thick hide or horny scales in instants—

  The three guards lay face down, partly submerged, in the water that covered the floor. Two were motionless. The third quivered steadily, something like a haze of black fur still extending along his torso below the surface. All three were paralyzed now, would be dead in minutes as the swarms spread through them, feeding as they went.

  And the passage was safe for Nile. The wrigglers were committed.

  She reached the stand with Ticos’ communicator on it, flipped switches, turned dials, paused an instant to steady her breath.

  “Sotira-Doncar!” she said into the speaker then. “Sotira-Doncar! Parahuans here! Parahuans here!” And cut off the communicator.

  No time to wait for a reply. No time at all—

  “Can you needle the stink-fogs into action?”

  “Of course. But—”

  “Hit them!” Nile drew the climb-belt tight around his waist, clipped the UW to the top of her trunks. “If we can get out, we’ll be out before it hurts us.”

  Ticos glanced up at the force-screened window oblong, grunted dubiously. “Hope you’re right!” His finger tapped a control. “They’re hit. Now?”

  Nile bent, placed her hands together. “Foot up! Try to keep your balance. You’re minim-weight—you’ll go up fast. Latch on to the grid and drop me the belt. I think I can make it to your ankles.”

  She put all her strength into the heave. He did go up fast, caught the grid and hooked an arm through it. The climb-belt floated back down. Greasy clouds boiled about the aroused stink-fogs near the entrance door on the left as Nile snatched the belt out of the air and fastened it around herself. Ticos was hanging by both hands now, legs stretched down. She sprang, sailed up along the wall, gripped his ankles and swarmed up him, the antigrav field again enclosing both of them. Moments later she’d worked her knees over a grid bar, had the belt back around Ticos. Breathing hard, he pulled himself up beside her and reached for the control device.

  “Fogging up down there, all right!” he wheezed. “Can’t see the door. Might alert a few more monsters, eh?”

  “Any you can without killing us.” Somebody outside the room must know by now that the execution plans had hit a snag. Clinging by knees and left hand, Nile placed the Uws muzzle against one of the grid casings that should have a force-screen generator beneath it, held the trigger down. The beam hissed and spat. The casing glowed, turned white. An incredible blending of stenches rose about her suddenly, closing her throat, bringing water to her eyes. She heard Ticos splutter and cough.

  Then the casing gave. Something inside shattered and flared. Wind roared in above Nile.

  “Up and out, Ticos! Screen’s gone!” She hauled herself up, flung an arm across the ledge. Her shoulder tingled abruptly. Nerve charge! Parahuans in the lab . . . Below her, Ticos made a sound of distress. Straddling the ledge, she squinted down, saw him blurrily. He’d dropped the control gadget, was clinging to the grid with both hands, shaking in hard convulsions. Heart hammering, Nile reached for him, caught his arm, brought the low-weight body flopping over the ledge and into the growth outside the window. He grasped some branches, wa
s steadying himself, as she turned back.

  Half the lab below was obscured by stink-fog emissions, whirled about by the wind. There was an outburst of desperate hootings—one or more Parahuans had run into a specimen which wasn’t bothered by smells. She had glimpses of bulky shapes milling about, blinded by the fog. They should also be half-strangled by it. But at least one of them had seen Ticos up here long enough to take aim with a nerve-gun.

  The greasy mist swirled aside from a section of floor where four glassy containers stood on a low table. Nile had seen what was inside them when she came into the lab. The top of the nearest container splintered instantly now under the Uws beam. She shifted aim. The startled organism in the shattered container already was contracting and expanding energetically like a pump. A second container cracked. As Nile sighted on a third one, a Parahuan reeled out of the stink-fog cloud, swung a big gun up at the window.

  She ducked back behind the ledge. No time for gun duels. And no need. Two of the containers were broken and she’d seen jets of pale vapor spurting from both. The specimens in them were called acid bombs, with good reason. Nobody in the lab at present was likely to leave it alive—and certainly no one coming in for a while was going to get out again in good enough condition to report that the captives had fled by way of the force-screen window.

  She aimed along the room’s ceiling to a point where the central lighting bars intersected. Something exploded there, and the lab was plunged into darkness.

  Nile swung back from the window, the stink-fog’s reek wafting about her. Ticos was leaning against branches, clinging to them, making abrupt jerking motions.

  “How badly are you hit?” she asked quickly.

  He grunted. “I don’t know! I’m no weapons specialist. What did hit me? Something like a neural agitator?”

  “In that class. You didn’t stop a full charge, or you wouldn’t be on your feet. With the climb-belt, I can carry you. But if you can move—”

 

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