She tried to speak, but could only stutter out, “I t-t-tried it.”
“Tried what?”
“This morning, th-th-thinking to make use of my time, I w-w-woke early and sh-shaved a bit of the harlow tusk and ground it and put it in my tea...”
I held my laughter in check.
“Y-Y-You’re the only other female in camp!” she cried in despair. She was exhibiting all the effects of lust, and her eyes darted to the many males walking to and fro. “What am I to do, Ransom! What am I to do?”
“Let us hope that the effects are short term, Merlin,” I began, but she suddenly rose and ran off, lamenting.
“What have I done?”
Shaking my head and smiling, I broke my meager camp and joined Newton, who had already eaten, but who lingered over a cup of his own coffee, devoid of enhancement, I trusted, while I ate. I then took out one of my precious cigarettes and lit it.
Newton studied me. “We’ve done some research on those tobacco sticks,” he said laconically. “They may not be good for your health.”
“And being attacked by a harlow is?” I joke.
Camp was breaking around us.
He grunted, changing the subject. “We haven’t far to go,” he said. “And it’s just as well, because we are being followed. I don’t know by whom, but it’s very bad luck. That harlow attracted far too much attention last night.”
I thought of Merlin and the beast’s tusks but said instead: “Are you worried?”
“Yes. But it would be just as dangerous to turn around at this point as to go on. When we get to the Arabia Terra station it will afford us some protection if we need it.”
I mentioned that with the weapon I had seen in operation last night, he should have little to worry about.
“Have you ever seen a Baldy attack?” he asked, dead serious.
“No. And in the picture books they’re depicted almost comically.”
“There’s nothing comical about them. And there is no such thing as one Baldy. If you see one, there are usually thousands, traveling like wild animals.”
His worry was palpable, and I hurriedly finished my cigarette.
He was already giving orders, and soon we were on our way.
The vast plains of Arabia Terra stretched before and below us like an endless carpet of red and green. It reminded me much of my native country in the south, with the exception of the cold looking mountains to the north, ice tipped even at this time of year. But the plain itself was inviting, rolling hills and soft valleys filled with vegetation and dotted with blue lakes looking like shimmering coins from a distance. Newton pointed east to what at first I took to be a natural structure, a hill taller than the rest.
“The station,” he announced, handing his spy glass to me, and now the lines of what I took to be a hill resolved into a structure similar to the one I had visited, though on a massive scale.
“It looks much larger than what I saw,” I told him.
I continued to study. “And much more intact.”
“There was a time we thought we could bring it back to life,” Newton said. “There is a lot of equipment still in working order.”
A thrill went through me, thinking of those massive stacks, ten of them intact, as I counted, bellowing their production into the atmosphere, the engines humming mightily, lights making the station a glowing beacon at night.
I lowered the spy glass. “I can’t wait to see it.”
The trip took a good portion of the morning and part of the afternoon, but by the time the sun was lowering the structure was rising before me like a towering peak. Its scale was massive, making the one I had been in nearly insignificant.
“The one in Meridiani was tiny compared to this,” I said.
“Impressive, isn’t it?”
We drove through a huge gate under a stone archway. The iron gates were rusted permanently open. There was debris, but overall the place looked well preserved. There were many more buildings than I expected: free standing structures as well as rows of blockhouses which Newton explained contained bunks as well as what must have been at one time shops for the station’s large population.
“We estimate that at one time up to ten thousand Old One’s resided here.”
“I’m surprised Jeffrey never found remains,” I replied.
“He looked, but the soil is not suitable for fossilization.”
It occurred to me that I had not seen Merlin since that morning.
As I opened my mouth to ask Newton about it he abruptly stopped the vehicle and got out.
“This is where we start,” he announced.
The caravan came to a halt. We entered, under another huge archway and open door, to a room huge in scale but similar to the one in Meridiani: offices, machines of every sort, tall pillars and wide, boxy structures.
Newton gave orders, but they were not what I had expected.
“It sounds like you’re fortifying this place rather than exploring it.”
“Come with me,” he said, and strode toward the far end of the building where a set of stairs led up to the catwalk overhead.
Our boots clanging on the metal stairway, we ascended. I followed across a bridge, trying not to look down. Newton stopped and mounted four metal steps to a trap door overhead. He pushed it open and I followed him out.
The afternoon was moving toward dusk. It was cool on the roof, which was flat and expansive. It made me feel like a small creature. Newton marched with purpose to the far wall.
When we reached it he stopped and pointed to the west, from where we had come, and then to the north.
The fields and valleys and hills were covered with tiny white moving things, like maggots.
“We would look as small and insignificant from here,” Newton said. “Those are Baldies.”
There were thousands of them making their way toward us. The nearest was just over the hill we had topped not a half hour ago.
“Our scout saw one of them early this morning as we broke camp. A second scout never returned.”
“What can we do?”
“Fight them, for as long as we can.”
I had seen many things in this feline’s eyes over the time I had spent with him, but this was the first time I had ever seen something like fear.
“There’s no hope?”
“There is always hope,” he answered. “But you must understand that they will never give up. By now they know our numbers, and they know that we have the harlow tusks. You might conclude that if we left the tusks for them they would be assuaged, and leave us. But the tusks are only their prize for killing us. Even without them they would have attacked us anyway. If we had turned around for home last night they would have overrun us on the road and destroyed us then. Our bad luck was to cross paths with that harlow. From that moment on I feared this would happen. The F’rar brag that they have eliminated the Baldies in this hemisphere but as in most things they lie.”
We made our way back down through the trap door and to the floor of the building. The weapon on its tripod had been set up facing the door. Various loose machines had been dragged into position around it to form a defensive wall. This stretched out to either side in a curve back into flanking positions. There were metal bars and tools being stacked at ten meter intervals behind the wall.
“We will fight here as long as we can,” Newton explained. “It will be hand to hand at some point, I’m afraid. Are you up to this?”
“I will do what has to be done. I trained during my time with the nomads.”
“Good. Our weapon will buy us some time. Baldies attack in waves, and if we can keep our little ground analyzer charged we will take care of them as they come at us. It will give out at some point, unfortunately.
“When we have exhausted our abilities out here,” he continued, we will retreat into a fortified room in the back.” He pointed toward the rear of the building, well behind the artificial wall, at a room that looked small and cramped, but was without windows.
“And then?”
“And then we will wait for them to get in at us.” He paused, and said the next words softly. “And they will.”
It occurred to me that I had not been in battle before. I had learned much from the Mighty, and some from the Science Guild, but I had never been tested. I thought ironically that this was evident in my placement, far on the right flank with, I thought, some of the weaker looking members of our party.
As I waited, a pile of tools and rusted steel rods in front of me as weapons, Merlin appeared, looking sheepish.
“The effects lasted exactly four hours and a quarter. Can you forgive my foolishness?”
I grinned. “Of course, Merlin.” She still would not meet my gaze so I added, “After all, it was a good experiment, wasn’t it?”
She brightened immediately. “Yes! It was the strangest thing. I’ve noted it in my journal. As if a wave of something no quite myself came over me. It was quite shocking. And then, of course, I lost control of myself completely...”
She began to blush. “There was a fellow from the lower rank of apprentices...” Her blush deepened.
“You will be able to write it up, Merlin. It will make quite a paper.”
“Yes–”
At that moment, the Baldies attacked.
Nothing appeared under the archway immediately. There was a sound, first, a high keening screech that reminded me, in much higher register, of the bellowing sound of the harlow as it charged. And then they came in all at once, from both sides – a tide of white screaming naked bodies and flashing teeth and claws. Unarmed, which was remarkable, and still they sent the ice of fear through my veins.
Not exactly hairless as they appeared in pictures, I noted. There were thick white patches of fur around their genitals and under their arms, and their heads, though nearly bald, showed tufts of the same. Their eyes were large, and either very pale blue or light red, almost pink. Their strange tails whipped nervously this way and that as they advanced.
As they filled the doorway our weapon went off with a flash. When I regained my temporary blindness the entryway was filled with writhing or dead, deformed bodies. It stopped the rest only for a moment. Without a glance at their fallen comrades, they climbed over the stricken and attacked. They did not go for the center but charged straight for the right flank, where Merlin and I and two others stood firmly rooted.
The next half hour, or hour, or five hours, or full day, was a blur of screaming charging white vampyric bodies. The first of them came straight at the barricades, some impaling themselves senselessly on the protuberances in front. But this madness became almost instantly understandable when those behind them used the dead as climbing pegs to get to the top of the barricade. The first I struck down with a blow from the long rusted iron bar in my hand. His head caved in like a kawilla melon with a sickening wet sound. He fell back with a dull screech against those behind him. Merlin was having trouble and I turned to strike another as it climbed over the top of the barricade. It fell dead and twitching between us.
“Merlin, to your right!” I shouted, and the little geologist turned in time to meet a screaming baldy head on. The creature was on her with all fours and teeth, but I kicked it away and then the soldier to Merlin’s right dispatched it.
But there came others, endless others. A new wave replaced the old and mostly defeated one. Once again Newton’s weapon flashed and more dead white bodies filled the doorway. But as others climbed the growing mountain of carcasses, others behind them pulled the dead away like so much cord wood and tossed their fellows aside. I glanced to the left. The middle was being attacked now, as well as the left flank. Yet another wave of screaming things poured through the archway and at us. I lost my rusted bar and reached down for another. When this was lost in the chest of an enemy I used another and then another. Newton’s weapon flashed again, and, after recharging, again.
Two creatures jumped from the top of the barricade wall onto Merlin, who cried out as their claws sunk into her. I fought one off but the other was tenacious. I saw the flash of its long dagger teeth sink deep into the little scientist’s back and withdraw, red as soil.
Merlin collapsed. I beat the second creature off her even as it sunk its teeth into her again, howling in rage and triumph.
The weapon flashed. But something went wrong and in the middle of its discharge this time. There was a huge fizzling sound and then a dull explosion. I glanced quickly left and saw the middle breached, a mass of white bodies climbing unopposed over the barricade.
“Pull back!” I heard Newton’s distant shouted command. “Fall back to the room!”
I glanced quickly up: one of the things was glaring at me with its huge pink eyes as it jumped from the top of the wall. I thrust my weapon, another rusty rod, up and it screeched in agony as the bar drove through it.
I bent to take Merlin and began to drag her backwards over the floor toward the distant room.
The wall was exploding in height all along its length as Baldies climbed up and up over the bodies of those underneath, and began to drop down onto our side.
Someone took Merlin from the other side, and then lifted her away from me.
“Run, Haydn!”
It was Newton. The two of us turned and ran for our lives to the open doorway of the room.
Behind us, Baldies were tearing at the remains of the weapon on its broken tripod, howling in triumph, leaping onto the bodies of the dead and fallen.
“Keep running!”
The doorway drew near, and I looked back once more. We had been seen, and Baldies all along the line of battle were pointing and screeching and now chasing us.
The doorway was suddenly there, and I ran inside. Newton was close behind. There were three others already inside, and now Newton put Merlin on the floor and looked out.
“Hurry!” he shouted, scanning the battle line.
Another of our number came inside, and then one more.
Newton pushed the door shut, and locked its meager lock.
“Help me barricade it!” he shouted.
We pushed whatever furniture was in the room – a desk, an empty bookcase, a cabinet – against the door, just as the first wave of screaming Baldies hit it.
It moved slightly with the blow.
“I don’t know how long we have,” Newton announced glumly, as a sudden hush in activity left us dazed and exhausted.
I sat on the floor beside Merlin, whose breathing was irregular, a series of little gasps. She came in and out of consciousness, but suddenly she gasped and her eyes opened wide.
“Check the meter! Check the meter!” She shouted to some unseen apprentice.
There was a huge thump against the door, and the creak of our piled furniture moving incrementally back.
“Merlin?” I said in a soothing voice. “Can you hear me?”
She focused on me. She seemed to know me for a moment, but then she gasped again in pain. Her eyes lost their focus once more. “Check...!” she cried weakly, and then was gone.
Another loud thump sounded against the door. Now there was noise to either side of us, behind the walls to the adjoining offices. There was a bang on one wall, then the other, before long a constant tattoo of rips and slams.
“They’ll dig their way in at us from either side,” Newton said.
I lay Merlin’s body down. Newton drew me aside, away from the rest. The tiny room was filled with noise. There were two other wounded, one of whom succumbed. The other moaned softly. There were three other survivors besides Newton and I.
“This is a terrible thing for you and for all of us, and I must apologize,” Newton said to me. “I had hoped that if you returned to your rightful place, as I thought you might, that you would remember your time with the Science Guild and think kindly of us. Your father never understood us, and the F’rar will use us for ill if they don’t decide in their twisted wisdom to destroy us. I had hope for you. And now things will end like this...”
He paus
ed. “I must admit that I have grown very fond of you over these weeks, Haydn. No one can replace my dear daughter, but I want you to know that in your own way you have soothed an old man with a sick heart. Thank you.”
I made as if to speak but he quieted me. “Say nothing,” he said. “I think you would have made a wonderful Queen.”
The sounds became louder. The wall closest to us trembled. Stone began to fall inward. The screeches of delight on the other side intensified. The door buckled inward and the furniture barricade was pushed back over the floor.
“Soon,” Newton intoned.
A small hole appeared amidst falling stone in one wall, and then another.
A tremendous crash came from behind the door and it flew open a few centimeters. The long claws of a baldy curled in, wresting it open even wider–
And then, abruptly, the claw retreated. There was a horrid keening sound outside the door.
The pounding on the walls suddenly ceased.
The keening sound increased to an agonized height, and then gradually receded.
There was sudden quiet outside.
I stole a quick glance at Newton, who bore a trace of a smile.
“Finally,” he said, as if it were a prayer.
There came a knock on the door.
“Anyone home?” a hearty voice, one I thought I knew, called from outside.
Newton made a motion, and the blockade was moved away.
The door opened.
The man filling the doorway looked at Newton and nodded, and then his eyes locked with mine.
“Kerl...” I breathed, a whisper.
“It took you long enough to get here,” Newton said, and then he gave a hearty, deep, happy laugh.
Sixteen
“We had quite a fight of our own this morning before we got here,” Kerl explained. We were eating a meager dinner, but it felt like a feast. We had moved to another vast building on the far side of the station, leaving the battlefield, a carpet of white bodies, to the inevitable scavenger birds and beasts, some of which were edible and had been caught. The smell of roasting meat filled the air. Kerl’s men were well provisioned, and had spices (ironically, I discovered later, some of them I had carried myself) and wine. Tables were festooned with simple things: candles set in makeshift holders, scavenged silverware and dinnerware in a hundred patterns, the occasional electric lantern. The Baldies, for whatever reason, had left our vehicles untouched. When I asked about it, Newton said simply, “They’re only interested in feline flesh, not in things.”
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