“We can’t fight them,” Subar muttered. “If they’re Piegal Shaeb’s people, every one of them will be a trained slayer.” He indicated his distraught companions. “We can hold our own on the street, but not against professionals.” He looked, unsurprisingly, at Flinx. “We have to run. Again.”
“Can’t this time.” If the younger man was hoping for greater encouragement from the tall offworlder, it was not forthcoming. “They’re approaching from all sides. We’re surrounded here.” Surrounded, he decided, sounded better than trapped.
Tracken was eyeing him curiously. “How do you know we’re surrounded? For that matter, how do you know we’re under attack? How many did you see?”
Subar took a step forward, away from Ashile and toward the agrigeneer. “If he says he knows, he knows.” His gaze returned to the offworlder. “I don’t know how he knows, but he has—I don’t know how to describe it. A nose for things.”
If only that were the pertinent organ, Flinx mused. His head was pounding, but medication would have to wait. “We have to fight them. Somehow.” He looked hopefully at Tracken.
The agrigeneer wiped at his forehead. “There are some defenses. To dissuade produce thieves. Nothing that will deter professional killers, but we’ll try. I also have a gun. One.”
Flinx nodded understandingly. It would have been unreasonable to expect an agricultural specialist, even on an outpost world such as Visaria, to be outfitted with an arsenal.
“Get it.” He turned back to the huddle of anxious youths. “The rest of you might as well arm yourselves as best you can with whatever Tracken can find for you. Knives, farm instruments, any kind of cutting tool. Split up. Find hiding places.” He nodded in the general direction of outside. “They’ll have tracking gear to hunt you down. Infrared seekers, carbon dioxide analyzers, whisper sensors. Don’t wait for them to corner you. If you hear approaching noise, come out fighting. Use what surprise you have.” He turned to go. On his shoulder, Pip was alert and ready.
“You talk like you’ve had to do some serious fighting yourself,” Ashile called after him.
He looked back at her. She was deceptively calm on the outside, but like the rest of her companions her emotions were churning. In response to her comment, rambling memories of a lifetime of running, hiding, and striking back flashed through his mind. He offered what he hoped was an encouraging smile.
“Now and then,” he told her. Then he was out the door and sprinting back up the hallway.
He did not want to get caught inside the building. Ill-equipped as they were in the way of armament, Subar and his friends still had their street-smarts. They might not have adequate weaponry, but they knew how to conceal themselves, how to hide while on the move. If they could just avoid the attackers long enough…
Long enough for what? he asked himself as he burst out the main entrance and raced around toward the back of the complex. For him to pick off the bevy of skilled attackers one at a time? Even if he could do something, why should he bother? Why not just steal through the contracting line of oncoming assailants and make for the city and the shuttleport? These Malandere street kids were nothing to him. Hardscrabble urban urchins with little to recommend them, dubious futures, and questionable morals.
Just like another hard-up youth he had once known well. Just like the underprivileged kid he had once been. He thought he had Subar and his friends pegged, but who was he to say for certain? Maybe there was another Flinx among them.
No, that wasn’t possible. There was only one of him, provided one discounted his roving, raving half sister. Then why was he identifying with them so strongly? Why was he identifying with them at all? Why couldn’t he mind his own business and just let them all die?
Maybe, he thought, because there was only one of him, and whatever else he was, whatever horrors and wonders and contradictions the man that was him contained, stark cold indifference was not among them.
He halted. A dark outline was approaching—from behind. He did not panic; nor did he draw any of the devices that were attached to his belt. He knew the fast-moving figure posed no danger to him because by this time he was more familiar with its emotional output than he wanted to be.
Gulping air, Subar slowed as he drew alongside the taller youth. His tight smile was easy to discern in the subdued illumination. Moonglow flashed off the body of the industrial cutter he held in one hand.
“Tracken says this beam’ll cut right through bone.” Thumbing a control, he triggered the portable implement to emit a short, narrow shaft of intense green light.
“What are you doing here?” Flinx muttered while keeping his eyes and attention focused elsewhere.
The smile became a challenging grin. “You told us to split up, didn’t you? Look for safe places to hide? I figure the safest place right now is in your butt’s umbra.”
Flinx started to snap a rejoinder, found himself breaking out into a grin of his own. Subar might not be another him, but there were similarities to his younger self that could not be denied. Much as he might wish to.
“All right. Stay close, keep quiet, and be careful where you point that thing.”
Slightly wide-eyed, Subar nodded. “What are you going to do?” he whispered expectantly.
Seeing rather than sensing movement out among the billowing moonstruck waves of protective polymer, Flinx suddenly dropped into a crouch.
“Empathize,” he murmured forcefully.
CHAPTER
16
A moment or two elapsed before the sharp-eyed Subar also detected the methodically advancing figures. There were several of them spread out across the back field, advancing down different rows among the polymer-protected vegetation. Something about the way they moved reminded him of a previous encounter. It took a few seconds before realization stabbed him like a stiff finger to the gut.
“The ones there,” he whispered to Flinx as both of them crouched low against the side of the building, “they walk funny.”
“I know,” Flinx told him. He had drawn the compact, alien pistol from its boot holster and was holding it easily in his right hand.
“I’ve seen movement like that before. One of the guards at the storage facility we scrimmed walked like that.”
Flinx spared a quick glance for the youth huddled close to him. “Is that so?” His gaze returned to the warily approaching shapes. “That’s very interesting.”
Subar frowned up at the offworlder. “You talk like you know why they move like that.”
“I do.” This time, Flinx did not look back at the younger man. “I could explain it, but you’ll see for yourself soon enough. Just remember to keep quiet no matter what you see.”
A perplexed Subar complied. Another couple of minutes passed, during which time he was able to identify four, maybe five approaching figures. Those who walked strangely began to exhibit other peculiarities. He strained to see better. The nearest one, for example. Its head didn’t look quite right. Moonlight glinted off a long weapon, a rifle of some kind. That much was familiar. But the arms that were holding the rifle looked awfully thin, while the figure’s legs looked too big. Something brushed moonbeams aside. It could have been the arm of another infiltrator, waving from behind. Now Subar’s eyes grew truly wide as the truth of what he was seeing struck home. Even in the reduced light, he could not deny the evidence of his eyes. What he had seen waving was not another arm.
It was a tail.
He stared for a long moment before it occurred to him to query the seemingly all-knowing offworlder. “Is that…?” Fascination with the approaching, slightly bent-forward figures caused him to pause midquestion. He had seen plenty of images of the type of oncoming being, and viewed a number of spellbinding vits, but had never expected to see one in the flesh. He certainly had never expected to encounter one on, of all places, Visaria.
Flinx nodded tersely in response to the youth’s awed whisper. “Yes, they’re AAnn. There are a trio of them, together with a pair of humans flanking the
m farther to the east.” He gestured sharply. “There are the only these three, I think. As near as I can perceive, those closing on the other sides of the complex are all human. That’s why I chose to come back here. These three pose the greatest danger, and need to be dealt with first.” He hesitated briefly. “Also, I was curious.” A ghost of his previous grin returned. “It’s always getting me into trouble.”
“But AAnn, here—why?” Subar could only mumble.
Keeping his eyes and Talent fixed on the figures coming closer through the moonlit field, Flinx shrugged. It was not an expression of indifference, but a physical command. Lifting into the night sky, Pip began to circle, gaining altitude.
“Could be any of several reasons,” the tall offworlder hypothesized softly. “You said you remembered something similar from the warehouse you and your friends boosted. Now here we have three of them. It would seem that at least that many are in the employ of, or at least have a mutually advantageous arrangement with, this Piegal Shaeb person who wants all of you dead.”
“But,” a disbelieving Subar protested, “they’re AAnn. They’re the enemies of the Commonwealth.”
“Even more than humans, the AAnn are driven by the need for individual advancement. While they cooperate among their different clans and extended families to expand the Empire, personal ambition is what motivates them in their everyday lives.” He nodded in the direction of the approaching assassins. Close now to the first outlying structure, they had slowed their advance. Clearly visible were the muzzles of weapons held upraised and at the ready.
“Remember when we freed your friends? There was another alien there, representative of a species I’m not familiar with, working alongside the other human operatives. Plainly, this Shaeb is no simian chauvinist. Making use of offworld contacts, he not only deals with but in fact employs help without regard to species.” He let his Talent rove, pinpointing the location of each individual approaching threat. “An admirable trait in an otherwise unpleasant person.”
Subar pondered his friend’s analysis. “I didn’t think humans could cooperate with AAnn, or that AAnn would work with humans.”
Remembering a recent sojourn on Jast, Flinx peered down at the youngster. “It always amazes me how altered circumstances and a convergence of goals can change different sentients’ perceptions of one another. Everywhere I’ve been, I’ve seen that even when governments can’t get along, individuals can. Even individuals of different, supposedly mutually hostile species.” He gestured in the direction of the moonlit fields. “If they run true to type, these AAnn probably hold their human employer in outright contempt. That doesn’t prevent them from working for him in order to advance themselves. Accepting such employment means these are probably very low-ranking AAnn.” He considered. “Unless they’ve done so at the behest of an Imperial department, and their work for Piegal Shaeb is subsidiary to their real reasons for wanting to be on Visaria.”
Subar’s eyes grew wide. “Spies?”
Flinx was not smiling now. “Maybe we’ll get the chance to ask them.”
Why was it, he thought resentfully as he hunkered down behind a pile of empty storage casements, that every time he set down on a new world with only the simplest of intentions in mind, he invariably found himself caught up in situations whose significance far exceeded his aims?
On the other side of the complex, Tracken Behdulvlad was monitoring the infiltration of more than a dozen assailants. He was able to do so not because he had exceptional night vision, but because his property was equipped with a fitting complement of commercially available sensors and scanners. Installed to watch out for produce thieves and marauding animals, the hidden instrumentation showed the precise location of each of the approaching trespassers.
When the shadowy figures were positioned for optimal results, the agrigeneer addressed several commands one after the other to his master control console. Once he was certain these were being processed, he picked up his gun and headed for the furniture-reinforced position he had hastily thrown together in the vicinity of the front door. Ordinarily, not more than one such command would be issued in a week. Submitted in rapid sequence, they caused the property to erupt.
Surprise was complete. Having been assured their quarry would not be expecting them, Shaeb’s professionals were caught completely off guard as every light mounted on the residential complex, storage facilities, border fence, outlying structures, and cultivated fields sprang to life concurrently. Intense illumination flooded every corner of the property. Hidden speakers blasted sound effects that, at more modest volume, were designed to frighten away the native fauna that periodically tried to steal Behdulvlad’s hard-earned crops.
Dashing forward and concentrating their attention on the main residential building, two of Shaeb’s minions failed to notice the camouflaged trap that was designed to ensnare marauding ferezal grazers. Both men went down hard, their weapons flying out of their hands. One cursed loudly, his leg broken. Half blinded by the lights, half deafened by the amped-up sound effects, his partner struggled to help the injured man retreat in the direction of the fence line.
Approaching rapidly from the east side of the complex, a trio of would-be attackers suddenly found themselves running through heavy precipitation. Only it wasn’t rain. Frowning and looking up, one hired gun blinked, then began to wheeze heavily. Flanking him, his fellow killers began to rub frantically at their eyes as automated sprayguns sent a dense shower of powerful aerated pesticide raining down on them. Choking and gasping for air, they ran, stumbled, and finally crawled back the way they had come.
Charging from the west side, three of their colleagues found themselves splashing, then wading, through a bowl-shaped field of rising liquid. Thick and glutinous, it stuck to their boots and pants, slowing them down. What stopped them, however, was not the knee-high flood itself, but its chemical makeup. First one of the would-be attackers began to gag. Then her neighbor started to retch. All of a sudden the residential complex they had been ordered to penetrate seemed very far away, and reachable only by struggling through the rest of the fallow field that was being completely inundated with liquid manure.
Beset by a deluge of stinks, sounds, rotating lights, and the occasional blast from Behdulvlad’s rifle, the carefully planned assault dissolved into chaos. Straying from their preassigned routes as they sought safer, less manic approaches to the complex, several of Shaeb’s less gifted hirelings panicked and began shooting at one another, thereby adding another layer of pleasant confusion to the rapidly mounting mayhem that had enveloped the property. In frustration at the absence of live targets, some of them began shooting at lights, sound generators, any piece of equipment they could pick out. One of them fired into what turned out to be a storage tank for pressurized gas. The resulting explosion lit up the sky, producing a shower of bits of metal, plastic, and human body parts that served to further demoralize the surviving attackers.
Only those approaching the back of the complex retained their composure. Natural carnivores, trained from birth for combat, the approaching AAnn maintained their positions as they continued to advance steadily. Shaken by the raucous upheaval but buoyed by the steadiness of their reptilian counterparts, the two humans who accompanied them likewise continued to press forward.
Subar could see all of them clearly now. “They’re still coming,” he whispered apprehensively.
“I know,” Flinx murmured. “Look to the beam cutter you’re holding, and be ready.” His head tilted back as he glanced skyward. In the collision of lights and the darkness of night, something small and superfast was descending.
Despite the low-light sensors built into the face shield he was wearing, the underling who raised his pulse rifle and aimed it in the direction of the residential complex had not yet espied Flinx or Subar. His purpose was plain enough to the diving minidrag, however. Plunging almost vertically, she spat once, pulled out of the dive, and soared off into the night. The man never saw her, but he felt something w
et starting to drip down his forehead. It started to burn his skin almost immediately. Reaching up, he rubbed frantically at the tiny trickle of mysterious fluid, with the result that the corrosive liquid began to eat into his fingers. Recklessly brushing them on his pants, he stared in horrified fascination as the fluid began to eat several holes through the fabric. Concentrating as he was on his legs and fingers, he neglected to wipe away the last droplet of fiery fluid on his forehead.
It dripped down into his right eye.
His screams brought his colleagues, human and AAnn alike, to an immediate halt as all four sharply turned in his direction. Dir and the other human raced toward the horrifying sounds. By the time they reached the man he was dead, his prone body madly contorted from the effects of the toxin. One eye had been melted away, and there were ugly burns on his forehead and right leg.
“Facronash!” the woman cursed. She turned furiously on the phlegmatic AAnn standing nearby. “You were the closest to Gerul. Why didn’t you do something?”
“Sseeing nothing,” the AAnn replied, no longer having to disguise its voice, “I could do nothing.” A clawed hand holding a pistol gestured in the corpse’s direction. “I ssorrow politely for your loss.”
“‘Sorrow politely’?” Stomping back and forth, hands trembling, the woman sought for a suitable response. She and the now gruesomely demised Gerul had worked together many times. “I swear on my insides, I don’t understand why Shaeb has anything to do with you lizards! You don’t care, you have no professional ethics, you breathe funny, you stinking, slimy, stand-up snakes who think you can—!”
Her tirade was terminated, not because she ran out of breath or insults, but because a thoroughly annoyed Dir shot her through the head point-blank. A shocked expression frozen forever on her face, the female mercenary fell over backward to land with a muted thump not far from the man who had preceded her in death.
When voiced, the AAnn’s observation was as subdued as it was scornful. “Ignorant human, knowing nothing even of your own homeworld. Terran ssnakess are cool and ssmooth to the touch. Not ssoft and flaccid like yoursselvess.” Turning, she loped back to rejoin her waiting companions.
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