Neither of the guards turned a head to study the new arrivals. They stared in opposite directions, one up the corridor and the other down. It seemed as if their sole purpose in life was to insure that nothing approached the barrier unseen. They reminded Ryo of pictures he'd seen of ancient warriors standing ready, jaws agape, to defend the primitive hive.
The officer saddled behind the barrier, however, looked up readily at Tor's approach and favored him with a greeting movement of her antennae.
"You're Tor the hunter, aren't you?"
"That I am. At your service." He executed a fluid gesture of third degree obeisance combined with two degrees of sexual admiration.
It did not have any visible effect on the officer. "I've heard of you." She seemed open and friendly. "I am Burrow Tacticianary Marwenewlix, tenth level."
Tor took note of her insignia. ."Greetings and warmth to you."
"What may I do for the three of you?" She was eying their pelts with curiosity and none of the disgust Ryo would have expected.
Moving forward, Tor rested his truhands on the barrier as he spoke. "My friends are hunter trappers, as am I. We deal in the skins and skeletons and corpses of those beasts favored for aesthetic and culinary application, which beasts the hive dwellers would rather avoid while the fearsome things still live."
"I know that," she replied. "I have a byorlesnath thorax muff I bought from a concession in the service corridor. The proprietor told me you were his supplier."
"Fourth booth, level two?" She gestured in the affirmative. "Young Estplehenzin, yes, I remember. I hope you find the muff to your liking."
"It is quite attractive in its barbaric way and very warm."
"Then you can understand, as an appreciator of such items, why my friends and I are always on the search for similar items with which to supplement our stock."
For the first time she sounded uncertain. "I'm not sure I follow you."
Tor leaned closer, his tone turning conspiratorial. "It's come to our attention that you might be studying some creatures whose pelts would be especially marketable. More than just the usual novelties, if you follow my meaning. Something will have to be done with them when you've finished your studies. We would be glad to handle any post experiment disposal, with mutual profit to all concerned."
"I've no idea what you're talking about." She added two degrees of politeness and one of puzzlement. "No such creatures exist in this section."
"Come now, tacticianary," he urged softly, "we've all heard the rumors. Since no such creatures are being studied anywhere else on the base, they have to be back there." He gestured past her, down the corridor. "Or else over to the south in Section W, right? Those are the only two places in the installation tight enough to hold them, as well as the rumors."
"They are not here, nor in Section W, because no such things exist," said the officer. "The cold has weakened your reason while stimulating your imagination, hunter. I can enlighten you no further."
"It's not that I'm doubting your word, tacticianary. It's only that the tales I've been told have been so persistent and inconsistent. If we could have a quick look for ourselves, why then we could leave easy in mind that we're not missing out on a special opportunity. Just a quick look. We wouldn't tell a soul. Don't but rarely meet anyone else to tell anyway, Outside." He forced a laugh.
"I can't allow you past this point." She was not amused. "You know that."
"Well then, what goes on back there, anyway?"
"Research."
"Real secret research, hmm?"
"Come now, sir. Enough badinage. Surely you realize that if I must turn away military personnel I could never let one of you past this station, any more than I am able to relate what kind of research takes place here. I can say that most of the time I do not know myself."
"Then let us pass," Wuu interjected, speaking only because he saw chance slipping rapidly away, "and upon our return we'll enhance your store of knowledge from our own."
She eyed him intently. For a moment Ryo thought that Wuu's instinctively elegant speech had betrayed them.
The officer's mandibles moved and Ryo feared she was about to ask the first of many unanswerable questions, when something whoomed! from the far end of the corridor. Even the fossilized guards unbent, whirling with their raised weapons. Flakes of sealant fell from the corridor ceiling.
Tor had clung to the desk for stability. Ryo and Wuu barely managed to keep their own balance.
There was a disquieting pause as the officer took a step toward the source of the explosion. A second blast shook them. This time smoke and a brief flare of orange flame filled the far end. The flame disappeared, the smoke began to dissipate, and shouts and whistles sounded from unseen Thranx.
Several appeared from behind the smoke, running toward the barrier. They gestured urgently. Without a word the two guards rushed to join them and the little group hurried around the bend that had produced the smoke and fire.
The officer had hesitated before turning back to face her inquisitive visitors.
"I'm afraid I must ask you gentlesirs to return to the central sector, preferably to the concession area." An intercom video console was built into the barrier. The status indicators on it were going berserk. From down the corridor they could hear the shrill blare of warning whistles.
"We won't get in the way," Tor said with admirable calm. "Maybe we can help, if you'll allow us to " He broke off suddenly, speechless with amazement.
The officer had produced a pistol, which she held in a foothand. It displayed not the civilized snout of a stinger or of an energy weapon, but that of a charged projectile device whose tiny explosive pellets could blow a person's chiton to splinters. "Please return the way you came," she instructed them brusquely, with maximum degree assurance, "or I will be compelled to kill you here."
"Kill?" Wuu repeated stupidly. It was the first time Ryo had ever heard the poet at a loss for appropriate words. "We haven't done a thing. We "
"You have five seconds. One ... two ..."
"Enough. We can argue later." Tor turned and started running. Ryo did not need further urging. As he ran he turned to glance back over his shoulder. The officer had resumed her saddle, her hands flying over the console's controls. The ugly projectile weapon lay close at hand atop the barrier.
"Outrageous!" Wuu was muttering. "Whatever trouble they are experiencing is no excuse, no excuse. Such a breach of common courtesy, of farewell custom! They cannot
"This is a restricted military installation," Tor interrupted him firmly. "They can do anything they wish."
"Surely she would not have shot us with that thing?" Ryo said wonderingly. They turned down a bend in the tunnel.
"Did you not see her posture or note the inflection in her voice?" Tor asked. "No question in my mind. She would have blown us apart as we stood there gaping at her; bang bang bang, one two three. Good bye hunter and his curious friends, just like that."
"But why?" Wuu wanted to know. "What trouble could have provoked such a threat? It's unthinkable, a throwback to the primitivism of the hive wars."
"She would have done it because she'd been ordered to," Tor told him. "I can see that neither of you has spent much time around the military. We can consider her reasoning later." He turned sharply to his right.
"We did not come this way, I think." Ryo looked backward again. They were alone now. "Do you think it's possible ... those explosions ..."
"I don't give a damn what's possible," snapped their guide. "We're not going to ask questions until they put away projectile weapons and such. I want no part of anything that's got them so jumpy."
"Don't you see, though? This may have something to do with the monsters," Ryo told him.
"And maybe it has something to do with a top secret weapon that's going haywire," Tor responded. "We'll find out later, when mysterious explosions aren't going off and attractive officers aren't threatening to shoot us. For the moment I thin
k the sensible thing for us to do is follow her advice and relax with the other nonmilitary back in the concession area."
By this time they were running through a particularly narrow corridor laced with conduits and pipes. "Maintenance tunnel," Tor said, stating the obvious. "There's going to be a lot of confusion in the nearby corridors. This way, we'll miss the traffic and come out close to the concession level. I could use a cylinder of hot cider right now, as well as a little calm. If there's been a general mobilization, we'll learn about it just as fast and a lot more comfortably while we're drinking."
"Two explosions," Ryo was muttering. "I heard at least two."
"I also heard them, my boy." Wuu was breathing hard and having trouble keeping up with his younger comrades. "I thought the second closer but smaller than the first."
"I'd give a great deal to know exactly what's going on," Ryo said.
"Perhaps we'll encounter personnel in the concessions who know something and are more willing to talk about it," the poet replied. "Confusion and excitement can loosen the tightest of throats."
Ryo moved on as Tor dropped back to assist the slowing Wuu. Noise sounded from ahead.
"They're probably trying to shut down power and so forth to the affected area," the hunter declared. "Maybe the maintenance workers can tell us something. I may be more cautious, but I'm as curious as either of you as to what' ,s happening."
"I'll ask." Ryo sent a greeting whistle toward the hidden work crew. "Greetings, friends! Do you know what is happening? Did you hear the explosions? Can you tell us? …' He turned the corner and stopped.
The work crew he'd expected to find was not there, but something else was.
The horrors that turned to confront him held Thranx energy rifles in pulpy, pale fingers. Ryo could not understand how anything so soft looking could hold even a drinking tankard. Each of the two upper limbs ended in five digits instead of the normal four, and only one was opposable.
They stared at each other, Thranx and monster equally surprised. Ryo wondered if the two were a mated pair. There were some superficial differences between them, but that was no assurance of mating or even gender. Certainly neither displayed anything like a pair of ovipositors, but then, he reminded himself, most mammals practice live birth.
Despite the presence of fur he couldn't be certain they were mammals. Their bodies were heavily clothed and what fur he could see was restricted to their heads. So startled was he by the unexpected sight, he forgot to sound a warning.
It wasn't necessary. "What is it, boy?" Wuu called. "Is something the matter?"
"Yes, do they know " Tor pulled to a halt down the corridor. They did not round the bend as Ryo had in his haste, but remained out in the main tunnel.
One of the monsters made a throaty, gargling sound and raised its rifle. Tor and Wuu immediately turned and bolted back the way they'd come.
Whether out of desire to protect the elderly poet or from some unconscious urging (he never really knew), Ryo stepped in front of the rifle and dropped all four arms. The monster glared down at him out of tiny single lensed eyes and hesitated. Ryo had confused it.
It did not run after the retreating Thranx. Ryo noticed that the energy rifle was similar to those the two barrier guards had wielded. Its tip dropped away from him, but as he took a step backward it came up again.
Ryo stood quietly, staring up at the monster, his antennae working furiously as he examined the creature. There was nothing remarkable about their smell. It was oddly familiar, in fact.
For their part, the monsters seemed puzzled by Ryo's calm. They continued to make the strange gargling noises, clearly their method of communication.
There were other differences besides the amount of fur they displayed. One was slightly larger than the other and they had different shapes. The latter could be due to clothing as much as physiognomy, Ryo reminded himself. They displayed the flexibility of leuks. Their outer skin was mostly bare of fur but was not hard and composed of jointed plates as was that of the AAnn. The softness fascinated him. The creatures had outer coverings as thin as paper.
They seemed to fit no known life grouping. As endoskeletal beings they probably belonged to a lower order, though the AAnn were an exception to that otherwise universal rule. If their physiology followed Thranx norms then the larger of the two should be the female.
They appeared to be tail less. Their faces were flat and they had external nostrils instead of antennae; it was likely they could not faz. When they conversed they showed only four canines, two upper and two lower. The rest of their teeth seemed relatively flat and blunt. That suggested they were herbivores, but they didn't act like plant eaters. Omnivorous like us, perhaps, he mused.
Since they were clearly bipedal the lack of a substantial tail puzzled him. Such an arrangement seemed designed for instability, yet they appeared to balance themselves without difficulty in the awkward upright position.
There were only two upper limbs and he wondered if they could double as another pair of legs like the Thranx foothands. He doubted it. Both upper and lower limbs appeared too specialized for such duality of employment.
The energy rifles were designed for use with three hands. The monsters managed by holding the stock of the weapon in the space between arm and body, thus freeing one hand to work the lower grip and the other the trigger. They seemed to know exactly what they were doing and he had no doubt they could fire the weapons whenever necessary.
All these observations registered on his brain in seconds. As he'd hoped, by stepping between their weapons and his companions he'd prevented shooting. Now they were probably trying to decide whether he was sacrificial by nature or merely insane.
They were neither as terrifying nor as familiar as he'd hoped. If it came to physical combat, he thought he had a good chance. They were each twice his mass, but that skin looked terribly fragile. He hoped there would be no bloodshed. It was only a matter of time before they were recaptured anyway. Surely the hunt had already begun.
His thoughts returned to the two explosions and he wondered if anything besides property might have been hurt. As he considered that unnerving possibility the taller monster tried to stand erect, bumped its head hard against the corridor ceiling, and made some loud mouth noises. Its rifle's muzzle dipped and Ryo took a step back.
Immediately the smaller one swung its weapon to cover Ryo. He halted. Clearly this was an escape attempt, and just as clearly it would soon come to an end. Before that happened he hoped to acquire some interesting information.
He was quite calm as the taller monster prodded him with the rifle muzzle. Evidently it desired that he move. Ryo responded with a second degree gesture of negativity. Keeping the tremor from his voice, he politely whistled that he had no intention of going anywhere and that it didn't matter because they would be recaptured any moment.
There was no way of telling if the creature understood. In any case it prodded him harder with the rifle and made a loud mouth noise. Not wishing to tempt their instincts further, he turned resignedly and walked in the indicated direction.
The monsters paced him, the larger one taking the lead and the other walking behind Ryo, occasionally glancing over its shoulder for signs of pursuit. There were none as yet.
The maintenance tunnel rambled on and on, but they encountered no one. Ryo used the opportunity to study at close range the monsters' remarkable method of locomotion, marveling continually how they kept their balance on only two legs and with no tail as counterweight. They looked very agile. Being more primitive, they were probably capable of good speed over a short run.
The concealed feet tantalized him. Though larger than his own, the pad design did not seem all that dissimilar, hinting that each foot probably formed a wide base ending in a single claw. That would make them efficient diggers.
They turned still another corner in the dimly lit tunnel and found themselves facing a sloping ramp. Unhesitatingly, the taller monster start
ed up the ramp. Ryo followed, noticing with interest how the creature automatically leaned forward to compensate for the slope.
As they ascended, new noises sounded faintly from far down the corridor. Distant whistles and clicks grew momentarily louder, then faded as a search party turned in a different direction.
Ryo derived perverse pleasure from contemplating the panic that must exist among those responsible for insuring the isolation and security of these creatures. For all their nightmarish appearance they seemed sensible enough. These were not ravening, bloodthirsty beasts.
Still, there was the nagging matter of the two substantial explosions and of how this pair came to be in the possession of a set of energy rifles whose original wielders did not likely surrender them without contest.
The ramp continued to ascend, turning a gradual spiral. Soon the lead monster halted, put out a hand that would have forcibly stopped Ryo had he not slowed willingly.
"I beg your pardon," he said, slightly out of breath, "but this really is a waste of time, you know." At that point the creature did a remarkable thing. Showing that it had done some studying of its own, it reached out with a single flexible hand and clamped all five digits around Ryo's mandibles. Ryo instinctively tried to pull away, but the monster was quite strong and did not loosen its grip.
Slowly the monster released its hold, put one digit across the two soft fleshy mandibles that bordered its mouth. It had no horizontally opposing mouth parts, Ryo noted. He had no idea what the movement signified, but the grip on his own jaws was clear enough. He kept silent.
The creature disappeared ahead, was back in seconds. It made a wonderfully fluid gesture to its companion, who prodded Ryo forward. They emerged from a tiny exit no larger than an enclosed saddle, the monsters barely squeezing their bulks through the opening. Only their astonishing flexibility permitted it.
They were standing in a storage compartment filled with ventilator cleaning material. To the right was an unguarded doorway.
The taller monster moved unhesitatingly to the door and worked the controls with a confidence that hinted at careful preparation. There was a hum. Clith was falling heavily outside. Icy wind poured inward and Ryo instantly flipped down the headpiece of his skin and the protective goggles.
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