by David Drake
And Lorne’s hand was unwrapping Ben’s stiff fingers from the grips of his revolver.
Lorne stood again, his left hand locking his right on the butt of the big magnum. He was familiar with the weapon: it was the one Ben had carried in Nam, the same tool he had used for five of his thirteen kills. It would kill again tonight.
Even in the soaring holocaust the sharp crack of Lorne’s shot was audible. Lorne’s forearms rocked up as a unit with the recoiling handgun. The creature lurched sideways to touch the shimmering construct around it. A red surface discharge rippled across the exoskeleton from the point of contact. Lorne fired again. He could see the armor dull at his point of aim in the center of the thorax. Again the creature jumped. Neither bullet had penetrated, but the splashing lead of the second cut an upright from the machine. The creature spun, extending previously-unglimpsed tendrils from the region of its mouth parts. They flickered over a control plate in the base. Machinery chimed in response.
The shivering quickened. The machine itself and the thing it enclosed seemed to fade. Lorne thumb-cocked the magnum, lowered the red vertical of the front sight until it was even with the rear notch; the creature was a white blur beyond them. The gun bucked back hard when he squeezed; the muzzle blast was sharper, flatter, than before. The first of the armor-piercing bullets hit the creature between the paired tendrils. The exoskeleton surrounding them shattered like safety glass struck by a brick.
The creature straightened in silent agony, rising onto its hind legs with its tail lying rigidly against its back. Its ovipositor was fully extended, thumb-thick and six inches long.
“Was it fun to kill them, bug?” Lorne screamed. “Was it as much fun as this is?” His fourth shot slammed, dimpling a belly plate which then burst outward in an ugly gush of fluids. The creature’s members clamped tightly about its spasming thorax. The tail lashed the uprights in red spurts. The machine was fading and the torn panelling of the loft was beginning to show through the dying creature’s body.
There was one shot left in the cylinder and Lorne steadied his sights on the control plate. He had already begun taking up the last pressure when he stopped and lowered the muzzle. No, let it go home, whatever place or time that might be. Let its fellows see that Earth was not their hunting ground alone. And if they came back anyway—if they only would!
There was a flash as penetrating as the first microsecond of a nuclear blast. The implosion dragged Lorne off his feet and sucked in the flames so suddenly that all sound seemed frozen. Then both sidewalls collapsed into the nave and the ruins of the tower twisted down on top of them. In the last instant, the pipe loft was empty of all but memory.
A fire truck picked its way through the rubble in the parking lot. Its headlights flooded across the figure of a sandy-haired man wearing scorched clothing and a neck brace. He was kneeling beside a body, and the tears were bright on his face.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Drake (born 1945) sold his first story (a fantasy) at age 20. His undergraduate majors at the University of Iowa were history (with honors) and Latin (BA, 1967). He uses his training in both subjects extensively in his fiction. David entered Duke Law School in 1967 and graduated five years later (JD, 1972). The delay was caused by his being drafted into the US Army. He served in 1970 as an enlisted interrogator with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the Blackhorse, in Viet Nam and Cambodia. He has used his legal and particularly his military experiences extensively in his fiction also. David practiced law for eight years; drove a city bus for one year; and has been a full-time freelance writer since 1981, writing such novels as Out of the Waters and Monsters of the Earth. He reads and travels extensively. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Introduction
Men Like Us
Something Had to be Done
The Automatic Rifleman
Than Curse the Darkness
Firefight
The Red Leer
The Shortest Way
Best of Luck
Dragons’ Teeth
Out of Africa
The Dancer in the Flames
Smokie Joe
Children of the Forest
Blood Debt
The Barrow Troll
The Hunting Ground
About the Author
Copyright
FROM THE HEART OF DARKNESS
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Introduction copyright © by Karl Edward Wagner
Other contents copyright © 1983 by David Drake
All rights reserved.
A TOR Book
Published by:
Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
8-10 West 36th Street
New York, New York 10018
Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, ext. 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
ISBN: 812-53-607-X
CAN. ED. 812-53-608-8
eISBN 9780765387080
First eBook edition: July 2015
* AUTHOR’S NOTE: The present story was written in full awareness of Fritz Leiber’s 1940 classic, “The Automatic Pistol”, which I recommend to anyone who is not already familiar with it. DAD