Glancing around the room, she saw Kheim’s youthful acolyte staring at her. She grasped it all. In the whole room, amid all the giggles and chatter, only she and the Oriental apprentice understood what they were about to see: not a fight between two cats, but a mortal battle between Eddie Benson and Tran Cao Kheim. Her father had come to take her home.
Looking at the huge Khungh and at the smaller, thinner female cat, Renni realized that her father was badly outmatched.
She glanced at the acolyte and saw the triumph in his eyes.
“Run away, Daddy,” she whispered. “Run away.”
Khungh screamed, and the other cats began to spit and cry shrilly. In a frenzy, Khungh dashed at the female cat and batted at her head with his front paws. The cap came away in his claws as she yielded to him. Furiously, he tore at the cap with his teeth and, suddenly, felt his flank muscles slashed. He paused, astonished, and licked at the slash marks. He’d never been attacked before.
He turned, enraged, and charged at her. She backed away and sidestepped, ripping him under the chin with her left front claw as he went by. He never saw the swipe of the white left paw that did it, but the soft flesh under his chin began to bleed. Two rushes and he’d clutched air while receiving two sharp wounds.
She picked up the baby’s cap and shook it. The children applauded.
Khungh turned and charged again. His charge missed, but as he turned he snatched some fur from her back—and felt the inside of his front leg ripped in consequence. Blood now flowed down his leg and into the crevices of his paw. He charged again. By sheer size and force, he captured her in his front claws and tried to get her under him to rip her with his powerful back claws. With the right set of moves he could disembowel her or tear her throat open.
He got his right rear paw forward and on her body; she moved and the claw tore her shoulder. It was a deep raking wound that lifted shreds from her shoulder muscle, but Khungh paid a high price. She was on her back, under him, and he felt her rear claws tearing at his stomach and ripping through the thin wall of his fur and hide. When he tried to back away, her front claws tore at his throat. When he raked at her front legs to escape, she stabbed her teeth into his neck. And when he cleared that, she was completely under him and raking her back and front claws at his testicles. He leaped clear of her and circled her, watched and waited. He was learning.
The other cats were screaming now and stirring. One of the younger males feinted at him, while a larger female cuffed another. The children were shouting and laughing, urging the cats on. The old man moved among them, distraught but afraid to interfere.
Renni, without moving, clutched her hands together.
Khungh had never seen tactics like these before. He’d fought only his submissive mates, or in a pack against outsiders.
She crouched and waited as the crescendo of cat cries and children’s laughter rose. He lunged at her and, missing, felt her slash his haunches again. She leaped at his rear and bit the base of his tail.
Unable to reach her with his powerful back claws, he switched tactics and attacked like a dog, leading with his teeth. Like a lightweight boxer, she hooked him across the muzzle, left and right, dancing upright, going for his eyes.
He too danced upright, getting his face out of reach of her front claws and coming down on her back. He drove his teeth in and, finding her head between his hind legs, tore at her with his back claws. He got them into her shoulders and felt them tearing muscles and tendon. He’d hurt her badly.
She, turning, sank all her claws and teeth into his gut. He leaped away with multiple gaping wounds in his abdomen, leaving the rug stained with blood and littered with pieces of fur.
The other cats started. The young challenger moved toward Khungh with a daring, feinting paw. Khungh batted him on the muzzle and tore open an eye. Screaming, the young tom darted back into the pack and the others slashed at him. All restraints were gone: the cats fell into a roiling, tumbling battle, tearing savagely at each other.
Khungh, sensing the end of his ménage and feeling his great strength draining, turned once more to charge after the wharf cat. She was bleeding from many wounds, but it was he who had lost the most blood. He caught her head with his two front paws and drove with his teeth at her eyes. Immediately, he found himself in a bed of nettles and razors again as she twisted onto her back and clutched his throat and raked his torso from ribs to groin, shredding his coat. He charged into the potted plants, tearing her loose from his body and leaping up on a huge crock.
Khungh glared down at her, knowing that for all his size and strength he’d played the game badly, ruined by street tactics he’d never seen before.
She reached up, gave his muzzle a tremendous slap and pulled him tumbling down from the crock. They somersaulted on the rug in the midst of the raging cat fight until she drove him back, with a furious attack that he was unprepared for. Turning, he tried to leap away but found himself trapped. She’d maneuvered him into the wall and, along the wall, into a corner. Trying to turn, he found her on his back. Turning yet again to reach her, he made his final mistake: he drove his head into the corner. Her teeth quickly found the base of his skull and stabbed through the fur to the cervical cortex.
As he died, Khungh heard the cries of the fighting cats and the jeers and cheers of the children.
Renni cried with relief.
Benson saw Kheim instantly.
A black presence, he moved out of Khungh’s corpse toward Renni. Unaware of the tumbling cat fight around her as they tore and bit each other savagely, she watched only the female wharf cat moving quickly along the wall, away from the other cats and from the humans, headed for the stairway. The female paused and looked back at Khungh’s corpse, then turned and disappeared down the steps.
Kheim was now behind Renni, approaching her either for harm or hostage. Perhaps he would try to enter her. Weary, Benson attacked. Renni sensed the presence and screamed in pain; the others looked curiously at her, and she screamed again.
Benson drove into Kheim and felt him move. Kheim drew away. Benson struck again. And again. Now they were out on the street in the alley: two astral presences guarding their cords. Kheim struck back and drove Benson off in a tumbling flight that carried him blocks away. Benson turned and rushed after Kheim, who was, in turn, rushing back to the building—and Renni. She was just standing up when Kheim reached her. He was trying to enter through her head. She screamed and clutched at her ears.
Benson struck again. And a second and third time. Kheim turned and rammed Benson. The two of them tumbled, groping at the silver cords. Benson realized that Kheim was as exhausted as he was. He struggled to push and pull Kheim into space away from the earth, away from Renni.
They battered each other and, with each clash, moved further into space. Benson, remembering Nullatumbi’s warning, tried to turn back to earth. Kheim clung to him: twisting and tumbling, their cords became entangled. Kheim paused, alarmed at the tangle. He tried to unravel the cords. Benson moved to tangle them more.
Now Kheim, changing tactics, struggled to drag both of them earthward.
Benson fought to hold him. The contest was draining both their reserves of energy. Kheim obviously wanted to get back to Renni. Benson, tiring fast, was being dragged back to the earth.
He examined the tangled cords. Which was Kheim’s, which was his? Pinching them, he realized that they had no sensation, no capacity for pain. They were returning rapidly now. Kheim was still strong enough to win, to capture Renni.
There was, Benson decided, only one way to stop Kheim. He would tear both cords apart. Both of them would become space derelicts. He seized a strand of the two cords entwined and pulled to stretch them. They elongated slightly, but he was too exhausted to break both.
Kheim had stopped and was watching the two cords. When he saw how weak Benson was, he resumed the tug toward earth. His speed was increasing.
Benson tried to slow him and succeeded. With great effort he stopped Kheim, and the two s
truggled in opposite directions. Then, slowly, Kheim began to gain and the two of them moved earthward again.
If he couldn’t tear the two cords apart simultaneously, Benson decided he would break them one at a time.
He relaxed, letting Kheim tow the two of them and the mass of tangled cord. Once more, Kheim’s speed increased. Almost casually, Benson reached into the tangle of cords and seized one strand. He pulled on it. It gave slightly. He pulled harder. It gave a little more. Kheim had stopped again and was observing him.
He pulled a third time and felt the cord stretching more. Alarmed, Kheim rammed him. But Benson held to the cord and continued to stretch it. Kheim battered him, dislodged him; Benson seized the cord again and stretched it even more. And more. They tumbled and twisted into the darkness.
The cord was stretching more and more, but Benson was growing weaker and the battering was increasingly violent. Suddenly the cord weakened. It stretched, thinned, stretched.
Then it parted.
The end of it began to ravel through the enormous tangle. Kheim and Benson, both unmoving, watched the end ravel and creep through the knots.
One of them was lost. Forever lost.
The knot crept interminably, retracting. Benson felt himself moving. Drifting. Had he broken his own cord? He saw large stretches of it, freed and sinuating. He was loose!
Then he saw Kheim moving apart from him. The knots and tangles were becoming undone. The end of the broken cord was nearing the edge of the tangle.
Slowly it cleared. And then, with a convulsive kick, Kheim drifted away into space.
Benson watched him float away, trailing a long glowing thread, rising and drifting toward the stars, growing smaller and smaller into a faint point of light that faded in the darkness.
EPILOGUE
At six o’clock that morning Benson opened the door to his kitchen and let Renni step through and into her mother’s arms. They held each other in a prolonged and silent embrace.
Behind him, blank-faced, wordlessly, Pammy watched.
Benson brought her in, and, as he shut the door, Top bounded into the kitchen in his pajamas, then halted and stared at her.
Now they were five.
About the Author
William H. Hallahan (1925–2018) was an American novelist of popular literature. He worked as a journalist before embarking on writing in 1970, covering a variety of popular genres: detective fiction, fantasy, thrillers, and spy novels. His 1977 spy novel, Catch Me: Kill Me, won the Edgar Award. Hallahan also published essays on the US military and history.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1978 by the Estate of William H. Hallahan
Cover design by Ian Koviak
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5902-2
This edition published in 2019 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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WILLIAM H. HALLAHAN
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