Pass of Fire

by Taylor Anderson

  “That’s it,” Silva said definitively, plucking a grenade from his web belt. “I don’t talk to nobody who tries to poke my coonhound in the nose!” He squinted his eye at Chack. “We tried. Now let’s blast ’em!”

  “No!” came a shrill cry from the chamber beyond, and Silva almost dropped the grenade in surprise. “Who the hell’s that?”

  Rapid clicking-gurgling Grik syllables instantly replied, followed by an even higher-pitched “No kill!”

  Lawrence was blinking at them now, the pattern easily recognizable to Lemurians as astonishment. “They’re in there, all right,” he said. “The Celestial Nother, her guards—and the Chooser. The Chooser,” he stressed. “It’s he who cried out not to kill they.” He looked significantly at Silva. “He understands English, just can’t talk it nutch.” Lawrence opened his jaws slightly in what for him was a kind of grin. “I don’t think he hants to die.”

  “Throw down your aarms and you’ll live!” Chack yelled. Immediately, muffled shouting filled the room, some plaintive, some apparently adamant. Nobody but Lawrence could really tell. “The Chooser hants too,” Lawrence whispered. “The guards don’t. Say they can hold. The Celestial Nother say nothing.”

  “You caan’t hold,” Chack shouted angrily, “and in ten seconds we’ll throw a dozen grenades in there and you’ll all die, including your Giver of Life! We’re the same waarriors who slew her mother,” he added harshly, “so don’t try us.”

  There came what sounded like panicky squalling.

  “What now?” Silva asked.

  “He hants to know ’hat a grenade is.”

  “Hand bombs that’ll blow you all into a hundred gobbets o’ goo!” Silva shouted gleefully.

  The arguing grew more intense, then came another querulous question. Chack looked at Lawrence.

  “He doesn’t know how long a ‘second’ is.”

  “Two heartbeats,” Chack shouted, blinking increased impatience.

  More squalling.

  “He asks, ‘Two heart’neats or two tens o’ heart’neats?’”

  “Shit,” Silva spat disgustedly. “Time’s up. Here come the grenades!” he shouted.

  Pokey went first. His guards had been distracted by the bizarre negotiations and he broke loose, leaping up and bounding over the bodies and into the chamber of the Celestial Mother.

  “Shit!” Silva roared, and without thinking pushed Lawrence aside and chased the little Grik. Chack and Lawrence went because he did—along with the half dozen ’Cats close and quick enough to follow.

  Even before he had a chance to note that this chamber was different again from all the others, covered from floor to ceiling with strange, flowering ivies, the first thing Silva saw was a huge stone table, tipped on its side. It must’ve been at least six feet wide and twelve feet long. And rushing out from behind it was an absolutely massive, naked female Grik. Six or seven more followed her—they couldn’t all have hidden behind the table even if they wanted to—and they quickly fanned out. The closest monster opened its jaws and spread its talon-studded hands as it came. Silva fired. Bloody holes marched across a creamy dun-colored chest in a rising diagonal, but the thing kept coming. Holding the trigger down, Silva allowed the recoil to raise the muzzle of his Thompson, then controlled it long enough to empty the magazine in the gaping maw. The monstrous Grik seemed to lose focus and lumbered past him as he dove aside, crashing into the wall behind him.

  But there were more. Chack shot one twice, working the slick bolt of his Krag with lightning speed, then drove his long bayonet into its throat. Blood sprayed like a broken water main, but the dying guard collapsed with Chack’s Krag beneath it. There was no way to retrieve the weapon; these sisters of the Celestial Mother—for that’s what they had to be, if what they’d heard was true—looked like they must weigh six hundred pounds.

  Instantly, Chack had his cutlass and .45 in his hands, wading forward, shooting and slashing, Lawrence at his side. A ’Cat Raider blew one down with a single shot from her Allin-Silva, the big bullet crashing deep to shatter the spine. Leaping the corpse, she bayonetted another, but was batted effortlessly aside. Two more ’Cats fired at another guard with their Blitzers, but it slashed both their throats as it charged them, then crushed a third as it fell. Even lying there, it lashed at a ’Cat running past, clamping its jaws on the Raider’s leg. With a twist of its head and a Lemurian shriek, it tore the leg off at the knee. More blood fountained, spraying the Raiders behind, even as they shot the thing some more.

  Silva had dropped the empty Thompson again and pulled his own cutlass and Captain Reddy’s Colt, the cutlass slashing and revolver roaring. The Colt was loaded with “full-house rifle loads” and bucked heavily as fire and smoke spat bullets slightly lighter than his 1911, but flying much faster. Subconsciously, he figured the damage it inflicted at this range probably evened out, but the revolver went off more dramatically. If nothing else, it might give the enemy pause. Maybe it did, or it might’ve simply been that, big and powerful as the sister-guards were, they didn’t have the agility, weaponry, or, frankly, veteran killing skill of the smaller intruders swarming into the chamber. Blitzerbugs clattered, 1911s popped rapidly, and Allin-Silvas boomed, deafening everyone and filling the room with floating fuzz and a smoky red mist.

  Finally, all the sister-guards who’d exposed themselves were down, but another suddenly stood from behind the slablike table, holding a wriggling, clawing Pokey in her grasp. Silva had scooped his Thompson off the leafy floor and inserted another magazine. Now he aimed, but couldn’t get a good shot without risking Pokey. Besides, he was a little stunned. Pokey had entirely lost his mind and was convulsing wildly in what struck Silva as a decidedly obscene fashion. Lawrence was yelling something in Grik, pointing the long-barreled flintlock pistol, of all things, and Chack and several ’Cats were hurrying to reload as well. Silva could only assume the Celestial Mother and Chooser were still behind the massive table.

  With a defiant snarl directed at Lawrence, whom the last sister-guard apparently understood, she suddenly drove the claws of her left hand into Pokey’s chest, those of the right into his neck under his jaw. With little visible effort, she simply tore his head off his body. Silva fired, and she flung the head at him. The trembling body was cast toward Chack and his Raiders. All avoided the blood-spewing projectiles, but for a moment only Lawrence remained undistracted. Standing in what was probably accidentally the most perfect dueling stance his form could replicate, he pulled the trigger of the large-bore pistol Silva once liberated from an assassin named Linus Truelove. With a spectacularly loud ker-KRAK, a one-ounce ball spattered the monster’s left eye and crashed into her brain, dropping her to the floor in a kicking heap that sent leaves and flowers flying.

  “Goddamn!” Silva hooted. “How much powder’d you put in that thing?” Lawrence was looking at the smoking pistol as if checking to see if the barrel had burst. He tapped a claw about halfway to the muzzle. “Idiot!” Silva snapped. “Lucky you didn’t get pieces of it up your damn stupid nose!”

  For a moment then, as soon as Pokey and the guard finished thrashing, all was silent except for the metallic sounds of breechblocks closing on fresh cartridges or bolts being drawn back and slides snapping shut.

  “No kill!” came a small, trembling voice from behind the barricade. “No kill!”

  With a darkening glance at what had been Pokey, Silva’s face lost all expression and he took the grenade from where he’d hung it back with others on his belt. He casually tossed it in the air, catching it. “Scram, fellas,” he said conversationally, but Chack knew the deceptively mild tone came only from Silva’s most murderous mood.

  “No,” he said harshly. “Chief Sil-vaa, put thaat away.” Without waiting to see if he was obeyed, Chack turned to Lawrence. “Tell whoever’s behind thaat baarricade to staand and surrender at once. There’ll be no time to decide, no seconds to contemplate.” He r
aised his voice. “Surrender now or die.”

  Jerkily but almost instantly, a rather short, rotund Grik stood from behind the table. He was dressed in a bizarre, stained, and dusty cloak festooned with tiny bones like polished ivory sequins. His crest stood erect but somewhat . . . bent, and his big eyes darted about from within a face covered with strangely smudged and oddly colored fur. “No kill?” he almost pleaded.

  “Where’s your Giver of Life?” Chack demanded. The strange Grik glanced down and jabbered rapidly in his own tongue.

  “She’s there,” Lawrence confirmed. “Not hurt.” He snorted. “The Chooser ‘shielded’ her.” He cocked his head to the side. “He acts like it’s critical to us that he did.”

  “Perhaaps it is,” Chack said, looking hard at Silva. At least the big man had put the grenade away. “Staand her up,” he told the Chooser.

  Gently but urgently, the Chooser spoke as if to the floor. Finally, another very large, almost obese Grik tentatively stood from behind the cover. Large she might’ve been, compared to other Grik, and certainly compared to Lawrence, but she was also probably the most magnificent specimen of her species alive. The coat under her long red robe was very fine, almost the color of a new penny, and it shone to even greater effect against the dark, leafy background under the flickering lamplight. Her teeth gleamed brighter than the Chooser’s macabre decorations, and her claws resembled polished ebony. With a voice that seemed small for her size, she spoke directly to Lawrence for several moments, while all anyone else could do was stand and gape. At last, with a growing air of confidence and satisfaction, she completed her monologue and glared at everyone else, including the Chooser at her side.

  “What did the fat lizard prattle on about?” Silva ground out, eye straying back to Pokey. “She wanna eat our pal?”

  “She’s not . . . as you say,” Lawrence replied, a slight trace of Pokey’s earlier dreaminess in his voice. “She’s ideal.”

  “Maybe to you,” Silva began, then looked alarmed. “Whoa! She’s gettin’ to you now. What the hell?” He aimed the Thompson again.

  “Hold your fire!” Chack roared. “Lawrence?” he asked lower, voice tense.

  Lawrence shook his head and his eyes seemed to focus. “I . . . I okay. Her scent is strong and it . . . does things. I’ll tell you things I think, and all else she said.”

  Quickly he explained that, like Khonashi and Sa’aaran females of mating age, elevated Grik females—of which there were very few and they may’ve just killed all but one—had considerable control over their fertility. What’s more, they could express scents from certain glands in their legs at will to signal their readiness to mate. They’d expected that, of course, though the single-mindedness of Pokey’s reaction came as a surprise. Apparently, almost any normal Grik male would behave the same, losing all thought of anything but the mating imperative. That made it even more amazing Pokey hadn’t killed anyone to get to the Celestial Mother. His own natural elevation and all the time he’d spent with his new friends had clearly given him admirable control over the all-powerful urge.

  “But you’re . . . yourself?” Chack demanded.

  Lawrence managed to look a little embarrassed but answered firmly, “Yes.”

  Silva shook his head. “Poor little guy,” he murmured, looking back at Pokey’s head, but he might’ve been talking about Lawrence. He turned to eye his friend. “Relations ’mongst your folk ain’t often allowed, are they? Rare enough that even talkin’ about it’s kinda taboo?” He’d seen Lawrence’s reaction to lewd suggestions before, particularly concerning the captured female secluded at Grik City. “Sure it is,” Silva continued, warming to his subject. “An’ you’d flip out bad as Pokey if that”—he jerked his head toward the Celestial Mother—“was a Sa’aaran dame. But your broads hafta keep their pixilation under wraps ’cause you come from a island that’d get overrun in no time otherwise. Same goes for Khonashi an’ other North Borno tribes with small territories. They were always fightin’ little border wars, anyway. Their populations puff up, an’ it starts a breedin’ race that not only kicks off real wars, but wipes out all the local resources!” He considered. “Explains why unelevated Grik broads, their broodmares, few as they are, are always locked up. They might light off their boilers at any time. Probably ain’t safe to be around ’cept when they’re layin’ eggs er somethin’!”

  “I think you haave it,” Chack agreed, blinking surprise. “Mr. Braad-furd would be proud of you.”

  Lawrence was nodding, reluctantly it seemed. “’Ut it ne’er is a nuisance to Sa’aarans, Tagranesi, or Khonashi, ’cause us is . . . ci’ilized,” he snapped out, glaring at the Celestial Mother. “Our gals that are old enoug’ know not to stir us to go nuts! They not e’er use their sex to hurt! They don’t ha’ to get locked a’ay!”

  “So how’d that work?” Silva asked, jerking his head back the way they came. “How come her squeezin’s just made her guards fight harder?”

  “Aggression’s part of their mating,” Chack speculated, “and some are conditioned somehow to chaannel their urges to defend their Giver of Life from”—he smiled mirthlessly—“advaances of any sort. Mating or attaack.”

  “Or maybe they’re all geldings,” Silva quipped, arching an eyebrow at the Chooser, standing anxiously by the Celestial Mother. “Maybe he is too. That, or he’s the first Grik coward I ever saw.”

  “I not a co’ard!” the Chooser denied, somewhat feebly.

  “Damn! He does understand us!” Silva regarded the strange Grik. “Tell that lizardy bitch to shut off the love-potion spigot right damn now.” He nodded at Lawrence. “It only affects him enough that he’ll know if she don’t.”

  “Yes, do,” Chack declared, but looked intently at Lawrence. “What did she say to you?”

  Lawrence looked even more embarrassed somehow. “She thinks I in charge; I your general.” He was truly mortified to report that the Celestial Mother was certain he somehow led the entire war effort against her race, unnaturally enlisting prey animals to aid him. In her insularity, she still likened the war to the common conflicts between various regencies and had no concept of its scope. She was very astute for one so young, Lawrence reported, but also extremely naive. Even now, surrounded by the blood and gore of her guards, she believed she wielded the ultimate power here. Lawrence finally added, almost inaudibly, that since he was so obviously superior to First General Esshk—at least when it came to designing battles—she was tempted to name him her new Regent Champion, despite the fact he was so small and ugly. If, that is, First General Esshk didn’t ultimately prevail.

  Silva laughed out loud. “Now, don’t that just beat all! King Larry the First! Ha!”

  “I’ll tell her I not a general, I not in charge!” Lawrence smoldered, the skin on his neck beneath thinner fur turning pink.

  “Not yet,” Chack countered, glancing down the passageway. He could hear running boots and sandals, accompanied by a growing commotion. “Don’t lie to her—thaat might be importaant later—but if she continues to aassume you commaand, let her. For now.”

  A squad of ’Cats and Impies rushed into the room, followed by Major Jindal. He was breathing hard again. All paused for a moment to take in the scene. Finally, Jindal spoke to Chack. “We have problems outside. Everything’s on schedule back at the Neckbone; the barrage hammered the Grik and General Alden’s begun his push, but our pickets along the river are vigorously pressed. Seems the Grik are coming ashore.”

  “How did they aassemble enough boats so quickly?” Chack asked, surprised.

  “They didn’t. At least not to bring them all the way. One of the Grik BBs has moved closer and perhaps they ferry troops to it, but from there they’re swimming!” Jindal seemed stunned even to hear himself say it, but Chack only nodded. He’d seen indications some Grik knew how to swim, during the hellish battle around Santa Catalina. Most had doubtless been eaten by the high concentr
ation of predators the battle summoned, but water monsters couldn’t always be everywhere in such numbers. The Grik knew that too.

  “Then they caan’t be heavily aarmed. No way to keep their smaall aarms dry. They must be trying to force our pickets baack and gain control of the docks.” He looked at Lawrence. “You stay here, my friend—with a sufficient guard, of course.” He blinked at the Celestial Mother. “Within the guidelines I gave you, try to explain to her about the real world and why we’re aact-ually here. Correct aany notion she may haave thaat the world can remain as she imaagines it or haas been told it is. We’re here to destroy her murderous culture, not just tweak who’s in chaarge of whaat. She caan help with thaat, to save her race from extinction—and possibly even a measure of her authority.” He shrugged.

  “Or else?” the Chooser suddenly asked, surprising them all again. He’d clearly had a lot of contact with humans.

  “She won’t be haarmed,” Chack assured, “but she and a haandful of your race’ll be all we preserve for study.” He grinned wickedly, displaying bright, sharp teeth. “We haave a friend who’ll waant to exaamine these glaands of hers, to discover any differences from other races. I doubt she’ll enjoy the experience, but she won’t be injured. Of course,” he added offhand, “her glaands will serve no purpose then, since we’ll save no males at all.” He turned to Silva and Jindal. “Let’s go.”

  “Right. Gotta go meet the new neighbors.” Silva lowered his voice. “You never have been one to brag, Chackie, but you pulled it off pretty well. I just hope she believes it.”

  “Why not?” Chack countered. “She clearly haas little graasp of reaality. And in the end, as faar as she knows, we’ve conquered our way to her very bedchamber and Esshk couldn’t stop it. Thaat’ll help her to believe we caan do as I said.” He blinked thoughtfully as they stepped briskly back down the passageway that had cost so much blood. “And perhaaps the Chooser’ll help convince her. Muri-naame reported thaat he’s . . . opportunistic.”