by David Weber
But some of those spectators were beginning to react to the treecat's snarling fury. They recoiled, shrinking away from him, and heads were turning as a flood of additional 'cats flashed through the trees towards them. They had no idea what was happening, but they would have been more than human not to be alarmed, and alarm pushed them back. They couldn't move far—they were too tightly packed for that—but their common instinct seemed to be to avoid crowding the Heir.
All but one. Tudev didn't think about it, for there was no time to think. There was only time to see and react, and he did. He saw the one person who bucked the movement of the crowd, kicking and shoving to get closer to Princess Adrienne, and trained instinct shrieked a warning even louder than the 'cat's snarls.
Seeker of Dreams sprang from his human's arms. She tried to prevent him, and he felt her surge of confused fear—not for herself, but for him—as her arms tightened. But she was an instant too late, and he arrowed through the air like a vengeful demon. A gray-haired male human flung up his arms, covering his head with a strangled cry as Seeker of Dreams landed on his shoulders, but he didn't even pause. He only ricocheted onward like a rebounding ball, on a course that took him straight towards the empty one.
Tudev saw the young man's hand slide inside his jacket, saw the Heir's treecat slashing through the crowd like a missile, heard the other 'cats' passage through the trees like a gray hurricane. The rest of his detail was still looking in the wrong direction, drawn towards the only threat they could identify: the 'cats' movement. Only Tudev realized, however imperfectly, what was actually happening, and there was no time to explain it to anyone else.
"Gun!" he screamed, and for the second time that day, he flung himself at Princess Adrienne's back.
This time he didn't turn aside at the last moment.
* * *
It was Parsifal. Mind voices were fast and certain, much quicker to give and receive information than the humans' mouth sounds, yet even so there was too little time for Parsifal to explain what he meant . . . and Seeker of Dreams did not want to understand. His human had been threatened. All he cared about was the need to end the threat, quickly and forever, and he bared his claws as he bounced from the last innocent human and launched himself straight into the face of the empty one.
The empty human's hand rose, and Seeker of Dreams diverted his attack in the last fraction of an instant. He hit that hand and its arm with all six sets of claws, and the empty one screamed as centimeter-long knives of bone sank deep. Needle-sharp fangs slashed the back of his hand, slicing muscle and tendons, and his fingers sprang open involuntarily. The pistol fell free, bouncing as it hit the ground, and he shook his arm in frantic horror as Seeker of Dreams clawed and bit and tore.
The programming burned into his brain commanded his left hand to press the button in his pocket—the one which would detonate the three kilos of explosive he wore like a breast plate. If he'd gotten close enough, that would have been his weapon to assassinate the Heir; since he had been intercepted, it was the precaution which should have killed him and half a dozen others—possibly including the Heir, even now—and so insured no one would ever realize he'd been adjusted for his role.
But powerful though it was, that programming had never counted on eight kilos of enraged, scimitar-clawed treecat. The pain and shock were too much to be ignored, and his left fist beat frantically at the monster ripping his right arm to pieces. It was raw instinct, inescapable as breathing, preempting the commands another had locked him into obeying, and it delayed him just long enough.
Two more treecats hit him, and he screamed in agony as the extra weight took him to the ground. The newcomers went for his left arm as Seeker of Dreams had gone for his right, and he writhed and fought madly as the hissing, snarling confusion of gray fur and bone-white claws enveloped him. He had no way to know the last thing they wanted was to kill him. All he knew was that a tornado had crashed over him, and there was no time for him to do anything except try frantically to protect his face and eyes.
Adrienne clutched desperately at the treecat, but he squirmed out of her arms like an Old Earth eel, then flung himself away from her, still trailing that terrible, rippling war cry. She reached out futilely, instinctively starting after him. She was completely focused on him, unaware of anything else . . . and completely unprepared when eighty-four kilos of hard muscle and bone slammed into her from behind.
Her neck whiplashed as Lieutenant Colonel Tudev brought her crashing to the ground. He had no time to be gentle; he hit her like a rugby player charging for the goal, and her universe went dark as her head hit the ground.
Seeker of Dreams felt his human's mind glow go out, and a wail of grief and terror escaped him. He turned from the empty human, streaked and splashed with his target's blood, and the other humans—those few who had not already gotten as far away as they could—fell over one another in frantic efforts to clear his path. He shot back towards her, wailing his fear, and behind him two SFS rangers, a Twin Forks city policeman, and two members of the Heir's security team flung themselves upon the young man the 'cats had brought down.
Seeker of Dreams scarcely noticed. He flashed across the ground towards his person, and then skidded to a halt. Another human was just rolling off her back—the big, heavily built human for whom his human had radiated such affection and trust—while she lay very still on the ground. Blood seeped from one temple, darkening her tightly-curled hair and streaking her dark skin, and something deep inside Seeker of Dreams twisted even tighter at the sight. But he could also sense her mind glow once more. It was weaker, dimmer and slower, yet it was there, and he felt a great shudder of relief go through him as he realized she was only stunned.
"Sorry, little guy," Tudev muttered. The wailing 'cat had exploded back out of the confusion like a blood-soaked ghost, closing in on Adrienne like a homing missile. The lieutenant colonel had already realized he'd knocked the Heir out when he tackled her, and he hoped to hell that was all he'd done. Still, a concussion was better than a bullet would have been, and he'd had no way to know how efficiently the new 'cat and the Forestry Service rangers' 'cats would neutralize the threat.
The treecat didn't even look up. It only crouched on all six limbs, pressing its nose beseechingly against the Heir's face. Its eerie wail had faded, but Tudev could hear the small creature's frantic, buzzing purr even through the confusion of shouts and screams and other panic sounds. He looked down at the 'cat, still more than a little groggy himself, then knelt beside it. The shoulder he'd hurt before hurt even worse now, and it refused to move when he ordered it to, so he used his other hand to stroke the 'cat gently.
"She's going to be all right," he told Seeker of Dreams. "You saved her, and she's going to be all right."
Henry Thoreau was much too far away to see what had happened, but he knew it hadn't been what was supposed to happen. There'd been shouts and screams in plenty but no explosion, and he felt a sudden, dark shudder of fear. The lack of an explosion might mean some alert bodyguard had recognized the threat, gotten his weapon out, and killed the programmed assassin, but it was far more likely something had gone wrong and they'd taken the young man alive. And if they'd managed to do that and handed him over to a psychiatrist, the fact that he'd been adjusted would be glaringly obvious, and then—
Thoreau swallowed hard. He had to get out of here. Even if they had the kid alive, they'd need time to figure out he'd been adjusted . . . and by whom. Or they ought to. But he couldn't be sure of that, and he and Krogman had to get off-planet now.
Fortunately, the panicked reaction of the crowd should cover his escape. Some people, predictably, were fighting to get closer to whatever had happened, drawn to the excite
ment like moths to a flame, regardless of danger. But a much greater number wanted to get away from a situation of which they grasped only fragments, and Thoreau let himself merge into the stream of humanity funneling towards the park gates.
The treecats called Dunatis and Parsifal looked at one another as the human scouts and hunters converged on the one Seeker of Dreams, Musashi, and Leaf Hunter had brought down. Other treecats gathered around them in the trees, and Parsifal tasted the fury washing about their mind glows. The bright, jagged need to attack flickered within all of them, yet they had themselves under control, and he turned back to Dunatis.
Dunatis replied grimly, and several other mind voices agreed.
Thoreau wanted to use his size and strength to plow an escape route through the crowds, but he dared not. He had to blend, vanish into the protective confusion, and so he let the press of people carry him towards the gates. They were moving slower than he would have liked, but at least they were moving, and—
A high, sibilant hiss from above jerked his head up. Grass-green eyes blazed down at him from a branch two meters above his head, and the hiss became a low, rumbling snarl as his gaze met those eyes. He swallowed in sudden terror and started to turn away, only to freeze as another hiss came from the tree behind him. Another 'cat hissed at him, and then there was another—and another!
Henry Thoreau stood paralyzed as fourteen silken-coated arboreals glared down at him, lashing their tails while ivory claws kneaded in and out of the tree bark. There was nothing cute or cuddly about them, and he felt the bright, angry intelligence behind their unflinching eyes as they pinned him with their green glare.
They know, he thought. The little bastards knowI had something to do with what just went down! But how? Howcould they know? Unless—
And then he had it. They were empaths, and his emotions might as well have been screaming his guilt at the tops of his lungs, as far as they were concerned. But they were the only ones who knew. If he got away, there would be no way they could pass that information on to anyone else.
All he had to do was get away.
He swallowed again, then began to back slowly away.
He'd gotten perhaps three meters when a needle-fanged tide of treecats came flooding out of the trees.
TEN
Adrienne Michelle Aoriana Elizabeth Winton opened her eyes slowly. Her head hurt, her face hurt, her back hurt, and her right eye refused to focus properly. Aside from that, she thought woozily, there's not a thing wrong with me. Now if I could only remember whyI hurt. . . .
She stared up at the ceiling, trying to get her thoughts herded up and moving in a single direction. It was a difficult task, but then something shifted on the pillow, right beside her left ear. Silky softness stirred, just brushing the surface of her skin, and she gasped in sudden memory. Her head snapped over, and the bright green eyes of the treecat looked back at her while a soft, buzzing purr welcomed her awakening.
She stared at the 'cat, and her thoughts were still slow and confused. But she wasn't too confused to recall that moment when the 'cat dropped into her arms, and she reached out for him once more. Pain lanced through her skull with the movement, but the 'cat flowed into her embrace, hugging her neck with his strong, wiry forearms while he rubbed his head ever so gently against her cheek.
"I see you're awake," a familiar voice said, and she looked past the 'cat as Alvin Tudev, one arm in a sling, appeared in the door of what she now realized was a hospital room. "Good," the lieutenant colonel went on. "It's been a while."
"How—" She cleared her throat. "How long is `a while,' and what happened?"
"A while is several hours," he replied. "And what happened is a bit complicated. As far as your headache is concerned, I'm afraid that's my fault. I hit you a bit harder than I meant to."
"You hit me?" she repeated carefully, and he nodded.
"One of the things bodyguards do when there may be bullets flying around, Your Highness. There wasn't time to ask politely, or I would have." He smiled, and she realized his half-joking tone was a reaction to his relief that she was all right. "As to why I hit you, you can thank your little friend." Adrienne raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged. "He and his buddies have just demonstrated a very good reason for a monarch or his heir to be accompanied by treecats everywhere they go," he said in a much more serious tone.
"An assassin," she said. The word came out in a half-whisper and her eyes darkened as she realized what Tudev was leading up to, and he nodded.
"An assassin," he confirmed. "But the 'cats sensed him before he got into range, and they all went straight for him. Your friend got to him first, but the others were only seconds behind. They not only took him down, they managed to hold him—alive—until us mere two-foots could figure out what was going on and close in on him. And that," he added grimly, "wasn't as easy as you might think, because the poor bas—" He stopped and cleared his throat. "The assassin was wired up with enough explosives to send himself into orbit without counter-grav," he continued, "and he would've done it, too."
"That's crazy," she said.
"No, Your Highness," he said even more grimly. "It was supposed to look crazy." Adrienne looked at him in confusion, and he sighed. "We're still just getting started, Your Highness, but it's already clear your intended assassin was psych-adjusted for the job. It's going to take weeks to even begin finding all the triggers and compulsions, but it seems pretty evident that one of his compulsions was to blow himself up—and take you with him, if possible—in order to keep us from realizing he'd been programmed."
"Oh my God," Adrienne whispered, and Tudev nodded.
"I think He—and the 'cats—had an awful lot to do with the fact that you're still alive, Your Highness. More than that, the 'cats may have caught us a break on cracking this entire plot wide open."
"What do you mean? And what plot?"
"To take your second question first, this had to be an inside job in at least one respect. The killers were here waiting for you, in position, before your visit was announced. That means somebody gave them a copy of the Alpha List, because Twin Forks was only on the Alpha List; it never appeared on any of the decoy lists. And that means somebody was able to extract a Blue File and decrypt it, which takes a very highly placed source, and that implies a far wider-reaching plot than anyo
ne in my line of work likes to think about. Still, given your father's success in concentrating authority in the Crown, I can see where he could have aroused the, um . . .forceful opposition of some powerful people."
He paused, and Adrienne nodded with a shiver.
"As for cracking the plot, however," Tudev went on with a wolfish smile, "we believe we've got the man who actually triggered the assassin's attack in custody, and we owe that to the 'cats, too. He was two-thirds of the way out of the park when ten or fifteen of the 'cats zeroed in on him. The Forest Service types' best guess is that they were able to pick up his emotional reaction to the failure of the attack and use that to target him. Apparently," the lieutenant colonel's smile turned even more lupine, "he panicked and tried to run, and the 'cats swarmed him. They didn't actually hurt him much—aside from a lot of scratches, some pretty deep—but they absolutely shredded his clothing, and his confidence went with it. By the time the first Twin Forks cops got there, he was curled up in a knot in a corner of the fence screaming for someone to rescue him. He practically begged them to listen to his confession if they'd just keep the 'cats away from him. And he did confess, too."
"But—" Adrienne paused, thinking as hard as her aching head allowed, then shrugged. "Will that hold up? Can't an attorney argue that it was coerced?"
"Ah, but it wasn't coerced by an officer of the court, Your Highness. In fact, the cops were scrupulous about informing him of all his rights, and they never threatened him in any way. It was the 'cats he was afraid of, not them, and the 'cats have no official standing . . . except that of minor children." He shrugged. "I don't see any problems. Particularly not," he added in icy tones, "in a case like this one."
Adrienne looked at him, wondering if he even realized how utterly implacable he sounded. But then his expression changed, and he cleared his throat once more.