"He's right shamed of the fact he's my best kid, babe," McGaughey said, spitting on the ground, "an' I got hunnerds of 'em. Beat the crap out of all his brothers 'nuff to make a man proud. Then he goes out and starts readin' all these fancy books like some kinda piss-ant preacher-man, an' tells me fightin' and fuckin' is wrong. What father wouldn't try to slab a kid like that?"
One of the younger guards' face brightened. "So you done come back to lead the invasion anyways, Filer?"
Filer shook his head. "Sorry, Billy-Tom. I done come back to call it all off."
The Boss's face hardened, and he put his hands down at his sides. "Gawddammit, I draw the line, Filer! Slab me if you want but don't tell me I done pregged a babe and made a coward!"
Geyl felt her hands shaking. One by one, the guards raised their rifles toward Filer. In the palpable silence, she heard a keening roar like a jet engine, and a sequence of distant concussions, like mortar fire. Somewhere far off, men were shouting. How many minutes were left? She was so close, so close.
Filer held his rifle on the Boss. Geyl could see the lines of sweat rolling down his cheeks. "It's like this, Boss...and you all listen up, boys. The Moomoos are bein' took for a ride. This so-called invasion ain't for our good. It's for the good of these people that landed us all this laser artillery. It's their invasion, and we're just cannon fodder, to soften up the enemy and grease their skids with our own guts. Once we're all dead, they're gonna walk across our shot-up asses and plant their own damned flag on the Earth."
Geyl felt a twinge of dizziness, and the barrel of her rifle wobbled for a moment. "Filer, please tell me what's going on!"
McGaughey looked back to Geyl with a cruel smirk. "You sound like a fresh Earth-drop, missy-dear, so I can't expect there's much inside your head. Well, it's like this: I got me a treaty with the Interstellar American Republic. My guys an' their guys are gonna get together and invade the Earth. We're gonna flatten Canada real good an' proper, and then their Boss takes the Western Hemisphere, and I take the East. Every man here's gonna get his own million square klicks, and every steer and babe in it. Kill him boys, and get your own goldurned country on Earth!"
"Yeah," Filer said. "Kill me, boys, and be fertilizer in somebody else's field. Or join with me, and get your own countries right down here on Hell." The guards looked to the Boss and back to Filer. Geyl could see in their transparent young faces a terrible indecision. Plainly, this was the old Boss and the new Boss, and they were being told to choose.
Geyl smelled something odd drifting into the tent, something rank and musky and vaguely familiar. Outside, mastodons were trumpeting urgently, and here and there was the burp of automatic rifle fire.
"Kill him, goldurn you all! Don't fret me! That coward's gonna sink your chance to have a million babes all your own, one every night an' never the same one twicet! Take him out now!"
"But Boss," Billy-Tom objected, "if we miss and Filer slabs you, who's gonna give us our countries an' our babes?"
The smell in the air grew stronger. All at once it clicked for Geyl. Smilodon! But where…
Behind the upended recliner chair, the tent wall was bulging inward. In a heartbeat the dirty canvas was rent from top to bottom and a huge, charcoal-gray beast stormed into the tent, waving steel-bladed tusks and trumpeting. The stink of smilodon rolled into the tent from outside, now overpowering in its strength. The mastodon's eyes were maddened and wide.
McGaughey turned toward the mastodon, puzzled. He raised his hands to his mouth and made a long basso-profundo hoot.
The mastodon stormed forward, and with a mighty sidewise swipe of its tusks struck McGaughey's head from his shoulders and sent it bouncing along the grass, to stop at Filer's feet. The guards scattered, though two of them paused to send bursts of fire into the animal's massive side.
The mastodon reared, trumpeted in agony, and charged Filer, swinging its tusks low this time. Filer leapt backwards, colliding with a guard who was fleeing the tent. Filer dropped his rifle and barely avoided the sweep of the animal's tusks, one of which skewered the man on the ground. The mastodon raised its head, carrying the screaming guard up toward the canvas ceiling.
With the mastodon's attention on the dying guard, Filer dodged sideways toward where Geyl crouched behind a tent pole, and picked her up bodily as he passed her. He dropped Geyl at the tent wall, hit the ground and rolled under the canvas, reaching back and hauling Geyl roughly behind him.
"Where's your rifle?" Filer demanded.
"In there. I panicked. The mastodon…"
"Marvelous. We're unarmed."
Outside the tent was pandemonium. From the shadows where they lay Geyl watched ponytailed men running aimlessly across the open space between the tents, behind them mastodons trumpeting and rearing on their hind legs.
A pounding, piercing shreik rose from behind them, and a glinting shape roared overhead. Several canisters arced to the ground and exploded dully, releasing clouds of choking smoke. The smilodon scent doubled.
"Ralpha Dog jet! They're dropping smilodon stink bombs!" Filer hissed.
Geyl nodded, too confused for a moment to speak. The Moomoos were going to invade the Earth! It was all backwards! And Filer…
"So now you're the Boss."
Filer nodded. "Looks that way."
"And who is the Interstellar American Republic?"
"Not sure. The IAR stole some starships from Earth and founded an illicit colony somewhere. They're short on manpower…so they concocted this plan to steal the Moomoos. I have to stop that. They're my people, lame excuse for a people that they might be."
Geyl felt the increasingly insistent vibration of her countdown timer, buzzing against bone. "Does all this mean that the IAR stole the Hans Moravec too? Filer, we only have a few minutes before the skyhook touches down. 1Earth said they were sending it to pick me up. If pirates hijacked it, would they keep to the same schedule?"
Filer was silent for a moment. "Maybe the pirates are going to hijack the skyhook when the first load reaches orbit. A module full of armed Moomoos would be a real effective distraction."
"You can stop the Moomoos from boarding the module. But I still have to be on it. I have to get back to Earth. I have to tell 1Consensus."
Filer clapped a hand over her lips. A huge gray shape lumbered past, head waving from side to side. Geyl noticed the dark stain on one of its tusk-blades. Once it had moved between two adjacent tents, Filer spoke in a clenched-teeth whisper. "With smilodon musk that thick in the air, the mastodons will kill anything that moves. We have to find someplace to wait this out."
"We can't! In about five minutes, a five-hundred tonne cylinder is going to land right here, and I have to be on it!"
She watched Filer's gaze move out toward the center of the open space, to where the Twelver truck carried the skyhook's laser beacon. "I've got what the Moomoos would call a damfool idea," he said. "That skyhook looks for the beacon, and it lands beside the beacon, right?" Geyl nodded. "And they can adjust the final landing spot a little, right?"
Geyl nodded again. "Up to three or four klicks."
Filer rose to his knees, one hand on Geyl's shoulder. "So we steal the beacon. You ready to run like hell?"
Geyl grinned, and nodded. Filer patted her shoulder. He was peering around into the new night's gloom, judging the space between where they lay and the beacon truck. Mastodons were rampaging within earshot, but for the moment the space was clear. "Let's go!"
Filer leapt and ran, Geyl right behind him. Moomoo men were running everywhere, and none seemed to be concerned with another pair dashing across the shadowed grass.
Filer reached the big Twelver truck. They felt a burbling vibration through the ground, and smelled a sharp chemical stink that was strong enough to overcome the Ralpha Dogs' synthetic smilodon musk. The emerald beam continued to stab at the sky, with curls of smoke intercepting the ray and rising with the heated air. They kept to the shadow of the truck and ran its length forward. Filer laid a hand on a
cab door handle.
"Locked!"
Filer put one foot on the door frame and heaved back with all his strength, hoping the latch would break. "GMT uses a lot of metal," he said, cursing under his breath.
To their left, a mastodon trumpeted into the open area, saw them, and charged.
Filer grasped Geyl by the arm and hauled her back toward the rear of the truck. In between the two middle sets of wheels was a shelf beneath the truck bed, half-filled with tanks, tools, and lengths of pipe. "Get in there!" he shouted. Geyl dove on her belly atop a bundle of lead pipe sections.
Filer stood up and hooted through his hands to get the big animal's attention. He then turned and ran toward the rear of the truck. The mastodon followed. Geyl craned her neck until both were out of sight, then lay still, cursing her luck.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw motion in her direction. Two shadowed figures were making a beeline for the truck. A man and a boy, both dressed entirely in black, ran up to the cab. The boy tried to open it, and failed.
"Screw it!" said the boy, whose voice was not that of a boy but a woman, who then shot the window out with a single burst from an assault rifle.
"Up and in!" shouted the man, giving his companion a foot boost through the ragged remnants of glass. Geyl knew that voice. Peter Novilio!
With Nutmeg now in the cab, Peter raced around the front of the monster truck to take the passenger seat. He stopped in his tracks, seeing one of the maddened mastodons rearing up only meters away, a tall man leaping from one side to the other in front of the beast, waving his arms. Peter heard the truck's engine groan under the torque of its starter spring, fire raggedly, and then ignite with a deep rumble. He turned back to see armed men running from the other side of the clearing. Nutmeg was putting the vehicle in gear. Peter planted a boot on its front bumper and launched himself up onto the hood, then over the cab and into the shadow-tangle of pipes and chemical tanks mounted to its bed.
The truck lurched forward. Peter watched a strange tableau beside the truck: The man dodging the mastodon dove to one side, rolled over on the ground and leapt up, grasping for the mastodon's tusks with both hands. The mastodon reared, flailing with its trunk, but with inhuman agility the man vaulted between its tusks and over the beast's head, to grip its neck with both legs, hanging onto its leathery ears with his hands.
Peter felt himself admiring the maneuver. |I love this place!|
So there are other madmen here in your league. Pray you never have to confront any of them.
The truck was rolling now, heading for the edge of the clearing where the tents were farthest apart. The mastodon and its rider were in full pursuit, and the ancient elephant was astonishingly fast.
The truck's transmission ground as Nutmeg tried to change gears. The vehicle was built for power, not speed. In seconds the mastodon pulled alongside the lumbering truck, and drove its shoulder against the cab. The truck lurched from the impact. Peter heard the glass of the passenger-side window shatter. Nutmeg steered away from the mastodon, but it followed, and threw its bulk against the side of the truck once again, harder now. The truck heaved up at an angle, then dropped again.
Peter raised his rifle and fired a blast through the mastodon's head. The animal reared up and turned away, stumbling. As it fell, its rider leapt hard and landed on the rear apron of the truck.
A squat black cylinder was mounted to the truck bed between them, waist-high and perhaps a meter in diameter. A dazzle of green light danced around a three-centimeter opening at its center. A familiar chemical smell stung Peter's nostrils.
This is the fluorine laser, aimed upward. It's unclear how damaging the beam could be. I advise caution.
|You always advise caution.|
Also, do not fire your rifle indiscriminately across the bed of the truck. Fluorine is fiendishly toxic and among the most corrosive substances known. Puncture one of these tanks and you would quickly die.
|I don't think that guy's on our side.|
It doesn't matter. He would die too.
Peter watched his pursuer pick up a length of lead pipe from between two racks of stubby green tanks and slowly approach the laser behind which Peter crouched.
"Nice hair," said the man. "I'll bet you're Peter Novilio. You grew a new leg."
Peter grinned. "I'm full of surprises. And this makes you Filer Fitzgerald."
The two men faced one another over the burbling laser module. The truck was hurtling between tents, its speed finally intimidating the rampaging mastodons. Nutmeg took some hard turns, forcing Peter to steady himself with one hand. Filer seemed rooted to the truck bed. He was taller than Peter by almost a head, and more massive, with disorderly brown hair and an angular face that had seen a little too much sun.
"What did you do with Geyl?" Peter demanded.
"I killed her," Filer said. "She turned me down."
I think he's lying. He shows neither relish nor regret on his face.
Peter blinked, then shook his head. "Crap. If you're her native guide, she'd do anything you asked her to—I know her at least that well. Did we leave her back there somewhere?"
"I buried her just south of Clinton Station."
"I'd rather have the truth, guy." Peter leveled the rifle at Filer's chest.
Filer ducked to his right a half step. Peter swung his rifle to the right and forward. The barrel dazzled white-hot as it crossed into the path of the laser. Peter, startled, fell back, but Filer swung with his pipe. The lead pipe struck the rifle barrel and glanced away, to spatter into molten drops when it crossed the beam.
Peter brought the rifle down and squeezed the trigger. A round fired but jammed. Peter realized that the barrel had softened in the beam and bent slightly from the impact with the pipe.
I told you to beware the beam!
|I knew it would go right through me…but steel?|
Filer put one end of the lead pipe on the truck bed and bent it under one boot into a crude hook. They were outside the Moomoo tent encampment now, rolling into the empty grass of Dis' vast emptiness. The yellow glow from the Moomoo fires and lanterns was gone, and Peter could see Filer only in vague green outline by the waste light from the laser's exit port.
The truck hit a shallow ravine. Peter was thrown to one side, and Filer swung his hook around Peter's neck, to drag him forward across the laser module, toward its killing beam. Peter braced himself with both hands and Sangruse-assisted muscles, but Filer was tremendously strong.
|Do something!|
We can't kill him until he tells us where Geyl is.
Filer grimaced. "The truth is, I've promised to get Geyl on that skyhook. I don't break promises."
She must be hidden in this truck somewhere.
The truck crossed another shallow ravine, this one broader. Peter and Filer were both thrown hard in the opposite direction. Filer's pipe hook crossed into the stabbing light of the laser and spattered instantly into two pieces. Peter felt the momentary sting of molten lead on his face. Filer lost his balance, fell backwards, the stub of pipe falling from his hands. Peter edged around the laser's cylinder, shoved back against a valve box, and launched himself at his attacker. Filer staggered back against the rack of tanks, Peter landing a kick and a hard punch against his side.
From above them came a single head-pounding concussion. Both men looked up.
It's the sonic boom from the Moravec's descent. It will be down in seconds.
Nutmeg knew the sign. The Twelver's brakes screeched as the truck swerved to an unsteady halt. Peter fell back from Filer and leapt over the truck's railing into the impenetrable night.
Peter heard the truck's cab door slam. Above, fire was descending from the high clouds. A ring of brilliant red-pink flame was growing larger as it came.
Probably a natural gas pressure flame, seeded with potassium ions. Impossible to miss, even from kilometers away.
Peter heard Filer's voice, and another in answer: Geyl! Then Nutmeg was beside him again.
; "What a ride!" she shrieked with delight, and leapt up to plant a kiss on Peter's cheek. The two ran stumbling toward the descending light.
It came down with tremendous speed: a cylinder lit from above by its ring of pink fire, like a featureless face with a flaming crown. It struck the ground perhaps fifty meters from them, with a hollow creaking groan as its array of shock-absorbing legs took up the force of its impact. A rectangle rimmed in chemoluminescent green swung outward and down from the cylinder the instant the legs touched ground.
They've welded new machinery on the outside of the module. The force of touchdown opened the port. Probably by triggered hydraulics. When it lifts the same forces will reverse and close the port.
|We hope.|
The rectangle formed a ramp, down from the waist-high lower edge of the port to the ground. Within seconds of its opening Nutmeg had danced one light step on the ramp and was into the module's shadowy interior, whooping in triumph. Peter was a heartbeat behind her, his boots pounding on the ramp.
"You can lift now!" Nutmeg shouted at the shadows around her. "I'm Geyl. Peter's here too. We're in. Lift already!"
She doesn't understand. The amount of time on the ground is determined by the Moravec's orbital geometry. Look above and to the rear. We will be here yet for another sixty seconds.
Peter looked where the Sangruse Device had indicated. The circular plate of a 100-second countdown clock was outlined in ghostly green chemoluminescence, and a green sweep hand had just crept past 60.
Moments later, Filer Fitzgerald and Geyl Shreve bounded up the ramp into the module and stood silhouetted against the faint light from outside. The Sangruse Device had sharpened Peter's night vision, and he had had a few seconds to lose the effects of the light from the capsule's ring of fire. Peter hunkered down and launched himself, shoulder-first, at Filer. Filer stumbled backward at the impact and over the edge of the port, falling down obliquely from the ramp into the grass.
Peter felt a kick to his side and a pulse of pain; the flat of Geyl's boot returned and sent him over the edge of the port, falling the way Filer had gone. In the pink light from the module's fire beacon, Peter saw Filer drawing a knife and lunging. Peter jumped straight up, his muscles triggered and strengthened by the creature in his bloodstream. His foot lashed out and struck Filer's right arm below the elbow. The knife tumbled away into the shadows. Peter came down on the edge of the ramp and threw himself back into the module.
The Cunning Blood Page 31