by Sandy Nathan
Enormous cones of flesh protruded from her chest. They were tipped with large burgundy-tinged circles, flat with lovely little dimples in the middle. The camera focused on them and zoomed in. Lovely soft skin. The flesh sagged just the tiniest bit and swayed as she picked through her clothes. She found a wide black band and wrapped it around those amazing globes, tightening it so that they were compressed and covered, no longer jiggling in that lovely way. He could barely breathe and froze the image of the pressure of that band around her unbelievable … things. He wanted to grab them.
The cameras glided over her body, replaying on small screens. Everyone on the planet saw her hips and thighs. No one turned off a screen. He knew this dressing interval would be played and replayed. She was a star, and a moneymaker. He’d up the gratuities for the replays.
After she put on the rest of her military gear, she walked out of the tent, disappearing from the screens. She became invisible when dressed, because her uniform was so close to absolute black.
He replayed the dressing scene the minute it was over. He was a man; he knew that. He had begun a medical program that should yield tangible evidence of his manhood soon. The program was his own invention, which he shared with no one.
He felt a little different, due to the procedures and medications. Hormones. Maybe they influenced his thinking. Maybe the change from an intuitive, peace-loving healer and intellectual to the way he felt now was due to the drugs. Who cared?
He’d be able to mate with her soon, he knew. Why not create two superstars—she would be the female and he would be the male? With so many hybrids, they would be the models for the new society. His network would have no censors; nothing would be forbidden.
He stopped daydreaming when Jeremy blew up his targets.
“Good boy!” he cried. That troublemaker was a hero on the screen. Jeremy created more viewers, even as he cursed the doctor and his people over the bugs. The doctor liked that.
He watched them moving around the meadow, planning their next step. They were going to fight the monsters.
This was so exciting. He’d given the process a little nudge. The Bigs had been casting about with their computer broadcasts in a clumsy and ineffective way. He’d contacted them and given the Bigs a snatch of information in exchange for a peek at the underground. It was only two thirds of the password, but the exchange certainly livened up the human’s activities. In exchange, the viewers on the golden planet were able to access the underground’s cameras.
He leaned forward as the shelter’s seven levels appeared in the dim lights. On the big screen, it was more disgusting than Jeremy’s pictures could convey. They were going to fight in that hideous place.
The women’s pit appeared, with its unhappy occupants. The Bigs were using the howling creatures, even as their security was being breached.
He sat up, horrified. She was going down there! What if they captured her?
43
“Shit! I’ve got to get better with plastics!” Jeremy said. The explosions had hurled debris across the pasture. Chunks of cement and metal flew and bounced, settling to the ground moments before they made their inspection.
Sam thought Jeremy had done a great job. The canary hole was a mass of twisted metal, concrete, and dirt. No one would ever go through it again. The area forming the entrance to the shelter and the computer lab was a crater. What hadn’t been blown up collapsed upon itself. The Bigs who had been working at the computers were gone—buried or blown to bits. They could see two of the doorways leading deeper into the underground. They were fused shut.
That part of the operation was a total success: No one would go in or out either way. The powerful weapons were sealed off, but not blown up, and the Bigs had no computers.
Only the “back door” didn’t turn out the way Jeremy wanted. He hoped to seal the exit. The blast blew off its heavy metal lid and left a gaping hole in the earth. Sam took a fast look down the shaft. The entrances to the underground consisted of a series of round metal doors going down to the lowest level of the shelter. Between the locked entries, passages were cement-lined shafts with steel stairs or ladders going up and down. The accesses widened at lower levels of the shelter.
The back door itself had been a steel pipe three feet across. The blast made the opening twice as wide. Sam could see that the metal ladder inside was bent and twisted, but was still usable. He could see all the way down to the fourth level of the shelter. The blast gave the Bigs a much larger exit. They could swarm out easily.
“What do we do? Wait until they come out, or go after them?” Henry said. He stood with the others in front of the tent containing Jeremy’s computers. Clad in black commando suits, they looked pretty impressive. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“None of us have,” Mel said. “Shouldn’t we have a plan?”
“There’s a military adage about planning,” said Grace. “‘No plan survives contact with the enemy.’ Because the unforeseen always happens.
“We need an intention. The military works on the Commander’s Intent. The CI. Even if the enemy screws up our plans, the CI can operate. Like: We intend to make our land a safe, good place. Our immediate intent is: Clear and secure the underground. That’s a CI. If we had a Commander.”
“You’re it, Grace,” Mel said.
“I’m not qualified,” she replied. “I’ve never done any of this for real, either.” Her head turned toward the hole, catching something moving. Sam’s eyes followed her glance. The muzzle of an automatic rifle was sticking out of the back door. It disappeared inside.
Grace motioned to Wes and Bud. They nodded and moved noiselessly to the hole. Picking up her machine gun, she waved at the others to get out of sight and followed Bud and Wesley. Sam followed them. They positioned themselves behind the hole.
The machine gun’s muzzle appeared again. Soon the Big carrying it was crawling out. He stayed low, surveying the meadow in front of him, but not looking behind him. When he got up on all fours in preparation for standing, Grace nodded. Bud waved his hand as he had earlier. A blue light came out of his palm. The Big’s head rolled to one side, taking a turn on the grass while his body twitched.
After a short while, someone whispered from the hole, “Hey, Billy. Wher’ r’ ya?”
“Ah’m o’tside, nuthin’ here,” Sam said in a voice that was pure village. “C’mon out. They musta run awa’.”
The next one climbed out and made it all the way out, far enough to see Billy’s headless form. Wes cut him in half.
The third was more cautious. “We’re’ya? Billy? Russ? Ah canna see ya.”
“W’re lookin’ a’ th’ ocean, Johnny. An’ it’s a sight. Come on—straight ahead.” Sam’s voice mimicked the downed Big, even sounding like he was a distance away from the opening. He knew the Bigs by voice. “C’mon.”
Number three got half as far as number two before being cut in two by the blue beams from Wes and Bud’s hands.
No more approached the opening.
Grace motioned for them to back off. The next one came up shooting. Bullets sprayed out of the hole. The shooter was too far inside to do anything but shoot a circle in the air. It wasn’t even a circle. Sam knew he’d never shot a weapon before. He’d played with one, pointed it, pretended, but he didn’t know what it felt like when the machine came alive. Sam watched carefully. Grace had told them that bullets from an automatic weapon such as the shooter held shot high. It was true. The Big came out slowly, not looking behind him, spraying bullets over his head. He was standing on the rim of the hole when he finally turned around.
Wes got him. He fell backward, feet sticking into the opening. Sam ran and pulled him away, so they couldn’t see him from inside. “Hey!” he yelled into the hole, “We got th’ Egerton bitch! I got her b’tween th’ tits.”
Laughter erupted from below.
“C’mon!” Sam mimicked. “Me’n Billy an’ Russ’r gonna have ‘er! She’s daid, bu’ wha’s th’ diff’rence?
”
Two more came out, placing their guns on the ground outside the hole before pulling themselves out of the opening; they looked around, apparently not seeing the black-clad warriors. Either the absolute black of their uniforms or the unaccustomed brilliance of daylight blinded them. Or perhaps the prospect of having a dead woman was too enticing.
“Where she?” one yelled. They stood side by side looking toward the ocean’s crashing surf.
“I’m here,” Grace said softly, feet spread and crouching slightly, her gun ready. When they turned, she cut them down. Sam pulled their bodies away from the opening. The warriors stepped back and waited.
Sam took a quick inventory. They’d killed six. At least two more were in the computer lab. He counted eight on his fingers. How many were left? He thought there were thirty-four. Sam opened and closed both hands three times and added four more fingers, then closed his fingers one at a time until he’d taken away eight. Twenty-six. Plus how many more that he didn’t know about? They had two hands of fingers: ten people. He didn’t think that the next Bigs would be as easy.
They stepped back and waited. He felt something grabbing at his mind, trying to pull him under. He knew how to counter it, repeating the Commands to himself, and thinking of the Book. He beckoned to the others, retreating toward the computer tent.
“I felt something awful trying to enter my mind,” Grace said. “Shri Rinpoche came to protect me. I could see him and feel him, and I repeated my mantra. Did you feel that awful pull?”
“Aye, lady. They will try to win our minds now. They saw that we will not be easy to kill, so they will try something else. Destroying us from in here.” He pointed to his head. “I think of the Book, and I think of the Commands. I live by those. I think of things that the first Sam said about God. How God wasn’t what people thought. God was what made things turn out right. That you couldn’t see God, but only know when God was there.
“The Bigs are not as powerful as these thoughts. You must fill your mind with them, no space for anything else, and they will not poison you.”
“I don’t believe in God,” Mel said. “The concept causes more harm than good.”
Sam nodded. “I’m sorry. They will probably get you. You need something stronger than your doubt to hold them off.”
“OK, everyone,” Grace said. “I offer my mantra.” She explained to them. “It’s used by a number of traditions, some of which don’t believe in God. Use it happily, Mel. But you have to concentrate.”
“Listen, think about Grandfather and the ancestors,” Bud said. “That’s easy. Call to Grandfather and he’ll come. You can see him around you. He’ll bring the Great One. You don’t have to believe in anything.”
“Yes,” Wes said. “That will get you through anything. I remember …”
“Before you really get into this chat about theology,” Jeremy interrupted, “has anyone seen Ellie?”
“She was sitting in a tree back by the camp before we came over here,” Mel said.
“Sitting in a tree?”
“Yes. She appeared to be making an egg sack.”
“Really?”
“Yes. It was about three feet across when I saw it,” Mel added. “I would have told you, but I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t believe it. And then we got busy.”
“Wow,” Bud said, putting his hand to his mouth. “They’ve been having some real bad problems with Africanized bees in the Southwest. This could be really …”
Jeremy stared blankly. “I thought she would help us.”
Explosions of machine gun fire from the rear of the underground jolted them into the present. They could hear glass shattering.
“What are they doing?” Henry cried.
“They are shooting out the solar panels covering the growing fields,” Sam said. “They will escape that way.”
“But that’s where Lena is!” Henry jumped in that direction.
Sam stopped him. “If they catch you, they will make her surrender by torturing you. Trust her. We must watch this hole.”
The rat-a-tat of gunfire coming from the backdoor brought them back to their job. Grace, Sam, and the two Indians moved toward the hole.
“Watch your mind,” Mel whispered. “Think of Grandfather.”
44
Three gray figures rose out of the field in front of her. They crouched, getting their bearings and adjusting to the light. Lena could see that they were the smaller Bigs, like the one who wanted to rape her.
She had expected them since she heard the three explosions. Whatever her compatriots did up front would scare them out the back. Bursts of machine gun fire and breaking glass as they shot out the solar panels above the growing fields told her she was exactly right. And then the ghastly forms appeared.
Once moving, they followed each other, bending low, beelining it for the children. She waited until they were into the open before firing, wanting to make sure no one could see what happened to them from where they’d emerged. She picked them off, one, two, three. They dropped when hit, with no further movement. The gun’s silencer made their deaths anticlimactic; they just disappeared into the pasture.
She hoped she’d get a few more before they wised up. Another Big poked his head out of the shelter. He looked in the direction the others had taken and pulled back.
She felt something tugging at her mind, searching for her. Their invisible intelligence probed the area. They were looking for her, and they found her. That fast. She felt sullied by their touch. And dizzy. She had to protect herself. They were calling to her. She felt an urge to get up and walk over there.
Help, she thought. Help me. She needed the greatest protection she could get or she would be lost. Her mind grabbed on Him lickety-split. Jesus, I need your help now, she prayed. Protect me. Jesus, stay with me. When the Bigs’ probing became more intense, she dropped the extra words and repeated His name over and over, clinging to Him.
The disgusting, invisible touch didn’t come near her again. It felt all around her, maybe, but it didn’t reach her.
What would they do now, knowing that she was watching the hole in the solar panels? If they had other exits, they’d use them. Sam had said that other tunnels and burrows existed. Where? Where would they emerge? Could be anywhere. Even underneath her. How many years had they been digging? But Sam said they had trouble getting rid of the diggings. Where could they put the soil from their tunnels, other than in their living areas? So the tunnels most likely wouldn’t be too long. Would they?
Lena wished she could change position, but hers was the only hill around. She thought of dragging her arsenal up a tree and shooting from there. She’d have a change of position, but it would only fool them for one volley of shots. Then she’d be treed, like the raccoons her grandfather had hunted. Treed by some very nasty hounds. She knew what happened to those ‘coons.
How many of them were there? She did a little trick, praying as hard as she could and then thinking, Now, Jesus, I need to think for a little while. You stand guard while I figure out what to do. The sense of the Bigs reaching for her was more intense and disgusting than she could have imagined. Cut me a little slack now, Jesus. I need to plan.
Sam had said there was a minimum of thirty-four Bigs, maybe many more than that. She’d shot three of the smaller kind and Shaq ate one. How many more were there? There were the monstrous big Bigs with the distorted faces, the faster ones that she’d encountered, and others. What had Sam said? Some of them had to be chained up because they had rages.
She expected the ragers would stay underground, to be unleashed when Grace, Sam, and the others went down. What use were ragers, anyway? They had no protection against guns and could only run screaming straight ahead. Rage doesn’t allow for strategy and thought. The rest would come after her.
The Bigs she’d shot didn’t have weapons. Someone shot glass out for them, and they came out with no guns. Why? Because they were low status? Or because they didn’t expect her to be waiting for them? Or
was it because they didn’t have that many guns that worked and what they had were needed for the big standoff?
Were the ones that came out the cowards? Or the smart, brave ones who were supposed to capture the outside, securing it for the big Bigs after they killed the people underground? Would they keep their children inside to be safe, or send them out through the tunnels? It was too much to think about.
She sank deeper into the leaves and debris under the tree. If they got her, they’d get her weapons and kill the babies. She hadn’t taken one of those suicide capsules Grace showed her. She would not take that way out.
Up in the sky, a few clouds drifted in a balmy blue dome. It looked like heaven, if she didn’t feel that repulsive pull tugging in her mind. Where are you, my Shaq? Don’t forget about us, Shaq. Don’t go away, baby dog, she thought. I need you, Shaq.
What bothered her most was that the canary hole was at the far left of her vision. The growing fields were a few hundred yards in front of her. She could make out Jeremy’s tent through the scope on her rifle on the other side of the underground shelter. She saw them moving around over there, her people. She could see very well in front of her and in an arc to the right, but not to the left. The hill obscured it.
She heard something and spun around, keeping as low as possible. A funny-looking dog stood there. A female obviously: her belly hung with swollen teats. She had pups. The dog hit the ground, groveling when Lena fixed the gun on her. What was she doing there? She had ears that were halfway between pricked and floppy hound dog. Her coat was a nondescript, mottled color. She was as much a mutt as Shaq had been a purebred.
Lena remembered Jeremy telling them that a dog had come out the first night, a bitch that had puppies. She took him to her burrow and saved his life. “Are you here to save my life, girl?’ Lena whispered. The dog crept forward, groveling and wagging her tail.
“Tell you what, sweetie … ,” Jeremy had given her a name. What was it? Flossie. That’s what he’d called her, after old Sam Baahuhd’s hound dog. “Flossie, you watch my back, all right. You keep watch for me. They’ll likely rush me all at once, from all directions.” The little hound nestled in the leaves by Lena’s feet, watching Lena’s rear.