We commenced low-speed bludgeoning of the hippogriffs. They were even better at dodging at this speed, but they couldn’t really do anything else at the same time.
We finally managed to bounce one off the head of a hippogriff. It went down immediately. The other hippogriff ignored the byplay and tried to take a pass at the Deltans on one of the paths. But the busters kept it too distracted and it passed overhead without completing the attack. Unfortunately, a couple of Deltans panicked and fell or leaped off the path. I could see them tumbling down the steep scree.
The Deltan hunters laid into the unconscious hippogriff. It was my first opportunity to get a good feel for relative scale. If the Deltans were human-sized, then the hippogriffs were about the size of a Clydesdale, with bat-like wings. The animals looked more reptilian than anything. Teeth and claws were disproportionately large, resulting in an impression of something built for nothing but killing.
It took only a few seconds for the Deltan hunters to ensure that the animal wouldn’t be waking up. The live hippogriff, though, was still a major threat, and I had no idea where the injured one had gotten to.
The busters continued to harass the healthy hippogriff, and it apparently decided to reduce the defensive zone by landing. Well, not a bad strategy, really. Now the busters could only buzz it from above.
As it landed, the hippogriff changed its coloration to match the ground and rocks, but no one was going to be fooled at this stage. The animal snapped at the busters as they came within range, and it managed to snag one. It looked as though this would turn into a process of attrition, until the Deltans brought in their “A” game. Twenty to thirty spears flew at the animal in a solid cloud. Fast or not, the hippogriff simply couldn’t dodge that amount of incoming. Within moments, it resembled a pincushion. The hippogriff screeched and snapped at the spears sticking out of it. Arnold grabbed another spear from someone, ran straight toward the hippogriff, and made an Olympic-caliber throw from point-blank range. The spear went right through the animal’s neck and it dropped instantly.
There were cheers from the hunters. The jubilation lasted only a moment, however. Screams from the retreating tribespeople brought our attention back to the paths out of Camelot. The injured hippogriff had made its way to the base of the scree, found one of the people who had fallen, and was eating him.
I sent all my remaining busters straight at it, with no allowance for pulling up if they missed. Two impacted with enough force to kill the last animal. It was too late for the Deltan, though.
* * *
The good news, if it could be called good, was that we’d only lost three Deltans. A fourth had a broken leg, and I was going to have a confrontation with the medicine woman if she didn’t listen to me this time. I’d lost eighteen of my twenty busters. Twenty more made it down from orbit, too late to do any good. And once again I was pulling all my printers off of their assigned duties to make more busters.
The Deltans had called another tribal council. For them, two councils in a month was akin to panic. This time, I was invited, or maybe summoned. I doubted it was to give me a medal.
I had noticed that some people were giving Archimedes a bit of cold shoulder. They couldn’t overdo it, of course. He and Moses were still the only source of shaped flint, and Moses wasn’t moving around much these days. If I was to describe the attitude in human terms, it would be “coldly formal.” Since Archimedes hadn’t done anything to deserve it, I had to conclude that it was guilt by association.
Arnold was sitting in council now. After that display with the hippogriff, he was man of the hour. Hopefully that would mean at least one sympathetic voice.
There was some discussion among themselves, then they called me over. I floated down to head height and waited.
“Are there any other surprises that you have for us?” Hoffa said without preamble.
“That was a surprise to me, too. You’ll remember that I asked why you’d left Camelot. Only Axler had an inkling, and he didn’t remember enough to warn us.”
“Just the same, by following your advice, we seem to get deeper and deeper into trouble.”
“By following my advice, you’ve retaken a location that you can defend against gorilloids and that has flint for weapons. I know a lot of you have trouble following my explanation, but I maintain that in the old camp, your children would have been the last of the Deltans.”
I paused for dramatic effect before continuing. “As for the hippogriffs, they’re a problem because they’re a surprise. I’m going to find out more about them, then I’m going to remove them.”
“I’ve noticed,” Hoffa said, “that despite your talk, it’s still we who do most of the fighting.”
“Really? When was the last time a group of your hunters had to beat off a gorilloid attack? Did you hear the sonic booms? Two hands and four hippogriffs approached Camelot, but only three arrived.”
Hoffa’s ears were straight back and his eyes were narrowed to slits. I was mishandling this, but I couldn’t stop myself. I’d never been able to handle shortsighted stupidity.
“That’s three more than would have arrived at our old camp.”
In VR, Marvin and I rolled our eyes in sync.
“I’ve already talked about that.”
“Perhaps next time, we should leave your Archimedes out as an offering for them.”
I sent the drone straight up ten feet. “Don’t. Ever. Threaten. My. Family. Not ever.” As I finished saying the words, I realized that I’d turned the volume up. It had probably been painful to sensitive Deltan ears. The entire council was cringing, and possibly not just from the volume.
I slowly lowered the drone back to head-height. “I mean it, Hoffa. I’ll take care of the hippogriffs. And thanks to you, I’ve figured out how.”
Hoffa looked confused and somewhat concerned. I noticed that Arnold looked at Hoffa and smiled.
* * *
“Okay, I’ll bite.” Marvin was grinning at me. “How? And how did Hoffa help with it?”
I glared at him. “I’m going to drop a rock on the island. Which is what I wanted to do to Hoffa.”
“Jeez, Bob, here you go again. You’re going to perform planetary ecological surgery just because it’s convenient.”
“No, Marvin.” I jumped to my feet. “I’m going to do it because those things threaten my family. And you can analyze that all you want. I don’t give a damn.” I closed down his VR connection and he disappeared, effectively kicked out. Pretty rude, and I’d be apologizing later. But for the moment, I was too steamed to care.
* * *
I had a far more immediate problem, though. Assuming I was right about the hippogriffs smelling blood, then today’s battle would bring yet another wave tomorrow—maybe much larger. It would take time to find a large enough mass to destroy the island. I calculated an initial size of a hundred tons would about do it. We had identified a number of nickel-iron asteroids in the system, some of which would be about the right size.
I received a ping from Marvin. It was time to eat crow. I invited him in, and we looked at each other warily.
He broke the silence first. “You know we’re no good with this crap, right?”
It was enough. I broke down laughing, and we nodded at each other. Done. Possibly identical twins could come close to understanding, but certainly no one else.
We sat down and I described my thoughts on the impactor.
“Huh,” he replied. “So, a couple of months to build Bill’s asteroid mover, a couple more weeks to move the asteroid into place. You think the hippogriffs will just wait around?”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
“I understand you’re angry, Bob, and you want to smash the island to smithereens. But all you need to do is hammer it enough to take out the hippogriff population. You don’t need a Yucatan-level event to do that.”
I nodded. “So, a bunch of small impactors?”
“A thousand-pound s
teel ball will do a lot of damage.”
“Ohhhhhh…” I nodded. “Ship busters. Yeah, I’ve still got four in inventory.”
“The thing is, though, Bob, you don’t want too big of a bang. Tsunamis, ground shocks, flying debris could do more damage to the Deltans than a bunch of hippogriffs. Get this wrong, and you could be directly responsible for the extinction of the Deltan species.”
I nodded, shocked. Time to get my temper under control.
* * *
We decided to use the ship-busters one at a time and gauge the results after each strike. I sent the first ship-buster in at what I hoped was a reasonably sedate velocity.
The results were slightly more, um, spectacular than expected.
In retrospect, maybe I didn’t allow for the amount of material that would normally be shed by a meteor on the way down. Or I forgot to carry the two. Whatever the reason, the impact produced a mushroom cloud that would have done a fission bomb proud. As the smoke and dust cleared, it was obvious that the island, and the hippogriffs, were gone.
Well, that was the good news.
The bad news was that this was definitely going to produce ground shocks all the way to Camelot. And at least some debris. I flew several drones over to the camp, to find everyone already awake, staring at the bright cloud to the southwest.
Archimedes looked up at the drone as I arrived. “Did you do that?” he said in a hushed voice.
I wasn’t sure of the expression on his face. Awe, certainly, but I thought maybe a bit of fear. I hoped not. That wasn’t the legacy I wanted to leave.
“Yeah, Archimedes. That’s the hippogriff island being obliterated.”
Archimedes’ eyes grew wider and his ears went down. He took a half-step back from me.
Damn.
At that moment, the ground shock arrived. It wasn’t the worst earthquake I’d ever seen, but was probably the first in the Deltans’ experience. They hugged the ground, and there were many screams.
The shaking was brief. It was followed a few minutes later by the sound of the explosion. The crack and roar seemed to go on forever, but couldn’t have been a minute in all. The Deltans continued to huddle until it let up.
But now came the hard part. I went to the elders. “There may be some burning rocks falling from the sky, in about a hundred heartbeats or so. You should get everyone into the lee side of the bluff.”
There were wide eyes and flattened ears, but no one was going to argue with me. In short order, every Deltan was huddled behind the central bluff.
The debris arrived right on time. Drones hadn’t been able to detect anything big. I hoped that would hold, as I wasn’t really sure I could intercept incoming debris with a buster. Or if it would do any good.
The pelting lasted several minutes. It was impressive, and there was some minor damage to the village, but no one was hurt. The Deltans huddled for the rest of the night, unwilling to leave the sanctuary of the rock.
* * *
When morning finally came, people spread back out to their normal locations. A few of them had to do some cleanup, but their neighbors pitched in. Overall, the amount of actual damage was minor.
The council was having yet another session. Again, though, I wasn’t expecting a medal.
When they were done, they motioned to the drone. I flew it over, and Hoffa stepped forward. “We understand what you’ve done. We understand your explanations. But everything you ask, everything you do, seems to come with a larger and larger cost. We’re not sure if we’re better off now or not. There’s a lot of argument about that.”
He paused for a moment, a determined look on his face, then faced me squarely. “We’d like you to go away. We’ll face our fate ourselves. If you want to kill us, we can’t stop you. If you want to kill me, I can’t do anything about it. But you’re not welcome here anymore.”
I stared at him, through the drone, for what seemed like forever. I was frozen. Numb. It was too much to process. The emotional circuit breaker had tripped. I’d lost a family already, now I was losing a second one.
I backed out of the drone, and turned to Marvin. His face was grey. I was sure I didn’t look any better. “I guess I screwed up,” I said.
“Look, let’s just clear out for now,” he replied. “Give things time to cool off. You can talk to Archimedes later.”
I nodded, and re-entered the drone. I floated over to Archimedes, who was not looking well. Deltans didn’t display shock the same as humans. His facial fur was lying in disorganized mats. But the wide eyes and flat ears were probably universal. A disconnected part of me started theorizing about why that might be, and I squashed it.
“Archimedes, I’m going to take off until things cool down. I’ll talk to you later.”
He nodded. I noted that Diana had a look on her face of either satisfaction or triumph. I’d never hated anyone as much as I despised her at that moment.
20. Parasite
Howard
October 2189
Vulcan
Things that make you go “Ew!” This definitely qualified. I couldn’t take my eyes off the video, as the doctor made an incision on the patient and proceeded to extract a small bundle of eggs. A few had hatched and the larvae were trying to burrow away. At that moment, right there, I was so thankful that I was no longer biological.
I glanced at Butterworth’s video feed and noticed that he was paying an extreme level of attention to his glass of Jameson. Huh, not a bad idea. I invoked a glass of Sam’s cognac and turned on my alcohol receptors. A slight buzz was just what the doctor ordered.
Finally, thank the Universe, the video ended. Butterworth turned to look at the video camera. A slight smile formed when he saw the glass in my hand. I shrugged a “what about it?” shrug.
“The parasite appears to be a large insect,” he explained. “The bite itches a bit, then disappears. When the eggs have grown enough, though, it becomes a large swollen area. By that point, we have less than a day to remove the eggs.”
“What if you don’t?” I knew I would regret asking, but I couldn’t stop myself.
“The larvae go for the heart. Fatal within two days or so. Then the larvae feast on the corpse. That seems to be the life cycle. We’ve lost four people and two cattle so far. The doctors think they might be able to come up with a blood test, but I can’t see poking every colonist every other day to draw blood.”
“Wonderful. Have we caught any adults yet?”
Butterworth shook his head. “No, nor do we have very good descriptions, other than that it’s about hummingbird-size. We’re working on it, but I was hoping you might be able to throw in some surveillance drones.”
“I’ll crank up the autofactory and start pumping them out. I’ll also see if I can modify the video and audio pickups to be more sensitive to insect sound and movement.”
Butterworth nodded to me and signed off. I gave orders to Guppy for the changes to the autofactory schedules, then sat back and shook my head. Gross.
* * *
The Spits and FAITH colonies were done offloading to Romulus. Colonists were staying in temporary quarters until the towns were built. AMI construction equipment worked full speed to clear some land and set out street plans. We’d learned from the USE’s experience on Vulcan, and we were building a fence right away. The wildlife on Romulus wasn’t nearly as big or plentiful, but there was a joke going around about carnivorous rabbits. Everyone was fine with excess caution.
The FAITH and Spits colonies were set up on separate continents. The land area on Romulus was divided into eight land masses, each about the size of Australia, and a number of smaller archipelagos. Separation of nations wouldn’t be a problem.
The really important item, from my point of view, was that our relatives were now awake. As part of our deal with Cranston, Julia Hendricks and family owned a communicator, so didn’t have to schedule time on the colony system.
At the appointed hour, I connect
ed to the conference that Riker was advertising. I noted with a chuckle that we were up over thirty Bobs subscribing to the feed. I watched as Riker made the call and Julia came online. A dozen or so random family members jostled for position behind her in the video. And on her lap, with pride of place, was Space Cadet Justin.
“Unca’ Will!” he yelled.
“Hey, Cadet. Enjoy the space-ship ride?”
I could hear the pride and joy in Riker’s voice. I and every other Bob shared it. These were our sisters’ descendants, and a major reason why we put up with idiots like Cranston and VEHEMENT. I remembered Milo, who had expressed a strong lack of caring about humanity’s fate. A momentary wave of sadness washed over me at his memory. I wondered what he would have thought of the current situation.
I pulled myself back to the present, where Julia was talking about their experience. Well, trying to. Justin didn’t seem willing to give up the floor.
“…An’ we went in the big ship an’ we sat and it was boring an’ then there was a bump an’ they took us down a big hallway an’ they gave me a needle which I hated an’ they made me sleepy an’ they put me in a box an’…”
Amazing. He didn’t even seem to be stopping to breathe. The soliloquy went on for another minute, while Julia increasingly failed to keep a grin off her face. Finally, having said what he needed to say, he yelled, “Bye Unca’ Will” and shot out of frame. This prompted laughter from everyone, family and Bobs both.
Julia turned back to Riker with a smile on her face. “He has two speeds. Asleep, and what you just saw.”
One of the family members, who I remembered as Philip something, leaned forward. “Will, how long until some other colony gets planted on Romulus?”
Riker shook his head. “Can’t say. We’ve got two more colony ships heading to your system right now, but the enclave leaders will decide whether they want to settle on Vulcan or Romulus. Howard tells me that Romulus is looking a lot more attractive these days, though.”
Bobiverse 2: For We Are Many Page 10