First Command

by A Bertram Chandler

  “Get into the car,” she said. “I’ll ride behind. And make it snappy.”

  He walked out of the inn, into the afternoon sunlight, deliberately not hurrying. He consoled himself with the thought that, even though he was falling down on the job as a sergeant of Police, he was earning his keep as a lieutenant of Security. He had been told to find out what made these aliens tick—and he was finding out. In any case, if the wolf packs were as ravenous as usual, there would be nothing left but a scatter of well-gnawed bones.

  He climbed into the driver’s seat, thought briefly about making a dash for it, then thought better of it. He could never get out of range in time. He heard her clambering in behind him. He wished that he knew which way that so-called camera was pointingthen he succeeded in catching a glimpse of it in the rear mirror. If the firing stud were accidentally pressed, it would drill a neat, cauterized hole through his head. Or would the water content of his brains explode? In that case, it would not be so tidy.

  “Get going,” she said. And then, as an afterthought, “I suppose you know the way.”

  “I know the way,” he admitted. The car lifted on its air cushion and proceeded.

  “Faster. Faster.”

  “This is only a goat track,” he grumbled. “And this isn’t an armored chariot we’re riding in.”

  Even so, deliberately taking the risk of fouling the fan casings on projecting stones, he managed to increase speed. Rather to his disappointment, the vehicle still rode easily, sped over the rough terrain without making any crippling contacts.

  And then, ahead of them, seemingly from just over the next rise, sounded the ominous howling and snarling of the wolf pack, and with it, almost inaudible, a thin, high screaming.

  “Hurry!” Margaret Lazenby was shouting. “Hurry!”

  They were over the rise now. Once before, Brasidus had watched an Exposure, and the spectacle had sickened him, even though he had realized the necessity for it, and appreciated the essential justice of allowing Nature to erase its own mistakes in its own way. But to rescue one or more of these mewling, subhuman creatures—that was unthinkable.

  The car was over the rise.

  And then it was bearing down on the snarling, quarreling pack, on the carnivores too engrossed in their bloody business to notice the approach of potential enemies. But perhaps they heard the whine of the ducted fans and, even so, remembered that, on these occasions, Men never interfered with them.

  The car was sweeping down the slope toward the mêlée, and Margaret Lazenby was firing. Brasidus could feel the heat of the discharges, cursed as the hair on the right side of his head crisped and smoldered. But he maintained a steady course nonetheless, and experienced the inevitable thrill of the hunt, the psychological legacy from Man’s savage ancestors. Ahead there was a haze of vaporized blood; the stench of seared flesh was already evident. The howling of the pack rose to a frenzied crescendo but the animals stood their ground, red eyes glaring, slavering, crimsoned jaws agape. Then—an evil, gray, stormy tide—they began to surge up the hillside to meet their attackers.

  Brasidus was shooting now, the control column grasped in his left hand, the bucking projectile pistol in his right. Between them, he and Margaret Lazenby cleared a path for their advance, although the car rocked and lurched as it passed over the huddle of dead and dying bodies. Then—“Stop!” she was crying. “Stop! There’s a baby there! I saw it move!”

  Yes, there, among the ghastly litter of scattered bones and torn flesh, was a living child, eyes screwed tight shut, bawling mouth wide open. It would not be living much longer. Already two of the wolves, ignoring the slaughter of their companions, were facing each other over the tiny, feebly struggling body, their dreadful teeth bared as they snarled at each other.

  Margaret Lazenby was out of the car before Brasidus could bring it to a halt. Inevitably she lost her balance and fell, rolling down the slope, almost to where the two carnivores were disputing over their prey. She struggled somehow to her knees just as they saw her, just as they abandoned what was no more than a toothsome morsel for a satisfying meal. Somehow, awkwardly, she managed to bring her camera-gun into firing position, but the weapon must have been damaged by her fall. She cried out and threw it from her, in a smoking, spark-spitting arc that culminated in the main body of the pack. Even as it exploded in a soundless flare of raw energy she was tugging the borrowed stun gun from its holster.

  Once she fired, and once only, and one of the two wolves faltered in the very act of leaping, slumped to the ground. The other one completed its spring and was on her, teeth and taloned hind paws slashing. Brasidus was out of the car, running, a pistol in each hand. But he could not use his guns—animal and alien formed together a wildly threshing tangle, and to fire at one would almost certainly mean hitting the other. But the Arcadian was fighting desperately and well, as yet seemed to be undamaged. Her hands about the brute’s neck were keeping those slavering jaws from her throat, and her knee in the wolf’s belly was still keeping those slashing claws at a distance. But she was tiring. It would not be long before sharp fangs found her jugular or slashing talons opened her up from breastbone to groin.

  Dropping his weapons, Brasidus jumped. From behind he got his own two hands around the furry throat, his own knee into the beast’s back. He exerted all of his strength, simultaneously pulled and thrust. The animal whined, then was abruptly silent as the air supply to the laboring lungs was cut off. But it was still strong, was still resisting desperately, was striving to turn so that it could face this fresh enemy.

  Margaret Lazenby had fallen clear of the fight, was slowly crawling to where she had dropped her pistol.

  She never had to use it. Brasidus brought his last reserves of strength into play, heard the sharp snap of broken vertebrae. The fight was over.

  He got groggily to his feet, ready to face and to fight a fresh wave of carnivores. But, save for the Arcadian, the squalling child and himself, the hillside was bare of life. There were charred bodies, human and animal, where the laser weapon had exploded; the other wolves, such of them as had survived, must have fled. The stench of burning flesh was heavy in the air.

  At a tottering run, Margaret Lazenby was hurrying to the child, the only survivor of the Exposure. More slowly, Brasidus followed, looked down at the little naked body. He said, “It would have been kinder to let it die. What sort of life can it expect with that deformity?”

  “Deformity? What the hell do you mean?”

  Wordlessly he pointed to the featureless scissure of the baby’s thighs.

  “Deformity? This, you fool, is a perfectly formed female child.”

  She got down to her knees and tenderly picked up the infant. And, as she did so, it became somehow obvious that the odd mounds of flesh on her chest, fully revealed now that her shirt had been torn away, were, after all, functional. The baby stopped crying, groped greedily for an erect pink nipple.

  Peggy laughed shakily. “No, darling, no. I’m sorry, but the milk bar’s not open for business. I’ll make up a bottle for you when we get back to the ship.”

  “So,” muttered Brasidus at last, “so it is one of your race.”

  “Yes.”

  “And those . . . lumps are where you fission from.”

  She said, “You’ve still a lot to learn. And now give me your tunic, will you.”

  “My tunic?”

  “Yes. Don’t just stand there, looking as though you’ve never seen a woman before.” Brasidus silently stripped off his upper garment, handed it to her. He expected that she would put the child back on the ground while she covered her own seminudity. But she did not. Instead, she wrapped the baby in the tunic, cooing to it softly. “There, there. You were cold, weren’t you? But Mummy will keep you warm, and Mummy will see that you’re fed.” She straightened, then snapped in a voice of command, “Take me back to the ship, as fast as all the Odd Gods of the Galaxy will let you!”

  Chapter 18

  SO THEY DROVE BACK to the ship swi
ftly, bypassing Kilkis—Brasidus had no desire to meet again the village corporal—taking roads that avoided all centers of population, however small. Peggy was in the back of the car, making soft, soothing noises to the querulous infant. Achron, thought Brasidus sullenly, would have appreciated this display of paternal solicitude—but I do not. And what did he feel? Jealousy, he was obliged to admit, resentment at being deprived of the Arcadian’s company. Perverts the doctors in the créche might be, but these aliens could and did exert a dangerous charm. But when it came to a showdown, as now, they had no time for mere humans, lavished their attentions only upon their own kind.

  Suddenly the child was silent. The car was speeding down a straight stretch of road, so Brasidus was able to risk turning his head to see what was happening. Peggy had the stopper out of the wine flask, was dipping a corner of her handkerchief into it, then returning the soaked scrap of rag to the eager mouth of the baby. She grinned ruefully as she met Brasidus’ stare. “I know it’s all wrong,” she said. “But I haven’t a feeding bottle. Too, it will help if the brat is sound asleep when we get back to the spaceport.”

  “And why will it help?” demanded Brasidus, turning his attention back to the road ahead.

  She said, “It’s occurred to me that we have probably broken quite a few laws. Apart from anything else, armed assault upon the person of a police officer must be illegal.”

  “It is. But you carried out the armed assault. We did not.”

  She laughed. “Too true. But what about our interference with the Exposure? It will be better for both of us if your boss doesn’t know that the interference was a successful one.”

  “I must make my report,” said Brasidus stiffly.

  “Of course.” Her voice was soft, caressing. “But need it be a full report? We got into a fight with the wolf pack—there’s too much evidence littered around on the hillside for us to lie our way out of that. I’ve a few nasty scratches on my back and my breasts.”

  “So that’s what they’re called. I was wondering.”

  “Never mind that now. I’ve got these scratches, so it’s essential that I get back on board as soon as possible for treatment by our own doctor.”

  “I thought that you were the ship’s doctor.”

  “I’m not. I have a doctorate in my own field, which is not medicine. But let me finish. We had this fight with these four-legged sharks you people call wolves. I fell out of the car, and you jumped out and saved my life, although not before I was mauled a little. And that’s near enough to the truth, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, the child. She’ll fit nicely into the hamper you brought the provisions in. The poor little tot will be in a drugged stupor by the time we get to the spaceport, so she’ll be quiet enough. And with your tunic spread over her, who will know?”

  “I don’t like it,” said Brasidus.

  “That makes two of us, my dear. I don’t like having to conceal the evidence of actions that, on any world but this, would bring a public commendation.”

  “But Diomedes will know.”

  “How can he know? We were there, he was not. And we don’t even have to make sure that we tell the same story, exact in every detail. He can question you, but he can’t question me.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that, Peggy.”

  “Oh, he’d like to, Brasidus. He’d like to. But he knows that at all times there are sufficient officers and ratings aboard Seeker to handle the drive and main and secondary armaments. He knows that we could swat your gasbags out of the sky in a split second, and then raze the city in our own good time.” There was a long silence. Then, “I’m sorry to have gotten you into quite a nasty mess, Brasidus, but you realize that I had no choice.”

  “Like calls to like,” he replied with bitter flippancy.

  “You could put it that way, I suppose, but you’re wrong. Anyhow, I’m sure that I shall be able to persuade John—Commander Grimes—to offer you the sanctuary of our ship if you’re really in a jam.”

  “I’m a Spartan,” he said.

  “With all the Spartan virtues, I suppose. Do you have that absurd legend about the boy who let the fox gnaw his vitals rather than cry out? No matter. Just tell Captain Diomedes the truth, but not the whole truth. Say that it was all my fault, and that you did your best to restrain me. Which you did—although it wasn’t good enough. Say that you saved me from the wolves.”

  They drove on in silence while Brasidus pondered his course of action. What the Arcadian had said was true, what she had proposed might prevent an already unpleasant situation from becoming even more unpleasant. In saving Peggy’s life, he had done no more than his duty; in helping to save the life of the deformed—deformed?—child he, an officer of the law, had become a criminal. And why had he done this? With the destruction of the laser-camera the alien had lost her only advantage.

  And why had he known, why did he still know that his part in the rescue operations had been essentially right?

  It was this strange awareness of rightness that brought him to full agreement with his companion’s propositions. Until now, he had accepted without question the superior intellectual and moral stature of those holding higher rank than himself, but it was obvious that aboard Seeker there were officers, highly competent technicians with superbly trained men and fantastically powerful machinery at their command, whose moral code varied widely from the Spartan norm. (Come to that, what about the doctors, the top-ranking aristocrats of the planet, whose own morals were open to doubt? What about the doctors, and their perverse relations with the Arcadians?)

  Peggy’s voice broke into his thoughts. “She’s sleeping now. Out like a light. Drunk as a fiddler’s bitch. I think that we shall be able to smuggle her on board without trouble.” She went on, “I appreciate this, Brasidus. I do. I wish . . .” He realized that she must be standing up in the back of the car, leaning toward him. He felt her breasts against the bare skin of his back. The contact was like nothing that he had ever imagined. He growled, “Sit down, damn you. Sit down—if you want this wagon to stay on the road!”

  Chapter 19

  THEY ENCOUNTERED NO DELAYS on their way back to the spaceport, but, once they were inside the main gates, it was obvious that their return had been anticipated. Diomedes, backed by six armed hoplites, was standing, glowering, outside his office. A little away from him was John Grimes—and it was not a ceremonial sword that depended from his belt but two holstered pistols. And there was another officer from the ship with him, wearing a walky-talky headset. The Commander glared at Brasidus and his companion with almost as much hostility as did Diomedes.

  Diomedes raised an imperious arm. Brasidus brought the car to a halt. Grimes said something to his officer, who spoke into the mouthpiece of his headset. Brasidus, looking beyond the young man to the ship, saw that the turrets housing her armament were operational, the long barrels of weapons, fully extruded, waving slowly like the questing antennae of some giant insect.

  “Brasidus.” Diomedes’ voice was a high-pitched squeal, a sure sign of bad temper. “I have received word from the village corporal at Kilkis. I demand your report—and your report, Doctor Lazenby—immediately. You will both come into my office.”

  “Captain Diomedes,” said Grimes coldly, “you have every right to give orders to your own officers, but none whatsoever to issue commands to my personnel. Doctor Lazenby will make her report to me, aboard my ship.”

  “I have means of enforcing my orders, Commander Grimes.”

  As one man, the six hoplites drew their stun guns.

  Grimes laughed. “My gunnery officer has his instructions, Captain Diomedes. He’s watching us from the control room through very high-powered binoculars and, furthermore, he is hearing everything that is being said.”

  “And what are his instructions, Commander?”

  “There’s just one way for you to find out, Captain. I shouldn’t advise it, though.”

  “All right.” With a visible effort, Dio
medes brought himself under control. “All right. I request, then, Commander, that you order your officer to accompany Brasidus into my office for questioning. You, and as many of your people as you wish, may be present.”

  Grimes obviously was giving consideration to what Diomedes had said. It was reasonable enough. Brasidus knew that, if he were in Grimes’ shoes, he would have agreed. But suppose that somebody decided to investigate the contents of that food hamper on the back seat, some thirsty man hopeful that a drink of wine might remain in the flagon. Or suppose that the effects of the alcohol on the presently sleeping baby suddenly wore off.

  Margaret Lazenby took charge. She stood up in the back of the car—and the extent of her dishevelment was suddenly obvious. The men stared at her, and Grimes, his fists clenched, took a threatening step toward Brasidus, growling, “You bastard.”

  “Stop it, John!” The Arcadian’s voice was sharp. “Brasidus didn’t do this.”

  “Then who did?”

  “Damn it all! Can’t you see that I want at least another shirt, as well as medical attention for these scratches? But if you must know, I made Brasidus take me to watch the Exposure.”

  “So the village corporal told me,” put in Diomedes. “And between you, the pair of you slaughtered an entire wolf pack.”

  “We went too close, and they attacked us. They pulled me out of the car, but Brasidus saved me. And now, Captain Diomedes, I’d like to get back on board as soon as possible for an antibiotic shot and some fresh clothing.” Before leaving the car, she stooped to lift the hamper from the back seat, handed it to Grimes’ officer.

  “What’s in that basket?” demanded Diomedes.

  “Nothing that concerns you!” she flared.

  “I’ll decide that,” Grimes stated. “Here, Mister Taylor. Let me see.”