“I don’t know. I followed orders and used the sono-stunner on the Fuzzy, but look at her!”
Nichols laid the limp body down on a counter. Everybody immediately saw the trickle of blood coming from her ears. The leader swore luridly in Sheshan, but not at Nichols.
“I should have realized this could happen,” the leader said. “Fuzzies speak and hear mostly in the hyper-sonic range. That sono-stunner must have been like sitting in a sound chamber set for a thousand decibels. Is she still alive?”
“She’s breathing,” Granger said, “but I don’t know what a Fuzzy’s respiration rate is. This could be good or bad.”
The leader swore some more. “Get Henderson in here. He was a medic during his stint as TFN corpsman. Bronson, get the med-kit and have it ready for Henderson.”
Bronson rushed to the back of the cabin while Nichols spoke quietly to the leader. “I had the stunner on its lowest setting. What do we do if she doesn’t make it?”
“I’m thinking. Normally I would just dump her in the converter and get the hell out of here, but there are the other Fuzzies out there. They can testify under veridication that we were here when this female disappeared. Even an idiot like Marshal Fane can add two and two.”
“You mean we wipe out those other Fuzzies, too?”
“Nifflheim, no!” The leader looked down at the Fuzzy. A few days earlier he was prepared to kill some Terrans if they were discovered, but Fuzzies were a much smaller threat. They were like small children, in fact. “I’m not about to pile one mistake on top of another. I didn’t sign on to do murder. We’ll do what we can for her then return her to the tribe. We’ll make an offering of the rest of the Extee-Three by way of apology and hope they accept it. Besides, this is why we kept our distance from them and used aliases, even with each other. Fuzzies can’t finger us if they can’t give a clear description or name.”
Henderson hustled into the cabin and made straight for the Fuzzy on the counter. “What happened?”
“Sono-stunner.”
Henderson swore in archaic Terranglo. “Short of shooting her with a rifle, this is probably the worst thing you could do to a Fuzzy.”
The leader shook his head. “I should have consulted with you before sending Nichols out. Can you do anything for her?”
Henderson looked the Fuzzy over with a portable medi-scanner. “She has ruptured eardrums, no surprise there, and possible brain-damage. I can pack her ears with med-gel that will protect her from more loud noises as well as provide general antibiotics. The ears have a good chance of recovering. That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“Can we do anything for the brain?”
“Not a damn thing.” Henderson shook his head. “Even if I had the equipment I don’t have the medical training to do anything. I can give her some anti-inflammatories to reduce the chance of brain swelling or stroke, but that’s the limit. The only chance this Fuzzy has is to get her to a hospital.”
“Damn. The nearest town is Red Hill, right?” Granger asked.
“That’s the nearest one with a hospital, anyway,” Hendrix added.
The leader started to say, “All right, I’ll take her down and tell them I found her like this…”
“No need,” Henderson interrupted, “she’s gone.”
The room fell silent. After a few minutes Nichols asked what they should do with the body.
“We could make it look like she was killed by a bush goblin,” Granger suggested.
“Who does the mutilation,” Hendrix asked. “Any volunteers?”
There were no takers. Finally, the leader spoke up. “We’re going to give her back to her family. I saw a documentary on Fuzzy funeral rites. We’ll wrap her in grass and set her on the ridge where we’ve been leaving food for them. Make sure you leave her weapon with the body. Put the rest of the Extee-Three next to her. Hopefully, they’ll understand that it was an accident.” He turned to Henderson. “Get all the samples you can, but try not to damage the body any more than you have to. We’ll send them off with the final shipment.”
The leader moved to the communications consul and composed a report to be sent in. His fingers moved very slowly across the keyboard.
* * * * * * * * *
Jack Holloway had just completed filing his paperwork when John Morgan walked in. Jack closed the cabinet where he kept the hard-copies and turned to say hello when he noticed the somber look on Morgan’s face.
“Is something wrong?”
Morgan hesitated, as if searching for the proper words, then just laid a document on Jack’s desk. Jack picked it up and read it. It was a dueling license, all filled out with only the seconds and challenged party information left blank.
“In accordance with Freyan tradition and the laws of the Federation, I hereby challenge you, Jack Holloway, to a duel of honor. As the challenged party it is your right to choose the weapon, time and place, provided the weapons are available on this planet and lethal in design and the duel takes place no more than two weeks from this notification. You have the right to name your second as I will name mine. If you choose a second that is dead or off-planet, you forfeit the right to choose the weapon and time in accordance with Freyan tradition and the Federation/Freyan treaty of 302 AE.
“Will you sign the dueling permit or must we forego the legal niceties?”
Jack was stunned. He had been challenged to duels before, though not in the last two decades, and those were for reasons he understood. “I don’t understand? What have I done?”
Morgan was silent for a moment, as if considering his answer. “You abandoned my mother and me before I was born. As such, I have no name and no honor until I have faced you in honorable combat. I ask again that you sign and name your second.”
“John, I think you have me confused with another man…”
“I compared our DNA last night. You are my biological father. I have been searching for you for over fifteen years.” Tears began to form in Morgan’s eyes.
Jack stared for a moment before speaking. “What was your mother’s name, boy?”
“Adonitia Honirdite, daughter of Orphtheor the Greater.”
Adonitia! Jack felt the air go out of his lungs. “But…she died while I was working on Nifflheim…I…” Jack picked up a pen and signed his name, then took out an inkpad, pressed his thumb on it, then on the document.
“And your second?” Morgan prompted.
Jack named Gustavus Adolphus Brannhard.
“I see. Clever. We do not know if he is dead or off-planet, so technically he is acceptable. Unless he fails to appear in two weeks, then you will be required to choose a new second. I will not contest this, as it is honorable for you to continue the search for your friend. I will now return to Mallorysport to secure the signature of my second. I will refrain from filing for two weeks unless Mr. Brannhard is located and is able to fulfill the role of your second, or he is determined to be dead or off-planet. I wish you good hunting. Until we meet again.”
Morgan turned and walked out. Jack wanted to pepper him with questions but he couldn’t make his voice work. He plopped down into a chair and became lost in his thoughts. When Chief Steefer and a young woman showed up he was only vaguely aware of them. On some level he noticed that they collected John Morgan and left, but for the most part he was lost in his thoughts and memories. Memories of a beautiful young woman he had met and married and then lost forever.
* * * * * * * * *
Unlike many companies, the Charterless Zarathustra Company encouraged initiative. Other companies claimed that they did the same, but failed to follow through. Not Victor Grego. Grego was always willing to lose a few sols if the justification was there. Shortly after he arrived on Zarathustra, the expense account of one of the gem buyers caught his eye. There was a payment of several thousand sols to one Benjamin F. Sunn for some glowing pebbles. Grego became curious and called for the gem buyer to explain the purchase. The gem buyer nervously laid out several dull stones of various colors.
Grego was unimpressed until he picked one up and the heat from his hand caused it to glow brightly. The gem buyer was given a promotion and a raise and the glowing pebbles were named after their discoverer: sunstones.
Word quickly traveled through the company grapevine that the new CEO was a man who rewarded initiative. There were times when the initiative of some well-meaning employee ended up costing the company, as was the case when a couple of cops receiving under-the-table money from the Company arranged to frame some Fuzzies for assault before the Great Fuzzy Trial in an attempt to get the Fuzzies branded as hostile, but more often than not it worked to the benefit of the CZC.
Peter Davis considered himself to be a person who took initiative. Unfortunately, there was little opportunity to use that initiative in his position as a power control specialist. His day-to-day job required that he watch for anomalies in power generation, distribution and utilization. In a building as overbuilt as Company House, that meant he mostly watched for gauges that malfunctioned. Davis suspected that were it not for the Federation regulations requiring such a position, he wouldn’t even have the job.
Davis only had one complaint: no real opportunity for advancement. He worked alone and, he had to be honest with himself, nobody expected much from him. The entire building was virtually self-sustaining. In his ten years working for the company only one gauge was ever found faulty. Davis simply called maintenance and a new gauge was installed in ten minutes. Nothing exciting ever happened, until Davis spotted a gauge reading higher than it should.
“Now what’s going on with you?” Davis tapped on the gauge then called up the specs on his electronic reference guide. “Within safe parameters, but where is that extra power coming from?” A second check of his ERG showed that this particular gauge registered a minor power loss over the last few days. Davis pulled out his comlink and punched in the code for the Power Division. When they picked up he asked if anything unusual was going on. There wasn’t. “I need a trace on…” he read the plate under the gauge, “…line 77398210.”
“Are you for real?” the voice from the comlink asked. “That line is well-within safe levels.”
“I’m not down here for my health, damn-it.” Davis took a moment to get control of his temper. He went through the same scenario every time he asked for a line trace. Not everybody was as dedicated to his job as he was. Usually, like this time, it was something minor, but protocol was protocol. “I’m seeing several terawatts of energy coming in from that line. According to the manual, that is not a power generation station. So where’s all that juice coming from?”
That got through loud and clear. Unexplained energy sources could be a leak in the M/E converter, and that could lead to the entire building being blown straight to Nifflheim. After a couple of tense minutes the voice from the comlink gave Davis a probable energy source.
“We’ll send a couple men down to check it out.”
“Don’t bother. That’s just two sub levels below me. I’ll check it out myself and call back if I find anything.” Davis was almost excited. Nothing interesting ever happened in the sub levels of Company House. Davis checked his sono-stunner and Baldertec 9mm. Sometimes there were unpleasant vermin in the sub levels; land-prawns, pygmy bush goblins, quarter-meter long zaraspiders and other things still lacking classification. Nobody knew how they got into the building let alone how they thrived, but Davis preferred to be ready for anything. One never knew what they would find down in the sub-levels. Still, it would be nice to look at something other than a bunch of digital readouts and gauges for a while.
* * * * * * * * *
Rippolone checked his face in the mirror and nodded in satisfaction. His beard had grown in and his hair had been dyed a dark brown. His normally deep tan had faded considerably during his time in hiding. Contact lenses changed his pale blue eyes to dark brown. As a final flourish, Ripper placed a gold cap on a tooth.
“Perfect. My own mother wouldn’t know me.”
“She doesn’t want to know you, Ripper,” said Anderson. “Last time you saw her she kicked you out and said don’t come back.”
Ripper shrugged. “Ehn. She didn’t approve of my career choice. That never stopped her from cashing the checks I sent.”
Anderson rolled his eyes. “What exactly are you doing?”
“I’m going out on the town. We’ve been cooped up in here since we bagged the shyster and I’m going stir-crazy.”
“Rip, we ship out in two days….”
“And spend the next three weeks locked up in a cabin takin’ care of our ‘sick friend’ in there.” Rippolone jerked a thumb towards the door behind him. “Besides, Laporte forgot the depilatory cream for the sasquatch. I ain’t about to try and shave him with an electric razor.”
Anderson had to agree with the sentiment. “Still, even in disguise it’s risky.”
“Get real, Tony. This planet is lousy with new immigrants. We’re unknowns around here. The only…uh, hell, call them people…that saw us were those two Fuzzies. What’s the odds I’ll run into them?”
“That’s what you said on Baldur…”
“Stop harpin’ on Baldur!” Rippolone roared.
“Keep your voice down…”
“I don’t have to! This whole damn room is lined with collapsium. I could explode grenades and Brannhard would never hear a thing. Or anybody else!” Rippolone grabbed his hat and stormed out of the room.
* * * * * * * * *
Davis turned the corner just as a door was opening ahead of him. Out of reflex he ducked back around the corner out of sight. He drew his sono-stunner and set it on high. After a few seconds he heard the footsteps moving away. Davis risked a glance around the corner in time to see a strange man disappear into a wall. He carefully stepped over to the door and tried to listen, but the collapsium lamination prevented him from hearing anything. Davis considered his options and decided to play it smart. He punched the Security button on the comlink.
“Security, Captain Lansky, speaking.”
“This is Peter Davis on sub-level three, floor four, section nine, corridor thirty-two. I need a security detail to get down here fast.”
Davis could hear some muffled voices then Lansky’s voice, again. “State the nature of the emergency, Mr. Davis.”
“I saw an unauthorized person come out of a room and leave by way of a…well, a secret panel, really.” Damn, that’s going to sound like something out of a spy novel. “The man was wearing civilian attire, not work clothes. I’ll stay here and keep an eye on the door until your people get down here.”
Up on the ground floor of level one Captain Lansky quickly assembled five men to accompany him down to sub-level four. “Glazier and Hoffa, you use sono-stunners, Smith, Schröter and Matedne, grab automatics, but keep the safeties engaged until there’s reason not to. Clear? Okay, let’s go.”
XXIII
Red Fur was worried. Nobody had seen Sun Fur since sun highest time. He organized the people and sent them out to search for her. Makes- Things stayed back with the young as he was unable to walk yet. Red Fur selected the ridge near the Big Ones for himself. He suspected Sun Fur went to the place where the Big Ones were leaving food, even though she was told not to. That was the way of the young when they were close to being adults; they pushed their limits and defied those who were wiser. Eventually, she would learn and behave responsibly.
Red Fur climbed the ridge to the place where they first saw the Big Ones. There was a pile of the strange food that some of the tribe liked to eat. Next to it was something wrapped in grass. Red Fur approached to investigate and recognized the wrapping that the people used when one of the tribe made dead. Though fear gripped his chest, he opened the wrapping to look upon the face. It was Sun Fur.
Red Fur examined the body and discovered the tell-tale blood coming from the ears. Sun Fur was killed by the noisy made-things the Big Ones used on the shimo-kato! He collected the body and raced back to the camp screaming at the top of his hypersonic voice for every
body to gather together. When the tribe was assembled they all wailed at the sight of Sun Fur’s body. Red Fur explained to them how he found the body and what he believed caused her death. Everybody talked at once about what to do.
“Big Ones made Sun Fur dead?”
“We make Big Ones dead!”
“How? Big Ones big-big! Big Ones very wise!”
“We leave this place. Get away from the bad Big Ones!”
Red Fur called for quiet. “Big Ones made a Jin-f’ke dead. We must make Big Ones dead.”
Everybody wanted to know how when the Big Ones were so powerful. Red Fur admitted he didn’t know how. He asked Makes-Things if he had any ideas. Makes-Things had had a lot of time to think while he was healing and had an idea for a new weapon for hunting shikku. He told Red Fur about it and then the entire tribe began to make plans on how to make the Big Ones dead.
“First we bury Sun Fur,” Red Fur said. “Then we make the Big Ones dead.”
* * * * * * * * *
“The camp is broken down and the shipment sent off,” the leader said into the viewscreen. “The skeletons have been reburied near the artifact. We’ll dump the debris into the M/E converter after we are safely off the Reservation—”
“No,” said the voice from the viewscreen. “Convert it now. We want to draw attention to the dig. By the time anybody gets there to investigate, you’ll be long gone.”
“That’s a little risky with the search for Brannhard going on, don’t you think?”
The man in the screen laughed. “Great risks can bring great rewards. Once off the Reservation, just have everybody scatter and use their cover stories if caught. In fact, dump the robots and mining gear into the converter as well. That will remove any evidence of what you were up to.”
The leader considered the orders. M/E converters could only contain so much power without numerous secondary systems. He said so.
“Use the surplus energy to power all the vehicles back up to full. The rest can be expelled as heat into the atmosphere. That, too, will draw attention to the artifact. This will be our last communication…until you return to Mallorysport.”
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