Single Combat

by Dean Ing

  "Better move away," Quantrill said softly to Sandy.

  "I don't know," she quavered.

  "If you don't know, then move away," he gritted.

  He did not turn his head but kept his legs flexed, listening to the steady thud of hooves, the snorts and snufflings behind him as Sandy backed off. He resisted the urge to giggle wildly, hearing Sandy's soothing, repeated, "soooo, pig." The small of his back itched like fury. He did not scratch.

  When the huge boar completed his circuit, he stood almost near enough for Quantrill to touch, ears twitching fore and aft, eyes roving up and down. Then a peculiar ripple of shoulder muscles; Childe responded by shinnying down from her perch. The tiny girl and the great beast exchanged grunts and subtle headwags. "Just you and him," she said, nodding to Quantrill, stepping aside.

  Quantrill showed both hands, spreading his arms slowly, then stood erect. This displeased the boar who snorted and reared, forequarters rising so that the forward hooves pawed higher than a man's waist.

  Quantrill stepped back in a defensive stance, and too quickly. Ba'al dropped instantly to all-fours, his vast head lowering. The next moves sequenced almost too quickly for Sandy and Childe to follow.

  As Quantrill sprang backward, Ba'al rushed forward to close the gap—but without lowering his head. Quantrill did not wait to see if this was a true charge, but skipped aside in a double leap like a sidelong fencer's balestra ending with a shoulder roll, the total maneuver covering ten meters. He danced to his feet ready for a sprint to the soddy; judged it hopeless; prepared to dodge again.

  Ba'al just stood quietly, grunting, flicking that ridiculous tail, studying the man. Childe clapped her hands in glee. "You funned him," she explained.

  "Great," Quantrill said, spitting dust, searching for a fist-sized stone but, to his good fortune, finding none. "He's scaring the shit out of me," he added, and straightened up.

  Again the boar reared, a faint squeal issuing from his muzzle. "You're too high," Childe called—and then Quantrill realized that the boar was interpreting his erect posture as a dominance ploy. Flexing his knees again, Quantrill waited, now sharing the same eye-level with Ba'al, neither dominating nor submitting. The forequarters danced, the great head lashing side-to-side. A demonstration; a show of the boar's virtuosity with natural weapons.

  Quantrill found himself grinning. He couldn't match that demonstration if he wanted to. Instead he went down on one knee, held his hands forward. In his mouth there was not enough spit to float a paramecium.

  Then, each hoof placed with silent precision, Ba'al stepped forward; snuffled the open palms; placed his snout between Quantrill's hands. The reddish little eyes were wary, and level with his own. The musky scent, he told himself, wasn't all that bad. He wondered if Ba'al was thinking the same thing.

  Childe was cheering. "Scratch under his chin," Sandy called, and Quantrill did it. A soft repetitious grunting said that he was, at last, doing something right. A moment later, Childe and Sandy crowded close to scratch the boar's thick hide, laughing in relief.

  In the next few minutes Quantrill learned that a Russian boar could be charmed by a belly-scratch, and that Childe was adept at searching out ticks within the secondary fur under Ba'al's coarse bristles. In all, Quantrill counted twenty-three scars, some of them obviously bulletholes in a hide tough as kevlar. From time to time he caught the eye of the indolent boar and knew that the animal did not wholly trust him; might never trust any man. Quantrill felt no disappointment. He felt exactly the same about Ba'al.

  When Childe rode away to play that afternoon, Quantrill strode into the soddy and stretched himself out on his mummybag, exhausted. To Sandy he admitted that every fiber in his body buzzed with fatigue. "How could I relax," he sighed. "This is the only time in my life I've ever felt—well,—like I might be second-rate."

  Chapter 73

  A dying sun peeked beneath the overcast, a brief burst of pink and saffron against the bellies of bruise-tinted clouds that hinted of rain before morning. Quantrill tightened the tarp over his hovercycle, glad that he would not have to traverse fifty klicks of mud on a wheeled vehicle the next day. He hurried back to the soddy at Sandy's whistle: already he knew the bright three-note tune of 'come and get it'.

  After dinner, the first wind-driven drops pattered against the window as Sandy shopped for a favored holo channel. The FBN channel was showing a rerun, and Sandy almost switched before the glowing legend crawled across the top of the screen in high relief: TECH DIFFICULTIES FORCE CANCELLATION OF FBN SPECIAL. 'THE QUANTRILL REPLY', SCHEDULED FOR THIS TIME.

  Sandy turned to Quantrill who sat frowning with a handful of popcorn halfway to his mouth. "You? On a Fed channel?"

  Shrug: "Not unless it's a countercharge against me. I made a dumb threat right after I—well, never mind. It was plain stupid. Anyhow, I'm not the only Quantrill in the world."

  "That's debatable," she smiled, and tried the clear Mex channel which was nearing the end of its newscast.

  A silver-haired gentleman sat alone while behind him a crudely animated logo showed a silhouette running endlessly toward a green and yellow banner with a central star-flecked blue orb. "… But the Brazilian embassy would not comment on the rumor that Salter's defection is connected with the sharp seismic jolt which struck Utah's Cotton-wood Canyon area earlier today. Now for the weather—"

  But Ted Quantrill was on his feet, grinning. "Cottonwood Canyon? Seismic, hell; Ethridge got through!" He stood with arms spread, staring up as if to focus on something far above the low ceiling. "Hear that, Sanger? Now you can sleep." He turned, the light fading from his eyes, only half-aware of the startled looks from Sandy and Childe. Lowering his arms he said more softly to himself, "We can all sleep."

  While searching for another newscast, Sandy bestowed a searching smile on him but murmured only, "What—on—earth?"

  He chuckled, breathing deeply as he watched the screen. "I guess we missed the best part, but we can watch again at eleven. Now, if you'll turn that thing off awhile, I'd like to tell you about a girl named Marbrye Sanger."

  Chapter 74

  Long before he had finished, Sandy knew that Sanger was the woman of whom Quantrill had only said, "She died," with quick incisiveness to block further inquiry. Ted Quantrill was no yarn-spinner, certainly not with a lump in his throat, and Sandy was forced to interpolate often. Intuition told her that she must not ask questions or make comments, that this account was Quantrill's memorial service for his closest friend. In his memory, Sanger had lain in state until her killers were accounted for. Now perhaps he could allow time to bury her.

  When he completed his tale, Sandy was weeping quietly. "I'm sorry," he said with a touch on her arm. "I've got no right to make you feel this way."

  "You told me some very important things, Ted—one thing that you probably don't realize." She wiped her cheeks and went on, managing a smile for him. "And it makes me very happy. You demanded justice for Marbrye Sanger, but you didn't demand it by your own hand."

  He thought of his plans, now fading, for a bloody surgical strike in case Ethridge failed. "The thought crossed my mind," he growled.

  "But you place justice over revenge. If you can feel that way after all those devils did to you, then they failed in the most important thing. They didn't rob you of all decent human values."

  Muscles knotted at his jaw. He hesitated for a long moment and then forced himself to say it. "I killed people, Sandy. Not all of them were guilty of any real crime. I don't want to mislead you about that. I was very good at it."

  She responded with a serious nod, and then surprised him as her grin broke through. "I saw how good you must be, today. When you've known Ba'al awhile, you learn to read his expressions. I don't think he's ever seen a human move as fast and as far as you did in avoiding him today. He respects that."

  "Respect from the devil; I love it," he said wryly. "Well, we're two of a kind. Hey, you know what? I'm hungry."

  Sandy tucked Childe into bed and b
rewed strong bitter coffee to go with the coarse pecan pralines she kept on a Childe-proof shelf. In retrieving the candy she displaced the sketch which fluttered down, Quantrill catching it in midair, studying it in the firelight as they waited for the eleven o'clock news.

  She might never have a better excuse for asking: "If you ever do find that necklace, what will you do with it?"

  Without hesitation: "Hand it over to Jim Street. I can't think of anybody better-equipped to make decisions about a thing that could permanently alter the way people live."

  "Maybe you're right," she said, doubting it. Nibbling and sipping, they wrangled over the uses to which a synthesizer might be put—if every home could have one. Medicines, fuels, gold—if any precious metal could be amassed in endless quantity, what would that do to a gold-based economy? If heroin were free, what then?

  "Now you see why I'd drop the damn' thing in the Gov's lap," Quantrill said, licking the last traces of praline from his hand.

  "Instead of burying it somewhere," she said almost hopefully.

  "Not with a million bucks worth of Venus opal I wouldn't—hey, watch that coffee…"

  Sandy blamed the coffee spill for her agitation. The prospect of great wealth had never been real to her. In some ways she equated wealth with evil—and whatever else it might do, it would change her life irrevocably. More than ever, now, she resolved to wait for the time when her wisdom might be equal to the problem. "Uh, it's almost time for the news," she said, and switched on the holo trying not to imagine a new expensive set two meters in width. Only later would she imagine a ranch of her own, ten kilometers in width.

  FBN news led off with a brisk, business-as-usual list of topics: "A deranged Search & Rescue official is charged with treason; President Young is under his physician's care with a mild stomach ailment; and Zion is briefly shocked by a small earthquake. All this and more—"

  "Horseshit," Quantrill snapped. "Try the CBS Deadline News."

  Sandy complied in time to hear CBS anchorman Hal Kraft say,"—From several independent sources that the tremor was characteristic of an underground nuclear test, with a seismic signature all its own. While Search & Rescue squads report no radiation leakage to the surface, CBS has received one report that a Utah State Police unit monitored significant radiation near the mouth of Cotton-wood Canyon an hour after the shock. Government sources confirm that the genealogical vaults have sustained some damage, but continue to insist that the public has no cause for alarm."

  Kraft's image was a small inset to a scene obviously filmed earlier in the day. Numerous hovervans and media vehicles flanked a highway barricade with Utah State Police vehicles behind. The highway leading into steep mountains was clear of traffic, and Quantrill saw the black bulk of a sprint chopper patrolling airspace over the canyon.

  "At this hour, Cottonwood Canyon still remains under a complete news blockade. And therefore under a pall of mystery," Kraft editorialized acidly.

  "Meanwhile, the Brazilian embassy in Salt Lake City has released a statement concerning Lon Salter, who earlier today fled to the embassy to avoid prosecution for what one government source termed 'high crimes and misdemeanors'. Here's more, from Connie Bergson at the embassy."

  Flick. A slender wench in a smart trenchcoat stared into the camera, a high steel fence behind her and a low stone building floodlit in the background. "Brazil has rejected a sharply-worded demand from the State Department for the return of Lon Salter, Director of the Federal Search & Rescue Administration, who is reportedly somewhere in the embassy behind me at this moment."

  "At approximately two P.M. today, roughly an hour after the seismic shock Southeast of here, a Loring aircraft with S & R markings was seen to land inside the Brazilian compound. A man fitting Salter's description fled into the building before the aircraft lifted. In reply to the American demand, Brazil's charge d'affairs stated that Mr. Salter fled for his life after a vidphone conversation with President Blanton Young."

  "According to the Brazilian report, Mr. Salter contacted the President to report an S & R team's verification that the Cottonwood Canyon tremor was nuclear in origin. At that point, the President became incoherent with rage and threatened Salter's life while battering the vidphone screen with his bare hands".

  "The Brazilians say their responsibility is clear in the face of conflicting reports about the nature of the tremor, as well as varying reports on President Young's state of health. At least for the present, Lon Salter is safe on what amounts to foreign soil here in Salt Lake City. Now back to you, Hal."

  Chortling, softly clapping his hands, Ted Quantrill applauded the Indy penetration raid. "Notice that S & R both confirms and denies a nuke under that mountain," he said to Sandy. "Now that their central computer is trashed, they don't know what the hell they're doing. No coordination. I'm only sorry that sonofabitch Salter got free."

  "I wouldn't call him free," Sandy replied. "He might be cooped up inside that building for the rest of his life."

  Quantrill brightened. "You've just made my day," he laughed.

  They fell silent then, trying to follow the tangled trail of disinformation on the condition of Blanton Young. He had a touch of ptomaine; no, he had collapsed from overwork, poor man; on the other hand, rumors of recent weeks repeatedly claimed the Lion of Zion was starting to hold court with the bats in his belfry. Another network had first promised an interview with Young but later claimed technical difficulties.

  After reciting brief statements by two government spokesmen—both authoritative in opposite opinions—anchorman Kraft leaned forward on his elbows. "We at CBS Deadline News," he said in ill-concealed irritation, "are often torn between the need for all the facts, and the need to inform Streamlined America of fast-breaking events as they happen. The opinion of a high government official is news. The opinion of a holovision journalist must be clearly stated as only commentary. Well," he paused and donated a wry smile off-camera, "the staff of CBS Deadline News is of the uniform opinion that a commentary is in order, tonight."

  "We share the opinion that, for some time now, certain officials within the federal government have manipulated the news far beyond what we might call the limits of expectation. We do not place Mr. Salter of Search & Rescue beyond suspicion—but I wish to stress that this is not an accusation. Slander and libel laws in recent years have returned almost to the point of, 'the greater the truth, the greater the libel', and this too may be worthy of re-examination—in our opinion."

  "We also hold the opinion that Streamlined America tonight is shaken at the top by a shock, probably nuclear, that by great good fortune has not resulted in widespread loss of life. We believe that just below the top, our American system stands undamaged and intact, capable of dealing fairly with its troubles both domestic and foreign. We do not—I repeat, do not, have evidence of any kind leading us to suspect some military coup. On the contrary, Mr. Salter might possibly strip the rumors away from, let us say, an alleged paramilitary organization which may have operated as a death squad throughout Streamlined America for some years and which may, as of this afternoon, be adrift and leaderless."

  "If such a death squad exists tonight, then I and Deadline News may be a dead line tomorrow." Bleak grin: "Stay tuned. If ever an American death squad did exist: who held its reins? This is a question that journalists in several media have been asking."

  "Speaking for myself alone, I would like to ask Mr. Boren Mills, the chief executive officer of IEE and of its wholly-owned network. But for the past several days Mr. Mills has not been available for comment. Unsubstantiated rumor suggests that Mr. Mills has, in journalist's terms, 'pulled a Vesco'—has left the country for some climate more to his liking."

  "It may be pure hubris to think that Boren Mills would be watching us, a rival network, tonight. But just in case, Mr. Mills: surely you are aware of the reports concerning falsification of news by electronic animation. The late Eve Simpson left messages to be forwarded to various media, including CBS, in the event of her deat
h. At this hour there is no question of her revelations becoming a news item. The only question is whether you will come forward to separate fact from fancy, or will remain silent when that story breaks during the next few days. I can promise you this much: interviews with the Reverend Ora McCarty by both CBS and UBC suggest that you, Mr. Mills, could enlighten us all."

  "Let me repeat that my comments of the past two minutes were commentary, for which I accept total responsibility. If my decision has caused a blurring of commentary and news, I apologize." Then, grimly determined, Kraft added as if to twenty million judges: "But somebody had to say it." A sigh, an obvious attempt to regain his usual imperturbable image: "In other news tonight, an industrial barge has foundered near the Port of Eureka. For an on-the-scene report, we take you to Avery Bond in Arcata, California…"

  And near Rocksprings, Ted Quantrill was laughing like a schoolboy.

  Sandy's journal, 9 Oct.'

  I must scribble carefully to avoid waking Ted, warm against my side here on the couch. What, I wonder, is he smiling about? I would prefer to think he dreams of me, but suspect he trysts with a specter called Sanger.

  I should be furious that we did not make love tonight—but in a sense of course, we did. We exchanged more genuine affection through speech & a few unhurried kisses than I knew in my frantic too-brief couplings with Lufo. Ted knew perfectly well I wanted him tonight, & for a time I feared the smell of Lufo, so to speak, was still too strong in his nostrils. Ted set me straight with a confession that astonished me: from the first time we ever met, he has viewed me as a surrogate for his long-deceased small sister!