The Guns of Two-Space

by Dave Grossman

  He sinks into the depths

  with a bubbling groan,

  Without a grave, unknell'd,

  uncoffin'd, and unknown.

  The Guldur defenders had given one burst of wild outrage after the loss of their captain, and then they seemed to lose heart. Only the ticks were still fighting and trying to goad their hosts on. A hail of Westerness bullets picked off the remaining ticks, and then the battle was over.

  Melville and Archer knelt down beside the Ship's dying captain. They rested wearily with both hands on the hilts of their upright swords, the points dug into the deck.

  "Okay. It's official," gasped Archer. "This job is just too damned exciting sometimes."

  "Watch his hands!" said Westminster, kicking a pistol out from behind the Guldur's back. "Always watch their hands," the ranger drawled. "Hands kill. In God we trust, everyone else keeps their hands where Ah can see them. Or paws... as the case may be." Valandil stood silently beside Westminster, facing in the opposite direction, watching his partner's back and wiping his sword with a piece of some luckless Guldur's shirt.

  "Therrre iss no honorrr in thiss," hissed the Guldur, pawing the deck with arms gone flaccid as he looked up at Melville. "Thiss pup did not defreat me!"

  "It was a pack kill," said Melville, looking down at the dying captain. "Like your four Ships attacking us."

  "Urrr? Prack krill," the Guldur nodded. "Prack krill." Then, very quietly, with his dying breath, he looked up at Archer and whispered, "Urrr. Grood pup. Brrrave pup..."

  "It seems kind of unfair," whispered little Hayl to himself. "We all just ganged up on him."

  "Would you rather it was you layin' there?" asked Westminster softly. The middie didn't think anyone had heard his comment, but he should have known the sharp-eared ranger was listening. Hayl kept watching the dead enemy captain with wide-eyed fascination as the big ranger put a hand on the boy's shoulder and quietly continued. "It's one of Saint Clint the Thunderer's 'Rules of a Gunfight.' Don't never forget it: 'Always cheat, always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.'"

  Young Hayl absentmindedly wiped Guldur guts and gore from his face while he looked down with wonder at the dead enemy captain. As he watched, the Guldur's eyes become fixed and without understanding. So this is the enemy, he thought. So this is war.

  * * *

  I remember the sea-fight far away,

  How it thundered o'er the tide!

  And the dead captains, as they lay

  In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay

  Where they in battle died.

  And the sound of that mournful song

  Goes through me with a thrill:

  "A boy's will is the wind's will,

  And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

  * * *

  In an ideal world, all of Melville's elements would have converged on the enemy's upper quarterdeck at the same time. Melville's boarding party, the crews of the two cutters from the flanks, Ulrich on the jollyboat from the stern, the Sylvan topmen coming from above, and Broadax's marines from below, should all have hit simultaneously. But the real world seldom lives up to expectations.

  In this case the Sylvan topmen in the upper rigging had been badly delayed by stronger than expected Goblan resistance. Whatever their personal, moral, and hygienic shortcomings, no one could deny that the ticks fought superbly in the upper rigging. In the end Fang's topmen were not able to provide more than a sporadic sprinkling of musket fire from above before the battle was over. The topmen and the Fangs down on the deck then picked off the remaining ticks at their leisure.

  The Sylvans were delayed, but at least they were able to contribute something to the battle on the upperside. Lt. Broadax and her marines, on the other hand, arrived well after the battle was over. In the end it was anticlimactic when Broadax came smashing up through a secured hatch cover like some oversized, explosive, blood-soaked mole busting out from the bowels of the earth.

  Thus arrives Broadax the Great, thought Melville with true affection in his eyes. "Herself a host,' to paraphrase The Illiad.

  "Dammit!" she cried in disgust and dismay, her gore-soaked head darting back and forth like a deranged, rabid, rodent peering out of its hole. "Damn, damn, damn! Ye done hogged all the fun on this end, didn' ye?"

  Melville stood up from beside the dead enemy captain and rested his bloody sword blade on his shoulder. "Is the Ship's Keel secured?" he asked her.

  "Aye, sir. They ain' gonna scuttle the Ship. This Ship's ours, dammit, bought with blood and battle."

  "Aye," Melville replied, and then he looked over at Archer, still kneeling beside the body of the fallen Guldur captain. "Lt. Archer, move down to the Keel and claim possession of your Ship." Then with a sad but faintly humorous smile he added, "It is good that you are bleeding. These Ships seem to like a bit of blood."

  "Aye, sir." Melville could see the gleam in Archer's eyes and he knew what the young lieutenant was thinking. His Ship, by God. It was his Ship.

  "Aye, son. Now go claim your Ship."

  Then Melville allowed himself to relax as he crouched down and rubbed his dog's ears. Boye had stayed faithfully by his side throughout the battle, and the little monkey on the dog's back had stopped more than a few bullets and sword cuts, judging by the condition of the belaying pin in the critter's true-hands. The dog's sopping red muzzle made it clear that he had tasted blood this day; and his tongue-lolling, doggie grin said that he liked it. "Good boy!" said Melville as he thumped his dog's side. "Good dog!" Boye looked up and licked his master's face, and for just a moment they both shared a sense of pure, undiluted pleasure as they reveled in their victory... and the sheer joy of being alive.

  Victory. O sweet victory! Rapture gripped him with an intensity that most people will never know. But already, from a place too deep for words, sorrow began to groan.

  He looked around at the mass of dead and dying, a carpet of misery that covered the deck around him, and all he could feel was the joy of living in the face of death that psychologists called "survivor euphoria." Melville looked at one Guldur lying on the deck with a great, gaping wound in its throat, staring into the sky and gasping out its last breath in terrible agony, and he was amazed to feel so good in the face of so much tragedy and suffering.

  Ah, to think how thin the veil that lies

  Between the pain of hell and paradise!

  He knew from past experiences that remorse, post-combat exhaustion, and possibly even depression would come to visit him eventually, but for now it was good to be counted among the living and the victorious, and he lifted up his head and called out to the universe,

  "Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!

  To all the sensual world proclaim,

  One crowded hour of glorious life

  Is worth an age without a name."

  And all around him his Fangs roared their agreement.

  Dwakins walks into the hospital with a big, yellow Guldur in his arms and tears in his eyes. They are both soaked with blood. The Guldur has been pierced through the right lung and is breathing in great, ragged gasps. "Please, mah'yam," he asks Mrs. Vodi, "can yew fix 'im?"

  "Yes," she says kindly, examining the wound and guessing what must have happened. "Yep, I think we can help your furry friend here. Lay him down, and then you get back to your squad before you git into trouble. We'll do the best we can."

  "Thankee, ma'am. Thankee. Ah think 'e's a good doggie, mah'yam. Ah really dew."

  Vodi just nods. The battle was largely one-sided, and there are time and resources enough to be compassionate to the enemy. After all the killing, it feels good to make room for a little compassion.

  CHAPTER THE 6TH

  Rejoicing, Remorse, and Recovery:

  "Out from the Gloomy Past"

  We have come over a way

  that with tears has been watered,

  We have come treading our path

  thru' the blood of the slaughtered,

  Out fro
m the gloomy past,

  till now we stand at last

  Where the gleam of our bright star is cast.

  Lift ev'ry voice and sing,

  till earth and heaven ring,

  Ring with the harmonies of liberty;

  Let our rejoicing rise,

  high as the list'ning skies,

  Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

  "Lift Every Voice and Sing"

  James Weldon Johnson

  Lt. Broadax had just brought one of her wounded marines into the hospital. The unfortunate wretch was slung over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes being carried by an ambulatory fire hydrant, his feet dragging behind her. The marine moaned as his ankles thumped

  into each step as she came up the inclined ladder—which sailors refused to call "stairs."

  "Quit yer bitchin', dammit," Broadax grumbled through her cigar as she flipped her cargo onto a bed. "Sweat dries, blood clots, bones heal, but glory lasts forever! So suck it up, an' be a marine!" she said encouragingly. The marine landed next to a wounded Guldur sailor with blood-soaked bandages sealing a punctured right lung. Then she stopped to watch as Vodi and Elphinstone prepared to operate on Asquith.

  The earthling had taken a shard of wood in his left eye. Another had lodged in the palm of his left hand after severing the middle finger. The finger was hanging by a thread of flesh, and the stump was oozing blood.

  Asquith had recovered consciousness, but he was in a state of extreme shock, looking dazedly with his right eye at the shard of wood in his hand. He was still oblivious to the splinter that stuck out of his left eye like a broken tooth.

  "I guess that's fate's way of giving you the finger, my friend," said Mrs. Vodi with a cheerful laugh. As she said this she reached out to hold his good hand to stop him from touching the splinter that was protruding from his eye socket. If nothing else, Vodi's patented bedside manner was guaranteed to distract her patients. And they needed to keep Asquith distracted from the wound to his eye for as long as they could.

  "Don't worry," Lady Elphinstone reassured the patient. "We'll get that splinter out of thy hand, and we'll get thy finger reattached, good as new."

  "Splinter!" said Asquith, surfing the crest of hysteria as he looked at the mass of white wood protruding from his hand. "You call that a 'splinter'? A splinter is something I can take out with tweezers! And just how do you primitives intend to do the microsurgery required to reattach my finger?"

  "We use leeches and maggots in our surgery," said Vodi happily, as the surgeon began to prep the patient. "Right up until the twenty-first century they were still using leeches in microsurgery, then they were replaced by all kinds of exotic, high-tech goodies. Out here in two-space that stuff wouldn't last two seconds, so we use these little piggies. They'll suck up blood and inject enzymes that will make your blood vessels dilate, engorging themselves and swelling up to ten times their original size in the process."

  "Mmm. Sounds kinda kinky," said Broadax with an evil chuckle and a wink at Vodi. The marine lieutenant had decided to hang around for a minute to watch the show. "I love that kinda talk," Broadax continued. "Do tell us more."

  "Plus it provides a mild anesthetic so thou dost not even feel its presence," continued Elphinstone primly, pointedly ignoring the other two females in the room.

  "Ah, 'at takes all the fun outta it!" cackled Broadax.

  "We use a slosh of beer to draw them to the surface," said Mrs. Vodi as Lady Elphinstone pointedly ignored the lewd commentary and concentrated on her work. "The little devils love beer. There you go. Here come some cute ones to the top. Aren't they just lovely?"

  Asquith whimpered and Broadax craned her neck, watching with the voyeuristic excitement of someone who isn't on the chopping block.

  "The primary thing we use them for is to reattach severed limbs," Vodi continued. "They inject bunches of nature's own anticoagulant. We just slap them onto any severed limb, and these girls do the housework for us. Sucking up all that nasty old used blood, so it doesn't cause gangrene. Dilating blood vessels so the good blood can flow. What more can you ask?"

  Asquith listened to all this in horrified wonder. "What more can you ask! OhGodOhGodOhGod! I'll tell you what you can ask! To be released from the clutches of depraved, sadistic people like you! Maggots! Leeches! What kind of doctor are you?!"

  "Hmm," replied Elphinstone distractedly, as she finished strapping Asquith to the operating table with leather-coated chains. "The kind that might just save thy finger. But 'tis another matter that concerns me."

  "Yes? What is that?" asked the diminutive earthling.

  "Wouldst know what it is?"

  "I said so!"

  "Then I shall tell thee."

  "Yes? And...?"

  "'Tis this," she said, pointing sadly at the shard sticking out of his eye socket. "I'm afraid there's no hope for thine eye."

  On that note Asquith gave a distracted, cross-eyed look from his right eye, focusing on the splinter protruding a few inches from the left socket. Then he suddenly realized why he was not receiving any information from that eye. He spasmodically tried to reach up with his hands to feel the wound, but he was firmly strapped to the table. Then he sighed and fainted.

  Later, with his eye removed, the empty socket bandaged, his finger reconnected, and his dirty drawers changed, Asquith came to bleary consciousness. Vodi and Elphinstone were hovering over him.

  "Well," said Vodi, "that splinter damned near punched through to your brain. It almost got you, but it looks like you'll come out of this adventure with nothing worse than an eye patch. Very rakish and stylish-looking it will be. Any preschooler would tell you that the patch is the mark of a true sailing Hero, every bit as much as a peg leg or parrot would be."

  Asquith nodded blearily, and started to drift off to sleep.

  With a gentle smile Lady Elphinstone added,

  "So may'st thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop

  Into thy mother's lap."

  "A healer's blessing," mumbled Asquith. "Thank you. But I don't think it's original. I think that's Milton..."

  "Shh. 'Twill be our secret."

  The two Ships remained lashed together as they exchanged crew members and supplies. Repairs were already begun and the wounded were all evacuated back to the Fang. The Guldur dead were dispatched with little ceremony, while the Fangs that had been killed were wrapped lovingly in sailcloth and brought back aboard their Ship.

  The prize crew for Lt. Archer's new Ship was enjoying one last meal aboard the Fang while the final details were wrapped up. Melville whispered a little prayer for Archer and his men. Just a handful of good sailors could keep a Ship going in a straight line, but they would be doomed if they had to fight. Over lunch Archer filled Melville in on his telepathic contact with his new Ship.

  "It was amazing, sir," said Archer. "My Ship told me I was a 'Good pup.'"

  "Yeah, Fang told me the same thing," replied Melville with a laugh. "Congratulations, Buckley. You have won a Ship. She will be loyal to you, and there is no one in the galaxy who can take her away from you, short of killing you. Within a week you and your prize crew should be able to use the captured Guldur, just like we did aboard the Fang. Any idea what we should name her?"

  "Well, sir," said Archer, gulping down a bite of Cookie's meat loaf covered in catsup, "like the Fang, she appears to have been named after a specific tooth in a Guldur's mouth." His next fork full came to his mouth empty as his monkey intercepted it with a lightning-fast flick of its truehand, and Archer never missed a beat as he sent his fork down for another bite. "Best I can figure, it's one of the back molars. So how does 'Gnasher' sound?"

  "Excellent! I now pronounce you captain of Her Majesty, the Queen of Westerness' Ship, the Gnasher. Now get on over there and get some sail up on her while we police up the other Guldur Ship. As soon as you can get under way, set a course for Nordheim. I think the Dwarrowdelf there will make us welcome and help us refit. We should catch up with you shortly. If we don
't show, just go on to Nordheim and then to Earth."

  "Um, sir, one last question," said Archer. "I'm really honored and overwhelmed to be given my own Ship. It is the most coveted gift. But I gotta know, why didn't you give this opportunity to Lt. Fielder? He is senior."

  "Well," replied Melville thoughtfully, "you are now a fellow Master and Commander of a Ship, and essentially an equal, so I'll speak frankly. But this has to stay between us. I offered the opportunity to him. His answer was not just 'No,' but 'Hell no!' He said he wanted to keep his sanity and, I quote: 'French kissing an alien mind is not conducive to mental hygiene.' He also felt he was better off staying here with a lucky captain. And, frankly, he had absolutely no interest in facing the enemy captain in mortal combat."

  "Hmmm," replied Archer, "in retrospect, maybe he's the smart one."

  "Aye. I've thought that many times," said Melville with a sigh.

  In the end, the battle for the last Guldur Ship went comparatively well. This time Melville hammered the enemy with cannon fire for considerably longer, paying special attention to the crow's nests in order to butcher the ticks who were hiding there. Only then did he conduct the boarding operation. He cursed himself for not doing the same previously, but he had been too eager to have enough enemy crewmen survive so they could form the core of a crew for the Ship in the future. He had miscalculated, spending the lives of too many of his own sailors, trying to preserve the lives of the enemy. It was a mistake that he would not make again.

  Lt. Crater led the cutter party that assaulted the quarterdeck from the enemy's right flank this time, with Midshipman Hayl again serving as the "messenger' for this force. Midshipman Hezikiah Jubal, an able seaman who had been promoted from the ranks and had seen several boarding operations, was in charge of the cutter party hitting the enemy's left flank. The marines took the lowerside again, and this time Private Dwakins was able to keep his feet if not his wits. And Corporal Petrico replaced Ulrich in the assault from the jollyboat onto the enemy's stern.