Grendel Unit

by Bernard Schaffer

  "We can't defend ourselves," Vic said. "Our weapons don't work."

  "And neither will theirs," Jebediah countered.

  "They will come in sheer force. Even if they have to fight with their bare hands, it will be too much." Vic looked down at his bandages, "Were we able to fight, there will still be too many of them for us to take on unarmed."

  Jebediah Strong leaned back in his chair, looking across the room at Oren Adams. The blacksmith nodded silently, and the slightest glimmer of a smile appeared on Strong's face as he turned back to Vic and said, "Now, who told you boys we were unarmed?"

  As the crowd settled, their talk turned to less serious matters. There was discussion about the cattle lost that day, and what they could do to help Old Man Frankel, who was said to be so drunk that evening that he'd passed out in his pasture. Behind the men gathered at the front door, Frank saw someone moving quickly away, keeping her head low. He caught a glimpse of her dark hair, seeing it was the same as the woman he'd found in the Samsara, and immediately began pushing his way through the crowd.

  "Hey!" he called out, his voice drowned out by the men barring his way. "Wait!"

  By the time he reached the door, he'd lost sight of her, searching in the dim light coming through Jebediah Strong's parlor windows futilely. He turned and twisted in each direction, searching, and finally he caught a glimpse of her, walking as quickly as she could to get up the road and away. Frank took off running.

  He ran in the grass, trying to keep from scaring her, but she heard him anyway and quickened her pace. In a moment of panic, he realized that if she screamed, all of the settlers inside Strong's house would come pouring out, and then what would they say? For all Frank knew, the woman was one of their wives. Or daughters. The Grendel Unit's position on that planet was far too tenuous to risk over some woman, he told himself, even as closed in on her. "Wait!" he said, trying not to sound frightening. "I just want to talk to you, please."

  She was walking faster then, trying to keep her distance, and she did not look back at him when she said, "You must have me mistaken for someone else."

  "I don't think so," Frank said, reaching out to grab her arm. "You were in my ship earlier, and I want to know why." He turned her, and when he saw her face in the moonlight, his eyes widened and the only sound that came out of his mouth was a tiny croak.

  Her hair spilled down over her shoulders, long, and so black it was almost blue. Her eyes were deep, round wells, and her skin glimmered in the moonlight, darker than when he'd last seen her, no doubt from her days in the unprotected sun of that place. "Jessica?" Frank whispered, shaking his head in disbelief. "How is this possible? How did you get here?"

  She regarded him with wide-eyed surprise, recoiling at the sound of her own name. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she managed to say.

  "Jessica King," Frank said. He grabbed her by the arms, "Did you come here through the wormhole?"

  She batted his hands away and stepped back, "Get your hands off of me! I have no idea what you're talking about. There was no wormhole. I came her the same way everyone else does."

  Frank's mouth opened, then closed again, as he struggled to understand what he was seeing. "You aren't the Commander of the Defiant, are you?" he finally said, looking her up and down. "You must be from this side. You must be her, but the parallel version or something."

  "Listen to me," she said, raising her finger to his face. "You are insane, and if you continue saying such things, or touch me again, I'll scream so loud the men of this settlement will come running and string you and your friends up from the tallest tree."

  "I'm sorry," Frank said, stepping back. "I didn't mean to scare you. You just…you just look exactly like someone we've met before, that's all."

  "Well I'm not."

  "Fair enough. My misunderstanding."

  "Now leave me alone."

  "All right," he nodded. As he turned to walk away, he stopped and looked back at her, saying, "Why were you in our ship earlier today?"

  "Honestly?" she asked, her hands on her hips.

  Frank nodded.

  "I was looking for more bandages. You were doing a terrible job dressing your friend's wounds. I've seen first-year medical students do a better job."

  He felt the first involuntary spasm in his right hand and it began twitching until his fingers shook. By the time he got both hands behind his back, the left one was shaking as well. They'd been shaking often, ever since he'd used the last of his medical stores to operate on Vic, Monster, and Jebediah Strong. "You're right, of course," he said. "Thank you for your help. I'm just glad someone was around who knew what they were doing."

  He turned and headed back up the road toward Jebediah Strong's farm, aware that she was watching him leave and not moving, even as he pressed his fingers together, willing them, begging them, to be still.

  37. THE STREETS OF LAREDO

  Later that night, after the crowd had cleared out, they followed Oren Adams toward his barn, feeling the heat from his tall wooden torch on their faces. Embers flicked away in the wind, swirling all around them. One landed on Monster's arm and Frank swatted at the mantipor's fur, until Monster scowled, "It's fine." Monster backed away from the torch, making sure that the man cradled in his arms was not being hit with any embers either.

  Vic's protests at being carried continued loud and long, even as he clutched his stomach and groaned. He'd made it down the front steps of Jebediah Strong's and only a few feet from the porch, before nearly collapsing. Frank had nodded at Monster and said, "Carry him."

  "Touch me and I'll tear off your arms," Vic gasped. Sweat was streaming down his face and his eyes were squinted shut. "I'm fine."

  When Monster hesitated, Frank snapped his fingers and said, "If he walks, he might tear himself open and bleed out. Pick him up. That's an order."

  Vic beat his fists against the mantipor's thick forearms, but it was useless. Monster had him off the ground and cradled securely within seconds, ignoring the captain's fists and repeated orders to let go.

  "That actually doesn't look too bad," Frank offered. "Nice and cozy. I bet you're really warm right now, Captain."

  Vic just glared at him.

  Bob Buehl moved ahead of the others to help Oren Adams open the forge's heavy wooden doors. Bob didn't require any direction at which ways to turn the latch to unlock the door, and Frank said, "Looks like you know your way around this place, Bob."

  "I've been coming here for a week or so. Mr. Adams is teaching me how to blacksmith."

  "Is that right?" Frank said, rolling his eyes. "Nice to see that you've been settling in nicely with the locals."

  "That's enough," Vic said, spitting out several of Monster's hairs that had come into his mouth. "It's a good skill to have in a place like this. You never know when you might need it. I appreciate your initiative, Sergeant."

  Bob smiled slightly as he pulled the door open for the others to pass through. Frank stared at him as he walked past, whispering, "You should have been learning how to bake instead of being a blacksmith. Maybe then I could get some cookies."

  "You can have the ones I ate back, but you might not want them," Bob said.

  They followed Oren Adams to the back of the barn, near the benches that were covered over by tarps. Monster gently set Vic down, keeping his hands on the Captain's shoulders until he was certain Vic could stand.

  "Do you need me to get you a stool?" Oren said.

  "No," Vic replied, holding his side. "Standing is fine. It only hurts when I'm moving."

  "I understand," the old blacksmith said. "Nowadays, I can still swing the hammer and bend the steel, but it's hell if I have to bend over and pick something off the floor."

  Vic nodded, only half-listening. He was busy inspecting the guns scattered on the work bench and hanging on the wall above it. "These look like middle-period Earth weapons. Semiautomatics, I think they were called? Equipped with center-fire gunpowder bullets, they could carry twelve or thirteen rounds at
a time. Highly effective for military and law enforcement of that era."

  "Exactly," Oren said, grinning. "I see you know a thing or two about firearms, captain."

  "Old earth weapons have always been an interest of mine."

  Oren picked up one of the guns and handed it to Vic, "These were the first step toward modern manufacturing. Within a few decades, handguns would be made completely out of cheap, high-density plastics. People could print them at home in their kitchens along with every other doo-dad and widget they needed around the house." He ran his finger along the gun's upper metal part, saying, "At the time these were manufactured, they were still using steel for the slide and barrel, which accounts for the weight. Everything else was plastic."

  Vic pointed the gun away and gently squeezed the trigger, feeling it squish and deform at his touch. From the slight pressure of his hand wrapped around the gun's handle, he could feel the tips of his fingers sinking into its surface.

  As Vic laid the gun down, Oren waved his hand over the remaining guns on that bench, saying, "When rumors of this place first began to draw visitors, they speculated that newer weapons might not work. What you see here were the oldest weapons people could find, ones that run completely free of any electronics. Unfortunately, the materials they were made from were cheap enough to be affordable, but alas, not the kind of thing that was meant to last. All of these are now completely useless."

  Oren turned his head and looked at the other bench, the one still covered with a cloth tarp. He grabbed one corner of it and looked back at Vic, "As luck would have it, one of the first men to settle here was an early-Earth historian named Samuel Oren. He came here with a great love in his heart for a period called the Old American West, where settlers of that time headed off into the great frontier and built their own fortunes by the strength in their backs and the courage in their hearts. They say Old Samuel was a true enthusiast, and his interest had been passed down to him by the men in his family, just like blacksmithing through my father's line. When he came, he turned his back on the ways of modern technology and decided to live out his dreams of a world just like this one. He brought with him all of the relics his family had collected over the years and displayed on their walls, but he didn't bring them to display. He brought them to do what they were meant to do. And you know what?"

  Oren pulled back the tarp slowly to reveal the two waist-high racks covered below it and said, "They worked just fine."

  Vic let out a slow, long breath as he watched the blacksmith lift a long lever-action rifle off the rack and pass it to him. Vic felt the warmth of the wooden stock in one hand and the cool octagon barrel of thick-forged steel in the other. It was heavier than any rifle he'd ever held, but in a way, that was good. It felt more substantial. More true.

  The rifle's receiver was a swirl of oily color in the barn's lantern light. Someone, long ago, had hardened the casing by hand to keep it from cracking. Little did they know how long their creation would last. "This," Vic said, unable to stop looking at the gun, "This is incredible. You say it still works?"

  Oren Adams nodded and turned to point at the fierce looking skull hanging on his barn's wall, looking down over the forge. The curved fangs set between its two jaws were the size of a man's fingers. "When the first settlers arrived, they found a highly-aggressive species of carnivore living in the canyons here. I've seen pictures of them. Something like a cross between a grizzly bear and a hyena."

  "Oh, so they looked like Monster?" Frank said, coming up behind Vic. From across the barn, the mantipor snarled quietly at him.

  "These things were everywhere. They tore up the cattle and more than a few men met their demise before Henry showed up."

  "Who's Henry? The man who brought all the guns?" Frank said.

  Oren tapped the gun in Vic's hands and said, "That's a Henry. There's another one, too. She has a gold receiver. She was made a century after that one, but to the same specifications, and she shoots just fine."

  Vic placed the rifle back on the rack as Oren removed a pistol from one of the shelves and held it up to show them. It was a semiautomatic, and Oren ran his finger gently over the gun's smooth walnut grips and the metal stamp of a dancing horse on the frame. "You remember that gun you got shot with? Jebediah Strong's pistol?"

  Vic touched the bandages on his stomach, "Hard to forget it."

  "No offense, but I'm not surprised you got shot so many times with it and it didn't kill you. See, way back in the late nineteenth century, the United States tried to occupy a tiny group of islands near Spain, and came up against a group of tribesmen called the Moro. The Moros were fierce warriors, armed with long knives and a hot thirst for American blood. It was said they absorbed American bullets like sponges. They'd charge headfirst into gunfire and run their blades through soldiers by the dozen. At the time, the Americans were shooting the same caliber bullets as the one you and your furry friend were shot with." He nodded toward Monster, who reflexively touched the scar on his chest where one of the bullets had struck him.

  "Needless to say, after that, the Americans got serious about inventing something new. Something that stopped men in their place. Luckily, a man named John Browning stepped forward with a solution." Oren laid the pistol down in Vic's hands and said, "That is a Nineteen-Eleven, chambered in forty-five caliber. It's the same design that Mr. Browning came up with and presented to the United States Army in the year it was named for, and it's the same, time-tested design that lasted, unchanged, for almost two hundred years. If my good friend Jebediah had possessed one of these instead of a thirty-eight, I daresay we would not be having this conversation right now, Captain Cojo."

  Vic racked the gun's slide, feeling its smooth, mechanical precision as the hammer cocked backward, ready to fire. He touched the trigger, ever so gently, and the hammer snapped home.

  "Every single component of that gun is made from real steel. All I've ever had to do was put a little oil on it, and it fires like a damned cannon."

  Vic handed the blacksmith the weapon as Oren bent down to pick up another set of handguns from the lower shelf. He laid his top hand on top of them solemnly, "There's a few other guns in here, but these are special to me. They're the oldest guns I have. The man who gave me these used to carry them himself, one on each side, like the old timers once did. He told me he'd killed that there beast up there with these very pistols, and reckoned it might have been the very last one on the planet. It was my mother's father, you see, the last of a long line of Oren's, who carried with him that great love of those ancient times just like he carried these guns. I guess a little of that lives in me." He passed one of the guns over to Vic, who felt his hands tremble slightly when he held it.

  It was the oldest piece of Earth he'd ever seen in person. It might have been the oldest piece of his home planet in the entire galaxy, outside of the Sol System itself.

  He raised the pistol into the light. Someone had engraved the length of its barrel, drawing elaborate designs in the surface of the metal that stretched from the front sight, all the way back to the hammer. He knew it was called a revolver, from the wheel underneath the barrel, with slots for six bullets. The trigger housing was engraved, and inlaid with brightly polished gold. The handle was carved from dark wood that seemed to ripple through with smoke, save for the two medallions built on either side of the handle in the shape of two shining golden stars.

  Vic felt overwhelmed looking at such a thing. At being able to hold it. He was unsure why, but he felt his eyes begin to burn with the hot sting of tears.

  "You're from Earth, aren't you?" Oren said softly.

  Vic nodded, still looking at the gun.

  Frank's eyes widened. Vic had never said where he was from before. Had always denied coming from anywhere in particular, even.

  "I'll never see it again, I don't think," Vic whispered.

  Oren put a thick hand on Vic's shoulder and squeezed gently, pointing at the handle. "They say one of my ancestors was a lawman, and this was his gun. P
ersonally, I think it looks a little fancy to be a lawman's gun. Who knows? Maybe it's a lie. Or maybe one of his descendants had it worked up a little and turned it into an heirloom instead of a weapon. But I've fired it, and can say for certain that no matter how dressed up it looks, it will kick like a mule when you pull that trigger."

  "What's it called?" Frank said, peering over Vic's shoulder down at the gun.

  "That there's a Colt Single Action Army. You have to cock the hammer back manually before you pull the trigger. In the old days, cowboys used to fan the hammer back with their left hand and pull the trigger with their right. It's tricky to load it under pressure, so you need to use those six bullet sparingly."

  "Kind of like us," Frank said. "We're a single action army, too. We only do one thing. Get in trouble."

  He laughed, and Monster and Bob Buehl laughed with him. Vic sniffled slightly as he handed the gun back to Oren and said, "No. The only thing we do is kill. That's our single action."

  Oren turned his head slightly, "Not from where I'm standing, young man. Not from where Jebediah Strong or his little girl are standing, either. Seems to me, we got some real killers coming and the only thing standing between us and them, is you Grendel Unit boys."

  At dawn, they reassembled in the living room, as Vic had insisted. Bob Buehl stood at the far end of the room, watching Monster help the limping Captain in, and he leaned close to Frank, whispering, "If he can't walk, what good is he in a fight?"

  Frank shook his head, "No way is he fighting. If he tears those stitches open, he'll bleed out."

  "Can he ride a horse, maybe?" Bob said.

  "It's too much movement on the abdomen. Anything beyond him just standing still is out of the question."

  "He's our best combat operative. We need him."

  "Well it's not happening," Frank whispered. "He'll be a liability to us in the field. If he tries to get involved, I'm shutting this whole thing down."