Grendel Unit

by Bernard Schaffer

  "Yeah, ok," Bob laughed. "Good luck with that."

  "Wait and see," Frank said.

  Monster lowered Vic into one of the soft chairs and the captain adjusted himself by pulling on the armrests, grimacing in pain at the movements. "Good morning, gentlemen," Vic struggled to say. "Is everyone ready to get to work?"

  "Yes, sir," they responded.

  "As you all know, we have quite a task ahead of us, and limited time to get ready." He looked at Monster, "I want you to give me a detailed analysis of the field of action. Tell me exactly where we'll be fighting, what type of terrain we have, and are there any environmental structures we can use. We are a small group fighting a much larger group. I want every advantage we can get. All reports are to be delivered to me before sundown."

  "Aye, captain," Monster said.

  "Sergeant Buehl," Vic said. "I need a full inventory of what weapons we have, large and small. Go through everything with your friend Mr. Adams and look around. See if there are any farming vehicles or implements we can use for weapons or barricades."

  "I'll get right on it, Captain," Bob said.

  "Obviously, we'll have to make the best use of everyone's talents and capabilities," Vic said. "With just the four of us fighting—"

  "Three," Frank said.

  "Sorry?"

  "Just the three of us fighting," Frank repeated, pointing at himself, Bob Buehl, and Monster. "You aren't fighting."

  "Excuse me?"

  "You can't move, Vic!" Frank said. "Now, I'm sure that as your doctor you won't listen to me, but as the second-in-command of this unit, I have certain rights and responsibilities. I'm insisting you do not participate in this fight."

  Vic stared at Frank from across the room, both his hands fixed around the arm rests of his chair. "Do you honestly expect me to sit in here while you three risk your lives?"

  "No, but I will honestly order these two to leave you here. Without them, you won't have a choice."

  Vic rolled his eyes and said, "Anyway, as I was saying—"

  "I'm not kidding, Captain Cojo," Frank said, loudly. "You are the one who insisted we conform to the chain-of-command. You were the one who told us we would still abide by the rules and maintain our integrity as a unit. Now, I'm holding you to that, and I'm invoking the right to declare you unfit for duty."

  "You're organizing a mutiny?" Vic said.

  "No," Frank said. "I'm just, listen, you will bleed out if you move around too much! You will be a bigger liability to us out there than you will be in here. I care about you. Can't you see that?"

  "I can see that," Vic said. He leaned back in his seat, "Request to have me stand down is denied, Lieutenant." When Frank began to protest, Vic raised his hand and said, "For the moment. If we get everyone's report back, and there is no appropriate place for me in the field given my current circumstances, we can revisit it. For now, you have my orders, and my physical limitations don't prevent me from having them carried out. Do they?"

  Frank sighed, and reluctantly said, "No. Not for the moment."

  "Good," Vic said, nodding at the other two. "Gentlemen, I await your reports."

  When they were alone, Frank sat down across from Vic and said, "You'd do the same for me. If I were in this situation, you would not let me anywhere near the fight."

  "You think so?" Vic said.

  "I know so."

  Vic eyes steered down toward Frank's hands, and Frank instinctively moved them out of sight. "What's causing the shaking?" Vic said.

  "It's only periodic, in moments of stress," Frank said quickly.

  "That's not what I asked, Lieutenant. You can barely set my bandages correctly. I can only imagine what it took to get the bullets out of me and Monster and suture us."

  "It wasn't easy," Frank said, looking down. The weight of finally divesting himself of the secret he'd been keeping was sitting on his chest, making it hard to breathe. "I used up a lot of our supplies. How long have you known?"

  Vic shrugged, "I remember hearing someone talking about it while I was asleep. A woman told me you were setting the bandages wrong. It must have been a dream. Maybe I realized what was happening subconsciously, and dreamt about it."

  "Did you see the woman?" Frank said.

  "No, not that I can remember. Why?"

  "No reason," Frank said. He looked at his hands. Each of his fingers was trembling. "The truth is, I'm not sure what's causing it. It might be a virus, or some kind of degenerative disease. I'm afraid it might be permanent."

  "Don't say that," Vic said. "When we eventually get off this rock, we will get you to a physician and get you all fixed up."

  "I don't think that will help," Frank said. "Do you remember when I had that vision, the one with the old mantipor, Bismaht?" Vic nodded and Frank continued, saying, "He showed me multiple possible futures. But in all of them, I had this. In one, I was completely crippled from it."

  Vic cursed under his breath, "I'm so sorry, Frank."

  Frank shrugged, "Maybe it has to be this way. I guess we all have things to overcome."

  "I guess we do," Vic said.

  "There's something else."

  Vic folded his hands across his stomach, waiting. "Well?"

  "I saw the woman in my vision too. The one from the other dimension. Jessica King. She was with us. She was with you."

  Vic nodded slowly and said, "Okay?"

  Frank cleared his throat, unsure of how to say the next part. There was no way to say it that didn't make him sound crazy. "Vic, she's here."

  38. FINEST WORKSONG

  Monster eyed the tallest horse in Jebediah Strong's barn and decided the creature was too small for him to ride. It had powerful legs and a wide-enough back, but its spine looked too narrow to support his weight, and he thought he might cripple it at the first leap.

  He grabbed a handful of straw and ran it through his fingers as he walked into the pasture, feeling the sun warm his fur. The corn stalks were bright green and the tall wheat was like shimmering gold in the early light, and he took a deep breath, wanting to remember it.

  He had never been to earth, but seeing how the settlers lived made him hope that someday he might. What was left of it anyway. There were said to be a few places left that had not been ravaged by war, or blight. He was unsure how high ranking of an official you had to be to visit them, but someday, he told himself, perhaps.

  He wanted to learn how humans had gone from a species that cultivated the land around it, in careful balance with the ecosystem, to what they had become.

  The sound of a loud, groaning snort made the fur along the back of Monster's neck rise. A hoof stamped the ground, sending a cloud of dust into the air. Monster turned around slowly, seeing the flaring nostrils and sharp, tipped horns, of a massive bull, staring directly at him.

  Its long tail swept the ground beneath it, beating itself on either side of its rear flank, then raised its head and bleated at him, producing low, long, honking sounds that filled with quivering anger. The bull stamped the ground again, dragging two deep trenches in the dirt with its cloven hoof, and then fell still.

  The horns on the beast's head stood out from either side of its head and curved forward, aimed directly at Monster's midsection. He instinctively covered his stomach with his left hand and turned slightly, wanting to keep the freshly-healed bullet holes as far away from the tips of the bull's horns as possible.

  There was only ten feet between them. The bull must have come to investigate the large, shaggy creature that had imposed on its turf. Monster glanced at the barn behind him. There was not enough room for him to make a run for it if the bull charged. "I suppose it's too late to apologize for intruding," Monster said quietly.

  In response, the bull snorted, sending a jet of steam from both nostrils, and its eyes went wide.

  Monster cursed under his breath, feeling the muscles in his legs tighten as he lowered himself, unsure of what to do or how to do it. There wasn't time to plan. The bull leapt forward, charging him with its
head lowered, horns lowered to impale him.

  The mantipor stuck out his right hand, trying to drive the beast down into the dirt by the top of its skull, but it was too strong. It reared its head up, horns flashing, and Monster instinctively leapt upward, vaulting over top of the charging bull's back as it dove between his legs.

  Monster landed hard in the dirt as the bull continued running past, then finally skidded to a stop. It looked around in confusion, then finally turned its head enough to see Monster slowly rising to his feet.

  "Okay, cow," Monster muttered, wiping the dirt off of himself. "You want to play? Let's play."

  The bull spun quickly, tail whipping high in the air as it bucked, driven into a frenzy by the challenge. Dust billowed under its stamping hooves and it lowered its horn again, aiming them directly for the lower part of Monster's abdomen. It would spear the shaggy intruder with all of its might, but the mantipor was ready.

  Monster feinted right, then quickly darted left, incredibly fast for his size, and the bull tripped, confused by the sudden movement. As it twisted in an effort to right itself, Monster seized it by the horns with his massive hands and continued twisting, using all of his might to push the enormous creature downward. It kicked and bucked violently, but he would not let go, turning until the bull's right horn was sunk halfway into the dirt, and he was able to wrap his arm around the beast's thick neck, squeezing until it collapsed beneath him.

  He laid against it, feeling it breathe, the two of them exhausted by the combat. Monster slowly stood up, and patted the bull on the side, saying, "You fought well, brave warrior."

  The bull got up, legs wobbling, and tried to right itself. Monster stared at it for a moment, worried it would charge again. It didn't. It looked at him and lowered its head, surrendering the pasture to the better opponent. Monster stroked the bull's flank, feeling its muscular back and shoulders. It had shorter, stockier legs than the horses, and a much wider torso. This bull, he thought, easily outweighs the largest horses on the rest of the planet. I bet it could carry something a lot heavier, as well.

  Monster grinned, patting the bull on the neck and saying, "Today, you and I are going for a ride, my new friend."

  The forge was dark and cold, and Bob Buehl wanted nothing more than to be standing over it, swinging a hammer, making it ring. Things made sense when he was at the forge. There was a problem, and it was solved by the skill and strength of the craftsman. There was a process, and an end result, and long after you'd finished, you could look back at your work and recall that day. It was unlike his own life in every possible way, Bob thought. His entire career had been flying from place to place for brief missions, and keeping their gear functioning along the way. There was no creativity in repair work or military life. He used what he needed, and discarded it when he was done with it.

  If for some reason they survived the assault on Pentak, and could not find a way to leave, Bob knew that he would miss his wife and children terribly, but he also knew that he would run out his remaining days at the forge. He would build things for the community, make things people needed, and eventually be at peace with it.

  The others, no way, he thought. Of the other three Grendels, Monster would have the best chance of fitting in. He would search the mountains for wild animals and run free on the open plains. His strength and courage would quickly become well-known to the settlers, and if they did not already have a Sheriff, Monster would quickly be named that Sheriff, Bob thought. It was simply who the mantipor was.

  Frank would be the first to give, and likely the first to withdraw from the group completely. He would find a woman among the townsfolk and begin staying away for longer and longer periods of time. On occasion, the others would visit Frank and sit on his porch together drinking whisky, talking about the old times, but they would grow fewer and farther between, until it became to uncomfortable to visit again.

  Vic would never surrender, Bob thought. Ever. He would never accept being marooned on some rock, cast out of the epic fight that waited for him among the stars. He'd interrogate each new arrival for information about Unification and scour the planet for some sort of solution. That was who Vic Cojo was. The word quit was not written into his genetic code.

  Bob laid one of the last pistols down on the work bench and wrote down its size and caliber. He removed the magazine and counted the bullets it would hold, making note of that too. There were less than a dozen functional firearms. His eyes fell on the rows of warped plastic framed guns hanging on the wall and he sighed, wishing there were some way to fix them.

  There was something new on the workbench that Bob had not seen before. An old metal box with a lid, set at the back. Bob slid the box forward and opened the lid, looking down inside. It was just a small chunk of geode, a rock formation lined with a polished-looking crystal inside.

  He opened the lid and picked the rock up, feeling it was smooth and warm, but as he turned it around in his fingers, he could not see anything special about it. It looked like the billion other rock formations scattered across every valley on every planet in the galaxy.

  Bob set the rock back on top of the lid and heard a strange hissing, crumbling sound. It sounded like crinkling paper. Bob looked for the source of the noise, thinking at first that the roof might be caving in, and as he checked the pylons and supports and walls, he finally saw the guns hanging directly in front of him. Bob held the rock closer to the guns and their plastic frames and triggers and handles were melting and peeling back, decomposing into black dust.

  Bob quickly tossed the rock back inside the metal box and closed the lid, taking a deep breath as he watched and waited, relieved that the decomposition had stopped. "What the hell was that?" he whispered.

  Oren Adam's deep voice responded from behind him, "That's our big secret, Bob. The one that if the military, or Sapienists, or anybody else, found out about, we'd all be dead and our planet would be strip-mined down to the core."

  Oren walked over to the bench and lifted the lid on the box, removing the small chunk of rock and stepping back far enough from the bench so that nothing else was affected. He held up the shining crystals to the light and inspected them closely, saying, "Nobody knows what it's called. Hell, I've never even heard of something like this, but Pentak 1 is full of this mineral. Whole caves of it down below us. So much so that you can find these little chunks out in the fields if you just go walking."

  Bob looked back at the warped weapons, then at the tiny chunk of rock in the blacksmith's hands. "It's not the dampeners at all, is it?" Bob said. "It's this planet."

  Oren nodded, "Whatever this element is, it has the ability to decompose synthetic materials. Quickly."

  "That's incredible," Bob said, taking the rock from Oren's hand and looking down at it. "Do you realize what this means?"

  "I do," Oren said, eyeing his young friends sideways. "It means that superior technology is no longer a factor in warfare. It means that whoever is in control of this element can use it to destroy a whole lot of his enemy's weapons and armor without firing a shot." Oren took the rock back from Bob and said, "It also means that nobody can know about this. People come to this planet to get away from the technological world, Bob, but it doesn't mean they want to see civilization cast back into the stone ages."

  Bob watched Oren place the rock back inside the box, "Why did you show me this if you didn't want anyone to find out?"

  Oren shrugged as he carried the box to the far side of the barn and put it down against the wall, "I guess I figured you deserved an explanation. I also wanted you to be able to properly prepare for whoever shows up to fight you. You won't have to worry about ships or mech-suits or high-capacity weapons. This planet will see to all that. They won't have all that fancy technology you people use to lay waste to defenseless community's time and time again." Oren looked back at Bob, "You'll just have to deal with men, a large group of them, coming after the few of you. Man to man. You boys up for that kind of fight? The kind where you don't get to hide
behind your toys?"

  Bob raised his head, "I think you have the wrong idea about Grendel, Mr. Adams. It's not the technology that makes us who we are. Not at all."

  Oren nodded and clapped Bob on the shoulder, "That's what I was hoping to hear, Sgt. Buehl. You know, I always worried something like this would happen. Maybe not quite in this way, but some sort of wickedness would come to us and try to take away everything we built. It weighed on me, so I've taken a few steps to prepare for it."

  Bob followed the blacksmith to where the tarps covered the large vehicle in the corner. Bob had never asked what it was, and Oren had never volunteered. He'd assumed it was some sort of experimental farming device and not yet ready to be shown to others. Oren grabbed a handful of tarp and said, "It's not perfected yet, but I reckon it will do what it's meant to do."

  Bob looked up as Oren yanked the tarp aside, and his eyes went wide. A tiny breath escaped from his lips that slowly formed into a smile.

  "I never gave it a name. Just called it the wagon," Oren said, his voice a distant whisper from far away as Bob moved forward, his hands reaching out to touch the thing's smooth, polished wheels and the armor plates bolted around the corner of its frame.

  "It's beautiful," Bob said. There were deep acid etches in the surface of the armor plating, forming spectacular patterns that stretched the entire length of the carriage. Slotted gun ports were cut into the sides and rear, only big enough for the business end of a rifle or pistol. The seat up front was deep leather, with armor plates that rose up on either side of the driver, protecting him while he steered the horses that would pull it. He dropped down beneath the wagon and inspected beneath it. The wheels and axles and underside of the carriage were made of sturdy wood, and he rapped it with his knuckles, making a loud, hollow, knocking sound. "You left the bottom unshielded because of the weight, I’m guessing?"

  "Sure. I'd hate to see whatever had the strength to overturn this wagon," Oren said. "It's so heavy now, you'd need a whole team of horses to pull it."