Gregson wandered around the settlement for a while, hungry, unable to afford to eat, then in a depressed mood returned into the wilderness heading for Vern Hudson’s farm, hoping for another charitable meal from Bethany. When he was in sight of the place, Vern came running out, yelling hysterically. He was waving a blaster in the air.
Gregson stopped short, wondering if the old man was angry at him for something — wondering if he should run. He almost did. But there was desperation in the man’s voice, and Gregson realized Vern was yelling for help. “Bethany’s out there!” he yelled at Gregson.
“Frank and Bethany went out there, and she’s still out there!”
“What?”
“Frank came back, but Bethany didn’t!” Vern yelled. He was wild-eyed with panic and worry. “Can’t get Frank to show me where she is — can’t get him to talk at all!” He grabbed Gregson’s arm, looking at him desperately. “I can’t go out there alone.”
Gregson took a deep, calming breath, but he was still gritting his teeth. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s follow the tracks.”
#
There were tracks all around Vern’s fish pond. Gregson had isolated Frank and Bethany’s, but there were two more sets. He remembered that the Bankrightk men had followed him there earlier, then had run off when the terror struck. Gregson’s fear was that they had gone and armed themselves to the teeth, returning with enough firepower to level the forest. His fears were justified when he and Vern heard shouting and gunfire coming from the dense, dark woods ahead.
Gregson already had his biotascope set to record when the terror started. He had some interesting readings from his previous encounter, and wanted to confirm them. After the terror started working on him he ceased to care about the recordings … there was no good reason for him to be out there, except that Bethany was lost somewhere and he needed to bring her back. His worry for her was like an anchor that kept the terror from carrying him away.
The Bankrightk men continued to shout and fire their weapons.
They sounded wild with fear and panic. “Those idiots,” Gregson whispered to Vern. “If Beth is out here, they’re liable to kill her.”
Vern said nothing. He clutched his blaster close to his chest, sweat pouring from his forehead. His eyes were bulging and his head continuously turned from side to side, like he was expecting something to sneak up behind him.
They trudged several meters further into the murky forest, and Gregson paused, pointing down. Bethany’s footprints continued forward, while Frank’s lead around and back. This is where the terror had gotten to him, and he’d left his sister all alone. The Bankrightk men had paused here, and had continued on following Bethany.
From somewhere in the forest came a weird, undulating cry.
Vern began to back away, but Gregson grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him forward.
Vern blustered. “Let go of me!”
“Stay with me, Vern.”
“I … I can’t.”
“She’s your daughter, damn it — if you love her half as much as I do, you going to stay with me.”
It was dark, but there was a breeze tousling the tops of the trees and occasionally a shaft of sunlight would spear down for a second or two. The warbling, undulating cry seemed to come from everywhere. Gregson pushed forward, rifle pointing forward, every nerve on edge. He felt like he was dancing across the surface of the terror, keeping above it while still feeling it. It was a freefall feeling, unnerving and at the same time exhilarating. He moved through a momentary patch of weak sunlight and once again into shadow, the shadow now seeming deeper than ever.
His biotascope registered a life form ahead. A humanoid in a highly agitated state. Blood pressure high, pulse rate high, adrenal secretions abnormal. Neural pulse rate was two per second higher than the usual ten. A far removed part of Gregson thought that was odd.
Gregson made it to twenty meters from the person, keeping a tree trunk between him and whoever it was. He turned to say something to Vern and found he was alone. Vern had slipped away, abandoning him. Gregson felt like turning and running after him, but he didn’t. He wanted to, but instead he held tightly to his father’s gun and closed his eyes, focusing his will. I am here for Bethany, he thought. I am here for her.
He opened his eyes and studied his biotascope. The person near him wasn’t Bethany — the body mass was too high. It was probably Rudd, from Bankrightk. Beyond him was another humanoid, and thirty meters further in was the creature.
There was more yelling, and then gunfire. Gregson stayed behind the tree, hiding. The idiots were firing wildly at random, totally out of their minds. The bio-readings from both were identical; same high pulse, same accelerated neural rate. The brain pulse, which was usually right at 40 cycles per second front to back, was at an odd 57 cycles per second.
Gregson struggled to keep his breathing under control. Sweat dropped from his forehead and smeared the readouts on the biotascope. He squinted, focusing his attention with great effort.
The pulse in his own brain was also at 57 cycles per second.
Gregson wiped at the screen, touched the controls. He focused on the creature, focusing on the neural indicators. It took a while, as the creature was distant. The number finally came up.
It was the same magic number.
Gregson adjusted the stun setting down to it’s lowest and peered around the tree. Rudd had his back to him; Gregson saw him as a dark patch of gray against darker gray. He aimed carefully for the man’s leg, and let off a shot. The gun discharged with a twang.
Rudd rolled around the ground, crying out. “It’s biting me!” he screamed. “It’s biting my leg off!” He writhed in mindless panic for a few more seconds before finding his feet, then ran careening and stumbling back toward town.
There was a sudden flurry of gunfire, and Jacko came out of the shadows, firing at Gregson. Gregson ducked behind the tree, hurriedly fumbling with the settings on the rifle. Jacko was yelling wordlessly, his voice undulating almost like the creature.
It was a mindless shouting that almost sounded like he was crying.
He kept firing, and firing, walking around the tree that Gregson was hiding behind. Gregson circled, keeping the tree in-between the two of them. Finally the gunfire came to a halt, the blaster in Jacko’s hand had over-heated. Gregson stepped out and leveled the rifle at the man’s stomach, then pulled the trigger.
Jacko’s whole body gave a spastic jerk, his legs pushing him a half meter into the air. He landed flat on his back, arms and legs spread, mouth open in a horrible expression. He was out cold.
Gregson turned toward the direction of the creature. He felt dizzy and sick. The creature’s undulating cry grated against a dull pain in his head. He stomped forward, pushing against a sea of dead air, getting mental images of dark and horrible things ahead. He saw rending flesh and spraying arterial blood, dark fangs, long hooked claws mangling gnarled gore. He tromped forward, unable to breathe, his eyes affixed to the flickering screen of the biotascope. He came into range of the creature, finding a clear line-of-sight view. Leveling his father’s rifle, he squeezed off a shot that hit the creature dead center. Designed neither to kill nor wound, the weapon was made to disable a creature harmlessly, which it did.
Like a dark fog lifting and dissipating, so went the terror.
Gregson’s ears were ringing. His own footsteps sounded too loud to his ears. The forest had a dry, musty smell to it, like old dust.
He saw the creature on the ground in front of him, a dark thing lying on its side. Not far away, curled into a shaking, huddled ball, was Bethany. He went quickly over to her, picked her up and held her. Still clenched tightly in her hand was one of his sample collectors. After a moment she dropped it and put her arms around him, holding tight.
Gregson held her until she began to come out of it, and when she finally let him put her down he picked up the sample collector, walked over to the creature — which turned out to look like a turtle without a shell — and sampled the DNA. This sample, he knew, was the motherload. DNA containing the code for true telepathy.
It was worth a mint.
Carefully he took hold of Bethany, who was still in shock, and led her out into the sunlight, and then home.
#
Gregson, dressed in his new uniform and wearing a shiny alloy badge, stepped nervously up to Vern’s front door and knocked. Frank answered. “Hey, look at the threads!” He ushered Gregson in, got him a home brew and sat him at the table.