“Those who are about to die, etcetera, etcetera,” Mildred said.
THERE WERE NO SECRETS between crew members of an assault gyro. When Captain Ockerman closed in on the group of Shadow people, his passenger knew exactly what he was planning to do.
Inside Hylander’s visor, a single, red sight ring encircled all five of them. When Ockerman fired the cannons, nothing within the red ring that was made of flesh and blood would survive.
“John!” Hylander said. “Don’t do it!” Ockerman held his fire, but not because the guy sitting behind him told him to. “Would you look at that!” he exclaimed.
Along the shore of the mud lake, Hylander saw what so excited him. A scrambling patch of movement, bodies, legs, gaping mouths.
Animals.
Multicellular animals.
Hylander’s heart leaped into his throat. He was a biologist, but the only living multicellular animal he’d ever seen was another human. The beauty and grace, the speed left him speechless. These were creatures born to kill, creatures who acted as a team to bring down their meat.
“Predators,” he managed to say. “Pack hunters. Some kind of mutated wild dogs. Or maybe wolves. Can’t tell from up here.”
“There go your precious tissue samples,” Ockerman said as the pack swept in around the Shadow people.
Pilot and copilot watched spellbound as the humans defended themselves against overwhelming odds. The combat was intense and at impossibly close quarters.
Hand to fang.
When the man unsheathed his sword, Ockerman let out a whoop. “Look at that bastard hack! They’ve got him surrounded and he’s kicking their butts!”
It was only after the wounded animals turned tail that Hylander realized his own pulse was pounding, his hands trembling inside their gauntlets. He had never witnessed anything so exciting. A battle of near equals. And not over something abstract like consumption quotas. The battle was to keep from being eaten alive.
Hylander caught himself wanting to be down there on the ground with them. No armor. No sensors. No laser. Just raw muscle and sharp steel.
Inside the red targeting ring in Hylander’s visor, the swordsman turned and bowed to them.
The biologist’s jaw dropped at the remarkable gesture. It yielded without yielding, showed both respect and contempt.
It said, “On my terms, you would not win.”
“Awesome!” Ockerman exclaimed.
To Hylander’s relief, the pilot switched off the weapons array and hit the paralyzing mist instead. Ockerman sent a cloud of knockout gas billowing over the six. It took about ten seconds to put them down. None of them tried to run. They stood together as unconsciousness overcame them, and fell across one another.
“Better call Connors and tell him where your meat pickup is,” Ockerman said.
Hylander tried the comm link and got no reply. “That’s strange,” he said. “The ATV should be well within range.”
“Maybe there’s some interference from the ridge,” Ockerman suggested. “When he comes around the backside, you should be able to raise him.”
He set the gyro down a safe distance from the lake and they both got out. Ockerman opened an external storage compartment and pulled out a net woven of heavy plastic cord. While he spread the net on the ground in front of the assault gyro, Hylander walked toward the heaped human forms beside the volcanic lake.
The biologist gave them hardly a glance. He was much more interested in the animals that had attacked them. Up close, he recognized them from pictures he’d seen. Such creatures hadn’t existed on his Earth for more than fifty years. They were definitely coyotes, but of tremendous size.
Hylander stooped over one of the dead animals. He smoothed his gauntleted hand over its fur and decided that wasn’t good enough. He pulled the glove off and touched the coyote with his bare hand.
Amazing.
Still warm.
The fur was dense and soft over the powerful muscles that lined the shoulders and back. He peeled back the lips and examined the teeth. The canines were like curving ivory daggers. The tongue pale-purple. The nose soft and wet. The eyes wide set, and large. It had been a complex, highly intelligent and perfectly adapted organism.
Hylander gently laid the head back down and then looked up from the corpse, across the moonlit landscape.