Part 36 (1/2)
Silence fell. The Captain knelt down before him, and all the words that Feran had tried to find before came pouring out. He turned his head, baring his throat to the Captain, offering his life. Instead, warm arms encircled him and held him tight. Feran knew that this was a ”hug” and found it oddly comforting. The Captain whispered, ”Oh Feran.” and Feran began to sob.
”So now what?” the Cutter growled as the Captain stood.
They waited. Then the Captain spoke, his voice as calm as when he told Feran a story. ”Same plan, with one change. We need Pro with us.” He turned to Procne, and Feran felt a stillness settle like before two alpha males fought. ”You and I, we've never quite got it straight between us. just knew that she somehow needed us both. You never forgave, never trusted me. Can't say I ever blamed you. Well, I'm asking you to trust me now. If only because you know I wouldn't hurt her.”
Procne stared at the Captain for several of Feran's heartbeats, then nodded. The Captain turned to the Cutter. ”Take Pro inside. Make it look like his hands are tied.” He spoke then to all of them. ”n.o.body moves till I do, and I won't move until I know where he's got Phi. And remember: we need Weitz alive.”
Muttering under his breath, the Cutter pulled Feran into the dome. Feran looked back. The Captain and Mojo strode toward the main entrance, their long cloaks closed, hiding their weapons and shutting out the rain that began to fall hard and cold.
Inside, Feran saw Guppert standing beside two Stone Puppies. He scampered over to them, glad to leave the morose Cutter, then stopped. Weapons were strapped to one side of the great silica beasts, the side hidden from the door. The Puppies lay on the ground, and Guppert's shoulder came to the top of their backs.
Guppert grinned and rapped a fat fist on the slate side of the nearest one. ”Puppies make good fort, Guppert thinks.” He pointed to the ground. ”This where you come, little one, with Guppert when I give word.” He waddled around to the other side of the Puppies where water buckets and scrub brushes lay. ”Now, we get busy looking not dangerous.” He and Feran began scrubbing the Puppies. The Cutter stood with Procne between them and the entrance, Procne's hands bound behind him.
Feran heard them first. ”They are here,” he whispered.
Cutter nodded. A few seconds later, two men in RIP SS uniforms entered with guns. They looked around, then one called outside. ”All clear.”
Weasel Man came in, then the Captain and Mojo, and more men in SS uniforms. Feran counted, his hope fading as each one entered. Ten, plus the first two, and Weasel Man. Four carried a metal case, their guns slung.
”Thirteen. d.a.m.n, I hate thirteen,” muttered the Cutter as he left Procne and sauntered towards a Puppy. Still scrubbing, Guppert moved to the hidden side of his beast. Feran followed.
Weasel Man looked around. ”Where's the rest of your crew?”
The Captain shrugged. ”Dead or deserted.”
Weasel Man raised an eyebrow and glanced at his men. The Captain nodded at the case. ”That our stuff?” he asked, pulling back a sleeve to reveal a Medistim pack. He hit a b.u.t.ton on it. Feran knew that he had just taken a ”hit.” Mojo did the same.
Weasel Man wrinkled his brow. ”It was going to be.”
The Captain smiled. ”But you've reconsidered.”
”We have the female already-” Weasel Man said.
”Her name is Philomela,” the Captain said.
”And you're outnumbered-”
The Captain nodded. ”Just a bunch of old derelicts.”
”-so now I think we'll just take this one too.”
”And his name is Procne.” The Captain hit the stim pack again. So did Mojo. Feran had never seen the Captain take two hits. ”So you'll leave me and Mojo to die in slow agony?”
Weasel Man s.h.i.+fted on his feet. Feran smelt his fear. The man nodded at the case. ”That's worth a fortune-”
”And you have to cover your costs, don't you? Where is she?” the Captain said, taking a third hit.
”On my s.h.i.+p, hovering above us waiting for my call.” Weasel Man patted his talking device. ”Now, why don't-”
Being a predator, Feran was the first other than the Captain to know that the moment had arrived. The killing moment. And in that moment, for the first time, Feran realized something.
The Captain was a predator too.
Weasel Man was still talking, ”-this over with-”
The Captain and Mojo, moving faster than Feran thought men could move, threw back their cloaks and pulled their guns. The Captain shot Weasel Man twice, once through his gun arm and once through his leg. The air sizzled as Mojo fired, killing three before they could even raise their weapons. The Captain shot three more before Weasel Man hit the ground screaming. Feran closed his ear flaps to shut out the screams, his nose stinging from the burnt air smell. The Cutter and Guppert shot one Ripper each from behind the Puppies. The last four, who had kept their guns slung, died still reaching for their weapons.
As he watched, Feran felt only fear. Not of the killing, for he knew killing, but fear of the look on the Captain's face.
The look of a predator.
The Captain stepped over the bodies to where Weasel Man lay like a trapped animal, and placed his weapon against the man's head. ”Call your s.h.i.+p. Tell them to land outside this dome to pick up the other Angel.”
Weasel Man spat blood. ”Screw you.”
The Captain put his gun against Weasel Man's forehead. The man swallowed, but shook his head. ”You wouldn't kill an unarmed man in cold blood, Trelayne. You aren't capable of it.”
But for the twitching of one eye, the Captain seemed carved from stone. Then he laughed. He laughed and laughed until Feran felt fear again-fear that he did not really know this man. Suddenly the Captain reached down and with one hand lifted Weasel Man by the throat and held him off the ground. Feran had no words for what he saw in the Captain's eyes as his voice boomed inside the dome. ”I have ripped babies from mother's arms. I have killed thousands and laughed while they died. I have ended races. Little man, I am capable of things you could never imagine!”
The Captain dropped him then and looked down at the man, and Feran heard the sadness in the Captain's voice as he almost whispered, ”I am capable of anything.”
Weasel Man lay gasping in the dirt. Then he looked up, and Feran knew the Captain had won. Weasel Man was baring his belly and neck, showing submission. He took his talking device with a shaking hand and spoke into it. Feran couldn't hear the words, but the Captain nodded to the others.
Feran relaxed. Guppert and the Cutter were slapping each other on their backs. Mojo sat slumped on the ground, his head between his knees, sobbing but apparently unhurt.
A cry cut the air. Feran spun, teeth bared. High above, Procne hovered, wings beating, head thrown back, face contorted in agony. His pouch bulged, then split as a cloud of b.l.o.o.d.y winged things burst from him and fell screeching towards them.
The brood had arrived.
Trelayne had not taken combat doses of Scream for over two years. The killing, and the joy it had brought, had shaken him. Now as the brood rained down b.l.o.o.d.y chaos from above, he felt his tenuous grip on reality slipping away. Knowing that the brood must live or Phi would did, he tried to follow what they were doing, but the Scream kept drawing him to the b.l.o.o.d.y corpses. He realized then that the brood was being drawn to them.
Resembling winged toads with humanoid faces, gray and slick, the brood swarmed over the bodies, driving a long tendril that protruded from their abdomen into any open wound. But they stayed only a second at each spot, and with each attempt became more frenzied.
Scream, he thought, they need blood with Scream.
”Trelayne!”
The cry spun Trelayne around. Weitz knelt, Tanzer held in a shaking hand. Blood soaked an arm and leg, and flowed from his forehead. Weitz leveled the gun at Trelayne.
The brood found Weitz before he could fire, swarming him, plunging their tendrils into each wound, into his eyes where the blood had run down from his forehead, probing, searching. Screaming, he clawed at them, then stiffened and fell forward.