Part 19 (2/2)

”Knew you had a rat brain,” said Terl. ”This is where you-' he laughed suddenly and that made it hard to talk, ”-where you attacked a tank!”

Jonnie looked around. It was indeed the place. He looked through all the slits, taking in the area. ”What are we doing here?”

Terl grinned in what he was quite certain was his most friendly grin. ”We're looking for your horse! isn't that nice?”

Jonnie thought fast. There was more to this. He had better be very calm. He saw no bones but that meant nothing, for wild animals would have been at work. He looked at Terl and realized the brute actually believed a horse would wait around. Windsplitter most probably had trotted on after them a while and then wandered back toward home in the mountains.

”There are countless animals out in the open here,” said Jonnie. ”Picking out those two horses-”

”Rat brain, you don't have a grip on machines. It shows. Look here.” Terl turned on a large screen set into the instrument panel. The immediate vicinity showed up on it. Terl turned a k.n.o.b and the scene was viewable from different directions.

Then Terl pushed a b.u.t.ton and there was a dull pop like a small explosion in the top of the car. Looking up through the overhead port Jonnie saw a spinning object fly up in the air a hundred feet. Terl pushed a lever up and the object went up. Terl pulled the lever down and the object came lower. What it was seeing registered on the viewscreen.

”That's why you can't get away,” said Terl. ”Look.” He changed a lever on the screen and the image became enlarged. He pushed a b.u.t.ton marked ”Heat search” and the screen and spinner above went onto automatic.

Jonnie watched as groups of animals were zeroed in, enlarged, reduced; other groups found and inspected up close; more animals spotted and examined...

”Just sit and watch that,” said Terl, ”and tell me if you see your horse.” He laughed. ”Security chief of Earth running a lost-and-found department for an animal owned by an animal.” He laughed more loudly at his own joke.

There were cattle and cattle and cattle. There were wolves- small ones from the nearby mountains and huge ones down from the north. There were coyotes. There was even a rattler. There were no horses at all.

”Well,” said Terl, ”we'll just drive along to the south. You keep your eyes open, animal, and you'll get your horse back.”

They drove at a leisurely pace. Jonnie watched the scope. Time went on. Still no horses, none at all.

Terl began to get irritated. Leverage, leverage. His luck was out today!

”No horses,” said Jonnie. And he knew very well that if he had seen Windsplitter he would have kept still.

Terl finally looked at the scope. Ahead of them was a small hill, rocky on top, with a lot of trees distributed around it and darkness in among the trees. There were cattle, some with rather big horns just to the north of it in the open. Fear, then. The day wouldn't be wasted. He swerved the car into the trees and stopped.

”Get out,” said Terl. He put on his breathe-mask and hit the door b.u.t.tons. He threw out the leash and then reached into the huge compartment under the seat and drew out a blast rifle along with a bag of grenades.

Jonnie stood in the open and took off his mask. He switched tanks before he put it on the seat. It had been a long drive.

Terl took a position at the edge of the trees, the rocks behind him, the open plain in front. ”Come here, animal,” he said.

The leash was trailing. Jonnie walked over to Terl. He wasn't going to give the monster a chance to gun him down.

”I'm going to give you a little exhibition,” said Terl. ”I was top shot in my school. You ever notice how neat the rat heads were blown off?

Some of them were fifty paces away. You're not listening, animal.”

No, Jonnie was not listening. He had caught a whiff of something and he looked at the rocks behind them. There was an opening in them. A cave? There was the whiff again.

Terl reached down and jerked the leash, almost snapping Jonnie off his feet. Jonnie got up from his knees and looked again toward the cave. He gripped the kill-club in his fist.

With an expert motion, Terl snapped a grenade onto the end of the blast rifle. ”Watch this!”

There were a half-dozen cattle about eighty paces out on the plain. Two of them were heavy horned bulls, old and tough. The other four were cows.

Terl lifted the blast rifle muzzle-high and fired. The grenade soared in a long arc over the top of the cattle and landed well beyond them. It exploded in a bright green flash. One cow went down, hit by a fragment.

The others leaped and began to run. They ran away from the sound and straight toward Terl. Terl leveled the blast rifle. ”Those hoofs are moving,” he said. ”So you won't think it's an accident.”

The bulls were coming on in a headlong rush, the cows behind them. The ground shook. The distance was closing quickly.

Terl began to fire in quick single shots.

He broke the legs of the following cows and they tumbled to earth bawling.

He broke the right front leg of the farthest bull. The other was almost upon them.

One final shot and Terl broke the right front leg of the nearest bull, which skidded to a crumbled heap, mere feet in front of them.

The air was shattering with the bawls of pain from the cattle.

Terl grinned as he looked at them. Jonnie looked back at him in horror. That grin behind the faceplate was of pure joy.

Jonnie felt revulsion for the monster. Terl was- Jonnie suddenly realized there was no word for ”cruel” in the Psychlo language. He turned toward the cattle.

Walking out in front with his kill-club to put them out of their agony, he heard a new sound, a rustling rumble.

Jonnie whirled. Coming away from the cave, awakened and angered by all the racket, charging straight at Terl's back, was the biggest grizzly bear Jonnie had ever seen.

”Behind you!” he yelled. But his voice was drowned in the bawling of the cattle. Terl just stood there grinning.

A moment later the bear roared.

Terl heard it and started to turn. But he was too late.

The grizzly hit him in the back with an impact that sent out a shock wave.

The blast rifle, driven from Terl's paws, soared into the air toward Jonnie. He caught it in his left hand.

But Jonnie wasn't thinking of the blast rifle as any more than a club. And he had his own kill-club up and striking before the bear could aim a second blow at Terl. The kill-club caught the grizzly square on the brain pan. The bear staggered, distracted and stunned.

Jonnie sailed in again.

The bear struck out with a ma.s.sive clawed blow. Jonnie went under it. The kill-club hit again on the brain pan.

The bear reared up and struck at the kill-club as it came in again. The thong snapped.

Jonnie grasped the rifle by the barrel.

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