Zzt finished the disa.s.sembly and threw the last ring on the bench. His yellow orbs contracted as he looked at Terl. "Well? What have I done now?"
Terl lumbered closer and looked around. "Where are your maintenance men?"
"We"re fifteen mechanics under complement. They were transferred to operations over the last month. I know it and you know it. So why are you here?"
As chief of security, Terl had learned through experience not to be very straightforward. If he simply asked for a manual reconnaissance plane, the transport chief would demand the emergency voucher, not get it, and say "No transport." And there were no emergencies for security on this dull planet. Not real ones. In hundreds of years of operation, there had not been the slightest security threat to Intergalactic Mining operations here. A dull security scene, and consequently the chief of that department was not considered very important. Apparent threats had to be manufactured with guile as their sole ingredient.
"I"ve been investigating a suspicion of conspiracy to sabotage transport," said Terl. "Kept me busy for the last three weeks." He eased his bulk back against a wrecked car.
"Don"t lean on that recon. You"ll dent its wing."
Terl decided it was better to be friendly and rumbled over to a stool at the bench where Zzt was working. "Confidentially, Zzt, I"ve had an idea that could get us some outside personnel. I"m working on it, and that"s why I need a manual recon."
Zzt batted his eyebones and sat down on another stool, which creaked despairingly under his thousand-pound bulk.
"This planet," said Terl confidingly, "used to have a sentient race on it."
"What race was that?" asked Zzt suspiciously.
"Man," said Terl.
Zzt looked at him searchingly. A security officer was never noted for his sense of humor. Some had been known to bait and entrap and then file charges. But Zzt couldn"t help himself.
His mouthbones started to stretch, and even though he sought to control them, they spread and suddenly his laugh exploded in Terl"s face. Zzt hastily got it under control and turned back to his bench to resume work.
"Anything else on your mind?" asked Zzt, as an afterthought.
This was not going well, thought Terl. Well, that"s what happened when you were frank. It just didn"t mix with security.
"This suspicion of conspiracy to sabotage transport," said Terl as he looked around at the wrecked cars with half-lowered eyebones, "could reach to high places."
Zzt threw down a wrench with a clang. A low snarl rumbled in him. He sat there, staring in front of him. He was thinking.
"What do you really want?" he asked at last.
"A recon plane. For five or six days."
Zzt got up and yanked a transport schedule clipboard off the wall and studied it. He could hear Terl almost purring.
"You see this schedule?" said Zzt, pushing it under Terl"s nose.
"Well, yes."
"Do you see where it has six drone recons a.s.signed to security?"
"Of course."
"And do you see where this has been going on for-" Zzt peeled back sheet after sheet, "-blast! For centuries I suppose."
"Have to keep a minesite planet under surveillance," said Terl complacently.
"Under surveillance for what?" said Zzt. "Every sc.r.a.p of ore was spotted and estimated long before your and my living memory. There"s nothing out there but mammals. Air Air organisms." organisms."
"There might be a hostile landing."
"Here?" sneered Zzt. "Company probes in outer s.p.a.ce would detect it ages before it ever arrived here. Terl, transport has to fuel and maintain and recondition those drones two and three times a year. You know and I know the company is on an economy wave. Tell you what."
Terl waited sourly to be told.
"If you will let us cancel those recon drones, I"ll put a tri-wheel ground cycle at your disposal for a limited time."
Terl let out a small shrill scream.
Zzt amended his bargain. "A ground car at your disposal when ordered."
Terl lumbered over to the crashed vehicle that had blood on its seats. "Wonder if this was caused by faulty maintenance."
Zzt stood there, unrelenting. The crash had been caused by too much kerbango on duty.
"One recon drone programmed to cover the whole planet once a month," said Zzt. "One ground car at your permanent disposal."
Terl looked at the other wrecks but couldn"t think of anything. These investigations were done and dead. Teach him to close investigations!
He wandered back to Zzt. "One drone recon programmed to cover the whole planet once a month. One armored and firepower ground car at permanent disposal with no questions on ammunition, breathe-gas, or fuel requisitions."
Zzt took the forms from the bench drawer and made them out. He shoved the papers and clipboard at Terl.
As he signed, Terl thought to himself that this transport chief really ought to be looked into. Maybe for ore robbery!
Zzt took the papers back and removed from the switchboard the combination keycard of the oldest and rattiest ground car that was gathering dust in the garage dome. He coupled it with a coupon book for ammo, another for breathe-gas, and another for fuel.
The deal would never actually become part of recorded history as a deal, for the dates of the orders were carefully not coincident. Neither suspected that they had just materially altered the future of the planet. And not for the better of Intergalactic. But that is sometimes the way with large commercial companies.
When Terl had left to get his Mark II (armored, firepower) ground car, Zzt thought to himself that it was wonderful what lies executives told just to be able to go hunting. Kill-mad they all were. Machine kill-mad, too, from the jam-ups he had to repair. What a story! Man a sentient race indeed! He laughed and got back to work.
Chapter 7.
Jonnie Goodboy Tyler galloped free across the vast ocean of gra.s.s, Windsplitter exuberantly stretching his legs, the lead horse rollicking along behind.
What a day. Blue sky and the wind a cooling freshness on his face.
Now two days out, he had come down from the mountains, through the foothills, and into the vastest plain he had ever imagined. He could still see the tiniest tip of Highpeak behind him, and with the sun it kept him true on course and rea.s.sured him that he could find his way home whenever he wanted.
Total security! The herds of wild cattle were many, but he had been living with those all his life. A few wolves, but what were wolves? No bear, no puma so far. Why, in all reverence to the G.o.ds, did anybody ever stay cooped up in the mountains?
And monsters- what monsters? Phagh! Crazy tales!
Even that shiny, floating cylinder that had gone overhead every few days the whole of his life was overdue down here. It had come from west to east with the regularity of every other heavenly body, but even it seemed to have stopped. On his present course he would have seen it.
In short, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler was suffering from a bad case of overconfidence. And the first disaster that hit him had to do with pigs.
Pigs were usually easy to kill- if you were a bit nimble and watched out for charges of the boars. And a small suckling pig was exactly what one could use for supper.
Right there ahead of him, clear in the late-afternoon light, was a compact herd of pigs out in the open. There were big ones and small ones, but they were all fat.
Jonnie pulled Windsplitter to a halt and slid off. The wind was not quite right, a bit too downwind to the pigs. They"d smell him if he approached directly.
With a bent-knee run, he brought himself silently around them until the wind was at right angles.
He stopped and hefted his club. The tall gra.s.s was nearly to his waist.
The pigs were rooting around a shallow depression in the plain, where water stood in the wet months, making a temporary marsh. There must be roots to be had there, Jonnie supposed. There were dozens of pigs, every one with his snout down.
With a crouching gait, staying below the gra.s.s tops, Jonnie went forward closing the distance yard by yard.
Only a few feet separated him now from the outermost fringe of pigs. Silently he rose until his eyes were just above the level of the gra.s.s. A small porker was only three arm-spans from him, an easy throw.
"Here"s for supper," breathed Jonnie and heaved his kill-club straight and true at the head of the pig.
Dead on, a direct hit. The pig let out an earsplitter and dropped.
But that wasn"t all that happened. Instant confusion roared.
Hidden from Jonnie by the tall gra.s.s and slightly behind him and to his right, a five-hundred-pound boar who had become tired of eating had lain down for a nap.
The squeal of the hit pig acted like a whip on the whole herd, and away they went in an instant charge, straight upwind at Jonnie"s horses.
For the big boar, to see was to charge.
Jonnie felt like he had been struck by a mountain avalanche. He was knocked flat and squashed in instants so close together they felt like one.
He rolled. But the whole sky over him was filled with boar belly. He didn"t see but he sensed the teeth and tusks trying to find him.
He rolled again, the savage squeals mixing with the roaring pound of the blood in his ears.
Once more he rolled and this time he saw daylight and a back.
In the blink of an eye he was on the boar"s back.
He reached an arm across the throat.
The boar spun around and around like a bucking horse.
Jonnie"s arm tightened until he could feel his sinews crack.
And then the boar, strangled, dropped into a limp, jerking pile.
Jonnie unloaded quickly and backed up. The boar was gasping its breath back. It lurched to unsteady feet, and, seeing no opponent, staggered off.
Jonnie went over and picked up the small pig, keeping an eye on the departing boar. But the boar, although it cast about and made small convulsive charges, still couldn"t see anybody, and after a bit it trotted in the direction the herd had taken, following the trampled gra.s.s.
There was no herd in sight.
And there were no horses!
No horses! Jonnie stood there with the dead pig. He had no sharp rock to cut it. He had no flints to start a fire and roast it. And he had no horses.
It might be worse. He looked at his legs, expecting to see tusk gashes. But he found none. His back and face ached a bit from the collision of the charge and his own collision with the ground, but that was all.
Mentally kicking himself, more ashamed than scared, he made off in the direction of the trail of crushed gra.s.s. After a while his depression wore off a bit, to be replaced by optimism. He began to whistle a call. The horses would not have just gone on running in front of the pigs. They would have veered off somewhere.
Just as darkness was falling he spotted Windsplitter calmly cropping gra.s.s. The horse looked up with a "Where have you been?" and then, with a plainly mischievous grin, as though he had intended to all the time, came over and b.u.mped Jonnie with his muzzle.
It took another ten minutes of anxious casting about to locate the lead horse and the packs. Jonnie went back a short way to a little spring they"d pa.s.sed and made camp. There he made himself a belt and a pouch, and into the latter he put tinder and a flint and some small, sharpedged stones. He put a stronger thong on the big kill-club and fastened it to the belt. He wasn"t going to be caught emptyhanded a second time in this vast prairie. No indeed.
That night he dreamed of Chrissie being strangled by pigs, Chrissie mauled by bears, Chrissie crushed to a pulp under stampeding hoofs while he stood helpless in the sky where the spirits go, unable to do a d.a.m.ned thing.
Chapter 8.
The "Great Village" where "thousands had lived" was obviously another one of those myths, like monsters. But he would look for it nonetheless.
By the half-light of the yellowing dawn, Jonnie was again trotting eastward.
The plain was changing. There were some features about it that didn"t seem usual, such as those mounds. Jonnie detoured from his way into the sun to look at one of them.
He stopped, leaning forward with a hand braced on Windsplitter"s shoulder, to study the place.
It was a little sort of hill, but it had a hole in the side. A rectangular hole. Otherwise the mound was all covered with dirt and gra.s.s. Some freak of nature? A window opening?
He slid off his horse and approached it. He walked around it. Then he paced it out. It was about thirty-five paces long and ten paces wide. Hah! Maybe the mound was rectangular too!
An old, splintered stump stood to one side and Jonnie appropriated a jagged piece of it.
He approached the window and, using the sc.r.a.p of wood, began to push away the gra.s.s edges. It surprised him that he seemed to be digging not in earth but in loose sand.
When he got the lower part of the rectangle cleared, he could get right up to it and look into it.