One of the werewolves came forward to Yoder, hissing and clicking at him, stocky and muscular where Yoder was tall and trim. It had a simple stone knife in one hand. It reached out a claw and poked Yoder hard in the chest; Yoder took it and stood there, silently. The thing grabbed his right arm and began to sniff it and examine it; Yoder offered no resistance. Yoder was a Mennonite, a pacifist.
The werewolf suddenly struck Yoder hard on the arm, perhaps testing him. Yoder staggered a bit from the blow but stood his ground. The werewolf let out a rapid series of chirps and then the others did, too; I suspected they were laughing.
The werewolf raked his claws across Yoder"s face, shredding the man"s right cheek with an audible sc.r.a.ping sound. Blood poured down Yoder"s face; he involuntarily clutched it with his hand. The werewolf cooed and stared at Yoder, its four eyes unblinking, waiting to see what he would do.
Yoder dropped his hand from his ruined face and looked directly at the werewolf. He slowly turned his head to offer his other cheek.
The werewolf stepped away from Yoder and back toward its own, chirping. The two who had spears trained on Yoder let them drop slightly. I breathed a sigh of relief and looked down for a second, registering my own cold sweat. Yoder had kept himself alive by not offering resistance; the creatures, whatever else they were, were smart enough to see that he was not a threat.
I raised my head again to see one of the werewolves staring directly at me.
It let out a trilling cry. The werewolf closest to Yoder glanced over at me, snarled and drove his stone knife into Yoder. Yoder stiffened. I raised my rifle and shot the werewolf in the head. It fell; the other werewolves bolted back into the woods.
I ran over to Yoder, who had collapsed on the ground, and was pawing gingerly at the stone knife. "Don"t touch it," I said. If the knife had nicked any major blood vessels, pulling it out could cause him to bleed out.
"It hurts," Yoder said. He looked up at me and smiled, gritting his teeth. "Well, it almost worked."
"It did work," I said. "I"m sorry, Hiram. This wouldn"t have happened if it wasn"t for me."
"Not your fault," Hiram said. "I saw you drop and hide. Saw you give me a chance. You did the right thing." He reached out toward the corpse of the werewolf, touching the sprawled leg. "Wish you didn"t have to shoot it," he said.
"I"m sorry," I said again. Hiram didn"t have anything more to say.
"Hiram Yoder. Paulo Gutierrez. Juan Escobedo. Marco Flores. Deiter Gruber. Galen DeLeon," Manfred Trujillo said. "Six dead."
"Yes," I said. I sat at my kitchen table. Zoe was at Trujillo"s, spending the night with Gretchen. Hickory and d.i.c.kory were with her. Jane was in the medical bay; on top of the gash in her side she had sc.r.a.ped herself up pretty badly chasing DeLeon. Babar was resting his head in my lap. I was patting it absentmindedly "One body," Trujillo said. I looked up at that. "A hundred of us went into those woods, where you told us to go. We found blood, but not a single one of their bodies. Those things took them with them."
"What about Galen?" I said. Jane had told me that she"d found parts of him, leaving a trail as she went along. She stopped following after he stopped screaming, and when her own injuries kept her from going farther.
"We found a few things," Trujillo said. "Not enough to consider a body."
"Great," I said. "Just great."
"How do you feel?" Trujillo asked.
"Jesus, Man," I said. "How do you think I feel? We lost six people today. We lost G.o.dda-we lost Hiram Yoder. We would all be dead if it wasn"t for him. He saved saved this colony, him and the Mennonites. Now he"s dead, and it"s my fault." this colony, him and the Mennonites. Now he"s dead, and it"s my fault."
"It was Paulo who put that posse together," Trujillo said. "He went against your orders and he got five others killed. And put you and Jane in danger. If someone"s going to shoulder the blame, it should be him."
"I"m not looking to blame Paulo," I said.
"I know you"re not," Trujillo said. "That"s why I"m saying it. Paulo was a friend of mine, as good a friend as I have here. But he did something foolish, and he got those men killed. He should have listened to you."
"Yes. Well," I said. "I thought making these creatures a state secret would keep keep something like this from happening. That"s why I did it." something like this from happening. That"s why I did it."
"Secrets have a way of getting out," Trujillo said. "You know that. Or should."
"I should have let everyone know about these things," I said.
"Maybe," Trujillo said. "You had to make a call here and you made it. It wasn"t the one I would have thought you would make, I have to say. It wasn"t like you. If you don"t mind me saying so, you"re not that good with secrets. People here aren"t used to you having them, either."
I grunted a.s.sent and patted my dog. Trujillo shifted uncomfortably in his chair for a few minutes. "What are you going to do now?" he asked.
"f.u.c.k if I know," I said. "Right now what I"d really like to do is put a fist through my wall."
"I"d advise against that," Trujillo said. "I know you don"t like taking my advice on general principle. Nevertheless, there it is."
I smiled at that one. I nodded toward the door. "How are people?"
"They"re scared as h.e.l.l," Trujillo said. "One man died yesterday, six more died today, five of them them disappeared, and people are worried they"ll be next. I suspect most people will be sleeping inside the village for the next couple of nights. I"m afraid the cat is out of the bag about these creatures being intelligent, by the way. Gutierrez told a whole lot of people while he was trying to recruit for his posse." disappeared, and people are worried they"ll be next. I suspect most people will be sleeping inside the village for the next couple of nights. I"m afraid the cat is out of the bag about these creatures being intelligent, by the way. Gutierrez told a whole lot of people while he was trying to recruit for his posse."
"I"m surprised another group hasn"t gone out looking for the werewolves," I said.
"You"re calling them werewolves?" Trujillo said.
"You saw the one that killed Hiram," I said. "Tell me that"s not what it looks like."
"Do me a favor and don"t share that name," Trujillo said. "People are scared enough."
"Fine," I said.
"And yes, there was another group who wanted to go out and try to get revenge. A bunch of idiot kids. Your daughter"s boyfriend Enzo was one of them."
"Ex-boyfriend," I said. "Did you talk them out of doing something stupid?"
"I pointed out that five grown men went out hunting for them and not a single one of them came home," Trujillo said. "That seemed to calm them down a bit."
"Good," I said.
"You need to make an appearance tonight, down at the community hall," Trujillo said. "People will be there. They need to see you."
"I"m not in any shape to see people," I said.
"You don"t have a choice," Trujillo said. "You"re the colony leader. People are in mourning, John. You and your wife are the only ones that came out of this alive, and she"s in the medical bay. If you spend the entire night hiding in here, it says to everyone out there that no one gets away from these things alive. And you kept a secret from them. You need to start making up for that."
"I didn"t know you were a psychologist, Man," I said.
"I"m not," he said. "I"m a politician. And so are you, whether you want to admit to it or not. This is the job of a colony leader."
"I tell you truly, Man," I said. "If you asked for the job of colony leader, I would give it to you. Right now, I would. I know you think you should should have been colony leader. So. The job is yours. Want it?" have been colony leader. So. The job is yours. Want it?"
Trujillo paused to consider his words. "You"re right," he said. "I thought I should have been the colony leader. Occasionally I still do. And someday, I think I probably will be. But right now, it"s not not my job. It"s yours. My job is to be your loyal opposition. And what your loyal opposition thinks is this: Your people are scared, John. You"re their leader. Do some G.o.dd.a.m.n leading. Sir." my job. It"s yours. My job is to be your loyal opposition. And what your loyal opposition thinks is this: Your people are scared, John. You"re their leader. Do some G.o.dd.a.m.n leading. Sir."
"That"s the first time you"ve ever called me sir sir," I said, after a long minute.
Trujillo grinned. "I was saving it for a special moment," he said.
"Well, then," I said. "Well done. Well done, indeed."
Trujillo stood up. "I"ll see you around this evening, then," he said.
"You will," I said. "I"ll try to be rea.s.suring. Thanks, Man." He waved off the thanks and left as someone else came walking up to my porch. It was Jerry Bennett.
I waved him in. "What do you have for me?" I asked.
"On the creatures, nothing," Bennett said. "I did all sorts of search parameters and came out with squat. There"s not a lot to go on. They didn"t do a whole lot on exploring on this planet."
"Tell me something I don"t know," I said.
"All right," Bennett said. "You know that video file of the Conclave blasting that colony?"
"Yes," I said. "What does that have to do with this planet?"
"It doesn"t," Bennett said. "I told you, I checked all the data files for edits under a batch command. It scooped up that file with all the rest of them."
"What about the file?" I asked.
"Well, it turns out the video file you have is only part of another video file. The metadata features time codes for the original video file. The time codes say your video is just the tail end of that other video. There"s more video there."
"How much more?" I asked.
"A lot lot more," Bennett said. more," Bennett said.
"Can you get it back?" I asked Bennett smiled. "Already done," he said.
Six hours and a few dozen strained conversations with colonists later, I let myself into the Black Box. The PDA Bennett had loaded the video file into was on his desk, as promised. I picked it up; the video was already queued up and paused at the start. Its first image was of two creatures on a hill, overlooking a river. I recognized the hill and one of the creatures from the video I"d already seen. The other one I hadn"t seen before. I squinted to get a better look, then cursed myself for being stupid and magnified the image. The other creature resolved itself.
It was a Whaid.
"h.e.l.lo," I said to the creature. "What are you doing, talking to the guy who wiped out your colony?"
I started the video to find out.
EIGHT.
The two stood near the edge of a bluff overlooking a river, watching the sunset over the far prairie.
"You have beautiful sunsets here," General Ta.r.s.em Gau said to Chan orenThen.
"Thank you," orenThen said. "It"s the volcanoes." Gau looked over at orenThen, amused. The rolling plain was interrupted only by the river, its bluffs and the small colony that lay where the bluffs descended toward the water.
"Not here here." orenThen said, sensing Gau"s unspoken observation. He pointed west, where the sun had just sunk below the horizon. "Half a planet that way. Lots of tectonic activity. There"s a ring of volcanoes around the entire western ocean. One of them went up just as autumn ended. There"s still dust in the atmosphere."
"Must have made for a hard winter," Gau said.
OrenThen made a motion that suggested otherwise. "Big enough eruption for nice sunsets. Not big enough for climate change. We have mild winters. It"s one of the reasons we settled here. Hot summers, but good for growing. Rich soil. Excellent water supply."
"And no volcanoes," Gau said.
"No volcanoes," orenThen agreed. "No quakes, either, because we"re right in the middle of a tectonic plate. Incredible thunderstorms, however. And last summer, tornadoes with hail the size of your head. We lost crops with that. But no place is entirely perfect. On balance this is a good place to start a colony, and to build a new world for my people."
"I agree," Gau said. "And from what I can tell, you"ve done a marvelous job leading this colony."
OrenThen bowed his head slightly. "Thank you, General. Coming from you, that"s high praise indeed."
The two returned their attention to the sunset, watching as the early dusk deepened around them.
"Chan," Gau said. "You know I can"t let you keep this colony."
"Aah," orenThen said, and smiled, still looking into the sunset. "So much for this being a social call."
"You know it"s not," Gau said.
"I know," orenThen said. "Your knocking my communications satellite out of the sky was my first clue." OrenThen pointed down the slope of the bluff, where a platoon of Gau"s soldiers stood, warily eyed by orenThen"s own escort of farmers. "They were my second."
"They"re for show," Gau said. "I needed to be able to talk to you without the distraction of being shot at."
"And blasting my satellite?" orenThen said. "That"s not for show, I suspect."
"It was necessary, for your sake," Gau said.
"I doubt that," orenThen said.
"If I left you your satellite, you or someone in your colony would have sent a skip drone, letting your government know you were under attack," Gau said. "But that"s not why I"m here."
"You just told me that I can"t keep this colony," orenThen said.
"You can"t," Gau said. "But that"s not the same thing as being under attack."
"The distinction escapes me, General," orenThen said. "Particularly with a very expensive satellite blown to bits by your guns, and your soldiers on my soil."
"How long have we known each other, Chan?" Gau said. "We"ve known each other a long time, as friends and adversaries. You"ve seen how I do things, up close. Have you ever known me to say one thing and mean another?"
OrenThen was quiet for a moment. "No," he said, finally. "You can be an arrogant a.s.s, Ta.r.s.em. But you"ve always said what you meant to say."
"Then trust me once more," Gau said. "More than anything, I want this to end peacefully. It"s why I am here, and not anyone else. Because what you and I do here matters, beyond the planet and this colony. I can"t let your colony remain here. You know that. But that doesn"t mean you or any of your people have to suffer for it."
There was another moment of silence from orenThen. "I have to admit I was surprised that it was you on that ship," he eventually said to Gau. "We knew there was the risk that the Conclave would come for us. You didn"t spend all that time wrestling all those races into line and declaring an end to colonization just to let us slip through the cracks. We planned for this possibility. But I a.s.sumed it would be some ship with a junior officer at the helm. Instead we get the leader of the Conclave."
"We are friends," Gau said. "You deserve the courtesy."
"You are kind to say so, General," orenThen said. "But, friend or not, it"s overkill."