Predators and Prey: A Short Story (2 page)

"Okay,
but remember, the best defense is a strong offense."

"Another
bit of Mafia wisdom?"

He
chuckles, "No, I learned that growing up in the district 'hoods of Hong
Kong. Just
basic street
smarts."

Something
tells me he's right.

There's
no sign of the
Tweedles
when I step out the door. I
look at my watch; just over an hour left. An hour or a year, it doesn't matter.
I walk back toward the lab, the cold moist wind tickling like eyes on the back
of my neck. Guys like Rizzo don't just go away. They move in, make things bad
for everyone involved. And I'm not ready to scrap everything I've accomplished
just to run away again.

Duncan
is gone, and his workbench sits empty and clean. A few of the animals chitter
in their cages. The sign just above them seems to accuse me with the
xeno
department motto, "Know Your Environment".

"
Kye
," I mutter.

One of
the
Grats
has an ear-tag; Duncan chose the victim.
The
Grat
and I have a lot in common at this point in
time. I stare at the little beast as it shuffles around its cage . . . I stare
for a long time. Finally, I decide at least one of us should survive.

I pull
on the heavy gloves, reach into the cage and remove the squirming beast. It
scratches its stubby legs against my fingers, and tries to bite me with thick
flat teeth.

Everything
I need should be in the lab. Well, almost: chemicals, centrifuge,
neutral
base. It goes against my principles, but necessity
is very compelling whisper that convinces my conscience it's the only way. I
give the Parron what they're waiting for before I leave. They set to it with
vigor, and a staccato popping starts when they start their dessert, cracking
the bones for the marrow.

Leaving
the lab, I decide education is an excellent investment.

I have
one stop to make, and only ten minutes to make it. The
Tweedles
are tailing me, and they're not bothering to be inconspicuous. Side by side
they follow me, about twenty meters back, through the streets to my flat. They
hang back as I go in. Looking back before I push through the door I can see one
is talking into his hand.
To Rizzo, no doubt.

My
flat's a sty. I dig furiously through a few drawers, finally find the inoculant
inhaler that's been lying there since my arrival. I'd finished the doses,
having no desire to contract any local diseases. The transparent cylinder is no
larger than my finger, inhale hole and vaporizer at one end, tiny thumb-pump to
build pressure at the other. I untwist it, fill it with the result of my labor,
then
tuck it away.

Outside,
the
Tweedles
haven't moved, but they come rigidly
alert when I leave. They follow me back to toward the lab.

In my
pocket, my
comcard
vibrates for attention. I pull it
out, and when I flip it open it's Rizzo's voice I hear, and I'm not really
surprised.

"You've
got five minutes,
Jimbo
. You're not screwing with me,
are you?"

"Fuck
you, Rizzo." I shut the
comcard
, take a last
quick look over my shoulder, and break into a run.

I hook
a few turns and head straight for the perimeter of the city. I don't hear any
feet behind me, but it doesn't take a genius to follow someone in a city this
size. The perimeter wall is gray cinderblock stacked six feet high, topped with
towering poles that support the netting. Beside the environment lock is a large
yellow sign, the
Xeno
motto posted yet again, this
time as a warning in bold black letters: "KNOW YOUR ENVIRONMENT".
Below is a list of hazards to avoid. It's not very long at all.

I
linger just long enough to see three figures rushing toward me from the far end
of the street. Dee and Dum are lumbering shadows flanking Rizzo, whose long
coat flaps behind him like dark wings.

I open
the
lock,
wait for the door behind me to shut and the
outer door to open. Beyond is cold, wet, alien night.

The
soil and native grass squish beneath my feet, and I head for the concrete
tables of the picnic area. It's surrounded by tall tapering trees and low
bushes cut back decoratively beneath them. Outside is a popular spot during the
temperate seasons. When I near the area, motion sensors trigger and soft white
lights surround me. Moisture is a gray sheet in their beams.

Standing
in the center of the lights, three shadows point off from me in different
directions.
Behind me, the past.
Beside
me, the here and now.
And ahead of me, pointing like a long black finger
at the approach of Rizzo and his
goons,
is tomorrow.

"Hey,
Jimbo
."
Rizzo smiles and stops when he's three meters away, his
Gothic bridgework brilliant in the lights.
"Looks like
we have a problem."
He holds up his
comcard
,
thumbs the volume and the playback. "Fuck you, Rizzo
.
. .Fuck you, Rizzo. . .". For effect, he lets me hear my voice a few more
times.

"Is
that any way to talk to an old friend?" He nods and the goons start
forward.

"Wait,"
I say, for the second time tonight. I toss the inhaler at Rizzo; he and the
Tweedles
watch it flip end over end in its high trajectory.
While they watch I make the quick move inside my jacket and pull out the
surprise.

Dum
and Dee are instantly alert, dark humming blades in their hands before my own
is even free.

Rizzo
makes the catch, looks at it,
looks
at me.
"Too little, too late,
Jimbo
."
He notices what's in my hand, laughs loud and hard. He knows as well as I do
the thoroughness of customs security on every University world. Projectile
weapons are illegal, virtually impossible to slip one through. And getting
caught lands you
mindwiped
on a service world. He
recognizes what I hold for what it really is, and not what I wish it were. "What
are you going to do,
Jimbo
, squirt us to death?"

"Something
like
that.
Last chance, Rizzo.
Just forget you ever saw me and get out of here."

"No
can do. Business is business." He discharges a tiny bit from the inhaler
into his hand, sniffs,
smells
the added hint of
cinnamon.
"
QuickSpice
?
Good going,
Jimbo
. I'm impressed." He puts the
inhaler to his nose and discharges it. "I'm going to hate cutting you up
if you have access to Spice, but like I said—"

"Business
is business." I finish for him.

He
gets a funny look on his face, sticks out his tongue, thick with a taste I don't
know if he'll recognize.

"Garlic?"
He says. "What kind of shit is this?"

"DMSO,"
I say. "It leaves a garlic taste in the mouth once it penetrates the skin
or membranes.
One of the most effective carriers around."

He's
not pleased. "Okay, take him out. Watch the
squirter
—it
might be acid."

Behind
me, in the trees, I think I hear a sound.

I
point the squirt bottle at the onrushing
pair,
squeeze
the trigger in quick bursts. I'm aiming low, just below the chest. They don't
stop to cover their eyes, but they do look down to see if there's damage to
their clothes.

There
isn't.

"See
you later, geek," says the one I've come to think of as Dum. It's the
first thing either of the
Tweedles
have
said to me.

"
Kye
," I say—because it's also the last.

The
sound behind me suddenly crescendos in a squawking cacophony and the flapping
of leathery wings.
Like a heavy hailstorm, Parron pelt the pair, slapping against their body
armor, concentrating on the area I've sprayed.
Grat
pheromone and hemoglobin draws them like bees to honey.

"Jesus,
what the—" their
vibro
-knives whir, arms slash,
slicing a Parron in flight. Blood sprays the
Tweedles
and the other
Parrons
. The creatures go into
a frenzy
, indiscriminately biting at the
Tweedles
and each other. I back off, tossing the squirt-bottle aside.

Rizzo
is backing away also, eyes wide and glued to the scene, but forcing himself
toward the door. Dum and Dee writhe and scream until, mercifully, they're
suddenly still.

The
scent I piggybacked on the DMSO is much fainter on Rizzo. It takes the
predators a little longer to notice him. But they do.

Dawn's
coming and the
Parrons
have finished their work. They
even ate the bottle, once they noticed the faint scent at the nozzle. Hundreds
of them lie dead or dying beneath the trees, bellies bloated with the poisonous
tissue of our alien species.

Duncan
will wonder why the
Parrons
fed on men. It's never
happened before. He may even figure it all out, but I don't think he'll do
anything with the knowledge. He says I'm the sharpest apprentice he's ever had,
though I'm hesitant to tell him that the best lessons I've learned have been
from my environment.

Overhead,
the star-strewn sky is completely clear. Maybe the rainy season is over.