To the Galactic Rim: The John Grimes Saga (31 page)

“Hadn’t we better return to the Castle?” asked Grimes.

“If you’re afraid, yes.”

“I am,” he said frankly. “And shouldn’t we ride in the miniwagon?”

“No. We can walk as fast and run, if we must, faster.”

“Your Highness,” screeched the watchbird. “It approaches. We go to intercept.”

And then a metallic flash in the almost still air and it was gone. Marlene shrugged, whistled the dogs and then, when they came bounding up, told Grimes, “All right. We beat a retreat. But we’d better be ready to fight a rearguard action.”

Chapter 25

They walked back
toward the castle in silence, the miniwagon trundling along to their right, the setters to heel. Somehow, it seemed to Grimes, there was a sudden chill in the air, although the climbing sun still shone brightly, although there was only the gentlest of breezes.
And the dogs,
he thought,
feel something too.
He looked back at the two animals. They were padding along in a cowed manner, their tails drooping.

Marlene said suddenly, angrily, “This is absurd!”

“How so?” asked Grimes.

“Running from a watchbird. They are designed to protect us, not to attack us.”

“But you heard what
your
watchbird said. ‘It is liable to kill any human being on sight’.”

“Any
offplanet human being it must have meant. Such as you.” She shrugged. “Well, you are my guest, after all. I am responsible for you.”

“I’ve managed to look after myself, so far.”

“Thank you. A truly gracious guest.”

“And I want to look after you,” he said.

She looked full at him then. Momentarily, the harsh lines of her face softened and then she smiled. “I believe that you mean that, John. In any case, some of that incredible luck of yours might rub off on me . . .” She paused, then went on. “Yes, you are lucky. But how will it end? You recall that story I told you about our family superstition, the consequences that always ensued if something is tried, stubbornly, for a fourth time? Well, I was not quite truthful. The
third
attempt is the crucial one.”

“It’s that way with me and with most people.”

“Is it? Anyhow, three times I tried to bring about your accidental death and failed. I’m glad I failed. But something is bound to happen to me now. With that third failure some cataclysmic sequence of events was set in motion.”

“Don’t be so bloody cheerful.”

“This is a morbid conversation, isn’t it? As for what’s happening now, or what’s liable to happen, I have no doubt that my own two watchbirds will be able to deal with the rogue.”

Grimes wished that he could share her confidence. After all, he had been instrumental in destroying two of the things. On the other hand, there had been a certain disparity in size and weight, two relatively flimsy, miniature flying machines against a re-entry vehicle.

One of the dogs whined. Grimes stopped, looked back and down. The animals had turned, around, had stiffened in the classic pointing posture. He stared in the direction toward which they were staring, at first saw nothing. And then he could make out three distant specks in the clear sky, three dots apparently in frantic orbital motion about each other.

“Take these,” said Marlene. She had got two pairs of binoculars from somewhere in the miniwagon, gave Grimes one of them. He slung his gun, lifted the high-powered glasses to his eyes. A mere touch of his finger sufficed to focus them.

It was like something from one of the History of Warfare films that the cadets had been shown at the Academy. It reminded him of an aerial dogfight over the battlefields of Flanders in the Kaiser’s War. There was the rogue, larger than its assailants, brilliantly enameled in orange and scarlet. There were Marlene’s two watchbirds, metallically glittering in the sunlight. They were diving and feinting, soaring up and away, diving again. All that was missing was the rattle of machine-gun fire. Contemptuously, the experimental model bore on, ignoring its smaller adversaries. And then one of them, coming up from below while its companion drove in from above, struck the rogue at the juncture of starboard wing with body, oversetting it. It fell out of control, almost to the ground, and then with a frantic fluttering of gaudy pinions somehow made a recovery. There was a burst of bright flame at its tail, a puff of smoke. It went up, almost vertically, like a rocket.

It was a rocket, a rocket with a brain and with the instincts of a bird of prey . . . and with the armament, miniaturized but still deadly, of a minor warship.

The two watchbirds, which had gained altitude, plunged to meet it. From the nose of the rogue came an almost invisible flicker, and the nearer of the airborne guardians burst at once into flames, exploded in blinding blue fire. The other one was hit, too, but only part of its tail was shorn away. It dived, racing its burning companion to the surface, recovered and came up again. The rogue spread its wings and turned in the air to meet the attack.

The watchbird climbed slowly, slowly, unsteadily. It must have been damaged more than superficially by the slashing blade of radiation that had almost missed it. But still it climbed, and the rogue just hung there, waiting, swinging about its short axes, deliberately sighting.

There was another flicker from the vicinity of its beak, and its crippled antagonist was no more (and no less) than a bundle of coruscating, smoking wreckage drifting groundwards.

“Laser . . .” whispered Grimes. “The bloody thing’s got laser!”

“We must run!” For the first time there was fear in Marlene’s voice, the fear of one who has seen her impregnable defenses fall before superior, overwhelming fire power. Grimes knew how she must feel. He had felt the same way himself, as everybody has felt when faced with the failure of foolproof,
everything
proof mechanisms. “We must run!”

“Where to? That thing’ll pick us off faster than you picked off the fire pheasants.” He grabbed her arm before she could stumble away in panic flight. “Cover!” he shouted. “That’s the answer.”

“The miniwagon!” So she was thinking again.

“No.” He could visualize the thing’s machinery exploding as the mechanism of the watchbirds had exploded. He pulled her to one of the outcroppings of rock, about five feet high. It wasn’t very good but it was better than nothing. He and the girl dropped behind it as the rogue screamed over, using its rocket drive, firing its laser gun. There was an explosion of smoke and dust and splinters from the top of the boulder.

“Quick!” cried Grimes. “Before it can turn!” He got to his feet, yanked the girl to hers, dragged her around to the other side of the outcropping. He unslung his gun. His pistol would not have been a better weapon, it didn’t have the range or the spread. There was always the chance that the shotgun pellets would find some vital spot. It was a slim one, he knew, but . . .

The rogue seemed to be having trouble in turning. It came round at last, lined up for the natural fortification (such as it was). It drove in, its laser beam scoring a smoldering furrow in the turf. Unless it lifted its sights, Grimes knew that he was safe until the last moment, or he
hoped
that he was safe. He stood his ground.

Now!

A left and a right, the noise of the explosions deafening and he dropped to the ground, his ears still ringing, but he was able to hear the sharp
crack
of riven rock, felt a gust of heat.

He scrambled to his feet. This time he did not have to help the girl up. Together they ran around the clump of weatherworn boulders. Grimes half-tripped over something soft, which yelped. The dogs were still with them.

He stood there, reloading.

From the ground Marlene said, “You hit it, John.”

“Yes. I hit it. Like hitting a dreadnaught with a peashooter. Keep down. Here comes the bastard again!”

It seemed to be slower this time and erratic in its flight. The wavering laser beam started a flaring, crackling fire in the gorse. But it straightened up toward the finish of its run, came in fast. Grimes let fly with both barrels at once and dropped hastily. The Princess snatched the smouldering cap off his head.

“John! John! Are you . . .?”

“I’m all right. My brains are no more addled than usual. Come on!”

Like a game of musical chairs,
he thought.
And, somebody has to be the loser . . .

This last time it came in slowly, using wings and not reaction drive. And its laser seemed to be out of action. It came in slowly, a mechanical bird of prey, climbing, finally hanging directly above the man and the girl and the two cringing dogs, high, but not too high to be a good target.

As we,
thought Grimes,
are good targets for its bombs, if it carries any.

Standing, he could not bring his gun to bear, so lay supine, the weapon aimed directly upwards. The air in the shallow hollow was blue with acrid smoke and the turf was littered with empty shells as Grimes fired again and again and again, as the Princess matched him shot for shot. Something hot stung his cheek; it was a pellet from his own gun or from Marlene’s. They must be falling all over this circumscribed area like a metallic hail.

One of the dogs cried out sharply; it must have been hit and hurt by the fall of shot. Yelping, its tail between its legs, it dashed out from the barely adequate shelter of the outcropping. Its companion followed it. Then, screaming, the rogue dived. Grimes scrambled erect somehow, kept the butt of the shotgun to his shoulder, led the thing as it plunged and let it have both barrels.

Perhaps he hit again, perhaps he did not, but it made no difference. The killer bird swooped down upon the leading dog, and its long, straight beak (rapier as well as laser gun) skewered the hapless animal just behind the ribs, hooked it up from the ground, shrieking, and then with a peculiar midair twisting motion tossed it up and away. The body, its legs still running in nothingness, fell against a rock with an audible
crunch,
and then was still.

The other setter howled dismally, kept on running, but it could never be as fast as the rogue. It almost made the protection of a clump of gorse, and then the murderous machine was on it. This time it did not use its blood-dripping beak. It banked, like an old-fashioned aircraft, and the leading edge of one stiff wing slashed the animal across the hindquarters. Howling still, it tried to drag itself along with its forelegs.

Marlene was saying something. “I must go, John. I must put him out of his misery.”

He caught her arm. “No. Don’t be a fool.”

She shook him off. “I
must.
Cover me.”

She was running out over the uneven turf, slipping and staggering. Grimes dropped his shotgun, pulled the pistol from his pocket, started after her. The rogue reached her before he did. She screamed as the deadly beak grazed her shoulder, tearing a ragged square of fabric out of her shirt; she fell to her hands and knees. But she was up again, still staggering toward her dying dog, then knocked sprawling by buffeting metal wings. Again there was the thrust of the rapier beak, and this time most of the back of her upper garment was carried away on the point of it.

I
must fire,
thought Grimes,
before it gets too close to her. In case it blows up.
The rattle of the Minetti set on full automatic, was startlingly loud, and the butt vibrated in the moist palm of his hand. The rogue, obligingly, was making a good target of itself (it
must
have been damaged by all the shotgun fire) slowly turning broadside on before coming in for another attack.

Grimes ejected the empty clip, put in a full one. He was firing more
slowly and carefully now, in short bursts. Then, anticlimactically, the rogue fluttered slowly to the ground. There was no explosion, only a thin trickle of blue smoke. He watched it for a second, then hurried to Marlene. She was sitting up now, only a few shreds of ruined shirt clinging to her torso. There was a trickle of blood from her right shoulder.

She waved him away, pointing. “Bruno. First you must . . . do what is necessary for him . . .”

He did it. A single shot from the Minetti sufficed. Then he walked slowly back to her, fell on his knees beside her.

“Marlene! You’re hurt . . .”

“Only a scratch. But for you I . . . I could have been killed.”

And when you’re a near-immortal,
he thought,
death can be important.
But,
for the first time perhaps, he could see her point of view, could feel with her and for her. Suddenly there was a warmth between them, a warmth that, until now, had been lacking. It could be that it was shared fear that brought them together, shared peril. It could be that, at last, there was the admission of a common humanity.

But her arms were about him and her face, grimy and tear-stained was lifted to his, and his arms were about her, and her mouth on his was soft and warm and moist, and suddenly all barriers were down, scattered like the clothing that littered the turf around them, and the sun was warm on their naked bodies, although never as warm as the heat of their own mutual generating . . .

Almost, Grimes did not hear the sharp
plop.

Almost he did not hear it, but he felt the metal strands writhing about his bare skin, biting into his limbs, binding himself and Marlene together in a ghastly parody, an obscene exhibition of physical love.

Into his limited range of vision, still further obscured by the tangle of the girl’s blonde hair, stepped de Messigny. In his hand he held one of the bell-mouthed net-throwing pistols.

“A pretty picture!” he sneered. “A very pretty picture.” In spite of the deliberate coldness of his voice, it was obvious that he was struggling to contain his fury. “As for you, Marlene, you slut! An affair with one of us I could have tolerated, but for you to give yourself to a lowbred outworlder!”

Her voice, in reply, was muffled. Grimes could feel her lips moving against his face. “I’m not property, Henri. I’m not
your
property.”