THE GRUB-TENDERS had finished their frantic tending of their instinctively most precious charges. Now they began cleaning. The inputs to the group-mind from myriad Magh' in a scorpiary were just too numerous to have each individual directed specifically and individually all the time. Much of what the individual Magh' did was simply instinctive, within the broad parameters of the group-mind orders. The stack closest to the old entryway had an untidy wire to the old doorway. There was considerable alien junk lying there. There was also a mess of sticky diesel and fertilizer and a rat-trap and a bangstick-cartridge trigger.
The grub-tender pulled the wire.
6:28 A.M.
Henry M'Batha's vigil finally had its reward. In another ten minutes the sun's heat would have masked the infrared explosion signature coming from the brood-chamber. He was dialing before the heat had dissipated.
"Van Klomp." The voice was very tense.
"Major! Another explosion! Right from the middle, sir! Right from the MIDDLE!"
There was silence. Then a big exhalation boomed down the line. "Boykie. That's the best news I've had for hours. We'll get airborne, just in case. I've given you the contact frequencies. Stay on it. You got me? Stay on it! And call that corporal of Major Fitzhugh's."
But there was no reply from Corporal Simms. Someone just clicked the beeper off. And the office wasn't answering either.
"We're looking for Major Conrad Fitzhugh," said the lieutenant to Corporal Simms. His voice had that I am going to get answers or you are going to get hurt quality to it. Behind him, the squad of MPs hefted their billy clubs.
Simms reached into his pocket and clicked the insistent beeper off. "The major hasn't been in this morning," he said truthfully. "But there is an envelope here, addressed to the military police."
The MP lieutenant tore it open. Johnny didn't get to see the letter. But he did see the rat-dropping Ariel had contributed.
Fitz's bangstick rested against the force field. An assegai balanced against a twinkle in the air.
This far from the brood-chamber, it was little more than a dull thump. However, it was plain that the Magh'mmm had felt a great deal more. "Aliens! You said the grub-devourers were dead! You lied to us. You lied!" The hundred or so Magh'mmm chorused.
"I said they lied all the time," snapped the Korozhet.
"Kill them," commanded the group-mind.
"No. No!" shouted the Korozhet. "Spare the one with long head-filaments—she is valuable to me."
The Magh'mmm were past listening. "No. Kill—"
The galago shrieked in his ear-piercing fashion and jumped for the projector platform, trying to pull the mine from his waistcoat pocket as he leaped. He succeeded, but then he had the mine in his hands, and nothing to grab the platform with. He hit the projector with a whuff of breath that even the rats and bats heard. The mine skittered out of his hands and lay half-on and half-off the platform.
The galago stood up, taking the mine trigger bar from the other pocket . . . and slipped. He caught the edge of the platform and clung there by one hand, the trigger bar in the other.
"AIEEE!" His bellow carried a volume which nearly deafened the sensitive-eared rats and bats above. "I die gloriously!"
He pressed the trigger on the bar. Nothing happened. Except . . . one of the scorps who had been guarding Chip and Ginny advanced on him.
The galago shook the trigger bar furiously. "She is not working!"
"BOTH triggers—you idiot!" shouted the bats.
The galago tried and nearly fell in its fumbling haste. "I cannot!" he shrieked.
The Magh' scorp claw snapped at the tiny creature. Fluff squeaked in terror and flung the trigger bar at the scorp as he leaped in a twenty-five foot bound to Ginny's shoulder.
The scorp caught the trigger bar with contemptuous ease in one outstretched claw. The bar was taken neatly lengthways, held by the ends. The scorp displayed its strength. The claw closed slowly to crush and splinter the bar.
If only it hadn't depressed the triggers when it did that.
"GO!" shouted Bronstein, before the debris had even fallen.
The three-foot-high squat ball of blue fluff which called itself a "Jampad" had chosen a hell of a time to arrive. It wasted no time getting into the spirit of things, though. Those tentacles wielded a mean four-pound hammer.
Bronstein and Eamon missed the Jampad by inches as it took out its guard. They left the fray to O'Niel, the rats, and Chip and Ginny. Eamon took the bridge, and a slash through his wing membrane, in the process of sending a stream of frantic Maggot reinforcements hurtling into the pit. Bronstein dragged him back hastily through the entry where she'd put her mines, as the big bat couldn't fly.
Chip had dealt with the other scorp guard. The explosion which had blown away the beam projector had also shredded the first one. Ginny waded in to combat with a piece of reinforcing rod. The Magh' body-tenders, poodle-sized and with tiny little claws, flung themselves into an attack they were never designed for. Now Ginny, with her blunt weapon and more enthusiasm than skill, was the quicker Magh' killer than master craftsman Chip.
The rats had come hurtling down the two abseil ropes. While they'd been rappelling down, the bats had flung Molotovs at the Magh'mmm. In the burning chaos, only sixty or so Magh'mmm and a few of their tiny body-tenders remained alive.
And the Korozhet. The body-tenders had died like flies trying to help the burning Magh'mmm. They simply weren't big enough to make any headway against Chip and Ginny and their rat and bat allies.
O'Niel, a broken bottle in foot, shouted from on high. "Well, me foine boyos! We outnumber them one to five! Let's slaughter the salpeens, begorra!"
The rats found nothing wrong with O'Niel's mathematics. The pure ones, the Magh' caste of castes, the group-mind which ruled with an absolute and total power over several million of their own kind . . . were pitifully soft. And as they were repositories for all the genomes of the variants of Magh', they were of no warrior type. They did have stingers and claws, just as they had digging palps—but small and ineffectual ones. To boot, they were bloated virtually to the point of immobility. It was like kindergarten children against battle-hardened warriors. The Magh'mmm were plainly terrified, and had no idea how to fight.
But then, there was the Korozhet. The Korozhet and her equalizer. If a laser beam intersects a slowshield there will be a cataclysmic thermonuclear reaction, the Korozhet had told the Military Procurement Council. That, of course, had been another lie. Maybe the council should have checked it, but the colony didn't have many portable lasers anyway, and did not have the technology to make them.
The Korozhet's slaves built FTL for them. They were also capable of making laser pistols.
The Expediter slid her testa-plate aside and drew out the laser pistol. First she would kill that faulty slave. Virginia was a danger to the Overphyle. Firstly, she was a rebel slave who had somehow completely overcome the mental conditioning of the soft-cyber. And, secondly, she was a person of potential influence and financial power in her society. The others were mere cogs. Lowly soldiers. The human military commanders had shown a remarkable stupidity in not learning from their front-line troops. The rest of these were of lesser importance. The Expediter did not just decide to kill her first from mere malice. The hated Jampad would get the next shot. At all costs it must be silenced. She raised the pistol with careful spines.
The others were moving in on the Magh'mmm, intent on the slaughter, when Chip caught sight of the Korozhet spining forward. Whatever that device of rods and odd metal was, it said gun to Chip. He dived at Ginny, knocking her down and sending Fluff flying, somersaulting butt over teakettle. The bolt seared through Chip's shoulder.
"Help!" shrieked Ginny.
The rats and bats turned to aid her . . .
And could not.
The Expediter spined forward, focusing spine-tip ocelli on the prey. She was quite safe. The human soldier was down. The others all had soft-cyber implants. The soft-cyber slaves could not possibly override the most basic programming logic in their implants: You will not attack a Korozhet.
The Expediter took careful aim at Virginia.
And a tiny bellowing creature leapt at the gun.
"GALAGO DE LA MANCHA!"
Fluff could not attack the Korozhet. Not even though he wanted to, to the absolute core of his small being. Not even if it was going to kill Virginia. But the gun was a different matter. And arboreal primates are strong. Those tiny almost human hands have a very, very powerful grip.
The Expediter threshed and struggled in real fear, trying to pull the gun free. How could the slave? How could it! The laser pistol fired in a continuous stream of light . . . far above its target. Striking, without provocation, the wall. A wall laced with thick cables.
The fourth of July on Old Earth had never produced such fireworks. Fragments of Magh' adobe shrapnel splattered around the chamber. Everyone, even the surviving Magh'mmm, dived for cover.
Everyone but the Korozhet. She had always feared Chip's four-pound hammer. She should have made sure he still had it. The Jampad had no Korozhet conditioning either. The Jampad flung the hammer with such force that it shattered the Korozhet's testa explosively. Fragments of hard shell, red spines, and sticky greenish ichor puddled onto the floor.