Warhorse (10 page)

“If the Tampies let them shoot,” Ferrol growled.

“That's enough,” Roman said, punching for a tactical display. The landscape below appeared, with the lander and each of the eight humans and two Tampies marked with colored crosses. Garin and the other three guards, he saw, had deployed themselves in a rough semicircle facing the point where the three approaching animals would emerge from the woods. Well-trained, armed with probably the deadliest small arms in the Cordonale's arsenal, Roman had little doubt that they could cut the approaching animals to ribbons if it became necessary.

Which meant the big question would be whether it
was
necessary…and whether the Tampies would see it the same way he did.

“Ells, the analysis table's instruments are going crazy,” Peyton spoke up. “I think it's picking up the animals' electric fields.”

“Can't be,” Sanderson said, his voice frowning. “Those instruments are short-range—they're not designed to scan anywhere but the table.”

“
I
know that,” Peyton snapped. “So argue with the instruments, not me.”

“Perhaps,” Llos-tlaa suggested, “Gga-rii can confirm this with his sensor equipment.”

“Don't bother me, Tampy,” Garin bit out, and in his camera view Roman could see the tip of the other's needle gun. “I've got more important things to worry about at the moment.”

“Do it, Garin,” Roman ordered. “If those animals are radiating strongly enough to be picked up by the analysis table, it's something worth knowing.”

For a second the muzzle remained where it was. Then, abruptly, it dropped from view. “Yes, Captain,” Garin said, the words coming through obviously clenched teeth. “Checking now…no, there's nothing there. Must be a malfunction in the table.”

“It is
not
a malfunction,” Peyton insisted. “Check again, especially at the high-frequency end—fifty hertz and up. There's not all that much power to it, I don't think. Directional, maybe, or else it's the high ion concentration that lets it penetrate this far.”

She'd barely finished her sentence when there was a sudden crackle of displaced branches from the forest; and even as Garin snapped his needle gun up again the bushes ahead were shoved violently aside and three creatures stepped out onto the plain.

If the small animal that Garin had gunned down earlier had been a rabbit, these new ones were huge dogs. Dogs with hairless, elephantine skin and flat muzzles; with large paws whose curved feline claws were visible even two hundred meters away; with long sharklike mouths full of white teeth.

And even as the landing party froze in silence, the dog in the center took a step forward, paused…and changed.

Slower than the rabbit had, and far more awesome because of that. The chest and flank elongated as first the front legs and then the rear stretched to half-again their original length. The extended legs seemed to thicken, as if new muscle was reforming there, and the belly flattened. The wrinkled skin, stretched over all the expansion, smoothed out, becoming sleek and shimmery. The muzzle remained the same, but the sides of the head swelled outward, in an odd way that reminded Roman of a bird fluffing out its feathers. The whole operation took perhaps ten seconds…and at the end of it the dog had become a wolf.

A wolf the size of a large grizzly bear. Rearing up briefly on its hind legs, it raised its head as if uttering a soundless cry. Then, bringing the front paws back down again, it swung its head around slowly, studying the invaders of its world. Its eyes fell on Peyton and Ttra-mii, still standing beside the analysis table and the dead rabbit awaiting their study. It raised its head again, uttered its soundless cry…And started toward them.

“A
IM FOR ITS LEGS
,” Garin snapped, the muzzle of his needle gun tracking the wolf-creature as it loped forward. “We'll try to cut it down without killing it, if we can.”

“Do not shoot,” Llos-tlaa spoke up.

“Rehfeldt, switch to explosive; backup aim at the head,” Garin continued, ignoring the Tampy's protest. “Boschelli, Wehrmann—oh,
hell
,” he interrupted himself as the two remaining dog-creatures started into wolf transformations of their own.

“Gga-rii—” Llos-tlaa tried again.

“Shut
up
,” Garin snarled. “That tears it—explosive needles, full-auto; legs first, then heads. On my mark—”

“Do not shoot!”

Roman jerked in his chair, swearing under his breath, his ears ringing with the sheer intensity of emotion in the Tampy scream. Not grief and frustration this time, but desperate urgency and an almost overwhelming sense of righteous anger. “Hold your fire, Garin,” he ordered when he'd found his voice again. The wolf-creatures had covered perhaps a quarter of the distance to Peyton and Ttra-mii now, and were coming on at the same casual lope, completely oblivious to both the Tampy scream and the lethal armament pointed their direction. “Llos-tlaa, why shouldn't they shoot?”

“ 'Cause the scitte-head bastards would rather roll over and die than bruise any of their precious woodland chummies,” Garin bit out before the Tampy could answer.

“Llos-tlaa?—
answer
me.”

“There is no need for killing, Rro-maa,” Llos-tlaa said, his voice pitched normally but trembling right on the edge of another scream. “Ppey-taa and Ttra-mii must move away from the table, but then the creatures will not attack.”

“Bull scitte,” Garin said. “Guards, on three: one—”

“I said
hold your fire
!” Roman snapped. “Peyton, Ttra-mii—do as Llos-tlaa said. Move away from the table; try not to make any sudden motions.”

“Captain, they're skating on damn thin ice down there,” Ferrol put in, his voice taut. “Even explosive needles'll have only so much stopping power against something that size—if they get within five meters they're going to do damage no matter how fast they're killed.”

“More so if they decide to charge,” Kennedy agreed. “Recommend the guards take out the nearest one immediately, try to scare the other two away.”

Roman squeezed thumb and forefinger together. The wolf-creatures were less than sixty meters away now. “Llos-tlaa, why don't you think the creatures will attack?”

The wolf-creatures covered an additional five meters before the Tampy spoke. “There is no sense of the predator in them,” he said, and Roman had the distinct impression he was groping for words. “There is none of the hunting posture to them.”

Or in other words, Llos-tlaa didn't know why he thought what he did. Great. “Sanderson? Opinion?” Roman called.

“They went through a fight/flight transformation, didn't they?” the other said tautly. “Do they
look
like they're running away from anything?”

No, they didn't, Roman had to admit. On the other hand, Tampies were legendary for never speculating in new situations…which implied that Llos-tlaa somehow knew what he was talking about, even if he couldn't put it into words.

But if he really
was
merely reacting to the crass thought of killing something…

Thirty meters away…and he could put off the decision no longer. “Garin, proximity lock on the lead creature's head,” he instructed. “Set for eight meters; explosive needles. Rehfeldt, Boschelli—same orders on the other two.”

“Eight meters is cutting things pretty damn fine, Captain,” Garin grunted.

“It'll have to do,” Roman told him.

“Rro-maa—”

“Quiet, Llos-tlaa.”

“Rro-maa, it is not necessary,” the Tampy persisted. “They are not interested in us.”

“Then who the hell
are
they interested in?” Garin snarled.

Llos-tlaa's hand appeared on his camera view, pointing. “They seek the analysis table.”

“They—
what
?”

And on the tactical display, the lead wolf-creature came to a sudden but smooth stop…at the rear of the analysis table.

“It wants the dead rabbit on the table,” Peyton breathed. “That's all.”

“Can't be,” Singh objected. “That's not a carrion-type physique. More like—oh.
Oh
.”

“What?” Roman demanded. “Singh?
What
?”

Singh snorted, gently, under his breath. “We were wrong, Captain,” he said, an undertone of relief and growing amusement in his voice. “The transformation didn't have to be just a fight/flight reaction; there's a third reason for animals to want to look as big and powerful as possible. Namely—well, you can see for yourself. There he goes.”

And even as they watched, the wolf-creature reared up on its hind legs and flopped onto the table, its forelegs straddling the CAT-scanner at the front. Getting an awkward-looking grip with its front paws, it reared its head up again and its entire body started to tremble…

“I'll be scrooned,” Burch said, a touch of awe in his voice. “It's
mating
with the table.”

“All those electrical fields,” Singh said. “Remember, Miki, that you picked up a surge as they started toward you?”

“They were keying on the electronics in the scanners,” she sighed, her voice almost a moan. “They must have thought it was a female. Oh, my poor table.”

And a moment later the analysis table, never designed for such treatment, abruptly gave up the ghost. Its legs collapsed, sending the wolf-creature sprawling to the ground amid a minor fortune in delicate electronic equipment. There was a flicker, almost unseen, as the table's self-contained generator shorted to ground and burned out. “Everyone stay sharp,” Garin ordered. “They could still charge us.”

Roman held his breath…but the worry was for nothing. Even as the wolf-creature scrambled out of the wreckage, his feet stamping last-minute damage into the scattered equipment as he got his balance, he and his companions were already starting the reverse transformation back to their smaller dog-forms. One last time the lead dog-creature swung his head around, again ignoring the humans and Tampies, and then together the three of them turned and loped back the way they'd come.

“Well,
that's
something you don't see every day,” Burch commented, trying too hard to be casual. “You'd think the others would have been mad that they didn't get their turn.”

“Maybe when the table's electric fields went off the animals' sex drive went with it,” Singh offered. He'd been closer to the creatures than Burch had, and his voice had an honest tremor to it. “Or maybe they were just there as friends of the groom.”

“Not funny,” Peyton growled. She was kneeling by the ruined table now, sifting through what was left of the equipment. “Well, that's the end of the animal studies, at least for today.”

“The animal studies and everything else, I think,” Sanderson said. “Dr. Tenzing, I suggest we gather a few plant samples together and then come back up to the ship. No one's going to get much more done down here today.”

“I agree,” Tanzing said. “At the very least, we have to devise a way to either shield our instruments or else distract the local fauna away from them. I'll instruct the lander crew to start their pre-flight checklist. That is,” he added, as if suddenly remembering this wasn't a university expedition with himself in charge, “if that's all right with you, Captain.”

“Perfectly, Dr. Tenzing,” Roman assured him. He had, in fact, already come to the same conclusion. “Lieutenant Kennedy, so instruct the lander crew.”

“Yes, sir,” Kennedy said, and busied herself with her intercom.

“One other thing, Captain,” Tenzing spoke up again. “We're going to need a couple of the
Amity
's electronic engineers to build whatever we come up with to keep the animals away. Can you have someone assigned to us?”

“I'll do better than that,” Roman told him. Barely a full day out of port, it was already becoming clear that the politicians who'd set this whole thing up had assumed that the scientists of
Amity
's survey section would be operating more or less independently of the larger ship community, with their own equipment, living areas, and chain of command. The first two Roman was willing to concede them; the last, he wasn't. “It seems to me, Dr. Tenzing, that we need better communication and coordination between your people and mine. Accordingly, I'm going to assign one of my officers to act as a liaison. Assist you in getting whatever you need from ship's stores or personnel; making sure your work and procedures stay within standard ship safety limits—that sort of thing.”

There was just the briefest pause. “I see,” Tenzing said at last. “I was under the impression that—well, never mind. A liaison would probably be a good idea, at that. You have someone in mind?”

“Yes,” Roman said, unconsciously bracing himself. It was a gamble—indeed, something of a long shot—and he knew there was a good chance he would live to regret it. But he knew, somehow, that he had to make the effort. “I'm assigning Commander Ferrol to the job.”

He looked up to find Ferrol's startled eyes on him. “Sir, with all due respect—”

“The job's yours, Commander,” Roman told him evenly. “I suggest you get to the hangar and prepare to receive the landing party. Make sure their samples are properly sealed, and that they stay that way until they reach the lab.”

Ferrol took a deep breadth. “Acknowledged. Sir.”

“Very good, Commander. Dismissed.”

With a grimace, the other left the bridge, his back very straight.

So that's how it's going to be, is it?
Ferrol thought darkly as he headed aft toward
Amity
's hanger. He puts human lives at risk because the Tampies tell him to— comes within a chip-skin of complete disaster—and when I try to put his priorities straight, I get sent to Coventry. He wanted to stomp, but the ship's slow rotation was already being brought to a halt, robbing him of even that minor satisfaction. Insult piled on top of injury, particularly since the lander wasn't even due for at least another hour. Briefly, he thought about the needle pistol and envelope hidden in his cabin…