Manhattan in Reverse

Paula set off over the empty undulating land towards the long band of forest which smothered the foothills to the southeast. Rising up behind them were the Kajara Mountains, their snow-covered peaks gleaming brightly under the hot violet sunlight. Something in the local grass-equivalent oozed out a scent of musky cinnamon, which made the humid air even more oppressive. Outside the Land Rover’s air conditioning, she was sweating in minutes.

The Gorjon family’s homestead was her first point of call. It had been attacked two days ago, an act which decided it for most of the remaining settlers, who had headed back to Lydian to shout at Charan. If she could find any clue as to what was happening, it would be there.

She reached it after forty minutes riding. The attack method was interesting. Examining the ground outside the depressingly standard bungalow she decided it had been completely surrounded, every curly blade of grass- equivalent was trampled and mashed into the soil by three-clawed hoofs — a match for Onid feet. Stones had been dug out and flung at the building. All the windows were smashed, the heat-reflective pale silver coating of the walls was shredded, with the tough composite itself scarred and stressed from thousands of impacts. The ground around the building was piled high with loose stones and clods. Peering through the broken glass she saw the floor inside was also littered with stones.

It was all the Onid had, she realized, their one method of attack. The xenobiology team report mentioned their lack of decent teeth and the relative strength of their forelimbs — primarily used for clawing at the soil so they could reach their base food, the marak root.

Two hundred of them flinging stones at the same time would be frightening enough for humans caught at the centre, even if they’d been equipped with a decent weapon to shoot back. And all Farndale allowed its homesteaders was a weak maser to kill off vermin; the last thing they wanted was any kind of range war out here.

Paula circled the battered bungalow. There were no Onid corpses, and a vermin maser wasn’t a difficult weapon, the beam would have caught a few of them, she was sure. The survivors must have dragged the dead herd members away for burial.

But why? She couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary about the homestead. There was nothing here to antagonize anyone. She mounted up again and rode Hurdy over to the patch of ground which a tractorbot had been ploughing. Like the bungalow, the tractorbot had been victim to a huge barrage of stones. Stones had wedged into the wheels and axles where they’d been ground up and jammed various mechanisms until the safety limiters had cut in. Paula walked away from the forlorn machine until she was in a fresh patch of ploughed land. The tractorbot hadn’t ripped up any marak roots. Even with retinal inserts on high resolution, and her e-butler running visual pattern recognition programs, she couldn’t spot the long grey-speckled leaves of that particular plant anywhere.

So it’s not about food. That just left territory. Staring out across the vast rumpled land she couldn’t quite credit a non-sentient working out that this was an invasion. Whereas a proto- sentient might figure something was wrong. But then how come this is the only trouble spot? No other herds on this continent have reacted like this. It has to be something specific to this area.

She rode Hurdy round in a wide circle until she found the herd’s tracks. They led away towards the sprawl of forest dominating the foothills, which were at least half a day’s ride away. Hurdy started off down the path of battered grass, with Paula keeping an eye on the darkening clouds now twisting above the southern horizon.

After a couple of hours, the clouds were thick in the sky, with the front of the storm now visible as it slid in from the south. Paula had already got an oiled leather riding coat out of its roll at the back of the saddle, ready for the deluge. Then her e-butler received a weak emergency signal.

‘From where?’ she asked.

‘The Aleat homestead,’ her e-butler replied. A map slid up into her virtual vision. She was three and a half miles away.

‘Nature of the emergency?’ As if I don’t know, Paula thought excitedly.

‘Unknown. It is a high-power beacon emission. Standard issue to all homesteads.’

‘Come on girl,’ she told Hurdy. The horse began to pick up speed, galloping across the dark grass- equivalent.

She was still several hundred metres away when she heard the sound. The Onid were warbling away as loud as they could in a weird tenor mewling, a din which was frightening in its intensity. They might not have had a language, but the cries expressed intent with shocking clarity. They were angry. Very angry.

Hurdy cleared the last ridge. Ahead of Paula, what looked like a small dense typhoon of dark particles swirled through the air above the homestead. The Onid herd was circling round and round, moving at a startlingly fast run for a creature with so many limbs. And Charan had seriously underestimated their numbers; there must have been close to five hundred of them. As they ran they bobbed down in a smooth motion, high forelimbs ripping something from the ground every time, a stone or chunk of tough dried earth, and then flung it at the homestead as hard as they could.

‘Ho crap,’ Paula grunted. Hurdy had come to a stop, allowing her to scrabble round and extract the maser carbine from its saddle holster. Even now she was reluctant to shoot.

Then a human wail pierced the air, carrying above the Onid’s angry racket. Paula knew it was female, and probably quite a young girl. Her OCtattoo sensors helped her work out the direction.

The homestead’s tractorbot. Standing alone two hundred metres from the bungalow where it had stalled. Over twenty Onid were already circling it. Stones were tumbling down on the curving red bodywork. And Paula caught sight of the petrified girl, squeezing herself into the small gap between the rear wheel and the power casing.

Her OCtattoos were also telling her someone was firing maser shots out of the bungalow’s broken front door. Peripheral vision caught a couple of Onid falling.

‘Damnit,’ she yelled. She didn’t want to fire on the Onid around the tractorbot, because if they had anything like the herd mentality of terrestrial animals they’d probably charge her, which would leave her no choice. She did have enough firepower, but…

Then another horse was racing in towards the homestead from the opposite direction to Paula. Her OCtattoos tracked a couple of small objects streaking away from it, arching through the sky towards the herd. Then she could hear nothing. The soundblast which erupted was deafening. She had to jam her hands over her ears. No choice.

Hurdy reared up in fright. Paula lost the carbine in a desperate attempt to hang on. With her hands off her ears, the sound was like a lance hammering against her brain. The mare began to canter away from the homestead. Paula clung to Hurdy’s neck with one arm, trying to turn the mare’s head with the reins wrapped tight round her free hand.

She caught snatched views of the Onid herd. They’d broken from their circular stampede to stream away from the bungalow. In less than a minute they’d all gone, racing away in panic from the noise.

The vicious screaming cut off. It was like an implosion, sucking all sound from the plains. Paula couldn’t hear a thing. She tried to soothe the frightened mare as best she could. Eventually Hurdy had stilled enough to allow a reasonable dismount. Paula still couldn’t coax her closer to the homestead. She tethered her to the stem of a bush on the ridge, retrieved the carbine, and hurried off down the slope towards the bashed-up bungalow.

Away on the far side of the tractorbot Paula could see the other horse rider chasing after the fleeing herd. Bad idea, she thought and hesitated on her downward charge. She still couldn’t hear anything other than a nasty sharp buzzing in both ears. That meant the other rider wouldn’t hear any shout to stop. Retinal inserts zoomed in for a close-up, seeing the figure on horseback raise a small fat gun. OCtattoo sensors tracked the projectile he fired. It was a lot larger than a normal bullet, and considerably slower. It hit one of the Onid, who didn’t even seem to notice the impact.

The rider reined his horse in, and watched the retreating herd as he slotted the strange gun back into a holster. A man and a woman came sprinting out of the bungalow, heading straight for the tractorbot. The little girl sagged out of the narrow shelter and collapsed onto the ground. From what Paula could make out, she was about eight, and sobbing helplessly.

By the time she joined them, the girl was hugging her parents with wild strength. They were clutching her back, arms tight around her as all three of them wept.

‘Are you okay?’ Paula yelled at the Aleats. She could barely hear herself through the persistent buzzing in her ears.