'Just what is that fat jerk doing here, anyway?' Jake wanted to know.
'He was supposed to give us some legitimacy,' Trask answered. 'He's liaison, a go-between, that's all. But he took his job too seriously, discovered the location of our original base camp near Lake Disappointment, which is after all his province, and since then he's insisted on staying aboard. Well, with us is one thing, but against us is another. Now, after seeing far too much of what we're about, he's all too eager to leave. I can't very well stop him, but I really should warn him against doing anything stupid. Now go and get Lardis, will you?'
And Trask and Phillips went off through the night…
The Old Lidesci was in a foldaway chair, dozing by the guttering campfire. But as Jake approached he gave a start and looked up. 'Eh, what is it?'
'Trask wants you,' Jake told him. 'At the helicopter park. Some trouble with Mrs Miller.'
'Mrs? Eh?' Lardis frowned at first, then burst out laughing. 'Oh! Ha~ha~ha!Rut you know, the truth is I've been thinking much the same thing: how that poor excuse for a man reminds me of a chattering old woman? A week on Sunside would sort that one out, I fancy. But no, no… the poor bastard wouldn't last but a day.'
Jake assisted him to his feet and the Old Lidesci stamped his left foot a little. 'Cramp,' he said. 'I'm getting past it. We call it The Crippler, where I'm from. But it's rheum— er, rheuma— er…'
'Rheumatism?' Jake said.
'Damn, right!' said Lardis. 'It's rheumatism here. Ah, but it's a sod in any world.'
And with the old man leaning a little on Jake's arm, they made for the road and the helicopter park…
CHAPTER EIGHT Miller, And The Trouble With Dreams
In the helicopter park, voices were raised in anger. One was a rasp: Ben Trask's. And the other was high- pitched, shrill, and threatening. In short, blustering; but the mind behind it held threatening knowledge, certainly.
'Try to see sense, man!' Trask was growling, as Jake and Lardis approached the well-lit area where a handful of Branch agents and chopper ground staff stood in a clearing and watched the show.
'Sense? Sense?' Miller was in one of the two helicopters, belted into a passenger seat near the section of aluminium frame that formed both cabin wall-panelling and steps. At present the steps were 'down' and Miller was seated opposite the open door, from where he looked down on Trask outside the aircraft. 'What? Are you telling me my attitude is nonsensical? But I know what I saw tonight, and it wasn't of this Earth. It was intelligent, and alien… oh, and it was ugly, yes. But I also saw the devastating force that your thugs used against it, which was even more inhuman! So who the hell are you, Mr Trask? Some kind of monster yourself? You and your people: you're not the military, not even Australian. It's obvious to me that you've duped somebody somewhere. As for those poor aliens: whoever they are and wherever they're from, they deserved a lot better welcome than you gave them. This is Earth Year — dedicated to the ecological survival of the planet — and you might well have condemned our world to interplanetary isolation. Worse, we may even find ourselves at war.''
The precog lan Goodly stepped out of the shadows and spoke to Jake and Lardis. 'This idiot obviously has some kind of bee in his bonnet. 'The flying saucers have landed,' and all that rot. He seems to think we've been murdering aliens — visitors from another world, that is — out of hand!'
'Haven't we?' Jake looked at him.
'No/ Goodly answered. 'We killed invaders. Visitors don't arrive uninvited, stay, and kill off or enslave the occupiers. But invaders frequently do… and the Wamphyri always do! Not knowing everything, Miller sees our action tonight as an unprovoked assault, a pre-emptive strike, against 'beings' whose intentions hadn't been fully determined. We, on the other hand — knowing the entire story, having been here, or there, before — see it differently. We see tonight's action for what it really was: the only cure for a nightmarish plague that submits to no other antidote.' And meanwhile:
'Miller, come down out of there/ Trask was insistent. 'The airplane you're sitting in has been serviced and fuelled for an important mission. You're cutting into a tight schedule/
'That's Mr Miller to you!' the other snapped. 'And I'm delighted to be disrupting your vile schedule! What, am I preventing another massacre like the one you organized tonight? Good! My God! How many of these poor people have landed, then?'
'You see?' Goodly muttered. 'They're 'poor people' now. I mean… is Miller unbalanced or what? He had a ringside seat for tonight's show, yet he's still not convinced!'
Lardis had seen and heard more than enough. Freeing himself from Jake's helping hand, he moved up alongside Trask and, in a lowered tone, said, 'Why don't you just drag his arse out of there?'
'I was trying to be diplomatic/ Trask answered under his breath.
'It didn't work/ said Lardis.
Trask nodded and said, 'That's why I sent for you.' Then, turning away, he said, 'Get him out of there. And bring him to the big Ops truck. Maybe his own authorities can convince him, for I certainly can't. Jake, help Lardis after he's got Miller down from there.'
'Why don't I just do it for him?' Jake was surprised. 'The old boy, well… he's old.'
Trask agreed. 'He's full of old ways, too. So don't worry, he'll manage okay, and probably scare Miller half to death into the bargain. Serve the bastard right!' And without another word he went on his way, and lan Goodly went with him.
Meanwhile Lardis had climbed the steps, leaned inside the chopper's open door, and was showing Miller his machete. 'Sharp as a razor/ he said. 'You could shave with this — except you'd get tired holding it up to your face. See these notches in the grip? Twenty-seven of 'em. Twenty-seven exec— er, excecu— er, killings, yes. And all of them were these 'people' you seem so fond of. D'you know why I killed 'em?'
'Bloodthirsty old lunatic!' Miller hissed. 'Well, I don't know where you come from — what reservation? — but where I'm from we're educated and civilized. Don't try to threaten me. I don't give a.fuck for your big knife!' Which was more bluster, for anyone in his right mind would certainly give a fuck about Lardis's machete. And Miller's language was slipping, too.
In any case it was as if Lardis hadn't even heard him. 'I killed 'em 'cause they eat fat little girls like you/ he said. 'Cause they're a contain— er, a contamin— er..
'Contamination/ said Jake from the foot of the steps.
'Damn right!' Lardis nodded. He put the point of his machete up to Miller's neck inside the nylon seat belt, and continued, 'Now Ben Trask wants you to come down out of there. He was asking you nicely, because he believes in being diplomatic. But me, I don't.'
Miller tried to cringe away from the glittering blade, but his no in seat belt trapped him in position. 'Are you… do you dare to threaten me?' he gasped.
'Dare to threaten you?' said Lardis, his dark eyes narrowing to slits. 'Hell, no, 'Mr' Miller! This isn't a threat but a promise. If you don't move your arse out of there, I'm going to cut your fucking ears off!' And he made a sudden slicing motion with his machete.
Miller screamed aloud, and for a moment Jake thought that Lardis really had cut him. But no, he'd sliced upwards and outwards, and his fine-honed blade had passed with scarcely a hiss through Miller's seat belt above the shoulder. Miller had been straining away from the Old Lidesci; freed from the safety harness, he jerked from his seat in that direction and fell to his hands and knees on the helicopter's floor. Lardis stepped over him, and while the little fat man was still off-balance grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and the seat of his pants to send him bouncing down the steps. It didn't take too much effort.
Miller's blubber saved him from any real hurt, but still he yelped as he hit the dirt; yelped yet again as Jake hoisted him to his feet — only to put him in an arm lock. 'Mr Trask is waiting for you/ Jake told the babbling fat man, as he frogmarched him in the direction of the Operations truck…
In Ops, Trask stood inside the oval control desk, speaking earnestly into a telephone. 'Yes, I appreciate the lateness of the hour… I understand perfectly, sir, and I agree entirely. But in this case I'm sure that only the highest authority will suffice… You may believe me when I tell you that this really is as important as your Minister for
