stopped there a moment before retreated before his advance and stopped a few meters further on. “Pretty good,” she called back. “You know the one on wheels? He actually ate some stew tonight.”
“Good. I’ve been thinking about him and the threesome on the other side of the hospital.”
“The wounded medic?”
“Yes. What’s left of Trellelak is all female, you know. I’ve been listening to mind sounds and—” Pilgrim’s explanation was delivered in fluent Samnorsk, but it didn’t make much sense to Johanna. Brood kenning had so many concepts without referents in human language that even Pilgrim couldn’t make it clear. The only obvious part was that since Blacky was a male, there was a chance that he and the medic threesome might have pups early enough to bind the group. The rest was talk of “mood resonance” and “meshing weak points with strong'. Pilgrim claimed to be an amateur at brood kenning, but it was interesting the way the docs—and even Woodcarver sometimes—deferred to him. In his travels he had been through a lot. His matchups seemed to “take” more often than anybody’s. She waved him to silence. “Okay. We’ll try it soon as I’ve fed everybody.”
Pilgrim cocked a head or two at the nearby hospital plots. “Something strange is going on. Can’t quite ‘put my finger on it’, but… all the fragments are watching you. Even more than usual. Do you feel it?”
Johanna shrugged. “No.” She knelt to set the water and stew bowls before the twosome patient. The pair had been vibrating with eagerness, though they had been quite polite in not interrupting. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the hospital guard make a strange dipping motion with its two middle heads, and—The blows were like two great fists smashing into her chest and face. Johanna fell to the ground, and they were on her. She raised bloody arms against the slashing jaws and claws.
When Chitiratte gave the signal, both of Kratzi leaped into action -crashing into each other, almost incidentally knocking the mantis on her back. Their claws and teeth were tearing at empty air and each other as much as the Two-legs. For an instant, Chitiratte was struck motionless with surprise. She might not be dead. Then he remembered himself and jumped over the fence, at the same time cocking and loading his bow. Maybe he could miss the first shot. Kratzi was shredding the mantis, but slow—Suddenly, there was no possibility of shooting the twosome. A wave of snarling black and white surged over Kratzi and the mantis. Every able-bodied fragment in the hospital seemed to be running to the attack. It was instant killing rage, far wilder than anything that could come from whole packs. Chitiratte fell back in astonishment before the sight and the mindsound of it.
Even the pilgrim seemed caught up in it; the pack raced past Chitiratte and circled the melee. The pilgrim never quite plunged in, but nipped here and there, screaming words that were lost in the general uproar.
A splash of coordinated mindsound boomed out from the mob, so loud it numbed Chitiratte twenty yards away. The mob seemed to shrink in on itself, the frenzy gone from most of its members. What had been near a single beast with two dozen bodies was suddenly a confused and bloody crowd of random members.
The pilgrim still ran around the edge, somehow keeping his mind and purpose. His huge, scarred member dived in and out of the remaining crowd, clawing at anything that still fought.
The patients dragged themselves away from the killing ground. Some that had gone in as threesomes or duos came out single. Others seemed more numerous than before. The ground that was left was soaked with blood. At least five members had died. Near the middle, a pair of prosthetic wheels lay incongruously.
The pilgrim paid it all no attention. The four of him stood around and over the bloody mound at the center.
Chitiratte smiled to himself. Mantis splatter. Such a tragedy.
Johanna never quite lost consciousness, but the pain and the suffocating weight of dozens of bodies left no room for thought. Now the pressure eased. Somewhere beyond the local din she could hear shouts of normal Tinish talk. She looked up and saw Pilgrim standing all around her. Scarbutt was straddling her, its muzzle centimeters away. It reached down and licked her face. Johanna smiled and tried to speak.
Vendacious had arranged to be in conference with Scrupilo and Woodcarver. Just now the “Commander of Cannoneers” was deep into tactics, using Dataset to illustrate his scheme for Margrum Climb.
Squalls of rage sounded from down by the river.
Scrupilo looked up peevishly from the Pink Oliphaunt. “What the muddy hell—”
The sounds continued, more than a casual brawl. Woodcarver and Vendacious exchanged worried glances even as they arched necks to see among the trees. “A fight in the hospital?” said the Queen.
Vendacious dropped his note board and lunged out of the meeting area, shouting for the local guards to stay with the Queen. As he raced across the camp, he could see that his roving guards were already converging on the hospital. Everything seemed as smooth as a program on Dataset… except, why so much noise?
The last few hundred yards, Scrupilo caught up with him and pulled ahead. The cannoneer raced into the hospital and stumbled over himself in abrupt horror. Vendacious burst into the clearing all prepared to display his own shock combined with alert resolve.
Peregrine Wickwrackscar was standing by a meal cart, Chitiratte not far behind him. The pilgrim was standing over the Two-Legs in a litter of carnage. By the Pack of Packs, what happened? There was too much blood by far. “Everybody back except the doctors,” Vendacious bellowed at the soldiers who crowded at the edge of the compound. He picked his way along a path that avoided the loudest-minded patients. There were a lot of fresh wounds, and here and there speckles of blood dark on the pale tree trunks. Something had gone wrong.
Meanwhile Scrupilo had run around the edge of the hospital and was standing just a few dozen yards from the Pilgrim. Most of him was staring at the ground under Wickwrackscar. “It’s Johanna! Johanna!” For a moment it looked like the fool would jump over the fence.
“I think she’s okay, Scrupilo.” Wickwrackscar said. “She was just feeding one of the duos and it went nuts— attacked her.”
One of the doctors looked over the carnage. There were three corpses on the ground, and blood enough for more. “I wonder what she did to provoke them.”
“Nothing, I tell you! But when she went down, half the hospital went after Whatsits here.” He waggled a nose at unidentifiable remains.
Vendacious looked at Chitiratte, at the same time saw Woodcarver arrive. “What about it, Soldier?” he asked. Don’t screw up, Chitiratte.
“I-it’s just like the pilgrim says, my lord. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He sounded properly astounded by the whole affair.
Vendacious stepped a little closer to the Pilgrim. “If you’ll let me take a closer look, Pilgrim?”
Wickwrackscar hesitated. He had been snuffling around the girl, looking for wounds that might need immediate attention. Then the girl nodded weakly to him, and he backed off.
Vendacious approached, all solemn and solicitous. Inside he raged. He’d never heard of anything like this. But even if the whole damn hospital had come to her aid, she should still be dead; the Kratzi duo could have ripped her throat out in half a second. His plan had seemed fool-proof (and even now the failure would cause no lasting damage), but he was just beginning to understand what had gone wrong: For days, the human had been in contact with these patients, even Kratzi. No Tinish doctor could approach and touch them like the Two-Legs. Even some whole packs felt the effect; for fragments it must be overwhelming. In their inner soul, most of the patients considered the alien part of themselves.
He looked at the Two-Legs from three sides, mindful that fifty packs of eyes were watching his every move. Very little of the blood was from the Two-Legs. The cuts on her neck and arms were long and shallow, aimless slashings. At the last minute, Kratzi’s conditioning had failed before the notion of the human as pack member. Even now, a quick flick of a forepaw would rip the girl’s throat open. He briefly considered putting her under Security medical protection. The ploy had worked well with Scriber, but it would be very risky here. Pilgrim had been nose to nose with Johanna; he would be suspicious of any claims about “unexpected complications'. No. Even good plans sometimes fail. Count it as experience for the future. He smiled at the girl and spoke in Samnorsk, “You’re quite safe now,” for the moment and quite unfortunately. The human’s head turned to the side, looking off in the direction of Chitiratte.
Scrupilo had been pacing back and forth along the fence, so close to Chitiratte and Pilgrim that the two had been forced back. “I won’t have it!” The cannoneer said loudly. “Our most important person attacked like this. It smells of enemy action!”
