To Conquer Chaos

scrambled down to the beast’s level and tried to drag it away by its tail, but it was much too heavy for him with his bad leg.

Well … there was no chance of it waking up and going away now. It was bound to be there when he brought someone back to look at it. And even if he had to whip them here, he was going to bring the townsfolk to admire his action. He was sick of their sneers. Then afterwards he could have the hide tanned and give it to Idris, and her mother might be a little less grumpy …

His thoughts running blithely ahead of him, Conrad started back towards the town.

A cry rang out from the leading man of the party, and Stadham’s mind snapped back from consideration of this area as a possible site for their long-time camp to more immediate matters.

“What is it, Berrow?” he shouted.

“Don’t know!” the soldier called back. “My horse shied at something-and there’s a foul stink around somewhere!”

“Close in on Berrow!” Stadham ordered his other companions. “Take it slow and keep alert!”

The soldiers nodded grimly and set their guns on their saddle-bows as they urged their steeds up the rocky slope in front. They were all nervy, as Stadham knew. They’d located two or three possible camp-sites-all with drawbacks-and Stadham had decided to work through the area at least until noon before settling for one or other of them. In the men’s view, nowhere could be a good camp-site this close to the barrenland, and they didn’t see there was much to choose between the possibilities.

Berrow was trying to calm his horse as it attempted to back down-slope; he could coax it no further. When Stadham found his own mount balking in the same way, he swung to the ground and threw his reins to his nearest companion. Gun ready, he strode up the rise past Berrow, and came in a few moments to a place where shadow fell between two rocks.

He started and gave an oath, slapping his gun to his shoulder. But before he fired, he realised it was pointless. He gestured to Berrow to approach him.

“Here’s what scared your horse-a dead thing!”

The men moved closer, two or three of them dismounting because their horses also shied, and stood soberly regarding the carcase. “They breed ’em out there, don’t they?” one of them remarked in a solemn tone.

“But this one’s dead, like the one that attacked Ampier!” Stadham reminded them sharply. They exchanged glances; it was clear they didn’t like the beast much better for all that.

Stadham came to a decision. “You two!” he snapped, addressing the men whose horses had come closest without taking fright. “Get this thing on one of your mounts! I want to show it off when the army gets here and prove that the things from the barrenland aren’t invulnerable.”

The soldiers hesitated. One of them muttered something, and Stadham rounded on him.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, lieutenant.” The man’s face was pasty-pale. He got down from his horse, but looked at the carcass for a long time before bringing himself to lift it with his comrades’ help and set it on his saddle.

Thus burdened, they moved away.

And, half an hour later, Conrad stood sick and bewildered before a group of impatient, hostile meant-to-be- witnesses, wondering if the universe was conspiring against him. Because if the ground hadn’t opened and swallowed the thing, what else could possibly have happened to the proof of his single- handed triumph?

IX

Night-long, the people of the Station had waited anxiously in the dark and the cold, flashing their handlights occasionally to make sure a lurking shadow was simply that-a shadow.

The dawn washed, shell-pink, over the underside of morning clouds, and they stretched cramped limbs, wiped eyes stinging with sleeplessness and the dust that blew off the apparently infinite barrenness around them, and went to count the cost.

Still not fully recovered from the narrowness of the chance that had prevented anyone else knowing she had been overdue at her post-except Jasper, and he wasn’t likely to boast about that- Nestamay picked a path for herself through the eternal twilight of the main Station dome, bearing a big canister of hot broth and a bag half-filled with chunks of dry bread.

She had already called on three or four of the working groups busy assessing the damage. It hadn’t taken their reactions, but only the evidence of her own eyes, to tell her the bitter truth. Last night’s misadventure had set them back months of painstaking, backbreaking work.

She rounded the side of some large, inexplicable complex of ancient machinery dented in now by a blind charge of the intruding thing, and came on another working party in the centre of which her grandfather was standing. She stopped, knowing he would be angry if she tried to interrupt what he was saying for anything as trivial as food and drink.

Resting the heavy canister, still more than a one-arm burden, on a convenient support, she stared at the time-worn face of the grizzled old man, heard his harsh words echo away under the deformed curve of the roof.

“Now I’ve had reports already from Clagny,” Grandfather stated. “He went on directly after dawn, and lost the thing’s trail a couple of miles out, among the East Brokes. It might be lairing up there to lick its wounds. If it is, the chances are against it returning to the same side of the Station, but in favour of it coming back sooner or later-the current count for returns runs about six to four runaways. If we’re lucky, it may pick up the Eastigo Creek and work its way downstream, in which case we’ve seen the last of it. Nestamay!”

The girl gave a start. “Y-yes, Grandfather?” she said in a thin voice.

“How do I know it probably won’t follow the creek?”

Nestamay gulped. Grandfather was forever playing this kind of trick on her-shooting unexpected questions in public and demanding an answer that would shame the hearers. He was obsessively proud of the fact that his family was the only one in living memory to add significantly to the traditional stock of Station lore. Sometimes Nestamay wondered if it had been as a by-product of that well-founded pride that her father, whom she barely remembered, had been persuaded to undertake his foolhardy journey away from the Station and off into the vast unknown-the journey from which he had never returned.

For a long moment she stood confused. Then a stir of memory came to her aid. Something acrid about a scent which she had detected drifting into the air of the office late last night, when the thing had been driven away …

“The smell!” she said, suddenly positive she was correct. “When the heatbeams seared it, the smell it gave off didn’t resemble the smell of a water-seeking creature!”

Grandfather looked surprised for an instant. “Very good,” he said. “Anybody else spot that?” His fierce, bloodshot eyes swept the members of the working party. “No? Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? Here’s my granddaughter, only a few weeks past adulthood, knows it as well as I do, and you lot with all your combined years of experience have to be told! She’s perfectly right-the stink that comes off when a heatbeam hits a water-seeker is heavier, damper, a little sweetish at the back of the throat. The smell we got last night was acrid, dry, and eye- watering.”

He paused. Nestamay, relying on the momentary favour she was enjoying, caught his attention and indicated the refreshments she was bringing; a curt nod gave her permission to distribute them, and she proceeded to do so while he resumed his diatribe.

One or two of the men, dipping their hands in the bag of bread, looked dismayed as they felt its hard stale texture, and shot accusing glances at Nestamay as though to blame her for its condition. A little resentfully, she glared at them.

“Any idea how much power we used last night? There wasn’t anything left for the ovens this morning!”

That didn’t make them any more pleased, of course. Glancing skyward through the rents in the Station dome,