“Spying. I read they don’t want to kill us but capture us! So, they’re making sure the women hold us until something else can arrive.”
“The network, you think?”
“What else? They’ve lost one set of captives. This time they want to bring up the whole armamentarium.”
“Hadn’t we better break out of here, then?” Zasper mouthed silently.
“There’s that.” Danivon stretched out on the bed. “We need some rest. This is as comfortable a place as we’re likely to find.”
Zasper gripped him by the arm. “That’s as may be, boy, but the thing knows we’re here. So, if we rest, we rest somewhere else, right?”
“Oh, very well,” sighed Danivon. “How would you suggest?”
“Something to get the guard in here.”
“Why not take out the lock and surprise them?”
“If you’re equipped to do that.”
“Always equipped to do that,” said Danivon, busy taking one of his boots apart. The hollow heel disclosed a number of small shiny devices, and one of them applied to the door hummed only briefly before the grating swung silently open. They emerged into an open foyer to find their belongings stacked against the outer wall of their cell.
“Poor Mother-dear,” whispered Zasper, stowing his paraphernalia about his person. “I fear she will not like her visitors.”
“I didn’t really want to be blinded,” Danivon replied, restoring his boot to its usual conformation. “Though if expected to make love to Mother-dear, I could appreciate the advantages of that state.”
He took up his arms, his pack, and sneaked a look around the door. There were two guards, he signaled, as he popped back to point at Zasper and himself, then in two directions, meaning, You take that one, I’ll take this one.
Zasper nodded wearily. Too old for this, he thought sadly. Really too old for this.
When Danivon went to the left, Zasper went obediently to the right….
And confronted the silvery killer he had last seen with Mother-dear in the village below.
It came at him in a rush, giving him time only for one muffled shout before it fell apart into several pieces, five he thought dazedly, three before and two … two where? He tried to get his back against the wall, but one of the creatures was between him and it. He took that one out with the weapon in his hand, stumbled across it as he turned, the wall now behind him, to confront two others. One down, two in view, two where? Or had there only been four to start with? His hand swept from left to right, and the two confronting him shrieked in high, metallic voices, not killed but crippled.
Danivon shouted that he was coming.
Zasper never heard the thing that dropped on him from above.
He was rolling and yelling when Danivon came around the corner; he was still yelling when Danivon peeled the creature away from his head.
“One more,” he gasped. “One more, somewhere.”
“I got it, Zasp,” Danivon muttered as he fumbled for the med kit at his belt. Zasper’s head was a bloody mess. “It was on the roof, but I got it.”
“Never saw it,” Zasper said, wondering why he couldn’t see. “Blood in my eyes.”
There was no blood in his eyes. Everywhere else, but not in his eyes.
“Came at me from above. Dropped down on me.”
“They can climb like spiders.” Danivon found the capsule he was looking for and clapped it between his hands, watching the resultant cloud of powder settle onto the sliced flesh and make a film there. The bleeding stopped, almost miraculously.
“Cold,” said Zasper.
Danivon shrugged out of his coat and wrapped it around the older man. “A little shock is all,” he murmured. “It’ll pass.”
“Too old for this.” Zasper’s eyes fell shut.
Danivon gathered Zasper into his arms and held him, sharing his own warmth. He rocked gently, letting the healing film do its work. It had the universal antidote in it, just in case there had been some kind of venom on those things….
Time passed. Zasper didn’t seem to be better. His breathing was more labored.
Danivon fumbled with the kit again. More of the antidote. That would do it. He injected, then gathered Zasper into his arms once more.
“Dan….”
“Yes, Zas. I’m right here.”
“Should get away.”
“When you can move, Zas. We’ve got time.”
Time passed.
“Dan….”
“Zasper.”
“Fringe. If you find Fringe … She …”
“I’ll take care of her. I promise.”
“You can’t.” He struggled to say more, getting it out one agonized word at a time. “She’s not your … Jory will. You get her to Jory.”
“I’ll see to it, Zas.”
“Good. Good boy.”
A pained and incredulous screaming from the village below brought Danivon to himself sometime later. He was sitting on the ground, Zasper still cradled in his arms, the med kit open at his side, its contents including all the empty vials of universal antidote scattered about. The screaming had gone on for some time before Danivon realized that Zasper had stopped breathing a considerable time before.
Danivon rose, dry-eyed, took his coat from around Zasper’s body and put it on, took the badge from Zasper’s shoulder and put it away carefully among his own belongings along with all of Zasper’s weapons. He stumbled several times, his foot turning on the empty vials of antidote that, so it seemed, had not in fact been at all universal.
Zasper’s belt kit included incendiaries. All Enforcers carried them. No Enforcer wanted his body to fall into the hands of those who might not respect it. Nasty things could be done with recently dead bodies, nasty high-tech things and nasty low-tech things.
Danivon tucked the incendiaries down both sides of Zasper’s body and pulled the caps away. Then he left, without looking back. Enforcers didn’t look back. Better to remember the peaceful face than the white-hot flame. All this was drill. He’d done it in drill. He’d done it for colleagues before too. He’d always expected that someone would do it for him.
The screams from the village were fading. Obviously something deadly had arrived in Beanfields. He wiped his mouth, where a bitterness had gathered, and
