Hell's Gate

CHAPTER 11

When the killer was halfway across the open space, closing swiftly on Salsbury, it seemed to jolt like a slipping motion picture film. It barked viciously, snarling and yelping enough for a pack of wolves. Victor wondered, briefly, why the thing was bothering to make a pretense of being flesh and blood when its mechanical nature was now so obvious. At first, of course, it had barked and panted and lolled its tongue to make him think it was real, not wire and plastic. But now… A moment later, he discovered the snarling was coming from behind him, from Intrepid-the real Intrepid. The mutt launched himself past Salsbury, slammed into the robot, and went rolling across the lawn in a tangle of claws and teeth.

Lynda screamed behind Salsbury, then was at his side.

“Get the vibratube!” he shouted. “Hurry!”

She was gone then, the porch door slamming behind her.

He watched the dogs fight, the long-toothed, battery-powered demon and his own noble mongrel. Judging from the manner in which he attacked the mechanical beast, Intrepid seemed to think he was a super dog himself. He rode its back, snarling and digging into its neck with his teeth, raking its sides with his claws. The robot staggered under his weight, nipped at him over its shoulder but could not get in any good rips with its long teeth in such close-quarters combat.

“Stay with it, boy!” Victor shouted, his voice a long, wheezing croak.

The mechanical beast rolled, twisted, got away from Intrepid, then launched itself back at him, got its teeth into his shoulder and ripped with a fury only a machine could have contained; such violent aggressiveness would have burned out an organic brain. Even from where Salsbury sat, he could see the rich gleam of blood against the tan fur of Intrepid's shoulder. The mutt yelped a painful series of noises, but he did not give up the battle. He got his own teeth into the robot dog's neck, right where the jugular should be, and tore. He came away with a mouthful of fur and pink plastic jell that exposed wires and tubes beneath a clear plexiglass casing.

But he drew no blood.

It was hopeless. Intrepid must have sensed that too. But he went for the throat again, gnashing teeth on that transparent casing.

Lynda seemed to be taking a damnably long time. He wondered if she remembered where the tube was; if she had to hunt, she might not find it in time. “Lynda!” Salsbury shouted, frantic now that his dog was losing. “Lynda, damnit!”

The robot had torn Intrepid's shoulder into a raggedy mess. Now it changed its tactics, satisfied it had accomplished all that it could with the shoulder. It went for the base of the dog's throat, bit there. Intrepid squealed, pulled away, losing some fur and dribbling blood from his throat now. He staggered and went down on his hind legs, as if he were very weary, too tired to much care any longer.

The robot circled him, bit him in the haunch.

“You son-of-a-bitch!” Salsbury screamed. “Leave him alone!”

The robot bit Intrepid on the haunch again, worried the flesh a moment before letting go.

Intrepid made a half-hearted muttering growl deep in his throat, seemed as angry at his own weakness as he was at the enemy.

“Lynda!” Where was she?

Intrepid gagged sickeningly and made a few meaningless passes at his adversary, never once getting a score. The robot came around the front of him, again, went in for his shoulder. Intrepid managed to bite the robot's nose, a nip that would have stopped an ordinary dog. But this beast was not ordinary.

Suddenly Lynda was next to him with the vibratube.

“Can you see which one?” he asked.

She nodded and aimed.

The weapon hummed. The beam caught the mechanical in the rear, made its fur stand on end all over its body, as if each hair were an individual wire. The thing let go of Intrepid and looked around, turned toward them and began a rapid hobble on its three good legs. It had been sidetracked by the necessity to put Intrepid out of the action; it was now returning to its original mission: to kill Salsbury… and Lynda too, no doubt.

Halfway to them, it shuddered-the beam still played on it-and tried to turn around, instead, dropped to the ground again, its neck casing shattered. It was still. Dead and finished.

But Intrepid was also still.

Salsbury's head felt like a cracked egg with things leaking out of it, and there was a small though bearable fire in his calf where the robot had sunk its teeth. Ignoring both of these pains, he made his way to Intrepid and knelt beside him. The dog looked up at him with huge brown eyes, slightly dulled now, licked his lips with a pink and swollen tongue. He didn't even whine. Salsbury thought there was a point where stoic courage became foolishness.

“Is there a veterinarian in town?” he asked Lynda.

“Dr. Debert.”

“Get the car started. We're taking him in as fast as you can drive the damn thing.”

She ran off to get the keys and left him the job of getting Intrepid into the car. He looked the dog over. There was not much blood coming out of his throat, but there was a good deal seeping from his shoulder and one haunch that the robot had worried. Salsbury slid a hand under the mutt's hind end, trying to avoid touching the quivering, open wound. He nestled the other hand under the dog's shoulder where the wound was simply too large to avoid. His hand got sticky with blood. The dog whined when Salsbury squeezed the shoulder together but made no move to avoid his master. Victor stood with him, somewhat unsteady, and carried him to the car. Lynda was waiting and opened the door for him. He climbed inside and held the mutt on his lap all the way into town. Intrepid made no move, and his eyes were heavy. The greatest reaction Salsbury got from him was in the form of a thank you: the dog licked his hand.

Dr. Debert had a modern clinic on the east end of town. They took Intrepid into the waiting room, his blood dribbling on the white tile. The nurse at the reception desk came to her feet, sucking in her breath. “I'll get the doctor right away. He can drop what he's doing.”

So he stood with the dog in his arms as if Intrepid were a child. He could feel his own heart thumping heavily, almost as heavily as Intrepid's. His eyes were unaccountably blurry, and he couldn't seem to clear them. He decided he must be crying a little. Just a little; for a god-damned dog.

When Debert came out, he stopped, shocked at the extent of his patient's wounds, then came briskly forward. “What was it?”

“Another dog,” Salsbury lied a bit “It attacked me, and Intrepid defended me.”

“In here,” Debert said, leading the way back into his office.

They followed through a book-lined study into a white room with white fixtures and a blue-covered operating table with special clamps and straps for animals. There was already a poodle on the table. It looked at them with a thin, pointed face that was more nasty than cute, barked in a high, brittle voice.

“I'm afraid we'll have to take Poochy into the waiting room, Mrs. Wallace,” Debert said to a matronly woman in an expensive, blue-knit suit with a line of yellow alligators stitched across her left breast.

“But Poochy has glass in his foot!” she said, wrinkling her doughy face in consternation.

“This dog may be dying,” Debert said, straining to remain polite.

“But Poochy was here first,” the woman said, turning to Salsbury.

He did not know what sort of expression was on his face, but it must not have been too charming, for she turned paler than she had been, the rouge on her cheeks like red clouds floating over the milkiness of her face. Quickly, she took Poochy in her arms and hustled back to the waiting room.

After Debert strapped Intrepid down and put him to sleep with sodium pentathol, Salsbury and Lynda went back to the waiting room. They were there for an hour. The doughy woman made a show of her displeasure. She talked to Poochy in that stupid tone parents use when chucking their fat babies under the chin. When it barked, she went into long, wailing monologues about her poor suffering canine. At the end of an hour, Debert came out, a few spots of blood on his blue smock.

“How is he?” Victor asked, feeling somehow absurd being so concerned about a dog, yet, remembering what the dog had done for him; where he would have been without Intrepid. He would have been, simply, dead on the lawn, leaking blood all over the grass.

“I put twenty-six stitches in his shoulder,” Debert said. “The wound on his hip was a little more ragged. I couldn't really use stitches there. I stopped the bleeding; powdered it heavily; drew it together with a tape and cloth compression bandage. He lost a good bit of blood and needed a transfusion. Shot of penicillin to protect against infection. He'll sleep for another hour or so under the drugs, then drift into a natural sleep that should last until late this evening. He's going to live, though it will take a few weeks for him to heal properly. He might always have a slight limp in the right foreleg, due to the separated shoulder muscles. That'll be his only mark, though. I'd like to keep him for a week. Then you can bring him back once a week for a month until we're sure everything has knitted properly.”

They thanked him. Vic felt like someone had found him under a concrete mixer and had thankfully brought a crowbar and worked him loose. He paid Debert, surprised that the bill was so low.

On their way home, they stopped at a grocery while Lynda bought two thick steaks and all the trimmings. They also collected a few of her things. The ride home and the preparation of supper in which they both took part had a curiously manic air. They were, they knew, over-reacting to the news that they were all, once again, alive after an assassination attempt. They were cheering their good fortune so the gods might not think them ungrateful. And, in a way, they were trying to pretend, at least for a short while, that the trouble was over. The big showdown had come and passed; now they could settle down and live like real people.

But lurking in their minds was the understanding that anything might yet happen-anything at all. And whatever did happen, it would be highly unpleasant. Thinking these thoughts but mouthing jovialities, they dug into their steaks and baked potatoes sometime around six-thirty. They were just finishing with dishes of sherbert when the noise came from the living room, the banging and thumping of something negotiating the turn of the staircase leading from the second floor.

“Victor Salsbury,” a cool, well-modulated voice said.

It was the 810-40.04, awake at last.

It was time for another briefing.