Mech

Twelve

Outside the spaceport compound, Ari Steinbach was beside himself with frustration. He had assembled an army consisting of numerous squad cars, two heavy lifters, a crowd of militiamen with pistols and Wu hand-cannons, plus 1st tactical squad. His tactical team had taken the longest to gather, and a third of them were still unaccounted for. Most likely they were attending the militia officer’s banquet being held up at Fort Zimmerman tonight. They were probably not ignoring their beeping phones completely, but just taking their time in answering the summons. It was enough to make Steinbach grit his teeth in frustration. How had discipline become so lax? Why should they be enjoying good food and dancing while he sat out in the bitter cold, besieging a madman and gnawing on dried jax meat?

Higher in priority than any of these things, of course, was the disposition of his satchel sitting in the lockers in the baggage claim section. It was too exposed there, he knew. If this whole thing got out of hand and heavy weapons were used, the satchel could easily be destroyed or lost. It was unnerving.

He wanted to strike now, before the enemy got any stronger or more organized. With his tactical squad in full body armor and toting waist-mounted Wu automatic rifles, plus the militia back-up, he felt confident that they could wipe out the giants and the undisciplined security people. The problem was with Mai Lee’s instructions to wait for her support. To disobey her now, just before the arrival of her troops, could easily be a suicidal act.

“Why don’t you move?” asked Major Drick Lee, smacking his small fist into his palm. “Send them in, before they call in Nexus-loyal Stormbringers from Fort Zimmerman.”

“The pilots are preoccupied with the banquet tonight. Besides, our own loyal pilots outnumber the Nexus Tories,” Ari snapped back, not looking up from his field glasses. He studied the glass doors of the terminal building with interest. There was definitely a lot of activity in there. Benches, potted plants and luggage were being thrown up as barricades. He tried to get a glimpse of the lockers, but the angle wasn’t right.

“Every minute they get more prepared.” Major Lee crossed his arms and huffed.

“Maybe you want to lead the charge, eh?” shouted Ari. “I don’t want to hear any more whining! We wait!”

Rolling his eyes, Major Lee leaned up against the hull of a lifter and said nothing.

Ari seethed. Where was that ancient witch and her army of simians?

Sitting like a spider at the center of a great web of glittering datastreams, Mai Lee was one of the first humans on the planet to see a culus. It overflew her estate during her afternoon meditation, skirting the village and slipping over the moat and the flame-pits to peruse the outer battlements. Although her palace and the surrounding fortifications had the appearance of being a primitive place, built along the lines of ancient earth fortresses, its defenses were far from outdated. The culus was detected even as it circled the village. While it glided up to the outer walls a camera tracked its every movement.

“I beg your Excellency’s pardon,” whispered a speaker hidden in the center of a new and exquisite flower arrangement crafted that very morning by the skalds of the palace.

“I am meditating,” said Mai Lee, floating in free fall over a gravity repeller. The mere fact that she didn’t screech at the disruptive voice emanating from the clustered orchids indicated her good mood. Ever since the activities of the castle’s legendary dragon the night before, she had felt a rare inner calm. A smile played over her lips at the memory of last night’s excesses. “I don’t wish to be disturbed.”

“May I explain the request, Excellency?” the orchids begged.

Mai Lee cracked one eye and sighed. “Speak.”

“The security drones have sighted a very odd intruder. It is currently examining the estate.”

Mai Lee frowned slightly. “Send out a detachment of the guard to capture the spy. I will witness the interrogation and execution at my leisure. Must I give every instruction personally?”

“Certainly not, Empress, but the situation is difficult. The intruder is not a man, but some form of living being that can fly.”

Mai Lee snapped erect, the gravity repeller easing her down to the floor automatically. “Put it through on the holo-plate.”

The chamber contained a large holo-plate, which dominated much of the floor space. Instantly, the decorative image of a tinkling waterfall and the three persimmon-colored hummingbirds that hovered over it vanished, replaced by a very different kind of flyer. The creature was shaped like a skate from the distant sea: it resembled an air-swimmer, but more flattened out and streamlined. It was a milky mottled brown in color with flapping wings and a hook-knife tail. A single orb on a flexible stalk roved over the landscape. While she watched it expertly wove its way through a copse of delicate gauzepines, soared over the flame-pits unconcernedly and then rose up to crest the outer walls.

“What are its dimensions?” Mai Lee demanded. Her heart accelerated in her chest, already she was thinking of a prelude to assassination. Could this be some kind of new scout from her Zimmerman enemies?

“The wingspan is something less than six feet. From the frontal eyestalk to the tip of its tail is just over four feet.”

She frowned; observing the creature as it slid around the courtyard, a dim shadow against the walls. “Wasn’t it brown a moment before? It looks like gray stone now.”

“Yes, it seems to automatically camouflage itself in flight, blending in with its surroundings. As a scout, it excels at its task. We only picked it up by accident.”

She felt sure these things had been watching her for months. Mai Lee felt her tension return, all the work of her lengthy meditation had been undone. Irritably, she ordered the beast stunned and brought to her council chambers beneath the castle. It appeared that she would have to begin sleeping in the bunkers beneath the castle again. As she watched the creature investigated the fountain, the very fountain from under which she had driven her battlesuit the night before. There was an intelligence evident in the thing’s manner, a sense of direction and purpose. She was sure that it was alien to Garm and to her experience. Utterly alien.

“Order the compliment of guards to return,” she said coming to a sudden decision. She had many enemies and consciously maintained a heavy tendency toward paranoia that had played a great role in keeping her alive for the past two centuries.

“They have almost reached the spaceport, your Excellency. General Steinbach has repeatedly signaled his impatience concerning their arrival.”

“The safety of the estate and my person overrides the importance of their current mission. Instruct him to proceed alone.”

The orchids acknowledged the commands and fell silent.

In the high atmosphere over the polar range, two heavy lifters each bearing a large compliment of ape-like shock troops reversed course and headed back to Slipape County.

In the courtyard of Mai Lee’s palace, three stunners fired, catching the culus and dropping it into the fountain. It plunged into the cold water and sank to the bottom. Moments later the underbelly of the culus exploded from the inside outward. In a flurry of motion a shrade appeared, birthed into the cold water from her partner’s digestive system. Swimming away from the billowing clouds of fluids that stained the clear water, the shrade was free. She popped her head above the water’s surface for just a split second to look around, and then quickly dove to the bottom of the pool. Finding a drain entrance, she wriggled inside and vanished.

Sometime later the shrade reappeared, popping out of a drainage pipe in the lower levels deep beneath the castle. Slapping unnoticed in the forgotten corners of the lower labyrinths, the shrade investigated the varied garbage of the vertebrates’ technological society. She spent only a few minutes indulging her genetic compulsions, rummaging about in heaps of burnt out memory modules, acid-leaking energy cells and ruptured data-liquid cabling. Soon, she managed to slip beneath a few doorways and entered the more frequented areas of the dungeons.

When she found the war machine, she knew she had made an important discovery. Standing two-thirds the height of a jugger, the gleaming hi-tech weapon stood out from the primitive feel of the dungeon itself. That the machine was no discard was clearly evidenced. Not a millimeter of its surface contained tarnish and the walls were festooned with tools and diagnostics equipment. The machine itself was open hatched and undergoing maintenance service by a squad of vertebrates, clearly technicians.

The shrade knew exultation. Here, at long last, was a clear example of the enemy’s greatest powers of war. To study the machine was worth the deaths of ten shrades.

The shrade reported her findings with a short blip of data to the Parent. Though she fairly quivered with curiosity, she contained her violent need to know. Fantasies of attacking the three service vertebrates and expunging them ran through her tactical brain, but she managed to restrain herself. Built into every successful scout was a good dose of caution and patience. Hiding herself among a stack of fuel cells, she bided her time.

Hours passed before the vertebrates finally left the fantastic machine unattended. Quickly humping forward, the shrade mounted one of the metal monster’s great legs. Nosing about inside, she discovered a myriad of wonders, all of which she catalogued and reported in coded transmissions.

A sound of approaching vertebrates warned her. She popped an optical organ just out of the hatch, eyeing their noisy approach. There were many of the vertebrates approaching, some of them armed and armored. It was too late, the shrade had over indulged herself-there was no way to slip out. She coiled herself inside the war machine, preparing to kill as many of the soft technicians as she could.

Another idea occurred though, concerning the numerous open hatches inside the war machine. Could she possibly hide inside the thing? Wriggling and scraping herself severely, she managed to slip into one of the hatches and seal herself in. Waiting inside to be discovered, she began to regret her hasty decision. How could the enemy’s diagnostics not discover her immediately? She chided herself for being overly concerned with her own survival.

Outside, the sounds of the vertebrates rose in level, and then dropped away again. The shrade inside knew great relief. Soon, she judged that they had all left her alone again with the great machine.

Surprised at her own good fortune, she made to stealthily exit, but couldn’t. Try as she might, the hatch wouldn’t open. She was jammed in tight.

Scampering larvae simply thronged the nest. The Parent grunted and heaved, depositing another egg into the waiting arms of a clittering hest. Three large, cavorting killbeast larvae chased a smaller one, probably a hest or a culus-it was difficult to tell them apart in the larvae stage-up onto her birthing throne, across her painfully swollen chambers and down the other side. An involuntary hissing sound of discomfort and exasperation escaped from her food tube. It was simply too much for one Parent, all this birthing. Already she had laid an estimated five thousand eight hundred eggs since arriving on the target world. Developmentally, the offspring were now broken roughly into thirds, one third as eggs, one-third larvae and one-third adults.

…Suddenly, a cramp gripped her fatigued fourth birthing orifice. The fourth chamber was currently at the end of its cycle in producing a jugger. The fourth orifice cinched up tight, puckering at the worst possible moment during the cycle. The jugger egg was of course the biggest variety, requiring the greatest dilation of the birthing orifice in order to pass. Powerful muscles involuntarily contracted, bearing down on the rubbery egg and attempting to force it out. The results were inevitable, and exceedingly painful. A great wet ripping noise filled the birthing chambers. Her fourth chamber ruptured, releasing a gout of fluids. The Parent set up a tremendous fluting howl that turned the orbs of every hest and larvae in the nest. The hest came scrambling to her aid, while the larvae, fearing discipline, stampeded away toward the farthest reaches of the tunnel-complex.

When the Parent had regained some of her composure, she reprimanded herself sternly. She lacked experience and had made the classic error of a young Parent, thinking she could do the whole job herself. Enough was enough. She had to have help: she had to have daughters.

Leaning her vast bulk heavily on her left-side clump of tentacles, she raised her drooping orb-stalks to call for the eldest nife. It was time to meld.

To her vague surprise, she found he was already swaggering into the chamber. His manner was that of barely concealed triumph. His stalks stood excitedly at full extension, his orbs all but popping from their cusps. “I heard you cry out, and knew I should rush to your side. Are you damaged?”

“Yes,” she said weakly, past being offended by his obvious excitement. “You are chosen. We must meld immediately.”

The nife’s frontal tentacles slapped together in an exaggerated and enthusiastic affirmative. He swaggered forward and began climbing the birthing throne.

After discovering the culus, Mai Lee moved to her command bunker immediately, sealing it off except for the datastreams which came from every sector of Garm. Her ancestral computers were legendary in technical circles, and nowhere else on the planet did such a comprehensive and intelligent nerve center exist. Every city on the continent was wired in for sound, many of them providing full holo-plate feed. The computers served to perform the gargantuan job of assimilating this continuous mountain of data, finding interesting tidbits in the vast ocean of insignificant events.

She ordered the culus dissected by her medical team, a group of seven middle-aged Manchurian women. They wore white smocks and thin paper slippers. They worked at the task efficiently, only their dark eyes visible over their masks. Every step of the operation was carefully recorded. Small hands wielded flashing scalpels; the culus was quickly dismembered.

While she awaited their report, Mai Lee riffled through the incoming intelligence reports. She paused over a transcript from the spaceport.

Grunstein Colony Spaceport, aboard militia command lifter: Salient. Governor Hans Zimmerman has a private discussion with General Ari Steinbach.

Transmitting Agent: Major Drick Lee. Imperial grand nephew.

Agent Reliability Index: 84 %.

ZIMMERMAN: I see you have yet to rid us of this man. I fail to understand your hesitation in this matter. Note the full media team that has now arrived. KXUT will be broadcasting the whole thing live if you turn it into a bloodbath now.

STEINBACH: We lack the firepower, sir.

ZIMMERMAN: You have an army here!

STEINBACH: Since the renegade Colonel Dorman brought in a squadron of Stormbringers, deluded into thinking they support the legitimate Governor, they have held the decisive edge.

ZIMMERMAN: You should have moved immediately! If you had attacked when the tactical squad first arrived you could have wiped them out.

STEINBACH: Your point is well taken. Please excuse me now, sir, while I return to my duties.

ZIMMERMAN: Growing hostile. Not so fast you little weasel. This is my political life we are talking about, here. Who do you want running this colony, anyway? Are you some kind of Nexus-loyal plant? What do we pay you for, man?

STEINBACH: Governor, with all due respect I don’t really have the time.

ZIMMERMAN: You’ll make the time for me, General! I am a Zimmerman, if I must state the obvious.

STEINBACH: Give my regards to your family, sir.

A tense silence ensues.

ZIMMERMAN: Speaking in a low voice. You don’t know who your screwing with. I know you work for that witch, but she’s not the only one with assassins in this town. Now, I’m going to lay out what’s going to happen, and you’re going to follow orders like a good little soldier. First, I’m going to go in myself and try to talk to the bastard-

STEINBACH: You’re bravery surprises me.

ZIMMERMAN: I’m going in with plenty of cameras. He won’t do anything. How would it look if the new Governor shot the old one coming in to welcome him? What kind of a civil war could he put together after that was splashed all over the evening news? Who would rally to the call of an exposed murderer? Second, if I can get him to come out, we will have a much better chance at him later, at a phony inauguration ceremony, for example.

STEINBACH: Thoughtfully. Your plan has merit, but I can’t help but think that Droad would be too smart to fall for it.

ZIMMERMAN: And if you hadn’t jumped right in with an unplanned assassination attempt and warned him off, we could be on good ground right now. You and your Manchurian cronies panicked, that’s all there is to it.

STEINBACH: Shrugging. So, what if he doesn’t bite?

ZIMMERMAN: Then I call him a criminal and order you to retake the spaceport. Now I know you have instructions from ‘Her Excellency’, but don’t worry about her. Whatever she’s paying you we’ll cover it, and she won’t dare bitch about it because the whole Senate’s howling for her blood right now. The Zimmermans are taking their rightful place as the leaders of this colony, Steinbach. It’s time you put yourself on the winning side.

STEINBACH: Both men stand up. Your logic is unassailable, Governor.

ZIMMERMAN: I thought you might see it that way.

Lucas Droad was reviewing Manstein’s defense plans with Jarmo when Governor Zimmerman came calling. Tapping timidly on the front glass of the terminal building with a three-man media crew in tow, Zimmerman was allowed in by several astonished security people.

“He has more balls than I figured,” said Manstein, watching him as he was escorted across the terminal by two suspicious giants. “He’s been putting on a little weight since the last fixed election, too.”

“Indeed,” agreed Governor Droad.

Zimmerman was patted down along with the media crew, and then they were all led into the security center. He joked with the giants and with the media people, insisting on a publicity-shot of he and Jarmo standing close together to allow size-comparison. Jarmo refused to smile for the cameras, but rather maintained a stony, unpleasant expression throughout the affair.

Lucas met them in the conference room. “This visit is an unexpected pleasure, Governor.”

“Mr. Droad, I’m afraid things have gotten out of control, and I apologize,” said Zimmerman, shaking Lucas’ hand warmly. Lucas rubbed his hand on his pants afterward.

“I’m glad you came here in such a timely fashion. It’s critical that I am instated as the Nexus-appointed Colonial Governor of Garm immediately. I am here to replace the last Governor, whom I understand is now deceased.”

Zimmerman looked pained. He glanced sidelong at the humming holo-cameras, and then his eyes slid back to Lucas. “Now Droad, you must understand how things are here. I’m the rightful Governor of this Colony, by senatorial appointment. Your claim hasn’t been validated as yet, but let me assure you that if you are who you say you are, you will of course become the head of state here, after your official inauguration.”

“The protocol you suggest would be adequate under normal circumstances. However, your appointment is not valid since only the Nexus can appoint a colonial governor, therefore it is not in your power to require such a protocol, nor do you have the authority to inaugurate me in any case. As an additional factor to my judgment, there has been an attempt on my life by assassins, at least one of whom was a member of the militia. Given the near-anarchy I’ve witnessed here, I am unwilling to allow such a gross delay.”

Zimmerman was clearly unhappy. He made an irritated gesture. “Look, you can’t just come out here, hop off a three-year sleeper ship from the cluster and expect us to all hail you as Governor without even checking it out. Listen, I’m offering you the benefit of the doubt to prove yourself. You’ve committed numerous criminal acts, but in deference to the Nexus we are willing to consider the possibility your claim is legitimate. What more can you ask for?”

“Immediate compliance with Nexus Cluster Law.”

“The Colonial Senate will never accept it.”

“Nevertheless, this is my position. Nexus Law supersedes local authority. I hereby order you to accept me as the rightful Colonial Governor of Garm.”

“That’s the best you can do?” asked Zimmerman, obviously surprised.

“I am inflexible in this regard.”

On the way back out of the terminal building the Governor was far less outgoing with the media people. His joking, smiling politician’s mantle had been discarded. Instead he sulked, answering their questions only with monosyllabic grunts. This made for bad video, but the media people only voiced their complaints in low mutterings.

When Zimmerman returned to the militia lines stretched across the tarmac, he was livid with fury. Gray-coated militiamen hustled away the protesting KXUT news team and Zimmerman confronted Ari Steinbach in his command lifter for a second time. Outside, Major Drick Lee carefully focused his handheld laser-snooper on the lifter’s side windows. He adjusted the gain until he had a good clear signal-feed into the speakers implanted in his ear canals.

Back in the command bunker beneath Mai Lee’s palace the transmission was received and the AI software began printing a hardcopy of the transcript even as the words were spoken.

ZIMMERMAN: Okay, you’re going in now, and I don’t want to hear any more excuses. I want you to wipe them out, I want you to kill them, you understand me?

STEINBACH: Of course, sir. The operation will begin at once.

ZIMMERMAN: Good. What will you do first?

STEINBACH: Sounding irritated. Please Governor, let me run this affair without the burden of micro-management. Let the experts handle it.

ZIMMERMAN: Snorting. The experts have been as shy as newborn air-swimmers so far! I want to know what your plans are!

STEINBACH: Very well. I have men moving to encircle the terminal. Even now they are out on the tarmac runways. No large aircraft will be able to land and give them support.

ZIMMERMAN: What about the Stormbringers you so stupidly allowed them to gather?

STEINBACH: They have landed on the roof. The plan is to send our own aloft and force them to scramble up to the challenge.

ZIMMERMAN: Why not just blast them? Why don’t we just forget all this pussyfooting around and blow up the whole terminal?

STEINBACH: Speaking quickly and urgently. That really isn’t an option, sir. There may be innocent hostages involved, which would make for bad video. Besides, why waste the taxpayers money rebuilding the spaceport?

ZIMMERMAN: Okay, okay, so you fool around and try to draw off the fighters. What about the assault?

STEINBACH: After a period of sniper-fire to suppress the enemy while we maneuver into position, we simply send in the tactical squad, using the rest of the men for backup.

ZIMMERMAN: All right, General. You get a few hours to pull this off, then I call up Fort Zimmerman and order them to ready the missile batteries. If you can’t take them out by then I’ll level the terminal building.

STEINBACH: Speaking with great certainty. I assure you, sir, that will not be necessary.

At precisely 10:00 PM the power went out at the spaceport. Emergency generators in the basement kicked in, and some of the lights flickered back into life. Outside the rain showers had abated for the moment, but the wind had freshened and the temperature had taken a sharp plunge. Shivering a bit as they squeezed off their laser rifles, the militia snipers managed to hit one of the female security personnel with the first volley. Struck in the shoulder, she spun around, gushing blood. A second burning red hole blossomed in her vest and she went down. Everyone else ducked behind their barricades and began firing blindly out into the darkened parking lot.

“Jarmo, dial up the Gladius and transfer it to my phone,” said Lucas. He felt he had no choice but to call in his reinforcements.

“Priority signal to the cargo deck, sir?” asked Jarmo, guessing his intentions. He was already tapping his earphone.

“Right. It’s time to call for the Mechs.” The Governor sighed with disappointment. “I had hoped against all rationality that things would somehow turn away from bloodshed. But like so many rulers throughout the ages, I am faced with the harsh requirement of using force or losing the right to rule. I suppose the Nexus aristocracy wouldn’t have chosen me for the job if I would have made any other decision.”

Jarmo was listening with sudden intensity to his headset. “Another attack sir, inside the building.”

“Militia?” demanded Lucas, eyes locking on the giant’s huge face. “If they’re inside already, we’ll have to order an immediate pull back to the inner security zone, damn it.”

“No sir-” he paused, and barked a command for clarification in Finnish. “No sir, someone has killed one of the traffic-controllers in the lavatory. He was just found, strangled to death.”

Lucas’ eyebrows shot up into his hairline. Did they have a traitor in their midst?

“Sir, I would like to examine the scene personally, right now.”

“Now? We’re in the middle of a battle, here.”

“Immediately. There are details to the report that I don’t understand or like. As for the militiamen, given the tactical situation they probably won’t undertake a serious assault until they are fully in position and have done something about our aircraft. This sniper fire is to keep us pinned down while they maneuver.”

“What if they just rush us? I’d like to have my best field commander on the front line.”

“Historically speaking, corrupt police forces fight little better than would hired thugs. They lack dedication, and will use extreme caution while attacking a determined adversary. What I don’t understand is why they haven’t yet bombarded the spaceport from Fort Zimmerman.”

“Maybe Dorman and his buddies aren’t the only Nexus loyal officers on this mudball,” suggested Lucas hopefully.

“Maybe,” agreed Jarmo without conviction.

“Go ahead, find out who strangled the techie and get back up here.”

With a crisp nod of his great head, Jarmo turned and made his way back to the stairs in a running crouch. Reaching the lavatories on the lowest level of the terminal, he met with Jun, who was staring and frowning fiercely into the lavatory. He held his weapon at chest-level, the odd cone-shaped muzzle directed at the wall of stalls.

“Where’s the body?”

Jun just nodded toward the stalls, keeping his weapon at the ready. Drawing his own plasma handgun, Jarmo squeezed past him and into the lavatory. He noticed that the floor near the stalls was coated with an odd liquid that was both slippery and sticky at the same time. He assumed it was liquid soap. He found the body in the third stall, and immediately realized why Jun had been so cautious.

The strangled man lay sprawled in an undignified pose with his head shoved down into the toilet. His neck had been squeezed with such great force, that it had been all but removed from his torso.

“A giant did that,” said Jun at the door. He and Jarmo shot each other worried looks. “Had to be a giant to crush his neck like that.”

Jarmo nodded, the killer had to have fantastic strength to squeeze the flesh off of a man’s neck, right down to separating the vertebrae. The neck looked like the remains of a ripe banana squished in a pair of vise grips. “Could have been a giant,” he agreed.

He began a closer inspection, and discovered more of the slimy fluids that puddled the floor of the lavatory. There was an odd stink as well, that of a sewer, mixed with something else. It was an acrid, fishy smell.

He searched the rest of the stalls, finding nothing of note. When he finally returned to the body, he was frowning intensely. He wasn’t a man who enjoyed mysteries. Reaching down into the mess in the toilet bowl, he pulled the head out by the hair as gently as possible under the circumstances. Laying the corpse face up on the floor he examined it and the bloody interior of the bowl.

“Very interesting,” he muttered in Finnish. “Come, what do you make of this, Jun?”

Jun moved to his side with only the slightest hint of hesitation. They were not normally squeamish men, but these were extraordinary circumstances. “What do you see?”

Jarmo indicated a circle of puncture wounds around the base of the neck and a matching circle under the chin. He then pointed out the gouges in the toilet bowl.

“Do you suggest that the man wore rings, or perhaps a clawed glove of some kind?”

“Perhaps,” said Jarmo, rubbing his chin. He wondered if perhaps a mechanical hand would have the strength to perform such a feat. A hand like that of a mech, for example. That still would not explain the slimy jelly-like liquid, but it was a start.

Still, though, he couldn’t help but feel that there was more to this, that he was missing something. Something about the bizarre murder triggered off a tingle of danger in his mind, a primitive fear of the unknown.

Walking over to the utility closet, he forced the lock with a twist of his huge wrist and looked inside. With the long barrel of his weapon, he poked around inside the closet.

“What are you looking for?” asked Jun curiously. He had come forward, but wasn’t quite looking over Jarmo’s shoulder.

“I don’t know. Something strange. Ah, more slime!” he said discovering a damaged vent and more of the glistening, jelly-like substance. “Some kind of animal has been in here, it must have gotten into the air ducts. I don’t remember reading about anything like this in the file-tapes, though.”

“Maybe it’s some kind of snake,” said Jun, peering into the closet that was more than filled by Jarmo’s great bulk.

Both men froze as they heard an odd splashing sound coming from the stalls. It was as if the toilets were gargling. Soon after, there was a wet, slapping sound. Jarmo put a big finger to his lips and the two of them bent down to look under the doors.

The sounds suddenly stopped. The giants exchanged glances and leveled their weapons. Whatever it was, it had heard them.

Baring his teeth in an unconscious snarl, Jarmo leapt forward and threw open the stall door from which the sounds had been coming. A ghastly creature sat there, half-in and half-out of the toilet, at their approached it reared its ugly head. The sucker-like mouth was bloodied. It had been feeding on the dead man’s corpse.

Jarmo fired and the thing sprang at the same time. The plasma burst missed, but took out the rear wall of the restroom. The shrade landed on Jarmo’s chest, sticky sucker-feet gripping his clothes and the flesh of his neck. He was yanked forward into the stall as it struggled to pull the rest of its body out of the plumbing.

Four giant hands grabbed the thing immediately, and a struggle of unnatural strength began. Grunting and heaving, the two men managed to rip it loose from Jarmo’s chest, although it was like pulling apart welded steel. With a final, mighty thrust, they threw it to the floor of the restroom and blew its head off as it humped for the utility closet.

Breathing hard, the two giants knelt over the twitching body.

“Incredible,” breathed Jarmo. “If this is an indigenous life-form, it’s something they left out of the briefings.”

Jun wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “Almost had you.”

Jarmo nodded, “I don’t know if I could have pulled it off alone. I want you to take this thing back to the security center. See if the medical center people can identify it.”

Jun looked disgusted for a moment, then pulled off his jacket and wrapped the thing in it. Jarmo accompanied him out into the terminal, waving off the security people who had come to investigate the plasma burst.

Before he was halfway back to the security center, Jarmo heard the crackle of gunfire outside. He was already trotting when his phone beeped. Beginning to run, he snapped, “I’m on my way.”