TWO
Ten minutes later I left the hellcat idling at the base of the ridge, and low-crawled up alongside the squad leader where he lay in the middle of the line. Howard had radioed ahead that I was coming. The sergeant’s visor was up, and when he turned and saw my civvies, his eyes widened.
He shouted to be heard over the grezzen, which bellowed beyond the smoke. “Where’s your armor, Captain Parker?”
I shook my head. “I’ve seen grezz claws cut main battle tank armor. There’s no point.” The sergeant was new, and it was as much of the truth as he needed to know. “What do you make the range now, Sarge?”
He glanced up at his visor display. “Three hundred yards, sir. The animal’s moved farther east since we got here. Running out of trees to punch, I guess.”
I squinted at the smoke and saw nothing. Maybe I should have armored up just to access the snoops and visor data. “The warden out there. It’s Buford? And he’s still down?”
“Yes, sir. I suppose he’s waiting until the animal gets farther away before he makes a run for it.”
I shrugged. This squad leader was on duty because the experienced security troops had holiday passes. A grezz can cover sixty yards in a bound and sustain seventy miles per hour across open country. There was no making a run for it, and the warden and I knew it even if the newbie didn’t.
I levered myself up, stood and brushed damp soil off my civvies while I stared into the smoke.
The squad leader’s eyes widened again. “Sir?”
“I’ll walk over there and have a look.”
He frowned, shook his head. “Sir, you can’t. The animal’s berserk. And they say nothing short of a hovertank main gun can take a grezz down.”
“They say right, Sarge. But work with me on this.”
He swallowed. “Yes, sir. One fire team to maneuver with you and the other to provide covering fire?”
I shook my head. “No. I’ll go alone. Nobody fires, covering or otherwise. Have your squad safe their weapons. I don’t want to get shot or fried by friendly fire. Especially while I’m on leave.”
He shook his head again. “Sir, may I suggest—”
“Safe ’em, Sarge. And everybody stays put. Period.”
Pause. “Yes, sir.” He thumbed the safety lever on his carbine, then spoke into his helmet mike.
I waited until he had confirmation back from every member of his squad, then I walked down the ridge’s front slope and skirted the fire around the upwind side.
Ten minutes later I got to ten yards away from the warden, then I knelt and hissed. “Buford!”
Nothing. But I could see that he had drawn his sidearm and laid it across his belly, and his visor was open. Buford knew better than to bother firing a pistol at a grezzen. He had also seen the grezzen eat many times and probably preferred a bullet in the mouth to ending his life as a dismembered canapé, if it came to that.
But if Buford was that jumpy, I didn’t want to sneak up on him and get shot.
“Sergeant Buford!” This time I yelled loud enough to be heard over the fire.
He turned his head, saw me, and twitched his free hand in a half-ass wave.
I low-crawled to him and peered down. His face inside his helmet was so shiny with sweat, and so rigid, that he looked like a black marble. “You’re okay, John?”
He nodded, wrinkled his forehead. “Captain Parker? Sir, you’re on leave.”
“Life’s a bitch, Sarge. What happened?”
He turned his head toward the grezzen, which was screened from our view by brush. Buford paused, then, when the bellowing and the flying shrubbery didn’t change in intensity, answered. “I trailered the holiday woog out here, sedated like usual. I cut it loose, dumped it off the trailer and shot it with wake-up juice. Then I backed off in the hellcat. The woog was up and wobbly after five minutes, frisky after ten. Then the grezz showed up.”
“Showed up how?”
Buford shrugged. “Trotting on all six, like usual. The woog made a couple good runs, a pretty strong threat display—it was a big bull with a good rack—the grezz ran with him, back and forth. When the woog’s head finally came down . . .” Buford pantomimed chomp-chomp with his free hand’s gauntleted fingers, then shrugged. “’Nother day at the office.”
I nodded. “But you stuck around?”
Buford nodded back. “Like I said, it was a big bull. I figured there might be some leftovers worth freezing. The grezz really prefers wild meat, even dead and cold.”
I glanced up. In the distance, the tantrum continued unabated. “You must have done something.”
Buford shook his head so hard that his helmet neck ring squeaked. “Not one goddam thing, Captain. I swear! I was just sitting behind the wheel, reading the news on my handheld. The grezz had torn off the first drumstick. Then I heard him growl. Different. Angry.”
“Then?”
“He was on the ‘cat in two bounds. He took it in his forepaws and shook me out like I was cereal in a box. Then he trampled the ‘cat like it was cardboard.” The range warden shook his head. “Sir, he’s never done anything like that. Ever. He goes to The Barn when the tech nerds arrive, like he was a big dog. Wags his tail, usually. I think he likes the company.”
“The flamer?”
“It fell out of the ‘cat when I did. It’s, you know, for absolute last ditch deterrence only, sir. I know the animal’s valuable. But the way it was going, I figured I was in the last-ditch, you know?”
“I understand.”
“So I just triggered a burst. Not even at him. Just into the grass between him and me, to back him off. He hopped the fire like it wasn’t there, cuffed me once, with the back of his paw, not the claws. Knocked me face-down. Then he tore the flamer off my back and pounded it like a biscuit.” Buford raised his head six inches like he was afraid it would fall off if he raised it higher. “Since then he’s just been chewin’ the scenery like this, sir. And I been holdin’ still ‘til he wears out.”
“What were you reading?”
Buford squinted. “Sir? Why would that matter?”
“Humor me, John.”
Buford reached into his armor’s thigh pocket, tugged out his ‘puter and unrolled the screen. He clicked a bookmark, then drew a trembling finger across the displayed page. “Ah . . . Cold day for the parade. Inaugural Ball. Bla-bla. Outgoing pardon scandal. Bla-bla. Tycoon freed. Bla—”
I grabbed his wrist, turned the screen toward me, and read. “No!” I closed my eyes, then opened them and watched a tree trunk spin as it arced beneath the clouds. Then I sighed and held up the warden’s ‘puter. “Mind if I borrow this a minute, John?”
He wrinkled his forehead and sat up when I stood. When I walked past him, toward the grezzen, he grabbed for my arm. “Sir!”
I jerked my head at him. “Don’t worry, John. Get back behind the ridge.”
“It’s not my ‘puter that worries me, Sir. I seen men commit suicide by walkin’ into a mine field. Whatever’s been bothering you—”
“Is my problem. Do I have to make it a direct order?”
He shook his head, stood and backed in a slow crouch toward the relief squad.
Ten minutes later I had left Sergeant Buford behind and was crossing a muddy clearing that ended at a tree line fifty yards to my front. Then the grezzen’s bellowing and tree ripping stopped, like the sound had been cut off with a knife. For a moment, the only sound was the distant crackle of the fire, and, I was sure, my heart pounding.
I stood still, and ten seconds later trees crashed again. The treetops nearest me swayed as something big came toward me. The grezzen’s head poked out of the tree line, sixteen feet above the ground. Its three red eyes, set in a line across its great, flat face, glared above a mouth large enough to swallow a man whole. Two curved black tusks walrused down from the grezzen’s upper lip, and dripped saliva the color and texture of oatmeal.
He rumbled a growl that shook the mud in which I stood.
I swallowed. “Oboy.”