“It’s time.”
Umeki led her outside and down the shielded disembarking ramp, lightly resting one gloved hand protectively on the base of Lalelelang’s long neck as they ran from the transport. Breathless, recorder running, she hunkered down next to the Human’s reassuring bulk as they entered the woods and took up a position behind a massive chunk of oblate granite.
There were two other Humans there. One spoke into his suit communicator while the other gave orders. Save for a quick glance they ignored the presence of the two female observers, enabling Lalelelang to study them at her leisure.
Their activity level, both verbal and physical, was daunting. She’d anticipated as much, but it was still impressive to observe it in person as opposed to via a holo reproduction, no matter how accurate the latter. The speed and suppleness of their movements, their coordination though burdened with armor and weapons, was as stylish as that of the finest Wais dancers, possessed though it was of a terrible alien beauty.
She made notes in a steady stream, pausing only to take throat-soothing sips from the service tube built into her makeshift suit. Every minute, every second was fraught with new and invaluable insights. Information garnered on this single excursion would provide material for a year’s study. She was immensely grateful for the unique opportunity, and proud of the intestinal fortitude which enabled her to take advantage of it.
So intent was she on her observations that she hardly noticed the heavy hum of the troop transport as it rose from the forest floor and pivoted in midair before retracing its path back through the trees.
“I have seen enough here.” She addressed her guide through the visor’s voice membrane. “Can we move on?”
Umeki’s face was hidden by her own visor, but there was no mistaking the amazement in her voice. “You really are something, you know?” She pointed. “Let’s try that hollow over there.”
Lalelelang followed the crouching Human as they entered a dip in a dry ravine dominated by a particularly impressive specimen of the local growth. She played her recorder up and down the burly, rough-skinned trunk, marveling at its stature. What a centerpiece this would make for a formal Wais garden, she thought! Great gnarled roots snaked into and out of the surrounding rock, supporting and nourishing the venerable forest giant.
Such fantasizing helped to calm her. She wasn’t trembling at all when she turned to see that Umeki was peering cautiously over the rim of the ravine. Lalelelang adjusted the recorder, taking close-ups of each of the Human’s limbs.
“What happens next?”
“We wait. The squad’s moved forward, toward a rumored Mazvec bunker. If they find one, they’ll try to clean it out. Either way, we stay here until we’re told it’s safe to advance.”
“But I came to witness combat, to see Humans fighting.”
Umeki looked down at her. “One step at a time. Don’t overreach yourself.”
Beneath the composite armor Lalelelang’s feathers fluffed. “I have made the study of such matters my life’s work. I assure you there is little to be encountered here that would surprise me.”
“You think so? I’ve seen others who thought they could handle it. Hivistahm and one time a S’van. They couldn’t. Some things you can’t quantify.”
As if to reinforce her warning something whispered over their heads, silent as a gliding seabird. An instant later Lalelelang felt herself crushed to the ground as Umeki flung herself atop the startled Wais. The incredible density of the Human skeletal and muscular system impressed itself on the historian in a way no amount of study could have done. She felt like a leaf stomped by a falling stone.
Even so, Umeki took most of the shock on her hands. A second later the ground heaved as the deceptively sedate humming gave way to an explosion of deafening proportions. Gobs of seared soil and carbonized plant life vomited skyward before raining down on them.
Sidearm in hand, the Human rolled off her. A dazed Lalelelang fumbled with her recorder. Secondary explosions reverberated around inside her shocked skull. Thankfully they were farther off.
“‘’ … what …?” she mumbled, hurriedly translating.
“A cute little new toy the Mazvec have deployed. Sounds like a big bug, doesn’t it?”
Lalelelang nodded, utilizing the simplified Human gesture instead of the far more elaborate Wais response the query called for. It could not have been adequately executed in the suit and would have meant nothing to her guide anyway.
“It just comes floating in, unobtrusive as you please, and you’re tempted to ignore it.” Umeki’s eyes were as active as her lips. “As soon as it senses any number of preprogrammed target shapes—like us—it swerves and tries to land on your head.”
“But … we are all right.” Lalelelang kept her stunned legs tucked tightly beneath her.
“The squad has decoy shapes out. It went for one of those. Too close by half, though.” A voice hailed Umeki and she responded to her helmet pickup. “Here, dammit!”
For the third time Lalelelang lowered the volume in her earset as she listened absently to the conversation. It was thick with military jargon she couldn’t quite translate.
“Shit.” Umeki broke off and skidded back down to the bottom of the ravine. Slipping an arm beneath Lalelelang’s left wing, she raised her bodily to a standing position, fairly flinging the ornithorp to her feet.
“What is it, what is wrong?” Lalelelang looked around uncertainly. Explosions continued to echo nearby.
“The Mazvec are coming out. Either they were waiting for the transport to unload or else they’re less surprised than we hoped they would be. They’re coming this way, and in greater numbers than we anticipated. Bunker must have shielded sections our detectors didn’t pick up.” She started up the ravine, back the way they’d originally come.
“Let’s go. We’ve got to get out of here and join up with the others.” A hand reached back and locked around a wing, yanking Lalelelang forward.
“I do not understand.” Once clear of the ravine she saw other armored figures, Human and Massood, backpedaling through the woods. Those farthest away would occasionally stop to aim and fire before resuming their retreat. Smaller explosions ripped the ground not far from where they were standing. Something unseen snapped a tree in half a body length above the ground. It toppled majestically, splintering half a dozen lesser versions of itself. Colorful energy beams, bright lances of destruction, severed branches and split smaller boulders. The smells of scorched vegetation reached her nostrils through the selective visor membrane.
“You wanted to see combat!” Umeki shouted, pulling her along so that her feet barely skimmed the ground.
“This was not how I … envisioned things,” Lalelelang gasped breathlessly.
“You ain’t alone.”
They scrambled over small ravines and protruding roots, dodging trees and rocks determined to intercept them. Once they splashed violently through a wide, shallow stream running dark with tannin. Except for the inexorable grip Umeki maintained on her wing, Lalelelang knew that the Human could outdistance her in seconds. But her guide would not abandon her to the mercy of the battlefield and the oncoming Mazvec.
Trying to keep up as best she could, Lalelelang felt a fiery pain lance through her lower right leg as her broad but fragile foot struck a rock. The delicate ankle twisted and she went down in a heap.
“Hell!” Umeki slid behind a huge fallen log carpeted with some dense blue-green mosslike growth, dragging Lalelelang down with her. The upturned confusion of exposed roots at the dead tree’s base provided some protection from above.
A visored face thrust into her own. “You stay here,” the Human hissed.
“Stay here?” Lalelelang lay uncomfortably on her belly, her right ankle throbbing. Her flexible neck enabled her to raise her head and gain some idea of their immediate surroundings, but smoke from burning foliage and continuing explosions reduced visibility in all directions. “But where are you going?”
Umeki was a
lready on her feet and moving around the base of the fallen forest giant, a weapon gripped tightly in each hand. “Orders. Forming counterattack. That includes me. You should be okay here.”
Painfully Lalelelang sat up. She was shaking so badly it took several moments before she could focus on the readouts on her recorder. It was still running. Umeki’s voice echoed in her ear.
“Sector control knows what’s going on. They’re sending out some heavy weapons, but they won’t get here for a while.”
“I am coming with you.” Bracing herself on her wingtips, she fought to rise.
Umeki turned back toward her. Her posture, her whole attitude indicated that the Human battle drive had taken over her system completely.
“You … stay … here.”
Lalelelang froze. It was the peculiar, distinctive inflection Humans utilized only in combat: edgy and confrontational, charged with all manner of primeval hormones. She knew it intimately from her studies.
But none of the recordings she had analyzed so dispassionately had ever been directed at her.
She found herself paralyzed by the combination of tone and attitude, rooted to the spot. If Umeki had ordered her to bury her head in the dirt and cover it up, she was convinced she would have complied. Her trembling redoubled.
A wingtip fluttered over a control on her belt, missing several times before striking home. The injector it activated hissed imperceptibly, and a piercing but not painful heat spread through her left side. As the medication took hold she relaxed. The uncontrollable trembling gave way to a less debilitating quiver. She sat back down as her guide vanished around the upturned base of the tree.
Time passed inconclusively. When the last of the disconcerting palpitating had ceased, she rose and walked over to the massive log. Beyond she could see Humans and Massood moving slowly away from her.
Holding the recorder in her beak, which could reach higher than her prehensile wingtips, she extended her neck to the limit and peered over the mossy barrier, panning slowly from left to right. Sheer excitement kept her going. This was what she had come for, this was what she had come to see.
Any other Wais would have long since fainted dead away. Better prepared for the situation than any member of her species before or since, she was determined not to waste a single moment. Any psychological damage could be dealt with later. Right now she was coping, thanks to her extensive preparations and studies.
This isn’t so bad, she thought. With proper training others of my kind could do this.
She sensed movement near the dead log’s exposed roots and retracted her neck. The Human Umeki would be relieved and perhaps a little surprised to see how well her charge had done in her absence.
It was not Umeki who stumbled around the base of the tree.
The ruff of bright orange fur that framed the short neck had been dyed a dull camouflage green. The neck emerged from a tubular, tanklike torso—squat, unlovely, and not much bigger than her own—which was clad in flexible forest-brown armor. Two double-jointed arms emerged from the upper body. They were tipped with four fingers apiece, all of which currently occupied themselves with the manipulation of a long, narrow-barreled weapon of alien origin and unknown potentiality.
The Mazvec advanced on broad, splayed feet, each toe individually padded and protected. The exposed skull was small and rounded. Tufts of dyed fur ran in lines down from the top of the head to lose themselves among the denser drifts of the neck ruff. Behind the narrow snout filled with flat crushing teeth, bright green eyes turned to focus on her.
The mouth beneath the snout parted and a rasping squeak emerged as the alien aimed its weapon. It didn’t look like much: a cluster of thin metal tubes atop a small plastic sphere. One of the alien’s long fingers began to contract on what was obviously some sort of trigger mechanism.
Without her ever becoming aware of the actual moment, she realized numbly, events had passed beyond the stage of philosophical speculation.
She thought of all the reports she wasn’t going to get to write, all the marvelous lectures it would never be her privilege to deliver. Hopefully her recordings would survive to be an inspiration to other, less reckless scholars who would acquire much credit for dissertations based on her notes.
Here I am about to die a brutal and unnatural death at the hands of another intelligent being and all I can think of is my work, she found herself musing. Scholar is as scholar was to the end. She began to shake violently.
A mountain fell on the Mazvec from behind as her assailant’s weapon emitted an incongruously soft bang. Something supersonic whizzed past her to strike the edge of the boulder against which she’d been leaning. There was a pause following which half a dozen tiny explosions shattered the solid granite as the shell’s independent burrowing fragments dispersed prior to detonation. The concussion knocked her to her knees.
She looked up, fearful of what she might see but unable to keep herself from doing so. Still locked convulsively in her clenched beak, her recorder continued to hum softly.
A Human had fallen on her attacker from behind, just as it had been about to terminate her unfulfilled life. It was much, much bigger than Umeki, the massively muscular Human male build clearly apparent beneath the flexible armor. She was glad she couldn’t see its face because she knew from extensive study the kind of contortions it must be undergoing.
The Mazvec let out a despairing screech as it tried to swing its weapon to bear. Before the muzzle of the long gun could be brought halfway around there was a sharp, distinctive snap. The Human unlocked its thick fingers and the enemy alien crumpled to the ground, no longer a thinking, breathing creature. A single quick, unimaginably savage gesture had reduced it to dead meat, its neck broken.
To make certain, the Human lifted the Mazvec by its limp splayed feet and dashed the rounded skull against the unyielding log. Lalelelang blinked. Then she spat out the recorder and added the contents of her crop to the mess.
Breathing hard but evenly, the oversized, highly efficient lungs sucking air, the massive Human stood over the body of her would-be assassin. It straightened, towering above her. It was at least four times her mass, completely encased in light, color-adaptive chameleon armor, its head concealed by a helmet and visor more elaborate than the one Umeki wore. A rifle the size of a small field-artillery piece was slung across its back, while the broad chest was draped with a variety of unidentifiable equipment. Holstered sidearms protruded from either hip.
A gloved hand rose to push back the protective visor, and for the first time she had a glimpse of the naked face. It was streaked with sweat and one thin line of blood. No fur or feathers disguised the naked skin, no brightly hued scales threw back the diffuse forest light. Still gasping sickly, she fumbled for her recorder.
It growled at her in friendly fashion.
“I’ll be damned … a canary!”
IV
Obviously unversed in appropriate diplomatic procedure, it took a giant step toward her. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
Trembling violently, she tried to scrabble away. Her legs gave out and she collapsed in a quivering heap, staring at nothing, both feet kicking convulsively at the moist ground.
The Human halted. “Hey, take it easy! I didn’t mean—” In one smooth movement he dropped to a crouch and whipped the huge rifle off his back, aiming it to his left as another figure hove into view. A second of observation and then he straightened again, relaxing.
Umeki noted the condition of her charge, flipped up her visor to glare at the much bigger male. “Ah, hell. What happened here? What did you do?”
“Saved its life, Lieutenant.” The soldier grunted and stepped aside, allowing Umeki a view of the dead Mazvec.
“Hopefully there isn’t any serious emotional damage.” She bent worriedly over the prone form of the ornithorp, folding back the makeshift visor. “You know how sensitive Wais are.”
“Who me?” The soldier craned his neck for a better look at the recumbent alie
n form. “I’m just a grunt, Lieutenant. First canary I’ve ever seen … in person. Not much to them, is there? ‘Feathers and frivolity’ it says in the handbook. Still, an ally’s an ally.”
“Your uniform was probably made on one of their worlds.” Umeki’s voice fell. “Lousy luck. I was hoping for a commendation out of this. Didn’t want the job. Taking a Wais out to the front lines. Knew something like this might happen.” Gently she cradled the limp, blank-eyed avian head. “She said she was prepared, that she could handle it.”
A distant explosion brought the soldier’s eyes up and around. He fingered the trigger of the rifle nervously. “Yeah, well, at least she ain’t dead. Woulda been if I hadn’t come along.”
“I know.” Umeki fumbled with her service pack. “If anyone gets a commendation out of this it’ll be you, soldier.” She adjusted a knurled knob on a short, thick wand-like instrument and applied it to Lalelelang’s shoulder. The twitching moderated. “Your appearance may have stunned her more than the Mazvec.”
“She’s better off stunned than shot. I’d better get back to my unit.”
“Yes, go ahead.” Umeki spoke absently, without looking up from her patient. There was no need to exchange details. Their respective suit recorders had already taken care of that.
She slipped the wand smoothly into her pack and rocked back on her heels. While the trembling had slowed, the wide-eyed Wais was still unresponsive.
“I’m going to catch hell for this, you know,” she muttered at the prone form. “Knew you were going to be trouble. Of course, it isn’t your fault. You can’t help what you are.” She glanced up, toward the woods from which the sounds of ongoing battle were beginning to fade. “Not your fault that the Mazvec chose the occasion of your visit to launch a counterattack, either.”
She sat back against the base of the fallen log and put in a call for evacuation. Unless the enemy had brought in heavy weapons they ought to be able to get a medevac in and out immediately, provided one was in the area and available. Not that those on board would know anything about Wais physiology, but their resident medical computer would.