He put modifications on his list of things to do, elevating the genesis of his SCOUTINT sorting drone to the top. Having decided what he had to do to make his scouts better and having prioritized that information, he set that aside and again embraced his betrayal. You may be my master, but there is no excuse for that sort of action.
“What action would that be, Highness?” Pygmalion’s mental voice carried an amused tone with it as it forced itself into his brain. Walking on the air itself, the small man entered the tower Ryuhito had created from the dried husks of his immortalized warriors through a tall, arching window.
Ryuhito opened his right hand and pointed toward his patiently waiting scouts. “One of my scouts did not return. Your object lesson has pointed out the flaws in the design, but coming to me and sharing them with me would have accomplished that end without acrimony.”
Pygmalion nodded slowly and licked his lips as if he had just consumed a pastry. “Indeed, acrimony tinged with betrayal and frustration. This I felt from you. I wondered at its genesis, and now I find I am it. How fascinating.”
“You deny having destroyed my scout?”
Pygmalion pointed his index finger at one scout like a child making a gun from his hand. His thumb fell once, and the first scout crumbled to dust. A second twitch, and a scout evaporated; a third, and a scout burst into flames. Pygmalion gestured one last time, liquefying the fourth scout, then raised his finger up and blew on it before tucking it away in an imaginary holster.
“The fate of your toys, Highness, is of no consequence to me. They are a means to an end, a process through which I can help you realize your true power and potential. While your experiments with exoskeletons have been amusing, the fact that they lack any true artistry bores me.” Pygmalion shrugged, then frowned. “Where has this scout gone missing?”
Ryuhito hesitated, no longer certain his master had been tormenting him. “In Blue Africa, it is an unremarkable proto-dimension.”
Unremarkable because it possesses nothing to threaten you. I know it and, were it as accelerated in time as this place is, I might have chosen it for my domain. Nothing there should have been able to kill one of your scouts.”
“My hypothesis exactly.”
Pygmalion gestured sharply,, and agony spiked from temple to temple in Ryuhito’s head. “Think, fool! If nothing there should have been able to kill one of your scouts, yet one of your scouts died there, what does it mean?”
Ryuhito cried out with the pain, then forced it back under control. “Something else must be there. What?”
“Not what, but who?” Pygmalion’s breath hissed out between clenched teeth. “It cannot be Fiddleback and would not be the Empress of Diamonds. Baron Someday, perhaps? Midas Longclaws? Camillelion. Whoever it is, they seek to distract me and deflect me.”
Ryuhito shivered as Pygmalion’s tiny hands knotted and unknotted. His enemies come for him. He is not invincible.
“No, my child, I am not invincible, but I am more than capable of handling you. And, yes, I have enemies. I bested Fiddleback a second time now, and that means I have power. I have become noticed among my fellow Dark Lords, and if I am seen to be weak, they will try to tear me apart.” Pygmalion’s dark eyes went blank for a moment, then returned with a malevolent fire playing through them. “You, Highness, will be my tool for destroying my enemies.”
The man-godling nodded. “I will create more scouts and we will determine who this interloper is...”
“Forget your scouts,” Pygmalion whispered in an irritated hush. “I have dispatched tunnelers to build you a route through the dimensions to a place with a link to Blue Africa. You will take your battalions through the gateway there and destroy whatever is in Blue Africa. You can return through the tunnel.”
“Will this not expose me to your enemies?”
“It is a risk I will accept. I sense nothing out there of sufficient strength to harm you. You are a god, and having you working with me will give any of my enemies reason to pause. “The little man smiled openly and glanced back out the window through which he had entered. “You and your assault will buy me time, and I need very little of it, as you know. Go, Ryuhito, slay what you find. Let your action tell my enemies that opposition to me is an alliance with oblivion.”
Chapter 17
Will felt both better and worse as Bat unzipped the black body bag and exposed the thing he’d killed to the light in the trailer. Almost instantly, a sickly scent, akin to stagnant swamp water, filled the small enclosure. Even the Yidam didn’t seem to like the stench, though he joined Crowley in stepping forward to get a better look at the thing.
In the light, Will had a better perspective on what he had slain. The long, tufted ears reminded him of a bat’s ears, and he suspected he’d mined the creature’s voice box when he slit its throat, so there was no way to confirm its ability to use echolocation like a bat. The oversized eyes had huge pupils surrounded by only the thinnest white circle. As Crowley had noted before, the hardened exoskeleton covering the face did look like a samurai battle-mask, and subtle coloration variances on the breastplates and deltoid caps reminded Will of the rising sun flag of Imperial Japan.
Stretched out to its full length, the creature only stood 1.3 meters tall, but its short torso and long legs gave the impression it had been designed for speed instead of strength. The ache of his ribs still reminded him that the creature was very strong, and Will had already seen that the bruise on his chest bore an impression of the weave of the cloth of his shirt.
Bat looked most closely at the wound in the throat. “Nice. Got the airway and the artery.”
Will winced. “Thanks, I think.” In many ways he still felt detached from the kill, as if he had not actually committed the act. Looking down at his hands, he still saw the black bloodstains on his shirt and beneath his fingernails, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe he’d actually struck the blow that killed the creature. Something else had been in him, acting through him. He knew from his grandfather that such a thing was a blessing and, though it did thrill him to be so blessed, it also scared him deeply.
Crowley poked the creature in one of the pale green chestplates. With a thick, slushy sound, the plate pulled free of the flesh mooring it and slid toward the breastbone. A new wave of the swamp odor rose up from the body. “Interesting.”
Hal frowned and offered Crowley a letter-opener from his desk. “We’re not well equipped for an autopsy, but if you want to do one...”
The shadow-sheathed man shook his head. “I have no interest in that at all, actually. What I found fascinating is that the creature has already begun to decay. It looks as if there are microorganisms that feed off green chlorophyll. This explains why, as a plant dies, it shifts color from blue to green, then turns to slime.”
Will smiled. “Of course, the green-chlorophyll eaters cause decay faster, returning resources to the soil, which promotes new generations of plants. This thing has chlorophyll, presumably so it can draw nourishment passively, without hunting.” He looked up at Crowley. “That’s why blue plants predominate here.”
“That would seem to be the situation.” Crowley folded his arms across his chest. “I wonder if this microorganism attack is something that unconsciously inspired Herbert George Wells in The War of The Worlds?”
Tadd Farber drew in a deep breath of fresh air from the window, then looked back at the room’s other five occupants. “H. Q. Wells? I don’t follow you.”
Hal smiled. “The ability to see anything in another dimension is a talent that not everyone has. Without people like Crowley around, our ability to transit dimensions would be severely limited except in dream or trance states. It is possible to have your consciousness drift, and Wells might have drifted here.”
The Yidam nodded. “Given the temporal flux between dimensions and the ability of impressions to travel via circuitous routes, it is even possible that he is witnessing our speculation about his inspiration, thereby allowing us to inspire that which we spe
culate about.”
Will shivered. “I don’t think I want to think about that.” He pointed to the scout. “Mr. Crowley, you said this might mean someone will be coming after us. What can we do? Should we evacuate?”
The shadow man looked over at Hal Garrett. “This is your show, Hal. You make the calls.”
The African-American straightened up as much as the trailer would allow him. “I am open to suggestions, especially if we are likely to be under attack.” He paused for a moment. “You know I don’t like violence, and I don’t approve of how you handled the Warriors, but I’m not one for making or being made a martyr. Do you have suggestions?”
Crowley nodded. “Tadd, get the workers together and tell them we’ve had a security breach. Tell them we suspect the thing that pushed Kent down into that ravine was a scout for a Red Army Faction terrorist cell out here to disrupt this operation. No one goes anywhere outside the compound without an armed escort.”
He again touched the corpse. “The exoskeleton is good protection against getting bruised and chewed, but it won’t stop a bullet. We have to issue guns to all of Bat’s people. I think Will and Tadd should draw them as well. The loss of a scout is likely to draw a recon in force, and we have to be ready for it.” Crowley turned toward Hal. “You might want a gun yourself.”
“I’ll pass.” Hal waved Bat out of the trailer. “You go get your people armed, and draw as much ammo as you need.”
The African-American turned his attention back to the corpse. “You said Ryuhito had something to do with this. Do we start assuming he has attained status as a Dark Lord and, if so, how do we deal with him?”
“This thing is strictly Lego blocks compared to what a Dark Lord can do. The biggest threat to us here is that Pygmalion decides to clean up and uses his troops against us.” The shadow man looked at Tadd. “If we were faced with a half-dozen of fighters like your son, this would be over fast.”
Tadd shook his head. “I’m glad Mickey isn’t here.”
“Amen to that.” Hal picked up a walkie-talkie. “I think advising the Japanese of our situation would be good.”
“Agreed. We definitely have to consider ourselves being centered in enemy territory.” The Yidam tapped the crudely drawn map on the wall. “We are not in the most defensible position here, but the clearing has good fields of fire. There is a battle in your history that our position parallels.”
“Little Big Horn?” Will asked hopefully.
Tadd shot Will a harsh side glance. “Most of us didn’t have kin on the winning side of that one, Will.”
The Yidam shook his head. “Roarke’s Drift.”
Hal scowled. “Perhaps I will take a gun, after all.”
“Good. I can only use two at a time.” Bat entered the trailer and tossed a Mac-11 to Hal along with a web belt and two clip pouches. He handed similar rigs to Tadd and Will. “My people are heavy, but if Ryuhito’s warriors get through, you can use these to stop them.”
Will settled the belt around his waist. “You hope.”
“No, you hope.” As Bat let his AR-15 slide from his shoulder, Will saw the sheathed dagger he had on his left hip.
“I take it you expect to get close to anything we have to fight?”
Bat snapped the bayonet on to the AR-15. “Knife worked for you.”
True, but I don’t want to be that close again. Will said nothing and pulled the slide on the Mac-11 back into the firing position.
“I think we have trouble.” Bat stood in the doorway and looked out. “Big trouble.”
“What’s the matter?” Tadd turned toward the south-facing window and shrugged his shoulders. “The sun’s coming up, big deal.”
“I think, Mr. Farber, you will recall,” Crowley commented as he drew his machine-pistol, “in this dimension, the sun does not rise in the south.”
Ryuhito sent an honor guard of his warriors through first, then he entered Blue Africa through the circular dimensional gate. In Blue Africa, it looked no more remarkable than a circle of termite mounds, while in the dimension Girasol it appeared like a pond with a shimmering rainbow of lights. Stepping free of it, and refusing to let himself acknowledge the nausea he felt from using it, he floated up into the air on a disk made of golden light.
To his immense pleasure, he saw Blue Africa in all its dawning glory. Beneath the hilltop above which he hovered, he saw a compound filled with tents and a few mobile homes. Beyond it, to the north, he saw a thick jungle that gave way to the hills on the far side of the valley. In the distance, he could make out some terracing and stones, but other details escaped him in the darkness. They did not matter, for his mission was to slay what he had found in Blue Africa and, clearly, the compound was his target.
He floated back down to the ground as his army climbed free of the dimensional gateway. The first battalion formed up, and Ryuhito smiled. As rank upon rank lined up, radiating green in the backglow of his glory, he saw his army would be more than enough to destroy those who had invaded Blue Africa.
The first battalion on station was a mixed assault battalion. Creatures he designated as Hammers made up the first company. The heavily built and thickly armored drones formed a solid wall behind which the rest of the battalion could advance. Drawn up in two ranks of 20, the Hammers could run at a top speed of 15 miles per hour, which had proven sufficient to blast through the defensive positions of the opposition in his wars. All bony spikes and blocky fists, both fortifications and enemy soldiers crumbled beneath their assaults.
Behind them came 80 of the half-sized warriors with the diffused nervous system that Pygmalion had praised. Try as he might, Ryuhito had not been able to find a design that worked as well at surviving a combat. Because their central nervous system had ganglia-knots at the joints, one part of the creature could be torn off and the rest of it would continue to function. Damage to the chest cavity could incapacitate one, but having two hearts — one high and one low — meant that even massive torso trauma would not guarantee a kill.
The Gnats, as he called them, used fangs and claws to kill. Aided by incredible reflexes and superior agility, they were difficult targets to hit. Because they kept coming and coming, they forced the enemy to devote more resources to destroying them than they might have seemed worth. Because ignoring them was not an option, once the Hammers had opened a hole in the enemy line, the Gnats could terrorize the enemy from within.
Behind the Gnats came the warriors he called Paragons. Tall and slender, they had an incredible reach. Their hands and arms, while incredibly thin, were whiplike in their ability to strike and flay an enemy alive. At the same time, a Paragon possessed the strength necessary to crush a man’s chest in its bony grasp. Built on legs that looked remarkably like those of a locust, Paragons could leap great distances, and the claws on their feet could shred sheet steel. The tail, which they used for stability, had enough strength in its long, flat length to shatter bones and stone with a single swipe.
Confident of victory, Ryuhito bowed to his troops. In unison they executed a deep and respectful bow in return. Moderating his glow, Ryuhito gestured down the jungle hillside and toward the human compound. “Go, my children, feast on those who would do us harm.” Feeling safe behind the wall of Hammers that slipped into the brush, Ryuhito advanced in the midst of the Gnats like a teacher leading anxious children on a field trip.
On reflection, Ryuhito realized he had erred in either not making his creatures utterly silent in their movements, or in not giving them hideous and terrifying voices. Though they moved through the undergrowth and through the forest like shadows, the were not careful about avoiding dead branches or topping rock piles that gave away their positions in the darkness. He knew his error stemmed, on one hand, from having waged his wars in the arid, desert-like climate of Pygmalion’s headquarters. On the other, of course, he could not have borne the constant combat cacophony that would have accompanied his war games.
While he thought his troops unnecessarily loud in their advance, the
thundercrack of the first gunshot startled him. it split the night in half and almost buried the thwip of a bullet exploding the head of a Gnat standing next to him. In an instant, he realized the shot — to get over the line of Hammers — had to have come from a sniper high in a tree. With no way to return fire — another error in his designs he acknowledged — he gave the only order he could.
“Level the jungle!”
The Hammers broke into a run and slammed into the trees before them. Loud, wet snaps echoed between gunshots as the Hammer line closed and began to clear a path 60 feet wide. While he did see two snipers leap from their perches and scamper off before the assault, he saw the line was too wide and moving too slowly. The Hammers could not build up enough speed and, lacking sufficient intelligence to know when something should be bypassed, left holes in the line when a stone outcropping failed to give way.
Before he could stop them, the Gnats began to pour through those holes. Yipping and chittering like homicidal gerbils, the Gnats crashed on into the underbrush. He saw them scampering up the boles of trees, snapping off limbs and showering the ground with bark fragments, it occurred to him that the Gnats had always taken their cue in identifying the enemy by what the Hammers had assaulted, so the Gnats gleefully started to wage war on the jungle itself.
Elements within the jungle fought back. Scattered, single gunshots swelled together to become a ballistic hailstorm. Gnats mewed and wailed as bursts from automatic rifles blasted them from tree trunks. More concentrated gunfire staggered Hammers. The design conventions that made their armor light allowed bullets to penetrate the Hammer bodies. Leaking black blood from dozens of wounds, they stumbled backward. The Hammer line crumbled, and the Gnats poured forward into the guns of the enemy.