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way to you?"
"Not enough to mean much. Several of the hits have been like that but they
always come back heavier in the next or the one after. So. You've got a plan.
What is it?"
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"They aren't fliers; they're hitting the web from the ground, you can tell
that by the way the cutters swing. The canopy is fairly thin over the middle
of this clearing, you can take a look at it, see if you can fly through it, if
you can't I'll have to think up something else. Once you're out, you get to
the miniskip. You get the gas grenades out of the cargo-pod and fly them back
here. I hate to waste them on those beasts but I'm getting nervous about this
place, I think we should get out fast as we can. Not just this lake, away from
Pillory altogether. Well?"
Timka gazed into the bowl cupped between her hands. "It might work. Yes. I'm
willing to have a try." She gulped the rest of her tea, stood up. "Let's have
a look at the leaves." Quick grin. "Or did you pack the torch too?"
"Now that's not logical, Timmy." Skeen laughed at the face Timka made and
wondered, not for the first time, who'd first called her that and why she
hated it so much. "With the kind of roots these trees have, I'd be falling on
my face or otherwhere every second step without a torch. It's in the clip by
the door. Come back and let me know what you think. I'm going to finish my
meal in peace, you hear."
The air under the flickering forcedome stank of roasted meat and the
deathvoiding of the beasts; the dead were dark piles their shapes still
secret, lit by erratic blue-white flickers from the web and the occasional
stab of the cutter beams. Skeen stood close to the shelter, the control in one
hand. She turned to Timka who was crouched in bird form close to the guard
ring. "Ready?"
A rustle of feathers, a harsh squawk.
"I take it that means yes." She entered the command, activated it. The top
vanished from the scrawled web of the dome. "Go."
The bird form rose from its squat, began running round the ring, long legs
scissoring faster and faster until finally the choppy wings took hold and the
bird labored up and up, it slid through the gap, went crashing through the
thin layer of leaves and vanished beyond them, still working hard to overcome
the pull of the dirt below.
Skeen sighed, strolled over to the ring and turned the torch on the body of a
beast that lay apart from the rest though it was as dead as the rest of them.
A disc-like body with a sharp hump in the middle, a head on a short thick
neck, great round mouth filled with razor teeth, round staring eyes, black,
beady, around the top of the head like a crown. Clusters of legs, longer than
she expected, splayed out on both sides. "Ugly fuckers." She giggled. "No, I'm
wrong, you do it on your own over here." She played the torch over the
creature. "Just as well, I doubt even a mother could love something like
that."
Timka dropped the pack of grenades, landed heavily a moment later. She shifted
to Pallah and squatted, panting, while Skeen began working the straps loose.
Skeen glanced at her. "Any trouble?"
Timka swallowed, sucked in a long breath, exploded it out. "Nothing ah in the
air. That stuff is heav vy."
"Put on some fur or get dressed. You won't have to fly again. I hope." Skeen
squatted beside the pack and began snapping together the launcher. "Better
stay biped. I've got nose plugs in here that will fit your Pallah form, but
I'm not so sure about the cat." She dug in the bag, tossed a film-wrapped
packet to Timka. "You can wait a while before putting them in, they're misery
doubled." Holding onto the pack, she straightened until she was standing. "Got
your breath back? The shelter's buckled down, the skitter discs can chew on it
till next year and have their trouble for their pains. All we have to do is
wait for them to come again."
"My clothes?"
"Round by the door with the rest of the gear."
"Another reason for me to stay Pallah, eh?"
"Why else."
"Your friendly neighborhood packhorse reporting for duty."
"Duty right now is get dressed and wait."
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"Funny."
"What?"
"An hour ago we wanted them to go away. Now we dance in circles till they come
back."
"Get dressed, Ti."
"Yeah, right, Sarge."
"What?"
"Briony taught me some things."
"Obviously. Can you chase pneumonia off by shifting?"
"What's that?"
"Never mind; get dressed and get back here."
They came out of the night and flung themselves at the force dome, snarling,
warbling back-of-the-throat threats, screaming howling hissing as the cutter
beams slashed through them without stopping them, dark garish pastiches of fur
and shell and leathery skin, red, gray, vomit orange, green, purple-black,
polyjointed forelimbs slamming into the field like clubs, scimitar claws
trying to slash through the shimmer of pale light that was the only evidence
of the impenetrable shell that kept them from the meats inside.
Skeen programmed loops into the dome, oval holes outlined in fuzzy buzzing
blue, one over each of the spikes. Starting where the attack was the hardest
and noisiest, she launched gas grenades through the loops, working
methodically about the guard ring until she returned where she'd begun. The
cutter beams sliced away at the gradually decreasing number of attackers,
lighting up the pale blue, almost invisible puffs of gas spreading in a thick
ring outside the dome, part of it seeping gradually away under the trees, part
into the dome. The air that came through the nose plugs had the burnt smell
that meant the gas inside was thick enough to put her out if she was careless.
She slid the bagstrap over her shoulder, clicked three more grenades into the
launcher and signaled Timka to follow her.
When she reached for the far side of the guard ring, she collapsed it and went
trotting through, moving slowly enough so she wouldn't be tempted to open her
mouth and gulp down the gas-laden air. She snapped her fingers impatiently.
Timka grunted and switched on the torch.
Tense, alert, they moved under the trees toward the lakeshore. Timka swung the
torch in wide sweeps across the path ahead, but kept her exaggerated enhanced
ears tuned to the rear, listening for anything coming at them from behind.
Multilimbs driving it in a hitchety swoop toward them, the beast came silently
out of the night, mouth open, two forelimbs, twin claws like steel hooks
reaching, ready to swing faster than the eye could follow, coming at them
without snarl or threat, many feet setting down on the uncertain footing, mold
and knobby roots, surely and without more than faint pats. Coming behind them,
behind the sweeping fan of light, coming from the sleep and slaughter around
the shelter, faster, closer, reaching&
Timka gasped, clamped her lips shut to keep out the gas, snuffed up burnt air
through the nose plugs, leaped off the path into the trees, torch coming
around, shining, holding steady on the beast despite the gyrations of her arms
and body.
Skeen swung at the gasp, launched the first of the grenades into the gaping
mouth of the beast, then put another on the ground a step ahead of it, flung
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