Windsplitter caught the full force of it. Up into the air went horse and rider. Down they came with a shuddering crash against the earth.
Chapter 13
Terl didn't know what he was looking at.
He had bunked down in the car in the outskirts. He had the old Chinko map of the ancient city, but he had no curiosity about it.
With a few shots of kerbango, he had eased himself off into sleep, intending to be gone with the dawn, through the city and into the mountains. Senseless, even risky, to go on in the dark.
The car, however, had grown hot with the morning sun before he awoke. And now he stared out at an odd thing in the street before him. Maybe it had been the footfalls that had awakened him.
He didn't know what it was. He had seen horses– they were always falling down mine shafts. But he had never before seen a horse with two heads.
That's right. Two heads. One in front and one in the middle.
And a second animal of similar sort behind. Only this one only had a second body in the middle, as if the second head was bent down out of sight.
He batted his eyebones. He shifted over into the driver's seat and stared more intently through the armored windshield.
The two beasts had now turned around and were walking the other way, so Terl started up and began to follow.
It became apparent to him at once that the beasts knew he was after them. He took a hasty look at his ancient street map, thinking he could flash around a couple of blocks and head them off.
But instead it was the beasts who turned.
Terl saw they would dead-end and knew they would circle a block. It was elementary indeed to handle that.
He glanced again at his map and spotted the right buildings to make a barricade.
The firepower of the old Mark II was not very heavy but it was surely enough for that. He adjusted the force lever with a fumbling and inexperienced paw and steered the tank into position. He hit the fire button.
The resulting explosion was extremely satisfactory. A whole building tipped over to make a barricade.
He jockeyed his throttle and wheeled around and went down the street, turned, and sure enough! There they were. He had his quarry trapped.
Then he sat with slack jawbones to see the beasts go straight up over the smoking rubble and vanish from view.
Terl sat there for a minute or two. Was this any part of what he was trying to accomplish? He was puzzled by the beasts but they didn't have anything to do with the business he was in.
Oh, well. He had lots of time, and hunting was hunting after all. He pushed a button and fired off an antenna capsule set to hover three hundred feet up and then turned on his picture screen.
Sure enough, there were the beasts, tearing along, zigzagging around blocks. He watched their progress while he ate some breakfast. That done, he took a small shot of kerbango, engaged the drive train, and following the picture was soon out in open country with his quarry in plain sight.
He raced around in front and blocked them. They turned. He did it again.
What were they? The second beast still had his head down, but the one in the lead definitely had two heads. Terl decided he had better not talk about this in the recreation room. They'd roast him.
He watched with curiosity when the beast in the front stopped, took a stick out of his belt, and began a run at him. His curiosity turned to amazement. The thing was going to attack him. Incredible!
The crash of the club against the windshield was deafening. His earbones rang with the assault. And that wasn't all. There was an immediate atmosphere sizzle.
A wave of dizziness hit Terl. Bright lights popped in his skull. Air! Air was getting into the cab!
This old Mark II had seen better days. The supposedly armored windscreen had come loose in its mounts. Terl gaped at it in disbelief. The side gasket had given way!
He panicked. Then his eye caught the sign about face masks and he hastily snatched the mask and flask of breathe-gas off the gunner's seat and snapped it over his face, opening the valve. He inhaled deeply and the dizziness lessened. He took three deep breaths to clean the damned air out of his lungs.
Terl stared anew at the strange beast. It was lining up for another run!
His paws fumbled with the firepower. He wanted no recoil of the blast blowing back through the opened windscreen and he pulled the force lever low to “stun.” He hoped it was enough.
The beast started the run. Terl hit the fire button.
It was enough all right. The ions sizzled and glared. The beasts were slammed back, lifted clean off the ground.
They fell.
Terl watched intently to make sure they kept on lying where they had fallen. Good! They did.
He let out a shuddering sigh into his mask, winding down. And then he sat up straight in new amazement. He had thought, when they were hit, that he was dealing with two four-legged beasts. But lying on the ground they had come apart!
Terl swung a side door wide and crawled out. He checked his belt gun and then rumbled over to the game he had hit.
Three beasts, maybe four!
The two four-legged beasts were two. On the one behind, a bundle of something had fallen apart. That maybe made three. The nearer one definitely was two different beasts.
What a confusion!
He shook his head, trying to clear it. The effects of air were not wearing off fast enough: little bright sparks were still popping in front of his eyes.
He lumbered over to the more distant one, pushing the tall grass away. It was a horse. He had seen plenty of horses; the plains were full of them. But this horse had had a bundle tied on
its back. Simple as that. The bundle had come loose. He kicked it. It wasn't anything alive, just some skins, some animal hides, and nonsense bits of other things.
He walked back toward the tank through the high grass.
The other thing was also a horse. And over to the right where it had fallen clear...
Terl pushed back the grass. Well, luck of the gold nebula! It was a man.
The Psychlo turned the man over. What a small, puny body! Hair on the face and head but nowhere else. Two arms, two legs. White-brown skin.
Terl was unwilling to admit that Char's description fitted. In fact, he resented the fact that it did come close and promptly rejected it.
The chest was moving– only slightly, true– but it was still alive. Terl felt fortunate indeed. His excursion was successful without his even going up into the mountains.
He picked the man up with one paw and went back to the tank, throwing the man into the gunner's seat, which engulfed it. Then he set to work repairing the windscreen gasket with some permastick. The whole side of the glass had been dislodged, and although the glass itself was not even scratched, that had been quite a blow. He looked down at the small body swallowed in the seat. A fluke. It was the age of this tank, the brittleness of its gaskets. Sure was a ratty car; he'd find something wrong and put it in Zzt's records– misplaced parts or something. He went over the other gaskets, the doors, and the other screen. They seemed all right, if brittle. Well, he wasn't going underwater and there would surely be no more attacks from things like that.
Terl stood up on the driver's seat and looked all around the horizon. All clear. No more of these beasts.
He banged down the top and settled himself. His paw hit the compression change, and the hiss of air exhausting from the cab and the gurgle of breathe-gas entering was welcome. His face mask was sweaty in the growing heat of the day and he hated the thing. Oh, for a proper-atmosphere planet, a planet with right gravity, with purple trees-
The man-thing went into a sudden convulsion.