“Welcome to our village, my lady Karan,” the judge said, hobbling forward on his stick. “I take it that Lord Vaemar is busy and you are his deputy?”
“Vaemar is busy in the Bundestag, but he knows of this matter, and although we had a slight difference of opinion on whether I should come in his place, and whether I should bring Orion and Arwen here, we are in complete agreement that this is urgent and needs to be handled immediately. I have come to observe for myself the massacre and confirm that the lesslocks have guns.” Karan bowed politely, and let the squirming kits down, where they went racing around. It must be safe, it was mid-morning and the lesslocks were creatures of the dark. And nearly every species was kind to infants. The kits’ big eyes triggered something protective across different species. No doubt there was a genetic recognition that the kits were too small to make a good meal, and it was better to let them grow bigger before eating them.
“Please come into the village, my lady. I suggest sending the aircar into hover mode just in case, but if you will follow me, you-” That was when the lesslocks attacked.
There were only a handful of them, but one jumped up out of the ground almost at the judge’s feet, with a gun raised. The aircar had nearly landed on it. It was close, and much, much too close to Arwen, who gazed at it with astonishment. The judge threw himself in front of the kit and lunged. It had been a long time since he had acquired skill in fencing, and his stick was no schläger, but the tip went into the lesslock’s eye, and the creature fell back and dropped the musket. Another lesslock stood and pointed its musket. The gun waved about uncertainly, the animal having only a vague idea of aiming. The barrel fell until it pointed at Arwen. The roar from Karan, the deeper roar from Ruat, the sound of a shot and the judge throwing himself in front of the kit happened too quickly to be distinguished, but Karan snatched Arwen back only a second before Ruat hit the lesslock and ripped its head off. The other lesslocks fled, and Ruat and the two deputies took them down within seconds. Karan looked down at Arwen. The bullet had emerged from the judge with the momentum of a thoroughly slugged baseball, and the kit had caught it in one paw, and was inspecting it to decide if it was edible. “No, dear, it’s yukky,” Karan pronounced, and took it from her and threw it in the long grass.
“You been hurt, Judge,” one of the men said, unnecessarily. The bullet had caught him in the gut, and blood was pouring out from entry and exit wounds. Karan stooped and reached into the aircar for a first-aid kit. She bound the damage as well as she knew how, quickly and expertly. Then she placed the unconscious judge gently in the aircar. “Fly him straight to the hospital in Munchen. Fast as you can go,” she told the pilot.
“I must go with him,” Ruat rumbled.
“Good. And you,” Karan addressed the female aide, “make absolutely sure he gets the top priority treatment as a matter of urgency. Send another aircar back to us as soon as you are airborne. Now, go!”
Ruat climbed in, and the aircar shot off. He didn’t know what was going to happen, but without the judge, they would all be lost.
Karan stalked into the village. She was in a towering rage with herself. She had underestimated the enemy. So had the judge, and he might pay the ultimate price for that. But he had taken a bullet to save her kit, and that made a blood debt that would last forever. She was shown to the judge’s house, which was also where he dispensed justice. The population, alerted by the gunshot and only partially informed, gathered and looked at her with some apprehension.
“I have sent your judge to the hospital. He has been seriously wounded by one of those sthondat-excreted lesslocks. Until he comes back, or you appoint a new judge, I am the Law East of the Ranges. I will do my best to give justice, even though I have not his wisdom.” Her green eyes flashed, and nobody doubted her for a moment.
Vaemar needs to know, Karan thought. There was no necessity for visiting the scene of the massacre now; the basic fact of armed lesslocks was established beyond all possibility of doubt. Karan shivered with rage. The lesslocks now had an implacable enemy who would destroy every last one of them, whatever their inadvertent capacity to bring man and kzin together.
The judge opened his eyes to see Ruat’s face framed by blue sky and the transparent upper shell of the aircar.
“Looks like I’ve taken early retirement,” he wheezed. “I’m a goner, I guess. But it’s been good having you as a friend, Ruat. You’ve done a good job.”
“You must live, Judge, you must. We need you more than ever now.” Later, Ruat was to treasure that friend word. Just now he had no time for thinking about it.
“We in an aircar?” The judge’s eyes roamed.
“Getting you to be mended, as fast as we can go,” Ruat told him. “Hang in there, judge,” he implored. The judge tried to nod, but closed his eyes.
Ruat felt very out of place in the hospital. It was full of humans, and they were running around very fast, pushing a trolley with the frail, shrunken judge on it. They wouldn’t let him follow them, nor the female military aide, who had handled all the negotiations and filled in forms. He looked around. A small man with a camcorder came up to him.
“’Scuse me, but who was that guy you just brought in?” the little man asked.
Ruat looked at him. He seemed harmless. “That was the judge. He is a great and important man. He is the Law East of the Ranges, and I am his sheriff.” He showed the man his badge.
“Really? A human judge and a kzin sheriff? That sounds kinda interesting. Tell me more,” the little man said.
Ruat told him pretty nearly everything. It took some time and involved some food in a kzin restaurant, where the meat was really, really rare. In fact, still running. Although they were prepared to cook it, a little bit, for the occasional human customers.
Karan, through Vaemar, had ordered six drones equipped with anti-personnel weaponry. They were rare, and the military had been very nervous about releasing them, and had sent as many officers along with the controlling equipment. They stood in the village, not far from where the pig farm had been before it had been decided to temporarily shift it. It was already dark.
“We need to hunt the horde. Possibly several hordes. Can you get these things airborne without burning down the palisade?”
“Certainly, ah, ma’am. They should have no difficulty picking up a large number of bodies, even in the dark. Infrared capacity was noted in your specification.”
“Then get them up there and quarter the district. Circle around the village and then look east. The beasts travel in large packs.”
The officers looked at each other, and one of them shrugged. They had been trained to kill kzin, not take orders from one, but these were new and different times. Mental flexibility was definitely part of the modern job description.
“Very well, ah, my lady. We have six large monitors, one for each drone, and you will see what the drone sees. But please keep the newsmen well back.”
The drones were released and went up on thin rocket flames. Karan watched the pictures they sent back. The village looked ridiculously small, but for a while she could see herself and the group inside the walls as green flickers against the darker ground. Those walls might have to be rebuilt from stone if this didn’t work. The officers worked with keyboards and controllers, and the drones carefully avoided each other and surveyed the region. There were occasional flashes of bright green as small bodies roamed the woods and hills. But nothing like a horde.