Her stick swooped down and landed just outside. It had been stripped of the fancy chrome, but was still a neat job. The foam-rubber seats had good shock absorbers and well-designed back rests, unlike Army transport. Her familiar was a gigantic tomcat, black as a furry midnight, with two malevolent yellow eyes. He arched his back and spat indignantly. The weatherproofing spell kept rain off him, but be didn’t like this damp air.
Virginia chucked him under the chin. “Oh, so, Svartalf,” she murmured. “Good cat, rare sprite, prince of darkness, if we outlive this night you shall sleep on cloudy cushions and lap cream from a golden bowl.” He cocked his ears and raced his motor.
I climbed into the rear seat, snugged my feet in the stirrups, and leaned back. The woman mounted in front of me and crooned to the stick. It swished upward, the ground fell away and the camp was hidden in gloom. Both of us had been given witch-sight—infra-red vision, actually—so we didn’t need lights.
When we got above the clouds, we saw a giant vault of stars overhead and a swirling dim whiteness below.
I also glimpsed a couple of P-56s circling on patrol, fast jobs with six brooms each to lift their weight of armor and machine guns. We left them behind and streaked northward. I rested the BAR on my lap and sat listening to the air whine past. Underneath us, in the rough-edged murk of the hills, I spied occasional flashes, an artillery duel. So far no one had been able to cast a spell fast enough to turn or implode a shell. I’d heard rumors that General Electric was developing a gadget which could recite the formula in microseconds, but meanwhile the big guns went on talking.
Trollburg was a mere few miles from our position. I saw it as a vague sprawling mass, blacked out against our cannon and bombers. It would have been nice to have an atomic weapon just then, but as long as the Tibetans keep those antinuclear warfare prayer wheels turning, such thoughts must remain merely science-fictional. I felt my belly muscles tighten. The cat bottled out his tail and swore. Virginia sent the broomstick slanting down.
We landed in a clump of trees and she turned to me. “Their outposts must be somewhere near,” she whispered. “I didn’t dare try landing on a rooftop; we could have been seen too easily. We’ll have to go in” from here.”
I nodded. “Okay. Gimme a minute.”
I turned the flash on myself. How hard to believe that transforming had depended on a bright full moon till only ten years ago! Then Wiener showed that the process was simply one of polarized light of the right wavelengths, triggering the pineal gland, and the Polaroid Corporation made another million dollars or so from its WereWish Lens. It’s not easy to keep up with this fearful and wonderful age we live in, but I wouldn’t trade.
The usual rippling, twisting sensations, the brief drunken dizziness and half-ecstatic pain, went through me. Atoms reshuffled into whole new molecules, nerves grew some endings and lost others bone was briefly fluid and muscles like stretched rubber. Then I stabilized, shook myself, stuck my tail out the flap of the skin-tight pants, and nuzzled Virginia’s hand.
She stroked my neck, behind the helmet. “Good boy,” she whispered. “Go get ’em.”
I turned and faded into the brush.
A lot of writers have tried to describe how it feels to be were, and every one of them has failed, because human language doesn’t have the words. My vision was no longer acute, the stars were blurred above me and the world took on a colorless flatness. But I heard with a clarity that made the night almost a roar, way into the supersonic; and a universe of smells roiled in my nostrils, wet grass and teeming dirt, the hot sweet little odor of a scampering field mouse, the clean tang of oil and guns, a faint harshness of smoke-Poor stupefied humanity, half-dead to such earthy glories!
The psychological part is the hardest to convey. I was a wolf, with a wolf’s nerves and glands and instincts, a wolfs sharp but limited intelligence. I had a man’s memories and a man’s purposes, but they were unreal, dreamlike. I must make an effort of trained will to hold to them and not go hallooing off after the nearest jackrabbit. No wonder weres had a bad name in the old days, before they themselves understood the mental changes involved and got the right habits drilled into them from babyhood.
I weigh a hundred and eighty pounds, and the conservation of mass holds good like any other law of nature, so I was a pretty big wolf. But it was easy to flow through the bushes and meadows and gullies, another drifting shadow. I was almost inside the town when I caught a near smell of man.
I flattened, the gray fur bristling along my spine, and waited. The sentry came by. He was a tall bearded fellow with gold earrings that glimmered wanly under the stars. The turban wrapped around his helmet bulked monstrous against the Milky Way.
I let him go and followed his path until I saw the next one. They were placed around Trollburg, each pacing a hundred-yard arc and meeting his opposite number at either end of it. No simple task to—
Something murmured in my ears. I crouched. One of their aircraft ghosted overhead. I saw two men and a couple of machine guns squatting on top of the carpet. It circled low and lazily, above the ring of sentries. Trollburg was well guarded’
Somehow, Virginia and I had to get through that picket. I wished the transformation had left me with I full human reasoning powers. My wolf-impulse was simply to jump on the nearest man, but that would bring the whole garrison down on my hairy ears.
Wait-maybe that was what was needed!
I loped back to the thicket. The Svartalf cat scratched at me and zoomed up a tree. Virginia Graylock started, her pistol sprang into her hand, then she relaxed and laughed a bit nervously. I could work the flash hung about my neck, even as I was, but it went more quickly with her fingers.
“Well?” she asked when I was human again. “What’d you find out?”
I described the situation, and saw her frown and bite her lip. It was really too shapely a lip for such purposes. “Not so good,” she reflected. “I was afraid of something like this.”
“Look,” I said, “can you locate that afreet in a hurry?”
“Oh, yes. I’ve studied at Congo U. and did quite well at witch-smelling. What of it?”
“If I attack one of those guards and make a racket doing it, their main attention will be turned that way. You should have an even chance to fly across the line unobserved, and once you’re in the town your Tarnkappe—”
She shook her red head. “I didn’t bring one. Their detection systems are as good as ours. Invisibility is actually obsolete.”
“Mmm-yeah I suppose you’re right. Well, anyhow, you can take advantage of the darkness to get to the afreet house. From there on, you’ll have to play by ear.”
“I suspected we’d have to do something like this,” she replied. With a softness that astonished me: “But Steve, that’s a long chance for you to take.”
“Not unless they hit me with silver, and most of their cartridges are plain lead. They use a tracer principle like us; every tenth round is argent. I’ve got a ninety percent probability of getting home free.”
“You’re a liar,” she said. “But a brave liar.”
I wasn’t brave at all. It’s inspiring to think of Valley Forge, or the Alamo, or San Juan Hill or Casablanca where our outnumbered Army stopped three Panther divisions of von Ogerhaus’ Afrika Korps—but only when you’re safe and comfortable yourself. Down underneath the antipanic geas, a cold knot was in my guts. Still, I couldn’t see any other way to do the job, and failure to attempt it would mean court-martial.
“I’ll run their legs off once they start chasing me,” I told her. “When I’ve shaken ’em, I’ll try to circle back and join you.”
“Okay.” Suddenly she rose on tiptoe and kissed me. The impact was explosive.
I stood for a moment, looking at her. “What are you doing Saturday night?” I asked, a mite shakily.
She laughed. “Don’t get ideas, Steve. I’m in the Cavalry.”