"You were?" The question seemed genuine. "Then rrrest assurrred."
I pointed to the pouch hanging from his shoulders. Something big was in it. "Got your lunch in there?" I asked.
"Lunch?" He looked down. "I see. No, the game was not honorrrable. I did not eat it."
He reached into the pouch and drew out Tivi's severed head, dangling it by its beautiful yellow-white hair.
The shock left me nauseous and stunned. It was murder so casual, so unthinking that anger was almost impossible. Instead a huge void opened up in me, an emotional emptiness, a helplessness. The meaning of events past and present drained away, leaving only a chilling perception of the blind malignity of the universe.
"Why?" was all I had the breath to say.
"It was…" the alien answered, somewhat at a loss to explain, and somewhat, I thought, apologetic. "It was necessarrry."
"I'll kill you," I said.
"You must trrry," Twrrrll said. "Otherrrwise you would do me no honorrr."
The Reticulan replaced the head into the bag, then drew forth a knife with a curving black blade and a jade-green hilt. He strode forward.
I turned and ran, stopped short when I saw another Reticulan coming down the passageway. I ducked into the maze of pipes. I crawled, vaulted, and sidled my way through until I broke into another passageway. And met another of Twrrrll's companions. I ran from him, found a doorway opening onto a corridor and turned into it. The corridor went about ten meters and debouched into a chamber clogged with more machinery and pipes.
There was no way out.
I looked around for a weapon. In a pile of debris in front of the far wall I found a narrow plastic pipe. I hefted it. It had mass, at least, and would have to do.
Two Reticulans carrying ceremonial knives were walking calmly down the corridor. Twrrrll turned into the doorway behind them.
I picked a spot on the floor that would give me maneuvering room and stood my ground.
"So," TwrrrIl said when they all stood in front of me. "We shall begin the consummation of this affairrr."
The alien on the left went into a crouch and advanced, sweeping the black-bladed dagger in wide arcs before him. He tried to circle but I swung the pipe a few times and thwarted him. I shifted to the right, feinted a broad cut and tried a jab to his face. He ducked neatly, counterthrusting at my legs. I jumped and backed off.
He tried circling again, this time ducking my swings and slashing at my arms, and though a Reticulan's reach is long, he missed. But he successfully circled me. My back was to his companions, but they made no move toward me. Just to be sure, I backed myself against the far wall so that my present opponent was to the right and the rest to the left. The alien glided forward, surprising me by his lightness of foot. He stopped just out of pipe's reach and danced from side to side, leaning in and out of range, inviting a try for a knockout swing, which he would block, then move inside. I countered that tactic by not giving in to the temptation. Instead, I kept jabbing to keep him at a distance, waiting for his move. It came soon enough.
His left hand flicked out, grabbing the end of the pipe. He rushed in, bringing the knife-wielding right up in a thrust to my groin. I jumped to the left, spun around, bringing my arms over my head and twisting the pipe from his grasp, then rushed around him and delivered a solid thwack to the back of his head as he passed. The alien went crashing into the pile of debris, banging his face against the hard masonry of the wall. He was down for only a second, though, and I halted my followup. Pivoting on double-jointed knees, he swung around with knife low, ready to spring to his feet as I attacked. Seeing that I had stopped, he slowly got up.
My heart sank. That blow to the head would have iced any human and nine out of ten aliens. I backed into my original position. Twrrrll and the other one were still blocking the door.
The alien rushed again, coming under the pipe as I swung at his knife hand. The knife came within a decimeter of my eyes. I slashed back to the right and smacked his thin right forearm. The knife went skittering across the floor. He ran to get it and I rushed him, hitting him across the back. He fell prostrate. As he tried getting up I stepped on the bony, segmented ridge that ran up his back, jumped over his head, wheeled around and bashed his skull with all my might. I bashed it again. The alien raised his head and started to rise, coming to his knees. I hit him again and again. Cracks opened up along the chitinous shell of his skull, leaking a pale pink fluid. Again I brought the pipe down. A flap of skull detached itself and fell to the side, exposing a bright pink mass of brain tissue. I thumped the pipe down repeatedly, smashing the brain into pulp, pink sprays of mist shooting out as each blow landed. The alien stayed on his knees. He brought one leg slowly up. I hit him again, and as he raised his head I smashed his face with a vicious crosswise blow. One eye broke off and clattered to the floor like a broken piece of a camera. He fell on his side. I kicked his face and sent him keeling over backwards. He rolled over and I followed up with blows to the spine and back of the head. He got to his knees and began to rise.
I kept hitting him. And hitting him. He fell, tried to rise again. My arms were tired, each blow less forceful than the last. But his head was coming apart, half his brain now exposed and turned to pink mush. Spongy fragments of it clung to the end of the pipe. I swung and swung and swung again.
"Stay down!" I was yelling. "Bastard!" I screamed it with each blow. "Bastard!" The pipe fell again. "Bastard!" Again. "Bastard son of a bitch!"
He rose to his knees again.
"You're dead, you son of a bitch, dead!" I gathered all my strength into one breath, straddled his body and crashed the pipe down on his skull once again. A fine pink mist shot up, and a thick gush of foamy pink fluid flowed out of the hole in his skull.
But he started to get up again.
I screamed in frustration and backed away to get my breath. Waiting until he got to one knee and brought his head up, I stepped in to deliver a smashing blow to the back of the neck.
Like a snake sag, his huge left hand shot out and caught the end of the pipe in a grip of iron. I tugged but couldn't get it free. As he came to his feet he grasped it with the other hand. I kept tugging and twisting to no avail. He raised his end of the pipe, slid his right hand down its length to about the midpoint and applied pressure to the farther end. The pipe groaned and began to bend. I lost my grip on it and backed off. He twisted it into a half-pretzel and flung it away, striding toward me. I backed until I came up against a red hot duct. I yelled and jumped forward, bringing my hand around to my back where I had been singed. In doing so, I discovered Susan's strange nonweapon still in my back pocket. I drew it out. The alien lunged and wrapped one huge hand around my neck, one around my head. He squeezed. I jabbed the tool into his face, poking the lone eye with it. I kicked him, smashing my boot into his genital area. He wasn't soft there. He wasn't soft anywhere. He squeezed tighter and tighter. My head felt as if it were about to crack. The smell of turpentine and almonds invaded my nostrils, overpowering me. I choked, struggled for breath, bringing the tool up to poke at the horny shell of his face. He squeezed tighter, the one eye still working and rotating lazily for focus. I drew one last breath before my windpipe closed. I was passing out. I brought the tool up before my eyes, thumbed what I hoped were the right switches and reached out, catching his narrow bony neck in the C-shaped clamp at the end of the thing. I jerked on the trigger ring and a brilliant flash blossomed in my eyes. The Reticulan's head fell off, thumping to my feet.
But he didn't let go. Tugging on the alien's wrist, I reached out and applied the tool to his upper arm. A small, furious blue flame like a welding arc cut through chitin and flesh. I rotated the tool, scoring a circular cut. The arm detached, and I yanked it away from my neck and dropped it. The grip on my head loosened. I brought my forearm up against the alien's wrist and got free.