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“Sometimes happens,” the bartender agreed, and took himself back to the bar.

The sun was closer to the horizon when the human officers reappeared, still in their tight group but not looking quite so spiffy. They took seats at the tables and bar, and Todd and Peters got a fair number of dirty looks, which bothered them not at all. By this time they were quite relaxed, and it would have taken a great deal to bother them.

“Neighborhood’s goin’ downhill,” Peters observed.

“Yeah.” Todd was slumped down on his spine, resting his head against the back of his chair. “Le’s get ouda here. We oughda look around some.”

“Yeah, I reckon.” Peters pulled himself erect and out of the chair, helped Todd do the same. He remembered his manners enough to speak to the bartender. “Pleasant greetings, Denef. We will leave now.”

“Pleasant greetings, Peters. Careful.”

“We will be careful.” Peters looked at Todd, who was weaving a little, then around at all the white uniforms, and reached into his pocket. “These are our species, and I will buy them all a beer.” He groped through his money, coming up with a “square,” a perfect blue-and-white checkerboard worth sixty-four ornh. “That should be enough.”

Denef counted the house, jerked his head up and down. “Enough. Three and two eights of ornh change.”

“Keep it. Come on, Todd, let’s go.” They set off along the beach, supporting one another.

The waves made wave sounds, the beach smelled like a beach, and the sun shone. If it hadn’t been for the red and yellow trees along the backshore they could have been somewhere around Mayport. “God damn space,” Todd complained. “Oughta be bug-eyed monsters ‘n all that. Lookit this.” He picked up a handful of sand. “Fuckin’ sand. Ten zillion light-years from home, and I’m walking through fuckin’ sand.” He threw the handful as hard as he could. It pattered on the surface of the water, making little rings around the occasional pebble. “God damnit, I volunteered ‘cause I thought it’d be exotic, y’know? Monsters. Villains. Suns all different colors. All kinds of shit. Romance. What’d I get? Fuckin’ aircraft carrier. Gettin’ drunk on liberty. Fuckin’ outer space.”

Chapter Thirty-One

“What the fuck is that?” Peters asked.

“Fuck if I give a shit.” Two fins were sticking up side by side and splashing, something moving through the water. Moving fast. “Or maybe I do give a shit. Maybe we oughta step back a little.”

“Yeah.” They had started to do that, struggling a little in the soft sand, when the area where Todd’s handful had landed exploded in wet spray. They had a glimpse of a thing like a submarine with teeth before it was too close to see anything but gray hide. It missed, thank God, although its flank knocked Peters aside, abrading a hole in the sleeve at his shoulder. Then they were running, kicking up the soft sand, and somebody was screaming in the background.

It was scrabbling and thrashing around behind them, but they didn’t look back until they had reached the backshore berm. The thing was ten meters long and as big around as Todd was tall, and it seemed like a quarter of it was mouth with big teeth. It had short stubby fins, with which it was trying to heave its bulk up the beach, and made a grunting sound as it snapped at them.

Denef the bartender came running up with a thing like a shotgun on steroids in his hands. “Snikk,” he said, waving his shooter in existential definition.

“Well-snikk-I-reckon,” said Peters, out of breath.

The gun made a boom and flash, its kick noticeable even with Denef’s bulk. It made a hole the size of a fist in the snikk just below an eye. That didn’t seem to affect it much; it kept right on struggling up the beach, intent on reaching them. Denef fired again, scoring the eye directly, and again. Finally it slowed down a little, then got quiet.

Denef reloaded with fat shiny cartridges from a bag slung on a strap over his shoulder and fired another round, and the snikk finally got the message. It struggled around until it was headed back to the water, then flopped until it got there. There was yellowish-red blood all over the sand. The snikk disappeared into the water. “Goddamn,” said Peters.

“Yeah,” said Todd. “Now we know why nobody swims here.”

“You got that right. Shit, I was thinkin’ about rentin’ a boat, but Christ you’d need a destroyer to be safe around those things.” He touched Denef on the shoulder. “Thank you, friend. That was a big snikk.”

“No, no,” Denef hefted his firearm. “Little snikk. Big snikk come.” He pointed out toward the water.

Several of the double fins were moving around, stirring up low wakes. The wounded snikk was trailing blood through the water, and its mates were headed in for a light snack. Shortly there was a hullabaloo of splashing just offshore, heavy torpedo-shaped bodies visible in glimpses. After a bit their snikk—the original one, they could tell by the bullet holes and the missing eye—crashed back ashore. There was a hunk the size of a man missing from its side.

Half a dozen people the same species as Denef had run down from the hotel with more guns, some like Denef’s, a couple about twice that big. The latter sat on tripods and were being set up with practiced efficiency. There was a great deal of excited jabber, not in Grallt. A snikk twice the size of the original heaved itself out of the water and chomped down on the wounded one. Finally one of the big guns crashed.

It took a long time.

When the snikk stopped coming the sun was well below the horizon and a light onshore breeze had sprung up. The hotel staff had brought big floodlights on poles to illuminate the scene. Three snikk lay on the sand, still threshing around, spraying blood from their wounds, dead or dying but not having got the idea yet. The first one was one of them. The other two were two or three times that big.

“Monsters, you wanted,” said Peters.

“Looks like I got ‘em.”

“Yeah. What’s goin’ on now?” Denef and the others were conferring, with Denef pointing occasionally toward the two sailors. There were raised voices and emphatic gestures.

“Shit if I know,” said Todd. “Just before this happened you mentioned food. It’s been a long time since we landed, and all we’ve had is a few beers. I could do with some food.”

“Yeah, me, too,” said Peters. They started walking toward the hotel, where there was bound to be a restaurant. “Next time you want monsters, you make sure I’m not around, you hear? I’m bored too, but I don’t need that shit.”

“Wait.” It was one of the ape-people. “You are Peters and Todd?”

“Yes, we are,” said Peters.

“Good. Are you well? Did the snikk hurt you?”

“The first one bumped my arm,” said Peters. “It tore my shirt, and I may have a bruise there. Otherwise we are well.”

“Good, good,” the ape said. “I am Corso. I am the manager of the hotel. The snikk are very dangerous. Sometimes people are food for the snikk. It is good you were not hurt.”

“You seem prepared,” Todd observed.

“Yes, we keep the guns available and train the staff in their use.”

“They did very well,” Peters said with a nod.

“It is good of you to say so, but they should do well. They are paid well for this duty.”

“They should be paid well. It is dangerous work for them. Does it happen often?”

“Oh, sometimes,” said Corso.

“Well, it’s over now,” Peters said. “Todd and I will now go to eat. Tell everyone thank you for us.”

Corso smiled. “I will say so. Perhaps I might join you at your meal.”

The two humans shared a look. “Join us, of course,” said Peters with a sigh. “You can tell us what is best to eat.”