Harriet, screaming like a dime on dry ice, was watching a large green lion with yellow spots devour something scarlet that would have been a lion if it had known how. The green one was obviously hers, and the screams were just embellishments.
Then Sean called for help. He had a squad of three large not-quite rats wearing blue capes and carrying weapons that looked like miniaturized stock goads attacking him with shrill cries from the left, and something I thought was a brown net but was really another flying thing clinging to his right arm in a hostile manner, and he’d panicked slightly.
On a hunch, I soaked the flying net with vinegar. It shrilled just within the audible range, fumed, shriveled, and fell off. Sean kicked it overboard.
The caped rats were a whole different thing. They were fast, smart, vicious, instinctive kamikazes, and their little stock goads were some kind of ultrapotent neural weapon. Even near-misses were painful, and I still limp a little from having been touched on the leg by one. Nasty.
Our immediate project was to keep the rats at a comfortable distance, but there were three of them and only two of us, and by their standards we were pathetically awkward and slow. Using larger versions of their own weapons, we could keep any two of them at bay, but the third rat was impossible.
But we kept trying until I got stung on the leg. In that first intricate moment of pain, I realized how stupid it was to fight these things with their own weapons, so I dumped five gallons of rubber cement on them and left them for Sean to sweep overboard.
The pain in my leg also reminded me that I wanted to do something about the jolly lobsters who were providing all this healthful exercise. I coolly stole a military robot from some half-remembered science fiction story, made a few slight alterations, and planted a dozen of them in the ravine behind the beach. The I resumed my look-around.
Gary the Frog and an ancient battle-ax were busily shortening the tentacles of a slimy gray water beast most of which was out of sight. The severed tentacles dripped a thin blue liquid that sizzled and evaporated as it fell, leading me to wonder where the beast came from and why. Oh, the tentacles had claws at their tips.
Gary seemed to enjoy his work. As he chopped, he loudly flatted “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to the rhythm of his battle-ax. Ah welclass="underline" each man to his taste, I suppose, but I’d’ve used a laser.
We seemed to be in a minor lull. Oh, carnage was being dealt out left and right, with our side doing all the dealing, but there were three of us caught at the same time with nothing to do. I returned to my original post and took stock. Our side seemed to be doing pretty well for itself. We’d beaten off all boarders so far, without casualties. But that was just holding our own. We were actually doing somewhat better than that. The sky, for example, was crowded with gleaming metal gadgets — probably Michael’s — that were efficiently stopping most airborne attackers before they could get to us, so — the best battles being those you don’t have to fight — we were pulling a bit ahead of the game.
Of course, Ktch’s having bought his fighters at a rummage sale or whatever was to our advantage, too. It’s a hell of a lot easier and safer to fight isolated members of a thousand races than a thousand members of one race. If Ktch’d mounted a concerted attack, we’d be in trouble, but this catch-as-catch-can stuff was fun — even for me, and I’m no fighter.
Furthermore…
“Hello?”
“Gah!” I had company. Lots of it. Only one animal, but big. And it Talked?
“Did you,” I asked, “just say Hello to me?”
“I did.”
“How ’bout that?” This one was a serpent by trade, complete with forked tongue and fangs. A hooded serpent. He was silver above, gold-green below, had an armlike pair of tentacles (or a tentacular set of arms) growing just below his hood, and would’ve been quite pretty if he hadn’t been so huge. His head was larger than my body, and his tail was resting high up on the beach more than a hundred feet away. Big snake. And he could talk.
“You know, I’ve never been spoken to by a serpent before.”
“I understand. Some of us are excessively secretive.” Not speech, telepathy.
“If you’ll pardon my asking, sir: why did you speak to me?”
“I wanted to know who you are. I never eat anyone I don’t know. It’s not safe.” Okay, but snakes are easy. “Are you intending to eat me?”
“One of you, maybe more. That’s why I was brought here. But I don’t know which ones yet. You see, I’m very particular about my food. Picky. I have to be. I’m really very — Sensitive.”
Groovy. Ancient Village line, right? So I filled his inside and bathed his outside with liquid helium and watched him topple. Snakes are easy. Especially the sensitive ones.
But what was I thinking when the serpent interrupted? Oh yes, something had to be done about the lobster gang. With a mere shrug of the imagination, I established a dozen military robots in the willow grove behind the beach.
That minor lull was growing-major. Kevin, for reasons of his own, was sprinkling salt and pepper on a giant amoeba. Stu was hurling balls of colored fire at a six-armed but otherwise humanoid horned giant who, with a weapon in each hand, was diligently trying to get at Stu. The giant’s skin was the colors and texture of a Gila monster’s, but Stu didn’t seem to be in trouble. And Pat was off in a corner singing to some avant-garde crystalline life form that… Oh. The crystal shattered.
And that was all the action there was. The rest of the gang was just tossing ex-things and chunks thereof overboard — housecleaning.
Was it over? I still felt wildly manic, and I certainly hoped not. “Hey Michael,” I yelled, “this is our chance.” But maybe Ktch was only rounding up another team. “Chance for what?”
I walked up to him and whispered, “Chance to attack.” “Attack who?” Stu yelled. He was at large, too. He’d left old six-arms slumped down on the grass like a pyramid and burning merrily.
“Hey, man,” I reproached him, “I wish you wouldn’t burn your things on the roof. It’s bad for the grass. And what if the bus catches fire, hah?”
“Sorry ’bout that.” The fire died away.
“Strategy meeting,” Mike proclaimed. “Strategy meeting at this end of the roof. Meeting time.”
So we gathered at that end of the roof, all but Little Micky, who wasn’t interested in strategy and volunteered to stand watch at the other end.
“I’ve been thinking,” said the Michael, “that now’s the time for Us to attack Them.”
I: “You’ve been thinking!”
Mike: “I don’t claim to be the only one. All I said…”
Sativa: “For this kind of strategy, who needs a meeting?”
And then Little Micky made That Noise, the one that wakes me up some nights. High, thin, twist-tight, inhumanly sustained: I’d never heard anyone die like that before.
And there were Little Micky and this kid, this absolutely beautiful five-year-old American blond Kid — but Micky was dead and this Kid was pulling him apart and tossing the pieces overboard.
The kid looked up at us and grinned. There was blood on his chin. He threw a piece of Little Micky at us and yelled a treble war cry. A million shrill voices returned the cry, and the kids swarmed over the fence and charged. They were all beautiful children, all five-year-olds in pastel shorts, and they came at us yelling, with knives in their hands.