He started to turn toward the others behind him, but then he heard it; a low humming from far down the track. It actually relaxed him. There were no more choices to make. Horst moved cautiously and took a better grip on the unfamiliar weapon. The car was coming fast…
It was much smaller than Staley had expected: a toy of a streetcar, whistling past him. Its wind buffeted his face. The car stopped with a jerk, while Staley waved the gun like a magician’s wand, back and forth across it. Was anything coming out the other side? No. The gun was working properly. The beam was invisible, but crisscross lines of red-hot metal lined the vehicle. He swiped the beam across the windows, where nothing showed, and along the roof, then stepped quickly out into the tunnel and fired down its length.
There was another car there. Staley ducked back to cover most of his body but continued to fire, aiming the gun at the oncoming car. How the hell would he know when the battery—or whatever it used for power—quit? A museum piece, for God’s sake! The second car was past, and there were cherry-red lines across it. He swept the weapon along it, then stepped out to fire down the tunnel again. There was nothing there.
No third car. Good. Systematically he fired at the second car. Something had stopped it just behind the first—some kind of collision avoidance system? He couldn’t know. He ran toward the two cars. Whitbread and Potter came out to join him.
“I told you to stay put!”
Whitbread said, “Sorry, Horst.”
“This is a military situation, Mr. Whitbread. You can call me Horst when people aren’t shooting at us.”
“Yes, sir. I wish to point out that nobody has fired except you.”
There was a smell from the car: burning meat. The Moties came out from hiding. Staley carefully approached the cars and looked inside. “Demons,” he said.
They examined the bodies with interest. Except for statues they’d never seen the type before. Compared to the Mediators and Engineers they seemed wire-thin and agile, like greyhounds next to pugs. The right arms were long, with short thick fingers and only one thumb; the other edge of the right hand was smooth with callus. The left arm was longer, with fingers like sausages. There was something under the left arm.
The demons had teeth, long and sharp, like true monsters from childhood books and half-forgotten legends.
Charlie twittered to Whitbread’s Motie. When there was no answer she twittered again, more shrill, and waved at the Brown. The Engineer approached the door and began to examine it closely. Whitbread’s Motie stood petrified, staring at the dead Warriors.
“Look out for booby traps!” Staley yelled. The Brown paid no attention and began to feel cautiously at the door.
“Watch out!”
“They will have traps, but the Brown will see them,” Charlie said very slowly. “I will tell her to be careful.” The voice was precise and had no accent at all.
“You can talk,” Staley said.
“Not well. It is difficult to think in your language.”
“What’s wrong with my Fyunch(click)?” Whitbread demanded.
Instead of answering, Charlie twittered again. The tones rose sharply. Whitbread’s Motie seemed to jerk and turned toward them.
“Sorry,” she said. “Those are my Master’s Warriors. Damn, damn, what am I doing?”
“Let’s get in there,” Staley said nervously. He raised his gun to cut through the side of the car. The Brown was still inspecting the door, very carefully, as if afraid of it.
“Allow me, sir.” Whitbread must have been kidding. He was holding a thick-handled short sword. Horst watched him cut a square doorway in the metal side of the subway car with one continuous smooth, slow sweep of the blade.
“It vibrates,” he said. “I think.”
A few smells got through their air filters. It must have been worse for the Moties, but they didn’t seem to mind. They crawled inside the second car.
“You better look these over,” Whitbread’s Motie said. She sounded much better now. “Know your enemy.” She twittered at the Brown, and it went to the controls of the car and examined them carefully, then sat in the driver’s seat. She had to toss a Warrior out to do it.
“Have a look under the left arm,” Whitbread’s Motie said. “That’s a second left arm, vestigial in most Mote subspecies. Only thing is, it’s all one nail, like a—” She thought for a moment. “A hoof. It’s a gutting knife. Plus enough muscle to swing it.”
Whitbread and Potter grimaced. At Staley’s direction they began to heave demon bodies out the hole in the side of the car. The Warriors were like twins of each other, all identical except for the cooked areas where the x-ray laser had swept through them. The feet were sheathed in sharp horn at toe and heel. One kick, backward or forward, and that would be all. The heads were small.
“Are they sentient?” Whitbread asked.
“By your standards, yes, but they aren’t very inventive,” Whitbread’s Motie said. She sounded like Whitbread reciting lessons to the First Lieutenant, her voice very precise but without feelings. “They can fix any weapon that ever worked, but they don’t tend to invent their own. Oh, and there’s a Doctor form, a hybrid between the real Doctor and the Warrior. Semisentient. You should be able to guess what they look like. You’d better have the Brown look at any weapons you keep—”
Without warning the car began to move. “Where are we going?” Staley asked.
Whitbread’s Motie twittered. It sounded a little like a mockingbird whistle. “That’s the next city down the line…”
“They’ll have a roadblock. Or an armed party waiting for us,” Staley said. “How far is it?”
“Oh—fifty kilometers.”
“Take us halfway and stop,” Staley ordered.
“Yes, sir.” The Motie sounded even more like Whitbread. “They’ve underestimated you, Horst. That’s the only way I can explain this. I’ve never heard of a Warrior killed by anything but another Warrior. Or a Master, sometimes, not often. We fight the Warriors against each other. It’s how we keep their population down.”
“Ugh,” Whitbread muttered. “Why not just—not breed them?”
The Motie laughed. It was a peculiarly bitter laugh, very human, and very disturbing. “Didn’t any of you ever wonder what killed the Engineer aboard your ship?”
“Aye.” “Of course.” “Sure.” They all answered together. Charlie twittered something.
“They may as well know,” Whitbread’s Motie said. “She died because there was nobody to get her pregnant.”
There was a long silence. “That’s the whole secret. Don’t you get it yet? Every variant of my species has to be made pregnant after she’s been female for a while. Child, male, female, pregnancy, male, female, pregnancy, ‘round and ‘round. If she doesn’t get pregnant in time, she dies. Even us. And we Mediators can’t get pregnant. We’re mules, sterile hybrids.”
“But—” Whitbread sounded like a kid just told the truth about Santa. “How long do you live?”
“About twenty-five of your years. Fifteen years after maturity. But Engineers and Farmers and Masters—especially Masters!—have to be pregnant within a couple of our years. That Engineer you picked up must have been close to the deadline already.”
They drove on in silence. “But—good Lord,” Potter said carefully. “That’s terrible.”
“ ‘Terrible.’ You son of a bitch. Of course it’s terrible. Sally and her—”
“What’s eating you?” Whitbread demanded.
“Birth control pills. We asked Sally Fowler what a human does when she doesn’t want children just yet. She uses birth control pills. But nice girls don’t use them. They just don’t have sex,” she said savagely.