Now, he had a report of monsters.
He glanced out the window of the limousine; they had bypassed the town itself and headed for the meadows to the northeast, where the corpses had been found and where the monster had been reported.
From up here everything looked ordinary enough.
The car was descending; the chauffeur had his orders, and was following them.
A moment later, Grigsby stepped out and clapped his hat on his head-this was official business, and he had to look the part.
A lieutenant in full uniform stepped up to greet him; Grigsby snapped off a salute, then turned toward the meadow.
It wasn’t hard to find the monster; the thing was lying dead, half a dozen soldiers standing in a ring around it.
It was black and hideous, with fangs and tentacles, and Grigsby had no doubt what it was-he’d read all those briefing papers, like a good little official.
It was a Shadow-beast.
But wasn’t Shadow supposed to be dead?
“What killed it?” he asked.
“We don’t know,” the lieutenant replied. “It was still alive and moving when it was first spotted, but it apparently keeled over shortly after, and by the time anyone dared get close it was definitely dead.”
“Where’d it come from?”
The lieutenant shrugged. “Who knows? There was a trail in the grass, but it appeared out of nowhere a few feet back.”
Grigsby turned to look at the place the soldier indicated-and at that moment, three pale, black-garbed men stepped out of thin air in that exact spot, rayguns ready in their hands.
One of the soldiers reached for his blaster, and an invader blew his head off before the weapon cleared its holster.
Even to the governor’s untrained eye, though, the attacker’s hand seemed unsteady, his aim poor; only the very short range allowed him to hit his target.
“Down!” the lieutenant shouted, tugging at Grigsby’s arm, and Grigsby dropped, stunned by what he had just seen.
That first shot was followed by more; Grigsby heard the electric crackle of blaster discharge and the dull explosions of superheated tissue where the bolts struck, but didn’t see any of what was happening as he dropped and huddled in the tall grass, the lieutenant’s arm flung protectively across his shoulders.
Then, cautiously, he looked up from behind the carcass of the dead monster.
The grass surrounded them in broken disarray; to one side was the slick black hide of the Shadow-beast. Overhead was the familiar purple sky of Beckett, but the blue-white discharges of blasters discolored it in streaks and flashes.
He couldn’t see, from here, who was firing at what.
“What’s going on?” he shouted.
The lieutenant lifted up on one elbow.
“There are more of them,” he said, “but I don’t see…”
Another blaster crackled, and the lieutenant dove again. He groped at his belt for his own weapon. “Stay down, Your Excellency,” he said. Then he was up on his knees, crouching behind the dead Shadow-beast, using it for shelter as he snapped off three quick shots.
Then blue-white electric fire tore through the air and the lieutenant dropped his blaster and fell, clutching at the bloody ruin of his left ear.
“Drop your weapons!” someone shouted-a woman’s voice. “If you don’t shoot at us, we won’t hurt you!”
Grigsby looked at the wounded lieutenant, at the blaster flashes, and shouted, “Cease fire!” He tugged at the lieutenant’s sleeve and told him, “Order them! Cease fire!”
The lieutenant winced, hesitated, then called, “Cease fire!”
The louder discharges stopped almost immediately; the enemy, whoever it was, took two more shots before they, too, stopped firing.
Cautiously, Grigsby pushed himself up on all fours, then rose to a kneeling position and peered over the dead monster’s back.
There were eight or nine of the strangers now-eight or nine still standing, at any rate, and others lying on the ground, dead or wounded. Most of them were men wearing odd, primitive clothing-the same sort of clothing, Grigsby realized, as those mysterious corpses that had appeared in this same meadow some weeks back.
Behind the others, though, was a woman-a woman wearing a heavy black jacket but little or nothing else; her legs were completely bare.
What the hell was a half-naked woman doing on a battlefield?
Of the six soldiers who had surrounded the dead monster, three lay unmoving, two of them visibly missing pieces and obviously dead, the third perhaps only wounded; another sat clutching a blackened arm that hung limp; and the other two, who had taken shelter behind the monster, appeared unhurt.
A stray bolt had hit Grigsby’s official aircar, and a corner of the roof was now torn, blackened, twisted metal instead of sleek purple lacquer. The chauffeur, Ben Miller, had dived out the other side and now crouched behind the vehicle.
At least, Grigsby thought, Miller hadn’t simply flown off and left the others to die.
On the other hand, if he had flown off, and hadn’t been shot down, he might have summoned aid.
“Who are you? What do you want?” Grigsby shouted.
And where the devil did they come from, he wondered silently. He had seen the first three appear as if out of nowhere, and these others had presumably arrived during the fighting, but there were no tracks, there had been no sound to indicate their arrival.
“If you’ll step this way, we’ll explain everything,” the woman answered, gesturing. Grigsby noticed for the first time that her hands were empty. In fact, he realized, most of the attackers appeared to be unarmed; he only counted three blasters.
Maybe ceasing fire had been a mistake; if those were the same three blasters that the first arrivals had had, they couldn’t have very much charge left.
It was too late now, though; he would play along for the moment.
“You, the driver,” the woman called, “and you in the fancy suit-you two go first, the wounded go last.”
Grigsby had serious misgivings about this, but he reluctantly emerged from what little shelter he had and stepped up to where the woman indicated.
“Here?” he said.
“One more step,” she replied.
He obligingly took one more step…
And Beckett vanished.
* * * *
“So what’s the total?” Pel asked, looking up from the unconscious lieutenant.
“We now have nine blasters,” Susan replied. “However, two of them appear to be low on charge. Eight fetches were destroyed. Nancy and the other fetches are unhurt.”
“Fetches are no great loss,” Pel said. “Was anyone on their side hurt?”
“Three men dead,” the false Nancy reported. “Six captured.”
“I can count the captured for myself.” Pel, still on his knees, looked around.
There were four soldiers, counting the lieutenant; he had already repaired an injured arm on one before attending to the lieutenant’s ruined ear. There was a dignified elderly man in a fancy suit-nothing as elaborate as that man Curran’s rig, but this fellow was obviously someone important. And the last man wore a black-and-maroon uniform that Pel had never seen before.
“Someone go get the dead ones,” Pel said. He picked two of the fetches and pointed them out by surrounding them in a golden glow. “You and you-bring the three dead men.” He glanced at the Nancy simulacrum. “Were they all soldiers?”
“Yes.”
“Just the ones in purple uniforms, then-don’t bother with the ones in black.”
The fetches disappeared into the portal.
Pel stood up, stretched his back, and crossed to his throne. He settled in, got himself comfortable, then largely suppressed the visible manifestations of the matrix, allowing the Imperials to see him.
“All right,” he said, “who are you all?” He pointed at the man in the fancy suit. “You first.”
“My name is Shelton Grigsby,” that gentleman said. “I’m a representative of His Imperial Majesty’s government on Beckett.”