“They sound like statues.”
“Statues can’t move.” Dinkle’s voice took on a hollow quality. “But Oscars can run like the wind, and they can smash down trees with their bare hands, and nothing hurts them.
Radiation, bullets, bombs—everything just bounces off. They’re really what ended the war on Aspatria. Even the officers got to be afraid of them, so they pulled us out of all the up-country forests.”
“I don’t get this,” Peace said. “Are the Oscars the native Aspatrians?”
“You college types don’t know much about the real galaxy, do you?” Dinkle stopped brooding on the past long enough to give Peace a look of contempt. “Aspatria is a human colony—one of the oldest there is. In fact, that’s what the war was about. Just because they’d been around for three centuries or so, and were a few thousand light years from Earth, they thought they could go independent and stop paying their taxes. What would happen to the Federation if every Tom, Dick and Harry decided …?”
“But who are the Oscars?” Peace cut in. “Where did they come from?”
“Nobody knows officially. They appeared back on Aspatria back around ‘82 or ‘83. Some people say they’re mutants, but I know better.” Dinkle’s face began to twitch and his voice grew louder. “Soldiers of the Devil—that’s what they are-mustering for the last big battle between good and evil. And they’re going to win! I tell you, Warren, Armageddon’s almost on us, and we’re on the losing side.”
“Calm down,” Peace said uneasily as men in other parts of the room began to glance in Dinkle’s direction. He had wanted to remain as unobtrusive as possible before quietly slipping away, but Dinkle’s story had a hypnotic fascination for him. “What makes you so sure the Oscars are evil?”
“I’ve seen them in action.” Dinkle crossed himself again and his eyes glazed over. “Got separated from my unit one day … making my own way back through the forest when I heard this noise … got down on my hands and knees and crawled up to the edge of a clearing for a look-see … and I saw … I saw about five Oscars there … and they had some of our boys with them, lying there on the ground…
“Our boys were wounded, you see. I could hear them moaning and groaning and pleading for mercy, but it was no use. The Oscars kept right on doing it…” Dinkle covered his face with his hands. “I can’t go on.”
“You’ve got to.” An icy breeze seemed to be stirring the hair on the nape of Peace’s neck, but his mind was totally in thrall to the ghastly story Dinkle was unfolding. “What were the Oscars doing?”
“They were feeding our boys to the … to the throwrugs.”
Peace felt his stomach heave. “Oh, my God! You don’t mean…”
“It’s true, Warren. The Oscars had collected up some throwrugs—they could do that, you see, because nothing hurts them—and they were throwing them over our boys while they lay there on the ground. I can still hear them screaming and pleading for quick deaths. I can still see them writhing around while the throwrugs digested them and…” Dinkle clawed his fingers into Peace’s knee. “Know something else, Warren?”
“What?”
“The Oscars were laughing. They enjoyed seeing good men being eaten alive. If I’d been a brave man I’d have gone in there with my rifle and tried to put our boys out of their misery—but I was a coward, Warren. I was too scared of the same thing being done to me—so I crawled away and saved my own skin. I don’t deserve to be alive.” The blood was pounding in Peace’s ears as he stood up. “Listen, Bud,” he said, seeking a way to change the subject, “why don’t you clean up and change into your leave suit? It’ll make you feel better.”
Dinkle shook his head. “I don’t need any leave suit. I’m staying right here in the ship till we take off again.”
“Why’s that?”
Dinkle hunched around the slim prop of his rifle. “I’m not going to risk bumping into no Oscars. They swagger around like they own the place, and everybody’s afraid of them. I’ve heard they can read people’s minds, and if I saw them that day…” Dinkle crossed himself several times in quick succession and began swaying and muttering wildly about Armageddon, retribution and the Day of Judgment.
Peace backed away from him in consternation and took refuge in the lee of the coffee machine until, some minutes later, the klaxon sounded to announce that the ship was going into the landing phase. As soon as the floor had given its familiar conclusive lurch he joined the group of men clustered around the exit. After a tantalizing pause the door slid open and revealed an expanse of sunlit grass which could have been a pasture instead of a landing field.
The air was warm and sweet and in the distance, shining with harmonious pastels, was the graceful architecture of the city.
Peace felt an immediate liking for what he could see of Aspatria and he wondered if that could be a sign of previous acquaintance with the place. He stepped out with the others on to the pliant turf, filling his lungs with the scented air, revelling in the freedom from physical danger, then became aware of a different kind of hazard. Lieutenant Merriman had decided to address his men, yet again, on the evils of tobacco and alcohol, and—as he had a tendency to repeat everything he said—was almost certain to reiterate his order about returning to the ship within four hours. Peace was now unprotected by the command neutralizer and if he heard the order he would have no choice but to obey.
“Over there you will find a spaceport coach which will take you into Touchdown City,” Merriman said, pointing towards a complex of low buildings. “Visit as many museums and art galleries as you possibly can, but don’t forget that you…”
Whimpering with alarm, Peace clapped his hands over his ears, doubled low and scuttled away along the side of the spaceship. On rounding the corner of the transceiver tower he glanced back and, although it was difficult to be certain, got the impression that some of the blue-suited figures had turned to watch his departure—which must have looked slightly odd, not to say suspicious. Cursing himself for having blundered at such an early stage in his scheme, he looked around for an escape route and saw that the field’s perimeter was within sprinting distance. He ran towards it, expecting at any moment to hear a hue and cry developing in his wake, and reached the five-strand wire fence. Praying the wires were not electrified, he clambered through into the longer grass beyond. Ahead of him was a gentle rise which he ascended at top speed. On the crest he looked back and was relieved to see that neither Lieutenant Merriman nor any of his former comrades had emerged into view behind the rectangular hulk of the ship.
Relaxing a little, Peace took stock of his surroundings. The land fell away before him in a long and rather steep grassy bank, at the bottom of which a substantial road curved off in the direction of the city. A limousine painted in the unmistakable brash yellow of a taxi was cruising along the road. Peace considered using it as a quick and providential means of getting into the city, then decided against it on the grounds that he would need to conserve what was left of his money. He set off at an angle down the slope, determined to move at a leisurely pace and regain his composure. The lushness of the grass made the going slippery, and almost at once his thighs began to quiver with the effort of holding himself back on the incline. He began walking faster and faster, losing more control with each second, and before he really knew what was happening he was bounding down the long bank at breakneck speed.
I’ll learn from this little experience, he thought, trying to preserve a detached calm while the wind whistled in his ears and his contacts with the ground grew more fleeting. One should always expect the unexpected.