“How did he—?” Lars interrupted himself as usual. “You said he brought the stones down on me.
I picked up the weapon he’d used, a hybrid of a bent coathanger and a compound crossbow, with exposed wiring, and no clear indication of which was the business end. I showed it to Burman.
“With this,” I told him. He nodded as if I’d said something sensible and took the thing. Clearly, he knew which was the business end; the engineer in him, no doubt.
“Interesting,” he commented. “The principle―I’m not sure, of course―but I’d guess this is based on control of the weak nuclear force―no wonder it knocks chunks out of solid granite. Very sophisticated. We’ve been working along these lines for some time.” He handed it back; I took it carefully. He showed me how to hold it and pointed out the trigger.
By this time a few people had appeared, opening doors and venturing cautiously out. They saw us and came our way, calling questions before they got in conversational range. We didn’t have any answers. A young woman went to the two dead people and started sobbing. Then we all heard a yell from the middle distance and looked that way. A man with blood on his face was staggering toward our little group of strangers. Burman and a couple of others went to meet him and guide him over. I don’t know why; we couldn’t help him. The bloody nose advanced uncertainly. His eyes were on the dead thing.
“More of them on the way―lots more!” he gasped. “They’re coming out of the old coal cellars at the shipyards. I fell,” he added apologetically, wiping his nose and spreading the crimson stain around. “I saw them kill a man―shoot him―with one of thosel” He pointed to the gadget I was holding. “Blew him apart!” he blurted, and gagged. “It was horrible! He never had a chance! Just a rag-picker, poking around in the rubbish-bin. They killed him like a rat!”
The crowd decided we knew no more than they did, and began moving off, in twos and threes; nobody went alone. A lone rat-man came out of one of those narrow side streets by the old shipyard; he seemed to be in trouble; he was staggering in a comical way on his stubby legs; he stopped to look around, and started our way.
“It’s not armed, I think,” Lars said. I agreed.
“I’ve got a pistol,” I told him. “You’d better take this thing.” I handed him the alien weapon. Ten feet away, the critter stopped to look us over. The beady eyes in the pointed, ratty face flicked over us, stopped at the weapon Burman was holding. It was definitely sniffing. It held out a narrow, long-fingered hand, and made a squeaky sound, like a rusty hinge.
Burman said, “Keep back,” in a mild tone, then, to me, “It makes the hair on my neck stand up.”
The thing squeaked again, more urgently, if I could read human tones in a rusty hinge.
“Who are you?” I asked, just to be saying something.
“You are nod of our trusted cadre,” the thing said in a high-pitched, but comprehensible voice. “Why do you have tisrupdor?” Its eyes flicked to the dead one. “You dreacherously killed Tzl and doog his sidearm,” it accused.
“I sure as hell did, weasel-puss,” I replied, and eased my Walther into quick-draw position. “Your pal Seal killed two people, and would have killed more.”
“ ‘Tzl,’ ” the thing corrected. “Gan none of you mongs learn to speag gorregly?”
“Why should we?” I demanded. “This is our world―” I got that far before he flipped his disruptor into working position. It fit his stubby-armed physique perfectly, which is why it was awkward for Lars, who nonetheless had aimed his disruptor at the alien before it had its weapon at the ready.
“Repend, slaves!” the alien said, in its squeaky but grammatically perfect upper-class English.
“We’re not slaves, rat-head,” Lars told it, quite calmly. “Now: who are you, what are you, and why are you here?”
“I have high honor to be Pack Commander Qzk,” it said, enunciating carefully. “I am not obliged to endure interrogation by scum, but I will tell you, since you appear so appallingly ignorant, that I represent the Central Command of Ylokk, and I am here, with my troopers, to clear native creatures from this urban area. Now, you!” it addressed Burman, ignoring me and my automatic. “Give me that weapon!”
“If you say so, sir,” Lars said humbly, and blew a hole in Commander Qzk big enough to hide a football (soccer-type) in, knocking the arrogant alien for a six-foot slide on his back, after he hit the cobbles. Lars looked at me as if expecting a rebuke.
“As well now as later,” I told him. “Now we have to get to HQ, fast, with this information.” I started off, passing the two dead ‘Locks,’ I think he had called his kind, and the two dead people. So far, the score was even.
Going along the deserted streets, we saw more of the rat-men, mostly in pairs, once a patrol of ten, once a lone critter leaning against a wall and puking. None of them saw us ducking along from shadow to shadow. We reached HQ; the wrought-iron pole-lamps flanking the granite steps were on, and lights burned behind a few windows, but no one, human or alien, was in sight.
There was no guard in the sentry-box inside, either. It was very still, but I thought I heard voices far away, from somewhere above. We went up the marble staircase and along the wide corridor to Richtofen’s office. Again, no sentry on duty. I rapped and an irritable voice snapped.
“You may enter!”
I did, with Lars at my heels, and a burly security type I’d met before aimed a machine pistol at my dinner and said, “Oh, it’s you, colonel. Good. The general wants to see you.”
“Aim that thing at your foot, Helge,” I replied. “This is Lars Burman. He’s on our side―and it’s a good thing, because if he weren’t, he’d have blown you in two with that coathanger he’s holding.”
Helge lowered his weapon rather sheepishly, put out a hand for the disruptor, pulled it in again and nodded at the inner door. Before we reached it, it opened, and Manfred von Richtofen was standing there, gray-haired, immaculate in his Net Surveillance Service uniform, getting just a little stooped now―he was past eighty. He held out a hand and said, “I thought it was you, Brion. Good. Welcome. Come in, and Mr. Burman as well.”
I shook his hand and so did Lars.
“What the hell’s going on, sir?” I asked him. “Where are they coming from?” Richtofen waved a hand at a wall map of the city, which was built on an archipelago, the islands linked by bridges. There were red and yellow pins stuck in it in a pattern of concentric arcs centered on the waterfront, near where I’d met my first rat-man.
“It’s a trans-Net invasion, Brion,” he said grimly. “No doubt about that.”
“How many are there?” was my next question.
“No firm estimate,” he told me. “Not enough data. But a steady stream of reinforcements is arriving. Casualties are light, so far, because we haven’t mounted any organized resistance. They seem to be trying to capture a few people at random, when they happen to encounter them. The first report came in from Goteborg, about an hour ago. A hot-line call, just about the time you were leaving the party. I sent a detail after you, to inform you, but they missed you.”
“I took a shortcut,” I explained.
“Still, you’re here now,” Richtofen said, as if that solved everything.
“Why don’t we call out the local garrison and round them up?” I wanted to know.
“It’s a full-scale invasion,” the general said grumpily. “We can’t hit them all at once. In the city alone, there are hundreds of confirmed sightings so far.” He waved at the map with pins.
“Red for casualties, yellow for just sightings,” he explained. “Whoever they are, they mean business. My technical chief, Sjoman―you’ve met him of course, Brion―tells me they’re from a line far outside our surveillance zone.”