Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top (17 page)

Feran felt all his fears of the previous night vanish like grass swimmers into the brush. The Captain
was
going to fight. He would beat Weasel Man, and all would be well.

The Cutter stepped out of the dome as the Captain and Mojo stopped beside Feran. The Captain reached down to ruffle the fur on Feran’s head, then glanced toward the dome. “Ready?”

The Cutter nodded. “Just get him inside.”

A cry made them turn. Procne ran toward them, stumbling with the bulging weight of the brood inside him. “She’s gone! She’s gone!” he cried. He fell gasping into the Cutter’s arms. Feran went cold inside.

The talking box on the Captain’s belt beeped. He lifted it to his face. “It’s from Phi. Time delayed delivery from last night.” They waited as he read. When he spoke, his voice was raspy, like when he took too much dust. “She’s given herself to Weitz. She knows that I won’t surrender her and Pro, that I’ll fight. She doesn’t wish me or any of us to die.” He dropped the device in the dirt. “She knows me better than I know myself, it would seem,” he whispered.

“Our brood—” Procne began.

“She says she would rather her children die than live as slaves, kept only to feed monsters that destroy races.”

“No! Our final coupling was last night. The brood comes!” He placed a thin hand on his pouch. “The essence they must feed on is rising in her blood. If she is not here when they emerge, they will die. If they die without cleansing her . . . ”

“She will die, too,” the Captain finished. “She knew this.”

Mojo frowned. “How’d she know about Weitz? You only told me and Cutter, and just this morning.” The Captain shook his head. Cutter shrugged.

Feran felt as if he were outside his body watching this scene but not part of it, unable to act. Well, he
had
acted, and this was what had come of it. He heard a voice saying “I told her.” It seemed to be coming from somewhere else, and only when they all turned to look at him did he realize he had spoken.

Silence fell. The Captain knelt down before him, and all the words that Feran had tried to find before came pouring out. He turned his head, baring his throat to the Captain, offering his life. Instead, warm arms encircled him and held him tight. Feran knew that this was a “hug” and found it oddly comforting. The Captain whispered “Oh, Feran,” and Feran began to sob.

“So now what?” the Cutter growled as the Captain stood.

They waited. Then the Captain spoke, his voice as calm as when he told Feran a story. “Same plan, with one change. We need Pro with us.” He turned to Procne, and Feran felt a stillness settle, like before two alpha males fought. “You and I, we’ve never quite got it straight between us. Just knew that she somehow needed us both. You never forgave, never trusted me. Can’t say I ever blamed you. Well, I’m asking you to trust me now. If only because you know I wouldn’t hurt her.”

Procne stared at the Captain for several of Feran’s heart beats, then nodded. The Captain turned to the Cutter. “Take Pro inside. Make it look like his hands are tied.” He spoke then to all of them. “Nobody moves till I do, and I won’t move until I know where he’s got Phi. And remember: we need Weitz alive.”

Muttering under his breath, the Cutter pulled Feran into the dome. Feran looked back. The Captain and Mojo strode toward the main entrance, their long cloaks closed, hiding their weapons and shutting out the rain that began to fall hard and cold.

Inside, Feran saw Guppert standing beside two Stone Puppies. He scampered over to them, glad to leave the morose Cutter, then stopped. Weapons were strapped to one side of the great silica beasts, the side hidden from the door. The Puppies lay on the ground, and Guppert’s shoulder came to the top of their backs.

Guppert grinned and rapped a fat fist on the slate side of the nearest one. “Puppies make good fort, Guppert thinks.” He pointed to the ground. “This where you come, little one, with Guppert, when I give word.” He waddled around to the other side of the Puppies where water buckets and scrub brushes lay. “Now, we get busy looking not dangerous.” He and Feran began scrubbing the Puppies. The Cutter stood with Procne between them and the entrance, Procne’s hands bound behind him.

Feran heard them first. “They are here,” he whispered.

Cutter nodded. A few seconds later, two men in RIP SS uniforms entered with guns. They looked around, then one called outside. “All clear.” Weasel Man came in, then the Captain and Mojo, and more men in SS uniforms. Feran counted, his hope fading as each one entered. Ten, plus the first two, and Weasel Man. Four carried a metal case, their guns slung.

“Thirteen. Damn, I hate thirteen,” muttered the Cutter as he left Procne and sauntered toward a Puppy. Still scrubbing, Guppert moved to the hidden side of his beast. Feran followed.

Weasel Man looked around. “Where’s the rest of your crew?”

The Captain shrugged. “Dead or deserted.”

Weasel Man raised an eyebrow and glanced at his men. The Captain nodded at the case. “That our stuff?” he asked, pulling back a sleeve to reveal a Medistim pack. He hit a button on it. Feran knew that he had just taken a “hit.” Mojo did the same.

Weasel Man wrinkled his brow. “It was going to be.”

The Captain smiled. “But you’ve reconsidered.”

“We have the female already—” Weasel Man said.

“Her name is Philomela,” the Captain said.

“And you’re outnumbered—”

The Captain nodded. “Just a bunch of old derelicts.”

“—so now I think we’ll just take this one, too.”

“His name is Procne.” The Captain hit the stim pack again. So did Mojo. Feran had never seen the Captain take two hits. “So you’ll leave me and Mojo to die in slow agony?”

Weasel Man shifted on his feet. Feran smelt his fear. The man nodded at the case. “That’s worth a fortune—”

“And you have to cover your costs, don’t you? Where is she?” the Captain said, taking a third hit.

“On my ship, hovering above us waiting for my call.” Weasel Man patted his talking device. “Now, why don’t—”

Being a predator, Feran was the first other than the Captain to know that the moment had arrived. The killing moment. And in that moment, for the first time, Feran realized something.

The Captain was a predator, too.

Weasel Man was still talking, “—this over with—”

The Captain and Mojo, moving faster than Feran thought men could move, threw back their cloaks and pulled their guns. The Captain shot Weasel Man twice, once through his gun arm and once through his leg. The air sizzled as Mojo fired, killing three before they could even raise their weapons. The Captain shot three more before Weasel Man hit the ground screaming. Feran closed his ear flaps to shut out the screams, his nose stinging from the burnt-air smell. The Cutter and Guppert shot one Ripper each from behind the Puppies. The last four, who had kept their guns slung, died still reaching for their weapons.

As he watched, Feran felt only fear. Not of the killing, for he knew killing, but fear of the look on the Captain’s face.

The Captain stepped over the bodies to where Weasel Man lay like a trapped animal. “Call your ship. Tell them to land outside this dome to pick up the other Angel.”

Weasel Man spat blood. “Screw you.”

The Captain put his gun against Weasel Man’s forehead. The man swallowed, but shook his head. “You wouldn’t kill an unarmed man in cold blood, Trelayne. You aren’t capable of it.”

But for the twitching of one eye, the Captain seemed carved from stone. Then he laughed. He laughed and laughed until Feran felt fear again—fear that he did not really know this man. Suddenly the Captain reached down and with one hand lifted Weasel Man by the throat and held him off the ground. Feran had no words for what he saw in the Captain’s eyes as his voice boomed inside the dome. “I HAVE RIPPED BABIES FROM MOTHER’S ARMS. I HAVE KILLED THOUSANDS AND LAUGHED WHILE THEY DIED. I HAVE ENDED RACES. LITTLE MAN, I AM CAPABLE OF THINGS YOU COULD NEVER IMAGINE.” The Captain dropped him then and looked down at the man, and Feran heard the sadness in the Captain’s voice as he almost whispered, “I am capable of
anything
.”

Weasel Man lay gasping in the dirt. Then he looked up, and Feran knew the Captain had won. Weasel Man was baring his belly and neck, showing submission. He took his talking device with a shaking hand and spoke into it. Feran couldn’t hear the words, but the Captain nodded to the others.

Feran relaxed. Guppert and the Cutter were slapping each other on their backs. Mojo sat slumped on the ground, his head between his knees, sobbing but apparently unhurt.

A cry cut the air. Feran spun, teeth bared. High above, Procne hovered, wings beating, head thrown back, face contorted in agony. His pouch bulged, then split as a cloud of bloody winged things burst from him and fell screeching toward them.

The brood had arrived.

Trelayne had not taken combat doses of Scream for over two years. The killing, and the joy it had brought, had shaken him. Now as the brood rained down bloody chaos from above, he felt his tenuous grip on reality slipping away. Knowing that the brood must live or Phi would die, he tried to follow what they were doing, but the Scream kept drawing him to the bloody corpses. He realized then that the brood was also being drawn to them.

Resembling winged toads with humanoid faces, grey and slick, the brood swarmed over the bodies, driving a long tendril that protruded from their abdomen into any open wound. But they stayed only a second at each spot, and with each attempt became more frenzied.
Scream
, he thought,
they need blood with Scream
.

“Trelayne!”

The cry spun Trelayne around. Weitz knelt, Tanzer held in a shaking hand. Blood soaked an arm and leg, and flowed from his forehead. Weitz leveled the gun at Trelayne.

The brood found Weitz before he could fire, swarming him, plunging their tendrils into each wound, into his eyes where the blood had run down from his forehead, probing, searching. Screaming, he clawed at them, then stiffened and fell forward.

The nestlings leapt up from his corpse to form a shrieking, swirling mass above the ring. They were tiring.
They are dying
, Trelayne thought.
Blood with Scream. Blood with Scream
.

He tore open his shirt. Pulling a knife from his belt, he slashed at his chest and upper arms. He dropped the knife and stood with arms outspread, blood streaming down him, waiting for the smell of the Scream in his blood to reach the brood.

They swooped down from above the ring, swarming him like bees on honey, driving their tendrils into his flesh wherever he bled. The pain surpassed even what Scream let him endure. A dark chasm yawned below him, and he felt himself falling.

Trelayne awoke on his back, pale green light illuminating a bulkhead above him. The weight pressing him into the bed and the throb of engines told him he was on a ship under acceleration.

Something was wrong. No. Something was right. Finally he felt right. He felt human. He felt . . .

Pain. Real pain. Pain that hurt. He tried to rise.

“The Captain has returned to us.” It was Feran’s voice.

“In more ways than one, fox boy, in more ways than one.” The Cutter’s face appeared above him. “Lie still for chrissakes. You’ll open the wounds again.”

Trelayne lay back gasping. “What happened?”

“We won. We took Weitz’s ship.”

“Mojo? Procne? Phi—where’s Phi?” he wheezed.

Her voice came from across the room. “All your family is safe. Guppert, the Puppies. All are here with us.”

Trelayne twisted his head. She lay on another bunk, Procne asleep beside her. “Didn’t know I had a family,” he said weakly.

“We knew, Jason Trelayne. All along we were your family.”

The Cutter moved aside, and Trelayne could see the brood clinging to her. She smiled. “Yes. You saved my children.”

“I haven’t seen that smile in a long time, Phi.”

“I have not had reason for a long time.”

“I feel . . . I feel . . . ”

“You feel true pain. And you wonder why.” Her gaze dropped to something at his side. Only then did Trelayne realize that one of the brood lay beside him, and that the tiny creature still had its tendril inside him. He tried to move away.

“Lie still, dammit,” the Cutter snapped. “This ugly little vacuum cleaner hasn’t got you quite cleaned up yet.”

“What are you talking about?”

The Cutter checked a monitor on the wall above the bunk. “The brood’s feeding’s reduced the Scream in your blood to almost nil. The big bonus is zero withdrawal signs. Remember when you tried to kick it when we started the colony?”

Trelayne nodded, shuddering at the memory.

The Cutter rubbed his chin. “These little suckers must leave somethin’ behind in the blood, lets the body adjust to lower levels of Scream. Angels’d need the same thing when the brood feeds from ’em.” He looked at Trelayne. “You just bought a new life for every Screamer the Entity ever got hooked.”

As the implication of that sank in, Mojo’s face appeared at the door. One of the brood clung to him as well. “We’re nearing the jump insertion point. Where’re we headed, Cap?”

Silence fell, and Trelayne could sense them waiting for his answer. He remembered something Weitz had said and smiled through his pain. “I hear there are still rebels on Fandor IV.”

Mojo grinned and disappeared toward the bridge with Cutter. Trelayne turned to Feran. The kit moved away. Trelayne’s smile faded as he understood. He stared at the kit then spoke very quietly. “Feran, the Captain Trelayne that you saw in the dome today . . . he died with all those other men. Do you understand?”

An eternity passed. Then Feran ran to him and hugged him far too hard, and it hurt. His wounds hurt. The nestling at his side hurt. God, it all hurt, and it was wonderful to hurt again and to want it to stop.

Later, the ship slowed for the jump, and weightlessness took him. But to Trelayne, the sensation this time was not of falling. Instead, he felt himself rising, rising above something he was finally leaving behind.

The Vostrasovitch Clockwork Animal and Traveling Forest Show at the End of the World