Read Online To Conquer Chaos by John Brunner - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Brunner
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men moved closer, two or three of them dismounting because their horses also shied, and stood soberly regarding the carcase. “They breed ’em out there, don’t they?” one of them remarked in a solemn tone.
“But this one’s dead, like the one that attacked Ampier!” Stadham reminded them sharply. They exchanged glances; it was clear they didn’t like the beast much better for all that.
Stadham came to a decision. “You two!” he snapped, addressing the men whose horses had come closest without taking fright. “Get this thing on one of your mounts! I want to show it off when the army gets here and prove that the things from the barrenland aren’t invulnerable.”
The soldiers hesitated. One of them muttered something, and Stadham rounded on him.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, lieutenant.” The man’s face was pasty-pale. He got down from his horse, but looked at the carcass for a long time before bringing himself to lift it with his comrades’ help and set it on his saddle.
Thus burdened, they moved away.
And, half an hour later, Conrad stood sick and bewildered before a group of impatient, hostile meant-to-be-witnesses, wondering if the universe was conspiring against him. Because if the ground hadn’t opened and swallowed the thing, what else could possibly have happened to the proof of his single-handed triumph?
IX
Night-long, the people of the Station had waited anxiously in the dark and the cold, flashing their handlights occasionally to make sure a lurking shadow was simply that—a shadow.
The dawn washed, shell-pink, over the underside of morning clouds, and they stretched cramped limbs, wiped eyes stinging with sleeplessness and the dust that blew off the apparently infinite barrenness around them, and went to count the cost.
Still not fully recovered from the narrowness of the chance that had prevented anyone else knowing she had been overdue at her post—except Jasper, and he wasn’t likely to boast about that —Nestamay picked a path for herself through the eternal twilight of the main Station dome, bearing a big canister of hot broth and a bag half-filled with chunks of dry bread.
She had already called on three or four of the working groups busy assessing the damage. It hadn’t taken their reactions, but only the evidence of her own eyes, to tell her the bitter truth. Last night’s misadventure had set them back months of painstaking, backbreaking work.
She rounded the side of some large, inexplicable complex of ancient machinery dented in now by a blind charge of the intruding thing, and came on another working party in the centre of which her grandfather was standing. She stopped, knowing he would be angry if she tried to interrupt what he was saying for anything as trivial as food and drink.
Resting the heavy canister, still more than a one-arm burden, on a convenient support, she stared at the time-worn face of the grizzled old man, heard his harsh words echo away under the deformed curve of the roof.
“Now I’ve had reports already from Clagny,” Grandfather stated. “He went on directly after dawn, and lost the thing’s trail a couple of miles out, among the East Brokes. It might be lairing up there to lick its wounds. If it is, the chances are against it returning to the same side of the Station, but in favour of it coming back sooner or later—the current count for returns runs about six to four runaways. If we’re lucky, it may pick up the Eastigo Creek and work its way downstream, in which case we’ve seen the last of it. Nestamay!”
The girl gave a start. “Y-yes, Grandfather?” she said in a thin voice.
“How do I know it probably won’t follow the creek?”
Nestamay gulped. Grandfather was forever playing this kind of trick on her—shooting unexpected questions in public and demanding an answer that would shame the hearers. He was obsessively proud of the fact that his family was the only one in living memory to add significantly to the
“But this one’s dead, like the one that attacked Ampier!” Stadham reminded them sharply. They exchanged glances; it was clear they didn’t like the beast much better for all that.
Stadham came to a decision. “You two!” he snapped, addressing the men whose horses had come closest without taking fright. “Get this thing on one of your mounts! I want to show it off when the army gets here and prove that the things from the barrenland aren’t invulnerable.”
The soldiers hesitated. One of them muttered something, and Stadham rounded on him.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, lieutenant.” The man’s face was pasty-pale. He got down from his horse, but looked at the carcass for a long time before bringing himself to lift it with his comrades’ help and set it on his saddle.
Thus burdened, they moved away.
And, half an hour later, Conrad stood sick and bewildered before a group of impatient, hostile meant-to-be-witnesses, wondering if the universe was conspiring against him. Because if the ground hadn’t opened and swallowed the thing, what else could possibly have happened to the proof of his single-handed triumph?
IX
Night-long, the people of the Station had waited anxiously in the dark and the cold, flashing their handlights occasionally to make sure a lurking shadow was simply that—a shadow.
The dawn washed, shell-pink, over the underside of morning clouds, and they stretched cramped limbs, wiped eyes stinging with sleeplessness and the dust that blew off the apparently infinite barrenness around them, and went to count the cost.
Still not fully recovered from the narrowness of the chance that had prevented anyone else knowing she had been overdue at her post—except Jasper, and he wasn’t likely to boast about that —Nestamay picked a path for herself through the eternal twilight of the main Station dome, bearing a big canister of hot broth and a bag half-filled with chunks of dry bread.
She had already called on three or four of the working groups busy assessing the damage. It hadn’t taken their reactions, but only the evidence of her own eyes, to tell her the bitter truth. Last night’s misadventure had set them back months of painstaking, backbreaking work.
She rounded the side of some large, inexplicable complex of ancient machinery dented in now by a blind charge of the intruding thing, and came on another working party in the centre of which her grandfather was standing. She stopped, knowing he would be angry if she tried to interrupt what he was saying for anything as trivial as food and drink.
Resting the heavy canister, still more than a one-arm burden, on a convenient support, she stared at the time-worn face of the grizzled old man, heard his harsh words echo away under the deformed curve of the roof.
“Now I’ve had reports already from Clagny,” Grandfather stated. “He went on directly after dawn, and lost the thing’s trail a couple of miles out, among the East Brokes. It might be lairing up there to lick its wounds. If it is, the chances are against it returning to the same side of the Station, but in favour of it coming back sooner or later—the current count for returns runs about six to four runaways. If we’re lucky, it may pick up the Eastigo Creek and work its way downstream, in which case we’ve seen the last of it. Nestamay!”
The girl gave a start. “Y-yes, Grandfather?” she said in a thin voice.
“How do I know it probably won’t follow the creek?”
Nestamay gulped. Grandfather was forever playing this kind of trick on her—shooting unexpected questions in public and demanding an answer that would shame the hearers. He was obsessively proud of the fact that his family was the only one in living memory to add significantly to the
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