EIGHTEEN

  We made haste home. I watched Rauph and Marb and Foal interact now and saw the difference. The dynamic had shifted, thanks to that near-death experience. Nothing like trauma and adrenaline to draw people together.

  I didn’t have that. No glands to speak of. But I wasn’t entirely immune. Once, I had been a soldier or something like that. An officer, perhaps. Some kind of commander. Whatever the truth of the matter, camaraderie was a familiar feeling and welcome feeling. I hadn’t realized just how much I’d been missing it.

  It had been different with the last excursion, when I commanded Marb and Donna and Kagan. I’d been operating as oversight, their ‘handler,’ more or less. Not actually there in the field taking the risks.

  And presently, more risks than they knew. This was my body, now. I might be able to shift back to my original shell in the future, but for now this was it. If it ended, I ended.

  I’d told Foal that it was possible for Cores to return. I assumed that was the case, given the fact that our personalities were uploaded programs, and programs could be copied. But all that was incumbent on Juno’s whim. I’d long ago decided I couldn’t— wouldn’t rely on her mercy.

  “Foal,” I said, choosing a moment when the sun was bright, and my companions were silent. “I watched you with Kagan. I’m not sure if you realized that.”

  “We did. After you burbned out his headbanbd.”

  “You were kind to him, and I’m grateful for that. I also saw a bunch of others coming in to look at him. I got the impression they were fascinated with him. That little cat-girl practically adopted him as a pillow.”

  “Kit,” Foal said. “She likes people. She’s the same with Deedee.”

  I nodded and gazed at her ears. One optical receptor still worked, and sure enough, her ears were twitching. That was the sign she was downplaying her words. “It was more than Kit. I was watching some of those fuzzy faces, and I was seeing one thing in common. And that thing was regret.”

  She said nothing. But I knew the answer, even as I asked the question that would let me put the lynchpin in my strategy. “Have there been any children in your tribe since you broke Pheaus?”

  Silence, then. Her ears drooped.

  “From what I know of medical trials in the past centuries, it makes a horrible sense,” I said, choosing my words carefully. I was on a knife-edge here, risking her temperament for future gain.

  But there was no way through this day without risk. My sensors told me that her people were two doors away from the first inhabited chamber. We had one shot, one fickle forlorn shot at making it through this without blood.

  “Senbse?” Foal asked, and her tone had an edge to it.

  “He looked at you as test subjects, not people. He didn’t want you reproducing without his help. So, he took that from you, to make sure none of you escaped and bred outside of his view. It’s what old-time scientists did with their animals.” Salt in the wound. I reached for sugar, quickly, as her back tensed under me. “And it disgusts me that he thought to do that to people. The sheer goddamn hubris of this asshole makes me sick. He deserved whatever you gave to him and more.”

  Her ears were flat now, but she hadn’t bucked me into a tree, so I took that as a good sign. We rode for another few miles, as I let it marinate.

  I had confirmed what I needed to know. And when I felt the time was right, I stiffened on her back. “We’ve got trouble.”

  The group froze.

  “It’s Foal’s people. They’re attacking our home.”

  “What? Bno! We werenb’t supposed to—” she snapped her lips shut and cantered back. I hung on with my working hand, bracing to avoid falling.

  “No? Then this is a problem. They’re moving fast, and I’m going to have to start killing them if they get much further. We need to stop this, now. Will you help?”

  “Of course I’ll help! I donb’t... you’re bnot...” her words fumbled to a halt.

  “All right.” I pulled out my pistol and showed it to her. She stopped, staring and shocked.

  “Hold out your hand under this, and be ready to catch.” I popped the magazine out, and she stared at the black stick in her hand, brass gleaming through the slot. “You’ve got my bullets. Remember that. Keep them safe.”

  Foal blinked. “Why are you... why would you...” Beyond her, Rauph and Marb were looking at each other. I watched Rauph’s hand hover over the hilt of his chetty blade, and shook my head, motioned my non-functioning hand at him. He got the message and relaxed.

  “I’m going to try to bluff them, so they don’t kill us, and we have a chance to talk. Just remember you’ve got the bullets. This is an empty gun.”

  That was a lie. There was one in the chamber. But she didn’t need to know that.

  “I dislike where this is goinbg,” Foal whispered. “We... promise me you won’t hurt anyonbe.”

  “I wish I could. But that’s up to them. Ride fast and well, Foal. Rauph, Marb, catch up as you can.”

  They nodded, grim-faced. No other choice, really. There was only room for me on Foal’s back, even if she was agreeable to other riders.

  For my part, I hung onto her mane with a grasp a dead man would have envied, crouching low over her back and sorting out my plans for the showdown to come. I had one shot at this. And if that failed, I had one shot, period.

  We scared up animals as we passed, including a few wolflike beasts that chased us for the better part of a mile. But Foal was driven and sure, and I knew how to ride well enough. I couldn’t help but notice the tiny grunts she let out when the terrain was rough, or when she had to take a turn quickly. Couldn’t help but watch the muscles tense in the human part of her back. Her maker had done her a disservice, grafting parts to her as crudely as he had. The structural flaws were evident from this close a distance.

  Were there ways to help her with that? Now wasn’t the time, but it bore some consideration in the future. I would already be working on medical improvements to help out Donna and the rest of the tribe. Maybe I could slot something in along the way.

  I focused as we galloped up to the back entrance of the bunker. “Let me do the talking,” I reminded Foal.

  There were three of them visible outside. The bear, the chicken with a human face, and something humanlike, but shapeless in ways I found hard to process. Like a miniature human with a lumpy, featureless head, and grasping claws at the end of thick wrists. It was the only one wearing clothes, ill-fitting and worn though they were.

  “Foal?” The chicken shrieked.

  The others rose. The bear glared at me and growled...

  …and I drew the pistol with a flashy twirl and stuck it against the side of Foal’s head.

  She froze, eye flicking up at it, then back towards them. She raised her arms.

  “You know what I am,” I said, amping up my voice. “You know what I’m capable of. And still you trespass within my guts.”

  I let that sink in.

  The potato-headed thing let out a gasp, revealing a slit-like mouth. It took a step back. The other two stared frozen, paralyzed or trying to figure out a course of action. I continued.

  “I know what you did to Pheaus. But here’s the thing... that bastard deserved it. I don’t.” And with that I lifted the gun away, pointed it skyward. “So, I’m going to give you one chance to make this right. Get Masker out here if you want to talk it out.”

  The bear took a step toward me, and I snapped the gun back to Foal’s temple. “Ah ah ah. There’s only one alternative to talking. It starts with her, and ends with a hell of a lot of you dead. You really want this?”

  The faceless thing shrieked. “I told you this was a bad idea!”

  “He’s not here!” the chicken yelled. “He’s back at home!”

  “Then get your people out of my guts and we’ll go there.”

  This was risking a lot, but they didn’t know that.

  The bear went inside, and we waited. He came out again minutes later, and a stream of creatures trickled out behind him. The burlier ones were carrying heavy mauls and rough crowbars, and I nodded in relief. No complicated technology here. Just good old physics and blunt trauma, and a lack of opposition. I recognized the gorilla, but the rest were strangers to me...

  ...all save the last. Kagan’s mother, Randa.

  I saw hatred in her eyes, hatred and desperation. She’d betrayed her tribe for her son, and she knew full well what kind of enemy she’d make if I survived this.

  I hadn’t expected her to be here. And as I saw her hands reach toward the bow on her back, I knew I needed to escalate.

  I pointed the gun straight at her, and she stopped. “Nope. You don’t get to come along. You don’t matter to me anymore. Take your friends and your kid and get lost.”

  And damn it all, I wasn’t dealing with a stupid woman. She was smart, was Randa.

  “We don’t have any handguns,” she said. “So that means you got some old relic along the way. That one looks really old. I think you’re trying to trick—”

  The gunshot shut her up. Foal screamed and almost threw me, and Randa jumped backward.

  I pulled my gun back down from where I’d pointed it skyward and aimed it at Randa again. “I gave you a warning shot because I didn’t want to make Kagan an orphan. I like the kid. I don’t like him well enough to give you another warning shot. Get out of here!”

  She ran.

  “You... you lied...” Foal whispered.

  “Bent the truth a bit,” I murmured back. “Relax. You’re safe,”

  The gorilla cleared his throat to get my attention. “We have a radio. You don’t have to come back with us.”

  I waited until Randa was well out of earshot before I replied. “Yeah, and I don’t trust your security. We’re in Tyr’s backyard. Let’s stick to face to face.”

  “It’ll take time to get down there,” the gorilla rumbled.

  “I’m a patient son of a bitch,” I countered. “Lay on, Macduff.”

  “Who?”

  “I have no idea. Let’s get gone.”

  They closed around me, and we went.

  In the time since I’d met her, I’d learned to read Foal’s body language well. She had the opposite of a poker face. Young, earnest, showed what she felt. And I could tell by the way her muscles tensed and released beneath my legs, and by the occasional sideways glance that she was considering bucking me. I kept my gun pointed at her head, with only a twinge of regret. This was going according to plan, mostly. More than usual for my gambits. The cat had thrown a slight wrench into things by rendering me crippled, but I could still see this through.

  We marched through the wilds, southeast past the swampy patch, to where the treeline broke and the fields started. They walked me in, and I could see them relaxing as they went. They were back on familiar ground now.

  I used some of my far-too-low charge to check back at the bunker. No further damage. I lifted lockdown and set the nanoswarms to repair the damaged entrances. Then I logged out. If things did go south and Masker decided to destroy me, then I didn’t want my tribe trapped inside the complex. Slow starvation and dehydration were horrible ways to go; the medical databases I’d gained showed a lot of evidence to support that.

  And so, we arrived at the Farm.

  One house. A barn. A few sheds around neatly tended fields. And a picnic table at the edge, with a welcoming committee waiting for me. An armed welcoming committee, as every form that was physically capable of holding a gun or crossbow had one ready.

  “I think this will do,” I told Foal, as we neared the edge of the field. “You can let me off here.”

  “I’m keeping your bullets,” she snorted back.

  “Keep the gun, too,” I told her and pushed it into her hand before I slid off her back.

  Tension around me, and I heard the patter of feet rushing in...

  “No.” a thin, reedy voice spoke up. “Not yet.”

  I looked over to the picnic table and saw the bulging, furry head of a malformed raccoon lift from under it and peer out at me.

  Then there were the sounds of a magazine snapping back into a gun, and metal tapped the back of my head.

  “I suppose turnabout’s fair play,” I said and kept my hand on her mane. “I’m still down a leg, remember? Help me walk up there or carry me in, either’s fine.”

  “I kinbd of wanbt to pull this trigger bnow,” she said, and I felt it clatter against my metal skull as her hand shook.

  “Then it’s a good thing I put the safety on.”

  She paused. The gun lifted from my skull.

  I refrained from going for her throat.

  “You’ve brought me this far,” I said. “You were never in any real danger from me. Nor are your friends. Let’s go.”

  It was hard to read beastly faces, but I estimated a full half of the glares shot our way were turned on Foal. Betrayal was hard under any circumstances, but throw glands, history, and all that into the mix, and I assumed they were jumping to the worst possible conclusions about her.

  Masker’s face didn’t show that. His eyes watched me without blinking. Once at the table, I slid down and took a seat, putting my hands up top and turning my good eye on him.

  “So why me?” he asked. “I’m not in charge. No one is.”

  “You’re the most tech-savvy,” I replied. “I brought a present that might make you rethink your choice of allies.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I’m going to reach into a compartment. Slowly. Don’t get alarmed.”

  “Buddy, if you were going to pull something, you would have done it by now,” Masker said, eyes narrowed.

  “I’m not worried about you, but you have two twitchy guys on your flanks.”

  He shot them looks. They pointed their guns away.

  The mini-disk shown in the sunlight as I presented it. He took it, gave me an inscrutable look.

  “Do you know Juno?”

  The eyes went wide. “You might say that.”

  “I went and asked her about Yulian. This disk is everything she had to say about him. I’ll want that copy back when you’re done looking at it.”

  “Wait here,” he decided, then hopped down and grabbed a tiny little walker. I watched him struggle back towards the farmhouse.

  The beastfolk around us gazed after him as he went, non-plussed. Awkward silence filled the air.

  “He’s got no reason to trust you, you know.” a leathery voice called from the crowd. I watched as it parted, and the old woman, Deedee, stepped forward. She made her way to the table in no particular hurry. The tiny little cat girl was draped over her shoulders, studying me with glittering green eyes through a tangle of blonde, messy hair.

  “I’m not asking him to trust me,” I said. “I don’t give a toss if he doesn’t. But I think we can maybe do business on an even footing. That’s something he doesn’t have with Yulian.”

  “You sound scary,” the catgirl whined.

  “I can be scary when I need to be,” I told her. “Right now, I’m just tired and cranky.”

  “You should take a nap. That’s what I do.”

  “That’s all you do,” Foal snorted, moving over to them. Deedee hugged her, and the catgirl took the opportunity to switch shoulders, rubbing against Foal’s lower human back and purring, kneading her spines with stubby hands.

  The old woman whispered something I couldn’t hear over the cat’s purrs, and I saw Foal consider me with one large eye.

  I got the feeling that a lot was hanging in the balance here. And I resisted the urge to sigh as she nodded, slowly, and whispered back to the old woman.

  “Name’s Drake,” Deedee said, settling into the bench opposite me and bringing out a pipe. “You?”

  “Wynne.”

  “Never met one of you before. Yer a thing to scare children with. Mad machines that want to rule over us all or wipe out what’s left a’ the world.”

  “Some do.” I shrugged. “From what I hear the guy who used to live here was along those lines.”

  “He done them no favors. It’s a bad father treats his children like that.”

  “I wouldn’t know anything about being a father so I’ll take your word on it.”

  “No?” she turned her head and scrutinized me. “What about them folk all up in yer guts?”

  “Allies. I didn’t make them, and I don’t owe them. They came to me with a deal and I took it.” I tilted my head. “Though I will admit I’m a little more invested than I thought I’d be. How’s Kagan doing these days? You been treating the kid right?”

  “His mommy wants him to come with her, but he’s saying no,” Kit blurted out, and Foal and Deedee shot her looks that made her cringe. “Whad I do?” she whined.

  “Good kid,” I said. “His mom’s a piece of work. I’m guessing she didn’t want to stay here?”

  “You’d guess right,” Deedee said. “Seems the Farm folks make her a mite uneasy. And them boyfriends of hers are talkin’ about how they could make good money further south. Work for themselves for a change, ’stead of a dying old man.”

  “Cade.” I said and saw her eyes widen a bit. “You know him?”

  She pulled on her pipe instead of answering. “None a’ yer business.”

  “Fair enough. If you want to see him, that might be possible. Assuming I walk out of here after Masker’s done copying that disk.”

  “Mighty big assumption, that.” Her eyes flickered in her worn, wrinkled face as she took stock of the crowd surrounding me. “Well?” She snapped. “I got him! You all got things you could be doing, get to it!”

  And to my surprise, the crowd dispersed. Not all at once, not in any particular hurry, but they listened to her and took her advice. Soon she, Foal, the catgirl, and the gorilla were all that were left.

  “What happened?” she asked Foal once the majority were gone, and the horse woman gave a recounting of her journey.

  Deedee had a fair amount of questions once we got to the vine-draped monstrosity that had tried to eat our shine-suits. “Now how the hell did ya know that the orange stuff was bad for it?”