“Shit…”

  I dug into the lockers, busting them open one after another. I wasn’t too careful with this process, and I made an awful racket.

  A hulking figure appeared at the entrance. “I should have known,” Raash said. “What other piece of primate excrement could be found making such a mess?”

  “Hey, Raash! You must have heard me all the way down at the revival chambers, huh?”

  “Yes, madman. Explain yourself before I’m forced to take disciplinary action.”

  That’s when I looked down and saw what he had in his crusty, bluish paws. There was a dripping syringe in one of them—the classic weapon of bio people all across the galaxy. At least he’d given me a warning. That was more than most of them would have done.

  “I need your help. Our salvation is in here—at least, I think it is.”

  “Why do I feel compelled to aid your insanity? It is a curse. I’m warped by my biology.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you are. Get over here and open the lockers on the other side.”

  Grumbling, Raash walked in and began rattling the lockers. Unlike me, he was able to open the locks when they scanned his scales—something like that. I found this vaguely offensive.

  “So the computers trust you, but they don’t trust me?” I demanded.

  “Naturally so. AI systems are excellent judges of character. What are we looking for, mad-thing?”

  “You’ll know it when you see it.”

  He opened more lockers, and I did the same. He didn’t complain about me busting open the ones on my side of the room. That right there showed he wasn’t your typical prissy type of specialist. Any human in a lab would have had a conniption over all the damage I was doing.

  “Human? Is this…? I’m surprised.”

  I turned toward him, and I gazed over his shoulder. A big smile crept up and grew into a grin on my face.

  Raash turned to me in wonder. “How did you know there were gateway posts here? How did you know—and why did you keep this secret for so long?”

  I shook my head. “They weren’t here an hour ago. That transmission I made with your spy rig—I called for help. They teleported the gear to this spot using a casting device.”

  “A what?”

  “Never mind. Casting devices are just more monkey-magic to you. Forget I mentioned it.”

  “I would summon authorities and demand your arrest, but I can’t deny the fortuitous nature of these results. I will reserve judgment. If these devices are operational, I’ll upgrade my estimation of your capacities.”

  “That’s mighty fine of you, Raash.” I reached past him and grabbed the posts. Carrying them out of the place, I had to dash to a jump-seat and strap in while the ship lurched down to land abruptly.

  “Uh…” I said, when I was loosening the smart straps again. “If I just take these into headquarters, the brass will be sure to seize them. Sateekas will probably confiscate them personally.”

  “They might do just about anything to avoid more of your primate antics,” Raash agreed.

  I ignored the grumpy blue reptile. My mind whirled as I considered the possibilities. The Mogwa, and the human brass… I wouldn’t put it past any of them to arrange a quick one-way ticket for themselves right off this doomed planet.

  Turning around, I went back inside the small, abandoned science lab. “Raash, I need your help again. Do you trust me?”

  “Not at all. I trust only in your duplicity, your violent nature, your—”

  “Yeah, yeah, okay. I get that. But I need you anyway. We all do. Everyone on this planet is going to die when the bears sweep through to these headquarters. You, me—everyone.”

  “These statements are obvious and therefore pointless.”

  “I can stop all that bad stuff from happening. But I need your skills.”

  Raash threw his hands wide and spread his claws. I tried not to flinch. It was kind of creepy, watching him simulate human gestures. “What can one elite nonhuman do in this sea of incompetence?”

  “You can help me hook these posts up to the lifter’s engines. Just the way you did with that little secret decoder radio-thing.”

  “You need to stop using such terms for my device. It is a hobby of mine to transmit random messages to the stars. There is nothing secretive or nefarious about my actions.”

  “Of course not. Can you do it? Can you hook me up?”

  Raash looked troubled for a moment, but at last, he agreed. The second he left to get one of his dick-thick cables, I contacted Natasha. She was almost as reluctant as Raash to listen to me, but at last, she came into the lab and squawked about all the torn-up lockers.

  “Settle down, girl. This isn’t even your lab. Looky over here! Check out what I’ve got!”

  I showed her the gateway posts, and she marveled.

  “Where do they go?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I would assume they’ll connect to some ship in the fleet—or to Central.”

  “That’s great! All you have to do is walk through and talk to the command staff. Surely, they can send a fresh legion or two.”

  I gritted my teeth and shook my head. “No. It won’t work. The help won’t come fast enough. First, they’ll have to have about six meetings. Then, they’ll send in some prissy high-level officers, and they’ll realize this planet is doomed. My guess is they’ll evac the important people and leave the rest of us behind to die.”

  “You really think so?”

  I nodded.

  She sighed and flopped onto a creaking office chair. “It’s over, then. I’d hoped we could do better than this. We just came too late, with too little force. If only—”

  I reached down a gentle hand and touched her shoulder. “Natasha? I’m not using these posts to go back to Earth. I’m not going to waste my time stepping through and begging for help they won’t give us.”

  She turned around slowly, and her eyes were big. “That’s why you contacted me, isn’t it? To get me to change the connection point? Where are you thinking of going, James—and don’t say the Core Worlds.”

  Laughing, I shook my head. Not even I was that crazy. “No way. The Mogwa on Trantor are even less likely to help us out than Central would be.”

  “Where, then?”

  “Blood World.”

  She blinked, and she stared. Her mouth even dropped open a little bit. “Seriously? You want more near-humans? What makes you think—?”

  “Can you do it? Can you fix these up?”

  Raash had returned, and he was laying out cable and grunting. He had a big spool of the black stuff, and he had run it right down the passageways of the ship all the way to engineering. I had to give him props for speed and innovation, if not for subtlety.

  “Can you do it or not?” I demanded.

  At last, Natasha nodded. She went to work, and I watched like a nervous father in the maternity ward. Playing lookout, I loitered out in the passageway and handed out bullshit to anyone who asked what the hell was going on.

  It was a temporary fix, but then, we didn’t have much time anyways. This was going to work, or it wasn’t. Either way, it was all going to be over with pretty quickly.

  -54-

  Less than an hour after I’d found the gateway posts in the locker—right where Galina had said they would be—I stepped through them to Blood World.

  It was a dry, dusty planet with a lurid red sky and fine sand that got into everything. They had vegetation of a sort, but every plant I saw looked like it was on the verge of dying a horrid death.

  Walking at my side was a certain miniature humanoid known as Jink. He’d provided us with the right coordinates, and we’d landed just outside the biggest colony of gremlins in the known universe. The town was, in fact, the only gremlin colony this side of Hell itself.

  When I met up with a whole tribe of gremlins, my balls and the pads of my feet were crawling. Naturally enough, my balls were fearing a fatal shock, while my feet were itching to do some stomping and kicking. Gremlins always made me feel that way.

  But I contained myself, and I grinned, and I introduced myself to them as the Champion of Blood World. I was quickly informed that my title didn’t hold much weight here these days.

  “Yes, yes!” screeched a gremlin female, one of the few I’d met. She bounced around the landscape like a gibbon with an itch. “I know this one! He ran out on us! He left in fear, shirking his duties! Gytha was mortified!”

  “...mortified…!” cried several others, echoing her. They liked to do that sometimes.

  “...Gytha…!”

  “Hey guys,” I said, looking as friendly as possible. “I remember you as well. Today is a great day. Today, you’re going to do Earth and the Empire a great service.”

  This was met with catcalls and howls of high-pitched laughter.

  The female gremlin crept close, she felt the seams in my spacer suit, down around my ankles. I checked her for needles and wires, but I didn’t see anything.

  Glancing around behind me, I saw no one sneaking up—but I didn’t see Jink, either. “Damn that sneaky little bastard…” I muttered. “He’s gone and run off on me.”

  Turning back to the gremlins, I grinned again. “Listen up,” I said, “I’ll take volunteers, and I’ll take as many as I can get. Just step right this way into these glowing posts here, see, and—”

  “Human?”

  I looked down. It was the female gremlin, and she was peering up at me seriously. “Can you truly be so demented and foolish?”

  “Uh… probably. What are you talking about in particular, Miss?”

  She waved a tiny hand toward the curious circle of a hundred gremlins. More were coming out from the town. More and more every minute.

  “Your guide has led you to this spot as a gift to us. We have a taste for unusual flesh. Was that not explained?”

  My mouth sagged low.

  Jink… he’d taken off for a good reason. It occurred to me that I’d promised him I’d get him off City World, and the moment I’d done so, he’d made off like a bandit in the night. He was home and on friendly ground—but I wasn’t.

  Lifting my tapper to my face, I pretend to talk to someone. Fortunately, none of the gremlins were tall enough to see the blank screen. “Gytha? What’s that? You want these gremlins punished and abused? That seems extreme, ma’am, if you don’t mind me telling you your business.”

  A few hissed and stepped around me, circling me. They were upset, and even the one tugging on my pant leg backed off.

  “You can’t be speaking to Gytha!” squeaked a voice from the back of the crowd. “It can’t be so—it is a trick!”

  The voice belonged to none other than Jink, who’d chosen this moment to show his nose again.

  “And why can’t it be?” I asked him.

  “Because Gytha hates you. You are the McGill. The abuser. The evil male who abandoned her on her wedding day. Still, to this very hour, she has yet to take a new husband.”

  “Uh… really?”

  “You don’t even know her,” the female complained. She began kicking dirt onto my boots like a cat scratching angrily in her box. “You defile her with your words.”

  “I do so know her. I know her sister Floramel, too.”

  This elicited a general gasp from the group. As one, they began coming closer with slow, predatory steps.

  “...Floramel…?”

  “...it lies…”

  “...I wonder how it tastes…?”

  Now, I’m a moron on a good day, but I was beginning to get a creepy vibe from these little guys. Their doll-like eyes were as black and flat as glass. They didn’t seem to have an iris, or much of a white circle around that. They just had one giant pupil, or so it seemed to me. The overall effect was freaky, and I was soon surrounded by tiny people with the eyes of hunting snakes.

  “Hey,” I said, clearing my throat and taking a step toward the glowing gateway posts. “I think I’m going to go visit Floramel now. She’s a good friend of mine, and—”

  Suddenly, they surged forward. About a zillion of them grabbed me, and I would have shaken them all off and killed a bunch, except for one thing…

  Jink and the female gremlin, they had a wire and a needle out. They were going to jab it deep, and they were going to watch me dance.

  “Freeze, ape-man,” Jink said. “Today you have committed fresh crimes. We’re not just going to make you dance, we’ll cook you alive and eat your flesh after!”

  Shrieks of excitement and laughter came from the crowd. There were so many now—a thousand of them, maybe.

  “We had a deal, Jink!” I complained. “I brought you home, just like I said I would. I kept my bargain, and you’re breaking your word!”

  Plenty of hissing went on, and Jink dared to come near. He lifted a wagging finger in my direction. “Wrong! We agreed not to play each other falsely. You speak of Floramel, the most beloved of our creators. We are her lost children, and we won’t have you speak of her with a lying tongue!”

  That brought back memories. When I’d visited Blood World during the campaign here, I recalled that the gremlins had all loved Floramel. They loved her more than anyone or anything. They loved her almost as much as they loved themselves—and she’d called them her children.

  Could Floramel have had a hand in creating this particularly nasty off-shoot of humanity? It seemed clear now that she had.

  “I can prove it!” I shouted. “Let me touch my tapper!”

  “He lies!”

  “He’ll signal Earth!”

  “He’ll blow himself up and take us all with him!”

  Jink considered, and then cuffed a few crazed gremlins that clung to my suit and lusted for my blood. “Prove it, ape.”

  I reached a finger to my tapper, and it took a few long moments of digging through archives, but I found Floramel at her apartment. We were chatting, and we were all alone.

  The gremlins watched, fascinated.

  “You see?” I crowed. “That’s her, at her place on Earth.”

  “You must take us there!”

  “We must see her again!”

  “Uh…”

  The gremlins were going wild again. They weren’t a civilized folk even on a good day—and today wasn’t a good day. They were hopping around and shouting all at once.

  In the meantime, I noticed the video was still playing. I saw myself take Floramel’s hand, and I kissed her knuckles, then I kissed her wrist, then her sweet forearm.

  With a grunt of effort, because a dozen tiny hands were working to restrain me, I reached over and stabbed at the cutoff button. The vid stopped playing.

  “He was about to defile her!” one of them shouted.

  Others, fortunately, beat him down for having spoken heresy. He was beaten until his tiny skull was crushed and his dead, staring eyes peered up at me out of a mash of broken teeth.

  “She isn’t on Earth any longer,” I said.

  “Then where is she?” Jink asked.

  “Only I know. It’s a secret. She’s hiding from Earthmen on another world.”

  “You will take us to her. You will help us reunite with her. You will do this, or you will be cooked and eaten.”

  I shrugged, and a few gremlins bounced on my shoulders. “If you do that,” I said, “you’ll never find her.”

  They hissed and complained for a bit. I waited patiently.

  “What do you want?” Jink asked me at last.

  “Thousands of your people must follow me back to City World. We’ll train an army how to walk in the Mogwa walking-machines. You, Jink, will command them, and you’ll listen to my commands in turn.”

  He looked thoughtful. “And if we do this? If we save those heartless walking spiders you love so much, you’ll reunite us with Floramel?”

  “I swear it.”

  “No!” shouted a few voices.

  “Don’t listen to him!”

  “He’s a false prophet!”

  “He’s a defiler!”

  Jink looked around thoughtfully. He was taking it all in, and I knew he was my only hope.

  “I brought you home, Jink,” I said, talking to him directly. “You know I keep my word. Besides, you know your people will have a lot of fun tearing things up in power-armor. I’ll even let you guys keep some of them and bring them back here to play with… if you want.”

  His nasty dark eyes lit up as I spoke these fateful words. Soon, he began to smile. I had no idea what his little brain was thinking—but I knew it was something wicked.

  “We’ll do it,” he said at last.

  -55-

  When we returned in force to City World, it was quite a sight. There was shock and dismay written on the face of every human, Mogwa and Cephalopod alike who we marched past. Soon, their general surprise turned into disbelief as the stream of gremlins only increased in number and bouncing speed. A seemingly endless column of gremlins were flooding down the lifter’s lowered ramp. Little did these witnesses know that the stream wound back through the entire ship to the tiny science lab and a pair of humming gateway posts.

  “McGill?” Graves asked. He’d come up from the nerve center of the headquarters building to the roof, where this act of prestidigitation was taking place. “What the fuck is going on? Where did you find all these gremlins?”

  “It’s a funny thing, Primus. These gremlins are mighty small, see, and they can fit into the damnedest places.”

  He wasn’t really listening to my bullshit. His head was too busy swiveling and trying to take it all in. “There must be thousands of them.”

  “Yessir, I do believe so.”

  He reached out a glove and grabbed up a handful of my spacer suit. “You fool! If you found a pair of gateway posts, why would you waste that golden opportunity on these weasels? I can’t even think of a more useless and unreliable source of help. Even those frigging salamanders you dragooned into helping us back on Storm World could at least fight!”

  “You mean the scuppers, sir? Well, that’s where you’re wrong. These boys might be small, but I don’t plan to give them rifles and send them to the front.”