The massive Vulbite shifted and writhed. It coiled, then uncoiled. At last, it began to speak again.

  “What is it, exactly, that you propose?”

  Right then I smiled. It was the first honest smile to cross my face since we’d ported into the caverns under Glass World. There was a glimmer of hope—just a glimmer, mind you, but I was more than willing to take it.

  -62-

  I cut a deal with the big queen to summon her Vulbites in a peaceful way—instead of having them rush the cavern in berserker hordes. We gave her some communications gear, and she made good use of it, contacting her countless people.

  After a bit of time, a group of them came worming down the tunnel, shoving aside the stacked bodies. They seemed to care little for their own dead. The hardest part for me was keeping my own troops from butchering these newly docile bugs. No one by this time had any qualms about killing them. It had become downright reflexive.

  “Stand down, dammit! Stand down! Hopper, that means you!” My shouting eventually caused the troops to back off. Many were out of ammo and had fixed their blades onto the end of their rifles, using them like spears. That was unusual for legionnaires, as we were normally well-supplied.

  The Vulbite procession slithered directly past me, ignoring my speech and the welcoming spread of my arms. They wriggled and rippled along toward the queen herself. My translator box clicked and squeaked, but they barely paid attention.

  “Looks like you’ve ordered up a personal guard for that queen of yours, McGill,” Graves chided me.

  “Nah, that’s not gonna happen.” Despite my words, I followed the churning feet and watched as they did indeed approach the queen and line up in front of her.

  Then, to everyone’s amazement, she began dipping her massive head and chomping on them.

  “What the hell?” Harris demanded. “Is she pissed off or something?”

  One by one, the queen ate her twenty-odd attendants. We stood there, gaping. I had no idea what I should do.

  Walking up to the busy monster, I used the translator again. “Uh… Queen? Why are you eating your technicians?”

  She paused after the eighth one and her head began to convulse. To our sick horror, she spat out a pile of loose, nasty-looking skins. They looked just like the ones that filled the cavern, but they were slimy and wet.

  The queen regarded me with her one good eye. “These are not my technicians. They are sustenance. I require much food to deal with the stress of your presence here.”

  “Food? You eat your own young?”

  “Heretical! Foul-words! Disgust!”

  “Uh… is that a yes or a no?”

  “That is an emphatic negative. These captives are the young of rival queens. They’ve been selected and sent here as a tribute to me. They are for the express purpose of consumption.”

  Now, as a matter of reflex, I considered the habits of aliens to be baffling, repulsive and even angering. But this one must take the cake. I hadn’t even known Vulbites were a cannibal species. Looking around at the hills of dead, I figured this big worm had made quite a lifestyle out of the practice.

  “We should put this thing down right now,” Graves said, coming up and standing next to me. “If you won’t do it yourself, you should give me that belcher, McGill.”

  “Come on, Primus. I’ve almost got her right where I want her.”

  “Nonsense. All you’ve done is arrange for her last meal. Well, that’s over with now. Let’s get back to business.”

  “The business of being cornered, out of supplies, and soon to be wiped out?”

  He twisted up his face. “At least we’ll be rid of this nightmare.”

  The queen wasn’t helping her case any. She’d gone back to eating her snack. After devouring every Vulbite and spitting out the skins, she looked down at me again.

  “Are you going to comply with the terms of our deal now?” I demanded. “If not, you can consider that your last meal.”

  “What you’ve asked for will take time.”

  “No!” I shouted, knowing that was the one resource we were out of. I raised my belcher and aimed it at her dripping snout. “Get the technicians down here to fix our gateway this instant, or I’ll blow your other eye out and burn the rest of you!”

  “Your suggestion is a non sequitur. An impossibility. A none-such.”

  Taking careful aim, I focused a narrow beam at her second eye. She twitched and shied away.

  “You would not dare. You know not what you ask.”

  “I sure as hell do. Are you going to comply, or what?”

  The giant bug wriggled for a bit, and I tracked her movements, never letting her get close enough to strike.

  “I have summoned them. Great pain will be borne by my young… you should feel shamed.”

  I laughed and lowered my belcher. “You’re talking to the wrong human if you want to see shame. How long until they get here?”

  “They must overcome the guards first. With luck, they’ll succeed due to the element of surprise.”

  I gaped up at her, not sure quite what she was saying. Harris, who’d been listening in, walked up to me.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he said. “Am I hearing what I think I’m hearing? Did you talk this giant bug-lady into rebelling against Rigel? How’s that possible? I didn’t even see you diddle her.”

  I thought about slapping him one, I really did. But my lower jaw was hanging wide and I could hardly think. This wasn’t what I’d expected all.

  But then, almost as a reflex, I snapped my treacherous, tell-tale mouth shut and stood tall. “Of course that’s what she did. What do you think I’ve been up here yakking about for the last hour? We cut a deal, and she’s delivering on her half of the bargain right now.”

  Graves snorted and eyed me doubtfully, but he didn’t burst my bubble. He just watched.

  Another ten minutes went by. We heard some echoing sounds of gun-fire coming down the passages. At least we weren’t rushed by a fresh horde of Vulbites.

  “This is taking too damned long, McGill,” Graves complained.

  “Listen Primus! The firing has stopped!”

  I approached the queen again. “Are they coming? Did your technicians get what they needed?”

  “I told you that Vulbites are never technicians.”

  “Whatever. Where’s the promised help?”

  The queen consulted her communications gear. “It is done. This is a sad day. A great alliance has ended.”

  “If they couldn’t keep you safe from marauders like me, they weren’t very good.”

  “That was my own reasoning. Rigel not only failed to defend the Vulbite homeworld, they also built a conduit allowing my person to be endangered and physically abused. Why serve such a master?”

  “Why indeed?”

  Shortly after this exchange, another procession approached down the tunnel passage. These were Vulbites, standing on their rear legs and bearing swords. They were bigger, older creatures. Many of them bore scars and fresh wounds.

  In the midst of the group was a lone bear from Rigel. He looked like a cub amongst the bigger Vulbites.

  “What is the meaning of this?” demanded the Rigellian. “I am Viceroy Chaska. I will not be treated in this fashion by outlaws and chattel!”

  “Well Mr. Chaska sir,” I told him. “In that case, you’ve got yourself a problem.”

  I proceeded to explain the situation to the bear. He didn’t like it much.

  “Impossible! I would no more serve you, ape-creature, than I would serve this moronic insect!”

  It took a little wrangling, convincing, and the plucking of six curved black claws, but finally old Chaska was in a more compliant mood.

  Looking up at me from the dirty cavern floor, his sides heaved and his one good eye stared. “I will describe the equipment needed. Send your Vulbite slaves to fetch it.”

  I squinted at him, considering whether I should believe him or try to get it myself.

  “McGill,” Graves said. “We may not have much time. This isn’t the only Rigellian on this planet. They have a spacecraft manufacturing center in orbit, remember? It’s only a matter of time until professional troops arrive.”

  Taking his advice and calling it good, we sent off the Vulbite color guard with the queen’s instructions. The wait was a short one—and I soon saw why.

  They didn’t return with tools or parts. They came back with something much better: two free-standing gateway posts. These were undamaged and they looked identical to the ones we’d used to get here.

  A hoarse cheer went up at the sight of this equipment. My legion comrades pummeled my back and told me one and all that they’d known I could pull this off. I reflected as the gateway was assembled that I wasn’t the only terrible liar in this expeditionary force.

  My instructions to Viceroy Chaska were clear, and he didn’t argue much. He wanted to be free of me as soon as possible. He kept talking about bombs and about the whole nest going up.

  “Uh…” I said as he sweated over realigning and reprogramming the gateway for a new destination. “Are you serious about that? Will the Rigellian ships really bomb this nest?”

  “Of course, fool. What do your people do with rebellious slaves? In our empire, such insurrections are considered a cancer. They will not be suffered for an hour, much less a day.”

  “Hmm… in that case, you should get a move on. Even if it’s only to save your own skin.”

  The bear glowered at me over his shoulder. His yellow eyes were as thick with hate as Squanto’s had always been at these moments. “Now I know why you are such a priority to our overlord. He would risk his own life to take yours.”

  I smiled. “That kind of hate is the sincerest form of flattery!”

  The bear grumbled and went back to work. Soon, he had the coordinates reprogrammed.

  “It is done. All you have to do is step through, and—”

  Taking him by the shoulders, I began pushing him toward the posts.

  “What are you doing?” he cried out in alarm.

  “I’m testing your workmanship, of course.”

  “You promised I would be released! You promised I—!”

  “And that’s exactly what’s going to happen after our little test. We’ll walk through and right back again. After we see everything is in working order, I’ll send you back upstairs with bells on.”

  “I want no bells, nor do I want any part—”

  The bear was struggling pretty hard, and even though he was unarmed and beat up, he was still as strong as a strong man. I had to work, digging my gauntlets under his fuzzy armpits to half-lift, half-push him toward the glowing field.

  “Stop!” he shouted plaintively. “The gateway is unsafe!”

  “What?” I asked in mock surprise. “How do you mean, Mr. Viceroy?”

  He quickly explained that the posts had been reprogrammed to terminate on the surface of the nearby star. Most likely, anyone going through would be disintegrated and never reassembled, but even if they were, it would be an unpleasant destination. Dark World’s sun was only a brown dwarf and relatively cool for a star—but it was still hot enough to incinerate a man instantly.

  “Why, Viceroy!” I said to him in reproach. “I’m surprised at you, trying to trick dumbass monkeys like us! What a mean thing to do. I’m inclined to toss you through to burn, then fix it my damned self!”

  “You could never do it. The process would take too long. You can’t be—”

  “All right then. You get one more chance. Be quick about it!”

  This time, the little rat-bastard bear worked at a frantic pace, and he didn’t give me anymore back-talk, either. When he was done, about five minutes later, he sullenly gestured toward the glimmering field.

  “The pathway is sound.”

  “He’s right,” Natasha said, standing next to us. “I can tell the connection is a good one. It goes somewhere stable.”

  Grabbing Chaska, I picked him up and tossed him through the posts. He squeaked in mid-air, then vanished.

  The others around me looked shocked. “What if it was another trap?” Natasha demanded.

  “Then you’ll have to figure out how to reprogram it yourself. You were watching him, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, but… where are you going, James?”

  I shrugged and ambled toward the posts. “Someone has to test it. Besides, I got the feeling the boys at Central might not like Mr. Chaska.”

  Stepping into the field before I would have to listen to any more calls to stop, I vanished. In what seemed like a moment to me, I was instantly reassembled on the far side.

  Guns. Lots of gun muzzles. That’s what I saw for the most part.

  Mr. Chaska was on the deck, face down, with a dozen hogs surrounding him. They’d banged him up a bit, but they hadn’t shot him—not yet.

  “Hey boys!” I said, happily. “Is this Central?”

  The chief Hog turned in surprise and stared up at me. He nodded after a second, and I started to grin.

  I was home at last.

  -63-

  “Hey…” I said to the hogs.

  “Stand back, sir!”

  They were working over Chaska pretty good. He’d made the mistake of struggling and even biting a few of them. If you really want to piss off a hog, just try biting one sometime.

  They were trained to control a prisoner’s hands. But for a Rigellian bear-dude, that wasn’t even his most dangerous weapon. What’s more, they seemed to start off underestimating the furry little bastard’s strength. These bears were damnably strong, with muscle density three or four times that of a human. That was common on Earth, too, where most predatory animals and apes were stronger than men, gram for gram. But even so, these hogs were taken by surprise.

  After a few bites and some cries of pain, the shock-rods came out. They began to crackle, snap and thud onto Chaska. I almost felt sorry for him—almost.

  “Say, fellas,” I said after Chaska had spent a solid thirty seconds of growling and scrabbling on the floor. “I don’t want to be a wet blanket, seeing as you’re clearly having yourselves a good time—but if you give him a heart attack… well, he does have diplomatic immunity and all.”

  The security chief looked up in surprise. He was panting and beads of sweat rode on his flushed face. “What? Why didn’t you say that before?

  “I figured it wasn’t my place. You boys know your business… don’t you?”

  Breathing hard through his teeth, he ordered the rest of his men to stand down. They got up and circled the bear-dude. Chaska, hands cuffed and snout dripping blood, got slowly and painfully to his feet.

  “I’m terribly sorry about this misunderstanding, Mr., uh… What’s his name, McGill?”

  “Chaska.”

  “Really? Well, I’m sorry Mr. Chaska, but you can’t just go around biting security personnel. That’s frowned upon on Earth.” He turned to me again, jabbing a thumb at Chaska. “Does fuzz ball here comprehend Standard?”

  “He does if his translator is on.”

  “I understand, you stinking ape,” Chaska said. “You will release me and allow me to go back through the gateway. If you fail to comply, I will see that you’re tortured before your execution.”

  The security hog blinked and smiled. He looked like he was about to laugh, but his laugh died in his throat when he caught a look at Chaska’s angry stare. It was clear the bear meant it.

  “I’d advise you to keep a civil tongue, alien,” he said, “diplomatic immunity only goes so far on Earth.”

  “That is clear. What a pathetic, barbaric race of cub-stealers you all must be.”

  I laughed to break the tension, putting a heavy hand on the little bugger. “Let’s go home and sort this out.”

  Automatically, Chaska whirled his face around as if he was going to bite me. I almost flinched, taking my hand off him. It was that close.

  But I held on, and seeing it was my hand, Chaska settled down. “Yes. Let’s leave this barbaric place.”

  The hogs weren’t sure what to do. They stepped from foot to foot.

  “McGill,” the security man called after me, “don’t you have to file a report or something? Why’d you bring that little mutant here in the first place?”

  “To prove the gateway worked.”

  The hog’s face cracked into a smile as he figured it out. “Ah… that’s why the bear was walking ahead of you, right?”

  I waved for him to shut up, and he shook his head at me.

  A moment later, we stepped through the gateway and returned to Dark World. We let Chaska go free. Five minutes later, my people were streaming through the gateway to the safety of Earth. Alarmed, the security people began calling for help. Medical teams, officers, more security hogs and plenty of frowning brass soon swarmed us.

  I didn’t much care for any of them. They got in the way, mostly. I wanted to find a shower, a hot meal and bunk—maybe one that belonged to a pretty lady.

  My search led me upstairs to Legion Varus headquarters up around floor three hundred. As I had a special relationship with Tribune Galina Turov, I was allowed to enter, despite the fact it was after hours.

  I helped myself to Galina’s private shower, fold-out bar and her secret stash of diet food. Thirty minutes after I’d returned to Earth, I was snoring on her too-short couch.

  The next morning I was rudely awakened by an angry woman. She stood over me, fists on her hips and a confused stare on her face.

  “McGill? What are you doing here? What are you doing back on Earth?”

  “Uh… mission accomplished, sir!”

  She licked her lips. “Where’s the rest of my legion?”

  I shrugged. “Do you really care? You can always revive the rest.”

  Her mouth fell open, and her eyes widened improbably. “You mean… Winslade got them all wiped?”

  “Not all, I suspect—but a lot of them.”

  I proceeded to tell her my sordid tale of woe. It was long, it was wild, and it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

  “That doesn’t sound like you succeeded at all! That Winslade… he’s a bigger idiot than you are!”