What the h.e.l.l was going on?

Chapter 21.

Livermore Evanston watched the creature through the thick gla.s.s wall. No matter how long he stared at the things, he could never get enough of them.

His geneticists told him the same thing was true about the study of their genetic code, and they had similar adjectives to employ.

Fiendishly clever.

The bug had been drugged by a gas, and the mist of the stuff still clung to the chitin of its ventral section. This one happened to be a genetic parent to the altered replicants down in the tanks. There had been another bug, another batch, but for some reason those had not worked out so well. In fact, one had managed to escape with a gun, of all things. It had long since disappeared, but Evanston had been gratified to learn of its discovery. Apparently the other mysterious alien life-form that visited this planet had killed it, which was just as well.

The bug's helmet-like head stirred. It's secondary jaws were extended, and Evanston marveled at the hard black of its teeth and jaws. The creatures, his scientists had reported, had the approximate intelligence of dogs. Alas, however, unlike dogs, they could not be trained. When Evanston had bought his first bug, obtained on Ryus.h.i.+ after the calamitous infection there, he'd seen its potential immediately, but the genetic work on it had taken years and an incredible amount of money. Evanston had seen immediately that this work could not be done with the Company's knowledge. Evanstonville was already in the works, and so it was a natural choice to establish his bug project there.

He'd searched for a cornerstone of Conquest, and these cybernetic warriors, surely, were it.

Cybernetics: that was the key, and Livermore Evanston had seen possibilities, if not the actual biotechnical details, immediately. Breed the things for higher intelligence, to be connected to hyperneural-tech transducers and synaptic shunts. Stick on machines, wire up the correct programs for radio control, design armor and weapons.

Result: efficient, almost unstoppable warriors of the future.

An army with which to conquer worlds.

In school was where Livermore Evanston had dreamed of conquest. Not military school, but business school. It had been his hobby. He'd played computer war-games. He'd fought all the great battles, from Waterloo to Gettysburg, from the Battle of the Bulge to the Battle of the Millennium. And as his ties with the Company grew, he began to see the potential for his dreams of absolutely boundless power.

The Company had little vision. They were bean counters. Evanston, however, saw the potential. Economic might was just the springboard. With the energy of scientific breakthroughs, all the way from faster stars.h.i.+ps to this marvelous genetic razzle-dazzle, the proper kind of mind could unlock the keys to the universe. Livermore Evanston knew human history.

Humankind was destined for this kind of conquest.

If he didn't spearhead this effort through the means at hand, then surely some other great mind would. If not this century, then next. The stars were in reach, but the stars had to be grasped.

The history books were open and there was a gaping blank there.

If he didn't write Livermore Evanston in them, large, then someone else would.

And maybe too late.

These new races .. . they were frightening, and they had to be nipped in the bud: get them before they got humanity.

What better way to kill them-and use the best, most terrifying qualities of one of them in the process-than to combine them into one easily controlled being?

It had been a stroke of genius that had been his genetic engineers', not his, but he'd hopped onto it quickly and immediately implemented it into the growth of Evanstonville.

He thought, however, that he'd have more time.

Oh, well. He was not a stupid man. From the time he was a little boy, under the tutelage of robots and virtually ignored by his parents, he'd seen life as a playing field of diverging possibilities.

If something went wrong, you tried another tactic.

It was unfortunate about Noguchi. His hope for her had been that she would not only command his mercenaries in their efforts to control escaped bugs, but that she'd seek out and destroy this other race that had visited Livermoreland. It had been with his discovery of oddments of alien armor and clothing upon settling this planet that he'd realized that Evanstonville would need a significant security force, proper fences, and armament. He knew on a gut level that she'd dealt with the monsters before and had betrayed them.

After a few years of employ he would gradually introduce the Augmented Warriors, and she would train them, and finally, perhaps, she would even become one of his right-hand generals.

Alas, it was not to be.

She was out in the wild, probably doomed. If the bugs didn't get her, then the things she'd betrayed surely would. She didn't have her android buddy to help her now, either. The idiot's body was off on one of the scientists'

tables. He'd have it dissected and a.n.a.lyzed later. Right now there were other things to deal with As Evanston looked at the creature behind the gla.s.s, a recurring vision suddenly rose before him. He saw himself in a proud battles.h.i.+p in s.p.a.ce, commanding a flotilla of vessels. From planet to planet would these vessels step, and upon each one, should it not surrender, should he need ground troops, he had only to let loose these creatures, controlled from afar- Let loose the Dogs of War. And then he could remake human civilization according to the ideas he knew were correct.

His personal comm b.u.t.ton sounded. He sighed. There were many things to deal with before that time, but oh, when it came, it would be glorious; it would put all other human visions of conquest to shame.

Suddenly, without warning, as he was about to answer the comm, the bug leaped.

Leaped at Evanston.

It smashed into the reinforced gla.s.s, snarling and shrieking. It was as though it knew the purposes for which its species was being used.

Evanston flinched, but he did not move. He pressed a b.u.t.ton that would summon more gas down upon it and quiet the thing.

Then he answered his comm.

Chapter 22.

What the h.e.l.l is going on?" Machiko demanded.

"I mentioned before that I was equipped with other 'gifts.' I merely placed some new programming into effect, accessing new weapons," said the head. "I should explore my circuitry. It really is something that I should a.n.a.lyze."

"Would you do that? It's not that I'm ungrateful. It's just that I really would like to know what the h.e.l.l is going on!"

She spoke the words in a terse, urgent voice.

This android-what the h.e.l.l was he? Truly?

She needed to know, and she needed to know right away. There was nothing in the manual about laserbeam support, that was for sure. But, then, he could project holographs. Why not deadlier light?

They were off by a tree. She had taken the break while the Hunters were conferring among themselves. Clearly, she had bought her life by defeating Shorty. She'd tried, as best she could, with the few words she knew, with gestures and mime, to present them with the facts. They did not seem to understand entirely, but they were picking up something of what she was trying to communicate.

Now a representative was coming out.

He was much bigger than Shorty; she just hoped that she didn't have to fight him.

"You are accepted," she thought the creature said. "However, we do not understand what you are trying to say."

Or something like that.

A few more words.

The Hunt.

A state of Oddness. Bad Hard Meat.

Well, at least they accepted the fact that indeed something was rotten in Blior. Nonetheless, there was still the same uneasiness with them that she'd felt at the beginning of her jaunt with that other pack. Despite her blooding from Broken Tusk, from Dachande, she was still an alien to these creatures and likely would always be.

Nonetheless, she was reasonably safe now.

She had allies.

Her whole life, in fading apart, had tilted onto the edge again ....

And that, she found now as she looked on these creatures and this world with new eyes, was where she liked it.

"Machiko," said the head, still within the confines of its carrying bag, "I believe I've come up with something."

"Look, AH. I appreciate your help, I really do. But I'm the one who's going to have to deal with these guys, okay? Maybe you'd better let me muddle through it on my own."

"They don't seem to be thoroughly accepting."

"That's something that I've had to deal with before . . . and something I'm going to work on now."

"I hate to tell you this, Machiko. I can understand them, and they're giving you about two hours before they decide to kill you again."

She did a double take. "What . . . ? You understand them?" She was flabbergasted. "Some newfound program?" Disbelief. Sarcasm.

"Yes," said Attila.

"A program that allows us to speak in the Hunter language"

"Yes."

"Where the h.e.l.l did you get that? Why didn't you tell me about it?"

"I didn't know. I was not programmed to explore programs, and you never asked me to. You see, in many ways I am merely a machine. Actually, the program seems to be some sort of Universal Translator. From the information you've given me and what I picked up from listening in on the Hunters as they've spoken, I've been able to pick up deep structure and words. These are not complex creatures, I think. Their language is not complicated."

"No. I mean, yes. I mean . . . Attila, anything else you're going to spring on me?"

"I don't know. Perhaps you'd better bring me over to them?"

"A head? Oh, they're going to like that a lot. A talking head."

"Just call me exactly what I am. Your a.s.sistant. A kind of robotic Swiss Army knife."

The Hunters had stopped talking. They were now staring over at them.

She had to do something, that was for sure.

"Okay, okay. Let me introduce you to the crew."

She grabbed him up and took him over.

She pointed at him and said simply, "Attila."

"Attila," barked back one of the Hunters, his expression unreadable.

"Yes. Attila." She held him up. "Okay, Attila. Do your stuff."

Immediately the android began speaking slowly but clearly. Machiko understood some of the words, but the way they were connected was different.

The yautja, however, listened with obviously surprised attention.

Well into the explanation, though, she could see they were increasingly reacting with gestures of rage and challenge. Not toward her or Attila.

Clearly to the information they were being presented.

Finally, after a pause, Attila asked them a simple question that Machiko understood clearly: "Do you know how this could have happened?"

The Hunters conferred among themselves.

A spokesman stepped forward eventually and said, "Yes."

Then he told them his tale.

Machiko listened to it later from Attila as she sax down by a tree, eating the cooked Meat and drinking the water that the Hunters had given her.

It was like old times. The rancid smells of the creatures, the ripe, yeasty taste of their favored meat, the sound of their harsh, grating, challenging language.

One big difference.

She had herself a translator now.

Only what else did she have on her hands, buried inside that inscrutable lump of circuitry that was Attila the Hun's head?

Only time would tell. She was paying d.a.m.ned close attention.

"It does tie together," said Attila. The android head was propped on a rock with a view of everything, and an ear c.o.c.ked toward the conversations of the Hunters, in order to pick up new odds and ends of language to communicate better later. "The oddments of Predator uniform we discovered on Evanston's s.h.i.+p-"

"Yes, of course. That figures in with the knowledge they have of the yautja. I'm not sure how that ties in with augmented kainde amedha. Question is, Where did they get them?"

"The answer is simple enough. Something we should probably have realized from the outset" "Okay. I'm all ears."