For once, Brad was glad to be in the biosuit. Standing outside his shelter in the pelting rain, he felt dry and warm inside its protective covering. The wind was still gusting, and in the distance he could hear rumbles of thunder.
The shelter had slid downhill several hundred meters and was now sitting askew, heavily slanted to one side, atop the muddy, soggy ground. Brad could see the trail it had left when it skidded down the hillside before finally thumping to a stop against a house-sized boulder.
The worst of the storm seemed to be over; the rain was easing off. Streams of water were still gushing down the hillside, but the gray clouds overhead were breaking up and beyond them the sky was brightening. It would be dawn soon.
“Emcee,” he called, “how’s the village?”
While he waited for the master computer’s reply, Brad started cautiously up the hillside, trying to avoid the streamlets flowing past. His boots sank nearly ankle deep into the mud; it took an effort to pull them free and take another step.
They should have built servomotors into the suit, Brad told himself. Then he realized that a mechanical exoskeleton would have undoubtedly spooked the Gammans. So he slogged ahead, bent halfway over as he toiled up the hillside.
At last Emcee’s voice reached him. “It’s difficult to see the village through the clouds. Infrared scans show the houses all appear to be intact. No aliens in sight, however. No movement.”
Brad nodded inside his helmet. “They’re probably all indoors.”
It’ll be nearly four minutes before Emcee’s answer gets here, he knew. Meanwhile, you just plod through this muck, one step at a—
Brad froze. There on the hillside about fifty meters ahead of him stood one of those huge six-legged cats from Beta, mud-spattered, looking wet and thoroughly unhappy.
“Jesus Lord!” Brad whispered.
The cat’s heavy head swung in his direction. Its yellow eyes focused on him.
Brad gulped once, turned around, stumbled badly, and slipped onto his rump. Without trying to get back to his feet, Brad slid on the rain-soaked ground back toward his shelter. The cat made a sound like a growl and splashed through the mud after him.
If the ground had been dry and firm Brad would never have made it to his shelter. But on the gooey mud, Brad slid along like a sailboat scudding across the water while the cat splashed through the sucking ooze, each of its six paws sinking so deep it took a powerful effort to pull them loose.
The beast roared and raged as it slogged after Brad, who used his gloved hands like oars to propel himself toward the lopsided shelter.
He made it to its air lock hatch and pecked out the entry combination with fingers that shook badly. Brad dived inside and pulled the hatch shut just as the cat lunged for him. Its impact made the whole shelter shudder; it howled with fury as it banged against the metal hatch.
Brad crawled to the equipment locker beside his bedroll and pulled out the laser pistol. Outside, all was suddenly silent. Had the cat turned away? Or was it lurking out there, waiting for Brad to come outside again?
He crawled to his console and turned on the outside cameras. Inanely, he realized that he was muddying up the bedroll and everything else inside the shelter. No matter. Safety first, he thought, cleanliness later.
Brad checked out the pistol. Fully charged, ready for action. His display screen showed the cat walking slowly away, laboriously pulling each paw free of the sticky, clinging mud.
Brad checked each of the cameras. No other cat in sight. The one he had encountered was going away. Without potential prey in sight, it quickly lost interest in the inanimate shelter. Can’t eat plastic, Brad thought. And giggled, on the edge of hysteria.
He sat on the muddied bedroll and took a deep breath. How did the cat get here from Beta?
Then he realized that it was heading up to the rim of the hill. On the other side of that rise was the village.
I can’t stay buttoned up inside here, he told himself. I’ve got to go help them, save them. Even if they don’t want to be saved, I can’t just let them be slaughtered.
* * *
The cat literally had eyes in the back of its head. Brad stiffened with surprise when he spotted two narrow eyes glinting in the back of the creature’s skull. The animal stopped its laborious climb up the quagmire of the hillside and slowly turned toward Brad.
He pulled the pistol from its magnetic grip on his belt and, after two tries with his gloved hand, used his thumb to flick the power on. The pistol didn’t feel any different, but according to the manual’s video instructions, the gun should be ready to fire. Just point and shoot.
The cat seemed to realize that skidding downhill in the ooze was easier than struggling uphill. It came sliding down toward Brad with terrifying speed, then with a roar it leaped at him, all six paws showing scimitar-sharp claws, its mouth wide open and full of fangs.
Brad leveled the pistol and fired point-blank at the charging beast. A thin red beam struck the cat in the throat and sliced down half the length of its underside, cutting a slim slash in the animal’s flesh that smoked slightly along its edges.
The cat’s roar changed pitch, from rage to pain, and it landed in the mud at Brad’s feet with a huge splash that knocked Brad backwards onto the ground. But he still held the pistol in his gloved hand, his fingers gripping it so tightly that they were cramping.
The animal wasn’t dead, though. As Brad struggled to his feet he saw that the cat was inching through the mud on its belly toward him, moaning as it slithered forward. Brad fired another shot into one of its eyes and the beast shuddered, then stopped. Dead.
Brad stared at it. He was so drenched with perspiration that he might as well have been out in the rain, without the biosuit. He was shaking badly; his knees felt too weak to support him.
For long moments Brad just stood there, chest heaving, staring at the dead animal. At last his brain started to function again. How did it get here, from Beta? How many more of them are here?
After turning 360 degrees to scan the whole area, Brad saw that there were no other cats in sight. The forest in the distance looked battered, many trees knocked down, uprooted, others leaning crookedly. He turned off the pistol’s power and clapped it to its magnetic holder at his waist.
The rain was down to a fine, persistent drizzle. Brad looked up the muddy slope. What’s happening to the village? he asked himself. How are the Gammans making out?
* * *
Brad was bone weary by the time he reached the crest of the ridgeline. His biosuit was spattered with mud. The sky was clearing, although there were still plenty of thick clouds boiling past. Mithra had risen above the distant mountains, its piercing red glow turning the clouds’ undersides scarlet and purple.
And there in the hollow was the village. Or what was left of it. The hollow had turned into a shallow lake. The village’s houses were awash at least a dozen centimeters deep. Nothing seemed to be moving. The neat green rows of the farm’s crops were mostly underwater; the few stalks that poked above the mini lake looked crooked, bent.
And everything was deathly still.
Looking up, Brad saw through a break in the clouds the huge bloodred sphere of Beta glowering down at him.
Something streaked across the sky, like a meteor or a reentering spacecraft.
He stared at it. The flaming streak disappeared beyond the hills, but he heard the rushing, roaring sound of its flight through the turbulent atmosphere. Then a sharp crack echoed across the sky.
A sonic boom! Brad realized.
“Emcee, I hope you’re seeing what I’m seeing,” he shouted, as if raising his voice would get his words across to the starship orbiting Alpha.
Another sonic boom reverberated across the sky. Turning, Brad saw an oval-shaped object gliding over the ridge, undulating as it came, and then dropping into the hollow where the flooded village stood.
The thing splashed into the water, plowing up a huge spray before it lurched to a stop.
Brad stared, goggle-eyed, as the object began to split apart while it sat there in the shallow water. And out of the crack that zigzagged down its middle he saw a clawed paw emerge, then a head full of fangs. One of the cats shouldered through the remaining shell and splashed into the water.
Monsters from Beta!