Michael Flynn - In the Lion’s Mouth

Yer just outta practice,the Brute suggested.

“Hurry, sweet!” said Olafsdottr.

And to the left Inner Child saw his majesty, the Frog Prince.

A squat and ugly thing, like a toad, but gleaming of chrome, with great blue piston legs and adhesive grippers, large black-lens eyes, its deep-blue, black-spotted façade gore-spattered with Rigardo-ji’s brains. It leapt atop a conduit three arm’s lengths off facing the scarred man. Its mouth opened wide, and made a long, deep rippling sound.

The Silky Voice, from her seat in the hypothalamus flooded the scarred man with adrenaline. Time itself seemed to slow.

Donovan knew that if he turned his back to run through the door, he would be a dead man. His only chance was to face it down. With a wrench. It won’t fire a projectile, said the Sleuth. Trust me. And even the Sleuth’s voice seemed sluggish and drawn out. It will need to leap closer.

As if on command, the Frog Prince leapt again, and landed on a primary lock valve. Its face bore the fatuous, evil smile of a frog. Once more, its lips opened wide, and inside its jaws, a coil of memory metal unwound and shot forth like a lance of steel. Yes, he heard the Sleuth say, I thought as much. The metaphor is complete.

Even under normal circumstances, the Brute had been trained to lightning-fast reflexes. With the boost the Silky Voice was providing, he could move faster still. He swung the wrench—as it seemed, through gelatin. The long, sharp tongue arced toward him.

The wrench connected, and knocked the reddened steel ribbon aside so that it penetrated like a nail into the side of the poultry vat. That’s how it killed the smuggler. There had probably been an instruction: “Kiss to activate.” Rigardo-ji had never had a chance. The steel ribbon would have uncoiled into his mouth and out the back of his head. Likely, he died without ever knowing he was dead.

The memory metal remembered and recoiled to its rest state. The Frog Prince leapt, pulled along by its own tongue. When it landed, it would tug itself loose and take another lick.

Donovan turned to the door.

And Olafsdottr was crowding in, blocking his escape.

His cry emerged as high-pitched as a bat’s, so far into overdrive was he. Olafsdottr brushed him aside with her right arm. The Frog’s tongue lanced again. She seized the ribbon with her left hand pushing it aside, as she had seized the flying shim during their workout, even as she fired the teaser with her right. She screamed.

“Serrated!” She released the tongue of steel, which with a lick swiped her across the side as it rewound.

But a teaser fires a coherent electromagnetic pulse. At certain settings and focuses, it can play havoc with a man’s nervous system. Other settings can fry electronic devices. The Frog Prince flashed and sparked as the induced currents ran along its body and internal circuitry. Its head turned toward Donovan. The mouth opened …

… and smoke came out.

The Brute threw the wrench and it spun into the Frog’s visual sensors, shattering them. But by then the bright blue of the Frog’s body was fading with its power source. Donovan found the wrench and used it to beat the machine into scrap.

When Olafsdottr awoke, she was lying on a pallet in the infirmary. Both hands were encased in restoration gloves while regressed cells rebuilt the torn flesh and snapped bones. Her side, where the tongue had swiped it, was likewise bandaged. To inhale sent a stabbing pain through her.

Donovan sat by the pallet reading a book screen. He looked up when she moved.

“Rib?” she said.

He nodded. “Two. And a deep laceration. What possessed you to grab the tongue like that?”

“I thought only to knock it aside. I did not expect a saw blade.” She raised the two gloves. “My hands?”

“The left one was badly sliced up. You must have grabbed at it with your right after you dropped the teaser.”

“I promised Gidula I would deliver you in one piece to Henrietta. Could not let Froggie punch holes through you.” She took another experimental breath. “I must praise your medical skills, sweet.”

“The meshinospidal did all the work. I just zipped you in the basket and followed the instructions. The automatics took cell samples, regressed them, and applied them in the proper course.”

“Ooh, but you had noo oobligation to deliver me whole. Or to deliver me at all. Foortunate, then…”

Donovan shrugged. “Look,” he said, “can we drop the Alabaster accent? We’re past that, I think.”

“Fortunate, then,” she said more quietly, “you spy Frog Prince in time; or both dead.”

“Inner Child is paranoid. Makes a good sentry.”

Olafsdottr sighed. “Must be very wonderful divide attentions so. I was told it had incapacitated you.”

“It does have its drawbacks sometimes.”

“How do you plan to explain the corpse to the Megranomese authorities?” she asked. “Or how you came by this ship?”

“It was his ship. He was giving us a ride. This thing broke out of its box. Missy, if between the two of us we can’t concoct a story to fool a Megranomic copper we should both of us quit the Long Game.”

Olafsdottr cocked her head sideways. “I thought you had quit.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Almost, you tempt me, sweet. But I am unaccustomed to asking for help.”

Donovan grinned. “I’ll teach you.”

The answering smile was almost sad. “Sweet, between the two of us, we defeated a Foreganger killing machine. Tell me you are not the man we need for the struggle.”

Donovan sat back so that his head rested upon the wall of the little infirmary. He closed his eyes and his breath slowly gusted from him. “I’m not the man you need.”

“Ah, well, it would have been entertaining to watch developments. How long before we reach the Megranome way station?”

The scarred man shrugged. “The ’ospidal had you in suspension for five days. We’re out of Megranome space.”

“Ah. You take me direct to Dangchao, then. Perhaps Bridget ban keep me in clean cage.”

Donovan rose, wiped his palms on his trousers. “You sleep now, ‘sweet.’ Your hands are too badly cut up to pilot the ship. I don’t have a certificate myself, except as a chartsman; but every chartsman is a pilot in training, and certificates are only for officials. We’ll be on the Tightrope in another two days.”

Olafsdottr struggled to sit up, winced at the pain, and slid back prone. “On the Tightrope?”

The scarred man, at the infirmary door, shrugged. “And don’t ask us why, because there’s not a single one of us knows the answer.”

“So,” says Bridget ban, low and drawn out, so that the sibilant slides like a hiss from between her lips, “it was no kidnapping, at all. He went with you of his own free will.”

The Confederal shrugs and grins. “Not free. Cost great deal.” Then, in Gaelactic, “And what is will, anyway? We are bounced about by the impacts of Fate and where we finally ricochet, that is where we fare. Whether we will to go that way or whether we simply will go that way is a question for metaphysicians, not for one so humble as I.” She sips again at her coffee, which has grown tempered as she unwound her tale.