Kate Wilhelm - The Killer Thing

He had to keep going. Minute by minute the wind was increasing its speed, the size of the flying rocks growing. He had to turn around, go down feet first in order to protect his head. The chimney was two and a half feet wide here, narrowing at the top of the cleft to a scant foot; the light coming in through the top was dirty, grey-yellow. He brought his feet up under him, presenting a larger target for the hurled rocks. One caught him on the thigh and he cried out. Hurrying, he turned, getting his feet out before him, keeping his face down against the earth, one hand over his head, the other extending out behind him as he went down the passage, pushing, helping to lift his weight, easing it over the next few inches. Slowly, he approached the end of the chimney; the rocks that were blowing about were larger, not going straight through at this end, but skipping about in a circular motion, banging thunderously against the sides of the cut. At the end he tried to see his dinghy and could not find it in the swirling debris. The valley echoed with the repeated crashes of boulders against valley walls, and the wind’s roar here was deafening.

The dinghy had to be to his left, about twenty-five feet away from the cliff wall; he would be going directly into the wind. Suddenly everything was swept away in a blaze of pain and when it passed he could not move his left arm at all. There was the feel of sticky warmth on his shoulder, but no pain then. He knew the pain would come again. He had to get to the dinghy before one of the rocks caught him in the head, or broke a leg…

He closed his eyes hard, visualising the dinghy and the rounded boulder, fighting back the hysteria that was overcoming him at the thought of leaving the inadequate shelter of the cut into the mountain. The boulder had been trailed by a whole string of lesser rocks… He should have realised what they meant when he first saw them… If he could make it to the rocks and use them for protection…

There was nothing else he could do. His left arm dangled uselessly, numbed, as if it were not even a part of him. He stood for another moment, pressing himself hard against the side of the cleft, and then he ran out, hunched as low as he could get, and he tripped and fell over one of the series of rocks. He threw himself down full length, gasping; he felt as if he had been caught in an avalanche; his whole body was bruised and hurting. But he was still alive. He heard his own laugh and choked it off. Creeping along the ground, pressing against the rocks that would take him back to the easter egg boulder and his own craft, he was hit again and again by pebbles, rocks, sand, and then he had reached the big one. He could see nothing now, the air completely filled with the driving sand. His hands found the smooth side of the dinghy, and somehow he wrenched the hatch open, fell inside and pulled it closed again. The wind probably was seventy miles an hour, gusts of ninety, and tornadoes whose wind velocity could only be estimated. It would not reach its peak for another half-hour at least. He drew in gasping, sobbing breaths, closed his eyes when the dinghy seemed to be tilting crazily, and waited for the dizziness to pass. He wasn’t finished yet. He still had to move the dinghy to safety.

It seemed to take him months, or years, to reach the controls of the dinghy. He watched his right hand reach for the switch and before it touched, he slept and wakened, forgot about the wind, and remembered once more. Then his hand was on the switch and his mind was the thing apart as reflexes took over guiding his hand, seeing that the craft was turned in the right direction, that it hovered enough off the ground to clear the jutting rocks, and then controlled it in a fast dart into the cut in the cliff, taking it back as far as it would go, turning it so that it presented the smallest possible area to the bombardment. When the switch was turned off again, the man slumped down in the seat-bed unconscious.

Hey, Trace, wake up! A whisper in his ear that grew more insistent. Come on, Trace! You ought to see… What’s the matter?

He floated away from his hammock, coming down to earth as lightly as a feather. He looked down at himself, tasting the strangeness of his own body. He was very young, fifteen or sixteen… Where was he? It was all new and unfamiliar, a forest of tents, small geodesic patterns in a bright moonlight scene. A far sound of singing, a nearer sound of pacing feet ― the sentry. He remembered, they were on Tarbo for their first actual encounter with an enemy. Trace felt frightened, yet excited at the thought of joining in combat with the older, experienced men. They were so matter of fact about it, so disdainful of death.

The other boy was plucking at his sleeve.

Come on, Trace, this way. Dream-like, they drifted along the lower branches of the trees that surrounded the camp, eluding the sentry with no trouble, until they had come to a clearing, a slope that went down to the edge of a large lake, a silvery reflection that rippled now and again with its own secret life. Trace and the other boy—who had he been?—drifted to the top of a mammoth conifer and perched there, almost a hundred feet over the ground below. They could see far across the lake valley, a meadow in the distance where a long line of figures was moving. There were some lights, enough so that the boys could make out what was happening. Fleet men were shepherding natives in a straggly line, placing them among the trees at the edge of the lake, stationing some of them in a cave that was a black hole at the foot of a hill, putting others at the edge of the clearing, making them lie flat. A handful of the natives broke into a run and a laser cut them down, silently vaporising them. There were no more attempts to escape. Mystified, Trace watched until the soldiers were finished and took up guard positions.

One of them screamed, the other boy said. I got up and wandered out this way to see what was going on. What are they doing?

Haven’t you figured it out? Come on, we’ve got to get back before someone misses us. Use your head, Trace. You figure it out.

Time telescoped; dawn, and the general giving final orders.

It’s serious, men. They learned of our presence and massed thousands of warriors overnight, armed men, the elite of their fighting corps. Breznev will take the first battalion in…

Trace would be in the fourth wave. His hand trembled when he received the laser gun; it would be virtually hand-to-hand combat, man against man, soldier against soldier…

Gene! That was his name, Gene Connors. His eyes met Trace’s, and his face was ghastly, stark white with a pale green tinge around his mouth. Trace turned away from him.

Brunce, take a detachment around to the left, pincers movement…

Trace fell in behind Brunce, the laser hot in his hand, the trembling all on the inside now. In there, men, a detachment, take what cover you can; fire at anything that moves… Go! Three trainees to each officer. Moving behind Brunce…

The laser held in both hands, touching with fire, the smell of burning brush, flesh, stones… the smell and sound of bullets from ancient guns, the natives’ weapons… And once more there was Gene, staring open-mouthed at Trace, his own laser hanging unused from his hand:

You’re fishing in stocked waters!

The sound of a bullet and Gene falling, running past his body, the laser a deadly light guiding him on, pulling him after it… One brief flashing glimpse of Brunce, a revolver in his hand…

Celebration, drinking, the drugs that brought a fantasy world into reality, medals for meritorious action in the face of danger… His mother on his return to Venus: