Jack Chalker - Balshazzar's Serpent

He nodded. “It came up to us just as we all cleared the hatch. We were just breathing our first fresh air and checking for wounds when it come right out of the woods there and straight for Captain Terashkova. She drew and fired, but it didn’t make any difference. Point-blank range. It—it kinda just smothered her. And then that was it. Nadya and me, we just took to the woods. It moved in, drained all the power from the lifeboat, and it’s been kinda loafing around, like it’s waiting. Waiting for us, or you, or everybody!”

Cromwell doubted it. It sounded like the thing had simply defended itself, something he’d have done in similar circumstances. “What happened to your captain, boy? Where’s the remains?”

The young man pointed briefly with the pistol. “Over there. See what it’s done?”

Cromwell looked to the right of the open hatch. There was nothing there but a small bushy tree. “You don’t mean that is your former captain?”

“Yeah, you got it. Thing turned her into a fuckin’ bush . That’s us, too, mister. That’s everybody up above, too, if they come down here. Now, you turn and lead me back to your shuttle.”

“Oh, we’ll go back over there,” Cromwell promised him. “However, what makes you think it’ll let us go?”

“It smells all them people of yours up there. It’s waiting. It’s smart, it is.”

“Come on, then. Let’s get back to my ship and my people,” Cromwell told him, trying to soothe him. He was less concerned with what the kid might do than he was with a panicky set of shots at whatever it was out there which might cause all sorts of problems. If it could drain the energy out of a lifeboat, then it was probable that the combat suit was no more use than a medieval suit of armor, if that.

“Why in God’s name did you take the risk to follow us here, boy?” Cromwell asked, hoping to keep the boy talking. There was a companion someplace, too, probably as panicked and as well armed as the kid was.

“Riches. The Three Kings— jeez! — everybody knows about the Three Kings. A tiny number of soul gems alone would set us up for life.”

“Yeah, well, your captain picked the wrong place, son,” Cromwell told him. “No soul gems or weird alien artifacts or anything else on this one. And, all things considered, we could be hip deep in them for all it would matter. We’re not going anywhere.”

The crackling, rolling noise began off to their left. He could feel the kid stiffen, but, if anything, it only increased his resolve. “Keep going!”

“What’s your name, son? Mine’s Brother Thomas.”

“I ain’t your son and you ain’t no brother of mine, neither!” the boy snapped. “The name’s Alan Chu. I’m from Quen Cong.”

Quen Cong was a world just barely outside the barrier of the Silence. Cromwell remembered it as hustling, bustling, energetic, but with a premium on the old ways and values.

“Yes, I am familiar with Quai Son City,” he responded. “Kind of primitive, rugged, but great food.”

The rustling had now gone in front of them, and seemed poised to cut them off just short of Cromwell’s landing.

“Well, Mister Chu, I’d say whatever that is has a problem with guns and such. Did your captain fire at it? Or try to?”

“Of course! It attacked, didn’t it?”

Didn’t it? “ I think if you put that gun down, or just in your belt, it won’t attack. It might try and communicate, but it’s not going to attack. But if you keep it out, if you make it ready to shoot, then we can both be dead men.”

“Like hell I’m gonna put this thing away! You just keep going!”

“There are people,” Cromwell muttered sadly, “who simply refuse to be saved.”

“What’s that?”

In one motion the combat suit snapped on full and Cromwell whirled, hit the man a knockout blow on the chin, and grabbed the pistol as the poor guy crumpled to the ground. The suit snapped off just as quickly, leaving a sad-faced Cromwell holding the gun.

He looked at the pistol for a moment, sighed, and then tossed it well into the woods. He then reached down to pick up the limp but still very much alive Mister Chu and take him along.

There was something there in front of him. He put Chu down once more and stared at it.

An energy field, that was for certain. Some kind of distortion behind which something could hide, but it wasn’t clear what. It was pretty transparent, although it gave a major distortion of whatever was behind it, and it seemed to be just standing there.

“Hello,” Cromwell said as pleasantly as possible. “And what can we do for you?”

The thing did not respond, moving only slightly back and forth and producing that loud snapping marble crackling sound. They sure didn’t work by sneaking up on things, that was for sure. Not unless all on their world were deaf.

Cromwell tapped out a code on a small wristband and the combat suit peeled off and collapsed at his feet. He reached down, picked it up, and with two more presses of controls it was nothing more than a meter-cubed metallic object with a handle.

He let go of it, turned back to whatever it was, and spread his hands. “All right, I doubt if that was worth much anyway, so here I am. Now what do we do?”

The thing seemed to be just about to resolve itself into something intelligible as Cromwell and those above via his small body camera watched breathlessly when suddenly there was a bloodcurdling scream from the left and sharp beams went off all over the place. One of them struck Cromwell directly in the back between the shoulder blades and went right on through; others focused on the alien distortion.

“ Thomas! No! ” Woodward’s shocked voice sounded in his ear. “ Oh, my God! No! ”

The alien suddenly lunged for the area from which the shots had been fired with a speed that was startling. Cromwell, in shock, feeling that he was dying, tried to shout, “No!” but it would not come. He dropped to his knees, unable to see the commotion behind him and to his left, and then keeled over onto the ground.

Within seconds the alien crackling presence was back, barely giving any attention to the slight moan of the young man, who was just now coming to, concentrating entirely on the fallen and still figure of Thomas Cromwell.

Something, some of the distortion, reached out and turned him over. His eyes were half open, there was blood at the corner of his mouth, and the wound was surgical but effective. There was no question either to the creature on the ground or to the monitors above that Thomas Cromwell was dead.

And then the distortion, flowing, rolling almost like a blanket, completely covered Cromwell’s body. It remained there for a couple of minutes, masking out the dead man from the overhead surveillance camera, although you could see a human-sized rippling form beneath.

“What the devil is it doing?” Woodward muttered to himself, watching transfixed from on high, as were they all.

Chu, his senses mostly restored, also saw what seemed to be happening. He’d been knocked out when the action had taken place, and from his vantage point it appeared that the thing was attacking, perhaps eating, Thomas Cromwell. He tried very hard to slowly and deliberately move back and away from the scene and into the forest. He’d just about made it to cover when the thing rolled off of Cromwell’s body.

For a moment, it appeared that nothing had happened, and the observers all thought that the thing must have simply made a thorough examination. Maybe death didn’t come that way, or that easily, to its own kind.

Suddenly Cromwell’s body began to move. It underwent a series of increasingly severe convulsions, then his eyes opened wide and his mouth gasped and he drew in big, heaving breaths.