Barrington Bayley - The Zen Gun

“Yes, we saw them. Where in this city?”

Pout shrugged. “They’re not as large as all that.”

“I suppose that will do,” Gruwert said, satisfied. “All right, get inside the pod.”

“Are you really taking the chimera?” Brigadier Carson asked in surprise.

“Yes I am,” Gruwert had dark thoughts about the creature. Though he had spoken to him as though to a child, he suspected there might be considerably more to him than that. Why was the kosho , a proud and highly trained human being—he recalled something about koshos now—apparently his servant? A pan-primate chimera too… it was reminiscent of the pan-mammalian chimera the Whole-Earth-Biotists wanted to install as Emperor Protector.

“We’ll take the kosho , too,” he decided. “Don’t they have special mental training? Heightened psychic flexibility?” He pondered. It was, he supposed, exactly the faculty—heightened imagination—which animals were supposed to be incapable of. “That’s the sort of quality we might need if we’re to investigate that rent in space.”

“Yes, you’re absolutely right,” muttered Carson. Yet looking at the imperturbable warrior,and his array of weapons, he wondered exactly how he was to be “taken”.

Pout was stopped from entering the pod by a dog who came up to him and began sniffing him all over. The beast stood nearly as tall as Pout himself; the chimera cringed but the commando persisted, and eventually its muzzle lunged and came out gripping the zen gun he had put back in his bib.

“He had another gun,” the dog growled between clenched teeth.

“It doesn’t work. It’s my lucky charm.” Pout watched with pleading eyes as Carson took the gun and turned it over. The man grunted in amusement, then pointed it at the horizon and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.

“It’s made of wood,” he remarked lightly. “Only an old curio.” Pout timorously extended a paw; he casually handed the gun back to him.

On seeing Pout skulk his way into the pod, tucking the gun in his bib, Ikematsu stepped forward. “If I am to come with you I must keep my weapons,” he said to the Brigadier. “A kosho does not discard his armoury.”

Indignantly Carson looked at him. “We’re not allowing you on one of our ships rigged out like that! You’re a walking war!” He waved Sinbiane back. “And we don’t need you, young man. You stay here.”

“This is my nephew,” Ikematsu informed. “I go nowhere without him.”

Suddenly he made a series of quick movements, disengaging the catches of his harness, at which the rifle rack, the mortar tube and the other weapons fell away, arranging themselves on the ground with surprising neatness.

“See,” he said. “I disarm, contrary to all principle, provided my nephew accompanies me. I ask only that my armoury be stored safely and returned to me eventually.”

“Oh, all right,” Carson agreed. He was relieved that the kosho was being cooperative, not guessing that Ikematsu’s first demand had been no more than a bargaining counter.

He and the major helped the animals drag their dead into the pod for space burial later. Squatting inside the pod, the cheetahs especially cast feral glances at the kosho ; but their discipline restrained them from any threatening word or gesture.

The pod lifted off. In the orbiting cruiser they delayed only while the bodies and the prisoners were transferred. Then they dropped, with the other pods Carson ordered, onto Mo.

Five hundred commandos sliced through the moving city with a ferocity its inhabitants could hardly have envisaged. Even so, it was nearly four hours before the fugitive had been located and taken prisoner.

That gave time for the pig Fire Command Officer to learn about the life style of the cities of the plain. He was reminded once again of his conclusions concerning the Oracle’s pronouncements; accordingly, he engineered another small, but personal, triumph. With referring to Admiral Archier, he called his own department and arranged to have the whole plain nuked as they departed.

“Those cities are a social experiment,” he explained to Brigadier Carson as they watched the pinpricks of light blossom on the curve of the planet below them. “An experiment in academics: they spend—spent, rather—their whole time studying—studying history and social philosophy , among other things. Can’t be too careful. No knowing what ideas they were brewing. Could be what Oracle was talking about.”

Carson had misgivings. “The Admiral will be annoyed if he hears about it. He’s supposed to give the order for things like that.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Gruwert said jovially. “He can’t attend to every little detail, can he?”

And some of you humans, the pig added to himself with satisfaction, aren’t so hot when it comes to making decisions.

In Claire de Lune ’s command centre Ragshok had synched into the Fleet Manoeuvres Network. On the screens he saw the current dispositions as the last few ships—of a rather depleted fleet since the battle with the Escorians, he noticed—joined formation. He had learned to read some of the codes, too. He had identified, for instance, the code for what he now thought of as his own ship, and had been able to respond to instructions.

Although it was only hours since he had joined the fleet, so far there had been no trouble. He had ignored beamed requests for reports, and as far as he knew no one had tried to come through the intermat, though as it wasn’t working yet it was hard to be sure. Probably they would despatch someone in a boat sooner or later. Things could get tricky.

He called Tengu again. “Well?”

The image of the systems engineer appeared in the air before him. “Not yet. I’m still checking. If there’s a fault, I’ll find it, I swear.”

But Tengu looked worried, and Ragshok cursed. After all their work, this had to happen!

Installing the flux unit from his ship Dare had been no small job for a start. While that was underway he had toured half a dozen worlds, picking up rebel fugitives who had managed to evade pursuit following the battle, privateer gangs like his own, and anyone he could persuade to throw in with him and who could use a weapon.

He had packed nearly three thousand men and women into Claire de Lune . They would be getting restless if he didn’t soon produce what he had promised them.

His whole plan depended on getting the intermat working. Tengu had earlier inspected the transceiver kiosks and announced them undamaged, despite not properly understanding how they functioned. The fact that they would not work within the bounds of the ship had seemed reasonable at the time: they were a ship-to-ship facility, and he had presumed there would be no problems once they came within range of the rest of the fleet.

But how long would the Imperial staff remain incurious about a ship that was supposed to have been abandoned?

“Speed it up, will you,” he grated to Tengu, dismissing him.

“Eh, chief,” said Morgan, messing about at the comdesk. “Look at this.”

Ragshok squinted at the display area as Morgan put up the data Fleet Manoeuvres was putting out. “It’s a general order,” Morgan said. “They’re moving out.”

“Where to?”

Morgan shook his head. “Just somewhere. Nowhere interesting. To the next bit of trouble, I guess.”

“Damn Tengu!” raged Ragshok. “This is his fault! I trusted him!”

“What shall we do?”

“You can get the GDC and everything out of that?”

He was referring to Galactic Directional Coordinates. “Yes, I think so,” Morgan said.

“Then we obey orders.”

Tentatively, for he still was not too expert at handling the Planet Class destroyer, Morgan entered figures on his desk, called the engine room, and began to manoeuvre.