E.C Tubb - World of Promise

A blend of woman and cat, she stood eight feet tall, loping toward him intent on his death.

Dumarest turned and ran, turning again to duck beneath a reaching hand, to be sent sprawling as a foot hammered at his side. A blow which numbed, then repeated to rip sod from the ground and send it flying high and far to one side. Speed which would have killed had it been backed with experience. Which would kill if he allowed it time.

Again he ran, seeing the wall of the building rise before him, the closed door. Behind its grill he saw eyes, the glint of metal, saw too the shadow darkening the steel. A warning he obeyed just in time, throwing himself to one side as the woman slammed into the panel, wood shredding beneath the rake of her nails.

The impetuous anger of youth and she had to be young. Something patterned in the laboratory and forced to speeded maturity with the aid of slowtime. Fed with artificial concentrates, exercised by machines, the body developed at the expense of the mind. An idiot, unable as yet to talk, to think, to understand. A reactive construct which had been programmed to destroy.

Against it his knife was useless.

She was too fast, too well-protected. Even if he blinded an eye it would do nothing to slow her. Unlike the mannek she had been designed for efficiency and not for display. The pain level must be high, nerves and tendons duplicated, survival responses built into the very fabric of her being. The common attributes of any female were in her developed to the ultimate.

Yet there had to be weaknesses.

He dodged again, staying beyond reach of the clawed hands, moving with trained response while his mind assessed the situation. He could cut and slash and wound but each of her hands held five knives against his one. She was as fast as he was. Taller than he. Stronger. His only advantage lay in his experience-the cunning developed over the years. And she was a woman and a child.

He ran, stooping as he ran, to straighten with the weight of his knife in his hand. Nine inches of honed and tempered steel blazed like a crimson icicle as he lifted the polished blade to catch and reflect the sunlight. A flashing glitter vanished to reappear to vanish again as he maneuvered the weapon. Darting rays caught the woman across the eyes, making her blink, making her lift shielding hands, causing her to halt, to back a little from the unknown and therefore potentially dangerous brightness.

But the childish mind was entranced even as the mature body reacted to programmed caution.

Dumarest edged to one side, boots soundless on the sward, knife lifted, reflected brightness aimed at the face, the eyes. He backed and she followed, one hand reaching for the knife. He backed even more then stepped quickly around her so that her back was toward the hedge opposite to that holding the platform.

"Here!" he said. "Catch!" Crimson gleamed as he threw the knife. It rose high, spinning, a glittering wheel which spun up and toward the hedge. A thing of magic which she followed with her eyes, hands lifting to snatch it from the air, falling short as it soared above the thorns. She turned to face it, stepping forward-and Dumarest moved.

He ran forward, leaping high, one boot landing on the swollen curve of her buttocks, using it as a foothold to leap again, jumping high as he used the broad shoulders as a platform. The leap carried him after the knife, the hedge passing beneath him, thorns rasping at his clothing as he fell, hands clamped protectively over his eyes.

He landed on soft dirt, legs folding to cushion the shock, hands falling as his eyes searched for the knife. It rested a dozen feet away, half sunken in the loam, and he snatched it up, running as he heard shouts from behind, Charisse's sharp order.

"Stop him! Use the stunner!"

Another voice, thin with distance. "My lady-it doesn't work!"

An unsuspected bonus-the thing planted in his temple had been more than a vehicle for the drugs which had dulled his mind.

"Try again!" she ordered and then, as Dumarest continued to run, "Stop, Earl-or I'll loose the dogs!"

He heard the snuffle and tensed, lying in the gloom of the hut, concentrating on simple orders. Outside the teleths moved in an apparently random pattern, blocking the door, crossing the paths, ruining what scent he may have left with their own, pungent odors. A score of them milling to halt and watch with their large, staring eyes. The snuffling faded and in the shadows Dumarest relaxed.

He was hot, his body sticky with perspiration beneath his clothing, the garments themselves ripped and scratched by thorns and hooked leaves, spines and barbed protrusions. His hands were webs of scratches, his hair matted, his boots slimed. For an eternity, it seemed, he had run and dodged and wended his way through an elaborate maze. Hiding from the rafts and men sent to search for him, the dogs, the loping felines many of which he had left in puddles of blood and fur. A path which had led him to the village of the teleths was the only safety he could hope to find.

Through the low arch of the door he could see a small patch of darkening sky. Already it blazed with a scatter of stars heralding the night as the last rays of crimson bid farewell to the day. Soon it would be dark and the grounds filled with the dogs newly commanded to kill. Before then he must be on his way.

Cautiously he moved to the opening and saw the assembled shapes outside. There were too many to be normal and he concentrated on watching as small groups moved away to wander aimlessly about the paths, the sown plots of ground. A normal scene for any who might be watching and, later, unless bathed in the glow of a searchlight, he might pass as one of the teleths. Their radiated body heat, at least, would mask his own as their scent baffled the dogs.

The stars shone brighter then dulled as a scud of cloud came to blur their images, clouds which thickened to shed a drizzling rain. It drummed on his head as Dumarest left the shelter, washed the blood from his scratches, the dirt from flesh and clothing. The downpour sent the teleths into shelter from which he drove them with savage, mental commands. Humped, miserable, they shuffled with himself among them toward the house.

It was farther than he remembered, the space between interspersed with compounds, stockades, feeding plots, pools. Areas were divided by spined barriers, some set with gates, others with elaborate stiles. The obstructions broke the shielding knot of teleths and sent them wandering in individual confusion. This was a gain rather than a loss and one achieved without his direction.

From somewhere he heard the belling of a hound.

It came again, closer, a deep-toned baying from the west. Another dog or the first signaling its new position to the leader of the pack? One who could have found a teleth and was marking the position. The creatures wouldn't be harmed-only he stood in danger.

A pool glinted before him and Dumarest plunged into it, risking what it might contain in an attempt to negate his scent. The far bank held a matted moss which moved as he gripped it, tendrils rising from the seemingly harmless vegetation to wind around his arms, his legs, his throat. Strands which tightened and pulled him back into the water. Ropes of living tissue studded with mouths seeking his blood.

He felt the stink and tore free an arm to rip the tendrils from his throat. Others replaced them and he felt the blood drum in his ears as they closed in a strangling noose. He strained, reaching for his knife, lifting it from his boot to send the edge against the living ropes. A slash and they had parted, ends falling as he pulled them from his neck. Pearls of blood showed dark in the growing starlight as the rain clouds thinned as they drifted to the south. More cuts and he was free, stepping over the matted fronds to firm ground.