Alien Art by Gordon R. Dickson

Author:Gordon R. Dickson [Dickson, Gordon R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: E. P. Dutton
Published: 1973-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

8.

Cary dropped his cup, spun about, and made it to the door in three long strides. He jerked the door open and was through it, running along the porch toward the corner behind which he had left the travois, while the reverberations of that single piercing whistle were still making his ears sing.

He leaped off the porch, turned the corner of the building, and confronted the lean looper, Wiles. Wiles was standing over the statue on the travois, a sledgehammer still held upraised in his hands. His shirt was torn open, and one leg of his shorts was torn and flapping. Charlie lay beside the travois, half on his back, his neck outstretched and his eyes closed, his teeth half-grinning between his lips. His body quivered slightly and occasionally, like the body of a sleeping dog. Dark blood welled slowly from the fur on the right side of his head.

At the sight of Cary, Wiles dropped the sledgehammer and snatched up Cary's own long gun, which lay on top of the gear lashed to the travois.

"Hold it!" said Wiles. His face twisted. "Just hold it. That's right. Unhook that gunbelt around you and let it drop. Now back off four steps."

Slowly, Cary obeyed. The belt with his short gun in its holster thudded to the hard dirt at his feet. He backed.

"That damn beast of yours went for me," said Wiles, grinning a little now. He raised his voice. "Hey, Team! Get the woman out here-oh, there you are."

Cary moved his eyes without moving his head. Mattie came around the building, followed by the three other loopers, all now carrying energy rifles. Aige walked with them. They came back and stopped.

Cary looked down at Charlie, lying bleeding and quivering on the ground, then back up to Wiles.

"You're dead, mister," he said. Wiles laughed.

"No. You're dead, woodie," he said. "That is, unless we decide to be generous and let you go, in about a week from now." He looked over at Mace. "Did you explain things to them, Mace?"

"I'd just got as far as Sam asking us for advice about what to do when the animal whistled," Mace said.

"Well, that's good enough." Wiles turned back to Cary. "That's right, Sam asked us for advice. And we told him- go on in and spread his story about, but we'd handle it up here for him, just to make sure."

He smiled.

"You know what I told Sam about you?" he went on. "I said you aren't the first smart local hick to give a company man trouble. Lots of time the Team has trouble with some native or other on an outback world like this. We're used to it. And we like to handle it ourselves without getting the company moneymen involved. The moneymen like it that way too-"

"What do you think's going to happen with your money-men when they hear about this?" interrupted Mattie fiercely. "With an election coming up and a mortgage worth billions up for vote-"

"But they aren't going to hear about it," Wiles interrupted in his turn.

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