Of Man And Manta - Ox Part 46

"You think they'd go native like us?"

"It wouldn't matter, would it? Earth would have no report..."

He smiled. "Yeah."

"And if they were stranded here, maybe they'd come to see it our way. Maybe they'd settle, turn human. That female -- she could bear children."

"Yeah," he repeated, mulling it over.

"Three men, two women -- that might be a viable nucleus." There were aspects to it that disturbed her, but it was a far more positive approach than murder.

It was a daring plan. They set it in motion when one agent was on land, tracking down the moving nest.

Veg set sail with Hex on the old raft, the Nacre. He was a decoy, to draw off one of the two agents on the s.h.i.+p. "And Veg," Aquilon said as he left. "If it is the female who comes after you, smile at her."

"Yeah, I know," he muttered. "Use my delicate masculine wiles to subvert her superior feminine force." He spat eloquently downwind. "The day I ever cater to the likes of her..."

"You're a handsome man. You don't want to have to kill her..." But he was already on his way, and she felt like a procuress. Was she prepared to follow the same advice when she encountered a male agent?

She took one more look at Cave, sleeping in the nest-cart, guarded by the three other mantas and two birds. Yes -- to save him, to save the eggs, to save the enclave, she was prepared. If they succeeded in stranding the agents here, it would eventually come to that, anyway: crossbreeding. Better that reality than the loss of everything she had fought to preserve.

Then Aquilon raided the s.h.i.+p. She stripped and swam, hoping that in the night her motion would be mistaken for that of an aquatic reptile. If not -- that was the risk she had to take. The agent aboard would not kill her out of hand; he would let her board, then subdue her -- and the test of her commitment would be at hand. She was a buxom woman now because of nursing her baby. If she could seduce him, or at least lull him into carelessness so that she had a chance to scuttle the s.h.i.+p, then it would be done. The vessel was anch.o.r.ed in deep water and would not be recoverable.

Of course, then the water predators would close in... but she was ready to die. Perhaps the agent, realizing that he could no longer report to Earth, would be pragmatic and join her, and together with the mantas they could make it to sh.o.r.e.

She had smeared the juices of a vile-smelling root over her body to repel the water reptiles, and it seemed to work. She reached the s.h.i.+p without event and climbed nimbly to the deck.

To be met by the alert agent there. "Welcome aboard, Miss Hunt. I am Tama, your host. Kind of you to surrender voluntarily."

The female -- the worst one to meet! "I've come to sink your s.h.i.+p," Aquilon said, knowing the agent was well aware of her intent.

Tama ignored this. "Come below decks." It was an order, not a request.

Aquilon thought of diving back into the bay. Once she went into the hold, captive, she would never have a chance.

Tama moved so quickly she seemed a blur. "Do not attempt to jump," she said from the rail behind Aquilon. Whatever had made her think she had a chance against an agent? Sheer delusion!

"Yes," Tama agreed. "But you amaze me. too. You have indeed borne a child."

"Nothing amazing about it," Aquilon said. "You could do the same if you chose to."

"Yet you have been on Paleo only three months -- and your Earth physical showed no pregnancy."

Aquilon stiffened. She had been on Paleo a year and three months. Surely the agents knew that!

"We shall have to plumb this mystery," Tama said. "You are not trying to deceive me, yet we can not explain -- "

She was interrupted by the sound of a bell. She brought out a tiny radio unit. "Tama."

"Tanu," a male voice returned immediately. "Male acquired, one fungoid destroyed."

"Talo," another voice said. "Attacked by one sapient flightless bird. Bird destroyed, mission as yet incomplete."

Aquilon felt an awful shudder run through her. Hex dead, Veg captured, one of the great birds killed, she herself nullified -- and the effort had hardly started. What a terrible price had already been paid!

"There is no need for further violence," Tama said. She held out the communicator. "Speak to your fungoids; tell them to land here. We shall treat you fairly."

Aquilon faced about and walked toward the cabin, her lips tight. There was no way she could mask her antipathy to the agents. Subble she might have heeded, but these were ruthless strangers who could read her every response and antic.i.p.ate many of her acts.

Suddenly a gun was in Tama's hand. "Very clever!" she snapped. "You did not know you were being supported by a fungoid."

A manta! Aquilon suddenly recognized Veg's unsubtle hand in this. He had suggested that the mantas be confined to the defensive perimeter, and she, preoccupied with her own preparations, had agreed. Veg had sent a manta after her -- and because she hadn't known it, she had been unable to give that fact away.

Tama fired. Aquilon, galvanized into action, made a dive for the weapon. But the agent's left hand struck her on the neck, knocking her down half stunned.

Then three mantas attacked simultaneously. They were fast, and they knew how to dodge projectiles and beams. But the agents, forewarned, had armed themselves with scatter-shot sh.e.l.ls, almost impossible to avoid.

Aquilon watched helplessly from the deck as the first manta went down, a pellet through the great eye. "Star!" Aquilon cried in horror.

The second manta came closer but was riddled by pellets through the torso. It sheered off and fell into the water. "Diam!"

The third manta caught the agent across the neck, severing windpipe, jugular vein, and carotid arteries. Even so, Tama got off one more shot, and the fungoid crashed into the deck.

Aquilon stood up unsteadily. "Oh, Circe!" she cried. "We didn't want bloodshed..."

Tama grinned with ghastly humor, unable to speak. She clasped her throat with both hands, containing the blood -- but the damage was too extensive, and she slumped to the deck, dying.

The mission had been a disaster; now there were no mantas, and there would be no other woman on Paleo to share the burden of bearing children.

But she had a job to do: Scuttle the s.h.i.+p. At least she could save Paleo. She went below decks to locate the necessary tools to do the job. A projectile cannon, or even a sledgehammer, to make a hole in the bottom, to let in the sea...

Instead she found -- a projector. She had never seen one before, but somehow she recognized its nature. The agents intended to establish a return aperture to Earth from right here!

She picked it up, intending to destroy it by smas.h.i.+ng it into the deck. But her finger touched a switch inadvertently.

A cone of light came out from it, bathing her.

And she stood in a completely different scheme.

She was in a room about twenty feet long and fifteen wide. Walls, floor, and ceiling were plastered, and there was a fantastic variety of what were, to her artistic eye, highly authentic primitive art objects and paintings.

There were only two small, high windows and no door.

A homemade ladder made of poles and thong-bound crosspieces ascended to a small hole in the ceiling: the only exit.

Had she projected herself back to Earth, the very thing she had tried so hard to stop -- or was she in a new alternate world, inhabited by primitive man? If she had joggled the setting on the device, she could have traveled randomly.

Without that projector, she had no chance to return -- and who but the agents would ever use it to seek her out? Her choices were to submit to recapture -- or escape into this world.