Sam thought about trying an astral walk to see how many cockatrices there were and to make sure they were all outside. He dreaded what might happen if any were not. Met in the narrow confines of the nesting pens, the paranimals would have all the advantages. The men would be crowding one another, the distances would be too short for effective gunfire, and the beasts were very fast.
Staring at the door, Sam stayed where he was, firmly in the grip of his mundane senses. Sally had warned him that the creatures could see astral presences and could affect his astral body as fatally as his flesh body. Maybe she had just been trying to scare him out of doing the run, but if Sally spoke true, the creatures presented an even greater menace to his astral self than to his physical being. He had leaned that the astral body was somehow a reflection of a person essence. Could a person’s essence be other than his soul? If one of those things touched him during astral projection, what would happen to his soul?
Ghost was suddenly at Sam’s side, almost startling a yelp from him. The Indian waited a few seconds while Sam’s breathing returned to normal, then tugged on his arm.
“Let’s go. The roving patrol just started their round. Won’t be back here for another ten.”
They moved quickly and quietly across the lot, keeping to the cover of the vehicles. They stopped downwind, several meters from the fenced area. Sam licked his lips, tasting the greasy, ashy flavor of the face-darkening makeup he wore to eliminate reflections. “Maybe you should do the shooting.”
“Your gun, your run.” Ghost’s face was unreadable. “You shoot.”
“Right.” Resigned Sam reached into the pouch at his belt and removed a magazine. Fumbling a little in the dark, he ejected the clip in his pistol and replaced it with the one from his pouch. He was careful to slip the currently unwanted clip into a pocket.
“Got the right one, Paleface?”
“Should be,” Sam whispered in annoyance, lithe Indian was expecting Sam to do it, he could at least have the decency to expect he’d do it right. “You’re the one with the cybereyes. Couldn’t you read the label?”
“Thirty-two cee-cee’s of Somulin cut with ten grains of Alpha-dexoryladrin,” Ghost recited. “Make sure you put the other clip back in before we run into any guards. Any Human that takes that dosage ain’t going to see morning.”
“I know, I know.” The Indian was treating him like a child. “You want to get touched by one of those things?”
The Indian’s gap-toothed, crooked smile glinted in a fugitive beam of light. “You think they’re fast enough to touch a ghost?”
“I don’t know. You want to find out that they can by getting stoned the hard way?”
“No,” Ghost said seriously.
“Right.” Sam was satisfied that he had scored a point. “I’ll change magazines when we’re through the pens.” Gun ready, Sam took aim at the nearest sleeping cockatrice, which looked like no more than a dark mound. The pistol bucked a little in his hand, accompanying the soft huff of the shell’s compressed air propulsion. The target’s feathers quivered slightly before the mound resumed its previous slight, measured motion.
“Think I got it?”
If you’d only nicked it, it would be screaming bloody hell. Either it’s sleeping or you missed completely.” Ghost paused. “We’ll find out once we’re inside. Dart the rest.” The Narcoject Lethe huffed four more times, spitting its tranquillizer darts at four more cockatrices. Sam changed clips and fired five more rounds. Another clip change was required before he darted the final two. Each hit had as little obvious effect as the first.
“All of them?”
“Far as I can see.”
“Let’s go,” Ghost said, leading the way.
The gate had a simple keypad lock, but it might be more than enough to delay them until the patrol showed up. Ghost attached an unscrambler to the lock. The box hummed and digits flashed across its screen. In just under two minutes, the numbers locked into a match for the combination and the bolt snicked open. They heard a loud guffaw as one of the guards responded to a companion’s joke.
With discovery marching toward them, they entered the enclosure, Sam was afraid that one or more of the beasts would leap up and charge them, but nothing moved. The pen was rank with a musty smell that vaguely reminded him of the feathered serpent Tessien, but less savory. Sam wondered if the odor was the feathers, the scales, the combination, or just the smell of magic. One by one, he gathered up his darts with a three-pronged gripper, careful not to let his skin actually touch any part of the beasts. The task should not have been difficult, but his fear, heightened by the approach of the security patrol, made him fumble-fingered. He didn’t want to leave empty darts lying about the enclosure as evidence that the cockatrices’ sleep had been enforced.
The last dart recovered, he joined Ghost at the pasaage into the nesting area. The Indian’s left hand held an Ingram smartgun and his right rested against the swinging door. With a nod to Sam, he pushed it, holding it open as he listened. Ghost motioned Sam forward with his head and let Sam take the weight of the door. The Indian moved into the deep darkness of the pens.
Sam waited at the door, his starlight goggles unable to penetrate the gloom of the deeply recessed parts of the nesting area. Light from beyond silhouetted Ghost moving carefully across the area; he was heading for the transparent wall that separated the nests from the handlers’ area. A rustle in the darkness made Sam shudder. At least one cockatrice was inside with them. Ghost heard it too, and swiveled to face the explosion of feathers and scaly fury that launched itself at him.
Standing in the doorway, unwilling to tangle with the beast and even more unwilling to abandon Ghost, Sam watched as the Indian dodged the first attack. The creature landed on two strong, heavily taloned legs and turned swiftly. Its beaked head searched for the man who had invaded its nest. It stalked forward, hissing and lashing its tail. Ghost circled warily, trying to keep enough room to maneuver. His second Ingram was in his other hand; he held both weapons out in front of him but didn’t shoot.
The noise, Sam realized, would give them away. Sam raised his own weapon, but could not find a clear shot as the cockatrice rushed Ghost and they began a whirling dance of strike and counter. Parrying with his weapons and dodging the paranimal’s attacks by sheer speed, the samurai was being forced deeper into the nest, further into the darkness and away from the clear area in the center. Sooner or later he would falter or slip.
Knowing that hitting Ghost could be lethal, Sam fired the Lethe, but the two combatants continued their frenetic action. He had only two more shots in the clip and the guards were getting closer. Sam fired again. The cockatrice leapt high, striking out at Ghost with its tail. The samurai ducked underneath and dove back toward the open center of the chamber. The creature landed heavily, almost falling. It turned and took a step toward Ghost before collapsing in a heap to the floor.
Sam slipped fully into the pen and let the door swing down. He leaned against the wall, breathing deeply. They had come near disaster; he could see his first dart embedded in Ghost’s belt.
As Sam’s breathing slowed, he heard the guard patrol pass by outside, They gave no indication that they were aware of the intruders as they tramped on to the next part of their sweep. It would be another half-hour before the guards returned to the building.