“Jefe!”
“You have a better idea?”
“At least let us pull the shield farther out there into the lawn. You would not be so close if…”
Still in the shadows, the chigger hopped sideways off the fountain rim onto the lawn. Vierho jerked up the handlight, bathed the creature in a blue-white glare.
“O, Dios, Jefe! Shoot it!”
Martinho swung the sprayrifle around to bear on the new position, but the shield slot prevented a full swing. He cursed, grabbed for the control handle, but before he could swing the shield, a section of lawn the size of a street manhole lifted like a trapdoor behind the chigger and in the full glare of the handlight. A black shape with what appeared to be a triple-horned head emerged partly from the hole, sounded a rasping call.
The chigger darted past the shape and into the hole.
The crowd was screaming now, a noise compounded of rage, fear and feral excitement that filled the air of the plaza. Through it all, Martinho could hear Vierho praying in a low voice—almost a chant: “Holy Mary, Mother of God…”
Martinho tried to push the shield around toward the creature in the hole, was stalled by Vierho trying to pull the structure backward. The shield twisted around on its wheels, exposing them to the black shape there as the thing lifted another half meter onto the lawn. Martinho had a full, clear look at it there bathed in the beam of the handlight. The thing looked like a gigantic stag beetle—taller than a man and with triple horns.
Desperately, Martinho wrestled the sprayrifle from its shield slot, swung it toward the horned monster.
“Jefe, Jefe, Jefe!” Vierho pleaded.
Martinho brought his weapon to bear, squeezed off a two-second charge, counting to himself: “One butterfly, two butterfly.”
The poison-butyl mixture slammed into the creature, enveloped it.
The creature, its shape distorted by the spray-mix, hesitated, then lifted farther out of the hole with a rasping, grunting sound heard clearly above the crowd screams.
The crowd fell abruptly silent as the thing towered there, a shell-backed monster—green, black, glistening—at least a meter taller than a man.
Martinho could hear a sucking, rasping sound from it, an odd wet noise like the sound of the fountain with which it competed.
Carefully, he again aimed the sprayrifle at the horned head—point blank range—and emptied the charge cylinder: ten seconds. The creature appeared to dissolve backward into its hole with eerie extensions and protrusions fighting the sticky butyl.
“Jefe, let us go away from here,” Vierho pleaded. “Please, Jefe.” He swung the shield around until it again stood between them and the giant insect. “Please,” Vierho said. He began forcing Martinho back with the shield.
Martinho grabbed another charge cylinder, slammed it into his rifle, took a foamal bomb in his left hand. He felt emptied of every emotion except the need to attack that monster and kill it. But before he could draw his arm back to throw the bomb, he felt the shield buck. He looked up to a solid stream of liquid driving down on the shield from the black creature in the hole.
He needed no urging as Vierho screamed, “Run!”
They fled backward, dragging the shield.
The attack stopped as they drew out of range. Martinho stopped, looked back. He felt Vierho trembling beside him. The dark thing in the hole sank slowly backward. It was the most menacing retreat Martinho had ever seen. The movement radiated a willingness to return to the attack. It sank from sight. The section of lawn closed behind it.
As though that were the signal, the crowd sounds picked up all around the Plaza, but Martinho could hear the fear in the voices even when he couldn’t make out the words.
He threw back his face shield, listening to the words like sharp cries, the snatches of sentences—“Like a monster beetle!” “Have you heard the report from the waterfront?” “The whole region could be infested!” “…at the Monte Ochoa Convent… orphanage…”
Through it all came the same question repeated from all sides of the Plaza: “What was it?” “What was it?” “What was it?”
Martinho felt someone at his right, jerked around to see Chen-Lhu standing there, eyes intent on the place where the beetle shape had disappeared. There was no sign of Rhin Kelly.
“Yes, Johnny,” Chen-Lhu said. “What was it?”
“It looked like a giant stag beetle,” Martinho said, and he was surprised at how calm his voice sounded.
“It was taller than a man by half,” Vierho muttered. “Jefe… those stories about the Serra dos Paresis…”
“I heard the crowd talking about Monte Ochoa and the waterfront, something about an orphanage,” Martinho said. “What was that?”
“Rhin has gone to investigate,” Chen-Lhu said. “There are some disturbing reports. I’m having the crowds cleared out of the Plaza. People are being ordered to disperse and go to their homes.”
“What are the disturbing reports?”
“That there has been some sort of tragedy at the waterfront and again at the Monte Ochoa Convent and orphanage.”
“What sort of tragedy?”
“That is what Rhin’s investigating.”
“You saw that out there on the lawn,” Martinho said. “Now will you believe what we’ve been reporting to you these many months?”
“I saw an acid-shooting automaton and a man in the costume of a stag beetle,” Chen-Lhu said. “I’m curious to know if you were party to this deception.”
Vierho cursed under his breath.
Martinho took a moment to put down his sudden anger, said only, “It didn’t look to me like a man in costume.” He shook his head. This was no time to let emotion cloud reason. Insects could not possibly grow that large. The forces of gravity… Again, he shook his head. Then what was it?
“We should at least get samples of the acid off the lawn there,” Martinho said. “And that hole will have to be investigated.”
“I’ve sent for our Security Section,” Chen-Lhu said. He turned away, thinking of how he would have to compose the reports on this—the one for his superiors in the IEO and the special report for his own government.
“Did you see how it appeared to dissolve downward into the hole when I hit it with the spray?” Martinho asked. “That poison can be painful, Travis. A man would’ve screamed.”
“A man in protective clothing,” Chen-Lhu, speaking without turning. But he began to wonder about Martinho. The man seemed genuinely puzzled. No matter. This whole incident was going to be useful. Chen-Lhu saw that now.
“But it came back out of the hole,” Vierho said. “You saw that. It came back.”
An abrupt growling sound came from the people being pushed out of the Plaza. It passed through them like a wind—voice to voice to voice.
Martinho turned, studied them. “Vierho,” he said.
“Jefe?”
“Get blast-pellet carbines from the truck.”
“At once, Jefe.”
Vierho trotted across the lawn toward the truck which stood now in an open area with only a scattering of bandeirantes around it. Martinho recognized some of the men—those of Alvarez seemed most numerous, but there were bandeirantes also of the Hermosillo and Junitza.
“What do you want with blast-pellet weapons?” Chen-Lhu asked.
“I am going to look in that hole.”
“My Security men will be here soon. We’ll wait for them.”
“I am going now.”
“Martinho, I’m telling you that…”
“You are not the government of Brazil, Doctor. I am licensed by my government for a specific task. I am pledged to carry out that task wherever…”
“Martinho, if you destroy evidence of…”