Free SOMETHING WAITS by Bruce Jones Page B

vulnerability?
     
    She produced a food tab from her belt and chewed it reflectively. Leakwood was a hard one to figure all right: cautious, introverted, rarely talking at all during the few times she’d been with him. Still, she couldn’t believe he’d do her harm. He may not have shared the other men’s physical passion for her, but she thought she’d always seen something like affection in his eyes.
     
    He was an odd one, though.
     
    She twitched reflexively. A pungent odor assailed her nostrils. Her perfect nose wrinkled in revulsion. She craned about for the source, right hand gripping the dark hilt of her blade. Behind her a soft plopping sound became evident. She whirled in time to see the dun snout of a female Rhunk poking through the soft loam amid clumps of its own excrement.
     
    She stepped back gingerly, eyes riveted to the enormous block-like head, twitching ears and blinking yellow pupils. The smell became overpowering. It hadn’t seen her yet, so she moving backward silently, merging with the surrounding undergrowth… watched in repugnant fascination as the thing heaved its rhino-like bulk out of the damp earth and yawned enormously.
     
    It was everything both field manual and Commander had described…
     
    * * *
     
    “Now, I’m sure you’ve made yourself familiar with the wildlife on this planet, Sheffield. Let me emphasize that the three hundred and sixty-eight pages before you do not exaggerate in describing the ferocity of these creatures. They are many and varied—and nearly all lethal. I realize that swordplay is very much the fashion of the day—that some of you young people are quite proficient with a blade. However, I’m going to insist you also carry a sidearm.”
     
    “But sir—“
     
    “Please. I’m well aware of your prowess and reputation, Sheffield, and that the blade has recently been recognized as an official Fleet weapon. But this planet is different. Aside from this AWOL, only seven men have ventured outside these steel walls. We lost two of them because we weren’t sufficiently prepared. I’ll not allow that again.”
     
    “Yes, sir.”
     
    “Take a look here at page twenty-nine of the manual, Sheffield. Tell me what you see.”
     
    “A Rhunk, sir.”
     
    “Ugly brute, isn’t he?”
     
    “He is, sir.”
     
    “Ugly and huge and deadly. You’ve heard stories of how they can rend animals twice their size to shreds with those tusks while holding them securely with those ghastly tentacles. You’ve heard and read how their hides are comparable to the finest alloys we know, how a certain percent of their make-up is non-molecular. You know they’re virtually indestructible.”
     
    “Yes, sir.”
     
    “Patently unstoppable. But! They can be fooled.”
     
    “Fooled, sir?”
     
    “Hoaxed, conned! There’s only one animal on the planet a full grown Rhunk won’t attack and immediately disembowel. Do you know what that animal is, Sheffield?”
     
    “Another Rhunk, sir?”
     
    “That’s very good, Sheffield, very astute. Yes, another Rhunk. And we can make another Rhunk! We have made another Rhunk--here in our labs at the Colony. With the aid of this instrument you see in my hands.”
     
    “What is it, sir?”
     
    “It’s called a Colifax.”
     
    * * *
     
    A Colifax. It hung now from the gold chain of her G-string, the cold metal pressing uncomfortably against her bare tummy, banging distractingly when she walked. Until this moment, it had been a heavy, unwanted piece of Colony technology she’d have given a week’s pay to be rid of. Top Secret or not.
     
    Now she wasn’t so sure. If it could somehow protect her from this incredible monstrosity erupting from the soil…
     
    For it was obvious now that nothing else could. The emerging Rhunk was an awe-inspiring study in armor-plated destruction. Nothing short of a T-3 missile could bring it down, of that she was sure. Even with sword in hand she felt, for the first time in her life,