Life Sentence (Forlani Saga Book 1) Read online

  Klein had barely digested all this incredible information when he was called upon to use it.

  The Marshall had just radioed up ahead to the next settlement and turned to the newcomer. “Still about 15 klicks to go. The shadows are getting long and they tend to attack then, if they haven’t already. They’re torpid at night and never bother anybody. Watch your thallop’s ears. They sense something out there. There could be one over by those low hills, or hunkered down in a gulley below the grass line. You just stay back in a safe place and resist the urge to shoot at them. You waste rounds on them Locals and I’ll waste you myself right here and now!”

  Just then there were shouts of “Incoming! Eleven o’clock!” An ominously big shape bounded up at what appeared to be an impossible range and halved the distance to the detachment before coming to the ground again. Amos and the others in the wagon leaped down and snapped the safety off their rocket launchers. The Marshall and the others who were mounted formed a neat protective chevron in front of Klein.

  “Here it comes!” someone yelled, and the shape again hurtled towards them, drawing fire from all the Kikkonnens. As Klein was drawing a bead on the man closest to where he judged the Local might land, he saw out of the corner of his eye as the Marshall waited a split second longer than the others to fire, carefully leading the target as it dropped out of the sky. His rocket caught it square in the thorax and blew off the head from the rest of the body. It toppled wildly in a straight free-fall, landing in the grass, where Amos and the others on foot swarmed toward it. It looked like a huge grasshopper that had been grossly mangled. Amos tossed an incendiary grenade onto the corpse, but immediately the foot soldiers ran back, yelling, “Mated pair! Watch out for the female!” at the top of their lungs.

  The second attack came at only half the distance of the first, from a point about 20 degrees further to the left. Unfortunately, one of the riders had gotten a little out of position, drawn by curiosity that proved fatal. He only got off a couple of rockets that fell well behind the zooming creature, while those of the rest of the detachment, fired obliquely, went short or long. In an instant, the man was knocked to the ground and pinned beneath the huge creature. It was over twelve feet long. Klein could see it tensing its enormous hind legs to spring away with the prey. He aimed at the cavalryman’s heart and pulled off several rounds as the Local began to get airborne. Fountains of blood on the man’s white uniform showed that he had not missed.

  Klein looked around proudly, expecting some sign of applause or at least stoic encouragement from the detachment. They only stared glumly after the disappearing Local, casting quick, nasty glances at the mankiller before resuming their duties.

  “Don’t everyone say thanks at once!”

  “Listen, mankiller, no one is going to like what you do,” the Marshall explained. “This is a small colony and everyone gets pretty attached to their neighbors. There is not a man here who would not hesitate a nanosecond too long if he had to shoot another militiaman. That’s why we need a cold-blooded murderer who will be reliable when it counts. Everybody on Domremy is going to give you whatever you want. Nobody is ever going to deny you or get in your way. But nobody is ever going to feel any kind of sympathy or kindness to you, because we all know who you are and why you are here. I’m just telling you the way it is.”

  And so it was. As the detachment rode into the settlement, the farmers emerged from their adobe dwellings and Quonset huts to look curiously at the newcomer, but there were no smiles. The detachment broke up with few words. A fattish colonist stumped up to Klein’s thallop and held the reins.

  “Howdy, mankiller,” he said matter-of-factly. “The name’s Peebo. You’ll be staying in my extra room. Eat in any of the commissaries, your choice.”

  “The name’s Klein.”

  “Yes, sir. No harm intended…sir,” Peebo blurted awkwardly, leading the animal away.

  Detachments went on patrol around the perimeter of the farming community every other day. Every few nights a group of the colonists gathered in the square with searchlights, flame throwers, and grenades and went out looking for dozing Locals. The only ones who abstained were a group of farmers, including his new landlord, Peebo, who seemed to have some kind of devotion to non-violence and didn’t mix much with the other colonists, who were employed by the corporation that held the planetary patent. The violent ones reminded Klein of the peasants in the old movie “Frankenstein,” though they had a lot more firepower. They were just as determined to free their village from the terror of the monsters. In fact, they were pretty effective, because no Locals had been spotted in the immediate vicinity of the settlement for over two years, much less bounding in on the attack, as they so often had during the bloody formative months of the colony. They had plenty of scores to settle with the Locals over dead comrades, more than enough raw hatred to drive them for decades. The only thing they feared was the prospect of a hopeless, lingering death, a death from within that at the same time would spawn another generation of attackers. That was why the job of the mankiller was so crucial. He tried to get to know people in the settlement, but it was almost impossible. The few women and even rarer children fled long before he got near enough to hail them. The doctors had still failed to lick the problem of sterilization that resulted from both trans-light space travel and radiation in many planetary systems, so few male colonists could find women willing to accompany them, even if it were permitted, and repro was always chancy. As for the men, they maintained a highly respectful, but icy tone whenever they answered his questions. No one ever addressed him first if they could avoid it. One day, as Klein was walking down the main street, he saw a group of figures alight from thallops and took them at first for men with an oddly purplish tan. Then, on closer examination, he found that, despite the fact that every one of them was as bald as a Swedish wrestler, they were all very definitely female.

  Klein saw the sheriff walking across the street and went to join him. “What’s with the bald girls?” he asked, jerking his head towards the newcomers.

  Marshall Stafford pulled a pair of binoculars from a pocket, passed them to Klein, and simply said, “Check out their eyes.”

  They were a bright scarlet color. When Klein appeared confused, the Marshall added, “They’re Forlani, been visiting some of their kind in the next settlement. Females outnumber the males about twenty to one or more. They got some hair where we don’t, and vice versa, but they’re the closest thing around to a lady’s company, unless you’re lucky enough to pay to bring in an Earth woman, and you never will be. They’re mighty free with their favors, too. Pay you to get to know them better.”

  “I don’t need any aliens for that,” snuffed Klein as he strode back to his rooms.

  The settlement was getting a name. It now had a big enough population, no thanks to Klein’s sharpshooting, to cease to be merely Site 35 and to claim its own identity. At a meeting, where Klein stood silently in the back row, the inhabitants proposed the names of various former hometowns out of competitive nostalgia, until someone suggested they choose the name “Stafford Station,” and everyone quickly agreed. There was to be a parade and a barbecue, thallop races, a pie-eating contest sponsored by the wimpy farmers, and a little concert given by a musical group from the colonial capital, some two hundred miles away. People from some of the neighboring settlements came in for the day on their transports. The day started badly for Klein. Peebo was shuffling around behind the adobe house early in the morning, setting up a table and a small cooker, along with some other things. Eventually, he knocked discreetly on Klein’s door and said, “Sir, would you like to come outside and see what I’ve set up for you?”

  “I’ve put a nice comfortable chaise out here for you under the tree,” he explained, as Klein followed him outdoors. “Last night I went over and got some of Purdy’s very best barbecue meat and I’ve got a great big batch cooking for you here over the coals. This is a nice spot where you’ll be able to hear the band, just like you were righ
t next to them. And I’ve got lemonade, and a whole berry pie, and there’s another one in the refrigerator inside, and there’s a cooler of “Colony Light” beer in the cooler, and…”

  “Why are you doing all this just for me?” snapped Klein, cutting off Peebo’s enumeration of goodies.

  “Well, sir, you understand. It’s a celebration today. People come in to feel good and forget about their troubles. Forget about the Locals for a few hours. See old friends and not have to worry about what’s going to happen next week or the week after. I know you understand, sir. It’s not that anyone wants to disrespect you in any way, but if you were out there on the street, mixing with the folks, well, it would make them think… Don’t you understand?”

  “Damn right I do,” Klein barked, ripping the top off a can of Colony Light. “No day to see the mankiller out in public.”

  “Please don’t get mad. It ain’t my fault. Those Forlani will come over if you want them to. Just take your pick. If there’s anything I can get to make you happy, anything at all…”

  “You can get your ass out of my sight, Peebo. Go mingle with your own kind.”

  “No offense, sir, but you should be with one of them Forlani. Don’t be mad at me, it wasn’t my idea, Mister…”

  “Go ahead, say it, call me Mankiller!”

  Peebo, totally upset and ashamed, simply withdrew backwards, making little bows on the way, afraid to turn his back completely on his enraged houseguest.

  Klein spent several hours in the chaise, drinking the contents of the cooler, can after can. He tried a little of the barbecue, but had no appetite, and fed most of it to Peebo’s dog, out of spite. From time to time he glanced over to the Forlani house, which doubled as the settlement’s bordello. Every once and a while a few of them would come out in the doorway to watch the proceedings and laugh at the quaint ways of the Earthlings. He quickly grew tired of the bouncy music and retired to his room, taking most of the remaining beer from Peebo’s refrigerator on the way. He drank and smoked and read a novel by Tahar ben Jelloun, but it was hard to concentrate, so he put on earphones and played albums by the late 21st century metal band Thunderchild on the sound system until he got a headache. As he walked back and forth with a throbbing skull, he stopped to look out the window at the Forlani house. Then he took several pills and fell asleep for a while, dreaming of a labyrinth of cells with bars of ice where he searched and searched for an elusive girl with long, dark hair and an Empire gown, who appeared for a few seconds and then vanished just as he got close to her. When he awoke, it was getting dark and the doorway lights were on in the Forlani house. He glared at it through the window. Suddenly, he grabbed a hat and stuffed it down on his head to hide his features. Jamming his knotted fists into his pockets, he strode rapidly across the street. He pushed the door open, like a cop invading a drug den. Entering the central room, he ran his eyes over the inhabitants. Several of the purplish, bald females had been laughing with male visitors or chatting on the sofas. They had all stopped talking when he burst in the doorway. All at once, one of the Forlani came through a beaded doorway holding a couple of drinks and gave a little peep of surprise when she found herself bumping into the intruder. He grabbed her brutally by the upper arm, which was covered with short, light brown fur. “You, you’re coming with me. Don’t think about resisting. And you,” he snarled, looking at the others in the room, “Don’t you dare try to interfere if you want to go on living.”

  Of course, sir,” agreed the one he had seized. Putting down the drinks and taking his hand from her arm and holding it, she added, “You needn’t have taken the trouble to come over. I was waiting for you to call on the communicator.” She smiled and led him back through the front door and across the street to Peebo’s house.

  He hadn’t paused to think about the differences in anatomy. In this case, getting some tail literally meant what it said. He had wasted no time when he got back to his room, slinging the purple creature onto the bed face down, but when that tail wrapped itself around his leg in a playful way, Klein’s mind almost went blank. He would have lost all interest had his partner not demonstrated very convincingly that she had certainly not lost hers. The Forlani were built almost like humans, with organs in pretty much the same places, but, oh, what those “girls” could do with them! No human female Klein had ever been with, from the Reeperbahn to the Vegas Strip to Pushkinskaya, could have the unbelievable muscular control of this Forlani wench. It was an erotic experience he had never dreamed of before. But the more he tried to oblige her by giving her a climax to remember, the more he was perplexed by her. She giggled, she laughed, she teased, and she seemed to enjoy herself enormously, but she definitely did not react like a female from Earth. When she finally relaxed and began to rest, it struck Klein that she seemed more like a football striker who had played all the way through a World Cup match with extra time and shootouts and was most satisfied with her play than a human woman who had felt the ultimate sensual release.

  The next morning Peebo left a tray with two servings of breakfast next to Klein’s bedroom door before he went off to tend his fields. Entara, the Forlani, had smelled it and gone to fetch it and brought it back to bed for Klein. She gnawed on a triangle of toast and said to him, “I hope you slept well last night. You seemed very restless.”

  “I wouldn’t have been ‘restless’ if you weren’t here,” he retorted.

  “You like to boink more than you like to sleep,” she observed.

  “Boink, huh? It’s been a long time, but yeah, I suppose I do.”

  “Boinking is nice, but it’s not as good for you as a good night’s sleep.” When she spoke, she made a giggling noise that annoyed Klein, though he eventually realized that it wasn’t the same as a human giggle, but just part of the process of communication.

  “You better be prepared to spend most of the night awake when you come over here.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Would you like me to send someone else tomorrow? I don’t want to be what you Earth people call….greedy. You can ask for any one you want. Though perhaps we don’t seem all that different to you.”

  “You’ll do just fine. I want you to spend the night with me and only with me, understand? But I want you to know it’s nothing serious. It’s only for the fucking.”

  “Oh, please, mankiller,” she laughed uproariously, falling off the bed, “Do not say it that way! In our language it is just too …silly! If you knew what it meant in Forlan. It’s like…. It’s too funny to explain. Hahahahahahaha!”

  Klein could not help smiling at the way Entara was incapacitated with laughter. “All right, then, do you understand, it’s only for the boinking, nothing more, nothing sentimental.”

  “Oh, yes,” she sobbed, stifling the last few chuckles, “We Forlani are not nostalgic about these things the way Earthlings are. You will see in time.”

  He did. She became his regular companion, and he often congratulated himself that he was not becoming sentimental about his furry little squeeze. But every so often, he occasionally pronounced the f-word anyway, just to see her reaction. She was, he realized with some Schadenfreude, a more perfect playmate that Hugh Heffner could ever have enjoyed.

  One night, as Entara eagerly settled in next to him in bed and prepared to caress him, Klein made a request. “Listen, Entara, I’ve decided I like the way you feel, all by itself. Tonight I want you to curl up next to me and just sleep and let me enjoy your being there without any boinking.”

  She sat up and looked alarmed. “Klein, are you sick? Wait, I am sure I can find something for you in the medicine chest.”

  “No, I feel fine. It’s just a whim.” Seeing her puzzlement, he explained further. “It’s a kind of irrational impulse we Earth men and especially Earth women get from time to time.”

  She looked self-consciously at her own body. “Have I been too vigorous for you? That’s it, isn’t it? Don’t worry, I can be very, very soft and gentle…”

  “No, Entara, you have already b
een so gentle I can hardly stand it sometimes. And you’re just right on the vigor, too. It’s that… I want to try to understand you in a sort of non-professional way.”

  Entara mulled it over and concluded, “So you’re saying you feel a fondness for me which is not related to our arranged boinking. Klein that’s never happened to me before, and I’m not sure if it’s happened to any other Forlani companion before. Oh, Klein,” she purred, giving him a kiss on the lips that finished with a little lick to his eyelid, “You are making me extremely special, extremely contented. I will never forget it and I want you to know that everything between us, from this moment on, is strictly because I want to. It is free from all duty and consideration. It is just an expression of me.”

  She curled up with her head on his chest and rested with a look of absolute peace and harmony. Klein thought to himself that was better than any climax he could probably ever provoke in a woman of any species. Some people used to call that love. But forgive me for not saying the word to you. Would you understand what I meant? In any case, I would have to make promises to you that I think I could never possibly keep.

  Before the year was out, Klein had killed a man from nearly every house in the settlement. He kept track on a little map he had made. It was his perverse, professional amusement. Sometimes, if he managed to dispatch a target very neatly, with a single round, he found a little gift by the back door to Peebo’s house that led into his room. Usually it was some item of the dead man’s clothing or tools. But no one ever left a note or thanked him face to face. He had only missed three times, despite emptying his clip at the vanishing Local and its grim prey. Each time, the Marshall immediately mentioned that he had shot well and tried his best, but that a bad angle of fire, or the sunlight, or some other natural factor had made the shot impossible. Occasionally, their detachment would stop at a neighboring settlement. All the people there seemed to know in advance who he was and to shun him almost as much as they shunned their own mankillers. He got to have a nodding acquaintance with some of his counterparts, usually to borrow ammunition or consult on some technical, weapons-related matter. Most had grown even more taciturn than he in their unchosen profession. He did learn in his visits to these “foreign” places that he enjoyed a secret esteem that his own townspeople never expressed to him, but sometimes shared with their neighbors. Partly because he worked with the famous Marshall Stafford, who could have been elected president if the colony had been authorized to have one. But partly, too, on his own account. He also learned that there were more than a few Forlani who envied Entara for being his companion. He had been the object of several blatant attempts at seduction while away from home. Though flattered, he had never succumbed, considering Entara to be his unexpected little treasure, his Schatz. Like a careful Chinese Confucian, he made it a point never to brag about her to anyone and to compliment her as little as possible, as though the gods would become aware of his good fortune and take her away. He even searched for ways to disparage her.