Life Sentence (Forlani Saga Book 1) Read online

  “Bad enough to be boinking one fuzzy alien,” he thought to himself. “God only knows what I could catch if I got promiscuous with the likes of them. They’ll hop in the sack with anything that’s vaguely male. Entara only stays because she knows what I’d do to her if she didn’t.”

  However, despite such defamation of Forlani in general and his in particular, he could not help knowing that the Forlani saw nothing wrong or even special with interspecies sex. They regarded it as a mere trifle, a humorous attempt to oblige the blustering Earthlings who ran the colony and showered them with money in exchange for a few nightly contortions. Reproduction with their own was an entirely different matter, however. Entara had explained that procreation within the Forlani race was regarded as absolutely holy and that the chance to mate with one of the relatively few fertile males was an imperative that few Forlani females would pass up, even if their families did not insist with the strongest of threats and rewards. A Forlani who was pregnant or caring for a minor child was treated almost as a goddess and could demand virtually anything from any of her kind without any need for remuneration. The honors of motherhood continued all the way through old age and even, to some extent, after death in matriarchal rites that Klein only dimly comprehended. Apart from this fetish with motherhood, the Forlani were extremely hardheaded and sensible, rather like worker bees that think little of their own glorification.

  One morning when Peebo had already gone to the fields, Klein amused himself by commanding Entara to make him some breakfast. Usually she complied without taking umbrage, but today she pertly answered, “Do it yourself! I am expecting a call from my family that may have good news about one of my sisters.” Just after she had snapped on her meager clothes and dashed out the door, Klein was astonished to hear a knock and see a human face at his door. Marshall Stafford simply said, “Boots and saddles!”

  Grabbing his rifle and bandoleer, Klein asked, “What’s up? There’s no patrol scheduled today.”

  “Got an aid call from the new outlying settlement down south, number 66.”

  “Don’t they have their own specialists?” Klein complained.

  “Not anymore.”

  “You mean their whole detachment was wiped out?”

  “Looks like it. At any rate, they’re all gone. And several Locals were spotted bunched together. Looks like we may be facing a whole nest of them.”

  The detachment rode hard most of the way and they could tell right away when they got to No. 66 that plenty of things were wrong. There was no sign of any perimeter, but a ditch had hastily been gouged out around the town and filled with all the fuel available. The flames and smoke would usually repel any Local attack. A gap only a few meters wide was left open, facing the road to Stafford Station. The thallops reared and bleated at the fire and smoke. On the inside there were signs that, in spite of the makeshift defenses, the line had been breached and individual houses had been attacked. As the Marshall ordered Amos and some others to deploy sensors at strategic points, a few weary defenders emerged from behind their barricades to tell their story of several days of terror. First the detachment had failed to return. Then the remains of a relief column had come racing back to town to recount their spotting of the Locals and their own deadly skirmish. Then, even before the ditch had been completed, the first attacks had come. People had been pulled right from their homes. Klein looked around and saw some dead bodies in the streets. Forlani. The Locals had killed them instead of carrying them off, because for some subtle biological reason they were unsuited to be hosts for the Local larvae. Normally a Local would not even bother to approach a Forlani. Perhaps they were dealing with a mutant strain of Local that was not only more numerous, but less finicky about whom they killed. The Marshall even made sure they kept a vigilant watch during the night, worrying that the normal sluggishness of the creatures might not still be a factor. Fortunately, there were no new developments while it was dark.

  Well before dawn the detachment were out of their bedrolls, uncoiling heavy-gauge copper wire in a spiral in the center of the settlement. There was a five-meter opening in the middle. Marshall Stafford took his mankiller aside as the others worked feverishly. “It’s been years since we’ve had a perimeter breach like this, where the Locals attack the settlement instead of attacking in open country. It has its advantages and drawbacks. These wires, tapped into the town’s main generator, should be enough to fry any Local that lands on them. They can’t see the layout in the square here until they’re nearly on top of it, so they don’t have too much room to maneuver. On the other hand, neither do we. We have one man near each end of the main street with a free fire corridor outwards. Two stand back to back in the middle to cover the ones that come in over the houses. The rest find cover facing outward from the houses and try to hit any that take off with rockets.

  “I volunteer for the middle,” said Klein.

  “No way,” answered the Marshall. “We need you covering the four men on the main street. And I’m damn firm about that, because I’m the best shot with a Kikkonnen, so I’ll be in the center.”

  “You can’t. We need you to give orders.”

  “You all need my shooting eye more than you need my orders right now. If anything happens, Amos is second in command.”

  They didn’t have long to wait. The sun was up barely a half-hour when the first Local came right out of it, bounding toward the village center.

  With the sun in their eyes, the shooters in the center missed, but one of the creature’s legs landed on the grid and it was quickly electrocuted, searing with an evil smell. The Marshall bulls-eyed the second before it could land. The third came down the street from the north end and was wasted by two rockets. The fourth came over the houses from the other side at the Marshall’s back, where a militiaman named Wiggins winged it. It landed on the grid, but managed to reach out with its mantis-like arms to grab Wiggins so that he was fried along with his target. The fifth tried the other end of the street and caught rockets from both the man at the end and the Marshall. The sixth got the man at the opposite end of the street and Klein hit him with a head shot as the Local took off. A barrage of shots from the men on the outside of the houses brought both of them down. People were just breathing a little easier and the Marshall was reloading when the seventh came in, low over the houses, and grabbed him.

  “No, damn you!” exclaimed Klein. With one shot he shattered part of the joint of a leg. Then he started to shoot off the claws that already held Stafford firm. But there were four sets and he couldn’t get them all.

  “Shoot me! Shoot me!” shrieked the Marshall, as the Local struggled into the sky.

  Klein jammed a second clip into his rifle and tried to shoot off another claw, unsuccessfully. Already the distance was becoming critical. He shot off part of another leg joint, slowing the beast further, and managed to shoot off one more claw. Then the red one-mile warning light on the scope was flashing and he realized he would have only one more sure chance to take Stafford’s life. Already the men outside the houses were bracketing the Local with their rockets. He drew a bead on the Marshall’s chest, not risking a head shot, sighed, and fired into his heart. Some men were already dashing toward their thallops to try a pursuit, but Amos shouted for them to maintain their stations and made a point of telling Klein at the top of his voice to kill any man that didn’t. It was almost noon before Amos was satisfied that the attack was finished and ordered all but the sentries to stand down and clean up the mess. He glowered at Klein as he ordered, “Get some rest. You take the point tonight when we go out and whack that thing.” He couldn’t have been any harder on Klein than Klein was on himself – not because he had disobeyed orders and procedure on how a mankiller had to behave, but because he had had to kill the one man he had come to care about, and almost hadn’t been able to do it.

  Entara’s smile vanished from her face when she saw Klein scowling as he came back from the mission. She did not miss the fact that Amos now rode in command. Nevertheles
s, she approached Klein as soon as he strode away from the detachment. “I’m very sorry. But we need to talk.”

  “Not now.”

  “It’s important. The message from home. Something has gone wrong.”

  “Beat it! I said leave me alone!”

  “But you don’t understand, things are not what I expected.”

  “Aren’t you listening? Maybe this will teach you,” he snarled, as he let a backhand go across her face. She yelped loudly as she fell away, her hand going to the deepening purple welt on her face. Then she turned and ran across the street to the Forlani house.

  Klein walked back and forth sulking in Peebo’s back yard, then went inside and raided his host’s whiskey. He was halfway through the bottle before he began to think more clearly. He had known what he did to Entara was wrong as soon as he did it, but like many violent men, he had an almost pathological opposition to making any excuse for it. “Tomorrow she won’t make a big deal about it,” he assured himself. “I need more time to decide how to tell her. Damn, damn, damn!!!” he shouted, taking out his frustration on Peebo’s furniture. He splintered the table with a single chop and kicked a chair through the little mantelpiece where the farmer had arranged a few souvenirs and trinkets. Then he grabbed all Peebo’s remaining alcohol and locked himself in his room.

  Klein had only a slight hangover when he awoke the next morning, gradually realizing that the sun was already high, yet Peebo had not gone to the fields. He was poking discreetly about in the house repairing the damage to his belongings. “Another apology to make,” grumbled Klein. “And the worst is, I already know that it has to be accepted.”

  Looking toward his door, he was surprised to see in silhouette the shadow of a female in a cape. “I knew she wouldn’t hold it against me,” he whispered in a hopeful tone. But when he opened the door, he saw that Entara’s face was uncharacteristically glum and that she faced the ground.

  “I couldn’t go without saying goodbye.”

  “Oh, come on, Entara! I didn’t mean it. You’re not going to walk out because I gave you a little slap? No, that’s wrong. I never should have done it. And I deserve for you to walk out. But just give me another chance.”

  “It’s not about your hitting me.”

  “What?”

  “I tried to explain but you were grieving too much for the Marshall to listen to me. The message from home. I have to go. It wasn’t my sister they chose to go to Firilh Ghati, it was me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I have to go have children. It’s my sacred duty -- in our language, we call it avesti. I wish I didn’t have to, but I must.”

  “How can you just walk out to procreate with someone you never even met? You’re crazy! I need you here. Now more than ever.”

  “It doesn’t mean the same thing to you. Your people cannot understand. If it were just for me, I would happily stay, but they are the family’s children, too. My duty is to keep life going.”

  “I would never leave you. You can’t do this to me.”

  “I am so sorry. I have spoken with Ragatti and she will stay with you. She has wanted to for a long time and offered me money and gifts if I would let her. I’m sure she will do everything she can to make you happy. You will probably enjoy her more than me.”

  “No, no, listen to me, listen to me!” he gasped as he grabbed her neck in his hands. “I’ll kill you before I let you go. I want you, not anybody else. If I can’t have you, no one else is either.” He had begun to shake her violently. She offered no protest, but went limp in his grip, almost welcoming the prospect of death from the jealous murderer. Suddenly he felt a sharp metallic blow on his head. Turning, he saw Peebo wildly swinging at him with a skillet.

  “Shame on you! Shame on you!” yelled the fat little farmer. “Let her go. Let her go right now.”

  Klein let her drop to the ground. Peebo rushed past him and picked her up, trotting over to the Forlani house, where the other females had gathered in a whispering knot at the doorstep. Klein lumbered back into Peebo’s house, snatched up his rifle, and sat with it on his knees as he waited for the man to return.

  When Peebo opened the door, he saw the gun and started to take off his hat in his usual deferential way, but then stiffened his lip, jammed the hat back down, and walked forward. “You can shoot me if you want. I won’t say I ain’t afraid, but you’re going to hear me out first. That girl feels about as much as one of her kind can feel toward the likes of you. You should never, never have treated her like that. It ain’t decent. She was always the better part of you, and that’s for sure. Now she can’t stay with you. It ain’t her fault. They have a duty to life that none of us can understand. Especially if we make our living taking it away. But you got to try. She cares for you so much, that she’d rather die now than go and start her family. That’s right. They already had to stop her once and two of them are going along with her to wherever this Gati fellow lives so she doesn’t do it again. But they’re worried. They think she’ll find a way sooner or later, maybe even after she’s pregnant, which would be worse. Unless you let her go. You got to find a way to let her take leave of you and still keep some shred of honor. That’s all she’ll have, because I think she already gave all her feelings to you. There, I’m done now, shoot if you’re going to.” Peebo crossed his arms across his chest defiantly, then uncrossed them, realizing he had covered up the target zone.

  “I still feel like shooting you, but I’m not so dumb that I don’t know I owe you something a lot better,” said Klein dejectedly. “By the way, I thought you clodhoppers believed in non-violence, not in whacking people with steel pots. But you’re right. Go over there and tell them I’ll be over in a few minutes and make sure that Ragatti is around, too.”

  As Klein went in the door, he tried to put a proud look on his face, though he felt like his entrails were torn up inside. They were standing in a semicircle waiting for him. He held out his hand and said, “Ragatti, you come on over here.” One of them stepped up and took his hand. He looked her over and said, “I think you’ll do just fine.” Then he turned to look Entara in the eyes. “You’ve never really seen me mad before, but I get like that a lot. One of those people on Earth I strangled just like that, because he looked at me the wrong way. You didn’t do anything to deserve it, Entara, but I don’t apologize for it, because it’s part of my nature. If you didn’t see it before, too bad for you. I always told you there was nothing sentimental in my wanting you. You are free to go. You really meant nothing more to me than a little pleasure, and I think … er … Ragatti here will be taking care of that in the future. If she knows what’s good for her. So goodbye and bon voyage!”

  A wan smile came across Entara’s lips. “You lie so badly, Mankiller! But I want you to know that I will not forget you.”

  Physically, Ragatti resembled Entara in almost every detail Klein could think to examine. She had all the technical skills of pleasing an Earthling that her fellow Forlani had. And she would wind up having her way with Klein. But as much as Klein tried to live up to the reputation Entara had created for him and to show off his virility, he realized inside that the unique playfulness and the uncanny anticipation of his own feelings that characterized Entara would probably never be there with his new consort. Late at night when Ragatti had dozed off, Klein made his way out to the edge of Peebo’s fields and walked for what seemed a very long time out into the tall prairie grasses. Then he fell on his knees and wept. He could hear the rustling of the grasses in the night breeze and didn’t care if it was a Local sneaking up on him, hoping the damned locust would finish him off then and there. When his eyes were too dry to shed another tear, he rose slowly and staggered back to the house. Peebo, squatting in the grass cover where Klein could not see him, let him walk back a long distance before he rose, too, and followed as quietly as he had come, giving a little whistle from time to time as the third Domremy moon rose over the horizon.

  Erica Duquesne had come to dislike her j
ob as a Junior Executive overseeing the Domremy Colonization Project for Hyperion Corporation. She disliked having to fill out mountains of paperwork and forms to explain the smallest downturn in colonial productivity (which almost always stemmed from the actions of the alien life forms the colonists called “Locals”), as well as the fact that she constantly had the company Board of Directors questioning her as to when the colony, which was still clearly unsafe for any “decent” folk, would be opened up to wider immigration. But mostly she hated working with her supervisor, Senior Executive Bill Hollingsworth. A man whose career advancement had come from a combination of a degree from the Erickson Business Institute when it was still considered prestigious, office politics, and sheer luck, Hollingsworth had become infamous within Hyperion for taking shortcuts to success that frequently sabotaged the careers of his subordinates. I think I’m next, thought Erica as Hollingsworth began to discuss the situation on Domremy.