The Vampires of Antyllus Read online

  Dave knelt down by the boy and removed his helmet; then, using the field first aid kit that came with every survival suit, he cleaned the wound, applied a disinfectant, and bandaged it. He then opened an injector containing a medication designed to diminish the effects of a concussion, but he stopped. He had no idea what this medication would do to this boy. He paused, the hypo in his hand. He called Kathy on his COMde.

  "Yes, Dave," she responded. “Took you two rounds to scare that thing off?”

  "Anyone here ever use our medicine or drugs on any of the Indigs?"

  "I don't know. Dave, what's happened?"

  Before Dave could respond, he felt Zolna kick the bottom of his boot. Without looking up he asked, "Yeah?"

  "Sir, we're in deep trouble."

  From around both sides of the dead creature came a very large number of Indigs. Some were carrying spears, others had those cricket bats, and others had what resembled axes. Some carried longer spears with a device Dave recognized. It was a small shaft with a cupped end. The bottom of the spear is fitted into the cup so as to leverage the spear as it's thrown to achieve greater distance. These devices were known on Earth. The Aztec Indians called them Atlatl, and the Aborigines of Australia called them Woomera. All these weapons were held at the ready.

  Dave got to his feet slowly, "Private, don't move at all. And for God's sake, don't move your weapon."

  There were both male and female members of this group. Among them, were six or seven children. All the children wore an effigy helmet, as did the boy at their feet.

  These people were tall. The women near two meters, the men were all about two point three meters tall. They were thin, with long arms and legs, and their skin was multi-colored. And, as Dave had learned treating the injured boy—it was neither paint nor a tattoo. Their skin showed these colors naturally. Their eyes were enormous, compared to human eyes. The irises were a bright green, and their pupils were mere vertical slits.

  They were all dressed in highly decorated loincloths and their legs from the knees down were wrapped in some animal hide, probably for protection.

  The Indigs approached cautiously, their weapons remained poised. Four and a half meters away they stopped. A woman with her very long silver blond hair braided into two pony tails and then tied together under her breasts slowly advanced. About three meters away, she stopped and held up her cricket bat as if showing it to Dave, then slowly she laid it down in the orange grass.

  Dave was providing Kathy, Mitch, and Cassie a play-by-play silently over his COMde.

  After the female had laid her weapon down, she rose up, and looked hard at Dave.

  "Oh," Dave turned to Zolna. "Slowly put your weapons down," he said.

  "Yes, sir, no problem," Zolna responded, never taking his eyes off the frightening figures before him.

  The Indig woman kept looking at Dave, whose face betrayed his puzzlement; he'd left his weapon on the ground by the boy. Then he saw her gaze flash down at his hand. He was still holding the hypo. He dropped it next to his rifle.

  Now, she advanced slowly. She looked down at Dave as she passed him; he stood but one point eight three meters tall. She knelt next to the boy and removed the bandage from his head to examine his wound. She also looked closely at the boy's forearms.

  She then looked up at Dave and spoke. "Yo'at kohannen ver ensaw?"

  Cassie responded in Dave's head. "She wants to know if you drank his blood."

  "What? Are you sure you understood her correctly?"

  "Yes, just tell her, Aye 'enyo Overta. It means, no I do not drink blood."

  Dave repeated the words. The woman's eyes widened a brief moment. Then, she shouted, "Valah het delet! Kikey ta Ukse yorda vermembek!" and leapt to her feet, anger in her face.

  Quickly, Cassie translated. "She says you're a liar. That all monochrome people drink their blood. Tell her you don't need blood. Say, Ol en varentin."

  Dave almost shouted the words.

  Again, the woman hesitated. Then from behind her back, she produced a very large, stone knife.

  "Cassie," Dave said over his COMde. "She has a knife big as my right arm. I don't think she believed me."

  "Dave," Cassie was overly calm as she spoke, "Whatever happens, do not show fear, liars fear, just remain calm."

  Dave mentally disconnected the drives to his facial muscles as well as to all his pain sensors in anticipation of an attack.

  The woman reached down with her left hand and grabbed Dave's right arm. With her knife, she sliced open his thumb. From the wound emerged a thick white milky substance.

  "Mikatenoun?" she cried.

  Cassie translated, "She asked, what is this?"

  The woman squeezed Dave's wrist harder and pulled him close to her. She looked into his eyes. Dave felt that she was seeing through his veneer and into the mechanism under his simulated flesh.

  She let go of his arm, then looked him over, top to bottom, left side and right. She opened his mouth and looked inside. She ran her fingers through his simulated hair. Then she grabbed his crotch. Sensors off or not, Dave instinctively recoiled.

  She let him go and shouted over his shoulder, "Mish hann un, mota veren walto alcoinen!"

  "She says you're a male, but that you bleed white. Or perhaps she said you're a male to be bled white."

  "You're not helping, Cassie!" Dave told her.

  Mitch came back with, "It's the former, what did she do, pull your pants down?"

  "Never mind. What do I do now?"

  The woman took Dave's head in her hands and looked up toward the sky and whispered, "Ankaul cae hanellee?"

  "What did she say?" Dave asked over his COMde.

  "She asked, is it him? Who is she talking to?"

  The Indig woman stood up to her full height, and looking down on Dave she spoke again, "You saved this child."

  "Dave…that's English, Dave!" Cassie shouted.

  "I know, Cassie," Dave then addressed the Indig woman, "Yes."

  "Why?" she asked.

  "I could not let the beast kill him, and I couldn't just let him lie here injured."

  "Dave," Cassie interjected. "You call her Mets-sa, huntress."

  The Mets-sa continued, "You save one child from the beast, but kill a great many others. You Ukse are a confusion. You bleed white and you save a child. You will come with us."

  "Mets-sa, we would like to return to our friends," Dave said.

  Without taking her eyes off him, she pointed to the far ridge, "Your friends are there, we watch. Their weapons are mighty, but we will not be here by the time they come." She reached down and picked up Dave's rifle.

  "Be careful with that, you don't know how it works."

  Without hesitation, she chambered a round, took the weapon off safety and emptied the thirty-round magazine into the back of the dead beast. She then dropped the empty mag, pulled a fresh one from Dave's vest and slapped the mag in, and chambered another round. Slowly she pointed the weapon at Dave. With the hot muzzle, she prodded the subdued gold oak leaf in the center of Dave's chest. "Is that not how it works, mister golden leaf?"

  "Yeah, and please…call me Dave."

  Chapter 9

  Within Eya'Etee Ki Kee

  At 10:15 hours, General Steinherz, seated in his office with Lieutenant Colonel Fisher, received a call from his Admin Assistant.

  "Sir, Mr. Wilmington and party are here to see you."

  "Send them in," the general replied calmly.

  The door opened and Mr. Wilmington and four very large men in black suits wearing dark glasses briskly entered the room.

  Even before he reached the carpet upon which the general's desk sat, Wilmington launched into a tirade.

  "General I think it's time you learned who is really in command here. I am the head administrator—"

  The general held up his hand and spoke calmly. "Mr. Wilmington, before we continue, I insist you introduce your associates and explain to me what function each serves."

  "General, the
se men are my executive committee, they serve at my pleasure."

  "I see, more of your mercenaries. Well, let me introduce you to my executive committee." He tapped his COMde at his right temple, "Captain Hollister, you may come in now." With those words, the doors to the general's left and right sprang open and six heavily armed Infantrymen in complete combat gear stormed into the room their weapons to their shoulders at the ready.

  "Mr. Wilmington, these are my bona fides, my credentials, authenticating and establishing me as the commander in chief of all military forces on Antyllus…per the orders addressed to me. My superiors are the United Nations, and the Federal Republic of Germany. And not necessarily in that order. My charge is the security of New Roanoke and her inhabitants. The bottom line is that there is no authority on this planet that I am subservient to. Please feel free to challenge my orders. Utilizing the DSN, it should take about eight years to get the first response to a series of communications you'll have to submit on your complaint.

  Now, if you wish any more of my time, get your goons out of my office."

  Wilmington paused a moment, then made a slight hand gesture, and his executive committee took their leave.

  The general's Infantrymen stood fast. Wilmington glanced at them. Before he could speak, the general responded to the unspoken question, "This is my office, sir. I allow whomsoever I wish to be in it."

  "Why did you send troops to the clinic without my authorization?" Wilmington demanded.

  "I don't need your authorization to train my soldiers."

  "You need my authorization to enter IIEA property."

  "Did they enter the clinic? I haven't had any coms with them in hours. Your coms are better than ours, I take it?"

  "No, I haven't heard from the clinic, either."

  "Then, Mr. Wilmington, I am quite at a loss to understand the nature of your complaint."

  "Those troops tried to sneak out."

  "Yes, all part of the training mission. Stealth, Mr. Wilmington, is a key component to victory on the battlefield. I see they failed that part of the exercise. I will make them repeat it until they get it right."

  Mr. Wilmington paused a moment looking down at the general. His anger was close to boiling over.

  "Is there something else?" the general asked, in an all too measured voice.

  Mr. Wilmington turned to leave but was stopped when the general added, "Oh, seeing that my activities seem to upset you unless you are informed, I am telling you now, if I don't hear from my Company out there quite soon, I will launch a search party consisting of both ground and air assets."

  Mr. Wilmington resumed his fast walk toward the door when again he was stopped by the general's voice, "Mr. Wilmington, if you ever again attempt to threaten me, I'll have you arrested. All hearings take place before an IIEA board in Houston, Texas, you know."

  ○O○

  "Kathy?" It was Dave calling her over his COMde.

  "Yes, Dave, go ahead." The concern was dripping off her voice.

  "Listen, Zolna and I are going with our new friends to a little party. You better Charlie Mike, the general needs that intel."

  "Dave, I won't leave you two."

  "Kathy, I don't think they mean us any harm, if they had, we'd be dead by now. Listen, we are about at the limit of our COMde range now. Just go ahead we'll find you again soon."

  He was right, the general needed this information, and she was not going to leave anyone here to try to maintain contact, so she had to continue to march.

  "Dave, I'll be back for you. Dave? Dave!" He was out of range.

  So far in her career, she was responsible for ordering seven people to their deaths. She didn't want to see her score reach nine. Dave and Zolna were still alive. She would do all she could to save them, but this mission had to come first.

  She knew that her new rank and this assignment could lead to her giving soldiers’ orders that could get them killed. She'd hoped the days of death were over. She'd always told herself she was strong enough to handle it. She still believed that, but something was different this time. She kept seeing Dave's face and hearing that order she gave him in such a cavalier fashion, "See if you can convince the something big to take another route." She recalled the excitement in his voice when he responded. In garrison, he was always so shy. In the field, it appeared he was a different man.

  It was a hard decision, but she gave the order to proceed. Her column had only lost three. In Oceania, this would have been of little significance to a recon mission conducted through enemy held territory. Such a mission would be expected to lose half their strength to the enemy. But here…who was the enemy? The forest surely, but these tall, primitive people who are facing the invasion of their world by beings they cannot begin to understand, and who had only brought them sickness, can they really be the bad guys? A soldier at war must know the enemy, and this certainly felt like war, but war against whom?

  With great reluctance, the column moved on. Had they hearts, they would all have been quite heavy.

  ○O○

  Dave and Zolna were told to accompany the tall people through the woods. Dave noted they were headed due east. The injured boy was placed on an improvised stretcher and pulled by a large male directly in front of them.

  "Sir, they haven't tied our hands or bound us together, or anything." Zolna observed.

  "Well, first of all, I don't think there is any way we could out run these folks through this forest, even with our speed and endurance. And second, would you really want to be out there unarmed?" To punctuate his comment, something roared so loudly it echoed off the hills, the last echo had not faded when the air was split by a panicked scream as some animal died.

  "I see your point, sir," Zolna agreed.

  They marched for an hour. Though his GPS was down, Dave was measuring each step keeping track of the distance traveled, his internal compass gave him their direction of travel. He also noted the few shafts of sunlight that managed to penetrate the forest cover. He noted their angle and relative direction of entry. Then he saw a massive moss-covered stone that they had passed before. They were being marched in circles and led on a serpentine path. This was a good thing. For if they were marching to certain death, the Indigs would not attempt to conceal their route as they were doing.

  As they plodded on between the trunks of the trees, following no obvious path, the tall woman, the Mets-sa, fell back to walk beside Dave. In her hand, she carried a canteen made from the amber, translucent skin of some animal. Dave could see there was some liquid in it. She offered it to him saying, "Drink, we have a long journey."

  "Mets-sa, we require no water."

  "You have white blood, and do not want water. From where do you origin?"

  "We come from Earth, Mets-sa, but we are greatly different from those who bleed red. And Mets-sa, we know exactly where we are, there is no need to hide your route from us. The boy needs to be looked after, so let's just go to wherever it is you're taking us."

  "How do you know?" she asked.

  "I have a—" Dave decided a protracted description of his organic compass might be too much, she probably didn't even know what a compass was. "I have watched the sun and I have seen us walk past the same rocks and trees."

  She looked at him a moment then called out toward the front, "Lopa…menell u'alline!" The group turned and headed southeast.

  A little over an hour later as the sun was close to setting, the Mets-sa lifted her head and pinched her throat, she opened her mouth and made a noise never before heard by those from Earth. It was a shrill, protracted sound. Quickly, the call was taken up by several in the group.

  As they entered an area of the forest where a great many stones protruded from the ground, the calls stopped. They progressed almost due east now, the stones became larger and larger until they approached a great rocky cliff face, perhaps thirty-six meters tall. The stone of this cliff was almost entirely white with a thin vine of green running horizontally through it, and there was a considerabl
e amount of vegetation all over it as well.

  At the base of the cliff ran a swiftly flowing creek, and across the creek, in the base of the cliff, opened the great maw of a massive cavern. Above it, these people had caused the vines hanging from the forest atop the cliff to grow over a structure they had built in several nearby trees effectively concealing the entrance from overhead prying eyes.

  There were several of these tall, multi-colored people coming and going from the cave. All stopped and stared at them as they approached.

  At the entrance to the cave, the Mets-sa called a stop and dismissed the hunting party. Four of the people took the boy away, but he stopped those carrying him as they came abreast of Dave and Zolna. The boy reached out and touched each on their chests and said, "Key'Etos."

  Dave looked up at the Mets-sa. "What did he say?"

  "He thanked you for his life," she then nodded at the four men and they took the boy off. The Mets-sa looked down at Dave again and asked, "Why do you not any more understand us?"

  "Mets-sa, this may be hard…difficult for you to understand, but back there where we killed the…big monster…thing—"

  "We call, T'Pu Iya."

  "Well, out there, a friend of mine up on the hill who speaks your language was translating for me inside my head."

  "Through your…KAM cee?"

  "COMde, communications device. Yes."

  "And your friend does not do this thing now?"

  "We are too far away."

  "Too far, but still you see where on Eya'Etee Ki Kee we are?"

  "On where?" Dave asked.

  The woman pointed down and made a circle with her arm. "Eya'Etee Ki Kee, here, home."

  "Yes." Dave replied.

  She pointed outward and asked, "What is there?"

  Dave looked at the map in his memory. He knew just how far they had walked and in what direction. This allowed him to establish their location on the map. "In that direction, the north east, there are the Saber Tooth Mountains eighty-five kilometers away. In those mountains at an elevation of six hundred and three meters above sea level is a small lake with an average capacity of a hundred and fourty-seven million, five hundred thousand cubic meters of fresh water that we call Misula's Privy."