Part 2

The suspicion became like something almost tangible about Gorman and his blaster started the first movement toward Thane.

"_Why?_"

"I think it can see something--"

Gorman fired, so swiftly that he felt the heat of the beam even though he had been expecting it. He shot for the heart and Gorman collapsed before he could fire again. He lay still on the ground, the eyes that stared up into the sky no deader than when he had been alive.

The dog was lunging against her leash, trying to get to him. Thane stepped closer and watched the grass beside Gorman's head. A patch of it the size of his hand suddenly bent down, as from an unseen weight, and then something struck his knee.

He slapped at it as it darted up his leg and knocked it off; something that felt like a mass of cold, rubbery tentacles. He knew, then.

He stepped back, his blaster swinging aimlessly. The thing would leap again, to reach his head as it had done with Gorman, and it was invisible. There was nothing but the moonlit grass to be seen. Perhaps it was behind him, already preparing to spring....

The dog's snarling was a frenzied scream as she fought against her leash. He swung his blaster and its blue beam cut the leash in two.

She flashed toward him, then up, her ears laid back, her eyes blazing slits and her teeth slashing at his throat. His blaster was in line with her chest and for a brief instant he had only to press the firing stud.

He did something he had not done for thirty years; he trusted his life to another being and did not fire.

Cold tentacles whipped against his face and her teeth closed together beside his cheek with a vicious snap and gust of hot breath. She rebounded and held the thing on the ground between her paws as she tore at it; gagging a little, whining and snarling in fury and triumph.

He squatted beside her and laid his hand on her, speaking to her soothingly. She calmed a little, though her chest still pounded with the beating of her heart, and he saw the thing she had killed.

It was dead and slowly becoming visible as it changed to a color like pale milk. It resembled a huge, hairless spider.

It was a parasite; a highly intelligent parasite that could take over the mind of its host as well as the body. The parasites had had only the forest monsters as hosts, before, but with the coming of the humans they had the opportunity for hosts of a far higher order. They possessed a means of locomotion but apparently it was limited in its duration or else they would not have needed to control the leaders of the monster bands and stage the attack that would carry them to the guard lines.

The dog, with the acute sixth sense of some animals, could sense the hostile alienness of the things. She could see them--apparently the vision range of dogs went a little farther beyond that of humans. So also would that of cats but the kitten had had no chance to show by its actions what it had seen.

The dog had hated the changed men because they were alien things, no longer human. The thing that had been Bellam had used the knowledge stored in Bellam's mind to claim there was rabies in the camp and thereby enlist the support of the humans in killing their only means of detecting the parasites.

* * * * *

There was a pounding of feet beyond the ship as the zombies came. On the slope above him Curry was striding toward him, his bodyguards flanking him and the moonlight bright on his face.

He stood with the dog beside him and watched them come to kill him. Only he and the dog knew of the parasites; if they were killed the way would be open for the parasites to infiltrate the camp. In the end the new world would hold only the walking dead, down to the last Outlander child.

"Curry," he called.

He did not have to speak loudly in the still night air for Curry to hear him but Curry came on, his face hard, arrogant metal in the moonlight.

"Give me one minute, Curry, to tell you what I found."

Curry's reply was the order to his men.

"The dog is with him. Kill them both."

His blaster swung up as he spoke.

Thane dropped, firing as he went down. Curry's arrogant face dissolved into nothing and his blaster flamed aimlessly into the ground at his feet. The blaster of the swiftest guard sent its beam hissing like a snake over Thane's head, then he went down as Curry had done, the other guard falling beside him with his first and only shot licking off into the moonlight.

Then the zombies came around the tail fin, in a quick rush with their dead eyes staring and their blasters making a curtain of blue fire before them.

The dog lunged at them and a blaster beam dipped down to meet her. Bellam--his headless body was falling forward as Thane killed the zombie beside him. The blaster of the third one ripped its beam like a white-hot iron along Thane's ribs as he died. Then, within two heartbeats, it was over and the night was quiet again.

He returned his blaster to its holster. The dog was limping from one zombie to the other, searching for parasites, her shoulder red with blood and staining the grass.

She found none and he called her to him to look at her shoulder. It was not a serious wound but it was painful and bleeding fast and should be cared for. He took her around the ship, where the Outlander camp lay in view below. He looked again at the wound and she whimpered a little from the pain, gentle though his touch had been, then licked his hand in quick apology.

"Your job is over for now," he said. He motioned toward the camp below, where the dark haired woman was waiting. "Home, girl--go home."

She left him and went running and limping down the hill where her hurts would be cared for.

* * * * *

His side was burning and blood was like a warm, wet sheet down it. He made a temporary bandage of his shirt and then leaned wearily against the tail fin.

It was all over. The nature of the parasites was known and everyone could be fitted with a thin metal helmet until they were completely eliminated. They did not seem to be numerous--apparently there had been no more than ten or twelve among the scores of monsters. The dog would watch, and warn them if any more were in the vicinity.

It was all over, with Curry a motionless spot on the hillside above him and no one left to challenge him. He had come a long way from the Outlander boy on the high, cold prairie who had hated Technogration. He had been nineteen before he finally realized the futility of hating the unassailable power of Technogration and realized he must accept it and adapt to it. And then carve out a niche for himself with a ruthlessness greater than any of those around him. So he had fought his way up, trampling those who would have trampled him had they been a little stronger, each step another victory in his conquest of the system that had condemned him.

And now--the last victory. There was no one to challenge him; there could be no one under the rigid discipline of Technogration.

The last victory. The security of Power to the end of his life.

That was Technogration.

* * * * *

Dawn touched the sky, softening the moon's hard light. As though the coming of day was a signal, the ship trembled and there was the whisper of dislodged soil as the tail fin lifted a fraction of an inch. The antigravity plates were almost exhausted--the ship would fall within minutes.

Down in the Outlander camp the children were gathering around the dog as the dark haired woman bandaged her shoulder. A voice came to him, treble and joyous, "Binkie is back--Binkie is back...."

The little girl sat to one side, so small and alone that he almost failed to see her. She watched the children crowd up to pet their dog but she did not move to join them. Only her hands moved, caressing the white cord that was charred on one end.

He felt the triumph and satisfaction become like something turned bitter around the edges and draining away.

Technogration was planning and fighting and killing until at last a man reached the top and no one dared oppose him; Technogration was control of a world and the seeds of an empire.

And Technogration was a child crying in the cold moonlight, was a little black hole where a kitten had screamed out with pain, with a little girl's heart that had nothing left to hold but harsh and poignant memories and a piece of burnt cord.

He ran to the boarding ramp, feeling the fiery lash of pain and hot flow of blood as the wound reopened, telling himself he was a fool who would probably die in the falling ship and would deserve it.

* * * * *

He stood by the gray ashes of his fire, the Guardsman's combat helmet under his arm, and watched the little girl come alone up the hill. Someone had washed the tear-stains from her face and she stopped before him with her head held high and defiant, trying not to let him see she was afraid of him and almost succeeding.

"I sent for you, Lornie, to tell you I'm sorry about last night."

He saw she did not believe him. Her face was like a little carving of cold, unforgiving stone and she did not answer him.

He set the helmet down in the grass before her. Six tiny kittens lay inside it, red and white and gray fluffs of fur, their pink mouths questing hungrily.

Her eyes widened with incredulous wonder.

"_Oh!_"

Then the suspicion came back and she stopped the quick forward step she had taken.

"They haven't any mother and they're hungry," he said.

She did not move.

"They're yours, Lornie. To keep."

"They're--mine?" Then the doubt fled from her and she ran forward to gather them in her arms.

He left her with her head bent down over the kittens in her lap, making soft little sounds of endearment to them, her face so radiant that there was no room left for hurt or hatred on it.

Kennedy was coming, not yet knowing why he had been summoned nor that Technogration had died at dawn. He would not relinquish all his authority, of course. And he would have to remember to tell Kennedy that they were going to give him one of Binkie's pups.

The companionship of an understanding dog might be comforting in the years to come, whenever he recalled the morning he had owned a world and a bare-footed girl had taken it away from him.