Chapter 6

AT THE WIRE

What the hammer? What the chains?

In what furnace was thy brain?

Where the anvil? What dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

WILLIAM BLAKE, "The Tyger"

It didn't matter a damn that the stars above Carlos's head, twinkling in Avalon's eternal mist, were not those of Earth. It didn't matter that the wind carried the ticklish scent of alien blossoms, or that the plants beneath his feet were mingled Terran and Avalonian grasses. Beneath the smiling face of a con man, the quick and nimble fingers of a carpenter and the mind of a superb historian, there lurked the soul of a farmer. Like it or not, Carlos felt absurdly at peace.

He ran his gloved fingers above the electrified wire-without touching. The wire was connected to power leads and pressure sensors. Any attempt to climb over, push under or break through it would trigger a shock: the more pressure exerted, the greater the voltage would grow, terminating in enough electricity to barbecue anything on the short side of a rhino. Huckleberry, the year old gray-brown German shepherd on the end of Carlos's leash, had learned to be quietly respectful of the wire. He could stand within two feet of it without flinching but would venture no closer.

The wire extended around three sides of the camp, starting north of the living quarters, running west near the main road, curving south past the animal hospital, the machine shop and the air pad. There it met the cliff again, stopping shy of the fields.

There were more calf pens across the main road, these fenced separately, each enclosed in another "graduated" electric fence.

Huckleberry sniffed the cages as they turned west towards the cliff edge, the fifty-meter drop behind the camp that led to the sluggish waters of the Miskatonic.

"Hey!" He threw an arm over his face as a wandering searchlight temporarily blinded him. "Cual es su problema, eh?"

With an apologetic hobble, the searchlight glided on its way. Lamps and video cameras had been mounted on the communal dining hall, the roof of the machine shop and a corner of the animal pens. There was barely a centimeter of the camp that their glaring ovals did not flare into momentary day. Saucers of light skimmed along the road, circling, dipping, interweaving.

Carlos watched those circles and pulled his jacket tighter. Suddenly he felt a chill, and the heat-reflective windbreaker didn't help at all. This cold blossomed within him.

Silhouettes dimmed the window of the yellow Quonset hut next to the air pad. He watched enviously. In the communications shack there would be coffee and companionship and hot crullers, things he couldn't expect for another forty minutes.

Huck whined as footsteps approached, and Carlos's attack of hunger died instantly. He squared his shoulders and put a little more pep in his step. At least I can look like a sentry!

"Terry." He smiled. The dark softened a malicious grin. Terry looked fatigued and disgusted. His face, never plump, was drawn even thinner, and he looked as if he thought Cadmann was boffing Sylvia while he walked patrol.

Terry fished a pack of cigarettes out of his vest and offered one to Carlos. "Just the thing, amigo." They stood for a time, savoring Earth-grown tobacco.

"Might as well enjoy ‘em." Terry exhaled a long white stream of smoke in the darkness. The mist and the night formed a wall that obliterated everything more than a kilometer from the camp. Their entire universe consisted of a few buildings and pens and fields and the pale, silent glow of the moons above them. "It'll be a long time before anyone gets around to planting tobacco."

"You may have discovered the real reason I came," Carlos said contentedly, smoke trickling from his nose. "The only way I could ever quit these damned things is to get ten trillion miles away from the nearest convenience store."

"Yeah." Terry's smile was tentative.

"You know, amigo, you look about ten years younger when you let yourself go."

Terry was grinning now, but covered it with his hand as he took another drag on his cigarette. "Think we're wasting our time out here?"

A shrug. "Maybe. A couple of nights should tell the tale. Your wife is going to have her babies here. Wouldn't you rather be sure? I mean really sure?"

Terry inhaled deeply. "On a night like this it's nice to have an excuse to be outside." The grin was open now, and infectious. "You're right. Thanks, Carlos." He adjusted the rifle on his shoulder. "Got to keep moving. Another butt?"

The searchlight cruised back through the fields. As it passed the pens, the colts and fillies froze their nervous motions, moist eyes glistening like frozen flames. Huckleberry growled, then subsided.

"We'll have the infrared up tomorrow night," Carlos said quietly. "Got a jiggle along the southern fence. Not enough to trigger the electricity, though. May not have been anything at all, but..."

"Could have been a turkey," Terry said hopefully.

"Si... except Bobbi told me that she's seen damned few turkeys in the last week. Maybe they ran into something poisonous." He considered that for a moment. "Or maybe it's Thanksgiving on Avalon-"

The yowl of a bobcat caught in the gears of a clock could have been no more sudden or piercing. The fence alarm hammered at the night, at their ears, stripping the haze from their speculations in an instant. Another sound was mixed into it: an animal sound, something wet and angry.

Carlos's arm wrenched at the shoulder socket as Huckleberry spun on the end of the leash, running north for the Armory.

"Jesus Christ!" Terry screamed, lowering his rifle to port arms, and running behind them. The searchlights swept along the fence, which was vibrating wildly. A ragged chorus of howls split the air as the other dogs converged on the wire.

Carlos was gasping, the sudden exertion burning his lungs, a silent litany of Dios mio, let it be a turkey. Por favor, let it be a turkey-He stumbled, lost his grip on Huckleberry. Before he could catch the leash, the animal was bounding toward the fence.

Carlos charged after him.

There was nothing to be seen, nothing heard except the dreadful screeching. Huckleberry was charging full tilt, snarling his challenge as if he could see something, smell something that Carlos could not. Charging directly at the fence-and with dreadful certainty Carlos knew the dog would not stop in time. "Cut the powerrr!" he screamed, but there was no time, and in the darkness, in the frenzy. Huckleberry leaped directly into the triple strands of the fence. His fur shot up away from his body like needles in a spray of cactus. His startled, agonized yelp was cut short by the hideous sound and smell of meat singeing in the fire. Sparks sizzled whitely from the relays as the section shorted. Huckleberry's body twitched and leaped like a frog on a griddle.

Carlos turned away, choking as his dinner jolted sourly from his stomach. He swallowed hard, forcing it back down, gagging. No hurry now. After a few moments his vision cleared.

Huckleberry's body, wreathed in strands of wire, sagged motionlessly now. Jon van Don cut the power. Elliot Falkland pried the blackened, smoking corpse loose with a shovel. The surviving dogs were howling, sniffing, frightened. The stench of death was gut-wrenchingly strong, and a couple of the other colonists had turned away, covering their faces. Lights were coming up all over the camp, and everything was confusion and the patter of feet.

Zack was there, skidding on his heels, and then covering his nose.

"What happened here? Carlos?"

"Alarm. Huckleberry went nuts. I think that he smelled something. He tore his way-hell, I let him go. He ran right into the fence. God, I'm sorry, Zack."