13 #2
“Out of the way!” shouted Ingold, and with the courage I’d always suspected he possessed, he flung himself between Angus and Sentry, far too close, so close that the upper teeth actually closed over his arm, but he didn’t falter.
His free hand came up holding an oil lamp, and he smashed it down over the creature’s back.
Burning oil ran over it and it fell back against the wall and slid downward. Ingold tore his arm free and slapped at the splashes of oil on his clothes. The burning Sentry was between me and them, so I had no idea how badly injured he might be.
What I did see, with horrible clarity, was how Sentry dealt with burning.
Its skin rose up like dozens of fleshy fingers, more strings pulling away from bone, and then it simply sloughed half its body away.
The burning half fell to the ground and the creature dragged what was left of itself away from the fire, sacrificing its own flesh to smother the flames.
A beam of light carved an erratic zigzag over the wall.
I half turned and saw that it was a headlamp bouncing on the ground, rolling down the shaft.
Fragment’s headlamp, followed by ... Fragment’s pants?
I’d thought the creature had fled, but apparently he’d just been undressing.
Then Fragment himself pushed by me, still changing as he went.
His flesh pulled away. The sticks that made up his bones clattered to the floor. By the time he reached Sentry, he was only vaguely human-shaped. He lifted his arms and a thick membrane hung down from them like wings.
He fell over what remained of Sentry, arms outstretched, and I watched the membrane flow over the other like a second skin.
Sentry struggled wildly against Fragment’s smothering embrace.
I saw the thrashing as Fragment enclosed him in a translucent sac, and could see the outlines of bones punching against the membrane.
I took a step forward, wanting to help, not knowing how.
It soon became obvious that my help wasn’t required.
Sentry had been huge, but he had lost half of himself to the flame, and now Fragment was twice as large as he was.
I staggered past them, up the shaft to where Angus and Ingold were watching. Angus had his gun out, but Ingold pushed it down with his good hand. “I don’t think you should break Fragment’s ... err ... seal right now.”
“What’s he doing?” I asked. And then, “Christ’s blood! Your arm!”
“I’ll need stitches,” he admitted. He had his arm pressed against his side. “But it could be worse. And in answer to your question, I think he’s ... ah ... engulfing him. Eating him. Or merging with him, if you like.”
“But that thing’s a murderer! And pretended to be a dog!”
“Yes,” said Ingold. “But Fragment outnumbers him right now. Presumably that will dilute some of the ... well ... murderousness .”
Red light flashed inside the sac, irregularly at first, then slowing to a dull red pulse as Sentry’s struggles died down.
We stayed well back. From the top of the shaft, I heard Roger saying, “But my dog went down there—” and Kent’s voice answering, too low to make out.
Good. Keep him away from all this and we’ll make up a story somehow.
Then more footsteps, and Denton was there, holding a lantern and a box. No, one of the box-shaped oilcans. He pushed past us, lifting it up, and it took me a moment to realize that he intended to douse both the creatures with it.
“No!” I grabbed for him, missed my footing on the slope, and skidded practically into Fragment before I stopped myself. “Denton, stop! Fragment’s got him, it’s under control.”
“That’s both of them there?” Denton asked. And when I nodded, “Good. Then we can deal with this once and for all.”
And he pulled the cap off the oilcan.
I am not always the quickest person on the uptake. I said, “Err, what?”
“He means to kill them both,” Ingold said. “Denton, no. Think of what you’re doing!”
“I am thinking. I’m thinking we have them both here, at once, and we can end all of this right now.”
I darted a glance over my shoulder. Fragment and what was left of Sentry were still lying in a heap of undistinguished flesh. They couldn’t get away, and if Ingold or Angus grabbed for Denton, he’d spill the oil or drop the lantern and set them on fire anyway.
Which meant the only person who could stop him was me.
Was I really going to risk being burned alive to save an alien being more closely related to a jellyfish than a human? Apparently I was. I spread my arms and said, “Denton, don’t do this. This isn’t right.”
“I never thought you’d balk at doing what was necessary,” Denton said coldly. “You of all people.”
“Necessary , yes,” I said. “Fragment saved my life just now. You want me to pay that back with murder?”
“My cousin is dead .”
“And now we know what did it,” Ingold broke in, “and Fragment’s dealing with it. Oscar’s at peace. We can be at peace, too.”
“Peace? ” Denton sounded incredulous. “When it’s down there, able to look like any of us, just like that thing in the lake—”
“It’s nothing like the thing in the lake,” I shot back. “You’ve met Fragment. He’s had years to practice and he still couldn’t pretend to be one of us for more than five minutes. He won’t last ten minutes outside the mine.”
Denton didn’t look convinced. I tried another tactic. “Denton, I don’t know what oath they make doctors swear over here, but in Gallacia, ours says, ‘First, do no harm.’”
The oil gurgled as his hand trembled on the oilcan. Angus met my eyes over his shoulder and looked a question at me. I shook my head. I couldn’t see any way to rush Denton that didn’t end with somebody being burned alive. Probably me.
“We could end all this now,” said Denton finally, his voice cracking. “We could stop it and just go home.”
It was the cry of every soldier I’d ever served with. Just let this stop happening and let us go home!
I’d like to say that I said something eloquent, that I made the argument that changed Denton’s mind, but it wasn’t me. It was Ingold who put his hand on Denton’s arm and said, very gently, “That’s all Fragment wants. To go home to his people. Let us help him, and then we’ll go home to ours.”
“You don’t want that,” Denton said miserably. “You think this awful alien thing is wonderful .”
“I would give up every wonderful thing to go home with you,” said Ingold.
Denton let out a sob and turned and Ingold’s arms went around him, which confirmed a few things I’d been wondering about, and Angus, sensibly, took away the oilcan.