The telemetry grid was scrolling down weird data. Lawrence had never seen anything like it. Something had penetrated the carapace, but it was small, barely a couple of millimeters wide. If a bullet had split the surface, the tissue underneath should have absorbed it and clotted immediately. But the synthetic muscle around the puncture was starting to overheat. Its nerve fibers were failing.
Kibbo started screaming. His medical readouts were going wild.
"Down," Ntoko ordered. "Keep down, people."
Lawrence arrived just as Kibbo fell flat on his face. His arms and legs started thrashing, hammering into the ground.
"Some kind of convulsion."
"What's his medical program doing, for fuck's sake?"
"It's his Skin, it's spasming."
Ntoko hurried up, so Lawrence was looking right at him when the dart struck. It slammed into the grenade-launcher ammunition bag he was wearing on his back, nearly knocking him off his feet. He dropped to all fours, grunting hard at the impact Lawrence scrambled over and pushed his sensor focus on the little crater in the bag.
"What the hell was it?" Ntoko demanded.
"Don't know." Lawrence shifted to infrared. The small hole was damp. Spectrographic analysis revealed an unknown type of hydrocarbon fluid. "Shit. Could be some kind of bio weapon." His Skin deployed its aerosol nozzle and sprayed the area with a multispectrum neutralizing agent. The fluid fizzed a livid saffron.
Kibbo screamed again, his bucking lifting him off the ground. The rest of the platoon circled around, not knowing what to do. The Skin's AS and medical systems couldn't even stabilize him. The wild motions stopped suddenly. His helmet's emergency disposal valves opened. Blood poured out.
"Jesus!"
The Skins lurched back, fearful that any of the crimson fluid should splash against them.
"Was that the birds?" Nic asked. "Did they do that?"
"No way, man," Amersy said. "How could they?"
Lawrence risked a quick look around. The air was full of hundreds of fast-spinning birds, a sparkling river that hurtled through the sky. They'd formed a complete ring around the platoon.
"These are the people whose granddaddies invented Skin," Nic said. "If anyone knows how to shut us down, it's them."
"Shoot them," Ntoko ordered. "Carbines out; give me a circular formation, ten-degree overlap. Move."
They were firing as they rose to their feet hosing the bullets at the thick dazzling stipple gyrating around them. The birds broke apart, soaring higher in a scintillating plume. Targeting individual birds was impossible at that distance.
Foster screamed at the same time his telemetry grid flashed its alert. He toppled over, limbs jerking about. The rest of them automatically dived for cover.
"They're killing us," Jones cried. "We're fucking dead. Dead!"
Foster's agonized gurgling was filling the general communication link.
"Lawrence, incendiary grenades," Ntoko said. "We're going to start using this goddamn environment to our advantage. Range two hundred and fifty meters, semicircular pattern. You take north."
"Got it, Sarge." He rolled onto his back and angled the grenade launcher toward north, moving the muzzle until the targeting graphics confirmed he'd ranged ground zero. He began firing. The dull thud of the grenades was audible through his Skin helmet. Ntoko was firing in the opposite direction. Faint smoke trails appeared in the air, forming wide arches that radiated out from the huddled-up platoon.
The first grenade detonated. It was like the dawn of a blue-dwarf sun. A halo of fierce light rose out of the tigergrass. Designed for operation in a normal atmosphere, the incendiaries were burning far hotter than usual in the abundant oxygen. The undergrowth ignited immediately.
Lawrence kept firing, moving the launcher around in precise increments. The brilliant detonations merged swiftly into a solid wall of crackling light. Flames burned a vivid blue, consuming even the living vegetation. Sap sizzled and evaporated before the onslaught, leaving withered blades that burst alight instantly.
It took less than a minute before they were completely surrounded by flame. The circle began to burn inward relentlessly, though Lawrence's sensors could just see another, wider, ring burning outward.
"Use the rest of the grenades," Ntoko said. "I'm not risking the manufacturer's heat-proof guarantee on these ammo bags."
"Right." Lawrence waited until he'd fired all the incendiaries, then switched to fragmentation, using a random dispersal pattern. When he finished, he unslung the bag and threw it and the launcher away toward the advancing inferno.
The birds had all gone, zooming high over the rampaging flames. Foster lay dead on the ground, blood soaking into the soil as it dripped from his open disposal valve.
"Now we'll see," Ntoko growled.
"How do we get out of this?" Jones asked. His voice was panicky. "There's no way through the flame."
"That's the idea," Ntoko said. "You've got to believe in your Skin, my friend. This flame burns so fast it'll be past us in a couple of seconds."
"Oh, Jesus fucking wept, Sarge!"
"Just hold your place."
Lawrence nearly laughed. He'd worked it out just before he started firing. The time to object was long past. They'd all have to ride it out now.
His Skin's audio sensors were relaying the fierce roar produced by the flames. It grew steadily louder. They were approaching at a phenomenal rate as they consumed the tigergrass. His briefing had included strong warnings about fire in this atmosphere, but he'd never imagined anything this potent. There were screams now, rising above the background roar. A new-native charged past the platoon. He was bipedal, with arms that reached down to his knees. There was a long mane of ginger hair streaming out from his spine as he ran, already singed and smoldering. Lawrence caught sight of a narrow bandoleer, with some kind of cylindrical electronic modules slotted into hoops.
The terrified new-native saw the platoon and immediately altered course, more from fear than sense.
"You can run, asshole," Ntoko yelled after him, "but you can't hide."
Two more new-natives rushed past. One of them was a husky quadruped with some kind of canine DNA in its genetic makeup. Lawrence watched as it sprinted at the wall of flame sweeping in toward them. It jumped. He couldn't believe anything that big could get so far off the ground. Even with its muscular limbs it didn't get high enough. The ferocious blue flames speared into its underbelly, excoriating its tough amber hide. Raw splits opened into its blackening flesh, spewing out steaming fluid. It howled in agony as its entire epidermal layer ignited spontaneously. Death must have struck with blissful speed. It was silent and motionless as it struck the ground in the middle of the conflagration.
"Holy shit," Ntoko whispered. The flames were barely fifty meters away and closing fast. They were stabbing up seven to eight meters into the air.
Lawrence's display was already issuing heat cautions. His carapace was turning white to reflect the massive infrared input. He slowly stood to face the flames, seeing the rest of the platoon follow his lead and climb to their feet. Sensors had to bring two layers of filters online to combat the glare of hellish light given off by the flames.
He ordered the visual sensors off altogether in some crazy effort to make the horror go away. That didn't work: the darkness was even more unnerving. His indigo display grid hung in the middle of nothingness. The digits recording external temperature blurred as if they'd begun to count milliseconds instead. He brought the sensors back online. The flames were ten meters away.
A couple of the platoon were murmuring prayers. He wished he knew how to join in. The temperature warnings were now so ridiculous they were laughable.
All around him the tigergrass was withering, vapor effervescing out of every blade as it smoldered and blackened.
Then the grass burst into flame around his legs. The main tsunami of fire hit, nearly knocking him down again. Something gripped his Skin and started shaking him; it was like being trapped in a slow-motion
explosion.
He could see nothing. No discrimination program could possibly make sense of the incandescent chaos buffeting against him. All he knew was the one display grid reporting his Skin status. Every thermal indicator was leaping toward overload. Yet here he was, perfectly comfortable at the center of the fury. He held his breath, tensing every muscle against imminent death, then forced himself to breathe out and inhale calmly. Nothing he could do would make the slightest difference. It was all down to technology, and just how much of a safety margin had been built into his Skin.
His hand went to the base of his throat, covering the lump that was his pendant Patterns began to appear around him, faint shadows that purled within the intolerable light, then slowly began to darken. It was as if water were sluicing down a muddy window, producing streaked images of what lay outside.
Flames shrank away, revealing a land that was completely black. Spiky root clumps of incinerated tigergrass mottled the baked soil, puffing out streamers of grubby blue smoke. A dense rain of ash fell, flakes settling gently on every surface, including Skin.
He turned to see the wall of flame not ten meters behind him and retreating rapidly. The rest of the platoon was standing in a loose circle, sable silhouettes against the solid glare. When he brought a hand up to examine it, he saw his carapace was glowing a dull vermilion as the weave of thermal fibers hurriedly expelled their excessive loading. He reviewed his status, relieved to see his Skin's reserve bladders had retained their integrity; with them and the spare bloodpaks he could easily make it back to the spaceport.
Laughter and delirious whoops began to fill the general communication band. The shouted jubilation had a strong note of hysteria.
Ash was still falling, but Lawrence extended his sensor range, trying to see what lay through it The second wave of wildfire was still rampaging out ahead of him, lurid flames chewing their way voraciously across the tigergrass, sending up a broad veil of smoke and yet more ash. He couldn't believe so much destruction had spread so quickly. The holocaust they'd unleashed was easily over a kilometer wide now and still expanding. He wondered how far it would continue for. Not that there was much guilt associated with the thought. Santa Chico must be used to such events.
"Can't raise the captain," Ntoko said.
"You reckon the fire's reached him?"
"Could be. The Skins will come through okay. Don't know about the vehicles."
"You want to go back and check?"
"No. We keep going unless ordered different Even then I'm not keen."
"Sure."
"One good thing, nobody's going to be creeping up on us unseen now."
"Sarge, there's nobody left to creep up on us." His sensors had found a small mound that was the remains of a new-native. It looked like a lump of coal.
There was no hint of where the road had lain across the land. They checked their inertial guidance and started marching again. A couple of them were unhappy about leaving Kibbo and Foster behind, but Ntoko quelled their dissent with a few gruff words about how the guys would want the platoon to reach the spaceport.
The ground was still furiously hot, although it didn't present too much of a problem for their thermal fiber weave. As they walked they found patches of tigergrass and even trees that the fire had completely bypassed. There didn't seem to be any particular reason for any of them being spared. Vagaries of the land. Streams too broad for the flames to leap. Even some scrub trees with fat spire leaves that were resistant to the flames entirely, standing alone and unblemished amid the scorched desolation.
A broad ridge of rocky ground had saved the village from the firestorm. They examined it through the continuing fall of ash. Their sensors detected movement among the buildings. Ntoko decided they couldn't ignore it.
By the time they arrived, the carpet of delicate loose ash was a couple of centimeters thick, covering everything. Gusts would stir it up in small twisters, but that just rearranged it. Nothing was free of the mantle. The skirt of tigergrass around the buildings swayed and quivered in the breeze, as if trying to shake the flakes off. But they were too small, too insidious to release their hold.
The village homes were simple structures, broad circular towers with domed roofs, never more than two stories high. They seemed to be made from a pale cream coral with a rough, grainy surface that was a magnet for the ash, allowing it to lodge in every crinkle. Windows were arches covered with a thick membrane, laced with delicate silver veins.
The new-native inhabitants were mostly bipedal, smaller than the average human, with shaggy hair that continued down their spines in a thick mane; in some cases it extended out along their arms almost to the elbow. Their shirts and jerkins were cut to allow the hair to flow through. It was often braided. Bright-colored beads were favored by the children.
There were exceptions. Feline hominoids who struggled to stay upright, dropping down to use their forelimbs to walk a few paces. A squat giant that looked like a cross between a sumo wrestler and a troll. Delicate spindly elves, whose legs seemed too slim to support their bodies.
They didn't look alien, Lawrence thought, so much as primitive, although their hides were the typical Santa Chico tough, translucent amber, and none of the bipeds had a terrestrial human rib cage and abdominal arrangement. Ridges around their torsos were more insectile than anything else. Their faces, though stiffer than skin, still managed to express basic emotions, although that could have been just the eyes. Sullen glances were more or less the same the universe over.
Ntoko took Lawrence and Amersy into the village with him, deploying the rest of the platoon outside. They were subject to blank stares from the inhabitants who stood in open doorways. New-natives in the streets moved aside to let them pass. It was the first time their authority had ever been acknowledged, even if it was at gunpoint.
Lawrence's sensors detected a small level of electronic activity in the buildings, nothing above desktop pearl level. They seemed almost devoid of mechanical or electronic technology. Certainly there were no vehicles in evidence.
The new-natives appeared uncertain what to do about the Skins; they were waiting for them to set the agenda. As they walked into the center of the village more new-natives appeared and followed at a respectful distance. Unless half of the homes were deserted, the numbers didn't match up. Lawrence wondered how many villagers had been in the group beating the birds out of the tigergrass. And how many had survived.
Ntoko stopped beside a big overhanging tree that had a coating of the ubiquitous ash. "Anybody want to tell me what's going on here?"
"You fired our lands," a voice said. It was heavily accented, but had the easy lilt of Spanish roots.
Lawrence identified its owner, a woman who wouldn't reach his shoulder. Her luxuriant hair was snow-white, though whether that indicated old age he wasn't sure. She had a flat face, with several creases in her cheeks, giving her jaw a considerable degree of flexibility. The robe she wore was decorated with silver piping: a DNA helix had been embroidered down the front in scarlet and turquoise.
"You the big chieftain around here?" Ntoko asked.
"No. I am Calandrinia." She combed a hand through her hair, shaking out the latest dusting of ash.
"You going to talk to me?"
"Are you going to kill me?"
"Not unless you give me a reason."
She bared her teeth, which were long enough to qualify as tusks. "I have many reasons, but I won't be acting on them today."
"Well, thank you. Now you want to tell me what the fuck is going on around here?"
"You violated our lives. This is how we respond. What did you expect?"
"Less violence would be a good start. You people have got to be crazy. Do you know how much firepower we've got backing us up?"
Calandrinia showed her tusks again. "Less than you started with."
Lawrence used his secure command link. "Sarge, can I talk to her?"
"Sure, go right ahead if you think it will get us anywhere. I hate a smartmo
uth."
"Thanks." Lawrence was never quite certain, but Calandrinia seemed to turn to him just before he started talking. "I'd like to know, why did you abandon your factories?"
"Why does anybody abandon anything, Earthman? They are obsolete and irrelevant. Now we grow whatever we need directly."
"But your products weren't obsolete on Earth; they were damn useful. Why stop exporting?"
"If Earth wants medicines it should make them for itself."
"Well, for a start, without the cash from those exports you won't be able to import the products you don't make here."
She laughed at him outright. "If we don't make it, we don't want it. If we don't want it, we don't make it."
"So that's it? You've kissed good-bye to technological civilization? You're all happy regressing?" Somewhere at the back of his mind was the question of how many times he would have this conversation, and on how many planets. Regressor types seemed to get everywhere.
"Technological, no," Calandrinia said. "Mechanical, yes. What do you need machines for? Biological systems are much more efficient at providing for us."
"You can't make biological equivalents of everything."
"Not everything your society requires in order to function, no. But then we don't have your kind of society anymore. We've adapted ourselves, not bent the world to our vision. Worlds are too big for that. Why live in isolated settlements built on dead, irradiated earth when you can modify yourself to enjoy the freedom of the whole world?"
"That must be quite an ideology you've got here, to convince people they have to leave their past behind."
"It's not ideology, it's evolution. You know our ancestors came here with the intent of modifying themselves; why are you so surprised by what you found?"
"Nobody knew how far you'd taken the modifications. We didn't expect any of this. If we knew what was here, we wouldn't have come."
"Yet here you are. Now what will you do?"
"Me personally? Go home."
"Why not join us? Your children would have a beautiful future. They would never want or need for anything."
"Excuse me, but that's not even remotely tempting. If I take this helmet off, I die. You know it, and I know it."