50 in 50

"All right, then, I bent down to touch one of your filthy animals— don't ask me why. Then I was attacked."

"That sounds more like it, and I'm not gonna bother you with foolish questions as to why you had a sudden urge to pet a filthy pig. You can come down now and get on your red wagon and get moving."

The boar flicked his twist of a tail, then vanished into the undergrowth. Reymon shakily dropped to the ground and brushed off his clothes. He was a darkly handsome man whose features were spoiled by the angry tightness of his mouth.

"You'll hear more about this.” he said over his shoulder as he stumbled away.

"I doubt it.” Bron told him. He went to the road and waited until the electrobike whizzed by in the direction of the city. Only then did he go back and whistle his flock together.

A tiny metallic clanging sounded in Bron's ear, growing louder and louder when he ignored it. Yawning, he reached up and detached the earring alarm from the lobe of his ear, switched it off with his fingernail, and dropped it into his belt pouch. The night air was cool on his hand as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Above him the strange constellations of stars shone crisply in the clear air. Dawn was still some hours away and the forest was dark and silent, with only an occasional wheeze or a muffled grunt sounding from a sleeping pig.

Otherwise completely dressed, Bron unsealed the sleeping bag and pulled on his boots, which he had left carefully upended to keep them dry. He leaned against Queeny to do this. The eight-hundred-pound sow, a dim and mountainous shape in the darkness, lifted her head and grunted an interrogation. Bron bent over and lifted the flap of her ear so he could whisper into it.

"I'm going away, but I'll be back by dawn. I'm taking Jasmine with me. You look after things."

Queeny grunted a very human sound of agreement and lay back down. Bron whistled softly, and there was a rustle of sharp hooves as little Jasmine trotted up. "Follow me," he told her. She came to heel and walked behind him away from the camp, both of them now silent as shadows.

It was a moonless night, and Trowbri City was lightless and asleep. No one was aware of the shadows that moved through the town and slipped behind the municipal building. No one heard when a window slid soundlessly open and the shadows vanished from sight.

Governor Haydin sat up suddenly as the lights came on in his bedroom. The first thing he saw was a small pink pig sitting on the rug by his bed. It turned its head to look him directly in the eye — then winked. It had lovely, long white eyelashes.

"Sorry to disturb you at this hour.” Bron said from the window, as he made sure the curtains were completely drawn, "but I didn't want anyone to see us meeting."

"Get out of here, you insane swineherd, before I throw you out!" Haydin bellowed.

"Not so loud sir," Bron cautioned. "You may be overheard. Here is my identification." He held out a plastic rectangle.

"I know who you are, so what difference—"

"Not this identification. You did ask the Patrol for aid on this planet, didn't you?"

"What do you know about that?" The Governor's eyes widened at the thought. "You mean to say you have something to do with them?"

"My identification," Bron said, snapping to attention and handing over the card.

Governor Haydin grabbed it with both hands. " 'P.I.G.,' " he read. "What's that?" Then he answered his own question in a hoarse voice as he read the next line.

" 'Porcine Interstellar Guard'! Is this some kind of joke?"

"Not at all, Governor. The Guard has only been recently organized and activated. Knowledge of its activities has heretofore been confined to command levels, where its operational configurations are top secret."

"All of a sudden you don't sound like a pig farmer anymore."

"I am a pig farmer, Governor. But I have a degree in animal husbandry, a doctorate in galactic politics, and a black belt in judo. The pig farmer is used for field cover."

"Then you're the answer to my distress message to the Patrol?"

"That's correct. I can't give you any classified details, but you must surely know how thin the Patrol is spread these days — and will be for years to come. When a new planet is opened up it extends Earth's sphere of influence in a linear direction — but the volume of space that must be controlled is the cube of that distance."

"You wouldn't mind translating that into English, would you?"