50 in 50

"Well, don't say it out loud. Queeny's English is pretty good, and I don't want her feelings hurt. Misunderstanding, that's all it is. People call pigs dirty, but that's only because they have been made to live in filth. They're naturally quite clean and fastidious animals. They can be fat. They have a tendency to be sedentary and obese— just like people — so they can put on weight if they have the diet for it. In fact, they are more like human beings than any other animal. They get ulcers like us, and heart trouble the same way we do. Like man, they have hardly any hair on their bodies, and even their teeth are similar to ours.

"Their temperaments, too. Centuries ago, an early physiologist by the name of Pavlov, who used to do scientific experiments with dogs, tried to do the same thing with pigs. But as soon as he placed them on the operating table, they would squeal at the top of their lungs and thrash about. He said that they were 'inherently hysterical' and went back to working with dogs. Which shows you, even the best men have a blind spot. The pigs weren't hysterical — they were plain sensible; it was the dogs who were being dim. The pigs reacted just the way a man might if they tried to tie him down for some quick vivisection. . What is it, Queeny?"

Bron added this last as Queeny suddenly raised her head, her ears lifted, and grunted.

"Do you hear something?" Bron asked. The pig grunted again, in a rising tone, and climbed to her feet. "Does it sound like engines coming this way?" Queeny nodded her ponderous head in a very human yes.

"Get into the woods — back under the trees!" Bron shouted, hauling Haydin to his feet. "Do it fast — or you're dead."

They ran, headlong, and were among the trees when a distant, rising whine could be heard. Haydin started to ask something but was pushed face-first into the leaves as a whining, roaring shape floated into the clearing, blackly occulting the stars. It was anything but ghostly — but what was it? A swirl of leaves and debris swept over them, and Haydin felt something pulling at his legs so that they jumped about of their own accord. He tried to ask a question, but his words were drowned out as Bron blew on a plastic whistle and shouted:

"Curly, Moe — attack!"

At the same moment, he pulled a sticklike object out of his pack and threw it out into the clearing. It hit, popped, and burst into eye-searing flame — a flare of some kind.

The dark shape was a machine — that was obvious enough: round, black, and noisy, at least ten feet across, floating a foot above the ground, with a number of discs mounted around its edge. One of them swung towards the tent, and there was a series of explosive, popping sounds as the tent exploded and fell to the ground.

There was only a moment to see this before the attacking forms of the boars appeared from the opposite side of the clearing. Their speed was incredible as, heads down and legs churning, they dived at the machine. One of them arrived a fraction of a second before the other and crashed into the machine's flank. There was a metallic clang and the shriek of tortured machinery as it was jarred back, bent, almost tipped over.

The boar on the far side took instant advantage of this, his intelligence as quick as his reflexes, and without slowing hurled himself into the air and over the side and into the open top of the machine. Haydin looked on appalled. The machine was almost on the ground now, as a result of either ruined machinery or the weight of the boar.

The angry first animal now climbed the side and also vanished into the interior. Above the roar of the engine could be heard loud crashes and metallic tearing — and high-pitched screaming. Something clattered and tore, and the sound of the engines died away with a descending moan. As the sound lessened, a second machine could be heard approaching.

"Another coming!" Bron shouted, blasting on his whistle as he jumped to his feet. One of the boars popped its head from the ruin of the machine, then leaped out. The other was still noisily at work. The first boar catapulted himself towards the approaching sound and was on the spot when the machine appeared at the edge of the clearing — leaping and attacking, twisting his tusks into the thing. Something tore, and a great black length of material hung down. The machine lurched, and its operator must have seen the ruin of the first one, because it skidded in a tight circle and vanished back in the direction from which it had come.

Bron lit a second flare and tossed it out as the first one flickered. They were two-minute flares, and the entire action — from beginning to end — had taken place in less than that time. He walked over to the ruined machine, and Haydin hurried after him. The boar leaped to the ground and stood there panting, then wiped its tusks on the ground.

"What is it?" Haydin asked.