Upsetting the Balance

Ussmak doubted they would succeed in exterminating the Tosevites. He was past the point of caring. As long as they made the Big Uglies lie low long enough to let him find shelter, that would do. He’d given up hoping for anything better than temporary respite.

Nejas dove behind a couple of gray stone blocks that had been blasted off the wall of Farnham’s castle. Ussmak and Skoob followed him to earth as if they were hunted beasts.We might as well be hunted beasts, Ussmak thought. In combat and out of his landcruiser, he felt naked and soft and hideously vulnerable, like some crawler cruelly torn from its shell.

“Let’s see that now, superior sir,” Skoob said, pointing to Nejas’ wound.

Nejas held out the arm. His eyes wandered vaguely. When he opened his mouth to speak, only a wordless hiss came out. The interior of his mouthparts was a pale, pale pink. He hadn’t lost that much blood, but he did not look good. “Shock,” Ussmak said, his voice worried.

“Truth,” Skoob said. He wrapped a wound bandage around the landcruiser commander’s arm. “I hope one of those other crews will radio for an evacuation helicopter; our own set just went up in flames.” He turned both eyes toward Nejas. “If we have to walk out-and I’m afraid we will-he’ll be a burden unless he comes out of it.”

No rescue helicopter appeared. Nejas sank further into sludgy semiconsciousness. Ussmak grew more and more sure they would have to retreat on foot. If they were going to do that, they needed Nejas on his legs and moving. Trying to carry him, they’d be separately slowed, and easy meat for any armed Big Uglies whose path they chanced to cross. Abandoning the landcruiser commander never crossed Ussmak’s mind; for all he’d been through, he was still in some ways a well-drilled male of the Race.

But how to get Nejas up on his legs? Skoob was looking around helplessly, perhaps for some males to lend them a hand. Ussmak did not think anyone would magically materialize, not unless another landcruiser got killed, in which case the crewmales would likely have wounded of their own.

He got an idea of a different sort. He reached into the pouch in which he’d stored his ginger, took out a vial, and poured some of the powdered herb into the palm of his hand. Skoob stared at him in astonishment. He ignored the gunner. Holding his hand just in front of the tip of Nejas’ muzzle, he said, “Superior sir? Taste this.”

His greatest fear was that Nejas was too far gone to hear him, or to respond if he did. But the commander’s bifurcated tongue flicked out, almost of itself, and brought into his mouth a fair-sized taste of ginger. Ussmak waited tensely to see if it would do any good.

The membranes that had fallen halfway across Nejas’ pupils suddenly peeled back, leaving the landcruiser commander’s eyes bright and alert. His tongue shot forth again, and cleared the last of the ginger from Ussmak’s palm. “By the Emperor, what is that stuff?” he demanded. “Whatever it is, it’s marvelous.”

Skoob spoke before Ussmak could: “That’s the Tosevite herb, isn’t it? The one we’ve had so much trouble with, I mean.” He turned one eye from Nejas toward Ussmak. “What are you doing with it? Possession of ginger is against regulations and subject to punishment.”

“What do you think I’m doing with it?” Ussmak snapped, irritated by the manifest stupidity of the question. “I’m a ginger taster, that’s what. And it was the only thing I could think of to get the commander moving again.” He shifted his eyes to Nejas. “I’m sorry, superior sir. This way, we can sort things out later. If I hadn’t given it to you, I didn’t think there’d be a later.”

“You were right,” Nejas declared, which silenced Skoob. The landcruiser commander’s voice was vibrant, full of life. Moments before, his wound had left him all but unconscious. Now he seemed to have forgotten he’d been hurt. “Where’s my personal weapon?” he asked, looking around for it. “If I can get my hands on it, the three of us should be plenty to drive all the Big Ugly fighting males out of this damp, grimy little town.”

Now Skoob stared at him, as if certain the ginger had robbed him of his wits. And so, in a way, it had. Ussmak recognized the symptoms from his own first tastes of ginger: the certainty that you could do anything, regardless of the odds. He still felt that when he tasted, but now he knew it was the herb’s illusion. Nejas didn’t have the experience to recognize it for what it was.

Gently, Ussmak said, “Superior sir, you remain yourself, nothing more, however powerful the herb may make you feel. Use logic, if you can: if we could not drive the Big Uglies from Farnham from inside our landcruiser, we won’t do it now that the machine is wrecked. We need to get out of here and get you and your wounded arm seen to.”