Leo Frankowski

heat
out here anyway. The LDUs tend to stay out of sight. Most people don’t know
that they exist until they need a doctor.”
    “Doctors?”
Patty said. “Is that what they are?”
    “They’re just
about anything that needs an organized group. Police, fire department, dog
catchers, medical corps, construction gang. You name it, they do it. I know they’re hideous to
look at, but they’re really fine people. You’ll get used to them.”
    A series of sharp
explosions sounded.
    “What’s
that?” asked Patty.
    “Probably fire
crackers from some damn chemistry class. I hope they don’t wake my
babies,” Mona said.
    “You have
children?”
    “Twins. Girls.
Michelle and Carolyn.”
    “I’d love to
see them. But how do you get a babysitter when most things around here are free?”
    “Heinrich made
me raise the babysitters before he’d let me have the babies. We keep two
fauns.”
    “Fauns take
care of children?”
    “It’s what they
were made for. You don’t really need a servant in a tree house, everything
pretty much takes care of itself. But raising a child properly is a full-time occupation, and two gets
impossible. Fauns are teachers,
really—walking, talking, reading, writing, arithmetic. It’s really one
of Heinrich’s plots. Fauns imprint language
early, then have almost no language ability
after that. It’ll be thirty years before every family in the world has a faun, but when that happens, every child will get a solid basic education and will speak English as a first language!. So poof! There goes the language barrier.”
    “Every
child?”
    “So how many
mothers are going to turn down a free, full-time babysitter?”
     
    Vintovka was hit,
and hit again. The pain was intense, but he didn’t think about the pain. Arteries
constricted to cut blood loss, redundant systems came on line. Vintovka’s right hand
was shot through, and hung by a shred. He continued to throw rocks with his
left as he backed down the center aisle of the band shell. He took a sustained burst
from the assault rifle and collapsed.
    “Vintovka here.
Mission complete. I have incurred extensive damage. Five hearts and four
brains gone. I am now inoperative. I am sending in my bird for diversion.”
    Tears streaked Heinrich’s face, but his
expression didn’t change.
    The eagle folded its
wings and dropped like a Kama-kazi. Talons out and screaming defiance, its body
jerked as slugs tore through. Feeling all of his bird’s pain, Vintovka’s prostrate
body convulsed.
    Langel and Pacho ran
from opposite sides of the aisles as the intruder was firing upward.
Knife-claws extended a foot beyond their knuckles, they hacked at the intruder’s arms,
severing them cleanly above the elbows.
    Immediately, Jawati
and Dabba rushed in and applied tourniquets. They loaded the shocked body
onto Jawati’s flat back, the lateral tentacles holding him immobile. Spear retrieved the
arms and the weapons. Wirka and Kinzhal picked up Vintovka; Top picked up the
dying eagle.
    “Jawati here. We
are returning to Pinecroft with inoperative LDU, bird, and intruder. All
wounded but alive. Have three med teams ready.”
    The other three LDUs
quickly policed the area, picking up spent cartridges, cleaning up spilled
blood.
    Five minutes after
the intruder alert was sounded, all was outwardly unchanged and tranquil.
     
    Liebchen was trotting
through the tunnel to Pinecroft when she heard an LDU behind her. She leaned
against the
support of a softly glowing lamp, crossed her legs, thrust out her breasts, and
smiled sexily.
    The LDU came to an abrupt halt.
“Liebchen, what does that peculiar
posture signify?”
    “I saw a girl
on television do it and somebody stopped to give her a ride. I think it’s a request
for transportation. Are you going to Pinecroft?”
    “Climb aboard.
But lie down. I’m in a hurry.”
    Liebchen added her seventy pounds to the
LDU’s three hundred, snuggling her tummy against his back. The LDU strapped her down quickly and took off at
a run.
    “Is something
exciting happening?” Liebchen shouted over the wind noise.
    “Dirk is
delivering a lecture on the teachings of Lao Tzu,” the LDU said. As he
accelerated, the wind blast stopped all further conversation.
     
    In the medical
complex at Pinecroft three LDU teams were working under the direction of the CCU.
    “They could
have stopped him in the sports arena without getting any of themselves hurt,”
Guibedo said.
    “Yeah, and had
that bastard spraying