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Graax has told Buck about how his people came to Earth
and how there’s primarily two different races on Squaattoos.
The Lebe’piti were made from the Pxelepiti. The
Pxelepiti are motivated by self-gain and sex. They were the original people on
Squaattoos, better suited for survival in a savage world. The Lebe’piti,
“the changed people” are motivated by the achievement of knowledge in and
for the sake of itself and doing things for the greatest good. Graax saw six
Pxelepiti at church when he went with Buck.
Buck believes Contention City should take Graax’s
warning seriously and get these Pxelepiti. We don’t want humankind going the
way of the Indian after all, Buck maintains. The members of the City Council
– except for brainclipped Hardy – ignore him saying that’s all probably
ill feelings from back on Squaattoos. There’s no reason to get in the middle
of that fight. Furthermore, Contention City has just weathered a severe storm.
All those men who’d be off fighting the Pxelepiti could be fixing the town
up.
Buck doesn’t agree. He recruits Skinner Alexander, a
former ne’er-do-well who has become a respectable citizen, to go against the
Pxelepiti. He also pulls in former tramp and now food worker Cletus Daniels, a
couple of prospectors (Joshua Friedman and Malcolm Davies) and newsman Hank
Atwell.
Before they get out of town, Buck faces off with some of
the councilmen. He’s not going to have a job as sheriff when he comes back
unless something pretty amazing happens.
The posse rides around looking for these disguised
aliens. Buck has to recontrol them and is starts raining again. The hunt for
the Pxelepiti commences.
For more information and Science Fiction Western
adventure see www.sfwestern.com.
Episode 39
At six a.m., as the sun began to peek above the horizon, I
realized I'd forgot to post a guard. My body would have been content sleeping
the rest of that day, but fabricated visions of the Pxelepiti woke me up. The
fact nobody suggested posting a guard, made me realize I was going to have to
do all the thinking. The strain of the mission must have gotten to me. Tired
or not, such an error can be swiftly fatal.
Someone should have thought of it, tired as we were, I
thought. "Anybody else done time in the Army?"
Nobody had.
"Navy?"
No response. At the most, these men would have been infants
when the War Between the States was fought. That would have been minimal help
anyway.
The storm finally spent itself and the thick, gray blanket
of clouds covering the sky started to fray. At first there didn't seem to be a
penalty for my carelessness. Then I looked closer - peculiar boot prints
running throughout the campsite, tracks unlike any I'd ever seen before.
The soles of the boots had been cut somehow into even
bumps. In places, the tracks were deep and even. Had they stood there on the
soft, moist earth and watched us as we slept?
"Damn!" I said.
As all their equipment was an improvement over our
equipment, the shoes worn by the Pxelepiti seemed like an improvement over
ours. Soles with even bumps such as those would serve to grip the soil better,
giving the wearer more traction.
The ridges were a stroke of genius. "I see why they do
that!" I said aloud, wishing I had a pair of those shoes for myself.
Graax voiced my inner thought. "They found us,"
he said simply. He recognized the prints.
"I know," I said. Still, nothing changed. We had
to do what we were there to do. Funny boot prints weren't going to spur the
Army into action. Likewise, they shouldn't cause us to stop.
We had to ride out and ride fast before courage ebbed.
"Let's mount up!" I cried. The men followed my order unhesitatingly,
the brrkup bypassing their free will, their bodies forced to comply. Still,
their faces betrayed their fear and exhaustion.
I'm convinced the brrkup gives the implantée some idea as
to the wonders of the Squaatoosian technology he can't put in words. Still,
the brrkup wasn't going to allow them to flee. That, by itself, would've
allowed many commanders to win battles in the War Between the States and the
Revolutionary War.
"Why didn't they kill us last night when they had a
chance?" I asked Graax.
Graax shrugged; he didn't answer.
"You're supposed to know everything," I said, in
jest tinged with truth. I was anxious and I didn't want anybody else feeling
that way.
Alas, everybody did.
Later that morning we sighted buzzards circling a kill.
"We should check that out," Skinner said.
The other men agreed.
I hoped we'd find a dead Pxelepiti, but it turned out to be
a gored whitetail that lost a fight with a hungry mountain lion. The mountain
lion had left the scene, though I suspected he wasn't far off. He had a ways
to go to finish eating his kill.
"Let's go men. Let the lion and the buzzards have
their breakfast," I said.
Next, we met up with two dirty, unshaven white men. The
tall blond was cloaked in a serape, blue jeans and a sombrero in the style of
the Mexican man. The brunet was costumed more typically for a white man, but
had buckteeth and cheeks like a beaver.
"They Pxelepiti?" I asked Graax.
He shook his head no.
"Morning gentlemen," I called out to the
travelers.
"Morning," said the blond, shifting in his
saddle, uncomfortable to be talking to a large group of obviously armed men.
"Where are y'all headed off to?" I said, trying
to start a conversation.
The beaver-faced man said sharply, "Don't see how
that's any business of your's, mister."
"Chuck, now don't start anything," the other man
said.
"I'm just trying to be friendly," I said.
"Shakespeare and those parts," the big one said.
"New Mexico? Prospecting?" I said.
"Looking into it," the blond said.
"Y'all seen anything suspicious around here this
morning?" I said.
"What do you mean by that?" said the one who was
called Chuck.
"Anything out of the ordinary, unusual," I said.
"I ain't ever been to these parts before," Chuck
guffawed. "How would I know what's unusual and what isn't?"
"What you looking for?" the big one said.
"It's hard to describe," I replied.
"Try me. We ain't in any hurry," the blond said
with a smile. "Maybe we can help."
"You're a funny looking mug," the buck-toothed
one said to Graax, interrupting.
Graax shrugged in reply.
You should speak Beaver-face, I thought. "Graax here
is an outer space alien," I said. "He and I are sheriffs over there
in Contention City. There's people like him from his home planet down here on
Earth to take our planet away from us and enslave us. Only he can tell them
apart from a real human."
"This is a posse? So you're going to arrest these evil
outer space aliens?" the big man said, laughing.
"We don't know quite yet what we're going to do,"
I admitted.
"So if only the weird looking one over there can see
them, why the hell did you ask us if we'd seen them?" Chuck said.
"I didn't," I said. "I only asked if . .
."
"That's pretty stupid," he said.
"Have a good day," I said curtly as Chuck
continued laughing.
"Good luck - you'll need it," said beaver-face.
While I was looking for anything unusual, I heard bird
calls I'd never heard before, saw snakes slither off the trail and reacted to
rustling in the bushes. After all my years riding the range, it was like I'd
spent the whole time with blinders on and that I'd never seen anything like
that before.
I began to suspect this whole effort was going to prove
futile. I wondered if this wasn't just some test of Graax's - couldn’t stop
mulling what I was going to do with my family after I lost the sheriff's job
and we had to move.
A little later we sighted a group of children playing tag
in the distance. We were far from any settlement I knew of. Their presence
didn't make any sense to me. Still, I didn't know of every settlement. The
country was rapidly growing, filling with easterners.
"Them Pxelepiti?" I asked Graax, tiredly
motioning to the children in the distance.
"Too far away to see," he said. "Too many
different lights in between."
"Well, I suppose we've got to get closer."
"Yes."
"Won't it bring us in their range, if they're
Pxelepiti?" I said.
"They could attack and kill you from here as well. It
depends on they fight with," he said flatly.
"I suppose so. They probably ain't Pxelepiti," I
said. They'd have already attacked, if they were, I suspected.
I motioned for my men to circle, going through the motions
of a commander. "Okay. They might be children up ahead, they might not
be. Let's ride up and ask them and their parents if they've seen anything
unusual around these parts. They might help narrow our search."
"We going to get laughed at again," Skinner said.
"That's not the worse thing that could happen," I
said.
"Graax,
the moment you see they might be Pxelepiti, I want you to say something.
"Y'all: if you hear him say something, I want everyone
to open fire. Comprendé? I know none of you is a kid killer, but they won't be
real kids if Graax says they ain't. Hear? Shoot to kill. The aliens can make
themselves look like anything they choose. And look out; Shoot anything hiding
in the bushes."
As we rode up, the children stopped playing. Watching
silently, they pointed at us.
Graax shouted in a loud warble: "Pxelepiti!"
Instinctively I crouched low on '49er, shielding myself as
best as I could from anything they might aim at me. "Charge!" I
shouted in kind. The men echoed my command with gunfire.
Both of the "children" dropped into the tall grass, unfazed by our volleys.
"Circle them!" I cried. I motioned for the men to
split up and go off to the sides of the "children.”
I then hearkened to a hollow noise like that of giant walnuts
being cracked one after another. Graax and I were soon fighting by ourselves.
Friedman, Davies, Atwell, Alexander and Daniels lay slumped over on their still
running horses, blood hemorrhaging out of their noses in twin rivers terminating
in clots upon the manes and necks of their horses. Their skulls fissured in
places with chunks of bone blown out and missing here and there.
It happened so fast, I could only dumbly think, what happened
to them?
Atwell's corpse had fallen off of its mount and lie still in
the grass, leading the realization to dawn upon me that the men weren't all
right and that they wouldn't be all right ever again.
"Retreat!" I shouted for no one but Graax's
benefit.
Gunshots echoed and pinged all around us as we rode into the
juniper forest. They were using rifles as well as their own weapon that killed
the brainclipped men.
A bullet aimed from the brush hit my foot and sent pain
raging throughout my body. I wondered if I'd ever walk again.
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