The Human Blend - Alan Dean Foster [117]
Belying his advanced years while demonstrating his experience, Napun Molé had reloaded the instant after he had fired, extracting one shell among several from the bandolier slung beneath his loose-fitting, garish tropical shirt. His voice had not changed in the slightest when he resumed speaking.
“Please now, Dr. Seastrom. The thread? I assure you it will not be damaged if the destructive effects just applied to your host have to be repeated on your own person. The metal is stronger than you may imagine.” Holding and balancing the flurry with his right hand, its short stock jammed into the crook of his arm, he extended his other hand expectantly.
The black caiman that leaped on him from behind nearly got him.
Even as she threw herself toward Whispr, Ingrid could not decide which astonished her more: the fact that the Alligator Man had somehow managed to silently signal his maniped reptilian accomplices that he was in need of help, or the fact that a stumpy-legged crocodilian like a three-meter-long caiman could get that far off the floor.
Molé was surprised but not taken. Whirling, he unleashed both barrels of the flurry. The foreparts and front half of the leaping reptile disintegrated in an expanding sphere of blood, teeth, scales, and bone. Enough kinetic energy remained from its jump, however, to drive a portion of the organic debris into the assassin and knock him to the floor. A second caiman followed close on the armored heels of the first while yet another was smashing its way through the largest of the portside windows. Each had attached to its skull a similar tiny manip implant that allowed Gator to control and direct them.
Seizing a stunned Ingrid as well as the opening, Whispr yanked her in the direction of the cabin’s other entryway. Pursued by violent curses in several languages, the muted but lethal phut! of the flurry being fired again, Gator’s half-hysterical bellowed commands, and a succession of primeval crocodilian roars, they climbed and stumbled desperately up to the main deck.
“Wait, wait!” After half dragging her up the steps, Whispr now fought to hold her back. She soon saw why.
Along with the dark water in which it sat, the boat’s deck was alive with giant reptiles. Every species currently known to reside in tropical Namerica was represented: caimans black and white, alligators, crocodiles American and Orinoco. In response to Gator’s call they clambered over the sides of the houseboat, the smaller craft moored against it, and each other in their haste to force their way into the main cabin. Glancing back down the stairway Ingrid saw something massive, toothy, and glittering of eye coming her way.
“Whispr …” Without waiting, she pushed past him. “They’re not after us anyway.”
“What makes you think they can tell the difference between …?” He didn’t have time to finish the question because she didn’t give him any.
For whatever reason—the persistence of Gator’s summons, the natural attraction of the frenetic action occurring within the cabin, sheer dumb luck—none of the reptiles swarming the houseboat changed tack to lurch in their direction. One lumbering armored monster did take a snap at Whispr, who eluded the potentially bone-crunching bite with a twisting leap worthy of a celebrity ballerino. Ingrid gasped—she was beyond screaming—as something tore away a piece of her—shorts.
They made it to their rented watercraft which was, for the moment at least, thankfully unoccupied. Whispr disengaged the link locking it to the larger vessel. A quick spin of the wheel and a moment later they were accelerating away from the overgrown houseboat