The Last Victory — Themes and Context

She was fighting something on the ground, green-eyed with fury as she ripped and tore at it. But there was nothing there. Nothing.

The dark haired woman was coming toward them, wraithlike in a white sleeping garment. The dog turned away, with a last rip at the nothing it fought, and saw the three guards the monsters had knocked down. She froze, like as though she saw something she could not believe.

Then, deadly with menace, a growl vibrated in her throat and she crouched to attack them.

"Binkie--_don't_!" The voice of the girl was shrill with urgency. "Come here--come here!"

The dog hesitated, then obeyed; going past the guards in a swift lope, her head turned to watch them and her teeth bared in a snarl. The girl seized the leash and girl and dog disappeared back into the Outlander camp, both of them running.

Curry loomed out of the darkness, his two bodyguards with him, and flashed his light over the fallen monsters.

"So you let three get through?" he said. He glanced to the north guard line where the searchlights of the guards showed only the dark, lifeless edge of the forest. "But no one was harmed and there's no indication that they are going to attack again."

He regarded Thane with cold thoughtfulness. "Apparently the camp is in no danger, after all."

To Thane the implication of his words was obvious: if the monsters were not a menace his cooperation was no longer needed by Curry. The three guards were Curry men and Curry had two with him. He was outnumbered six to one....

It was one of the three guards; Bellam, the ship's pharmacist. He hurried up to Curry, the other two close behind him.

Curry swung on him, impatiently. "What is it?"

"We must combine our forces to fight a new danger. This camp is infected with rabies."

"Yes, sir," Bellam answered. "The Outlander's dog had a convulsion beyond the guard line and then almost attacked the three of us. That dog is mad."

"How do you know it was a convulsion?" Thane asked.

"You saw it, yourself," Bellam answered.

He turned his head to face Thane as he spoke and Thane saw his eyes for the first time.

They were the lifeless, staring eyes of a dead man.

He flicked his light over the faces of the other two guards. They were the same; all three were like walking dead.

"Did the monsters harm you?" he asked Bellam.

Bellam hesitated, seeming to tense with suspicion. "No." The dead eyes stared into his. "What makes you ask?"

He saw that Curry had noticed nothing different about the three guards. It was typical of Curry; to him subordinates were only automatons to carry out his orders.

"We were discussing a mad dog, Thane," Curry said. "Not the health of my men." He spoke to Bellam. "As I recall, rabies was a pre-Technogration plague, often fatal."

"The bite of a rabid animal is invariably fatal, the death prolonged and painful," Bellam said. "There is no preventative or cure among the medical supplies on the ship. The dog must be killed at once, together with all other animals in the Outlander camp."

"If the dog was mad, why hasn't it bitten any of the Outlanders," Thane asked Curry. "I suggest we keep it on a leash until we know for sure."

"The dog was smuggled aboard the ship in defiance of regulations," Curry said. "It would have been destroyed before had I known about it."

He turned to Bellam, ignoring Thane. "The three of you will search the Outlander camp from end to end. Kill all animals and report to me the names of the owners."

The three departed, to begin the search at the nearer end of the camp. Thane made no further objection. He knew the Outlanders well enough to know that they would have overheard the discussion on the hill and slipped the dog out through the guard lines before that discussion ended. Outlanders could be very clever in such matters--the searchers would find no dog.

There was satisfaction on Curry's face as he turned and with his two bodyguards started back up the hill to his camp. Thane watched him go, smiling a little. Curry was making the mistake that had been fatal for so many before him; he was taking it for granted too soon that he had won.

A man came hurrying from the north guard line before Curry had gone far. He called to Curry:

"Sir, there is something you ought to know--"

Thane saw, with almost disbelief, that it was one of his own men: Gorman.

Curry waited and when Gorman reached him he said: