GRM Reaper Productions, Uninc.
			 in association with
		      British-AnimeTech Limited
			       presents
				   
		      A PsychoMental Production
			  A Virtual Non-Film
				   
			 Benjamin D. Hutchins
				   
			      Vengeance
				   
	Publishing by Eyrie Publishing Co., NotEvenCloseToInc.
				   
	       Copyright (c) 1993 Benjamin D. Hutchins
				   
    JOURGENSEN'S WORLD, NIVEN SECTOR, UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS
		  A PRIVATE COMPOUND NEAR ALAINSTADT
		       13 AUGUST 2340  23:59:00

	The compound looked, at first glance, like any other compound
such as might be owned by a somewhat rich idler.  It was several dozen
acres, mostly of forest, although there was a large field to the rear
of the main building, which one would assume to be the house.  The
whole thing was surrounded by a high metal-mesh fence.  In all, it
appeared to be very simple.
	The appearance was deceiving.  The fence was marked in many
obvious locations:
				   
			       DANGER!
		    NEURAL DISRUPTION FENCE CHARGE
		   POSSIBLY LETHAL--DO NOT TOUCH!!
			    NO TRESPASSING

	The field and forests were full of hidden infrared and motion
sensors; in addition, the field was covered by several cameras hidden
in the surrounding forests and on the fences, and the forest was full
of them.  Armed guards stood watch at any point in the fence were
there was a direction change.  In addition, there were guard posts at
the main and secondary gates, all entrances to the buildings, and the
points in the perimeter roads where they entered and left the forest.
The building was mostly an office building, although it did contain
the living quarters of one important man and some security personnel,
and the two long outbuildings beyond it were state-of-the-art genetic
engineering labs.
	The forest itself was full of special creatures, recently
"acquired" by the compound's owner to protect his interests and
himself: bioengineered neosaurs from the defunct Wedge Defense Force's
Life Sciences Division.  Specifically, fourteen specimens of
Dilophosaurus nex, which had been stolen several months earlier from a
Salusian military outpost near the Niven/Vega Sector border zone by
unidentified troops.  The field had its own dangers; surrounding it
were eight small bunkers, each containing a Velociraptor rapensis.
Not, perhaps, as out-and-out dangerous as D. nex, since they lacked
the dilophosaur's ability to spit a persistent contact neurotoxin, the
velociraptors were more fearsome in sheer open combat, due to their
incredible speed and horrifyingly powerful claws.
	Just outside the fence, at the far end of the field, a man
crouched in the bushes, scanning the field and the building beyond
with a pair of image-intensifying binoculars.  He had studied the
layout of this place in detail before coming, but there was no
substitute for personal reconnaissance.
	He keyed his earset mike and said softly, "Okay.  The raptors
are in their pits.  Motion sensors are on; IR sensors are on.  Might
as well get started.  Synch chrons."
	"0000," came back a voice.  "Standing by."
	"Ditto."
	"Same."
	"Okay.  Do it."  Gryphon punched in the stopwatch stem of his
stainless Rolex Immortal.
	Forty meters northeast, near the last of the charges, a
velociraptor crouched in similar bushes, thermographic goggles over
his eyes.  He grinned a reptilian grin and held a small device with an
antenna in his hand, which had a thumb.
	"Here come the fireworks," Curly announced.  "Nyuk nyuk nyuk."
His clawed thumb punched the big green button.
	With a dull WHOMP and a lot of smoke, a thirty-five-meter
section of the fence disintegrated.  Instantly, the eight raptors
sprinted from their pits, scanning for intruders.
	"Now.  Tranq 'em.  Remember, don't hurt them."  Gryphon was
already up, pulling a Posiject(tm) heavy utility dart pistol from the
utility bag at his waist and running across the blackened section of
missing fence.  Far away in the warm night air, he could hear alarms
hooting at the house.  One of the raptors spotted him; he raised the
pistol and fired.  With a soft whup, the dart smacked into the
raptor's hide and delivered a heavy dose of Tyler-7 animal
tranquilizer.  The raptor wobbled and fell.  Gryphon had worked with
these animals for years; he knew what it took to put them out.
Backing defensively, he rapid-fired, taking out two more.  Now all of
them had noticed him, and one of them was closing on his left flank
faster than he thought he could--
	Another Velociraptor sapiens, this one a bit taller and of a
slightly darker coloration than Curly, plowed into the raptor from the
side, taking them both down in a tangle of snarling flesh.  There was
a whup, and the one wearing the webbing combat harness got to his
feet, whirling with dizzying speed and taking out another.  The three
remaining raptors sensed something was up and fell back to regroup.
Just then, a third V. sapiens, the tallest and lightest of the three,
appeared, making an astounding 8-meter leap over the still-standing
east fence and knocking down one of the three remaining raptors as he
came down to land steadily on his feet.
	"Sheeze, Larry," said the darker Raptor, "can you ever jump."
He knocked down one on the two remaining raptors as Gryphon took out
the last.  Curly joined them, checked in, and then sprinted ahead to
work on the house.
	Finding three Velociraptor mercenaries willing to take on this
job had been a stroke of luck.  Since the sentient Raptor differed
from the non-sentient V. rapensis by only a few physiological
differences--chiefly, opposable thumbs and the power of speech--image
recognizers and motion detectors set for V. rapensis would read them
as such.  With any luck, Curly would make it to the house before
anyone even realized he wasn't one of the field raptors.
	"All right," Gryphon said to Larry and Moe.  "Let's get to the
house...but for Christ's sake watch out for the dilos."
	"No sweat," Moe said.  "They're slow.  Besides, I don't think
they'll spit at us."

	As it happened, Moe was right.  The dilophosaurs, although not
sentient, recognized the Raptors as fellow neosaurs, and declined to
attack them.  They also recognized Gryphon.  Having been the Jurassic
Project's director, it was quite likely that he had been present at
their hatchings, after all.  They just stood at the forest's edge and
twittered among themselves as Gryphon, Larry and Moe worked their way
up the edge toward the house.
	"Curly," came Curly's voice in their earsets.  "Everything's
ready here."
	"Ok," Gryphon replied.  "Wait there.  We're about five minutes
out."
	"Roger."
	"You might have to rework that time estimate a little," said a
voice from ahead of them, and six people wearing Foreman Biotech
Security coveralls emerged from the forest, their weapons leveled.
"Mr. Foreman's going to want to talk to you."
	"Oh, absolutely.  And I want to talk to Mr. Foreman," Gryphon
replied.  "Oh, dear.  I don't seem to have an appointment...oh well."
He whipped the Thompson M2127A off his shoulder and opened up with it,
ripping the laser pulses across the chests of three of the guards and
sending them pitching into the undergrowth.
	"Fire!  Fire!" the security sergeant shouted, firing a
three-round burst from his own H&K LPM40 subpulser, then correcting to
put the laser target dot on Gryphon's chest.  "Fi--AAAAAIIIGGGG--*" He
clawed at his face as something black and gelatinous splattered it,
then pitched backward, convulsed once, and lay very still, dead in a
matter of three or four seconds.  Slightly behind Larry, one of the
dilophosaurs hooted triumphantly.
	"I'll be damned," Moe observed, ripping a swath across the
left flank of the security force.  "The little bastards are on our
side."
	"Bastard--" one of the two remaining security officers managed
to grate before Larry perforated him.  As he fell he slapped a control
on his belt.  There was an electric sizzle and the dilo who had killed
the sergeant shrieked and fell, dead.  Enraged, four others
simultaneously pelted the one remaining officer in the face.  Not a
pretty way to die.
	"Fuckers," Larry observed as he bent over the dead
dilophosaur.  "Shock collar.  Hey--!"  He turned the small
creature--they were only about four feet tall--over.  "This poor
little bastard's been surgically sterilized."
	"Shit," Moe remarked.  "That really pisses me off.  Let's get
in there and cut that bastard's balls off!"
	"Right.  Let's go."  Gryphon turned and looked at the fallen
dilo, whose brothers were clustered around it, hooting mournfully.
"Sorry, little friend.  Thanks for the save."
	A few minutes later, Gryphon looked up at the side of the
building, touched his mike, and said, "Curly.  We're at the side of
the house.  Blow the roof."

	Mr. Foreman looked up, startled and more than a little
shocked, as an explosion roared somewhere above him.  He was even more
startled a few seconds later, when the ceiling panel about three
meters directly in front of his desk burst downward and crashed to the
floor with a man standing on it.  He had been a little concerned
hearing about all the perimeter alerts, but he had felt secure here,
in his office, surrounded by concrete, steel, and his security
systems.  How had this man made it past his new, er, security
personnel?
	The man standing on the fallen ceiling tile was around
five-eight, and dressed completely in grey, except for his black mosh
boots.  Grey, baggy trousers and button shirt made of some heavy,
denim-like material; grey topcoat, of a retro style Foreman thought
was called a "duster"; a grey bushman's hat with the left side of the
brim buttoned against the crown.  He had a pair of swords on his back,
a knife strapped to the outside of each boot, a pistol at his left hip
and another in a shoulder rig, and a Thompson M2127A on a shoulder
sling, the grip firmly in his left hand, buttstock wedged against his
left thigh.  His bearded face was set in a look of determination, and
tightly controlled anger flashed in the ice-blue eyes behind the
octagonal wire-frame glasses.
	"Mr. Foreman, I presume."
	"And you must be...?" Foreman replied, keeping his cool.  His
desk was ray-shielded; the man couldn't hurt him unless he came over
the desk and physically attacked him, and there wasn't a lot of chance
of success with the ionization field.
	"I've had a lot of names," the man in grey replied, "but the
one I've always like best is 'Gryphon'."
	"Indeed.  You followed the exploits of the erstwhile Wedge
Defense Force, then?"
	The man in grey smiled a tight, grim smile.  "Very closely,"
he replied.
	"What can I do for you, 'Gryphon'?" said Foreman with an
ingratiating smile.  "You could have simply made an appointment to see
me.  I do hope you haven't damaged my security personnel?"
	"Oh, you mean the illegally obtained neosaurs?  Oh, no.  I was
instrumental in the creation of those creatures; I would be very loath
to destroy them because of slime like you."
	Foreman began to grasp the significance of this man's words
and the deadly seriousness with which he spoke them.  "You mean
you...?"
	Gryphon smiled that same grim smile again.  "And I'm not very
happy with you, Mr. Foreman.  Not very happy at all."
	"You'll pardon me if I don't seem very impressed," Foreman
replied.  "Ancient you may be, but I have all the cards here.  I have
ray-shielding, an ionization field, multiple security systems.  I
could kill you with the push of a button, if you didn't intrigue me.
I have a security force of the deadliest beasts in the
universe--velociraptor rapensis, I'm sure you're familiar--on call
to--"
	"Let's talk about the velociraptors," said Gryphon, and the
ceiling behind him exploded.  Three reddish-orange, scaly, bipedal
creatures crashed down and landed behind him in a delta formation, one
directly behind him and one off to either side.  They were raptors,
all right, and they looked pissed off about something.  They lashed
their powerful tails, snarled at Foreman, and clicked their six-inch
combat spurs against the tiled floor in irritation.  Gryphon held up a
hand; they backed up a bit and quietened a little.  Foreman noticed
with some interest that the raptors were wearing web-belt equipment
harnesses with a variety of equipment, and one of them had
thermographic imaging goggles pushed back on its long, sloped
forehead, exposing its slitted reptilian eyes.
	Then, one of them spoke.
	"You've got a lot of our pals here, chum," the one on
Gryphon's left said in a voice absolutely devoid of the stereotypical
speaking-reptile lisp and extended "s".  "Granted, they aren't as
bright as we are, but that's not their fault, now is it?  And we've
seen the way you've treated them...shock collars, surgical
sterilization.  How'd you like it if I sterilized you?"  The raptor
raised a three-fingered hand which, Foreman saw with a shock, also had
a thumb, and displayed his three-inch forelimb claws, which appeared
to have been sharpened.
	"Calm down, Moe," Gryphon said, holding up a hand.  "Chill.  I
want to talk to the man before you decorate the room with his guts."
	"Only for you, boss."
	"Look, if all you want are the neosaurs, have them!" Foreman
said, not relishing the idea of Gryphon letting the raptors at him.
"I'll even turn over my lab data on--"
	"It has very little to do with the neosaurs, actually.  That's
the Stooges' beef.  My reason for being here is entirely different.
It's about a little girl."
	"A little girl?" Foreman was now generally confused.
	"Yes.  A little girl who used to live in MegaTokyo.  You
remember MegaTokyo, don't you, Foreman?  The capital of New Japan?
You lived there, I believe, for a month or two, back in '34.  Did a
little work for the Big G, acquiring things."
	"Yes, I lived in MegaTokyo for a while--but what has that got
to do with a little--"
	"At 141-C West Nagumo Boulevard, there lived a little girl
named Alexis Richards.  She was a bright young thing, a scholar, one
of the only people under the age of sixteen I have ever been actually
pleased to spend time with.  She was a computer enthusiast.  One day,
she happened to be caught in a noisestorm--they happened often in '34
and '35, as the Net recovered from the Great Crash--and wound up
accidentally breaching your secured files area.  She discovered
information there about your acquisitions; the murders, cover-ups,
payoffs to local authorities, et cetera.  You discovered her, but she
was too fast for your deckers.
	"So you sent a solo team to her house, and they slaughtered
her family, killing everyone there.  Including Alexis Richards.  And
you probably thought that was the end of the story.  In fact, you
probably forgot about it.  You probably never even knew her name; just
got the address and sent your men to kill.
	"That wasn't the end, Mr. Foreman.  Alexis was a smart girl.
She made a copy of the data and sent it to me.  You aren't an easy man
to trace, Franklin Delano Foreman IV.  Or should I call you Technician
LaPlante?  Or will Charlie do?"  Foreman was trembling slightly now.
That cover identity had been impenetrable!  They had assured him that
no one would ever connect him to Charlie LaPlante again!  "Imagine my
surprise when I did some investigating and found out that you were the
famous Turing Turncoat.  Imagine my surprise when I found out that you
were once one of us."
	Gryphon took a deep breath and recited, "Your name is Charles
Foreman LaPlante.  You were born on Neo-Texas on August 29, 2230.  You
enlisted in the Wedge Defense Force on March 17, 2249, were certified
as a cyber-technician first class on June 9, 2250, and earned your
Omega for your work in the field of autonomic cybernetic intelligence
on December 14, 2255.  You turned coat to GENOM sometime in 2269,
deserted from the WDF on November 10, and you were instrumental in the
attempted GENOM takeover of the Internet Center, April 30, 2270.  We
thought EVE-1A had brainwiped you during the Cyberbattle of Turing
III.  Just imagine my surprise when I found out about GENOM recovering
you from wilderspace after your punchout routine went slightly awry,
and giving you a different identity."
	"Well.  You seem to know everything about me," Foreman said.
"Congratulations."
	"Not everything.  One of the bits of data I got from Alexis
Richards concerned a new AI matrix chip which you, apparently,
developed.  When last encountered, that crystal had passed out of your
possession, but you had made arrangements to recover it, using a cover
story about corporate interests you represent having developed the
crystal.  It then disappeared from the facilities of the corporation
which had acquired it from you, on Reznor, in the Enigma Sector...  I
want that crystal."
	"I don't have it," Foreman replied with a bit of obvious
relief.  "The stinking razorboy I hired to get it back for me waxed
the two agents I had working with him and took the crystal with him.
If I ever see that miserable bastard again I'll--"
	"What was his name?"
	"Who?"
	"The razorboy."
	"Valaquen.  Harland motherfraggin' Valaquen.  If I ever--"
	"Harland Valaquen."  Gryphon smiled a larger, genuine smile
and laughed.  "You crossed him, didn't you?  Ordered your agents to
kill him."  He laughed again.  "You stupid bastard.  You're as good as
dead right now, if Harland Valaquen is who I think he is."
	"You came here for the crystal?  For a moment there, I thought
you were here for something ridiculous like revenge.  Listen, I'll cut
you a deal: you stay here and protect me from this Valaquen character,
and I'll let you keep the crystal when you kill him.  Take the
neosaurs too, as a bonus.  What do you say?"
	"If I'm right about Harland Valaquen, I wouldn't have a chance
in hell of taking him out, even with Larry, Curly, and Moe here.  And
I wouldn't want to try."
	Foreman was starting to lose his cool.  "I can pay--"
	"Shut up," Gryphon said sharply.  "You bloodsucking bastard.
I loved Alex like she was my own daughter, and you had her snuffed out
like a candle because she threw a little light on your affairs.  Do
you really think I'd protect your life after that?  Don't you remember
me?  Don't you remember all of us, up there at the top?  We had souls,
Foreman.  Some of us still do."
	Foreman went completely white.  Recognition flooded his mind.
Lord, it had been so long...Harland Valaquen...oh my God!  A name came
unbidden to his lips, and he whispered it.
	Gryphon nodded.  "I'm taking the neosaurs.  Your bank accounts
are already mine.  You have nothing except this building.  Nothing
except your precious rayshielding, your ionization field, and whatever
you might chance to have in that desk and on your person to protect
yourself.  You might even think my killing you now, rather than
letting Harland Valaquen have you, would be a merciful thing."
	He turned away, made eye contact with Moe, and conveyed the
message.  "You're wrong," he said, and walked out of the office
without looking back.  Behind him, he could hear the clatter of claws,
the sizzle of an ionization field being ignored (raptors are not
stunned by electricity), and a hideous scream...
	Then the door slammed, and he was in the silence of the
corridor.  His veneer of icy calm broke, and he sank to his knees and
wept for Alex.  Through the soundproofing of the office door, he
couldn't hear any of the more visceral sounds he knew must be being
made, but the high shrieks of the raptors could occasionally be heard.
Momentarily, as Gryphon got back to his feet and collected himself,
the door opened a crack, and Larry, his teeth and claws tinged with
red, reported, "All clear, boss...a little messy, but all clear."
	"Did you follow my instructions?"
	"Of course."
	Gryphon went back into the office.  There was surprisingly
little blood; some spattered on the windows behind Foreman's desk,
some on the floor, a bit on the chair and the desk.  Most of
Cyber-technician First Class Charles Foreman LaPlante, DSC, W2, was
missing completely.  His shoes were in the corner of the room, and his
right hand remained atop his desk, half an inch or so from the button
that would have activated the razorfield around his desk.  The rest of
him was gone.
	"Okay.  Curly, find the genetics labs and blow them.  Larry,
Moe, see to the neosaurs; get them to the transport, make sure they're
situated."
	"Roger," Curly said, and exited.
	"On our way," Larry and Moe added, and went out through the
windows, their fighting spurs shearing through the toughened
klaster-plexi almost effortlessly.  Gryphon had seen a raptor once
shear the chestplate of a suit of CVR-3 completely in half, top to
bottom, with a good strong kick from one of those claws.  Quite an
impressive sight.
	Gryphon stood alone in the office for a moment.  Then he
opened Foreman's desk drawers one by one, searching.  He found some
cash, a couple of interesting weapons, some files on the neosaurs and
the cybercrystal project; nothing important, really.  Not that he had
been expecting anything very important.  Foreman had stored all of
that electronically, and Larry had plundered his databases down to
their bones mere hours earlier.  He just felt he had to make the
gesture.
	He reached into his jacket and dropped a card on the desk.
Then he smiled a little, looked at the hand, and, remembering what
Foreman's solos had done to Alex, picked the card up again and brought
it down hard, edge-first, on the back of the hand, neatly chopping off
all the fingers except the thumb.  Then he placed it carefully back
where it had been.  He glanced at his watch, ticked several items off
on his fingertips, and then left the office through the window.
	A few moments later, the far end of Foreman's compound
blossomed in a huge orange fireball against the night sky.  Gryphon
looked at it over his shoulder, then turned back and walked across the
field toward the transport and his own craft, a bit beyond the fence
line.  He could see Larry and Moe getting the last of the once-missing
neosaurs into the large warpshuttle; now all the products of the old
WDF Life Science Division's Jurassic Project were accounted for.
Within moments, Curly had joined them, having run in a very impressive
70-mph sprint from the burning end of the compound.  Gryphon arrived a
few moments later.
	"All set, boss," Curly reported.  "I set the charges to take
out the bio labs, but the fire will go out long before it reaches the
office.  Everything will be intact on the scene, just like you wanted
it to be."
	"Good.  You guys get out of here; I'm going to do one last
recce before I join you at high orbit for the trip home.  Okay?"
	"Roger," Moe replied.  "Let's go, boys."  The three raptors
climbed into the cockpit of their shuttle, and moments later, it
lifted away.  Gryphon climbed into the cockpit of his VF-1FS Hyper
Valkyrie, concealed in some random woodage, and waited.
	Half an hour later--right on schedule, according to his
calculations--what appeared to be a car landed in the field near
Foreman's office, and a man disembarked and, with very little subtlety
at all, went right on in, pausing only a moment to examine the ruined
windows with interest.
	Gryphon powered up and boosted out, kicking full burners and
making high orbit over Jourgensen's World in a little under twenty
seconds.  His job was done.

	Inside the building, the man Charles Foreman LaPlante had
known as Harland Valaquen was standing over the desk, looking down at
the blood and the hand.  He had already examined the windows; raptor
spurs had slashed them open, he was sure of that.  And a raptor's
forelimb talons had severed this hand.  The fingers...
	He spotted the card about then.  It was sitting in the middle
of the blotter, well clear of the blood, but one edge was slightly
incarnadine.  The side facing up bore a single, large and ornate
spade.  Valaquen's brow furrowed.  He had seen this kind of thing
before.  He picked the card up, minding the edges, and turned it over.
	The other side bore an exquisite flat-holograph depiction of a
mythical creature, half lion, half eagle, rampant and screaming, its
wings spread, beak open, and talons curled to strike.  Valaquen knew
the symbol well.  He looked down at the hand again.  Why the fingers
had been cut off he didn't know, but he picked one of them up.  He had
to know for certain.  He had obtained a skin sample from the chip
Foreman had given him explaining his mission, what felt like such a
long time ago.  The chip, like most things handled by people, had
contained on its surface a few dead skin cells.  Valaquen took a small
medical tool from his belt and pressed it momentarily to the
fingertip.  It beeped, and a green LED flashed at the end facing
Valaquen.
	With a small, tight smile of his own, Valaquen put the finger
back on the desk, pocketed the card, rifled the desk, and left the
room.  His job had been done for him.