Mission Pack 1: Missions 1-4 (Black Ocean Mission Pack)

by J. S. Morin

  “What about the old fella?” Mort asked. It was odd calling Auzuma old, since he was about the age of Mort’s children, but from an azrin perspective, he qualified.

  “Auzuma’s nose isn’t young,” Seerii replied. “You are old among your people. Have you not noticed the loss of scent since your youth?”

  Mort chuckled. “I’m not that old and blast me if I’d notice the difference. If I can tell the difference between bacon, beer, and the perfume at a woman’s neck, I’m all set in the scent department.”

  “Well, Mriy’s pack is scent-blind,” Seerii said. “They’ll be guessing as much as anything. Mriy will be lucky to track Hrykii’s pack, let alone the prey. And outnumbered five to two, even Mriy can’t fight those odds.”

  Mort gave Seerii a shrewd squint. “You got one of those datapads that gets the omni on it? Look up a critter called canis ultra poltidae. I can spell it if you need; that’s an old Earth dialect. I’ll wait. Then you can give me a better answer about how close this contest will be.”

  # # #

  By evening, Mriy was ready to strangle Auzuma and leave him in the snow until the thaw. While Esper was managing not to fall behind, the chaplain’s feet dragged slower by the hour. Hunting was a point of honor; Seerii hunted well beyond her years, but for her health and as a point of pride. A challenge was no place for the old. Desperate though she was, Mriy would have fared better with four or even three, than be weighed down with pack mates like these.

  She waved to Tanny, summoning the human warrior to her side. At least Tanny would be fine for the whole of the hunt. Mriy had never seen her tire, not while she was flush with the effects of her chemicals. Though it might have been a stretch of the rules, Tanny had brought her daily doses along as part of her rations. She was the one Mriy would have to count on most until the end of the hunt.

  “How is Esper?” Mriy asked as Tanny drew near, careful not to let Esper overhear.

  “Tired, but holding up,” Tanny replied. Mriy could hear the short breaths she took, but it was the only visible sign of Tanny’s fatigue. “I’m worried about Auzuma though. I think he’d die on his feet, just to prove he won’t quit.”

  Mriy nodded solemnly. “He might, at that.” The last thing they needed was to lose more ground on Hyrkii, but she couldn’t kill Auzuma either. “Break!” she shouted.

  Esper slumped into the snow and looked up into the feeble sun, which gave light but little warmth. Auzuma trudged several more paces and settled in beside her. Kubu, who had disappeared more and more often as they traveled, bounded out of the forest moments later.

  The five of them settled in and took a meal. Esper and Auzuma spoke of God and churches and duty. It was good to keep the two preachers facing one another, to cancel out all the noise they made. Better than them bothering her with it. Kubu had eaten something with feathers and spent the mealtime working one loose from his teeth.

  “You’re showing frustration,” Auzuma said. They were the first words he’d spoken in her direction all day.

  “We lose more ground every hour,” Mriy replied.

  Auzuma pointed to a mountain in their path—simple enough as mountains loomed all around. “Which one is Hyrkii’s pack on now? That one? The one beyond? And which mountain hides our elk? Do you know? Does Hrykii? The hunt isn’t about speed; it’s about guile. Think like the elk, and be where it will be.”

  “Do you know where it is?” Esper asked between bites of a Snakki-Bar.

  Auzuma chuckled. “I’m no elk.”

  “Then how do we—”

  “This is pointless,” Mriy snapped. “We finish eating, then get back to catching up with Hrykii. His pack will find the elk first, and we need to be there to intercept them.”

  Auzuma shook his head. “You sound like the fisherman who lost his spear.”

  Mriy huffed and swallowed back her temper. “I don’t know that one,” she grumbled. She knew from Auzuma’s tone that she was going to hear the story or be questioned on it. Denying her ignorance would only make her look foolish.

  “A young fisherman missed his thrust and hit a rock. His spear broke, and he could not find the tip. He pulled his boat onto shore and found the nearest village. But no one in the village would sell him a spear—they had no spears to sell. He asked if they could make him one, but the price they asked was more than he could afford. When he despaired of finding a replacement before the day was lost, an old man took pity on him. I was collecting these to line a garden, but you have more need than I. He handed the young fisherman a loose-weave bag filled with rocks. Each rock was white and smooth and big enough to fill the palm of the hand. The young fisherman thanked the old man and took the bag because he was too polite to refuse a gift. None of the rocks would make a spear tip. The bag and all the rocks inside were not worth the cost of one in trade.

  “So the fisherman went back to his boat, and set off downstream toward his home. But on the way, he found a spot where fish danced at the surface, enough for three meals for his family. He anchored his boat and tried to catch them with his claws, but the fish fled when his shadow cast across the water. He tried the broken shaft of his spear, but the end was not sharp enough to skewer a fish. Then he thought of the old man’s gift and tried the rocks. The bag had a woven loop for a handle, and it tied shut at the top. The fisherman tried swinging it like a club, but only splashed water over himself and into his boat. He took rocks one at a time and threw them at the fish, thinking that if he stunned one, he could pluck it from the water before it recovered. Emptying the whole bag, he hit just two fish, and both recovered before he could snatch them from the water.

  “That was when he noticed that the bag was loose weave and empty, and it had a long woven handle. He dangled the bag in the water, and netted fish after fish. The old man had given him just what he needed, but the fisherman had not noticed.”

  “Fish come from the water?” Kubu asked. He had sat in rapt attention during the story.

  “Live ones, yes,” Tanny said. “The dead ones Roddy likes on his pizza come from a can.”

  “Are we the net?” Esper asked.

  Auzuma smiled. “We are either the net, or the rocks.”

  “That doesn’t help us,” Mriy replied.

  “You’re using us like a spear, when we’re not a spear,” Auzuma said. “Knowing that must help somehow. It was exactly what a pack leader needed to hear. We are not faster than Hyrkii’s hunters, nor are we stronger in a fight.”

  “I’m not sure of that,” Mriy muttered. She was regretting bringing Auzuma along more each second. Being useless was bad enough, but to lecture her as well…

  “What do we do better than him? Than his pack?” Auzuma asked.

  “God’s grace?” Esper guessed.

  “Possibly,” Auzuma allowed. “But I don’t expect Him to intervene.”

  “Better tactics,” Tanny said.

  “You’ve hunted before, then?” Auzuma asked. “You are an expert?”

  “Bet your ass I am,” Tanny replied. “Not elk, either. I’ve been up against the Sishaji, the Plouph, and even a few Zheen. Enemies that think back at you.”

  “We have Kubu’s nose,” Esper said, straightening in her snowy seat. “We must be able to out-sniff them.”

  “The black beast knows how to hunt,” Auzuma said. “It’s in his blood. You can see it plainly.”

  “You’re saying we should let Kubu lead?” Tanny asked.

  “No,” Mriy replied. She stood and looked out into the mountains, in the direction she had been expecting to find the elk. “Kubu, can you smell the elk? The one with the paint on it by the ship. The one Mort told you not to hunt yet.”

  Kubu nodded. “Yes. Kubu smelled it since last night. We go the right way, so Kubu thought you smelled it too.”

  “Well, there’s that,” Tanny said. “Least we’re on the right track. How about we get back on it.” She climbed to her feet and brushed the snow from her pants.

  A slow grin caught Mriy by surprise.
It was the first time since the outset where she realized a path to victory in the challenge. “No. The four of us rest. Kubu, I want you to run ahead and find the elk. Find it, and come back with it.”

  “Come back with it?” Tanny scoffed. “It’s twice his size.”

  “Look at him,” Mriy said, pointing to the alien canine. “He bursts with energy. There’s more muscle on him than you or me. Kubu, try to bring it back, and if you can’t, come back and lead us to it. Understand?”

  Kubu nodded. “Yes. Kubu can’t eat it, right?”

  “Maybe after we give it to my mother,” Mriy replied. “Now this part is important. If you run into azrin—people like Auzuma and me—run away. Don’t let them catch you or hurt you. If you can prevent it, don’t even let them see you. Just come right back to us; leave the elk if you have to.”

  “Kubu can,” Kubu replied. “When can I go?” He bounced from front legs to back, tail wagging.

  “Now,” Mriy said.

  Kubu shot off like a blaster bolt into the forest.

  # # #

  Kubu scooped up a mouthful of snow in full stride. Snow was the best stuff ever. It kept him cool no matter how much he ran, and it melted in his mouth so he didn’t have to stop to drink. Everywhere around this place was cold, and there were yummy little animals whenever he got hungry. It was like being inside a giant refrigerator, except without the beer cans.

  Kubu wished Mriy had said earlier that she didn’t know where the elk was. Kubu could have told her that. The elk didn’t just smell like animal; it had paint on it that smelled so different that Kubu couldn’t help but notice it. There were a lot of animals around, hiding in the snow, in the trees, under the ground; but only one had the paint smell.

  It was going to take a long time to get to the elk. Mriy had been going in the mostly right direction, but not the best direction. Kubu had to go around a mountain, after several failed attempts to find a way over it. There was a break for eating a bunny and another for eating a funny little animal with sharp, pointy fur that was sleeping under the snow. The sharp, pointy fur had taken a lot of chewing, and Kubu had spit some of it out for being too much work for not enough taste. But now he was moving again, and slowly closing in on the elk.

  Kubu was being such a good boy. He was going to be everyone’s hero when he found the elk for them. Mriy was worried that Esper and the new kitty-person were too slow, and that they’d have to go back. But now Kubu was fast, and they all could just wait for him to get the elk. Everyone was going to be very happy because of him.

  There was a scent of smoke in the air. Smoke meant cooked food. Kubu had liked finding food all over the forest and the low parts of the mountains. Fresh animals were juicier, and some had surprise foods inside them. But cooking was nice, too, and the smoke tickled Kubu’s nose and tugged at his attention. It wasn’t as if he was going to forget about the elk; there was just a smoke smell to follow first.

  As it turned out, there was more than just smoke; there were kitty-people, too. They looked like Mriy mostly. They walked on two feet, had pointy-up ears, little pink noses, and big eyes with pupils like slits. Kubu saw them before any of them looked like they noticed him. They had a pointy little house, and the smoke was coming out the top.

  “Hey! We got a stray wandered in,” one of the kitty-people yelled. Kubu had been wrong; at least one of them had seen him.

  “Hello!” he shouted back. “It’s just Kubu! You aren’t the kitty-people hunting the elk Kubu is hunting. Sorry. Kubu goes now.”

  “Shut that damned thing up,” a different kitty-person said. “Probably belongs to the humans. They keep those as pets and use them for hunting.”

  “Kubu isn’t a pet,” Kubu replied. “I stay with Mommy because she loves me, but I am hunting with her and Esper. I’m hunting with Mriy, too, but she isn’t a human.”

  “Noisy creature,” the first kitty-person said. He sounded mad.

  Kubu realized something. They didn’t have Mort, so they didn’t have Mort’s through-the-ear magic that let them understand Kubu. Esper had one. Mommy had one. Everyone on the ship had them—even Kubu. Kubu had gotten used to the idea that people could understand him, but these kitty-people couldn’t.

  One of the kitty-people had a gun. Mommy had guns, and he wasn’t supposed to touch them because they were dangerous. Now the kitty-person was aiming a gun at Kubu; it was time to do lots of running.

  “Get after him,” one of the kitty-people shouted. “If that thing gets back to his human masters, we’re dead. Break camp and be ready to ride.”

  Kubu didn’t know what a lot of that meant, but he gathered that they were very interested in getting him. He only hoped that they were as slow as Mriy.

  # # #

  The Mobius touched down on a strip of beach, the internal gravity not even allowing a gentle thump to jostle the lone occupant. Roddy found the remote trigger for the cargo bay door and hit it, then reclined in the pilot’s seat with his fingers laced behind his head. So much for his vacation. So much for peace, quiet, and solitude. The comm had come less than an hour ago; that was about as long as Roddy had been willing to let Carl stew before picking him up.

  There was a rumble of pumps and hydraulics as the cargo bay ramp lowered. No one else seemed to be able to do it, but Roddy knew the ship’s systems well enough that he could tell by feel or by sound when subsystems kicked on. The sound stopped, then a moment later, started again—raising the ramp.

  Roddy waited.

  Booted footsteps approached, slower than Carl’s usual pace. “Get us out of here,” Carl said in a dead-tired voice.

  Roddy fired up the engines and lifted off, operating the controls with his feet. His fingers were still laced behind his head when he twisted around to face Carl. “Kicked out or quit?”

  “Kicked out.”

  Something seemed out of place. Carl wore his usual battered leather jacket and had his stupid magic sword sheathed at his hip. But he was wearing a hat with earflaps and a pair of dark glasses. “What’s with the getup? They blacken those eyes of yours, or were you training to fight in the dark.”

  “I’m in no mood right now to—”

  “Holy shit,” Roddy said, sitting up straight. “Are your eyebrows blue?”

  Carl sighed and took off the glasses. His eyebrows were indeed a rather atmospheric shade of blue.

  Roddy couldn’t help himself; he doubled over laughing. Carl just stood there, waiting for the fit to pass. His blank, weary face made it all the more amusing. “Let me guess,” Roddy said, gasping as he recovered his breath. “This is part of the sword master’s teachings?”

  “No,” Carl said. He pulled off the hat to reveal hair that was a matching shade of blue. “I pissed him off, and he put some fucking mystic curse on me.”

  Roddy hardly heard the explanation, because his laughing fit redoubled. Carl looked like a cartoon character, or one of those teenyboppers who goes to pop concerts—Esper had probably dyed her hair that way when she was a kid, he guessed. And that’s what Carl looked like, some teenage girl who wanted to stand out, except he still had the face of a rough-cut spacer.

  “It doesn’t wash out, either,” Carl said when Roddy had calmed down. “I’m gonna have to ask Mort to fix it.”

  Roddy squinted, angling his head to catch Carl in the natural light from outside. “Is that… it is! He got the hair on your peach-fuzz face, too. It’s like you’re growing blue lichen.”

  “Oh yeah,” Carl said with a sigh. “All my hair turned blue. The blue-fur curse, he called it. Threatened me with it when I called bullshit on some of the stuff he was teaching. Straight out of the holovids, the lot of it. If I wanted to learn dispy-do sword fighting like they do in the vids, I could download a manual from the omni. Anyway, I said I didn’t have fur, so he could take his curse and suck on it. In retrospect, not a good call on my part.”

  “So the guy’s a legit wizard?” Roddy asked.

  “More wizard than swordsman, if you ask me,”
Carl replied. He scratched at his emerging blue stubble. “Still, once Mort gets back, I can’t see him having any trouble fixing me up.”

  “So, what’s next on the vacation tour?” Roddy asked. Hopefully, Carl would want to move on to a more relaxing pastime and leave the Mobius to him again.

  “You kidding?” Carl asked. “No way in hell I’m going anywhere like this. Until we get Mort back to fix me up, I’m parking right here. Could use a bit of a blow off though; thinkin’ maybe a little guitar might ease my troubled mind.”

  So much for that. “Yeah, sure,” Roddy said. The ship’s orbital path was already locked into the autopilot—that was about as much as he trusted the worthless computer to manage on its own. He slipped out of the pilot’s chair and left the controls unattended. There would be no music to play, no peaceful view. If he was going to have any time to himself, it would be fiddling with the engines. “I tuned it. Lemme just grab it for you.”

  # # #

  Somewhere along the way, Kubu had mostly forgotten about why he was running. It was important to get back, and he was in a big hurry, but the running was fun. Following his own scent back to Mommy was so easy that he didn’t have to slow down to check which way to go. The wind in his face cooled him just as the running heated him from inside. An occasional mouthful of snow evened things out when the warming started to win out.

  It was dark. The sky had lots of little lights, and the ground was all bright white, so Kubu could see. But it was time to get sleepy. The flying house didn’t have good day and night like outside did. It was nice to have day and night, and night was for sleeping. Once Kubu was done running, he was going to have a nice, big sleep. Hopefully Mommy wouldn’t mind sharing her food. Kubu was hungry.

  Kubu couldn’t remember the last time he had run so much. It was a long way back to Mommy, he realized. It had taken him a lot of time to find the little house with the kitty-people—oh, that was why Kubu was running!—but he hadn’t realized how far it was all in one run.

  Two growling buzzes approached from somewhere behind Kubu. He had never heard anything quite like them before. They sounded like big bugs, the kind that fly and sting, but much louder. Kubu hadn’t seen any bugs. Mommy had said that bugs don’t like the cold, which was another reason that the big outdoor refrigerator was the best place ever. Kubu had never liked bugs, especially the ones that flew and stung. They were hard to catch, stung the inside of his mouth, didn’t taste good, and didn’t fill the tummy much. There was just nothing good about bugs. With two bugs—probably very big ones—coming from behind, Kubu ran even faster.