by GARY DARBY
He keyed his communicator. “Control, this is Grolson. We’re set here. Please begin operational monitoring so the kiddies can go play.”
Seconds later came the reply. “This is Alistar Training Control, Novice Scout Team Thorne is on the board, and you may proceed.”
Grolson nodded to Dason. “Scouts Out.”
Dason turned to his teammates and with a slight stammer ordered, “Let’s go.” He led them into the preserve for about twenty meters and on their initial bearing before calling a halt.
“Okay, let’s get organized,” he declared. He glanced around at the group. They all stared at him, waiting for him to speak. He fidgeted for a second before saying, “Did everyone catch the mission criteria?”
“Yeah,” TJ replied, “and I can’t believe we got such an easy op. One target, two ten-minute recordings? Pretty easy stuff. You’d think we were back to basics.”
“Maybe we are,” Sami declared in a cutting tone, “as our last little foray wasn’t a rip-roaring success. Besides, with him in charge, they’d better make it easy or we’re sunk.”
Dason ignored Sami’s remarks, saying, “Grolson said that we’d have to do a free-search workup, but I’m wondering if we could get our time down by using an LS bio point for anything in the chiropteran animal family. Anyone have an idea of what that might be?”
No one answered until Nase observed, “I believe that Terran bats are in that order, so beta scale, high end, might work.”
“Great, thanks, Nase, I wasn’t too sure,” Dason replied.
“Gee, imagine that,” Sami retorted.
Dason grimaced and took a deep breath. Not five minutes into the exercise and Sami had thrown down the gantlet. He bit down on his lip. Better to have it out now than let this fester and infect the team.
He stood in front of the shorter but more muscular youth. “Look, Sami, this isn’t the time or place for this. I understand you have a beef with me. I get it. But we’ve got to work together, you and me, all of us as a team.
“When we get back to campus, I’ll meet you in the gym and you can take your hostility out on me all you want.
“Kickboxing, cage fight, ear pulls, wedgies, you name it, I’ll be there. But for now, enough with the constant digs. We need to work together as a team and get this done.”
He looked at each of them, trying to gauge their feelings about being together again. “I know in the past we’ve not done well as a team and I admit I’ve made more than my share of mistakes. But we’ve got to make this work.
“Grolson made it clear that we’re on the cusp for the no-notice, and this could be our prep workup before the call-out. And we don’t want to go into that on a down note.”
He waited a moment before saying, “Can’t we all just cooperate and graduate?”
Everyone stood with mouths slightly open, surprise evident in their expressions. Shanon eyed Dason while saying, “Wow, that’s the longest speech I’ve ever heard you make.”
“I bet he memorized it beforehand,” Sami scoffed. He gave Dason a sullen stare before shrugging, “But he’s right.”
Dason hitched at his vest to settle it firmly around his torso. “Now that that’s settled, Sami, you’re Path Finder, azimuth 070 degrees. Nase, you and TJ on the left, Shanon and I will be to the right. Normal intervals between bodies for now.
“Everyone’s LS set to the beta scale, high end, except mine, which I’ll have on free search. Let’s go.”
When Sami passed by Dason, he muttered, “Horse.”
“What?” Dason asked.
“Horse,” Sami replied. “I’ll meet you in the gym for a game of horse. Best two out of three. And by the time I’ve worked you over, it won’t be pretty.”
“Horse,” Dason stated.
“Yeah, that’s right, so be there,” Sami replied and jogged ahead of the group.
Dason raised his hands in a questioning gesture. He muttered to no one in particular, “Horses you ride, not play games with inside a gym.”
Shanon gave him a soft clap on the shoulder. “I’ll explain on the way. Right now, we’ve got a big alien bat to catch.”
Three hours later, Dason had the team spread out in a thin skirmish line in pursuit of their extraterrestrial target. Once, they had come close to the creature using the LS to zero in on its location.
Nase, being the closest to the signal source, had followed it into a thicket of bushes with slick banana-like leaves. He had keyed his communicator to report his status, but as he did, the XT sprinted out the backside.
In seconds, it had disappeared, leaving a frustrated Nase far behind, without even a glimpse of the star beast.
Now Shanon, acting as Path Finder, had a faint registration on her sensor. “Team,” she said in soft tones through her comms, “I’ve got something here, right at the edge of detection range. TL, I recommend the team goes to ground while I check this out.”
“Roger,” Dason replied. “Sami, Nase, TJ, hold in place.”
Almost two hundred meters away from Dason, Shanon cast a watchful eye on her display and walked with careful steps through the forest. When the signal strength appeared to peak, she stopped and scanned the area.
Unable to see the beast, but still receiving a strong signal, she keyed her communicator to report.
From her right came the cracking of branches.
A large furry creature burst from the bushes. It sped across the clearing and disappeared into a clump of rose-colored bushes.
Watching it disappear, Shanon estimated that it could run faster than a human. “Team leader, this is Path Finder.”
“Go ahead,” Dason replied.
“Got close to the XT before it bolted,” Shanon explained. “Didn’t see a lot, but it’s short, about Sami’s height—”
“Hey,” Sami responded, “for how short I am, I’m pretty tall, you know.”
“Go on, Shanon,” Dason ordered.
“Dark brown in color,” she continued. “Two large hind legs, short front legs, bulky fanlike ears, seems to run on all fours, and it can move a lot faster than any of us.”
She paused before saying, “But the good news is that I think we’ve got our LS setting nailed down.”
“Right,” Dason replied. “If it’s a runner, we need to pick up the pace. Azimuth, Shanon?”
“Umm, let’s make it two hundred ninety off the beacon.”
“Two ninety,” Dason repeated. “Let’s move.”
An hour or so later, with the sun past midafternoon, Dason paced on the team’s left flank. The team had lost the XT’s physical trail and were once again dependent on their sensors to locate the off-world animal.
Swinging his LS in a short arc, Dason stepped out into a small field that was hemmed on the far side by an extensive growth of broad-leafed undergrowth.
Their whitish stems stood out against the aquamarine of its square leaves. He moved several steps toward the meadow’s center. Nothing showed on his Life Sensor, but he felt . . .
Danger.
Once again, he had the feeling that a threat lurked close by. A faint rustling came from just beyond the wall of foliage. For an instant, he felt an electric shock tingle his entire body.
He was no longer the hunter; something was hunting him!
Chapter Eleven
Star Date 2433.056
The Planet Alistar
Yanking his knife out and with cautious, slow steps, Dason backed away in a low crouch, ready to spin and run. Whatever it was, stayed hidden, but Dason has the feeling that the thing was just waiting before pouncing.
Dason kept back-pedaling, not wanting to turn his face away from his nemesis.
Nothing charged at him from the jungle, and the rustling in the hedge like bushes stopped. That didn’t matter. He sucked in air through tight lips, knowing without any doubt that the peril he faced was real, and very close.
He continued to back away while turning from side to side to make sure he didn’t back himself into more trouble. What
he wouldn’t give for an L-gun in his hand about now; a low-level stun shot into the bushes would stop this threat before it began.
Should he handle this by himself, or call for help from his team?
If he called for aid, and they tackled either a native jungle prowler or an alien predator that the instructors had brought in for this exercise, it made for a risky situation with only knives for protection.
His own thoughts were interrupted by Tarracas’ s voice in his mind. You cannot hunt well unless you—have been hunted well!
Dason seized on the Scoutmaster’s words and a new thought came to him.
Yes, whatever stalked him just might be one of the Star Scout instructors and Dason wouldn’t be surprised if it were IS Grolson himself, teaching his young charges how to hunt by being hunted.
That would make the most sense, but what if it wasn’t? Was he willing to risk his life on that?
The answer was no, and he couldn’t risk his teammates’ lives, either.
Dason came to a decision and keyed his comms, “This is TL,” he whispered. “I have an unknown stalker. Breaking off to deal with it. Continue with the mission. Succession of command is in effect. Shanon has operational control.”
“Whoa!” Sami replied. “That’s a definite no-go. You can’t flop out now; you owe me that match—”
“Oh, enough Sami,” TJ snapped. “Dason, you got an ident on your playmate? We should link up and take this on together.”
“Stop the chatter,” Shanon ordered in a no-nonsense manner. “Listen to his voice, he hasn’t time for this. Dason, you’re sure you don’t want help?”
“In all honesty, no, I’m not sure,” Dason whispered, “but until I know what’s tailing me, I don’t want it latching on to any of you.”
Dason could almost picture Shanon shaking her head in disagreement while arguing, “I don’t think that’s a sound decision.”
She paused before ordering, “But if that’s what you want, let’s move. The order is given.”
Dason nodded in thanks that Shanon didn't buck him. At first glance, his decision seemed rash but he didn’t want one of his teammates to walk into whatever lurked in the jungle. He’d wait until he had no choice before he pulled the team off their Seek and Locate mission.
He eased back and slipped through some nearby wispy bushes. Several meters away, a delicate bundle of threadlike bushes swayed but in the opposite direction of a flowing mild breeze.
That was more than enough for Dason. It was time to go. Heart racing, he turned and shot through the forest to escape his unseen follower.
A half hour later, with him playing mouse and his pursuer playing cat in the dense jungle, Dason’s unseen antagonist still followed.
He’d tried to lock in on it with his Life Sensor, but whatever it was, it seemed to stay just out of detection range.
That made him start to think that it must be an instructor since they would know the small device’s limitations and knew of ways to block the sensor. But still, Dason wasn’t willing to risk everything on a hunch.
Once, he knelt by a calm pool of water to catch his breath only to spring away in haste when tiny ripples swept across the pool’s still surface.
Had it been his stalker, who, in a moment of carelessness stepped into the pool? He didn't know and didn’t wait around to find out.
Dason began to have serious second thoughts about his decision to go it alone. It might well be that he had made a grave mistake.
He’d tried every trick of field craft he knew, quick double backs, silent ground sneaks, even tree hops to lose his nemesis. Nothing worked.
Since he carried only his long-knife and a shorter field knife, Dason wasn’t willing to stand and let the unknown predator come to him.
When the novices began their second semester, the instructor scouts had started issuing energy weapons along with the necessary training on how to use and care for the standard-issue L-gun armament.
But even then, like now, there had been the occasional mission without an L-gun strapped to the hip. Dason recalled the Scoutmaster’s reply to an unwitting novice who challenged the sometimes no-weapon policy.
He had fixed his piercing eyes on the youngster and explained, “We do train you in how to use firearms. At the proper time. Anyone can learn to aim and shoot; that is only a matter of eye and hand coordination. Better though, to train you to master the art of when to shoot and when not to.
“Why? Because, you are an almost defenseless bipedal humanoid Out There. You must learn to rely on your senses, instincts, and the weapon under your scalp for survival instead of a piece of metal sitting in your holster.
“If you cannot or will not master that, then—”
He’d left the unspoken thought for the novice to finish. You’re dead or washed out of the program due to severe injury or for an unfit rating.
Tarracas had held them all with his penetrating gaze before going on. “Learn to use the mind in order to live, and live that you might learn how to use the mind.”
Bringing his attention back to the here and now, Dason knew that so far he had been very lucky, for whatever or whoever stalked him had shown an amazing ability for moving undetected and unheard in the jungle thickets.
And he had to admit, better at it than he.
With the sweat running in little rivulets down his tanned neck, he knelt under a sweeping arc of vine like reeds that spread over a nearby stream-fed pool. He took a quick drink through his mouth tube and cupped water from the stream onto his hot face.
It was tempting to drink from the cool brook and not from the body-temperature liquid in his vest pac. The clear, fresh water invited him to take a mouthful, but Dason had to assume it contained harmful parasites. Though he’d had the usual series-33 inoculations, this was not the time to take a chance.
Dason hadn’t forgotten Tania Weems’ perforated intestines due to an amoeba that was apparently immune to the S-33 bio meds.
He pushed back into the golden green foliage and used the interlaced branches to shield himself from view. Again, he puzzled over the identification of his opponent. He still didn’t know if he confronted a natural denizen of Alistar’s jungle out shopping for its lunch, an extraterrestrial animal from another planet, or a human.
His eyes came to rest on the nearby shallow pool, and he decided to try one more evasive scheme. Breaking a water reed into an arm’s length and holding it in his mouth, he slid under the water and submerged himself among the tall reedy stalks.
Wrapping his legs around a sunken water-logged tree trunk, Dason anchored himself to the pebbled bottom. For fifteen minutes, he lay under the smooth surface, breathing through the long water reed’s open canal.
Emerging from the water, he climbed a tall Wuda Tuft tree to watch and listen. Its crest of sturdy shelf like leaves offered a natural vantage point from which to observe the forest floor.
After several minutes, having spied no unusual movement, he slid back down to the leaf carpeted floor.
The jungle felt “normal” again, and his near-invisible hunter seemed to have lost interest. That suited him. He’d had enough of being the hunted for one day; he much preferred being the hunter.
“Team,” he stated through his comms, “this is TL.”
“Dason!” Shanon yelped. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Whatever it was got tired and gave up. Any luck on the XT?”
“None. Nase and TJ have had some tough slogging. We’ve been a little ragged in maintaining the line.”
Dason raised his eyebrows at her statement. Shanon loathed to admit to anything less than perfection while in command.
“Okay,” Dason answered. “Everyone, take a break. I’m going to hustle up to where I should be, and we’ll restart the drive when I’m in place.”
Minutes later, he pushed through a last stand of pink-edged plants that curled in on themselves when he passed. He wiped the sweat from his brow, and noticed to his left a narrow open area leading in
the general direction of his goal, the bank of a sluggish river that formed the search backstop.
The opening would save him the effort of pushing through or around the dense flora, and besides, it would be cooler and faster to walk along the open trace. The possibility of being cooler even for a few minutes made the decision for him.
He stepped out onto the path like opening. A breeze coming up the trail felt good on his sweating, tension-filled body. All thought of danger passed and his confidence soared.
With long strides, he pushed down the trail, determined to make up for lost time. He had gone almost halfway to the river when a group of Slinger primates erupted in a cacophony of shrieks and high-pitched howls in the maze of tree limbs overhead.
True to their name, they started slinging themselves from one tree to the next, all in different directions with no apparent reason for their disjointed actions.
Dason froze in place. The small mammals were agitated but from what? Him?
No, they had watched him for some time before they cut loose with their vocal yowls. Something else had sent them into a frenzy.
Turning in a tight radius, Dason focused on the thick underbrush. Even though the sun shone midafternoon bright, there were pockets of shadows in the lush growth that could conceal a hidden menace.
He thought of using his Life Sensor, but the primate’s frenzied gyrations would throw off the biofeedback in free search. He scanned the swaying grass and thick bushes, tried to pick out any anomaly in the jungle’s normal background.
Dason stopped and leaned forward; something different lay between two giant golden fronds. He took a step closer, peering at the spot. With a jolt, his head snapped back.
Eyes.
Two large dark eyes stared unblinkingly back into his. It only took him a second to realize what he confronted.
A Chameleon Coug!
Dason stood but meters away from the most ferocious carnivore on Alistar.
With a burst of speed that would do justice to a starship going into hyper drive, Dason spun from the great cat and sprinted toward the water.
Behind him, the predator gave out an ear-splitting roar and sprang from the bush in a giant leap to pursue her prey—Dason.
