Aliens Vs. Predator 1 - Prey

by Steve Perry

  "Ms. Noguchi," he said. His voice was loud.

  She held her head high and stared at him. He dropped his gaze, as did the other men. Only Ackland had the nerve to meet her eyes.

  "I thought we were in the middle of a roundup, gentlemen," she said, voice cool.

  Hiroki stepped in. "We were just discussing the agreement their association has already signed."

  Ackland tapped his pipe with the heel of one hand. "That was before we saw what the market was doing back on Earth. If we'd known the price of meat was going to jump like this, we'd have asked for more."

  "And if the bottom had fallen out of the market, would you have offered to take less?" said Hiroki.

  All eyes turned to Noguchi. She faced Ackland, obviously the man to negotiate with.

  "I'll talk to the company and see if I can swing a larger cut for your ranchers," she said. "We want to be fair."

  Ackland nodded and tugged at his dirty red beard. He opened his mouth to speak, but Noguchi cut him off.

  "But there won't be anything for anyone if your rhynth aren't ready for shipment when The Lector arrives." She noted his flash of annoyance with smug satisfaction. No matter what she changed, Ackland was never going to be a man she enjoyed working with. "I suggest you get back to your jobs."

  She smiled at the others as they followed Ackland across the yard.

  Hiroki raised his eyebrows at her after the ranchers had reached a safe distance.

  "Pleasant man, Ackland," he said blandly.

  "Perhaps someday we'll marry," she said, keeping a straight face.

  Hiroki grinned.

  "Let's saddle up," said Noguchi. She shaded her eyes against the suns and looked out at the open plain. "I'm ready to get some rhynth shit between my toes."

  "Words of wisdom," said Hiroki.

  Noguchi nodded and then walked with Hiroki toward the hover bikes. Already she felt as if she'd set wheels in motion; and once started, there would be no turning back.

  The young males stood in standard formation and watched Dachande expectantly. The kehrite stank of musk and the air was alive with tension. He had made them wait long enough; it was time.

  Dachande looked at the heaps of armor and weaponry that Skemte and Warkha had lined up against the wall. "You may collect your `awu`asa`," he said, waving at the armor. "Now."

  With passionate cries of excitement, the yautja ran to the piles of equipment and Hard Meat shell, shoving and kicking to get there first. There was enough to suit all of them, of course, but they would fight for the better trappings; the stronger males would get the prime supplies. That was always the way.

  Dachande watched as the yautja strapped on the scarred platings and struggled for arm sheaths and masks. Shafted knives were weighed and measured, burners' sights checked. Med kits and multiple eyes weren't standard for young males' armor, nor were tarei'hsan loops; only the warriors used such additions. There was shift capacity in a few of the suits, but the young males would not need such things anyway; the first Hunt was more a matter of point-and-kill than tracking and hiding. Invisibility was generally reserved for prey that shot back. You had to earn the right to use the better gear, and the prey for which it was necessary.

  It was still two nights until landing on the seeded world, but the yautja would need to become accustomed to their 'awu'asa', to feel comfortable with movement and weight. Dachande himself had slept in his armor the first night he had donned it. They had worn the gear only briefly during their training and under strict supervision. For this there were reasons-the main being that a young male given too much power too early was a hazard to himself and others. Turn some of the wet-behind-the-knees younglings loose with a burner even a few weeks ago and there would have been the risk of holes in the ship's hull or bodies piled in the corridors. The ceiling of the firing range had more scars than a ceremonial blood-pig.

  Dachande watched Tichinde backhand a smaller male for the mask he held and hiss triumphantly at the gain. The Leader nodded thoughtfully; Tichinde was strong but reckless. Such recklessness could get him killed. Did he survive, however, he could be a great warrior and a credit to his teacher. It was far better to be brave and die than to be cowardly and survive by hiding from the Black Warrior. Songs were not sung about those who showed their back to an attack.

  One by one, the dressed yautja held up their shafted knives and howled to each other, pointing their burners to the floor and pretending to fire in mock battle. Skemte caught Dachande's gaze and growled amusement at their fervor. Dachande nodded and echoed the growl. Doubtless each of the would-be warriors thought himself the bravest to have ever picked up a spear and waved it.

  The young males were as ready as he could make them. He hoped they were ready enough. If they were not, it was too late. And too bad their successes or failures would start soon on the planet now speeding toward them.

  Dtai'kai'-dte sa-de nau'gkon dtain'aun bpi-de. The fight begun would not end until the end; a tired saying but a true one.

  The Hunt was about to begin.

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  Noguchi rode slightly behind Hiroki through the midafternoon light, their hover bikes setting up whirls of baked tan dust and hot pebbles in their wake. Earlier they had skimmed the inner ridges of the gorge and then circled back to town for a light lunch. Now they were headed out again, toward Beriki canyon, one of the primary, runs for the majority of the herds.

  Noguchi had spent most of the morning getting used to the flier's controls; fortunately, they weren't too hard to figure out-stop, go, height and speed adjustments. The trick was to watch for obstacles that might cause problems; jump a big rock too fast and you could find yourself on your back, your scooter flying merrily along without you, at least until the dead-hand control shut it down. Besides basic instructions and a few landscape remarks through the comsets, Hiroki had kept quiet during their ride.

  It was the longest she'd spent outdoors since arriving on Ryushi. The heat was incredible, the rays from two suns slapping at them with tangible force. Very winds ruffled the tips of her black hair at the base of her visor, and particles of sandy dirt kicked up by Hiroki's bike pelted her goggles and dusted her cheeks. Ahead and all around, huge cliffs encircled them.

  Initially, it had all looked the same, harsh and unforgiving. But she had to admit there was a sparse beauty to the plains as well. It recalled images of sand gardens that Noguchi had visited in her youth at Kyoto. Here the sand was unchanneled and pocked with planets and rocks. Knee-high stands of beige reeds grew randomly near the edges of the valleys. Stones jutted from the earth in layers of shaded browns and grays. The fractured topsoil was a huge jigsaw puzzle with no end. There was plenty of sand, to be sure, but no order here, no simple zen lines. It was raw chaos. Billions of years in the making, this world, and she and a handful of men and women now held sway over it, masters of all the dry land. It was not hard to believe in manifest destiny out here in the far reaches of the galaxy, that mankind's true role was to minister to and control all things.

  Their revving motors had surprised a goodly number of small animals out of hiding. A family of jack-lizards hopped in front of Noguchi's bike near the gorge, headed for cover in the grasses. And Hiroki had pointed out an armored fire-walker and her mate as they slipped through a pile of rocks earlier in the morning. The female was a rosy brown, her smaller mate a faded gray. They had been poking at gravel with their short, pointed snouts, probably searching for snake eggs or beetles.

  Noguchi could understand, at least intellectually, why the ranchers had left Earth to make Ryushi their home. There was a kind of freedom to the prairies, a calm serenity to the stark lands. A certain beauty in it all. On Earth, a single living plex could house fifty thousand people in tight, tiny cubicles. On Earth, open land still existed but under so many regulations that just to walk upon it without a proper license might be worth a year in prison. Nowhere on the homeworld was there such vast emptiness as was all around her here. She found he
rself even enjoying the weather as they neared the southern end of Beriki canyon, the simplicity of a dry wind in her face. She wondered if it was too late for this new understanding to change her standing with the ranchers. Perhaps with time . . .

  "We're coming up on one of Ackland's camps," Hiroki crackled in her ear.

  "Right." She slowed as they rounded a bend in the gully. There were several dozen rhynth grazing on weeds a couple of hundred meters ahead, and beyond, the large treaded vehicle that Ackland used to check on his herds. The crawler could hold twenty people comfortably and was equipped with a full kitchen and sleeping accommodations for at least six; most of the ranchers had automatic vehicles--AVs--but Ackland's was the biggest.

  Of course.

  The rhynth themselves seemed to be unlikely meat animals. They looked to Noguchi much like a beast she had seen in a zoo as a child, a rhinoceros. The rhynth were slightly bigger than her memory of the gray-brown Terran creature, and they had a mottled purple and ochre skin. They walked on stumpy, oddly jointed legs that ended in nailed pads, and they had a hooked, beak-like mouth above which were a pair of in-line horns, the greater horn a wrist-thick and sharp cone that jutted straight up in front, the lesser horn smaller and angled slightly backward toward the animal's rear. Ugly brutes, no brighter than cattle, but very tasty when cooked properly.

  Noguchi came to a stop next to Hiroki's bike and dismounted, legs still throbbing with the feel of the engine. Ackland and several of his people stood grouped near the AV and watched them approach. Noguchi set her eye protectors up on her cap and patted dust from her clothing as they neared Ackland.

  The big man gazed at them with a sneer. "What's the problem, Hiroki? You and the boss lady get lost?"

  "We're just making the rounds-" began Hiroki.

  "Yeah, right." Ackland grinned without humor. "What's the real reason? The company shoot down the price increase?"

  Noguchi cleared her throat. "You know we can't get through the magnetic interference during the day. I'll contact them this evening."

  Ackland scoffed and started to turn away.

  "And," she continued, "I'll do all I can to get you a bigger cut."

  She wouldn't be talking to Earth, of course, the newly invented subspace radio wouldn't stretch that far, but she could get a response from the corporate sub HQ on Kijita`s World. Even though it was lightyears away, the new equipment could shrink that to a few light-hours, effectively only a few billion kilometers. They could get an answer by morning and the sub HQ was empowered to make such niggling decisions.

  Ackland raised an eyebrow. "So what are you doing here?" He made no effort to keep irritation out of his voice.

  Hiroki remained silent. "We're checking on everyone's progress-seeing if there's anything we can do to help," she said.

  The late-afternoon light glinted off of the AV's pitted hull behind him as Ackland looked her up and down. Finally, he nodded.

  "Yeah, you can help. You can stay out of our way. The last thing we need is `help' from corporate paper-pushers."

  He faced the young woman next to him and pointed to the shaded monitor built into the AV. "Roth, take some of the boys and run these three gullies. Drive 'em down into the canyon and hook up with Cho's group."

  Roth nodded and motioned to two of the men in Ackland's company. Ackland presented his back to Noguchi and Hiroki and punched at the controls set into the monitor's rim. Apparently, they had been dismissed.

  They walked back to their bikes slowly. Hiroki placed a hand on her forearm gently as they reached the flyers.

  "I'm sorry about the way Ackland treated you," he said.

  Noguchi shrugged. "Actually, it's okay. I know how-" she paused, searched for the right word. "I know what kind of an uncaring bitch I've been. I would have been surprised if he had had any other reaction. It is as if I have been in some kind of suspended animation for the last few months. I cannot explain it."

  She pulled her visor down firmly and looked to ward Prosperity Wells, about to say something else, except all thoughts disappeared.

  "Wow," she whispered.

  "What-?" Hiroki looked past her. "Oh, yes. You haven't gotten out much since you arrived, have you?"

  Noguchi barely heard him. The suns were setting, the desert was bathed now in golds and reds. Long shadows stretched from the mountains toward them, and in the cloudless sky, the arrangement of shade and light left her breathless. It was actually the first time she had ever seen the sunset outside.

  Her mind couldn't pair the stunning sight with the thoughts she'd had of Ryushi for the past six months; she would have to let one or the other go.

  Ryushi was, in its way, a beautiful place, at least here and in this moment it was. Noguchi sighed and watched the sunset, Hiroki quiet beside her. When they finally mounted their bikes to head home, she felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders, one she had not been aware of until it was gone.

  Tom scanned the console and spoke without looking up.

  "Geosynch orbit in twenty hours, and check on turbulence."

  Scott's hands fluttered over the controls. "Some fluctuation, but we can compensate no prob--we can de-couple anytime after orbit is achieved, then it's-"

  The magnified Ryushi holo had appeared on the screen.

  "Hel--lo Ryushi! Jesus, what a dust ball!"

  Tom looked up and nodded. "So it's a tad dry, big deal."

  Scott leaned back in his form-chair and cracked his knuckles behind his head. "Yeah, but we're not talking vague thirst here-this is just one big parched hellhole." He watched the vid as it panned the ranges and cliffs of Ryushi. "What kind of mouth-breather would want to move way the fuck out here? Especially when there's still plenty of land available on Nova Terra?"

  Tom glanced at the screen and then went back to plugging in data. "Who the hell knows? One man's poison and all like that."

  "Yeah, but look at the reads on the native life. This place is poison."

  "Ah, I'm sure Ryushi is the perfect home for somebody somewhere."

  "Not me," Scott mumbled under his breath. Great place for a nice vacation from the tug, sure. If you were a fucking lizard. Oh, well. He could spend his time in the local bar talking to the women, he didn't have to go hiking around in the sunshine now, did he?

  Dachande studied the file picture of the desert world less than a half cycle away. Behind him, the yautja sparred under Skemte's supervision and screamed in blood lust. Soon they would have real targets.

  He watched the gkinmara record and hissed in anticipation.

  Perfect.

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  At a quarter past three in the morning, Jame Roth leaned against her flyer and watched for Ackland's headlights. The night was hot and free of wind, and stars twinkled faintly over the mountains. Her dog, Creep, lay panting at her feet, occasionally whining at the bulging sack hooked to the scooter's seat. Behind her a hundred meters or so, Travis and Adam watched over a small herd of rhynth, most of them on the ground asleep.

  "Except rhynth sleep standing, eh, Creep?'

  The mutt raised his head and whined again.

  Roth considered herself a practical woman, but something about all of this gave her the shivers. The things she had found in the canyon were, well, odd. Unnatural to say the least. And now the rhynth were acting funny and Ackland's vet had found no cause for the symptoms. She didn't like it, not one bit.

  She heard Ackland's AV long before it came into view. The desert was like that at night; it was one of the reasons that she and her spouse, Cathie Dowes, had moved to Ryushi. Calm and quiet, far away from crowds and the tame ugliness of Earth. Out here was freedom, and for almost three years, she and Cathie had been happy working for the ranchers. They were even discussing having a child together . . .

  She cast an uneasy glance at the bundle and waited for Ackland. He was an asshole, sure, but he was the biggest herd-runner on the planet and it was his money that was going to set her and Cathie up a
fter the sale. This was his responsibility.

  The AV came rumbling around the bend up ahead and squealed to a halt in front of her, the headlights almost blinding to her dark-adjusted eyes. Ackland climbed down from the cab almost before the transport had stopped moving. Roth unhooked the sack and started toward him, Creep at her heels. He looked at the rhynth beyond her and walked quickly to meet them halfway.

  "I got your message, Roth." He sounded out of breath. "What's the problem?"

  "Take a look," she said, and crouched down to empty her find onto the dusty ground. Creep growled at the lifeless things and backed away. Roth speared one of the three creatures with a rhynth-stick and held it up for Ackland to see.

  It looked like nothing so much as a huge spider with a spiny tail, a little smaller than a male firewalker, perhaps two handspans. Its long, segmented legs curved under its plated body and its half-meter tail looked prehensile. There were no eyes as far as Roth could tell, but there was a short fleshy tube that perhaps served as a mouth; it hung limply at the head of the creature. The thing was a mottled slate-gray all over.

  Ackland took the stick from her and studied it carefully. "What the hell is it?" His voice was thick with disgust.

  "Besides uglier than shit? I was hoping you could tell me," she said.

  Ackland frowned and set the spider down next to the other two. "I've never seen anything like these things. Where'd you find them?"

  "Up at the head of Beriki canyon. There were a couple dozen of them lying around dead." She brushed a long strand of sun-bleached hair out of her eyes and looked over at the rhynth. A few of them lowed mournfully, the sounds quiet in the still air. "That's where we scared up these poke-snoots. They were stumbling around and bumping into each other like they were half-asleep." She rose to her feet and faced Ackland, who had also stood.

  "I think maybe they're sick, Mr. Ackland. I thought you should know."