by Steve Perry
His hangover was forgotten.
As Ikeda started to set down at the edge of the site, he wished he had thought to bring a weapon more powerful than a rhynth-stick.
“It’s a ship, isn’t it?” Spanner scanned the gorge side to side. Lots of places to hide…
“Yeah, I think so.” Ikeda’s eye were wide. “Was a ship. But not any human design I recognize.”
She shut off the pressers. The sudden silence wasn’t so welcome anymore. Spanner gripped his rhynth-stick tightly.
They got out of the copter carefully and walked toward the burnt-out shell. It was very quiet. Spanner’s fear dissolved into awe as they neared the towering arcs. It was—
“Incredible,” Ikeda said softly.
Spanner nodded. And from the smell of it, the fire had been recent. Like yesterday, maybe.
“This thing—you ever heard of anything like this?” Spanner looked at her. Ikeda kicked at a chunk of the odd substance.
“Never.” She turned and started to poke through the rubble.
“Think of what this means, Ikeda! We’re talking intelligent life here, not just some new strain of amoeba! This could be the first real proof, you know?” His brain kicked in to overdrive. Fucking wow!
“Think of the new information! If we could figure out who made this ship, could figure out some way to test this material—” He trailed off, mind alive with the possibilities.
“Why don’t you just ask him?”
Spanner twisted around to see Ikeda crouched down by a fallen figure. He stepped closer. “Doc—?” And stopped short.
It wasn’t human. Some sort of armored animal, but humanoid form—except this thing was big. Spanner himself stood a little under two meters, and he was probably the tallest man in Prosperity Wells. This guy had half a meter on him, easy. Jesus fucking Buddha.
“Careful, Ikeda.”
“I think it’s dead,” she said, and then watched the figure for a second.
Spanner joined her.
“No, it’s breathing,” said Spanner. “What the fuck?”
Ikeda shaded her eyes and looked up at him. “You tell me,” she said quietly. Her words sounded flat in the hot, dry air.
The initial anxiety he had felt surged back. They were an open target down here. And maybe this guy’s friends were nearby…
He looked at the steep walls of rock on either side of them and suddenly felt claustrophobic. “Let’s get outta here, what say?”
Ikeda nodded and dropped her gaze back to the creature. “Yeah. But help me get him into the copter, first. We’ll have to come back to look for Revna later.”
They loaded the thing into the copter as quickly as possible considering he weighed about a ton. They did their best to strap him to the stretcher with the human-sized bonds. It was a tight fit. When they finally lifted, Spanner felt relieved. No way was he coming back later unless everybody in town came with him.
On the trip home he kept his eyes open and aimed at their passenger, his headache had crept back, and it pulsed sharply at his temples as the suns beat down hard in piercing shafts of brightness.
* * *
Dr. Miriam Revna was an attractive woman even when she was worried. Which she was—in spite of her calm composure, the lines on her brow and the concern in her smile gave her away. Noguchi felt an instant sympathy for the woman; her attempt to maintain cool and continue functioning in spite of her emotions was a state Noguchi was quite familiar with.
“Is there anything you can think of that might help us locate your spouse?” Hiroki said.
Revna walked over to an examination table and motioned for them to join her. “He went to Iwa Gorge to find more of these,” she said, and lifted a plastic sheet to expose some kind of spider. Hiroki frowned and stepped closer.
“They’re unclassifiable,” the doctor continued.
“Their structure bears characteristics of both carbon-based and silicon-based life forms.”
Noguchi nodded. “Yes, I read the report. But what made him decide to look all the way up in Iwa Gorge?”
Revna smiled weakly. “That’s where she said she’d found them.”
“‘She’?” Noguchi and Hiroki almost spoke in unison.
The doctor nodded. “Jame Roth. The young woman who works for Ackland.”
“Thank you for your time,” Noguchi said. “We will contact you as soon as we know anything, Dr. Revna.” She smiled warmly and touched the older woman’s hand. “I’m sure everything will be fine.”
They walked into the searing heat together and started toward the garage.
“What would Roth be doing at Iwa Gorge?” Hiroki said. “Ackland doesn’t have any herds within twenty klicks of there.”
“Those things weren’t found in Iwa Gorge, Hiroki.” Of course! It was obvious once she thought about it.
“What?” Hiroki stopped to look at her.
“Think about it. If you were Ackland and you found some new life form the night before the roundup, would you risk having three years’ profit tied up in quarantine? No. You’d say the creature was discovered far from where your herd was pastured.”
“But why would he report it at all? The things we saw might not be any threat to rhynth. I mean, if they were like ticks or something, they’d be easy to spot.”
Noguchi felt a spark of anger deep in her gut. “To cover his ass. Say his rhynth do come down with some disease. Maybe the crab things are carriers, they bite an animal and infect it. He’s done his duty, right? He reported it, even though they were found a long way from his animals.”
Hiroki nodded thoughtfully. “So do we talk to Ackland first, or Roth?”
“Roth. She’d be more likely to admit to something like this than Ackland. Besides, if we go to Ackland first, he might bribe her to stay quiet before we can get to her.”
Hiroki smiled appreciatively. “Good thinking, Machiko.”
Noguchi barely heard him. “If anything has happened to Kesar Revna, Ackland will be sorry,” she said softly. “He sent the doc to chase dust up there. He could have had an accident, hurt himself, and that’s a long way from help.”
* * *
After the ooman craft left, Tichinde and the others moved back to the smashed and burned wreckage to see what they had done.
M’icli-de had wanted to kill them, but Tichinde had held them back; he had a better idea.
Dachande was gone. He’d been dead already, of course, but the oomans were h’ulij-bpe, crazy. In a way, it was fitting. The oomans had taken the old Leader, had left him to be the new one. He was a warrior now, ‘Aseigan had been his first kill. And so he would Lead them to their first Hunt. Later, he would Blood himself, design his own mark, and etch it in place with Hard Meat thwei; and he would also mark the other students as his own.
The ooman craft had surely gone in the direction of their dwellings; and if not, it did not matter. They would go and find the ugly small ones wherever they might be. It was only a matter of how long it would take, and that was not a concern.
They had nothing if not plenty of time.
12
Math sucked, and it sucked hard; if Bobby Sheldon had children someday, he would see to it that they never had to do fractions if they didn’t feel like it Because fractions sucked worse than anything. In fact, they sucked shit.
“Bobby?”
He jerked around in his chair and flushed slightly at the sound of his mother’s voice. The s-word was totally unallowed, even if he’d only thought about it.
“Yeah?”
“Finish what you’re on and go wash up for lunch. You can do the rest later, okay?”
Bobby nodded at his mom. “’Kay.”
He looked back at the screen and sighed. One-tenth of ten was one. So three-sevenths of twenty was—
Stupid. Why the hell did he have to know this anyway? He tapped the save control and went to wash his hands. He was going to be a rancher, and what rancher needed to know fractions? His dad said that they came in handy f
or counting heads, but his dad was a rancher and so far as Bobby could tell, Dad had never used that shit.
Bobby walked back into the living room of their small house and looked out the window for Dad. Tomorrow was school day, which he looked forward to as usual; not that class was so great, but it was the only time of the week he got to hang out with the guys. They lived too far out of town for him to go every day, like some of the other kids. Although he’d gone to see the ship come in last night, that’d been cool. He had played spy-tag with Dal and Alan and Hung and eaten about a ton of banana popsicles.
Bobby heard his dad before he saw him. Actually, he heard Dax first; the terrier always sounded like a bike out of fuel after a morning’s work. Dax padded into view a few seconds before his father and headed straight for the water dish at the side of the house.
“Hey, how’s the best eleven-year-old in the world?” Bob Senior opened the door in a blast of hot air and smiled at Bobby. The joke was old, but Bobby grinned; he was the only eleven-year-old on the whole planet, at least for another month. And then Hung’s sister, Ri, would have a birthday. Stupid girl.
“What’s for lunch, hon?” Dad stood in the doorway and patted his thigh. “C’mon, Daxter, we don’t have all day.” Dax hurried inside and Dad shut the door against the simmering heat.
Mom walked into the room and smoothed her short blond hair down. She was pretty for a mom, although she was old, at least thirty-six or so. She smiled at Dad and kissed him on his cheek.
“Tuna casserole.”
“Tuna! Where’d you get tuna?”
“I traded some of our jerky for three cans of it from one of The Lector’s crew.” She sounded pleased with herself.
“Good deal. Maybe tomorrow when you take Bobby in, you can see what else you can get.”
Bobby followed them into the dining room and listened to them talk about their days. Dad’s boss, Mr. Cho, was going to give him a raise; Mom still wanted to build another room onto their small house, a reading room. And there was a rumor that some of the rhynth had contracted a virus of some kind, although none of Cho’s got sick.
“It’s probably just talk,” his father said. “Like that thing about the flies last year. That had everyone going crazy, until the doc declared the whole thing a farce.”
“I heard the doc was missing,” Mom called from the kitchen. “One of Chigusa’s people called this morning to tell us to keep our eyes open. He may have been near the gorge…”
She carried a steaming dish into the room and set it on the table. Bobby felt his mouth water; they mostly ate meat and canned vegetables.
“This looks great. Yeah, I heard the same thing, but they’ve already sent out a copter, probably found him by now. I’ll check later, but I doubt they’ll need any more help.”
Mom spooned the casserole onto their plates. Dax ran into the room and started to whine.
“Hey, no chance, Daxter! You’ll get yours later.” Dad reached for the water pitcher.
Dax whined louder and went to the front door. Dad sighed and pushed back from the table. “Good timing, Dax; why couldn’t—”
He stopped short as Dax growled at the door, teeth bared.
Bobby stood. “What is it, boy? What’s the matter?”
Dax continued to growl, and then barked, the sound deep and fierce.
“Bob?” Bobby’s mother wore a look of concern. Bobby started around the table, but his dad motioned him back. Dax barked again.
“One of those damned briar-wolves again,” his father said, and went to the door. “I thought we’d gotten ’em all.” He picked up the carbine that they kept by the coat rack and checked it. And then opened the door.
“Sic ’em, Dax!”
Dax ran outside full speed, his barking a continuous war cry.
Dad stepped onto the porch, Bobby and his mother behind him.
Dax stopped in the middle of the yard and circled, growling. He acted like there was something there—but there wasn’t The dog backed away and edged forward, all the time barking and growling at nothing.
Bobby’s eyes widened. There was something! A ripple of—dust and light. Dax flickered like he had gone into some kind of magnifier as he circled again.
Bobby felt his mom’s hands grip his shoulders.
“Dad? What—?”
“Both of you, in the house, now!”
His mother pulled him backward, but he still watched. And saw as Dax was lifted off of the ground in a gout of blood. A huge beast—a monster!—appeared from out of nowhere, he held the spear stuck into Daxter!
Bobby heard a dull sound like an ax hitting meat. Dax made one short howl of pain, and then went quiet.
“Good God—!” his father whispered.
The monster was tall, masked, inhuman. It shook the dead dog on its spear, sent a rain of red to the ground.
“Be careful, Bob!” His mother almost screamed it.
Bobby was petrified, unable to look away.
“Dax?” He watched as the monster tossed the dog over its shoulder and turned to face his father.
Dad brought the carbine up and aimed. There was a sudden shift and creak from the roof, like when Dad had patched the tiling, like somebody was up there—
—and a ripple of light and dust plunged into his father’s skull. Bobby screamed. Dad reached up to clutch at the now-visible metal claws that had worked into his face—
Mom spun him to face the kitchen. Her breath came in short gasps.
“Run, Bobby!”
“Mommy? Is—”
“Run! We have to get to the truck! Out the back!”
He tripped and sprawled on the floor. His mother pulled him up and shoved him toward the rear door.
There was a giant, splintering crunch from the front porch. Bobby and his mother both turned.
The monster crouched in the doorway.
Impossibly fast, it reached for Mom, grabbed her—
And ripped her throat open.
Once again, the sound of meat being cut.
Warmth dotted Bobby’s face, turned his vision to red.
He screamed, “Mom!”
He ran. There was no time to think, only move. The flier outside his parents’ room, Daddy had shown him how—
Bobby ducked across the hall and into their bedroom. Without a pause, he ran and jumped through the thin plastic window. There was another scream—his—as the window shattered, and there was the bike, within reach—
He hit the ignition button as if he had ridden a thousand times. The machine roared to life, raised up from the ground—
—and behind him was the sound of some evil bird, screeching, hoarse and piercing. Something touched his shoe, still inside the house—
—and the bike lurched forward, pulled him away. There was another, and another of the murdering creatures, all claws and hate. They came out of nowhere, appearing like magic. They reached for him—
—and he took off, tilted wildly. He aimed the bike east, toward town.
He kept his sweaty hand jammed to the accelerator. Behind him the things howled and screamed, horrible, horrible, Mom, Dad—
There was a noise like gunfire, but hollow—and the wall of rock in front of him to the left exploded, sharp pieces hammered the bike, stuck into his skin, but it didn’t matter, it didn’t hurt. And beyond that, Bobby knew nothing.
* * *
Tichinde was pleased. True, they had lost one—but they had faced the deadly oomans and come away unscathed, with two kills. The escaped one would die soon enough, with the rest. It had surely gone to alert the others; they would have to be prepared…
Tichinde watched as the, other yautja danced and cried over the victory. He himself had killed the second ooman; it had been without weapon, but as dangerous as he had heard oomans to be, that was allowable. Hunt or be Hunted…
Dachande would have disapproved. Tichinde flared his tusks in amusement at the thought. Dachande was thei-de; his opinion no longer held meaning. Besides, with no one to
hold judgment over their actions, they would take what they wanted; from what he had seen so far, the oomans were not so dangerous as the yautja had been led to believe.
13
Roth cleaned the dirt from under her nails with her teeth. It was a nervous and dirty habit; Cathie was always getting on her case about it. But considering the circumstances at the moment, she didn’t really give a flying fuck about biting her nails.
The two heads of Chigusa onworld stood over her small table in the rec center and glowered at her. Creep snuffled blissfully by her feet, probably thrilled to get out of the sun; she wished she felt the same.
“Do you know what charges you could face if Ackland’s rhynth turn up infected with dangerous bacteria or a virus?” Hiroki had always been an amiable sort but his eyes flashed with anger. At her. “And you were responsible for sending them to Earth?”
Roth opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by the Noguchi woman.
“Ms. Roth—if anything has happened to Kesar Revna, you will be held accountable.” She leaned toward Roth, expression cold. “How do you feel about that? He’s been missing for almost a day now. He might be injured. Or dead.”
Roth nodded slowly. She had lied for Ackland, had put her reputation at stake for him—after all, he was the boss. But she wasn’t about to get caught holding this bag; it was just a little bit too heavy.
“Ackland told me to,” she said quietly. “I realize that doesn’t excuse my actions, but I just work for the man, you know?”
Hiroki and Noguchi exchanged glances.
“So Ackland told you to tell Revna that the spider creatures were in Iwa Gorge?” Noguchi leaned forward again, but her eyes weren’t as angry as before.
“Right.”
“What the hell is going on here?”
Roth looked up, surprised.
Ackland marched across the room, his face sweaty and red.
“Roth? What have you done?” Ackland stopped at their table and glared down at her accusingly. “What’s this I hear about you lying to Doc Revna?”
