He understood the why of heroes because he was one himself.
He had thought he didn’t need to be a hero. He’d been pleased enough to find that there was bravery inside him when he needed it and that was good enough—after all, why go looking for trouble? But now that he had found it, now that he was privileged to share the heroes’ secrets—
—he knew why he had come back on these hunts.
He’d been like Nusa, been a vampire just like her, feeding on another person’s triumphs. He’d been vicariously enjoying the moment of the hunter’s glorious fulfillment—victory or death, it didn’t matter; it was the
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confrontation with the challenge. The evil was that it was other people’s challenges that he was leeching, not his own. He’d been feeding off the scraps that fell from their banquets—until this trip when finally he’d been dragged screaming to a table set for him. It was as if the fates had collared him, demanding, “Sit, Loevil—taste of it yourself!” He’d never been the target of the beast before. It was an acid-savage taste, but God, it made him feel huge! And now he hungered for another taste of it already.
It depressed him—it depressed the him he used to be, that other Loevil who had held himself apart from life, because to let it touch him would have been to taste it for himself. And now that he had, he found he was addicted to it. The next time he came back, he would be looking for the beast deliberately. There was a beast on every hunt, they were all die same beast now—reflections of a great archetypal beast, each one a different aspect of the pure ideal, the monstrous one that was the philosophic ultimate of horror to be challenged.
He couldn’t be a guide again—he was a hunter now.
He understood why Ethab smiled when he died. He’d finally met the ultimate challenge in his life—and accepted its mastery over him.
Loevil’s eyes were hard. They glinted now like steel. There were no more jokes in him, no more silliness or joy. The only joy he understood was triumph—it was such a fiercer light, so all-consuming, that one single taste of it could swamp and overshadow every other affinity a human mind might know. Loevil was a hunter now.
A hundred million years from now, they’d been a party of eight shining warriors standing on the Nexus waiting to flash back. The technicians on the consoles circling the timeflash chamber all wore goggles and blank
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faces—they’d seen a thousand of these hunts already. There would be a flash and the shining warriors would be swallowed by the light and be replaced at the same instant by themselves, whoever had survived and made it back. To the workers waiting for them a hundred million years away, no time would pass at all—these three days could last forever and they would never know.
It was time to run again.
“Come on,” Loevil said and broke into an easy jog. His knee throbbed, but he ignored the pain—if he ran just so, he could keep it to a minimum. He didn’t want to take a pill, it might slow him down, might make him drowsy, ruin his tautened reflexes. “Come on—!!” He circled back around behind the two women and prodded harshly at them with his rifle barrel. “You run ahead of me! A hundred meters, it’s not far! Then we’ll walk again. Let’s go!”
They protested, but they ran. Loevil followed on their heels, counting steadily and loudly, “—and one and two and three and jour—and one and two and three and four—” It was a pacemaker’s trick he had learned a long time ago, a way to maximize endurance—a mantra for determination.
The air came in his lungs like ice, it went out again like fire. It rasped his throat and dried his mouth, his tongue was parched and swollen. His voice cracked, but he kept counting. His feet kept pounding on the dusty ground, leaving little puffs of dust. The gravel scraped with every thudding step. “—and one and two and three and , four—” Nusa ran professionally, without complaint. Her holo was still bobbing on her back, she wouldn’t sacrifice her prize; she’d filled too many of its memories in the past few days. The flat cases were strapped safely to her belt. It was Tril who ran as though clumsiness had become a way of life. Her arms were not coordi
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nated with her legs; sometimes she merely let them dangle while she ran, other times she held them close into her side—either way her balance wasn’t helped. She ran in tiny, birdlike steps—as if she’d once been taught that running any other way just wasn’t ladylike. But Loevil couldn’t feel sorry for her—she’d had the fiercest, brightest taste of all of them of what it meant to be a hero. She’d struck the final blow against the beast. “—and one and two and three and jour—” Besides, she wasn’t running on a swollen knee. It was hard to limp and run, but there was a trick to it, Loevil was learning fast—he kept his weight mostly on the right leg and only used the ball of his other foot for balance. It almost worked. Probably he’d spend the first few days of his return lying in a hospital.
Debriefing—he dreaded that—they would start on them as soon as they appeared within the flash. The questions would come tumbling one upon another. He thought forward once again, thinking of technicians standing motionless, time-frozen while these three adventurers ran across a barren plain; three days within a microscopic instant and all the goggled men and women waiting—
Loevil had seen Nexi vanish and return. He’d seen parties of eight turn instantly into decimated stragglers, their proud conviction shattered into misery and terror. He’d seen parties vanish altogether; the Nexus just went empty. Once, he’d seen a science group of twenty people flash out into nothingness, and when the light had faded, they’d turned into a single shriveled figure, just a dried- out corpse sprawled reaching into emptiness. There were startled screams from those who watched from up above; they could not imagine the passage of so much time in just the flicker of an eye.
What would they be seeing this time—?
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Dawn gave way to morning and they slowed and walked again. The bitter coldness of the night gave way to crispness stinging at their faces. The air was like the scent of lemons. They ran again and walked again; everything was dry. The morning warmed and lemons faded into dust. They ran and walked, and then the day turned hot. The sun climbed higher toward the zenith. Ran and walked and ran and walked. The rocks turned rugged on a plain of salt—
And then: “There it is!”
A bright orange beam, stabbing upward into the sky from somewhere just beyond a jagged cut horizon. The horizon was almost close enough to touch—like the lip of a huge and broken bowl.
“We’ll make it!” panted Loevil. “We’re going to make it!” His heart was thudding like a drum. He felt triumphant and victorious. They were really going home!
Right behind him, out of breath and gasping painfully, Nusa managed to croak out, “Can’t we take a rest—?”
“You can rest in October! Look at the time!” He started jogging again—his body screamed in protest, but he forced himself to run despite the fire in his legs. He looked back to Tril and Nusa; Tril was panting gamely—Nusa groaned, but started running too.
They moved unevenly across the bed of salt; it was flat and white and stretched out to infinity, knife-edged at the horizon; it was so close, so very close—you could jump right off the edge of it. They were exhausted, almost at the end; there was no reserve of strength to draw "on any more—but they had determination, they had fear, so they kept on.
The orange beam was closer. They topped the final ridge and there it was, the black disc of the Nexus! The beacon rose up from its center, it glimmered in the
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sparkling air. They started running faster now—they increased their speed as they came down the slope. The sand made little avalanches and they skidded—then they were on salt again and the crust of it kept breaking underneath their pounding feet. Every step was treacherous, each one was a victory. Exh
austion drove them to the edge of frenzy, the sweat poured off their faces, off their sides and backs; each one of them was soaking.
“We’re going to make it—” Loevil was saying, a litany of thrust. “We’re going to make it—we’re making it, oh, yes—oh, God, yes—” He kept running, running, pumping legs, piston arms, burning lungs—oh, God, the air! He prayed that they would have the tanks of oxygen waiting ready after flashback—oh, God, the rasp of air! Oxygen starvation kept him going—if he dared to stop, he’d die! Already he could hear the warning chimes sounding from the Nexus timer. There were only minutes left—and still so far to go! But they were making it! They were making it!
Nusa gasped and stumbled, skidded, scrambled and was up again—
—Loevil didn’t want to stop to help her, he had momentum now, but he turned and looked behind him to see if she was up again—
She myis and she was running harder to catch up—
—something caught his eye behind her and—
“Oh, my God—r
Something big and black stood towering on the sharp edge of the world. It was thundering toward them like a storm.
Nusa caught the look on Loevil’s face and turned to look herself and gasped a croaking scream. Tril also turned and looked and gave a little whimper. The whole day was screaming now—
—it was the shrieking of the Nexus, the five-minute
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warning—and the beast was still pursuing them, lumbering, stumbling up like death’s own travesty of life! It was something horrible and hideous, oozing blood and glittering with the ravaged scabs of its own burned and shriveled hide. It loomed against the whitened sky, a dark and smoldering horror—it lurched across the gleaming salt with uneven, staggering movements. The bright and painful flat stretched endlessly on either side.
The beast’s direction was determined, it came on toward them like vengeance, but each motion that it made was hesitant, unsteady—a jerkiness of action, not of will. It seemed a different kind of monster now—the hellfires of the lake had burned away what consciousness it might have had, had peeled off emotion, intellect, and even reason to exist—what was left was only core, a sad and spastic motion that transcended even death—the thing had lost all sense of rage, its wrath was shrivelled off; but still it came like vengeance, dispassionate, unfinished, unfulfilled—its head held at a twisted angle, its body half-erect and wobbling with each step, the beast came after its tormentors still! It couldn’t die until achieving its own hellish moment of completion!
It moved like a machine, programmed but uncertain—it came on as death inevitable, and every stride it took ate up ten of Loevil’s. Its tail lashed spasmodically, it couldn’t lift it off the ground—thank God for that!— it couldn’t lean into a charge. It could only lean so far, and then it had to straighten, turn its head to look, then lean and step and step and step and straighten once again. It wobbled, hesitated, took another bearing to make sure of its momentum, to make sure that it was tracking in the right direction. Its nostrils worked like bellows, sampling the cold wind; its mouth worked like a trap, a yawning bloody chasm. Its head was almost shapeless, so much flesh had burned away, but it still
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had one good eye, one staring crimson eye! The eye flashed like a beacon; it pursued them like a demon— and the blackened body stumbled forward, carrying the demon after them, a rider in a ravaged mountain, spasti- cally possessed.
It couldn’t stop. It couldn’t ever stop! It came across the glittering salt, mindless of its footing—the crust kept crumbling beneath its massive weight; its footsteps left a track of bluish holes behind it, its tail left a jagged rut. Horribly burned, horribly blackened, the poor dumb beast came after them, grunting deep within its throat, gasping air in sounds like sobs, bubbling and hideous, and all the while stumbling and staggering forward—
And the only words that Loevil knew that could express his anger and frustration were, “Oh, shit—”
Tril whimpered tiny in her throat.
The beast lurched toward them like a train, a badly animated, banging, clattering caricature of power. It jerked on unseen tracks.
Nusa raised her rifle—
“No!” said Loevil—“Keep on going!” He grabbed her arm and pulled. “The alarm is going off! We have only a few minutes! Come on, Nusa—let’s outrun him! We can
do it!”
She let herself be pulled. She turned and ran. She followed Tril and Loevil. Ahead of them, the Nexus screamed, a shrilly warbling screech that serrated through the air. And growing just behind them, the deathbeast grunted, staggered after. They ran like fiends before it.
Loevil’s mind was working—this then was the moment of heroism for him! The real moment! In the moment you confront your death, that’s when you are the most alive—
They were a hundred meters from the Nexus, they could make it, perhaps with time to spare—! Perhaps he
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could distract die beast—deflect its forward motion—no, that would mean he’d have to move too far from the disc— oh, God! What if they got there and there was too much time—they’d have to stand there, waiting on the Nexus, while the beast came charging down on them!
They pounded hard across the salt, it crunched and scraped beneath their boots—it left a gritty crust along the sides and in the soles, the cleats kept clogging up, and they kept on slipping, missing steps and scrambling—
But just a few more meters now—the Nexus screamed like Armageddon! The alarm was calling all the hunters in—there was panic in its tone. Where were Eese and Kalen? Where was Dorik? Megan? Ethab?
Tril reached the Nexus first, she slipped and skidded onto it—she fell, scrambling and sliding with her own momentum—but she was on the disc! Nusa made a frantic leap through loudness, hit the shiny floor of it—she couldn’t stop her own momentum easily and went skidding-bouncing off the other side, whirling with her rifle, jumping sideways to shoot past Loevil—who was already leaping for the Nexus disc himself, sliding on his belly onto it. He scrambled to his feet—and already Nusa was beside him, taking aim—"No!—hold your fire—!” Tril was scrambling back behind the two of them; they had weapons, she was rifleless. “Wait—” Loevil gasped out hastily, his chest was heaving—every breath was acid, every lungful scraped—he managed to croak out at Nusa, “—He’s—having trouble—finding us—don’t give him— any help!”
The deathbeast moved in lurches, always toward the scent that drew it—the scent of blood and fire and death; the warm, ripe taste of human flesh! The pungency of sweat and fear! A hot stew of angry smells—• the monster’s head came up into the wind, it swung and
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looked at them; the eye was "questioning—Why did you do this to me?—and accusing too.
Loevil and Nusa couldn’t answer that. As one, they raised their rifles. They could barely hold them up—they couldn’t catch their breaths! “Aim—for the—eye!” Loevil said.
The beast was cratered by a thousand blazer bolts. They could see the bloody scabs, the depth each hole had carved, they could see the slices in its hide, the charring bums, the peeling of its flesh, the oozing of its sores and the infections—the open wounds were festering—the creature’s flanks were battlefields of black and ragged slashes—the monster’s head was burned away to the bare bone on its right side—
“Now!” said Loevil, breathlessly, and pressed the trigger. Nusa fired at the same time. Two blue-white bolts of fire leapt across the intervening space. The air sizzled, turning orange, turning red, and left a purple afterglow. Sparks crackled in it brightly.
The beast was already moving—the bolts missed the eye and bit into its neck. The beast jerked back and almost stumbled—it roared in agony, a deeper sound against the shrilling siren of the Nexus. Then it caught its footing, wobbling unsteadily and turned and came back toward them. It hesitated sp
astically, its head still lowering, jerking, turning—as long as it kept moving, it was impossible to hit—the mouth was jabbing, darting, biting, in a frenzied, palsied motion. The deathbeast wobbled sideways, uncontrollably, blinked as if surprised, and paused—it was having trouble moving—its one red eye confronted them—
—and two fiery bolts flicked out and hit the eye— the goddamn staring accusation!—the crimson glowing eye! They hit it almost simultaneously and it exploded into steam and blood-flecked vapor! The creature jerked
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spasmodically, the head jerked up, the tail jerked and lashed—the deathbeast shrieked as if it were on fire inside! It jerked as if possessed, a convulsive madness, pyrotechnic seizure, epileptic discoordination as it writhed—
"We did it/” Nusa screamed triumphantly—and choked on her own lack of air—she gasped and danced and jumped and leaped and yelled and gasped again. She panted joyously, her shoulders heaving.
Loevil gave a rebel yell, “Y eeeeeehhhhaaaaaaaaa- gghhhh!!!” and held his rifle up above his head and did a breathless little jig—he wanted to collapse—but it felt so good to dance! He stamped his feet in joy and glory. He leapt and clicked his heels. Even Tril was bouncing happily. ?
“We did it!” Nusa shouted. She was fumbling with her holo, one last shot before the pickup—!
The monster turned upon its own invisible pivot, pawing, lurching, staggering and stumbling—turning, turning, round and round upon itself, as if chasing its own tail—the tail would jerk and lash and then the beast would writhe and shift the other way, turning back and wobbling again, lurching toward them uncontrollably— it loomed above them like a tower collapsing, confused, a whirling firestorm of clumsy death unable to fall down into oblivion—
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