by John Ringo
"Good morning, Dagger. Did you enjoy sleeping in?" Dammit, the Elf still didn't sound distressed. What was he, a machine? No, not a machine. He was in about the same area, so he'd rested, too. Just an alien prick. Don't credit him with any more than that.
"Very much, Tirdal," he replied. It wouldn't do to act bothered. "I thought the extra time would let you consider your position. Alone. Down there. Burdened with the box and a short-range weapon. Running out of time. Might be a good idea to negotiate a surrender, hmm?"
"You make good points, Dagger," was the reply. "But I'm not sure we can trust each other at this juncture."
"Sure we can, Tirdal," he said. He'd thought this through. "You can tell when I've dropped my rifle . . . hell, I'll even throw it down. You drop the punch gun as I come in range and you can tell I'm not armed. Then we both unload our pistols and hold them up to prove it. Then we can talk about the box." While I stick a knife in your throat, asshole.
"That's a good idea, Dagger," Tirdal said, and Dagger smirked until he added, "but we should have done that three days ago. Your position has become clear and your 'soul' as you call it, is slimy and grotesque. Frankly, I'd rather attempt to negotiate with one of the predators. At least they are logical and have a defined goal I can understand."
Forcing calm upon himself, Dagger replied, "That is unfortunate, Tirdal. In that case, I'll have to kill you." And you're in a prime place for a shot.
"We knew that, Dagger, didn't we?" Tirdal replied. He was still calm, damn him! "And I just might kill you first."
The signal went dead.
All right, so he wanted to be that way. He was just about fifty meters north of where he'd been at dark yesterday. So, on a lower ledge, far enough back not to fall, settle in, set the rifle, and prepare to deliver God's Vengeance upon the Darhel.
* * *
Tirdal knew what was to happen. They both did. He'd move, Dagger would shoot. From there, Dagger assumed he'd be killed; he assumed he'd avoid taking fire. This stalemate, as it was called in chess, was tiresome and he was about to break it, but to do that he had to expose himself to the fire first. There was nothing doing but to get it over with.
He shrugged back into his ruck, feeling the soreness and tightness across his shoulders. That was made worse every time he moved his head with the added mass of helmet. It would do for now, and he counted himself lucky. A couple of centimeters deeper and the shot would have shattered both shoulders. Dagger really was that good. He'd have to force Dagger to take a shot, and be ready. He'd need tal in his system to boost his Sense. He reached inside himself and released a little.
That wasn't happening as quickly as he'd like. He might be starting to suffer from fatigue himself, his submind less easy to control. So he recalled the feel of the kill, the taste of meat from yesterday. That did it. He could feel the energy flow, and then his Sense came on, detected the nearby herds, then Dagger, and the rate increased, pushing him toward . . .
A steady, controlled level of tal, regulated by Jem discipline. It was a bit easier to control today, though that might be due to the familiar conditions. How he'd handle a new set of factors he didn't know. But Dagger was there, so if he stepped out over here . . .
Dagger was drifting, drifting and was shooting now and Tirdal dropped forward and flat over a shelf of shale as the round cracked overhead and threw a mist of water up from the stream. Then he was up and moving and Dagger was there and angry and shooting now and Tirdal dropped sideways in case he'd anticipated the fall. He landed in a pile of sand as a rock erupted chips on the far bank. He stood and felt Dagger shoot at once and dug in his heels to change his momentum, then dropped as another crack presaged another cloud of mist.
That should do it, he thought. Dagger hated to miss more than just about anything else, would be easy to track with that storm of emotion roaring off him, and Tirdal could keep track as he decided how to execute his plan.
Then, only for a moment he could feel the human as if Dagger were he.
Dagger was pissed. Seriously pissed. He crushed another beetle on a rock before it could scuttle out of range and watched the rabbit-sized pseudoisopod writhe as he loped off. The damned Darhel had just dodged the bullets. Sure, it was vaguely possible, even with the high speeds of the "dumb" sniper rounds. But you had to know that a sniper had shot. That was the point of using a dumb round; it had no emissions to detect. You had to have an active system to detect it until it was too late.
But the goddamned sensat could feel him take the shot. The only way to stop that was to feel nothing when he killed the little shit. Which meant adopting a new shooting approach and, frankly, took all the fun out of it. What was the point if you couldn't get the rush from the kill?
So, to kill the Darhel he had to feel nothing. But the point of killing was to feel something, wasn't it? So what was the point of killing the Darhel? Oh, yeah. A billion credits.
So, this time, feel nothing. Not even excitement at getting a billion credits. Not until the box was in his hand. And the Darhel was dead. Feel nothing. That ought to be easy enough; it was his normal way of life.
The link severed as quickly as it had formed, tenuous threads of consciousness snapping away. That was Dagger's mind then. It was crass, paranoid, full of a fear of failure and incompetence, of showing fear or doubt. Any emotion, any humanity, was weakness to Dagger.
Tirdal sucked on the pulp from his processor while he sorted out the thoughts. He couldn't face killing something else in order to eat. His emotions were just too out of control and he was afraid he'd lose control the way he currently felt. Order was essential. Anarchy would lead to death, as it was leading to Dagger's.
Growing up, he never could understand the tal addicts, the Darhel who did things to push the edge of lintatai. Now he could. The tal was the most heady drug available to the Darhel and it was manufactured in their own bodies. After the pain, which was brief, came the rush of pleasure, then the long duration of nothingness, followed by a sated calm. It was too easy to lose oneself in it, accomplish nothing and feel little while doing so, and feel good about what little there was.
Tal addiction still killed thousands, millions every year; no Darhel would bother to care for one that had succumbed to lintatai. Those who failed the test would wither away, dying of dehydration usually. It was harsh, but necessary. It had taken hundreds of millennia to force their evolution back to this point, where tal could be used even if at great risk. It might take hundreds more before the Darhel became what they had once been, before the Aldenata interfered with their heritage and corrupted their destiny. The strong must continue, the weak must not, if they were to be a whole race again.
But he knew his own control and its limits. It had fluctuated throughout the pursuit, the game if you will, and now if it were pushed he wasn't sure he could hold back a full tal orgasm. Which would be death.
By the same token he was becoming more and more addicted to the tal himself. He had never experienced the range of emotions he was permitting himself. Even Dagger's discordant emotions were a pleasing sensation. They were spice, a delicacy, against the palate of known pleasures.
For that matter it seemed to be part of his enhanced range. If he fully controlled the tal his ability to track the sniper decreased; it was only when he let some of the tal hormone trickle into his system that he could find his tracker.
He wasn't sure he could get the glinak back in the box. When he was done with this mission there would be plenty to meditate about. And much to discuss with his master. Perhaps even with the masters of the Art themselves.
He took a deep breath and considered his situation. The pod would move in another two or three days. If he headed directly for the next Extraction Point, Dagger would set up along the way, moving to intercept as necessary. If he headed up into the hills there would be even more areas for the sniper to ambush him, and he'd be approaching the fire. Not good.
It appeared it was time for a Darhel to enter once again upon the hunt. There was
a thrill to that knowledge, with a foreboding cloud hanging over it. This was no game. The fates of three races and hundreds of planets, perhaps the galaxy, would balance on what Tirdal San Rintai did next, and how well his mind could fight genetic programming.
The question was what to do with the box. He pondered that for a few moments. He looked around on the plain. Then he smiled. It was a very predatory and devious smile.
* * *
The Elf had been moving steadily towards the Blob site but now he'd turned back to the west, crossing the stream to do so. There was lots of clear savanna in that direction, large enough that it was on the map. What Tirdal thought he was doing there Dagger couldn't decide. He moved north and west, down off the bluffs and the visual advantage they gave, aiming to cut the Darhel off. The Elf had headed across the stream and onto the savanna proper, all grass and shrubs, and probably intended to get well out of range and out of sight. But to get to the pickups he'd have to come back to the east and either north or south. Best to find a good spot on his probable route and wait for him. Dagger would lurk behind him until he turned, then take the hypotenuse to cut him off. If he started at an angle, Dagger would know which extraction point he intended to move toward, and could charge ahead, around the Elf, and be waiting for him. And if Tirdal took more than two more days, he'd have to head south anyway.
Perfect.
Dagger hunkered down in the grass to wait, nerves and sensors alert for any disturbance around him, and kept an eye on the box's movement.
* * *
This was a technique that Tirdal had rarely practiced. Alonial, the Indowy adept, was the master of projection, but Tirdal had never shown much ability at it. Still, he seemed to be managing adequately. He couldn't tell if the large browsers were seeing him as one of them, not at all, or simply as himself and were not afraid. Their primitive eyes didn't move to indicate the direction they were viewing, and the waving antennae were equally reticent. They weren't spooking, however, so something was right. It took only a trickle of tal to maintain the concentration for the illusion. Of course, that trickle was in addition to handling the stress on his twice-wounded body, and aiding his focus on Dagger, and . . .
The gargantuan insects were quiescent though, paying no attention to the strange biped in their midst. And everyone always said that thousand-klick-an-hour tape would stick to anything.
The "herd bull" was the size of a large bison or small elephant. To support that bulk with an exoskeleton required a material far stronger than chitin and the armored carapace of the bug was at least a hand span thick. It might be an impossible kill with a punch gun, depending on how the shell reacted to the blast. It would be difficult with the rounds Dagger carried. Not impossible perhaps. The antiarmor rounds might work. Antimatter would certainly work, though it might require blowing a deep crater with multiple rounds. But Tirdal wouldn't need to kill it and wasn't planning to.
He crouched for a moment then leapt up and over, free of the grass and with a clear, panoramic view. Even with his chameleon in effect, this was a dangerous time, and he'd have to work quickly lest Dagger see him and take a shot. That, and the insect might spook and toss him or dislodge him, possibly stampede or crush him.
He was atop it, sitting slightly astride as he swung his pack around and ripped open the top compartment flap. He heaved out the artifact, kept hold of the pack with one arm through it as it flopped down, and held the box still with his weight while he snagged the roll of tape with his left hand, reaching over his right and into the pack in a fashion that would impress an Earth acrobat.
It wasn't an easy task, with only one hand and his lips to get the tape going, but he succeeded. The first piece held the box just still enough for him to get a second piece on, then a third. He was stretching out a fourth piece when he suddenly found himself flying through the air from a truly elephantine buck. The giant pill bug had all the agility of a terrestrial beetle but, luckily, had the reaction speed of a slug. Perhaps it had slower neural paths, or was less sensitive on its back, or just stupid. But the herd bull now had the Aldenata artifact strapped to its magnificently striped and armored back, with the tape still hanging from the last strap he'd been fastening. And Tirdal was free to hunt. He grinned again and angled through the herd, crossing the paths of the large beasts just behind them.
Chapter 18
What in the hell did the Elf think he was doing? He'd moved along the east side of this savanna, which looked like it was probably a sinkhole lake that had emptied out, then moved rapidly west, then to the north. Now he was moving west again. Slowly. More meandering than moving. And all the while on the savanna. He had to have a better knowledge of tactics than that.
Dagger had found a lonely tree and climbed it for a good look. Generally he hated to shoot from trees. If you were detected it made you a perfect target and even without being detected it was a vulnerable spot. Better to be hunkered down on the ground. But you did what you had to do and the savanna was a mixture of high pseudograss and bushes; there was no clear view from ground level. He referred to his tracker, then tried to spot the same general area on the savanna. It was several clicks away and the ground was rough but he couldn't spot anything that looked like the Darhel. There was a large herd of those damned beetle things that had gotten in his way before. The Darhel might be staying among them. That wasn't a bad tactic, actually. Dagger would have to get closer to take a shot, and there'd be a lot of interference.
Then he ratcheted up the magnification on his scope and swore. The box was attached to the broad gray back of one of the damned herbivores.
Without even thinking about it he was on his way to the ground. The Darhel would come looking for him now. He couldn't kill, though. There was one thing that all humans knew about Darhel; no matter how bad they were they couldn't kill.
So was the shoe on the other foot or not? Oh, this was just lovely.
Why couldn't the asshole have had the decency to die?
* * *
Tirdal paused and took a few breaths. This was really playing with the black side. The tal reacted to hatred, fear and aggression, all the demons that lurked in the Darhel soul. And it also accentuated them, causing a feedback loop. Now on the trail of his first kill, Tirdal constantly found himself forcing the glinak back in its cave. If it was this bad just trying to track in on the sniper, it would be nasty when it came time for the . . . the . . . kill.
That, and he'd have to dodge numerous shots. It was better than a draw that would leave him stranded, with Dagger in control of the pod's landing sites, or leave both of them stranded to die. Though that option was preferable, as a last resort, than to let Dagger have the artifact. If so, Tirdal was prepared to face that death. It would be an easy one. All he had to do was let tal push him into lintatai and he'd not care what happened next. Of course, the chewing of predators would drag him out of trance in order to die, but that could be avoided by hiding in a cave or depression.
Tal was still an enticing option, too. He needed it, and the dosage he required increased as he developed the taste and the accompanying Sense. Would it be possible to build immunity through exposure? Research said not, but Tirdal was certainly running at a level rarely encountered. If control was the reason, then it spoke well of him as an individual, but would not help the race. He let his thoughts continue as he rose and pushed off again, running in a low crouch to stay below the grass tops. He was uncomfortably aware of the trail he was leaving, smashed flat behind him. He could do nothing about that.
He summoned Jem and breathed deeply, regrouping his control. The breath caused an ache in his chestplate that was not gone yet. Had he been able to rest more, it would likely be healed by now. As it was, it had improved, but would need medical care afterwards, or the healed, misaligned crack would forever be a weak spot. The tight pain in his shoulders was still there, though discarding gear and the artifact had reduced it to a mere annoyance for now. Hunger gnawed at him, feeding the tal. Thirst hadn't hurt him yet; he'd be
en near water and able to resupply. But he was reaching a fatigue level that would begin to affect him, even with the brief nap he'd had. Tal seemed to increase strain on the metabolism, as well as causing him to use more energy.
Always the tal. Every problem in the Darhel psyche and physiology came back to tal. How had they accomplished so much with that stone tied to their feet, anchoring them? More questions to be asked afterwards. And more reasons to loathe the Aldenata.
But for now he must move, until Dagger reacted and he could Sense the activity and respond accordingly.
At a trot, he headed east, making no effort to mask his movement. His head stuck above the grass, making him feel exposed and naked as he bulled through it. Either Dagger would see him and start taking shots, or he'd get clear and be able to circle around, Dagger having no idea where he was. He couldn't get too far away, or Dagger would simply snag the artifact and go. That would leave him with no bait, and still risking stalemate and abandonment. But there could be no gain without risk.
He'd gone about three hundred meters when Dagger faded in his perception again. Likely a shot would follow. He gave no indication of his awareness, though part of him shouted to take cover. Instead, he breathed deeply, let his stride even out to a pace that didn't require thinking, and reached out with his Sense as tal rose, ready to respond.
Shot fired! his Sense shouted at him. He threw himself sideways and low, rolled over the lump in his pack and stayed still as tufts and seeds drifted down, torn loose by the projectile's passage. The crack of tortured air rang his ears and echoed loudly from the hills. He breathed in the smell of the grass, and that of the earth just centimeters from his nose. His chin stung where the muzzle of the punch gun had smashed it as he landed. He took a breath to steady himself and held motionless. But staying still would simply let Dagger take a followup shot to end this, he realized at once. He scrambled forward and ran again, faster. He would keep this up until he had Dagger in a good frame of mind.
