Damn, she’s good. “And we’ve got to keep it that way. The three of you on watch are going to walk beside the stream. The rest of us are going to push away from the water a little bit, higher up the slope. That means we’re giving up the delta formation. We’ll be moving as two columns; the unarmed folks up higher on the bank, you three down closer to the water. That way, if the creatures try to cross the stream either in front of us or behind us, we’ve got a better chance of seeing them. And putting a bullet into one of them.”
Betul’s eyes widened. “Will that not just anger them?”
Macmillan looked thoughtful. “These aren’t big critters, Qwara. Pretty light-footed from the way they move, and their haunches don’t make a long flash when they pass between the fronds.” He shook his head. “Besides, most predators run from the sound of a gun. And if one goes down, the others tend to flee.”
“Sharks don’t,” Dora argued. “They don’t give a damn about what happens to other sharks. If they aren’t hurt, they don’t run. And the creatures here may not be any smarter.”
“Maybe not, but fish don’t work as cooperative hunters.” Caine pointed across the stream. “The group trailing us does. So, the same bonds that make the group work together can be used to collectively scare them into running.” Theoretically.
Dora shrugged. “Hell, it’s our best shot, anyhow.” She turned and scooted back, shooing the unarmed persons at the center of the delta up the slope and into a column paralleling the tree line. Macmillan started to move toward the point position on the stream-hugging patrol column, saw that Riordan wasn’t moving. “What about you, Captain?”
Caine rubbed his chin. “I’m going to play free safety in the center, between your column and the upslope group. Can’t really be an effective commander from back there.” He gestured toward the jungle to their right, where the first bioluminescent lures and attractors were warming to the approach of dusk. “We’d better get going, see if we can find a defensible rock outcropping or something similar before nightfall.”
Macmillan shrugged. “You’re the boss, boss,” he said, but Caine could read the real meaning in Keith’s tone easily enough: please don’t be stupid and get yourself killed.
* * *
The lower the sun sank, the more frequently the group saw movement. But their change in formation seemed to discourage the creatures paralleling them. They kept their distance, which probably signified that if the humans were considered prey, they were not deemed unaware nor easily frightened prey.
As more of the bioluminescent plants began speckling the undergrowth with orange, yellow, magenta, and indigo glows, the movement of the trackers became easier to follow. Although it was impossible to make out a flashing flank or leg, swift occultations of the glowing dots in the underbrush revealed the direction and speed of the creatures’ movements. Most of them had now crossed the far stream and were on the median. A few minutes after Keith Macmillan quietly reported he didn’t have enough visibility left to reliably hit a target at forty meters, the river’s northerly course bent slightly to the west and the narrow band of salmon and teal sky that had been visible between the trees on either bank suddenly widened.
“Watercourses rejoin up ahead,” he reported. “The median runs out.”
“Any rock formations?”
“Not that I can see from he—yes. About one hundred meters beyond where the river comes together again. There’s an angled bluff that juts into the current. Naked rock. If we get to the top of it, we’ll be in a defensible position.”
Caine stopped, scanned the terrain. The creatures knew this land, which meant that they knew they were coming to the end of the easily fordable part of the river, and were coming to the end of the median, too. Which meant that they were running out of areas where there was enough cover to screen a crossing. In fact, they had already run out of opportunities for crossing the stream ahead of the group, as shown by the widening space between the trees downriver. Which meant they only had one option left:“Keith, double-time forward!”
“Forward?”
“Yes: watch for critters trying to cut you off from that bluff. Ambassador,” he called over his shoulder, “everyone in the upslope column runs after Macmillan. If he stops to shoot, you go past him. Lead our people up the rocky bluff you’re going to see in a few meters. Dora,” he shouted, moving to the rear. “Form up on Qwara, and watch the stream behind—”
Up ahead, Macmillan’s rifle spat three times as something started splashing across a rocky shallow where the streams began to reconverge. Whatever it was went down, thrashed, went down again. As it struggled, it made a sound like a soprano screaming over a fast rattle of deep-toned castanets. Another of the creatures, a thin-limbed and nimble quadruped with a heavy body, was sprinting past its feebly kicking pack-mate. Two more shots from Macmillan’s nine millimeter had no effect. The animal started up the shallows toward the now sprinting group—then Macmillan’s weapon fired twice again, rapidly.
The creature, a bulldog body perched on whippet legs, spun away from the impact of a hit. Its broad, blunt head tossed—upward jutting fangs flashed as its jaws snapped irritably—and then it charged back into the water, fleeing for the median and the far stream beyond it.
Behind, Dora was approaching Betul—just as the median vomited out a handful of the same creatures, splashing across the shallow water. Dora shouldered her rifle, fired twice—the second bullet elicited a brief castanet-shriek—and then she ran. Caine sprinted toward Betul, who had drilled on what to do in this situation: aim, fire twice herself, turn, and run past Dora, who would then repeat the process. A simple leapfrog retreat. Riordan should have been retreating as well, but hung back to make sure that nothing went wrong. Because when even the simplest maneuvers had to be executed in combat—
This day was no exception. Betul fired once, tried again: nothing. But Riordan had heard the incomplete cycling of the bolt, knew what had happened: “Jam! Cycle the action, Qwara!”
Qwara Betul was either too terrified, too surprised, or too unfamiliar with the terms to react quickly enough. Instead, she tried firing again, to no avail.
Caine ran past her. “Just run. Now!” He brandished his combo-axe at the scattered creatures just coming up the shore, and shouted at them. But the words of his shout were also a signal: “Dora! Cover fire!”
The creatures stopped for a moment.
“Dora!”
But she was gone, was too fast. And the creatures were edging forward.
Damn it: if they charge Qwara now—
Riordan yelled at the ugly predators again: no words, just an animal howl. They froze in mid-stride; Caine jumped into the stream and made for the end of the median, finding the footing on the rocks swift, but dangerous. If he slipped or tripped just once—but he didn’t and evidently, that was the last direction the creatures had expected their prey to go.
The barrel-chested predators spent a moment in indecision, and then the largest ones went after the main group: more meat in that direction. A trio of smaller specimens, probably having learned that they did not get much of the kill when they competed with their bigger pack mates, veered after Riordan.
Who was already charging up the far shore. Far behind, he heard his name being shouted: no time for that now. He just hoped that Qwara had been able to use the momentary distraction to break out of her panic and run like hell. Riordan scanned the median: there wasn’t even a tree large enough for him to climb. He could always try his risky back-up plan: to push out into the reunited currents of the river and swim over to the rocky outcropping—
But beyond the further, narrower stream, he spotted the distinctive shape of a large cone tree, alone among indigenous vegetation. It almost came down to the water’s edge, and was cinched close against a rock face on the downsteam side. The clearance under the lower margin of its canopy was less than a meter.
Riordan’s decision was as much instinct as tactical insight: under that tree, his rear flank was protecte
d by a sheer rock face. Along the rest of its perimeter, enemies would have to hunker down to get at him and so, lose their speed and leaping advantages. He sprinted into the stream on the other side of the median, discovered the light was failing.
As he waded through the midcourse currents and heard the creatures skitter to a stop on the bank he’d just left, his collarcom paged. Again, no time. With one hand clutching the pseudo-axe and the other out before him to maintain balance, Riordan sloshed through the accelerating, groin-deep current. Behind him, the predators jumped into the water and started picking their comparatively hesitant way after him.
Caine came up on the far shore, raced along the dark ribbon of muddy silt that led all the way to the cone tree. It would be close; he had a decent head start and had gained on them during the crossing, but once on the shore they were much faster. As he neared the tree’s canopy, he saw hints of light under it, hoped he wasn’t jumping from a frying pan into a fire, and, hearing the pattering of speedy pursuers behind him, dove forward at an angle. His sideways roll carried him under the lowest branches and sent him banging over a washboard of crisscrossing roots.
The first of his three pursuers fetched up outside the canopy, ducked its head under to get a look—
Riordan, axe cocked as he came up from his roll, swung hard.
The creature saw the movement, flinched its head back, scream-clattered as a glancing blow tore a divot out of a cartilaginous flap that might have been an ear. Furious, ravening, the other two angled apart with the innate tactical insight of all predators; any prey can be brought down if it can be flanked. Caine cocked the axe back again, wondered how long this could go on—
A monstrous, outraged foghorn roar froze him and the predators mid-action: a savage tableau illuminated by pink and violet lanterns now brightening in the cone tree’s under-canopy. A great rush of water swept under its low boughs from the direction of the river bank, where something large, terribly large, was rising up, torrents of water pouring off the sides of its shadowy bulk, obscured by the leaves of the tree.
The predators inched back, muted castanet-clatters vying with shrill warbles and yelps as they made a show of standing their ground. But the foghorn-hooting—the same made by the dimly seen gargantua which had ended the pirhannows’ attack upon Hirano—sounded again, and a broad, spatulate foot thudded down into the shore-silt so hard that gouts of the sandy black sludge sprayed under the tree and toward the predators.
All of which promptly ran, making sounds akin to fighting tomcats as, scalded by terror, they leaped off into the underbrush.
The foot in the silt remained planted there for a long moment, then, wavering, turned, moved back out toward the water. But the creature did not seem to be leaving. Instead, it seemed to be brushing along the riverside periphery of the cone tree’s canopy, searching—
With a blast of musk and mist, two immense legs forced open a gap in the cone tree’s shoots and branches. The legs bent and with one surprisingly deft dipping motion, the blunt body of the river-striding behemoth was crouching under the ten-meter canopy of the tree. Its head, not much more than a trough-jawed protrusion of its body, swiveled toward Caine, a pair of round, wide eyes both above and below the gaping maw. Jaw-lining light sensors pulsed and bulged in his direction as well. The gigantic animal staggered toward him, a grumble rising up out of its gut like a chorus of bears waking up from hibernation.
Riordan, panting, looked up at the creature, hefted his ax ironically, and wondered: so does he stomp me or bite me?
Chapter Thirty-Six
Southern extents of the Third Silver Tower; BD +02 4076 Two (“Disparity”)
The water-strider stared down at Caine, leaned slightly closer. Riordan watched the extraordinarily wide mouth of the creature, held the futile axe ready, but did not move it.
The water-strider snuffled at him, then blew out a great, surprisingly sweet, breath—a mélange of lilies and ginger—and swayed unevenly away.
Caine forgot his fear as the creature’s unsteadiness caught his attention: is it weak or—?
And then Riordan noticed that the ground around the creature was not just wet from its steadily dripping pelt; there was a faintly iridescent maroon spattering that did not readily mix with the water. Caine traced it, found that it was streaming down one of the water-strider’s immense, bowed legs, which was quivering. Riordan looked more closely—
Pirhannows, by the scores, had worked themselves into the creature’s short fur. And now that he knew what to look for, Riordan saw them everywhere, writhing along the water-strider’s belly, around its mouth, up near its hips, and at a few points on the strange, almost antennalike protrusions that lay along its back to either side of its spine.
The water-strider took two more staggering steps away from Caine, revealing the pulverized remains of several orange water lilies stuck to its far flank. The strider crouched low and slowly slid on to its side, where it preceded to roll fretfully to and fro, apparently trying to cake dirt on its innumerable wounds.
Unfortunately, the soil under the cone tree was too sparse and too dry to stick. The protuberant roots gave the strider surfaces against which it could squash a few tormentors, but the main infestations were not concentrated where the rolling routinely crushed them. Some did fall off, though—
Caine leaped closer to the water-strider and smashed a handful of the pirhannows into mush with the back of the axe head. The sight, and the smell, was not unlike stamping on corpse-bloated maggots.
The water-strider started, stopped its rolling, focused all four eyes on Caine, snuffled lightly—then seemed to catch the whiff of its dead tormentors. It stopped, stared at Caine again, and then began rubbing its broad flat face along the roots that radiated out from the trunk of the cone tree. A dozen of the worm-fish were scraped off, still squirming. The strider leaned back its head—and out of pure instinct, Caine pulped them with the back of the axe. Savagely. He didn’t know if it was for Mizuki, or out of gratitude for being twice-saved by water-striders, or something more primal. Or possibly, he wondered, standing back, this is an example of the Slaasriithi process of Affining one species to another. But despite the chilling implications of that possibility, Caine Riordan realized that there was simply no arguing that he had become, well, fond, of this powerful yet gentle creature.
Riordan resumed his strange partnership with the water-strider, lethally grooming the pirhannows from its pelt for another fifteen minutes. By then, the remaining wormlike tormentors were located in anatomical regions that the creature could not reach, and which Caine had no way of approaching without seeming like a new threat. The water-strider looked at him—it recalled the patient, steady stare of a grateful horse or dog—and rolled its mass a bit further away, the margins of its mouth not only caked with its own blood, but dry and cracked.
Caine rocked back upon his buttocks, sat, reflected on the surreal circumstances in which he found himself—and, for the first time, heard his collarcom paging steadily. Clearly, Gaspard had used his command-level authority to unlock the devices. Riordan tapped it. “Riordan.”
“Captain Riordan! We had given you up for—never mind. We are delighted that you have answered. But where are you?”
“I believe I’m directly across the river from you, Ambassador. Can you see a large cone tree on the opposite bank, the only one for hundreds of meters in either direction?” As they spoke, dusk was making its final surrender to night.
“I do not see—” Eager exclamations behind him suggested that others had better awareness of their surroundings. “Ah—yes, yes. Your position is known. But—”
“Ambassador, first things first: is everyone all right?”
“Happily, and improbably, yes. Ms. Veriden and Ms. Betul covered our retreat up the rocky outcropping by greeting our pursuers with a flurry of bullets. One was killed, two were wounded. That was enough to convince them to flee. But you have found shelter? Even though we saw you pursued? And you are safe?”
Caine stared at the water-strider; it may have been sleeping fitfully. That, or it was an awfully noisy breather. “Frankly, Ambassador, I doubt I’ve been safer since I stepped foot on this planet.”
“I am confused, Captain: how could you be—?”
“Ambassador, it would take far too long to explain. For now, let’s concentrate on arranging the safest way for me to rejoin you tomorrow. Have Mr. Xue and Ms. Veriden make their way over here to escort me back one hour after dawn. They should both be armed with rifles. After last night, if those predators are still in the area, they will hightail it the other direction if they take more fire. Other than that, I think we should save the batteries of our collarcoms.”
“Very well, Captain. You seem to lead a charmed existence.”
Caine looked at the strider. “A very unusual one, at least. Good night, Ambassador. Signal me when Xue and Veriden leave tomorrow.”
“Very well. Bon nuit, Captain.”
“Likewise.” Riordan turned off the collarcom.
* * *
The water-strider fell into a restless slumber, judging from its phlegmy susurrations, but its bleeding increased steadily. Riordan wondered if—following the apparent intent of the water-strider—he might have more success at making mud to cake its wounds. But the pirhannows had pulped the large animal’s hide in so many places that it was difficult to discern the worst sources of the bleeding.
The other problem—beyond Riordan’s innate reluctance to touch the large creature without its express toleration for such contact—was the lack of mud or suitable soil. Caine searched around the sub-biome that existed beneath the cone tree’s canopy, but the ground cover was thick and the dirt somewhat sandy: it crumbled when he tried to pick it up.
So maybe the answer was to make one’s own mud, or, better yet, to bring it in from the shore that crept right up to the margins of the tree. Armed with one of the tree’s large, spatulate leaves, Riordan moved through the arch the strider had used to enter under the canopy—
Raising Caine - eARC Page 36
