The Hero lota-5 Page 16

  The bitch of it was, he could save himself, possibly. Gun Doll’s transmitter would burn a signal out, and he knew enough about it to be able to make it do so. That would bring in a force. With only one Tslek there, the odds were excellent that he could stay hidden. Even if the Tslek got a force there first, he could be well away from them. But that would start a huge battle, cost hundreds or thousands of casualties, and the box would already be gone. If he did that for just his life, he’d be saved, yes. Then he’d be put away forever. That was just not the type of fame he wanted, and that life wasn’t preferable to death, really. He couldn’t do that to people.

  Could a force get here fast enough to matter, if he could protect the pod for a few days? Was he likely to live that long? The artifact was important enough to make that call, even if he wasn’t.

  It might bear thinking about.

  First, he should try to figure out where they were. Dammit, Tirdal could read minds, and Dagger had gear at least as good as his. He didn’t dare pursue them, yet he had to. The artifact had to be recovered, and he’d likely have to kill both of them to do it. And he wasn’t sure he could.

  Taking a slow, deep breath, Ferret got himself calm enough to consider everything. The important fact was that he was already effectively dead. He was in excruciating pain. Nothing could get worse, from a personal point of view. Every moment was a gift of borrowed time, and he intended to use each one of them. All that was left was professional accomplishment and duty. Though it might be that no one would ever know what he did.

  He rolled slowly over, feet full of phantom pain that couldn’t exist with the damaged nerves, but did. Every shift of his boots over the rough surface of the ground was static up into his thighs. He clamped down on the pain and managed to reach into his ruck for the lifesigns tracker. He opened its case, brought it up at minimum and began searching for residual DNA, pheromones or heat. He canceled everything that indicated himself and let it search and ponder.

  There was something down by the stream that wasn’t local. The readings didn’t match Dagger’s profile. Tirdal had gone that way. So it was Tirdal.

  Ferret considered for only a moment. Tirdal would be easier to track than Dagger, easier to approach. The man — alien — wasn’t the best in the woods, in fact was downright clumsy in a few ways. Also, he had a punch gun, which was a much shorter range weapon than the rifle Dagger had. Tirdal was injured, and wasn’t going to be very stealthy, assuming Ferret could stalk him. So Tirdal was the logical one to pursue first. That and he had the artifact. Get that and he had a hell of a bargaining chip to use with Dagger.

  That decided him. He drew his feet under him, rose carefully through the waving leaves, alert for threats, and explored the range of motion of his shrieking, cramping legs. Nausea and pain washed over him, and he tried not to strangle on saliva or bite his cheeks as he grimaced tightly. Swaying from poor feedback, he steadied himself.

  He could walk. Not well, but it was possible. His right ankle bent as he wanted, the left was insensate but did move mechanically if he thought about it. He would need support though, as he couldn’t tell what was under his foot, or how it was moving unless he looked at it.

  There were straight, sturdy saplings within stumbling distance, and his knife cut through one easily enough with three light chops. He trimmed it to a good length, with a side branch to use as support. It would work as a crutch. Now he’d have to lose some of the mass he carried, however.

  He’d keep two grenades, one power pack for the punch gun and his knife as weapons. The rest could be buried. The tracker he’d keep, of course. Two rat packs would supplement the marginal crap he’d be able to get out of the food converter. He wouldn’t need rope, gloves or most of what was in his larger ruck. He could just use the patrol pack, if he detached it.

  Thus unburdened, he could limp more steadily. And his nerves were hurting less. Either the painkillers and nanos were having some effect, or the nerves were dying. For now, either was acceptable.

  Learning to use his feet as mere appendages rather than as limbs, he headed downhill, very slowly and cautiously, probing ahead with the crutch and hopping down to meet it, every jolt another brand into his legs. He wasn’t going to try for anything in the camp. It was an easy threat zone, and likely booby trapped. He’d just have to rely on his wits and his gun.

  * * *

  Dagger settled down in his next hide and checked his bearings. The point was a slight rise overlooking a clearing along the river. His hide was a circle of trees, open above but thickly interlaced from about forty centimeters off the ground to a couple of meters up. It was peaceful in a way, like the practice range. And as with the range, there would be a target. He had a good view from underneath out across the river valley.

  The Darhel would have to go well out of his way to not cross the clearing and the last time Dagger checked the Elf had been moving slowly. There had also been traces of violet blood; the hornet must have scored even if it didn’t kill the little creep.

  He idly glanced at the tracker on the box and frowned. It was well to the north, nowhere near a line to the pod. What in the hell did the damned Elf think it was doing? Then it hit him. The Elf wanted to play games. Okay. No problem. The only game in town was “Dagger wins.” But he’d have to pay more attention to the tracker. Eventually he’d get the Elf to rights.

  Later, though. He was faster than the Elf and could easily catch up. Time for some lunch. He pulled some leaves off the nearest tree and root stems from the ground and put them in his converter. Maybe the processor could imitate something unusual. He scrolled through the list of delicacies on the menu. Ah, calf brains. That sounded interesting.

  Chapter 11

  Tirdal crouched down and took a drink of water. The trickling stream here probably meandered down to reach the large river to the south, but in this area it ran between clay banks. There were plenty of hiding places and it would have been a fair place to rest for a bit, if he had any idea how far he was from the sniper. The problem was that he was the hunted. Dagger could hit him at any time so he had no time to slow down and rest.

  Turning that around would be tough. Unlike the sniper he couldn’t track people, didn’t have the slightest idea how. He had vague memories of stories about broken twigs, footprints in weeds and similar signs, but he had no realistic hope of doing anything. He’d observed Ferret enough to know that it was part training, part talent and part philosophy. Even if he had talent and developed the thinking, he had no way to get the training, and a mistake while learning would be lethal. His Sense would spot such unusual signs… from less than a meter away. Only if he stumbled across Dagger’s trail would it help. And he was trying to stay away from Dagger. Until the sniper fired he only had a vague sense that he was near or far.

  When Dagger fired he would have to use the tal hormones. But using them had a high degree of danger. He was still bemused at his luck back at the camp; that use far exceeded anything he had tried in the past. He looked at the box and flicked an ear. Damn the Aldenata, as humans would say. It was similar to an ancient Darhel curse. For now, it was needful to seek higher ground, and that took him back the way they had come. He could move all day, must move all night, and try to lure Dagger close.

  * * *

  That had been interesting, Dagger thought. He should definitely try some of the more esoteric foods when he had the money. And when he bagged the Elf, he’d see what Darhel tasted like. Chicken, most likely, but who could say? There was so little known about the damned things. In fact, if he got a handy kill, he should drag the corpse with him. An in-depth analysis of a Darhel corpse would be useful to humans, and likely some lab would pay a few credits for the body. It couldn’t match the billion or more he’d negotiate for the box, but it could account for the pain in the ass factor the goddammed thing was causing him. Also, it was evidence to support his position.

  Anyway, he had an Elf to stalk. He looped the tracker around his neck to keep it readily accessible, raised
his rifle into low port and felt its comforting heft, then checked the surroundings and moved out.

  How the hell had the little bastard crossed the river? Dagger wondered, amazed. Well, shit, he needed to get moving. He’d underestimated the Darhel, and that was not good. He took a route directly toward the stream, pushing his way through the brush and not worrying about a trail. Ferret might follow, but Dagger was sure he’d have the upper hand. Sneaking was Ferret’s thing. Shooting was not. Not that he couldn’t shoot, but he needed a reason. All Dagger needed was a target.

  Once he reached the stream, he realized that crossing it would be a bitch. He looped his rifle into a diagonal position, waded out and angled against the current. He’d have to swim, and that was going to be harder than hell. As the depth reached his chest, which put him further out than Tirdal had been, being taller, he pushed off and began stroking.

  It wasn’t that the water was cold, though it was. It wasn’t that drag of all his gear and the suit slowed his strokes and caused muscle strain, though it did. It wasn’t even the intermittent cracking of his helmeted head against the rifle barrel and the neck strain caused by tense muscles and all that mass on his head. The combination, however, sucked. He was being dragged downstream, and was soon tired. Yes, he was making progress, but it was slow. Then he inhaled in between strokes and caught a lungful of water that made his lungs spasm. He coughed and cringed, choking and gagging. How had that little freak made it across? And he hadn’t even drifted far downstream. No matter. He was nearly across now, and was able to snag an overhanging branch. It kept him from losing more distance — he’d lost at least five hundred meters so far — as he recovered his breathing. Panting, wincing, he got it under control and swam in, dragging the branch with him until it became more liability against his lateral progress than anchor against being swept downstream. A few hard, urgent kicks and he reached shallow water.

  He angled at once upstream, intending to cut Tirdal’s path and follow it, simply to avoid blazing a new trail. It would be easier to follow the Darhel, avoid the areas where he got snagged, and overtake him from directly behind. He kept his eyes open to the sides for signs of passage… like those branches there, the fronds broken and inverted. Something had passed them recently. Looking down and along a line from the river, he saw bent stems and then a bootprint. There. The incompetent little troll was his. He turned to follow and smiled to himself.

  * * *

  Ferret found the stream a relief. He was burning with metabolic heat, from exertion and stress and pain, even with his suit as permeable as it could get. Also, the water took weight and pressure off his feet. He wasn’t heavily burdened, and while he was swept a considerable distance downstream, he had no major problems, though his shoulders ached fiercely and his strained tricep burned before he reached the midpoint, as he swam using hands alone. That drifting in the current also brought him past a section of bank that looked very much as if someone had clambered from the water. He’d have to come back to that. His attention came back to his progress, his punch gun on its harness cracking his right elbow and chest as he swam, his improvised crutch catching on his left arm and leg. It might not have been the best idea to shove it through his harness like that. But if he dragged it out now, he might be able to use it to reach bottom.

  He tried it and it worked. He reached, stuck it into the mud and was pulled downstream of it by the current. Then he could twist and plant it again and repeat the procedure. It wasn’t efficient, but it saved a lot of wear on his arms and stopped him from being swept too far. He could also tell depth, though sometimes it was by shoving the stick down and getting nothing.

  Farther downstream, his knees reached bottom and he crawled out on hands and knees, rather than get his feet stuck in mud or risk tripping over rocks. As a result, he was smeared and greased with dank, wet loam before he reached high ground. Then he had to cross a boggy area, the bank here being higher than nearby ground in this rolling terrain. At least he could move relatively fast on hands and knees, even if it was awkward to keep his feet raised behind him. He should be safe here; neither Tirdal nor Dagger should be this far downstream.

  It was painful to rise upright, even with his crutch. Damned excruciating. The words didn’t do it justice until he whispered under his breath, “This hurts like a motherfucker,” while leaking tears from squinted eyes. That felt right. Sometimes, profanity was necessary, rather than just punctuation. This was one of those times.

  He was getting the hang of walking, as much as it hurt. He could now move in a step-limp, step-limp that made for okay progress. His left foot was at an angle so he could shove off with it, assisted with the stick. His right was working just fine, except that every step felt as if he were walking on hot coals, and hurt worse as he staggered to throw his left foot out in front. When all his weight hit a foot, he winced and stiffened.

  It didn’t take long to get to the area where whoever or whatever had scrabbled out of the water. He crept again, easing in under the feathery undergrowth like a lizard or snake. His punch gun was cradled over his arms, and he favored the left elbow to drag himself forward, so his right hand was slightly rearward in case he needed to shoot in a hurry. His crutch kept bumping his helmet from where it was lashed across his pack, and his head itched outrageously as it dried under the helmet, all slimy with sweat again.

  The bank had been rather chewed. That set of prints was clearly Dagger’s, so that other set with the odd cant were Tirdal’s. They were already teamed up, then. Damn. That was no good.

  Then, a fleck of mud slipped from the tread pattern of Dagger’s track into the muddy water. Ferret took a closer, more scientific look. It wouldn’t do to make assumptions.

  Tirdal’s tracks were older and softer. Perhaps thirty minutes old, though it would depend on the mud here. Dagger’s were perhaps five or ten minutes old. So they were aiming for a meeting point.

  Ferret couldn’t pass them, but he could certainly find them at that meeting point. Dagger was now the primary target, then, because of his greater ranged weapon and readiness to kill. He had a momentary flashback to that shootout between Dagger and Thor, and shivered. Yes, Dagger had to go first and quickly. Tirdal was an unknown, except that Ferret could hide and track better than he.

  They clearly didn’t expect to be followed, though, so it was time to stop dallying. He shoved back up to his feet with the aid of his crutch, and kept going.

  * * *

  The foothills were well forested, and Tirdal trudged on. The trees were good cover. They were also a hindrance, with undergrowth and roots. These were not like the cultivated copses or semiwild prairie on Darhel. These were thick, tangled forests out of some early epoch of planetary development. Also, he knew he was leaving a trail Dagger could follow. That wasn’t much help for his intended ambush; it was better to be invisible so as not to be outmaneuvered. Another problem, after all night splashing in water and half a day of running with an artifact on his back was his innate lack of body fat. The strength and endurance of a Darhel did not come without a cost. Although the chemical analog they used instead of ATP was more efficient, the lack of long-term energy storage meant that after a day or two of high-energy activity the Darhel was drawing entirely upon muscle mass. He needed that mass. Also, the lack of fat and blood sugar slowed his reactions.

  Most of the food coming out of his converter had been from plant matter. Although it was high in complex sugars there was minimal useable protein or fat. Some plants existed somewhere in this biome to provide both, but he didn’t have the time to seek them out. The unpleasant fact was that he needed to eat some meat. He’d trained for it, even if he didn’t like it. Even if every fiber of his mind screamed at the idea.

  There was another small brook ahead, green and thick along its banks and the mossy rocks it trickled over. That was a good bet for easy-to-corner food. Leaning over slowly to avoid spooking them, he was rewarded by the sight of potential meals crawling and swimming in a group among trailing tendri
ls of weeds. He gratefully dropped his burdens and settled down.

  He reached an arm in to snag one. Then he had to try again. By the third try he had its reactions figured out and at least snagged a tail as it slithered free. The sixth attempt found him with a handful of wriggling creature.

  It was slimy and had external gills even though it had legs like a reptile. Possibly it and its ilk were a third animal family that the explorer bots had missed. Perhaps it was a larval version of the “mammalian” types. Whichever, the creatures would be a good protein source and they even scanned as edible to his simple sensor kit.

  Now if he could only eat one.

  The problem was not disgust; the squirming, wriggling thing in his hand had triggered atavistic cravings he hadn’t even realized existed. But they were also triggering other reactions and Tirdal wrestled with his autonomic processes. The tal gland, sensing the coming moment of kill, had gone into preorgasmic spasm. If the gland overcame the Darhel’s hard-held control it would dump its contents into his system, permitting him to bolt the food at lightning speed and vanish at a run. And, not coincidentally, trigger the genetic “zombie” switch installed by the long-gone Aldenata.

  If the molecular detectors scattered throughout the Darhel’s brain reached a certain level of tal hormone they would activate, triggering the condition called “lintatai.” If that happened the Darhel would sit there quite happily until Dagger came along and took the box. Or until he keeled over from dehydration, for he would neither eat nor drink nor perform any other fully voluntary function without orders.

  So in wrestling with his tal gland he wrestled for his very life.

  Using ever scrap of the Jem disciplines he had trained in for so many, many years he got the incredibly seductive urge under control. Tal release was truly orgasmic and his body shuddered in pleasure from even the mere inkling of it. There were many among the Darhel who were tal addicts, playing chicken with their own bodies by watching violent shows or simulating violent behavior. But only the Bane Sidhe had learned, through the opposite approach of rigid control, how to suppress the gland and control it. Use it when needed and otherwise shut those feelings and emotions away. It was only the Bane Sidhe Darhel and their Michon cousins, in fifty thousand years, who had learned to kill and live to tell about it.