The Hero

Chapter 10

Tirdal felt Dagger’s aggression smack him. It was palpable, vicious, and thoroughly emotionless under the surface. The incoming feeling was so strong, it was one of the few visual senses he’d ever had. The feeling hit him and rolled over him, creating a link for a bare fraction of a second. He could feel the callous smirk on his/Dagger’s face, see the grenade arc from his/Dagger’s hand. The sudden image of a fangar, a predator on Shartan, came through clearly. Dagger was not only committing mass murder, he was enjoying it. It was an intense moment, the sensat equivalent of orgasm, personal and powerful. They were Tirdal’s specialty. He couldn’t always “feel” people in his area. But he always knew when they were participating in a kill.

He also knew that there wasn’t time to stop it. His punch gun would go right through the boulder the sniper was using as a shield against the neural lash but the grenade was already in the air as the Darhel surged to his feet. Stopping to kill the sniper would just leave the entire team dead on the ground. Their vital information, and the possibly more vital artifact, would never make it back.

This thought process occurred in an instant and Tirdal knew what he had to do. Saving the team was out of the question; he couldn’t reach the grenade and throw it out of range in time. All he could do was avoid the death himself. And keep the box, which had to be Dagger’s target, out of the hands of the sniper turned traitor.

But to do everything that he had to do, it would be necessary to use tal hormones. Which was another problem.

Tirdal summoned the tal, letting the natural anger at the sniper’s betrayal slither a tiny tendril past hard-held defenses. The mere touch of anger triggered the tal gland, dumping a modicum of hormone into the Darhel’s system and slowing his subjective time and the world around him as he reached for the box.

The captain was slowly looking at him in consternation but Tirdal didn’t pay any attention; the captain, who was a decent person, really, was dead and didn’t know it. Tirdal’s knife-blade hand struck the officer’s wrist, breaking it and releasing the hold on the box.

As soon as he had the box secured Tirdal turned and dove over the boulder behind him. The whole world seemed to slow as he could see both Shiva’s and Gun Doll’s looks of horror at the sight of the grenade out of the corners of his eyes. His vision split, one eye tracking on potential threats to the right as the other looked to the left where the grenade was coming in. Humans couldn’t do that, he remembered. It might be useful knowledge later.

He had the box, his punch gun and his combat harness with its small patrol pack. What he didn’t have was his rucksack. But as soon as he had the bulk of the granite between him and the grenade he intended to teach the sniper a few things about Darhel.

One of which was that they really hated traitors. At least Bane Sidhe Darhel did.

He leapt up and back, and one hand struck the top of the boulder to correct his course with a twist. Fingers tougher than granite left small scars as they drove him forward and down into the tangled undergrowth. The landing would receive no praise from his master, and he felt one shoulder give. But then he was flat on the ground, if somewhat battered, when the neural grenade gave its snarl.

Breathing slowly and deeply to prevent lintatai, Tirdal spun around on his belly and, carefully controlling his tal reaction, fired back along the line towards the spot the sniper had thrown from. Carefully. He was just shooting boulders and dirt. Not a person. If the person happened to be in the way that would be a pure accident. But not a kill. Never a kill.

Ferret was turning his head as Thor spoke, and realized something was wrong. He didn’t know what that thing flying in from behind the boulder was at first, but he knew it was bad.

Luckily, he had been setting up his position behind a low finger of rock, to at least have the illusion of privacy. He ducked flat and hoped he’d be covered from whatever stupid stunt Dagger was pulling. He didn’t care if he got laughed at for putting his face in the dirt. If this was a joke, it was a bad one.

He felt the angry lash of the grenade, and knew he was wounded. At first, that’s all it was, an agonizing rip through his body, bright flashes in his eyes. But he was alive. He concentrated on that. His awareness returned, with his feet kicking convulsively. The pain resolved as a searing, cramping burn from his mid-calves down. He’d been mostly covered from the rays of the blast, but his feet had protruded beyond the rock and been exposed, and it hurt, oh shit it hurt.

Now he had to move. That couldn’t have been by accident, and Dagger would be coming back to kill him. He also noticed as he scanned the area that the bodies in front of him didn’t include Tirdal. Was that damned Darhel in on this? Not good. Whatever was happening was not good. He scrabbled for a gap between the rocks and tried to squirm through, but got stuck. It would be easy to push himself through with his feet, except his feet were not working, except that the nerves were working and they fucking hurt. There was firing behind him and that was a bad sign.

By sheer force that strained a tricep into a sting that paled compared to his feet, he wiggled out. He held still as he saw Tirdal go jogging past below, headed downstream with the artifact.

Oh, son of a bitch, he thought. Had it all been a setup to get that artifact? Or had Tirdal and Dagger cut a deal this evening? “Captain?” he whispered into his commo, craving a reassuring voice. There was no reply. He knew they were dead, but he had to check. Scrolling through channels, he tried, “Sarge? Doll? Thor? Gorilla?” with no responses. Panic set in as he realized he was in command now, with two traitors, and it didn’t matter a damn, because he was going to be killed. And even if he wasn’t killed, the neural damage to his ankles and feet meant he might get gangrene and die shortly anyway. He couldn’t very well amputate, and he had no way of repairing nerves in the field. Was gangrene possible? He didn’t know. Not that it mattered; he was lame.

He scrabbled higher up the slope, keeping low, keeping hidden. This part he could do on hands and knees for now, though he’d have to watch where his dangling feet went or he’d leave a clear sign of his passing. He didn’t just need to worry about Blobs now, this was Dagger who would be stalking him. And Tirdal could probe his mind. He wasn’t sure there was anywhere safe at this point, but he couldn’t just lie there and wait for a shot.

Ferret was scared. He wasn’t afraid to admit it. He was just old enough to grasp mortality, and it was staring hard at him. He couldn’t see any way of coming out of this alive, but the few hours or days he might have were precious beyond anything else.

Carefully, he made his way uphill under waving fronds and tangled stems. Height would give him a better chance at a shot, as long as he could stay hidden, because Dagger’s sensors and eyes would be looking for him, and the way he’d shot against Thor was just terrifying. And Tirdal had been following Ferret the entire trip, with that Sense of his, staring into his soul.

Ferret took a deep, slow breath and tried to calm down. He knew he was panicking, he knew he was in shock, and he knew his pulse was beating way too fast for health.

There was a dimple in the earth, thickly overgrown with greenery, and slightly damp. It would shield him for now. His heat would balance out the evaporative cooling of the earth, and he should be able to blend into the background. He elbowed and kneed his way around to the far side and slithered in.

Dagger was happy. That was a rare thing. But a billion credits could buy a lot of happiness. With a billion credits he could move himself to Kali and spend the rest of his life abusing worshippers. He could have himself rejuvenated as many times as he wished and when even rejuv failed could have his brain transferred to a new body and go on having fun. Maybe a woman’s body. Maybe he’d do that anyway, just for the kicks. A billion credits were going to buy a lot of pleasure.

He stood up as soon as the grenade settled down, stepped down and glanced around the clearing at the spasming and very dead bodies. Good. They were all assholes anyway. Where the hell was the…

Tirdal couldn’t localize the satisfied emotion but he heard a movement that wasn’t thrashing and fired along the vector. But as he did he sensed the surprise and flight emotions as well. He ripped out a series of shots to either side of where he thought the sniper had been but realized that he’d missed. It wasn’t really surprising. It was all he could do at this moment, though. Dagger might dodge into a beam. What was the motive here? Was simple greed enough to cause a trained professional to kill his teammates? Or did Dagger harbor some deeper issue? The human mind was a difficult thing to understand. For now, the motives weren’t important. Tirdal kept shooting as he skittered down the hill with the artifact, leaving obvious drag marks but needing distance and time.

Dagger dove and rolled, knowing what was going to happen. He also noted that the damned box was gone. The heat detector on his rifle had the Darhel more or less pinpointed so he let loose a hornet round and got the hell out of dodge, keeping those rocks between them as a punch gun poounked behind him. Then there was more firing. It wasn’t very accurate yet but that could change. What the hell had happened? He’d seen that damned Darhel in the clearing. He’d made sure of it, because killing the damned smart-ass Elf was the frosting on the cake. Certainly it had sensed him, but how in the fuck had that little bastard got the box and lit out over the rocks into a shadow zone before the grenade had fuzed?

Tirdal’s shoulder was hurting but he ignored it as he stood up and started to the side. It was that moment that the hornet round came flying around the boulder.

The hornet round could track on several items but the chameleon suit was giving off enough heat that that was the easiest. It lofted at a relatively low velocity until it decided it had a good track then went into high-speed acquisition.

The shot had been just a hope and a prayer for Dagger. The defensive sensors on Tirdal’s harness spotted the energy release on launch and as the device came around the rock a beam of high-intensity protons met it. The protons caused the body of the device to emit its own personal EMP field, tearing apart most of the electronics that controlled it. The weapon had lined up for its attack run but the EMP shut down its systems and although it continued towards the Darhel it was at far below killing velocity.

The projectile still slammed into Tirdal at over a thousand meters per second. Bullets, or even hypervelocity beads, don’t knock people down, but the impact cracked his lower chest plate and knocked the air out of his lungs. He managed to roll away from the rocks to a new cover position, wincing in pain and controlling his breathing to maintain consciousness. He hunched deeply under an alcove in the slope and kept his punch gun pointed up and out, in case Dagger should appear in front of him. Then he got his brain working again, through a miasma of sparks in his vision and a roaring in his ears.

He could Sense the silence from the camp. He was not good at picking up humans with his normal senses, but the background hum of life, human life, was gone from the small camp. And he could Sense the sniper out there, somewhere. The empathic sense that had been honed by the Bane Sidhe disciplines was not precise. It could tell him if something was very near or very distant. Everything in between was gray. The sniper was leaving “near” though. Which meant he was probably finding a good place to take a shot, which meant it was time to move out.

There were things up there in the rocks that Tirdal needed. His gear. His food, which was designed for his enzymic limitations as well as to provide the high calorie content he needed. Clean water. Some of the killer bots that Gorilla had carried would help with the sniper. On the other hand, wandering into the camp was out of the question. Before long Dagger would find a good hide and the next sensation Tirdal would pick up was the feeling as he squeezed the delicate neural trigger of his rifle.

He glanced at the box that was the center of the difficulty then looked around. The area was rolling and lightly wooded, the bones of the earth sticking up through the loam. If he kept to low ground and the trees, the chances were the sniper would not be able to get a shot at him. Of course, that would really add to the travel time.

If he could break contact with Dagger, he might be able to take to the ridges and outrun him. Darhel were descended from heavy-grav predators; this world was to him as Mars was to a human and humans moved like so many cattle. He could easily outdistance Dagger.

On the other hand, there was no question that Dagger had the advantage on him. The sniper had much more experience in the field than Tirdal, whose training was mostly mental and personal. And Dagger’s rifle had about ten times the range that his weapon did. That meant that Tirdal had to either leave him far behind, or get in tight and kill him, assuming he could do so without going into tal overload and suffering the consequences. That also would be a failure of the mission. He grimaced. It was one of the few expressions that was the same for both races.

Ideally, since he couldn’t get the artifact out past the human fleet anyway, he should just destroy it here. But it would take more energy than a punch gun to pierce that molecularly bound shell with its forcefield reinforcement. He’d just have to carry it until he could arrange disposition. Neither Dagger, nor any other human for that matter, could be allowed to access the damnable device.

Dagger would expect him to go for the camp. Then he would expect him to run for it. And, frankly, Tirdal couldn’t figure out any other options. But, since he already knew he wasn’t going to go for the material in the camp, it was time to run, before Dagger came to the same conclusion.

He trotted downslope towards the watercourse, then began paralleling it towards the west. Somewhere to the south, presumably, Dagger would be holing up, waiting for him to head for the camp. That should give him the time to break contact.

Dagger slid slowly into place under another shelf up the hill and extended his rifle. That damned punch gun made the Darhel too much of a danger at short range and that damned harness eliminated most of his smart rounds. But the free-flight projectiles would work well enough. That was so like a Darhel. There was always something they had to stick their manipulative fingers into. If he’d had the good grace to die with the rest, Dagger would be nearly home by now.

He panned the holographic sight from side to side and swore. In the hollow below the team members had twisted into the characteristic spasming posture from the neural grenade but he didn’t pay them any attention. He didn’t need any of the commo gear. He hesitated over Gorilla’s load of bots but this fight was going to be mano a mano; screw the electronic pieces of shit. He thought again about the local detector off Ferret’s harness and the tracker control off the captain. Better take those. The only heat emanations were from the cooling bodies; the devious little son of a bitch Darhel was gone.

Or was he just well hidden? The sight would pick up the slightest trace of heat but it was possible to spoof it. Just closing the uniforms like they were space suits would do it for a bit. Of course, you risked dying of heat prostration on a warm morning like this. With the remaining moisture in the suits from earlier, Tirdal should be stewing like a chicken. But he could be doing that, buttoned up and staying really still until Dagger moved.

That was unlikely, though. He should have gotten at least a trace by now and the computer was saying the area was deserted. The fucking Elf had run. With the goddamned artifact.

And it wasn’t likely he could outrun, outwit and outthink Dagger. First of all, the captain had put a tracer on the box. He hadn’t made a big deal of it, had actually been sort of cagey, like he knew it might come up missing. Did the Darhel know? Probably not, or he wouldn’t have wasted time grabbing it. In fact, why had he? The box’s mass was a hindrance to him that Dagger could exploit. His own greed had burdened him instead of Dagger with the bulky artifact, and it could be used to track him. Dumb. Second of all, there wasn’t another tracker in the Galaxy like Dagger. He could track a Himmit on rock. Tracking a city-bred Darhel wasn’t going to be too hard.

He thought about the stuff he wanted. Ferret had a lifesigns tracker that could pick up complex nervous systems out to a hundred meters or so. It also picked up genetic traces like blood or hair. It was designed to pick up humans but it probably worked for Darhel as well. It didn’t pick up Blobs, but between it and the tracer on the box he should be able to find the Elf bastard and put him down. The captain’s tracer had a corresponding box to follow it. With those, even a blind man could find the Darhel. Then it was payday. But if Tirdal was there waiting, Dagger would be blown to bloody bits by the slap of a punch gun. Best not to risk it. Besides, he didn’t need gadgets. This was a battle of wits.

Dammit, yes he did need them. Fear wasn’t going to dissuade him from doing this properly. Taking another scan across the area, he decided it was safe and darted down in long, low strides, hunched over. He kept the rifle slung, using its harness sling to hold it straight along his back over his ruck. It was a bit awkward, but left both hands free for his rail pistol and his knife. Reaching the depression, he looked for Ferret’s body. It had been over there and now it was… not. Shit. Ferret was also alive. That was a stick in the ass he didn’t need.

There were faint but clear marks. Ferret had wriggled away through the rocks. That meant he was probably injured. His survival was still another complication though, dammit. The trail grew faint, and a quick scan didn’t show any heat trace, so he was either gone or hiding. Still, Dagger knew he’d have to be fast, in case one or the other showed back up.

Anyway, on to that asshole captain. He snickered again. The thought came to him, “That’ll teach you to have me dig the shitter.”

The captain was facing away. So, the coward had tried to run rather than fight. Typical. you could always expect the commissioned orifices to fight from the rear. And what the hell had happened to his wrist? It was not just broken, it was shattered. The fingers and forearm were swollen, the bones crunched so hard the limb would have flopped like a sausage if the muscles weren’t cranked down tight from the neural effect. He must have landed on it very oddly. No matter, it wasn’t important. What was important was finding where the bastard had stuffed the tracker, and quickly.

Oh, wasn’t that just fucking lovely. The asshole had it in his thigh pocket, and his suit was permeable to vent moisture, which also meant that the oozing shit and piss from his clenched then relaxed sphincters had drained down and into it. As he rolled the body over, he took one look at that face, which was more confused than anything. Stupid bastard probably hadn’t had any idea what was happening, even when it came down to it. Typical. Dagger hawked quietly and spat across his nose and mouth. “Next time, die neatly you piece of shit,” he whispered. Then he was up and running, kicking Gun Doll’s sprawled and twisted form in the crotch as he ran, just because. Flaky bitch.

He moved out and back to the east, fast but cautiously. Fortunately there was that range of hills between them and the Blob base; with any luck there wouldn’t be any Blob presence over here. He angled carefully upslope, keeping low and keeping trees between him and the open grave of his former buddies. It would be interesting, he thought, to see how the local life disposed of the corpses. Would they do as Earth carrion and eat the eyes first? Strip the bodies, even inside their suits, to bare bones? Or would something jackallike chew the bones at once? What of the gear? Buried, dragged away as trophies or curiosities as rats would do, or left to form new “artifacts” for some other race to find a thousand years hence?

It wasn’t an interesting enough question to risk a billion dollar box over, though. But it could amuse his idle moments in the coming years. Maybe he’d commission a picture. Or hell, on Kali he could pay to have it reenacted with prisoners and watch how they decayed. Import a truck full of bugs and mix up some drinks.

He reached a slight knob about two hundred meters away that offered good visibility. The sun was just rising past it, burning off the haze that had coalesced only a few minutes before, and adding another element of excitement to this contest. The Elf would have an easier time detecting movement in daylight. So would Ferret, though he wasn’t much of a threat. So would Dagger. But it negated some of his instruments, like the heat sensors. That pumpkin-orange ball would soon be a sun near as bright as Earth’s, and was, by the time he’d shimmied around the clearing to the high point. It rose quickly with this short day.

He settled under a mass of leaves, his chameleon gear blending in nicely. Using his scope, he scanned the area again but there wasn’t any sign of the Elf. Good. Well, bad, but he’d deal with that at once. There wasn’t any sign of Ferret. The little twerp really was a good sneak. Not good either. Though he might be dead in the weeds. It wasn’t important, but it would be nice to know.

Obviously Tirdal had gone the other way. So, it was time to head back down, and look for the signs of his passing. That would be like tracking a rhino through a ceramics exhibition. The Elf really had no clue in the woods. He was certainly quiet, but without Ferret to follow, he would leave plenty of sign.

As to Ferret, if he hadn’t popped up yet, either he was injured, or he’d decently crawled off to die. No worries.

Tirdal should have been able to break contact easily. What he had not anticipated was the amount of damage to his chest plate. His suit was broached, and blood leaked from the small hole.

The Darhel chest plate was not just ersatz ribs. It had evolved as both a protection for the heart, lungs and a nerve node that the Darhel had in the same general area as humans, and as a functional diaphragm. Tirdal started off at a good pace, but after a couple of kilometers the tingling pain in his chest exploded into searing agony. He did a quick medical scan and it confirmed his worst fears. What he had hoped was just a hairline fracture in fact was a crack almost across the plate. Using it to suck in and out, especially at high rates of speed, was impossible. He’d be lucky if he could move as fast as the sniper, much less outrun him. Holding the box awkwardly across his shoulder pulled the plate up and sideways, making it hurt worse with every step. He swapped sides, shifting the punch gun to his left and the artifact to the right. That was a bit better. He vaguely recalled that humans were typically oriented to use one side only, usually the right. He’d keep that in mind.

It was then that Tirdal realized that the sniper must kill him. Even if Dagger decided to cut his losses — though the only one so far had been Tirdal’s acquisition of the box — and leave, the pod wouldn’t take off without Tirdal. Unless Tirdal was dead. Nor could Tirdal approach the extraction point until Dagger was dead, because that was the point of failure — they both had to go there, and neither could leave the other alive.

That was for later, though. For the present, he had broken contact, he had defined the parameters of the immediate mission, and now he had to secure the tactical advantage and locate his target. All the text from training came back to him, and he realized how thoroughly humans avoided discussing actualities while burying them in platitudes. He knew exactly what he had to do. He had no idea how he was to proceed. It was probably one of those “you’ll be taught this at your destination unit” bits, like so many others. How odd that humans required all this ritual and what they considered privation to look within and determine if one had the mettle for the job. A Darhel simply meditated, considered the question, and decided if it was something he could grasp. Then the training would begin. The human “training,” however, was nothing but that focusing of thought, that grounding of self, with the essential details left out. Tirdal felt horribly cheated.

Lacking the proper training, the problems then must be resolved through reason. Dagger would seek high ground, attempt to determine where Tirdal was, then pursue to a range that would allow him a shot and no closer. The obvious signs of cowardice Tirdal had seen precluded him from engaging at close range. Therefore, Tirdal needed to find a new area. It should be one not conducive to long-range shooting.

He looked at the river through the trees and debated. Darhel were dense; they had more bone ratio than humans and their muscles were significantly denser than those of most humans. They had very little fat ratio. So they tended to sink like stones. He had learned to use underwater breathing gear and could construct an adequate float. Water was familiar to him. But floating down the river, while it might permit him to throw the sniper off the trail, would be a good form of suicide. If Dagger did follow the river, he’d have the high ground for a shot and the best cover. If he didn’t follow, it was a draw. Draw meant death, because the pod would leave them there.

The only answer, no matter how poor, was to stay in the woods. How long would Dagger wait? Would he wait most of the day to determine if the Darhel would come back? Or had he already raided the camp and started on the trail?

Tirdal thought about the mind that had been revealed in that one moment of assault. It was… slimy. Conceited and emotionless, unless the hint of cruel pleasure in the taking of life was an emotion. It was not like the Blobs, who were very clearly vicious in thought process. Not like most humans, who were quite happy to avoid confrontation most of the time. Similar, really, to some of the baser Darhel he had been exposed to. He understood them, even if it was only intellectually. Dagger’s motives and cause were clearly different, but the results were similar.

Such a mind as Dagger’s would accept the normal belief of Darhel as cowardly traitors. When the Darhel did not immediately appear he would follow. In fact, he was probably trailing Tirdal at this moment.

He started walking as he thought. There was every reason to put some distance between himself and the sniper. He focused his thoughts on the pain, letting insira training grapple the pain until it existed only at a second level below consciousness. With his submind keeping track of the injury, he was able to devote all his concentration to the matter at hand. He moved at a safe walk, twisting and slipping through the branches and over the roots. After a few trudging steps, he adjusted his posture to deal with the pain signals from his submind and slowed slightly. That position reduced the agony to a sharp bite, but it would exacerbate things when the soft tissue tightened up. The box atop his shoulders didn’t help.

The other consideration was that a personality like Dagger’s would not take chances. Dagger would find a good spot on the projected path and try to ambush him. That was all the more reason to stay ahead. And he’d have to stay ahead for an Earth week, nine local days, because that was the timeframe on the first pickup. Dagger had at least a week to track down Tirdal and the box and kill him. Then there were the eight days after that…

Meeting the first pickup was not a requirement. The pod would change positions twice before leaving the planet for all time. The question was whether he thought he could live in competition with the sniper.

Darhel can manage without rest for a considerable time. Their muscles can build up fatigue toxins the way some Earth animals can develop an oxygen debt. So Tirdal could easily go up to three days without sleep, even injured. He could push to a week without extreme side effects. Beyond that it got tricky. It would be best to end this quickly. And if he could figure out Dagger’s rest periods, he could use those to advantage.

On the negative side, Tirdal had a number of handicaps. He was not competent in the woods. He was injured. But the injury would heal, quickly. Quicker than Dagger could imagine. The woods skills though… those were a problem. Then there was the minor matter of tal, lintatai and having to kill. Dagger had already shown how easily humans could kill. It was a considerably tougher task for a Darhel. Then there was the metabolic issue. Already he was hungry and he only had a protocarb converter to depend on. He could convert just about anything to food but foraging would still take some time. And it would leave marks, because it took a lot of random plant life to yield enough fat and protein, especially when one didn’t recognize the plant forms or take the time to dig for roots. Besides the signs left by foraging, it gave the sniper more time to find him. He’d need more food to stay awake, which meant more signs.

It was as likely as not that the contest would be decided in a day or two. But that was planning on the basis of losing. Plan to win with fallbacks.

So, if he did the expected, ran for the pickup point where the pod was waiting, he could assume he would be intercepted. Although he might survive a couple of ambushes, he would probably succumb eventually.

If he ran for unknown territory he might be able to turn the tables. Dagger would be at a disadvantage, never knowing where Tirdal would show up.

Decision made, Tirdal turned to the north. He’d have to cross this river at once and move away from the extraction point, drawing Dagger with him, to end the scenario before the pod defaulted to the north.

He wouldn’t bother with the chameleon effect of his suit for now, he decided. It used power that he should save for sensors and the proton discharge in case of more hornet rounds. That power use was detectable and he was leaving a trail Dagger could follow anyway. The local distortion would not be much help without good concealment first.

He waded out into the stream, which was a hundred meters wide at this point. The current was slow but insistent, pulling at him and urging him downstream. He adjusted his pace and angle, careful of the mass above his shoulders which affected his balance, and pushed on. The depth rose to his waist, slowing his rate to near nothing. Then it was at his chest, the current relentless in its urge. His neck. Taking a deep breath, he strode forward and under.

The water was reasonably clear, sediment from upstream having settled just beyond the rapids, sediment stirred by his feet disappearing quickly. Occasional shells, eellike local fish and bits of debris swept by. He plodded along, feeling the surface lap at his hands. The temperature was cold by human standards, refreshing by his; Darhel was a cool world. The water was only a couple of meters deep, but the pressure and current squeezed his injured chest. That was going to be an ongoing problem on this stalk.

Soon, his hands were under, which was good for concealment, bad for his growing need for oxygen. He could last a bit further, though, and the bed started rising, rocks giving way to a smooth, sandy bank. He rose nearly to the top of his head, hopped up and exchanged lungfuls of air, his chestplate not liking that, either. He was swept several meters downstream before his feet regained purchase. Once they did, he resumed walking. The bed rose once again, then suddenly dropped away, leaving him tumbling. Deep channel. But was it near the center or offset to one side?

He caught solid surface again, twisted twice in the current and stood upon it. He felt with his Sense and his senses for bearing, and got them. The ground rose rapidly in one direction, and that would be the bank. It was a good thing; he needed air again and had too much mass to get above the surface by swimming. In fact, he needed air so badly the pressure in his lungs hurt more than the spreading bruise and strain of his chest. He forced his feet forward, shoving them into the mucky clay here and drawing them back out, desperate to reach the surface soon.

Then he was above it, the water swirling around his neck as he panted for breath. His muscles ached from the aftereffects of tal, the exertion and the oxygen starvation, but he was up and out, sprawled among weeds and able to rest.

Except he couldn’t rest. Dagger wouldn’t be far behind, and might see this clumsy crushing of greenery for what it was. He got his knees and elbows under him, pushed up while taking deep draughts of air to heal himself, and grabbed the artifact he didn’t recall dropping. It was time to put distance between himself and his enemy. He disappeared into the forests, pondering ways to create confusion and interfere with Dagger’s plans.

Ferret sipped water from the tube at his chin, forced himself to chew a slimy, rubbery bit of rat pack chicken, and waited for the painkiller to take effect. He’d swallowed a wound nano, too, though they were meant for healing small cuts and blisters, lest they get infected. What it could do for massive neural trauma, he didn’t know. But it might at least prolong the inevitable.

At that, he was getting some pins and needles feeling back into his right ankle. It was excruciating to bend it, but he could do so. The left still hung limply. He wasn’t sure how nerves so thoroughly dead as to make a limb useless could still send screaming jolts of pain through him. He was on fire up to his hips and balls.

There’d been scuffling noises from within the camp earlier. Part of him had wanted to crawl over and help, but it might be Dagger or Tirdal back for loot. Anyway, the medical gear was with Shiva, who was there. It was best that he stay hidden, though it gnawed at him. It smacked of cowardice, even though that was his duty right now. He had to stop that box from leaving with the Darhel.

Nothing had happened for an hour, and he’d been able to recover from some of the shock with the help of some meds. That, however, was about the extent of his pharmacopeia and the range of his medical skills. The only human medic on the planet was that goddamned Darhel, who was making off with the artifact.

He decided it had to be a spur of the moment decision between Tirdal and Dagger. To think the whole mission was a setup was paranoid. Besides, if the Darhel had wanted it, they had ships of their own, or Tirdal would have steered them clear of the site after having the humans clear the Blobs, or he would have grenaded them there. That was the type of cowardly attack he expected from them. But it had been Dagger. Dagger, who had shown so much interest in the box. The two of them must have had a quick debate over splitting the money, then gone to work.

But he couldn’t just lie here and wait to die, or be found by those two scum and killed. He had to get moving. As they’d be heading for the extraction point, he’d have to do so, too. The only hope was to get there first and hold them off, force them to deal with him. That would likely kill him anyway, but he couldn’t let them take that artifact. Those things were dangerous, and especially when up for bid to any lunatic or group of extremists out there.

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.