The Hero

Chapter 20

Tirdal was now truly alone. He could rest and would, but first he must recover that box. Then, he must stay hidden while traveling. Certainly the Tslek base was a decoy, but if they’d detected any of this fight, they’d come to reconnoiter, and Tirdal could hardly hold off even a lone bot with just a pistol and Dagger’s rifle. And it would be obvious from their presence that the team had discovered the Tslek ruse.

Once he had the box, he’d have to move fast, resting briefly. When he was at last aboard the pod he could relax. For now, the schedule remained to eat and move. At least he’d be able to reduce the pace and eat vegetable matter rather than meat. His overmind was calmed by that notion, his submind outraged. More meditation would be necessary to reconcile all the conflicts between thought and emotion.

For now, he had to recover the artifact. Dagger had had no idea of its real worth. It was worth far more than money. And it was worth more than life to Tirdal, who intended to recover it at once.

He still needed the damnable tal to operate! Injured, exhausted and hungry, it was all that could keep him functioning. He drew his awareness in to a bare few meters, alert only for predators. Should the Tslek show up, there was nothing he could do, so it was not something to be concerned about. With less noise intruding into his mind, meditation while hiking was a viable option. He ran simple exercises to calm his overmind. His submind would have to wait, a caged beast clawing at his consciousness.

He had the captain’s tracer to find the box and the herd. The beasts had moved a good five kilometers, and it was getting dark again. That meant there were six days to reach the northern exfiltration point, and that was possible. Or might it be better to simply head south and use that day to gain distance?

The device was to his north. Additionally, he was running low on energy. A rough three- to four-day hike was better than a ten-day hike. If he failed in the first, he still had the option of the second. That decided him as much as the fatigue and even growing frustration did.

At a trot, his gait odd from accumulated wounds, Tirdal made his way to the north and west again, following the signal. Tangles gave way to low scrub to grass, and he swallowed water and food on the run, occasionally fortified with pain medication and nanites for healing. He could meditate the pain away, certainly, but his mind was busy enough as it was. He hoped his Masters wouldn’t be too disappointed with that decision, under the circumstances.

It was an amusing thought. For the second time this day, his ears flicked.

He took a few bites from his processor and swallowed some water on the run. He still had a schedule to keep. The sun was oozing below the horizon, and the air was perfectly comfortable to him. Shortly, it would chill below even his tastes, and he’d simply adjust the suit accordingly. No longer did he need to cook or freeze, and the pleasant environment helped calm him, almost as much as the meditation and medication did.

It was full dark before he got near the herd, but if the tracer was correct, the animals ahead were his target. He approached slowly, alert for predators that might pursue them, or any kind of problem. Then he drew more tal (again!) and focused his thoughts for projection.

He wandered through the herd from the rear, still amazed that his projection was working, and he not seen. Or perhaps part of it was the chameleon. He’d elected to use it, since it wouldn’t be needed for anything else. He would have appreciated the irony of Dagger having that same thought the day before, had he known.

The tracer simply told him that the box was ahead. There was a way to change the sensitivity and focus in closer, but it would take time for him to figure out how and there wasn’t much point, as it had to be on one of these beasts.

There. That protrusion above the curving back of that one. It was visible by the starless shadow it left, and the visor showed it clearly in various frequencies. It was still securely taped.

Tirdal moved closer. The sounds of thick stalks being cropped echoed between the shells. Occasional rumbles of digestion or eruptions of gas provided cover for his footsteps. Whenever he’d seen this particular species, it had been eating. Did these creatures not sleep? Sleep only briefly? Sleep with part of the mind still alert? It was hard to tell, and not something he need concern himself with. What he needed to concern himself with was recovering that artifact. But they did seem to consume a prodigious amount of grass.

He was considering ways to climb or jump up and pull at the tape, the way he’d attached it, when it came to him that if he could cause one side to pull lose, the artifact’s mass would cause it to drop off. That was easier than trying to jump in his present condition.

He lined up along one side, drew his pistol and sighted carefully. It was actually practical, given the animal’s carapace, to simply shoot. The light load would cause no damage, indeed might not even be noticed. It would rip the tape, however. He thumbed the selector to automatic and fired. A ripping sound of projectiles tore through the night air.

He’d anticipated a reaction. The herd might scatter, spooked. They might charge each other or Tirdal or anything. They might rear and attack. He wasn’t prepared for the reaction he got, however.

Nothing.

The tape had been sheared cleanly, and the artifact wobbled as the creature wandered forward. Tirdal followed, alert for trouble that never came, and within two hundred meters the box tumbled off one side, dangled from a strip of tape, then fell. He walked over, grabbed it by the handles and hefted it over his brutalized shoulders.

Step One accomplished.

He was quite loaded down with gear once again, but no one was pursuing so he could rest periodically and walk upright in the near silence. Those two simple things made it a much easier task. He decided to travel at night and rest days, as they had before. Daylight would make it easier to find a secure resting place, and the life here seemed in general to be diurnal, so predators would be stalking in the daytime and less likely to cross his path.

He turned again, back to the north and east. It would be his last direction change, he hoped.

The real advantage to the current state of affairs, Tirdal reflected, was that he could move as he should. The Tslek presence was far behind and no longer sensible. There were no humans to play down to, and he could trot at a good rate. He stopped twice a day for food and water and rest, slept once for five hours and was at the second extraction point in less than four local days. It was a moral victory only. Ferret had been wounded by the neural grenade and then shot. His own injured heel — from Dagger’s shot — had gone numb and would need treatment. His injured shoulders — from Dagger’s shot — were tight and painful, and might be becoming infected. The wound oozed and was starting to smell. His chest plate — from Dagger’s shot — would need surgery to correct the way it was crookedly healing. The wound in his thigh from the beasts would need attention. His ankle was swollen and only medication and Jem discipline let him ignore it. In fact, he was only the winner by a lucky chance of the scavengers, but luck was an essential if unreliable part of warfare. The load he carried made it worse, but the artifact had to be recovered, and Dagger’s rifle was the only weapon heavy enough for any real fighting at this point. He was reluctant to abandon its ten kilos, especially after a smaller predator form had tried to leap on him. There were other issues, too.

Converted leaves kept him fed sufficiently, though there was a demand for that taste of meat in his mind that would take much work to suppress. He would suffer the privations necessary to avoid meat, and further drowning in tal. His water was adequate; Darhel have very efficient “kidneys,” and he didn’t need that much to stay healthy if not comfortable.

He could see what was likely the shore ahead. He took a cautious look around, realized it was unnecessary, then decided to do so anyway. It would be a supreme irony to die so close to the end. He sent the signal, then repeated his surveillance.

Everything appearing clear, he crept forward over rolling hummocks of sand with tough grass clinging to them, dragging gear behind him, and slipped into the water among a patch of reeds. Shortly, he was submerged to his neck. Then he considered that there might be vicious aquatic predators, which might mean the shore was, in fact, safer. It was too late for indecision now, however. He’d remain here.

He was nervous for a while as the pod approached, slowly and deliberately, a rising dark dome like something from a human horror story… Cthulhu? But it came as ordered. Then there was another brutal swim. Swimming was not something Darhel did, because of their density, especially not when burdened with an Aldenata artifact. He’d abandoned everything else save one item in the grass behind, and left an enzymic package to hasten the destruction. Even on this duned shore, the plants should quickly grow over the nondegradable materials left, and it really wasn’t a concern.

The gentle chop of the waves was enough to exhaust him. Still, swimming, while draining, was low impact, which relieved much of the pain in his heel. It hurt his ankle beyond what he could handle at the moment, so he reduced his stroke with that foot, letting himself bob in the water. He was gasping, pulse thudding, before he reached out a hand, grabbed an extruded stanchion, and swung himself up into the hatch. He took one last look around. Less than fifteen days he’d spent here, yet it would be part of him forever, with all that had happened. The team. The encounters with insects and flyers. The Tslek “base.” The chase. Ferret, without question. Dagger most of all.

Part of the past. Now was time for the future.

Thrust tapered off as the ship injected into low orbit. Tirdal San Rintai looked at the hologram of the planet in the tank before him. An off-center quarter was visible from this angle, swelling toward him with the terminator a knife-edge across it. A pleasant enough place for humans, if they ever drove back the Tslek. With their enviable ability to kill, they could keep the predatory insectoids controlled. An interesting place for Darhel, but not a home, even if the climate was so enjoyable.

He touched the telltale from the garbage eject then and the Aldenata box began its slow tumble through space to annihilation. Attached to it was Dagger’s rifle. He couldn’t say why he’d done that, but it seemed appropriate. It was probably his imagination but he thought he could just see the box begin to burn up on reentry, an orange pinpoint in the hazy arc of atmosphere. It was a shame to destroy it after all this trouble, but it couldn’t be allowed to fall into human hands. Or Tslek pseudopods. Atmospheric friction and impact would accomplish what heavy energy weapons would otherwise have been needed for.

He lay back in his contoured couch and pondered the humans’ probable reactions.