Redliners(88)

Blohm checked possible routes around the clearing. He didn't like to be in any one place for longer than five minutes at a time. His rules for surviving in the forest were to touch as little as possible and to keep moving.

"Three-three elements," the helmet warned in the voice of God, the project manager. "Carbon dioxide levels are rising sharply. A large number of humanoids is approaching your location from the north. Out."

"Everybody in your null sacks," Blohm ordered. "Fast!"

"Roger," said Abbado, releasing the stinger he'd started to aim. He drew his sack from its pouch.

A line of humanoids came out of the trees on the other side of the clearing and entered it. They parted the grass like rocks dropping through still water.

Blohm took an instant to tack a remote sensor onto a tree, but he was still covered before the leading humanoid was halfway across the clearing. Abbado was almost as quick. The other strikers were a hair slower but still fast enough. Nobody hesitated to obey after Abbado accepted Blohm's instinct over his own.

From the heart of his null sack, Blohm viewed the oncoming humanoids through the sensor above him. He had the momentary sensation of being a ghost watching his own corpse—which was very likely to be the case if he'd guessed wrong. Sacks twisted enough of the optical range that they looked from the outside like lumpy shadows, but they weren't invisible.

The humanoids tramped purposefully through the forest, returning to a compass course whenever they had to skirt a tree. Lesser vegetation eased aside for them. They didn't run but they moved as swiftly as humans striding across a meadow.

Several of them stepped on Blohm in his null sack. Their feet felt soft and unpleasant, like those of slugs with bones.

The humanoids paid no attention to Blohm or the other members of the patrol who happened to be underfoot. The sacks were visible but they had none of the signatures of a life form.

The procession of armed natives continued for five and a half minutes, fanning minutely westward as more and more of the creatures paced from the far side of the clearing. Hundreds had passed before the sequence ended.

Blohm waited another minute, then opened his sack. If it had been his safety alone, he would have stayed under cover for at least five. "Six-six-two to C41," he reported. The other strikers were getting up also. "Two hundred and sixty-four humanoids are moving toward you. Every sixth one squirts acid. The rest have clubs. There are no other weapons, spears or guns. Over."

"Six-six-two, roger," Major Farrell replied. "We've been echoing your sensor and are reacting accordingly. Break. Three-three, carry on with your mission. Six out."

"No rest for the wicked," Abbado said mildly as he restowed his null sack. He glanced at Blohm and added, "How'd you know they'd leave us alone in our sacks, snake?"

"They don't have any more brains than a spider," Blohm said. "Than a tree. They don't think, they react. A sack doesn't give them anything more to react to than the dirt does, so they treat it the same way."

He hadn't known, but he'd been as sure as he was of sunrise. That's what the Unity paid him for—being sure even when he couldn't be.

"Why'd they come right at us, then?" Foley said. There was a little tension in the striker's voice. His fingers were having difficulty rolling his null sack. "They knew we were here, they must have."

Abbado reached over and anchored a corner of Foley's sack with a finger so that the fold didn't slip again like a transient dream.

"They're going from their village toward the column," Horgen said. "We're going the other way because the Spook ship happened to be in the same line. That's why the major sent us. It isn't planning, it's geometry."

"We'll go around the clearing to the right," Blohm said, back to considerations the procession of humanoids had interrupted. "Don't spend any longer than you have to under the tree with the smooth trunk, mark, I think the branches can come down like a fish trap."

"Shit," said Sergeant Abbado. "I forgot Gabrilovitch."

So had Blohm. The scout opened his mouth to send a warning, but Abbado was already doing that. "We need to move," Blohm said instead.

It took ten minutes for Blohm to lead the patrol around the margin of the clearing, even though he pulled the others faster than they should have gone. He knew they couldn't afford to stay longer where they'd been, and he didn't dare switch to remote viewing from Gabe's helmet until he'd reached a place to rest.

"Hold here," he ordered beside a tree whose fat trunk had the squishy uncertainty of a water balloon. "And for God's sake don't touch anything."

Gabrilovitch had left the crashed starship at the same time the others did, going in the opposite direction. The location plot showed he hadn't moved far. Abbado'd warned him to set a sensor and get into his null sack. If Gabe had done that, his bead of light would have vanished from the overlay.