Hunter's Run(24)

"Monster?" Ramón said again.

"You failed to foresee this," the alien intoned.

"No shit," Ramón said.

"It is your purpose to mirror the man's flow," the alien said. "Well, I'm only so good a tool," Ramón said, and spat. "I forgot that

the fucker had those coring charges in his pack. It was a mistake." "What other devices does he have?"

Ramón shrugged, trying to recall the layout of his field pack. "Some food, but he's probably already eaten that. There's an emergency beacon, but it's short-range. It's designed to trigger a bigger beacon in the van, and you motherfuckers already took care of that. A pistol. I had a pistol."

"That is the device that accelerated metal using magnetic fields?" Maneck asked. Its voice seemed flatter and more mechanical. Ramón didn't know if the change was in the alien's voice or his own ears.

"That's the one."

"It was removed from him," Maneck said. "It was this that separated the man's appendage."

"The pistol guard ripped his finger off?" Ramón asked. "You mean that pendejo's done all this without his trigger finger?"

Maneck blinked, the red eye's lid not entirely closing.

"Is this significant?" Maneck asked.

"No. It's just kind of impressive."

A low wheeze came from the alien that, in another context, Ramón might have mistaken for laughter. Instead, he wondered if the thing was suffering a seizure or choking on something. The mucus flowing from its snout became a violent blue for a moment, then turned pale again.

"How many more charges of this kind does the man possess?" Maneck asked.

"I don't know," Ramón said. "I had four in the pack. That's standard. I used one finding you bastards, so that's three, but I don't know if he just used one charge on this or all of them."

"Can this be determined?"

"Sure, probably," Ramón said. "I can take a look. I should probably do something about my leg first, though. And you look like shit."

"You will determine the number of charges used," Maneck said, its voice becoming strident and tinny. Ramón decided that his high-register hearing was starting to come back. "You will do so immediately."

"Fine," Ramón said. "I have to go over and look at the crater. You think this fucking leash stretches that far?"

The alien was still for a moment, and then began to haul itself across the wreckage of the flying box toward the new scar in the landscape. Its steps were pained and awkward. Ramón could hear its breath; the low wheeze again. It had clearly been seriously hurt.

The crater was wide but shallow. Ramón considered the stone where the blast had sheared away the corners of the granite. If the charge had been shaped to burrow into or even under the slab, the damage to stone would have been much more extensive. The other Ramón had angled the blast up, toward whatever set it off. The triggering branch was currently nothing more than a handful of toothpicks scattered from the meadow up toward low orbit. He had a momentary image of a flapjack somewhere high in the air, surprised at being impaled by a length of branch, but he suppressed a chuckle.

If the edge of the stone had been more intact, he could have gotten a better idea of how the trigger had been set. It would have been tricky to isolate the movement of the stone from the vibrations of the branch and its flapping banner. He could think offhand of three ways that might have done the trick, depending on the formation of the rock.

But that wasn't the critical issue. The important thing was that the blast had been pointing upward. He paced the crater's perimeter, limping when the wound in his leg sent an unexpected pain shooting through him. The blast pattern was lobed and roughly triangular. He could almost see how it had been done. The branch had been set as a trigger particularly sensitive to the relatively stable stone, but anyone taking the shirt off or shifting the branch itself would have set off the charges as well. His twin hadn't known what direction the hunters would approach from, and he'd set the blasts meant to make a rough circle. He'd bet everything on the one trap, and it hadn't been a bad wager at all.

Ramón squatted, his fingers brushing the dirt more for the simple pleasure of feeling fresh soil than for anything he expected to learn. The ground smelled strongly of the explosives. He wondered what it had been like, setting the trap. Joyous or nerve-wracking? Or both? Fumbling with coring charges and an improvised trigger, and working with a mutilated right hand besides. And it had worked. The yunea was wrecked, Maneck badly injured. The score was even now-blow for blow, van for flying box. Ramón had a feeling bordering on presentiment that his other self out there in the trees was going to win.

"Hey, monster!" Ramón called. Maneck had not moved from its place at the crater's edge. Its stillness, so eerie before, now seemed like an indication of weakness. Ramón limped back toward it. "Are you dead? Can you hear me?"

"I hear you," Maneck said.

"I'm pretty sure he used all three charges. There aren't going to be any more like this."

Maneck didn't reply. Ramón spat and scratched himself. The alien shuddered once and lowered its head. The quills lay as limp as wilted ivy.

"I have failed to fulfill my tatecreude," the alien said. "I am damaged. The man has progressed. We will return to the others and confer."

"We can't do that!" Ramón said, fearful images of the alien hive filling his mind. He couldn't return to that, to be trapped in that smothering darkness for the rest of his life; the hunt had to continue, or he had no hope of getting free of this thing. "He's got to be close. He's got nothing now. What, he's going to stop us with a hunting knife and a pair of dirty pants?"

"I am weakened," Maneck said.

"So's he! You shot his pinche finger off! It's been festering for days. He's been running for days. He's got to be ready to collapse!"

Maneck went silent. Ramón tried to will the alien on, tried to push something-anger, bloody-minded resolve, duty, thirst for revenge, anything-send it up the bruised sahael and into the thing's flesh. They couldn't turn back now.

"Is it your fucking tatecreude to give up and run back to your fucking mother? Like a coward? Is that it? The man is still out there, still heading for Fiddler's Jump, only now we know where he's going. We can get to him. If we limp back, it's going to take days. By then, he could have gotten anywhere. It'll be too late to stop him from telling everybody about you!"

Maneck didn't reply, so Ramón pressed on.

"This trap he set? It can't have been set for very long. Something would have triggered it by accident. No, he's close. He probably stayed to watch and see if it worked. Even if he was in a treetop someplace, he can't be more than two or three klicks from here. You can still get to him."

Maneck's head shifted slowly from side to side as if the alien were shaking its head no. A cold dread shook Ramón. It couldn't end like this. They had to go after the other Ramón. They had to. There had to be something-some way to make the injured alien keep going rather than folding up and running. Ramón's hands were trembling, his mind whirling like a storm. He had to struggle not to lash out at the thing, kick it, punch it, make it do the right thing. He didn't consider what he was going to say, and when he spoke, his own words surprised him.

"What will they think of you? The other ones back under that mountain, your brothers? They know you're out here. They know why, and you can't fucking tell me they don't admire you for it. You want to go back in shame as a failure and see how they look at you then? Fine. You want to know what it's like to have your own people turn their backs on you? Fine. Let's go, then. Come on, you great fucking bitch!"

Ramón did swing a foot then, kicking the alien where its ankle would have been if it had one. The impact was soft and hard at the same time, like kicking a tree wrapped in a layer of rubber. Maneck didn't react.

"Go back, then, you sad little devil!" Ramón shouted, his rising blood making his face warm with rage. "Turn around, and let's march back home and let them see that you're nothing. That you're connected to nothing. You aren't a part of them. Let's see how you like it that they don't want shit to do with you anymore. Or keep moving forward, do what they want you to do, and finish this thing! They don't have the balls to do it. Show them that you do! What's the worst that can happen? That shit-crazy ratfuck out there could kill us. Is that what you're worried about? Is going back as a failure better than dying in a fight? Have some balls! Be a man!"

The alien bowed its head, the quills stirring slightly.

"I must rest," it said, its voice low. "But you are correct. To cease to function is aubre. To express my tatecreude is paramount."

"Fucking right it is!"

"I will focus on my own repair for a time. When proceeding will cause no further damage, we will locate the man."

"Well," Ramón said, nodding, relief and pleasure flushing through him. "All right, then! Good you grew some fucking huevos. We'll track him down on foot. We can do that."