Hunter's Run(8)

He flattened his palm against the metal, matching hands with his reflection. The cool metal vibrated under his hand, and, even as he waited, a deeper vibration went through the wall-boom, boom- low and rhythmic, like the beating of some great hidden heart, like the heart of the mountain itself, vast and stony and old.

A warning bell began to sound in the back of Ramón's mind, and he looked uneasily around him. Another man might not have reacted to this strange discovery with suspicion, but Ramón's people had been persecuted for hundreds of years, and he himself well remembered living on the grudging sufferance of the mejicanos, never knowing when they would find some pretext to wipe out his village.

Whatever this wall was, whatever reason it had for existing here in the twice-forsaken ass-end of a half-known planet, it was no dead ruin-something was at work beneath this mountain. If this was hidden, it was because someone didn't want it to be found. And might not be happy that it had been. Someone unimaginably powerful, to judge from the scale of this artifact-and probably dangerous.

Suddenly, the sunlight seemed cold on his shoulders. Again, he looked nervously around him, feeling much too exposed on the bare mountain slope. Another flapjack called, away across the air, but now its cries sounded to him like the shrill and batlike wailing of the damned.

It was time to get out of here. Get back to the van-maybe take a short video recording of the wall, and then find someplace else to be. Anywhere else. Even back in Diegotown, where the threats were at least knowable.

He couldn't run back to his camp-the terrain was too rough. But he scrambled down the mountainside as recklessly as he dared, sliding on his buttocks down bluffs in a cloud of dust and scree when he could, jumping from rock to rock, bulling his way through bushes and tangles of scrub hierba, scattering grasshoppers and paddlefoots before him.

He moved so quickly that he was more than a third of the way to his camp before the mountain opened behind him and the alien came out.

High above him, a hole opened in the mountain's side-a cave in the metal that a moment ago had not been there and now simply was. There was a high-pitched whine, like a centrifuge spinning up, and then, a breath later, something flew out of the hole.

It was square-shaped and built awkwardly for flight, like something designed to move in vacuum. Bone-white and silent, it reminded Ramón of a ghost, or a great floating skull. Against the great empty blue of the sky-atmosphere thin enough at the top that stars shone through the blue-it could have been any size at any distance. The strange boxy thing hung in the sky, rotating slowly. Looking, Ramón thought. Looking for him.

Sick dread squeezed his chest. His camp. The thing was clearly searching for something, and Ramón hadn't done anything to conceal the white dome of the bubbletent or the van beside it. There had been no reason to. The thing might not see him down here in the underbrush, but it would see his camp. He had to get there-get back to the van and into the air-before the thing from the mountain discovered it. His mind was already racing ahead-would his van outpace the flying white box? Just let him get it in the air. He could fly it low, make it hard to spot or attack. He was a good pilot. He could dodge between treetops from here to Fiddler's Jump if he had to  …

But he had to get there first.

He fled, raw panic pushing away the last shreds of caution. The demonic white box was lost from sight as he reached the edge of the scree and dove into the underbrush. The bushes and low scrub that had seemed thin and easily navigable when he'd been walking were now an obstacle course. Branches grabbed at him, raking his face and ripping his clothes. He had the feeling that the flying thing from the mountain was right on top of him, at his back, ready to strike. His breath burned as he sprinted, legs churning, back toward the van.

"I didn't see anything," he gasped. "Please. I wasn't doing anything! I don't know anything. Please. I dreamed it!"

When halfway back to the van he paused, leaning against a tree to catch his breath, the sky was empty. No ghostly box hung in the air, searching for him. He was surprised to find that his pistol was already in his hand. He didn't recall drawing it. Still, now that he did think of it, the weight and solidity of it were reassuring. He wasn't defenseless. Whatever that fucking thing was, he could shoot it. He spat, anger taking the place of fear. Maybe he didn't know what he was facing, but it didn't know him either. He was Ramón Espejo! He'd tear the alien a new asshole if it messed with him.

Buoyed by his bravado and rage, Ramón started again for the van, one eye to the skies. He had cleared more ground than he thought; the van was only a few more minutes away. Just let him get it in the air! He wasn't going to stop to video anything, not with that thing out there sniffing for him. But he'd bring back a force from Diegotown- the governor's private guard maybe. The police. The army. Whatever was in the hill, he'd drag it out into the light and crack its shell. He wasn't afraid of it or anyone. He wasn't afraid of God. His litany of denial-Please! I didn't see anything!-was already forgotten.

He reached the meadow that contained his camp just as the alien reappeared overhead. He hesitated, torn between dashing for the van and diving back into the brush.

It was close enough that Ramón could size it now; it was smaller than he'd thought-perhaps half the size of his van. It was ropey; long white strands like the dripping of a candle making up its walls. Or its face. As it swooped nearer, Ramón felt a knot in his throat. It was too close. He would never be able to reach the van before it came between them.

Perhaps it's friendly, Ramón thought. Madre de Dios, it had better be friendly!

The van exploded. A geyser of fire and smoke shot up out of the meadow with a waterfall roar, and tenfin birds rose screaming all along the mountain flank. The shockwave buffeted Ramón, splattering him with dirt and pebbles and shredded vegetation. He staggered, fighting to maintain his balance. Pieces of fused metal thumped down around him, burning holes in the moss of the meadow floor. It was shooting at him! Through the plume of smoke, Ramón saw the thing turn, flying five meters above the ground, swooping toward him again. The bubbletent went up in a ball of expanding gas, pieces of torn plastic tumbling and swooping like frightened white birds in the hot turbulence of the explosion.

Ramón caught only a glimpse of that. He was already in frantic motion, running, swerving, tearing through the brush. He could hear his own gasping breath, and his heart slammed against his ribs like a fist. Faster!

He felt the alien craft coming up behind him more than he saw it. With a despairing cry, Ramón whirled, fired three times at the looming thing as fast as he could, then turned and fled again. A tree detonated as he passed it, splinters biting into his face and legs. He heard a high whine coming close, getting louder, dopplering up the frequencies. A shockwave knocked the air from him, and he lost his footing. He fired the pistol again as he fell, without knowing where he'd aimed or if he'd hit anything.

Something hit him. Hard. His consciousness blinked out, like a suddenly snuffed candle.

When he woke, he woke in darkness …  .

                       
       
           



       Chapter 5

In the darkness-immobile, unbreathing-Ramón found his memory growing clearer and clearer. The way Griego had shrugged. The rattling mechanical roar of the chupacabra float. The European's blood; pale in the red light and black in the blue. The taste of the stone dust. The taste of Elena's mouth. Details that had been vague grew clearer until, by concentrating, he could hear the voices, feel the cloth of the shirt he'd worn. All of it. The thing from the mountain had taken him and had done something to him. Imprisoned him in this vast, empty blackness through a process he could not imagine and for reasons he couldn't guess. The silence and the emptiness changed the nature of time. There was no longer a sense of duration. He couldn't say how long he had been there or whether he had slept. He could no more judge his own sanity than point north; without context, ideas like madness and direction were meaningless. The movement, when it came, was so slight that Ramón could believe he had imagined it. Something nudged him. A current moved against his skin; an invisible current in an invisible sea. He had the feeling of being turned in slow circles. Something solid bumped his shoulder, and then rose up against his back, or else he sank down upon it. The syrupy liquid streamed past him, flowing past his face and his body. He thought of it as draining away, though he could as easily imagine being lifted up through it. The flow grew faster and more turbulent. A deep vibration shook him: boom. Then again, beating through flesh and bone: boom, boom. A blurred, watery light appeared above him, very dim and immensely far away, like a star in a distant constellation. It grew brighter. The liquid in which he floated drained, the surface coming nearer, like he was rising from the bottom of a lake, until he finally breached it, and the last of the liquid was gone.

Air and light and sound hit him like a fist.

His body convulsed like a live fish on a frying pan, every muscle knotting. He arched up like an epileptic-head and heels bearing his weight, his spine bent like a bow. Something he couldn't see flipped him onto his belly, and he felt a needle slide in at the base of his spine. He vomited with wrenching violence-thick amber syrup gouting from his mouth and nose. And then again, sick, racking spasms that expelled even more, as if his lungs had been filled with the stuff.