Tibor began to weep. The night sounds — chirps, buzzes, the dry rasping of twigs on bark — were smothered by his sobs.
There came a jolt and a creak, as an extra weight was added to his cart. Oh god! What’s that? he thought. I am totally helpless. I will have to lie here and let it eat me. It is too dark to see where I could even direct the extensor to defend myself. It’s somewhere behind me, advancing now —
He felt a cold, moist touch upon his neck, then fur. It came up beside him. It licked his cheek.
“Toby! Toby. . .”
It was the dog the lizards had given him. It had run off earlier, and he had assumed it was on its way back to its former owners. Now he saw the muzzle outlined against the sky, tongue rolling, teeth white, approximating a smile.
“You’ve stayed with me after all,” he said. “I don’t have anything to feed you. I hope you found something yourself. Stay with me. Curl up and sleep here beside me. Please. I’ll keep talking to you, Toby. Good dog, good dog. . . Sorry I can’t pet you. In this light, I might misjudge and crush your skull. Stay, though. Stay.
If I make it through the night, he thought. . . if I make it it’ll be because of you.
“I’ll reward you someday,” he promised the dog, who stirred at the emphatic tone of his voice. “I will save your life. If you save mine, if I am alive when help comes — I promise! If I am still living when you yourself are ever in danger, you will hear a roaring and a rushing, and a rolling, and the brush will churn! Leaves and dust will fly up, and you will know I am on my way, from wherever I am, to aid you! The thunder and violent rolling of my salvation of you will terrify anyone. I will protect you, cherish you, exactly as you are getting me through this night tonight. That is my sacred solemn promise before God Himself.”
The dog thumped his tail.
Pete Sands, walking under the moon, across the nighted plain, hiking between the tracks of the cow cart, pausing periodically to assure himself they remain: Shouldn’t be abroad after dark. Should find some sheltered place and bed down. Want more distance between me and that schizy autofac, though. Guess I’ve probably come far enough. But now I feel vulnerable, exposed. Flat, empty, this place. But there were trees in the distance when the light went away. This still seems the proper direction. That right track is getting wobbly. Without the lube, that tire could go. Is he all right? My hip is sore. Lost my hat, too. Now my head will turn red and peel. Then red again. Then peel again. It never tans over. . . How is Tibor faring? How strong are those manual grippers? I wonder. Could he protect himself? My knee hurts, too. There’s one problem he’ll never have. Life would be so much simpler if Lufteufel had had the decency to die back when he should have and everybody knew it. Now, though. . . What will I do if he really turns up? Supposing he pets dogs and gives candy to children these days? Supposing he has a wife and ten kids who love him? Supposing. . . Hell! Too much supposing. What would Lurine say? I don’t know what Lurine would say. . . Where’d that damn track go?
He squatted and searched the ground. It had become gravelly, digesting the ruts. Rising again, he shrugged and continued on. No reason to assume a sudden change of direction. Continue in a straight line for now.
He reinspected the trail periodically, but it retained a coarse, stony texture. I’ll have to search it out in the morning, he decided.
Trudging ahead, he noted a faint flickering off to his left, just becoming apparent about the edge of a cluster of stones. Moving farther, more of the light reached him, finally revealing itself as a small campfire. Only one figure was outlined in its vicinity, a being with a strangely pointed head. It was kneeling, its attention apparently focused on the flames.
Pete slowed, studying the tableau. Moments later, the breeze brought him a tangy odor and his mouth grew moist. It had been a long while since last he had eaten.
He stood but a moment longer,, then turned and made his way toward the fire, moving slowly, cautiously. As he drew nearer, he caught a glint of the light on a metal headpiece. It was a spiked helmet, of a sort he was not likely to forget too readily. Then he glimpsed the features below it. Yes, no mistake there.
He moved ahead quickly then.
“Hunter!” he said. “You are the same man. Aren’t you? Back at the Great C’s –”
The man laughed, three deep-chested explosions that shook the flames he tended.
“Yes, yes! Come and sit down! I hate to eat alone.”
Pete dropped his pack and hunkered beside it, across the fire from the man.
“I’d’ve sworn you were dead,” he said. “All that blood. You were limp. I thought it had killed you. Then when it dragged you inside. . . I was sure you were gone.”
The man nodded, turning the little spits of bone on which chunks of meat were skewered.
“I can see how you might have been misled,” he said. “Here!”
The man drew a kabob from the fire and passed it to him. Pete licked his fingers for insulation and accepted it. The meat was good, juicy. Pete debated asking what it was, and decided against it. A hunter can always find something edible. Best to leave it at that.
The man ate with an unnatural precision, and Pete could see the reason as he studied his face: his lower lip had been badly cut, split deeply.
“Yes,” the man muttered, “the blood could have been deceiving — part from my mouth and part from a recent head wound that reopened. That’s why I was wearing the armor.” He tapped the headpiece. “Good thing, too. Kept it from pulping my skull.”
“But how,” Pete said, “did you get away from it?”
“Oh. No real problem,” he replied. “I came out of it just as it dragged me inside. I’d already loosened the cranial bolt to the springing point. One twist was what I said and one twist was what it took. With my fingers. Presto!” He snapped his fingers. He popped another piece of meat into his mouth. “Then it was down and I was up and that was it. Pity. But then, I’d given it every break. You know that, don’t you?”
“You were most fair with it,” Pete said, finishing his kabob and eyeing the others that still sizzled.
The man passed him another.
And his hands are still steady, Pete thought, accepting the meat. All in a day’s work. Competency, expertise — nerves like fine-spun filaments of platinum, joints like neatly mashed gears and stainless-steel ball bearings. Skill, guts — that’s what it takes to be a hunter. But he’s got heart, too. Compassion. How many of us would be that concerned over something that wanted to devour us?
“After I left that place,” the hunter said, “I continued on my way, pleased to see that you had had the good sense to clear out.”
Oh my god! Pete thought. I hope he was really unconscious, not just saying that. What if he heard me asking the C to take him instead of me? But then, I really thought he was dead. I just told him so. So even if he did hear me say it, he’d know that — that was why. But I could have told him that now, just to look good, even though it wasn’t what I had in mind when I said it. On the other hand, if he heard it he must be a big enough man to have forgiven me — in which case he is pretending he didn’t hear it — which means that I will never know. Oh my god! And here I am eating his kabobs.
“What became of your bike?” the hunter asked him.
“The autofac turned it into pogo sticks,” Pete said.
The hunter smiled.
“Not surprising,” he said. “Once their naderers go, they do the damnedest things. But you were carrying something you didn’t have before. Did it actually fill an order properly before it ruined your bike?”
“Someone else’s order,” Pete said. “Its delivery sequence is off, too.”
“What are you going to do with all that lube?”
“I am taking it to a man who probably needs it,” Pete said, recalling the C’s statement that the hunter was after Tibor. Easily a piece of misinformation. Still. . .
He stuffed his mouth to avoid answering anything further without at least a ten-second pause for thought.