high and shoulders back, wondering how much longer she could stand to live this way.
He’d been talking for a long time, the repeated message forming a kind of circle in his mind; it had gone past hope, past despair, and now was a meditation, a soothing message of possibility in a voice that he no longer recognized as his.
. . . this is the Weyland/Yutani ship Nemesis request emergency assistance from any ships or outposts receiving this message …
Lara and Jess had both wandered up, sat for a while, wandered away. Ellis kept talking, pausing, talking, and had become so lulled by his vocal loop that he was annoyed when a crackle of harsh static interrupted him. But only for the fraction of a second it took him to realize that someone was answering.
“Nemesis shuttle, this is Bunda survey, we read you four-by-four. Please state the nature of your emergency and adjust your BD signal to channel eleven-oh-one-dash-one, over.”
A man’s voice, mild but tight with a barely hidden excitement. A person, a young-sounding man with the clipped tones of a Company-trained channel checker. Ellis stared at the mike pad on the console in front of him, at the speaker filter next to it, astounded by how suddenly things had changed.
We ‘re not lost anymore.
“Repeat, this is Bunda survey, Nemesis shuttle, do you read?”
“Jesus, keep ‘im talking, Ellis!” Jess said, suddenly floating next to him, looking as shocked as Ellis felt. Lara was right behind him, her eyes wide and fixed.
“Ah, we read you, Bunda,” he stammered, “we’re—we’re going to be out of oxy in, less than ten hours. And we’re out of fuel already—oh, shit—”
Ellis started to laugh, turning to see the same dawning expressions on both of their faces. They
weren’t going to die, they had been lost and now some man from Bunda was asking them questions.
Lara pushed forward, grinning, taking over. “What was that channel again, Bunda?”
Leaning in front of Ellis she tapped keys and Jess gripped his shoulder firmly, laughing with him.
“You did it, Ellis, go fuckin’ figure. First the Max, now this—they’re gonna have to promote you, kid.” Jess shook his shoulder gently, trying to keep his voice low as Lara called up Bunda’s stats and info and spoke to their savior.
Savior—as Ellis had been when he and Max had joined at the station. As he was now, having found that voice from out of the dark.
Ellis laughed harder, warm and giddy, feeling the positive waves that radiated from Lara and Jess. From their team.
Twice. Twice, and it’s not a fluke if it happens more than once.
Because of him, everything had changed. Again. It was a feeling he could get used to. Maybe he wasn’t destined to be a tech geek, working his life away in some sterile hydraulics lab. And really, wasn’t it a career he’d chosen out of fear? His scrawny build, his lack of self-confidence, and feelings of inadequacy had led him to choose a quiet, stable, boring line of work. Even signing up with a volunteer team had seemed wildly dangerous, and the job description was watching monitors and pushing buttons . . .
. . . and look where I’ve ended up. Everything has changed, is changing, will change and all because of me and Max, 72.43 minutes eradicated 122 adult species dot 47 embryonic—
Ellis had a headache suddenly.
“Hey, kid, you okay?”
He looked up into Jess’s smiling, slightly worried face and forced a grin. “Fine, yeah. We’re outta here, right?”
Jess clapped him on the shoulder again, turning his
attention back to Lara—and leaving Ellis to wonder why he hadn’t told the truth. Being with Max had done something to him, clouded his thinking, Lara and Jess both knew it …
. . . and maybe I’m ready for them to see me as a man, now, strong, not whining about my little aches and pains . . .
On some level, he knew better. The dual prongs of the Max’s interface had gone into his brain, far from a little wound. If they were going to work together, shouldn’t he tell them that he was still having flashes of, of altered thinking?
Ellis considered it for only 6.6 seconds, until Lara glanced back at him from the console. The warm look she gave him decided it; he wasn’t going to be pitied, ever again. He could control himself, he could bear the pain—and whatever else there was to bear.
Besides, they were safe now. A survey station, scientists and biotechs probably; no aliens, no Company, no death.
For some unfathomable reason, that thought gave him no comfort at all.
9
One of the few advantages to being different was that she had been given private quarters, a luxury that was only afforded to the strongest and most aggressive of the older Hunters. The unBlooded slept on mats in a giant chamber Noguchi thought of as “the pit,” their every spare moment spent watching fights or participating in them. Most training ships only carried a dozen or so novices, but Shell housed up to forty young males, making the pit an exercise in arrogant posturing.
Noguchi sat on the edge of her makeshift bed and took off her boots, feeling wrung out and depressed, not wanting to think about what had happened in the dock. The small, dark room that she called home was the only place she really felt at ease anymore, the few mementos from her past giving her some small measure of peace. A medkit, a few toiletries, an aging wave scanner. There was a photo of Creep tacked to one wall, the dog that had stayed with her on Ryushi after the colonists had left. Before she’d gone with the Hunters, she’d sent a signal to the closest outpost, requesting
a pickup. She wondered where the friendly mutt was now, if he’d ever been reunited with his previous owner . . .
The thought made her feel like crying and she looked away from the hard-copy picture, looked up at the mammoth crowned skull that dominated the room from its place over her bed. The queen that she and Broken Tusk had killed, together. It was her first trophy, and she’d kept it with her on Ryushi, spent long, silent hours gazing at it, dreaming of the spiritual trek that awaited her when the Hunters finally came. She’d imagined living among a people that found enlightenment in pushing beyond their own physical limits, a race that found life and self-awareness in the honorable death of a parasitic breed. Two years she’d waited, alone on the hot and barren world except for Creep and a few head of rhynth; she knew that one day they’d appear, looking for their missing ship. And when they came, she’d go with them, embarking on a journey unlike any other . . .
That wasn’t a happy thought either, not anymore. Noguchi leaned back on the hard cot and crossed her legs, trying to come up with something that didn’t make her hurt.
Past is over. Think of the future, not of what’s already gone. It was a strong thought, a positive one, and it worked as long as she didn’t remind herself that she relied on it constantly. Some days, it seemed to be all she had.
Except for the Hunt. The queen had been secured and was already producing eggs, which meant two days or less until the next one. It was going to be big, too; she’d gathered as much from the excited chatter of the novices on her way to her quarters. A big Hunt was something to look forward to, and this one sounded as important as any she’d participated in since coming to live with the yautja. Several well respected Hunters would rendezvous with Shell, Leader and warrior alike, and the novices would finally be given their marks,
which meant many of them would move on. Blooding, the etched mark of a Leader on his student’s forehead, was the sign that a teacher believed his trainee was trustworthy to Hunt alone.
She reached up and touched the jagged scar above the bridge of her nose, unable to stop herself from thinking about Broken Tusk. Dachande was his yautja name, but the curved tooth of his lower left mandible had been snapped off, and she still thought of him by the description.
Maybe things would have been different if he’d lived. Maybe we’d still be Hunting together . . .
Not necessarily true. They’d been thrown together under unusual circumstances, to say the least; if they’d met somewhere, anywhere else, perhaps her skull would be a trophy on his wall now.
She sighed, shaking her head. She didn’t believe that. Dachande had been a warrior of integrity and skill, and had respected her enough to Blood her, his final act before dying. They’d saved each other multiple times on that endless, bloody night so long ago. And she’d been so impressed, so changed by the experience that she’d chosen to join with his people. Who were so unlike him, she no longer knew what she was going to do.