“I don’t, don’t think it’s, still coming,” Rembert wheezed, and Pratt stopped, turning to look at the jun-
gle that had closed up behind them. Leaves, grasses, branches, and ferns, the early-afternoon sun playing across the seemingly solid mass of green. No tall, shining darkness, no rounded, phallic skull or drooling teeth, no claws. Maybe Rembert was right.
“I think we lost it,” Rembert said, his jowly young face flushed and dripping with sweat. He bent over, hands on his knees, gulping air in ragged lungfuls.
“We gotta get back to the station,” Pratt said, somewhat winded himself. He wasn’t in as rotten shape as Rembert, but he also wasn’t a young man anymore. “Gotta report this.”
Rembert didn’t answer, working too hard to breathe. Pratt held up the shotgun, a heavy old thing that he’d carried for six months on Bunda and never fired before today, before twenty minutes ago. He pumped it, the satisfying ca-chuk of the deadly weapon making him feel only slightly less terrified. It seemed to be working now, it was stuck before, after he’d fired at the thing that had burst into the clearing where they’d stopped for lunch, no reason to think that a damn monster was going to jump out of the bushes like grinning death and—
STOP!
Pratt took a deep breath, nodding to himself, the sweat running hot down the back of his neck. Couldn’t panic. Had to keep it together. Back to the station, two and a half klicks was all, tell Vincent, load everyone up on the ‘copters. They only had two passenger ships capable of spaceflight, but each one held twenty; it wouldn’t even be too crowded and they’d be safe. They could just orbit, wait for the Company to send an H/K team, people trained to fight the bugs, to keep them from spreading, and—
“That was an XT, wasn’t it?” Rembert breathed. “One of those bugs, like in the manual.”
Pratt felt another surge of anger. Harold Rembert, fat and useless and as dense as mercury. “Yeah, and we
could be calling in help right now if you’d grabbed the damn radio!”
Rembert straightened up, his chins trembling. “The radio? I was busy ducking, you fired three times and didn’t come close to hitting anything but me!”
Pratt wanted to punch him, right in his fat face. So he wasn’t a crack marksman, he checked dirt for acidity, for hell’s sake; if he’d ever suspected that he’d be running through a stinking jungle with a bug on his ass, he would have practiced more.
“I won’t miss next time,” he snapped, “and you still could’ve remembered the radio.”
Rembert didn’t answer, his round face suddenly still, his eyes wide. He held up one bloated hand—
—and crash through the leaves, in front of them, the thing leapt out into the open, shrieking, not five meters away—
—and Rembert screamed, and ran. Pratt jerked the shotgun up, take THAT you—
Boom!
The blast made a huge hole through the leafy branch of a banyar tree, a full meter to the right of the creature. It reached out, its impossibly long and skeletal arm tipped with razor claws—
—and jerked the shotgun out of his hands, hissing, its spiny tail whipping through the grasses at its feet.
Fuck!
Pratt turned and sprinted away, his balls crawling into his lower belly, his sweat turning sick and cold. He ran, not hearing if the monster was behind him, not about to look, charging into the trail of still-moving leaves where the geologist had gone. The world turned into a green and sunny blur, flashing past like some terrible dream.
“Rembert!” He screamed, sorry for every crummy thing he’d ever thought about him, wanting nothing more than not to die alone, please, not that—
—and there, kneeling next to a native tree, hunched over, his back to Pratt.
Thank you! “Rembert, we can’t stop, come on get up— ”
Rembert didn’t move but Pratt would make him, drag him if he had to. He tripped to a stop and grabbed Rembert’s fleshy shoulder, pulling—
—and Harold Rembert fell backwards, but it wasn’t the geologist, couldn’t be, this man had no face, only a smooth, strange mask.
Bugs, baby bug things, no no no no—
The thought became screams but he didn’t realize it, too horrified by what he was seeing.
“No no no no—”
It was a giant, pulsing, spidery crab, its thickly corded tail wrapped around the fat man’s throat. It was impregnating him, that was what they did, it was how they killed, and knowing what it was doing was enough that something in his mind gave way. He didn’t hear himself cry out because too much of his awareness was taken up by the terrible, terrible thing in front of him.
Pratt was still screaming when he saw the other one skittering across the fertile ground, almost too fast to see. Still screaming as it coiled its prehensile tail against the dirt and lunged at him, slick, muscular fingers sliding into his hair, a soft, wet proboscis plugging his still-screaming mouth.
Davis Pratt stopped screaming. Out loud, anyway.
13
Not everyone on Shell was jammed into the sticky-hot training room but it was very close. At least sixty Hunters were gathered around the slightly raised “stage,” the musk of their combined aggression so thick that Noguchi could almost taste it as she and Topknot stepped into the room. The large gathering was talking loudly, laughing and pushing at each other until they saw her, at which point their clatter raised to a dull roar. It wasn’t hard to inspire bloodlust in a yautja, and she had the feeling that some of them, at least, had been waiting a long time for this.
Shorty was already on the platform, dressed in a loincloth, talking excitedly to a small group of his peers. It seemed that being chosen to fight the ooman had raised his status somewhat, the other novices finally interested in what he had to say about how ugly she was, how he would crush her honor, how this was really no fight at all.
We’ll just see about that . . .
Shorty fell silent as she and the Leader approached the stage, but she could see the hatred in him as easily
as if he’d screamed for her blood. Already his hands were clenched, his tusks opened wide, exposing his small, toothy pink mouth.
Topknot stepped onto the platform and called for one of his Blooded to bring a mask to him, motioning for Noguchi to wait. As soon as he spoke, the Hunters fell quiet, only shuffling bodies and low trills; she barely heard them over the beating of her heart. She wasn’t afraid, but knowing that her fight with Shorty would have everyone’s full attention made her distinctly self-conscious.
Don’t think about it, don’t think about any of it. Trust in yourself, in the skills you’ve worked so hard to achieve and maintain.
The Blooded Hunter handed the mask to Topknot, who then handed it to her. He didn’t speak a single word of encouragement or even look at her, but she was deeply moved by the gesture nonetheless. Compared to a yautja skull, hers was thin as paper.
He knows that I don’t deserve this, not with a novice. She’d been Blooded when she joined them, she’d never had to prove her status in hand-to-hand, and being asked to fight an unBlooded was a serious slight. Hunter politics that she couldn’t begin to understand were at play here, perhaps instigated by the young Leader she’d dared to touch.
Topknot spoke and gestured as she donned the mask, his deep, rolling voice filling the heated air. Noguchi only half translated to herself, too intent on her breathing, on psyching herself up for the fight.
. . . this is Clan and not Clan waging for honor . . . standard rules . . . when the matter is decided the first transports will leave for Hunt . . .
Deep breaths, slow and even. Her ragged braids were already plastered to her skull, her face dripping in the close confines of the mask. She heard Shorty’s name and then her own, the name bestowed on her by Broken Tusk, Dahdtoudi.
Small knife, it means small knife because I am small but
deadly sharp, and I will win. I will best my opponent because I am faster and sharper, I am a warrior and he is no one. Standard rules, whoever was knocked off the stage or knocked out first lost the fight. Shorty would lose, / am the better fighter, more experienced . . .
The crowd roared anew as Topknot stepped off the lightly padded platform and Shorty moved to the corner farthest from her. It was time. Noguchi closed her eyes for a half second, found her center, then boosted herself onto the stage with one hand.
As soon as she was on her feet, Shorty crouched, growling, his arms spread wide. He was small for a Hunter but bigger than she, probably twice her weight if only a half meter taller. If he managed to get his claws on her, the fight would be over.