eating. Once Max was awake, the cooling system would kick on …
Ellis pressed his arms to his sides, finding the touch-sensitive controls with his fingers, breathing deeply. Old sweat, chemicals, burnt wiring—smells that instantly took him back, the disjointed memories rising close to the surface. There was another scent, uglier, and he remembered that he’d vomited near the end—
—blood, you threw up blood—
—but he knew his olfactory senses would pretty much shut down once Max took over. All that was left was to lean back. The interface probe would complete the process when it touched him.
Ellis closed his eyes, preparing himself for the initial pain as best he could; he took a deep breath and pushed his head back, a slight smile on his face as he felt the metal tip of the longer spike, as he heard the probe hum into action—
—and the pain was so sudden, so complete that for a half second, he was Brian Ellis again, a person, his thoughts all his own—and he knew that he’d made a horrible mistake, and that it was too late as his limbs started to convulse, as the prongs worked their way into him, boring the old holes wider, his blood spurting into the hot black of the robotic suit.
Nirasawa had been damaged, parts of his program inaccessible, parts of his body in need of repair, but he put these matters aside; Mr. Briggs had been taken away. Mr. Briggs could very well be in danger, and Nirasawa would deal with his own problems once he’d found and secured the safety of Mr. Briggs.
It had been nearly twenty-four minutes since he’d last seen Mr. Briggs, on the second northwest deck of the Bunda survey station. The being that Nirasawa had been working to restrain had not been killed when the station had fallen, and Nirasawa had been detained from his primary function by the being once on the ground. The being, alien/organic in nature, had been
injured, making it easier for Nirasawa to render it harmless; he’d broken all four limbs and thrown its weapon away. The being had died within seven minutes, although Nirasawa could not be any more specific as to the exact time; he’d already begun a perimeter search for Mr. Briggs, and had passed the dead alien being seven minutes after he’d initially left it. The being could have ceased living at any period during those minutes.
Mr. Briggs had chosen not to be implanted with a signal 07901 patch, compatible to all Cyberdyne 07901 Guard series. Mr. Briggs’s position would be known to Nirasawa at all times if Mr. Briggs had been implanted. It was a simple procedure, a painless injection that fulfilled all terms of Nirasawa’s warranty and would ensure a higher level of satisfaction on the part of Mr. Briggs; Nirasawa found it unfortunate that Mr. Briggs had declined the patch. Since he had no signal input, Nirasawa would have to search as programmed, an expanding perimeter search with possible directional changes based on suggestive evidence found.
Nirasawa’s search had been unsuccessful. The station’s malfunction and subsequent crash had created the problem of too much suggestive evidence, so Nirasawa had found it necessary to reduce his dependence on his heuristic logic driver, relying primarily on his intuitive functions. This, unfortunately, was one of the areas that had suffered damage, between 300 and 330 of the self-mapping connective loops no longer functioning. Nirasawa could not narrow the number down any further. He continued his expansion, temporarily reducing power to damaged areas as he walked, searching for Mr. Briggs. He did not call for him, the existence of hostile beings making vocal contact a risk in the possible instance that Mr. Briggs was being held.
Nirasawa found Mr. Briggs fifty-two meters from the outer edge of the defunct station, thirty-three minutes since last contact, Mr. Briggs restrained by an organic substance that bound him to the trunk of a large
tree. Nirasawa sensed that there were several hidden beings in the vicinity but there were no threatening movements, so he did not increase their priority status. There was an alien ovoid in front of Mr. Briggs, and an alien body attached to Mr. Briggs’s face.
Nirasawa acted quickly to fulfill his primary function. He began to pull the foreign body from Mr. Briggs’s face—and immediately, Mr. Briggs began to choke, the being’s multiple legs tightening in a possibly damaging way around Mr. Briggs’s head. Nirasawa ceased his efforts. There was a possibility that he knew what to do, that he understood what the alien body was, but that he’d lost access to that part of his program. As it was, he did not know how to protect Mr. Briggs from this threat.
Nirasawa saw that there were several animals similarly restrained in the immediate area, small mammals, many of them dead. All of them also had alien ovoids in front of them. Eggs. The probability that Mr. Briggs would die increased sharply with this information, and Nirasawa decided that it would be best to remove him from the situation.
Nirasawa carefully broke the stiff substance away from Mr. Briggs and lifted him, walking away from the egg area. He’d heard sounds of deliberate, high-functioning movement just after the alien craft had set down, eleven minutes earlier. If there were humans still on Bunda, perhaps he could seek out repair, for himself and for Mr. Briggs. It certainly couldn’t hurt.
24
The decision was instantaneous, Noguchi calling out to Lara and Jess with the same breath that had inhaled the yautja musk. The Hunters probably knew it was she, and it occurred to her in that same instant that the recognition might inspire a different kind of Hunt. She had to separate from Lara and Jess; being marked as Noguchi’s friends certainly wouldn’t buy them any favor. Besides which, she’d led the trusting pair from the arms of the Hunters into the dangers of a bug zone and back again; she couldn’t have known about the bugs, but she was responsible for what happened next, having taken it upon herself to step into a leadership role.
As soon as she shouted them toward the dying light of the station fire, she veered left, running in the opposite direction. If the Hunters went after Lara and Jess, the fire should confuse their infra sensors—the reason they even had infra finally clear—but chances were good that they’d be coming after her first.
There’s no enemy like an old enemy, after all . . .
An ordinary human trophy would be nothing next
to her skull on one of their walls; any Blooded worth his mark would have made the connection between the crashed ship and her running with humans, the magnitude of the betrayal such that they might very well leave off the Hunt, calling for her extermination over all else. She’d known that they would want her dead, but it hadn’t figured that prominently in her plans—she hadn’t known that she would be working to save only two people, that there would be so few targets for the Hunters’ hatred. It probably couldn’t be helped, but she had to at least try and redirect their attention.
Lead them toward the bugs, circle back for Lam and Jess and see if we can’t find Topknot’s ship. If she’d read the signal right back on the Shell, his transport was only about a klick and a half west from her current—
Brrrp—
—BOOM, Noguchi was already diving, rolling through a tangle of bushes as a rain of fiery leaves fell all around her. She was on her feet and running again before they finished dropping, zagging right. The alien grounds were close, she should be drawing attack any second. Drones sometimes gathered unhatched eggs on seeded planets, protecting them fiercely; it was a bad place to lead novice Hunters, dangerous, and if those chasing her now didn’t break off their pursuit, they were going to have more to deal with than a single renegade ooman—
—and there, coiling out of the dark like a bone ghost, a leering, lashing drone, hopping into her path from any one of a hundred places. Noguchi dodged left, pivoting, throwing herself back against a willowy tree as she brought up her burner. She fired, the blast catching the bug’s shoulder, spinning it away—
—and she heard the clattering, trilling cry of a Hunter, a Leader, a howl joined by five, seven, ten others, more. If they hadn’t recognized her before, any question was now gone—and she’d given them their target, killing without instruction in front of a Leader
and his group. The rising cries grew in ferocity, a harmony of bloodlust that she’d once participated in, the one experience she’d shared with the predatory Clan, that she’d understood. The fevered, soul-consuming joy of Hunt—and this time, she was their prey.
But not an easy kill, her thoughts reaffirmed. They want a fight, they’ve got it.
Noguchi slipped around the tree and was away, the howl of the Hunters met by the screams of approaching drones, the two blending into a hellish music that spun up into the darkness, a melody of war.