the group. They’d let her fight Shorty, but would kill her when it was over, assuming she survived. Hunters loved an honor match, but they wouldn’t let her walk away afterward.
Unless . . .
“Nirasawa,” she said, still watching the Hunters, watching as another novice took Shorty’s blade from him, “it’s too late for you to help your master . . . but if there’s any part of your programming that understands revenge, now’s the time to access it. These are the beings responsible for his condition.”
The Hunters uncloaked, stepping farther away from the backdrop of jungle. Shorty took off his mask, throwing it aside, and the Hunters began to trill to one another, clicking and clattering excitedly.
“I understand,” Nirasawa said, and Noguchi glanced back to see that he’d put his master down, laying him gently in the grass.
“The rest of you, get to the ship,” Noguchi said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Machiko . . .” Lara started, but Noguchi shook her head. There wasn’t anything that she or Jess could say that would change her mind.
“I have unfinished business here,” she said grimly, and started across the clearing, Nirasawa falling in behind her. Perhaps it was lunacy, perhaps she would only get herself killed, fighting for an integrity that wasn’t even in question—but perhaps, after all this time, she’d finally grasped the Hunter’s way.
It’s about doing what you have to do, regardless of the outcome. And it’s about killing your enemy, because he doesn’t understand how only the strong have a right to honor.
With a scream of undisguised glee, Shorty stepped out to meet her.
Ellis understood enough of what was happening to know that Max shouldn’t kill the creatures—
—badguys five object—
—so they watched without acting, as the small woman and the inorganic moved away, each step adding to the numbers that ran across Ellis’s eyes, distance and speed. Ellis thought that he might be bleeding; Max didn’t register a change in fluids, but there was enough wrong with Max that Ellis decided to abstain from deciding.
we have to go now, ellis, can you hear
ellis, can you
help me pick him up
Max looked down at their friends, not sure who had spoken, Ellis pleased by the sounds of their voices.
what are you doing, you said yourself that briggs is beyond help
I’ll explain later ellis, help me
Jess. Jess wanted their help. He had crouched next to the unmoving human, touching him, trying to move him. Ellis explained to Max what Jess wanted and Max took a step forward, knees bending, the glowing plain of the ground line rising in front of their eyes. Ellis felt his body moving within, leaning over, and felt warmth against skin, wet motion across his lips.
Bleeding, I am bleeding.
Jess pushed the human into the crook of Max’s right arm and they stood up, 82.72 kilos heavier than before. Max made adjustments for the difference, taking up enough calculation space that Ellis couldn’t make out any more words.
Both humans, Lara, Jess, made sounds, speaking, and Ellis understood the meaning if not what they said; it was time to go.
Max and Ellis stepped forward, avoiding the distraction that was taking place nine meters away, between the small woman and the nonhuman bad-guys. From the sharp sounds and quick movements, they decided it was highly probable that the interaction was violent.
Ellis was glad to be leaving; he was getting tired, and thought that he might like to sleep soon.
27
Nirasawa’s capacity for retaliatory action was well mapped and undamaged, a self-contained 3 LCerabyte module that had been integrated into his reasoning after his assignment to Mr. Briggs. The humans that he’d recognized, Katherine Lara and Martin Jess, had been telling the truth, as had the woman Lara had called “Machiko.” No pupil dilation, no change in respiration; Mr. Briggs would not survive.
Protecting Mr. Briggs was no longer his primary function, which meant that he had to report back to his Weyland/Yutani AI Assignment Officer as soon as he could find a transmitter—and he now had the option to physically incapacitate the perpetrators of Mr. Briggs’s inevitable death. The woman Machiko started for the group of five alien/organics and Nirasawa followed, the stimuli from the tapped module flooding his driver.
“Nirasawa, the small one and I will engage,” Machiko said as she walked, and flexed her right arm. A pair of sharpened knives projected from the back of her wrist with a click, snapping into place. “The others
may wish to involve themselves in our fight. If you choose to keep them from interfering, you will cause them psychological damage.”
Nirasawa didn’t respond, but decided that inflicting more than just physical injury was appealing. His module had been designed so that associates of a damaged or dead consumer could feel that some justice had been served; it did not recommend any one method of reciprocity over any other, but did suggest that a combination of methods was highly effective.
The members of the alien group were agitated, calling out in a language Nirasawa did not know, making threatening gestures as he and Machiko neared. From his previous interaction on the Bunda station platform, Nirasawa knew that they were physically much stronger than humans, but didn’t think it necessary to tell the woman; he deduced it likely that she already knew. Machiko moved ahead of him, stopping two meters from the smallest of the screaming alien beings and striking a fighting pose.
The short alien screamed again, leaping forward. When the woman dodged to avoid his attack, one of the watching creatures swiped at her with the same kind of apparatus that she wore, two pointed blades at the back of his clawed fist.
Nirasawa moved. As Machiko darted away from the second assailant, he reached forward and grabbed its shoulder, jerking it off-balance. A third alien lunged for Nirasawa with a bladed staff, damaging the silicone colloid that served as his tricep. Nirasawa still had a grip on the second attacker’s shoulder. He broke it, then turned his attention to the blade carrier, aware that all four beings had now surrounded him. The woman would have her engagement with the small one.
Nirasawa was satisfied that the module was in full working order.
Noguchi saw that another novice was preparing to attack even as Shorty leapt for her. It was a feint, a clas-
sic, the second Hunter ready to skewer her as she blocked Shorty’s wild lunge, designed only to intimidate her into dodging.
Pathetic.
She went with it, feinting her own dodge right, ducking well beneath the untrained swipe of Shorty’s second and shifting her weight back to the left. She came up with her wrist blades, the tips of them catching the plate armor at Shorty’s groin.
Shorty wheeled backwards, tusks going wide, although the blades didn’t pierce flesh. Noguchi followed through, not willing to overbalance, pulling herself back up into a defensive crouch.
The screams of the others told her that Nirasawa was busy, but she didn’t look away from Shorty, fully aware that one of them wouldn’t be walking away from this one. Shorty knew it, too, she could see it in the shine of his hateful gaze, in the way it flickered toward his backup.
They’re busy, you blustering crab. You’re all mine.
“Come and get it,” she sneered, grinning tightly. “Pauk-de ‘aseigan!”
She’d either called him a fucking servant or a servant fucker, she wasn’t sure. All that mattered was that it had the desired effect, goading him to reckless action.
Screaming with raw fury, Shorty jumped, swiping his blades down in an arc, all of his powerful bulk behind the violent move—
—and Noguchi dropped, one hand behind her, supporting her weight as she delivered a solid kick to his shin. Shorty rocked with the blow, using it, continuing his downward swipe as he fell—
—and Noguchi rolled to the side, Shorty’s blades missing her head by centimeters. With his weight behind them, the shining knives were buried in the ground, Shorty on his side, facing her as he struggled to pull them free.
Now!
Noguchi lashed out with her right hand, so concen-
trated on the killing strike, already seeing the metal dripping with green from his slashed throat—
—that she didn’t see his knee coming up until it made contact, slamming into the front of her left thigh hard enough to send shock pulses of agony through her body.
Noguchi was shoved back, too far for her knives to reach his spotted throat. She stumbled to her feet, favoring her injury as Shorty managed to free his wrist and get up.
She stood in defense, ready for his next lunge—but he mirrored her action. Warily, they watched each other, gazes locked, the screams of pain and fury from the other Hunters distant and unimportant.
Kill them all, android. Let this stay between us.
The eyes would give it away, she’d see him look before he leapt—but it seemed that Shorty had finally learned not to go running into a fight with his betters. Neither moved, both waiting for the opening that would end it, once and for all.