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terms. He'd been suppressing his weaknesses behind a mask for so long that
their appearance terrified him. One must face fears to overcome them, and
Dagger had spent his life avoiding them.
But he had to keep moving. The frigging Darhel was still humping away, damn
him. When would the little rat tire? A hazy part of his mind recalled that the
Darhel was alleged to have maxed the course, and he started to wonder if that
was true. Then he realized that maxing it didn't indicate an upper limit on
the bastard's abilities, but a lower one. That was frightening.
Nah, he couldn't be that good. Dagger had seen some real shit. He was letting
himself get scared over nothing. Nothing. What kind of wuss was afraid of the
dark? He could shoot the bugs as fast as they could attack, and Tirdal was a
long way away.
He yelped as something stabbed him in the ribs, then recovered. He swallowed
and hit the limb aside furiously.
Then he went berserk.
There was no obvious outer change, though he did increase his pace to a rough,
rapid stride, moving in a low lope. He slapped branches aside and didn't
realize he was sacrificing stealth for speed. All he knew was that he was
catching that damned Darhel, and he was not afraid of the dark. He tripped
over a stray root, and it only served to elevate his rage to a higher plane.
He was panting, hyperventilating, heedless of his own safety, but all that
mattered was catching that damned Darhel.
* * *
Ferret kept pushing his pace faster as his legs went blissfully numb. The pins
and needles feeling went the entire length now, and he barely felt the brush
he rubbed against. It was a good thing that he was stalking, and he'd have to
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keep it that way, because he was certainly leaving a trail. But at least the
pain was gone.
It was odd to not feel his feet, but they were working, even if the left one
was a puppet's wooden foot rather than a real one.
The coming dark would be of help to him. Unless those two, Dagger
specifically, as Tirdal wasn't very good, were keeping a good watch behind, he
shouldn't run up on them. But once he did see an IR
readout, he should easily be able to follow at distance. Too, it was harder to
move stealthily in the dark.
Dagger might not leave much, but Tirdal would, and the two together should be
easy.
A wave of dizziness hit him, and he squatted down to catch his breath, or
tried to. He sprawled flat in the weeds, feeling them scrape past him and
smelling the released sap of several types. The ground smelled slightly slimy,
and he'd probably slipped on the surface as stems rolled well-greased between
that and his boots. Balance shot because of my feet, he thought to himself. He
reminded himself to be cautious. He had no tactile feedback from down there.
He wondered if the nausea was due to his damaged feet, but that couldn't be it
this fast. He realized it was a combination of shock, pain, drugs and lack of
food and sleep. He'd been awake almost twenty-eight hours, after days of
little sleep, and was in rough shape. And he couldn't stop now. The best thing
for him was to bull through and hope they had to rest at some point, soon. In
fact, they were sure to, unless he presented an immediate threat. Another
reason to keep quiet.
Still, they had the advantage. If they rested, they could take turns on watch.
Ferret had only himself. But, by resting, they weren't moving.
He checked his tracker again. Tirdal's lead was less. But they had both
widened the gap from them to him. So he'd have to do what he could to increase
his pace. Sighing, he reached into his kit for more painkillers and a stronger
stimulant. He hated to use them; the painkiller reduced his awareness
somewhat, and the stim nauseated him. If he were to have a chance of catching
up, however, they were necessary.
That done, he opened the last rat to chew on while he marched, tucked it into
his belt, and started moving. Step forward with the right foot until weight
hit the knee, then shove the left foot forward. As soon as weight was on it,
step forward with the right and push with the left. He resumed his rolling,
limping gait, and decided the speed was adequate. The pain was less than it
had been, and as the fresh analgesic kicked in, he'd move it up faster.
The tracks weren't hard to follow, even in the dark. Ferret had grown up on a
Fringe world, and had hunted since he was five. To him, the terrain was a book
to be read. More bent leaves and abused stems told him someone had passed this
way. That scratch on a tree and that bare sweep through brush indicated a long
weapon: Dagger's. Those flat areas were due to feet with a different geometry
than a human's: Tirdal's.
Then there was the mark left through the stems by a larger local form. He
studied that at a near-jog as he crossed it. Yes, something had trotted
through there quickly, in pursuit of something smaller. That meant a predator.
A predator was even worse in his limping condition, and in that he'd prefer
not to fire and give away his location. He wasn't sure he could handle one
with a knife, but that appeared to be his best option for secrecy. As to
shooting, it was likely a better option for survival. Of course, both depended
on a weapon being able to get through those appalling exoskeletons the local
life wore.
It was right then that the predator in question trotted past again. It was
about rabbit sized, and it was followed by three more just like it. It was
probably his limping gait sending rhythmic but uneven vibrations through the
ground that attracted them. Whatever it was, Ferret saw the ground cover
twitch and sway, saw the wave of motion turn suddenly towards him and charge.
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He yanked his field knife clear of its sheath and tried to intercept them.
The first one was easy. He had the blade down in time and the stupid creature
tried to bite it. The blade of the knife was a high-density polymer, with a
ceramic edge molecularly bonded to it. The bug sheared its own jaw off on the
almost molecule-fine edge. For just a moment, it was clearly visible in
Ferret's goggles, a wriggling, Japanese beetle shape as long as his foot. Then
it fell under a seedling.
The other three tried to attack at once. The first leapt, and Ferret dodged by
falling. He hadn't intended to do that, and it sent fresh spikes of pain
through his legs, but he avoided a bite. A whack at the temporarily confused
bug didn't cleave its chitin, but did crush its legs under itself, as it had
no time to retract them. It wriggled and twitched in place in the weeds, but
wasn't going to be a problem.
The other two, however, were on him. One was chewing at his right boot. At
least, he hoped it was just his right boot. While his foot was insensate, he
still needed it to function for this hike. Then the second one started
attacking his rucksack, chittering in his ear and scaring him badly.
First, the one on the foot. It was the easier one to reach. Methodically and
calmly, he inserted the blade, unsharpened edge down, between his foot and the
bug, and hoped to hell it didn't try to crawl up the blade and munch his arm. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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