wonder if it’s the long-awaited Big O—
Jeekee sac-rot! No fooling this time.
Those are explosions, getting close fast!
Now comes another noise, like a zookir screeching its head off ’cause it sat on a quill lizard.
Is that the sound a siren makes? I always wondered—
Gishtuphwayo! Now the lights go dim. The floor jitters—
What is Ifni-slucking going on!
Dwer
THE VIEW FROM THE HIGHEST DUNE WASN’T PROMISING.
The Danik scout craft was at least five or six leagues out to sea, a tiny dot, barely visible beyond a distinct line where the water’s hue changed from pale bluish green to almost black. The flying machine cruised back and forth, as if searching for something it had misplaced. Only rarely, when the wind shifted, did they catch the faint rumble of its engines, but every forty or so duras Dwer glimpsed something specklike tumble from the belly of the sleek boat, glinting in the morning sun before it struck the sea. Ten more duras would pass after the object sank — then the ocean’s surface bulged with a hummock of roiling foam, as if an immense monster suffered dying spasms far below.
“What’s Kunn doing?” Dwer asked. He turned to Rety, who shaded her eyes to watch the distant flier. “Do you have any idea?”
The girl started to shrug her shoulders, but yee, the little urrish male, sprawled there, snaking his slender neck to aim all three eyes toward the south. The robot rocked impatiently, bobbing up and down as if trying to signal the distant flier with its body.
“I don’t know, Dwer,” Rety replied. “I reckon it has somethin’ to do with the bird.”
“Bird,” he repeated blankly.
“You know. My metal bird. The one we saved from the mulc spider.”
“That bird?” Dwer nodded. “You were going to show it to the sages. How did the aliens get their hands —”
Rety cut in.
“The Daniks wanted to know where it came from. So Kunn asked me to guide him here, to pick up Jass, since he was the one who saw where the bird came to shore. I never figured that’d mean leavin’ me behind in the village.…” She bit her lip. “Jass must’ve led Kunn here. Kunn said somethin’ about ‘flushin’ prey.’ I guess he’s tryin’ to get more birds.”
“Or else whoever made your bird, and sent it ashore.”
“Or else that.” She nodded, clearly uncomfortable. Dwer chose not to press for details about her deal with the star humans.
As their journey south progressed, the number of marshy streams had multiplied, forcing Dwer to “carry” the robot several more times before he finally called a halt around dusk. There had been a brief confrontation when the combat machine tried intimidating him to continue. But its god weapons had been wrecked in the ambush at the sooner camp, and Dwer faced the robot’s snapping claws without flinching, helped by a strange detachment, as if his mind had somehow grown while enduring the machine’s throbbing fields. Hallucination or not, the feeling enabled him to call its bluff.
With grudging reluctance that seemed lifelike, the robot gave in. By a small fire, Dwer had shared with Rety the donkey jerky in his pouch. After a moment’s hesitation, Rety brought out her own contribution, two small lozenges sealed in wrappers that felt slick to the touch. She showed Dwer how to unwrap his, and guffawed at the look on his face when intense, strange flavors burst in his mouth. He laughed, too, almost inhaling the Danik candy the wrong way. Its lavish sweetness won a place on his List of Things I’m Glad I Did Before Dying.
Later, huddled with Rety on the banked coals, Dwer dreamed a succession of fantastic images far more potent than normal — perhaps an effect of “carrying” the robot, conducting its ground-hugging fields. Instead of crushing weight, he fantasized lightness, as if his body wafted, unencumbered. Incomprehensible panoramas flickered under closed eyelids … objects glimmering against dark backgrounds, or gassy shapes, glowing of their own accord. Once, a strange sense of recognition seized him, a timeless impression of loving familiarity.
The Egg, his sleeping consciousness had mused. Only the sacred stone looked strange — not an outsized pebble squatting in a mountain cleft, but something like a huge, dark sun, whose blackness outshone the glitter of normal stars.
Their journey resumed before dawn, and featured only two more water crossings before reaching the sea. There the robot picked them up and streaked eastward along the beach until it reached this field of dunes — a high point to scan the strange blue waters of the Rift.
At least Dwer thought it was the Rift — a great cleft splitting the continent. I wish I still had my telescope, he thought. With it he might glean some idea what the pilot of the scout ship was trying to accomplish.
Flushing out prey, Rety said.
If that was Kunn’s aim, the Danik star warrior could learn a thing or two about hunting technique. Dwer recalled one lesson old Fallon taught him years ago.
No matter how potent your weapon, or whatever game you’re after, it’s never a good idea to be both beater and shooter. If there’s just one of you, forget driving your quarry.
The solitary hunter masters patience, and silently learns the ways of his prey.
That approach had one drawback. It required empathy. And the better you learn to feel like your prey, the greater the chance you may someday stop calling it prey at all.
“Well, we settled one thing,” Rety commented, watching the robot semaphore its arms wildly at the highest point of the dune, like a small boy waving to parents who were too far away to hear. “You must’ve done a real job on its comm gear. Even the short range won’t work, on line-o’-sight.”
Dwer was duly impressed. Rety had learned a lot during her stint as an adopted alien.
“Do you think the pilot could spot us by eye, when he heads back toward the village to pick you up?” Dwer asked.
“Maybe … supposin’ he ever meant to do that. He may forget all about me when he finds what he wants, and just zip west to the Rothen station, to report.”
Dwer knew that Rety had already lost some favor with the sky humans. Her voice was bitter, for aboard that distant flying dot rode Jass, her tormentor while growing up in a savage tribe. She had arranged vengeance for the bully. But now Jass stood at the pilot’s elbow, currying favor while Rety was stuck down here.
Her worry was clear. What if her lifelong enemy won the reward she had struggled and connived for? Her ticket to the stars?
“Hmm. Well, then we better make sure he doesn’t miss us when he cruises by.”
Dwer wasn’t personally anxious to meet the star pilot who had blasted the poor urrish sooners so unmercifully from above. He fostered no illusion of gentle treatment at Kunn’s hands. But the scout boat offered life and hope for Rety. And perhaps by attracting the Danik’s attention he could somehow prevent the man’s quick return to the Gray Hills. Danel Ozawa had been killed in the brief fight with the robot, but Dwer might still buy time for Lena Strong and the urrish chief to work out an accord with Rety’s old band … beating a stealthy retreat to some place where star gods would never find them. A delaying action could be Dwer’s last worthwhile service.
“Let’s build a fire,” the girl suggested, gesturing toward the beach, littered with driftwood from past storms.
“I was just about to suggest that,” Dwer replied.
She chuckled.
“Yeah, right! Sure you were.”
Sara
AT FIRST THE ANCIENT TUNNEL SEEMED HORRID and gloomy. Sara kept imagining a dusty Buyur tube car coming to life, an angry phantom hurtling toward the little horse-drawn wagon, bent on punishing fools who disturbed its ghostly domain. Dread clung fast for a while, making each breath come short and sharp between rapid
