ship. But the robot guardian still patrolled somewhere out there. Lacking a lookout, Dwer had just his own wary senses to warn him if it neared.
While wading though a deeper patch, floundering in water up to his armpits, he felt a warning shiver.
I’m being watched.
Dwer slowly turned, expecting to see the glassy weapons of a faceless killer. But no smooth-sided machine hovered above the reedy mound. Instead, he found eyes regarding him, perched at the knoll’s highest point, a ledge that might have been the wall of a Buyur home. Sharp teeth grinned at Dwer.
Mudfoot.
The noor had done it again.
Someday, I’ll get even for the times you’ve scared me half to death.
Mudfoot had a companion this time, a smaller creature, held between his paws. Some recent prey? It did not struggle, but tiny greenish eyes seemed to glow with cool interest. Mudfoot’s grin invited Dwer to guess what this new friend might be.
Dwer had no time for games. “Enjoy yourselves,” he muttered, and moved on, floundering up a muddy bank. He was just rounding the far corner, seeking Rety in the shadows of the Rothen wreck, when a clamor erupted from behind. Loud bangs and thumps reverberated as Dwer crouched, peering back at the large vessel.
This side appeared undamaged — a glossy chariot of semidivine star gods, ready at an instant to leap into the sky.
But then a rectangular crack seamed its flank above the ramp, releasing clots of smoke, like foul ghosts charging into the night.
The interference is taken care of.
The spider’s mind touch seemed satisfied, even proud.
Dark figures spilled through the roiling soot, then down the ramp, wheezing in agony. Dwer counted three untraeki … then two shambling biped forms, leaning on each other as they fled the noxious billows.
What followed nauseated Dwer — solitary doughnut shapes, slithering traeki rings shorn from the waxy moorings that once united them as sapient beings. One large torus burst from the murk, galloping on pulsating legs without guidance or direction, trailing mucus and silvery fibers as it plunged off the ramp into deep water. Another hapless circle bumped along unevenly, staring in all directions with panicky eye patches until surging black vapors overtook it.
I have not acted thus — with such vigor and decisiveness — since the early days, when still-animate Buyur servant machines sometimes tried to hide and reproduce amid the ruins, after their masters departed. Back then, we were fierce, we mulc agents of deconstruction, before the long centuries of patient erosion set in.
Now do you see how efficient my kind can be, when we feel a need? And when we have a worthy audience? Now will you acknowledge me, O unique young ephemeral?
Dwer turned and fled, kicking spray as he ran.
The Rothen scout boat was a wreck, split in the middle, its wings crumpled. He found an open hatch and clambered inside. The metal deck felt chill and alien beneath his bare feet.
The interior lacked even pale moonlight, so it took time to find Rety in a far corner, taking treasures from a cabinet and stuffing them in a bag. What’s she looking for? Food? After all the star-god poisons that’ve spilled here since the crash?
“There’s no time for that,” he shouted. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
“Gimme a dura,” the girl replied. “I know it’s here. Kunn kept it on one o’ these shelfs.”
Dwer craned his head back through the hatch to look outside. The robot guardian had reappeared, hovering over the stricken untraeki vessel, shining stark light on the survivors mired below. As the thick smoke spread out, Dwer whiffed something that felt sweet in the front of his mouth, yet made the back part gag.
Abruptly, a new thing impacted the senses — sound. A series of twanging notes shook the air. Lines stretched across the water as hundreds of cables tautened, surrounding the skycraft like the tent lines of a festival pavilion. Some vines snapped under the strain, whipping across the landscape. One whirling cord sliced through a surviving stack-of-rings, flinging upper toruses into the swamp while the lower half lurched blindly. Other survivors beat a hasty retreat, deeper into the bog.
The robot descended, its spotlight narrowing to a slender, cutting beam. One by one, straining mulc cables parted under the slashing attack. But it was too little, too late. Something or somebody must already have undermined the muck beneath the ship, for it began sliding into a slimy crypt, gurgling as a muddy slurry poured in through the hatch.
“Found it!” Rety cried, rare happiness invading her voice. She joined Dwer at the door, cradling her reclaimed prize. Her metal bird. Since the first time he laid eyes on it, the thing had gone through a lot of poking and prodding, till it could hardly be mistaken for a real creature anymore, even in dim light. Another damned robot, he thought. The Ifni-cursed thing had caused Dwer more trouble than he could count. Yet to the sooner girl it was an emblem of hope. The first harbinger of freedom in her life.
“Come on,” he muttered. “This wreck is the only shelter hereabouts. The survivors’ll be coming this way. We’ve got to go.”
Rety had only agreeable smiles descending back into the swamp. She followed his every move with the happy compliance of one who had no further need to rebel.
Dwer knew he ought to be pleased, as well. His plan had worked beyond all expectation. Yet his sole emotion was emptiness.
Maybe it’s on account of I’ve been wounded, beat up, exhausted, and starved till I’m too numb to care.
Or else, it’s that I never really enjoyed one part of hunting.
The killing part.
They retreated from both ruined sky boats to the nearest concealing thicket. Dwer was trying to select a good route back to the dunes, when a voice spoke up.
“Hello. I think we ought to talk.”
Dwer was grateful to the mulc spider. He owed it the conversation it desired, and acknowledgment of its might. But, he felt too drained for the mental effort. Not now, he projected. Later, I promise, if I survive the night.
But the voice was persistent. And Dwer soon realized — the words weren’t echoing inside his head, but in the air, with a low, familiar quality and tone. They came from just overhead.
“Hello? Humans in the swamp? Can you hear me?”
Then the voice went muffled, as if the speaker turned aside to address someone else.
“Are you sure this thing is working?” it asked.
Bewildered, and against his better judgment, Dwer found himself answering.
“How the hell should I know what’s working, an’ what ain’t? Who on Jijo are you?”
The words returned more clearly, with evident eagerness.
“Ah! Good. We’re in contact, then. That’s great.”
Dwer finally saw where the words were coming from. Mudfoot squatted just above, having followed to pester him from this new perch. And the noor had his new companion — the one with green eyes.
Rety gasped, and Dwer abruptly realized — the second creature bore a family resemblance to Rety’s bird!
“All right,” Dwer growled, his patience wearing thin with Mudfoot’s endless games. “We’re footprints, unless you tell me what’s goin’ on.”
The creature with green eyes emitted a low, rumbling sound, surprising for one so small. Dwer blinked, startled by the commonplace resonance of a hoonish umble.
“Hr-r-rm … Well, for starters, let me introduce myself.
“The formal name my folks gave me is Hph-wayuo—
“But you can call me Alvin.”
PART SEVEN
