Infiltrator

Serena allowed herself a grin at the thought, for practice. Humans did such

things, even when alone.

No, she couldn't be a Terminator. They were all huge, lumbering things—even with miniaturized power sources, they had to be, to match the surprising resilience and energy density of a large mammal. And male—one and all.

Dogs might not warm to her, but they wouldn't fear her; she was too organic to upset them, with no lingering traces of metallic key tones for their inconveniently keen noses to detect. And she'd been taught gestures that soothed canines. Several puppies had lasted as long as six months in her company, before becoming nonfunctional and being destroyed.

Serena was careful. The signs she left were few and far between, in one place rolling around on the ground as though she'd slept, then covering the traces almost as well as she could. The farther she went beyond the human camp, the more obvious the signs became, to mimic the effects of increasing fatigue and fever. She didn't want them to suspect they were being led into a trap, or to be surprised; when surprised, humans tended to shoot first and ask questions later.

At least, the ones who'd survived this long did.

Finally Serena laid up just as dawn was approaching. Supposedly she had been out of touch with other humans for a while and so wouldn't know about the raid that had blinded Skynet. So she'd only be traveling by night.

That directive had never made sense to her. Given the instrumentation available to Skynet, humans were almost more visible by night than by day. Not that they were going to tell the enemy that. But it was puzzling. Perhaps, since humans couldn't see very well at night, darkness made them feel invisible, even when logic should tell them that they were very much exposed.

Serena was actually tired as she lay down, not in the state of crawling, panting exhaustion she would be experiencing if she were human, but tired. The infections that she'd nursed in her wounds were bad enough now to actually be bothersome.

Should she allow them to get worse? Yes, she decided, a raging fever would be a nice touch. Her computer would see that it didn't become too dangerous, as well as keeping her delirious ravings, should she become genuinely delirious, on such safe topics as the horrible destruction of her squad.

When next she became aware she felt someone wiping her face with a hot, wet, very rough, and foul- smelling cloth. Then whoever it was made a loud grunting cough.

Not human, her computer supplied. Then, a moment later: Feline, large. Serena slitted her eyes open and closed them at once. Her heart sped up slightly; she dampened her adrenaline flow and got it under control.

It was a tiger.

After the destruction of the human habitat, many animals that had been kept in captivity had escaped. Many had died, some had thrived. Being prolific, voracious, and cunning, tigers had done very well. By the time human prey became scarce and wary and well armed, other animals had bred back enough to compensate.

Risking another glance at the animal as it sniffed her abdomen, she realized that she was in luck. The tiger was young, and not very hungry or she might not have

wakened at all.

The cat sniffed the wound in her side, the one that was most infected, and wuffled its displeasure. Serena could smell the wound, too, over the other scents around her: the cat, the grass and weeds she crushed beneath her, her own body odor. Maybe that was why it hadn't taken a bite out of her; she smelled rotten.

The tiger moved, so that it was standing over her with its back to her head. It sniffed at her crotch.

With exquisite care she drew her knife, so slowly the cat was unaware of the movement. It licked at the blood that had dried on her pant leg, took a small, cautious bite.

Heat scan marked the exact spot where its heart beat and she plunged the dagger into it with one swift stroke. The cat collapsed without a sound.

It was a young cat, nowhere near the six hundred pounds it would have been full grown. It must weigh only half that.

Serena pushed at the creature and to her astonishment couldn't budge it. She felt its blood soaking into her uniform and the knife's hilt dug into her side quite painfully. But she couldn't get the leverage to push the thing off of her, and, frankly, didn't have the strength.

She fell back with a hiss of exasperation and assessed her condition. Her fever was one hundred and three and she was physically exhausted.

Outwitted myself, she thought. She gave the computer permission to begin stimulating the repair of her body. She could be in much better shape than this

and still convince humans that she was at death's door. After a few moments her temp was down a degree and she made another effort to shift the tiger's carcass.

After a few minutes she flopped back down again.

'He-lp,' she said facetiously.

'Hands over yer head,' a male voice snapped.

Serena's eyes popped open in surprise.

'Burns, Serena!' she blatted out, surprised at the strangled sound of her own voice. She rattled off her serial number and unit.

With effort she managed to raise her head high enough over the tiger's hips to see two very ragged individuals, both male. Mentally, she congratulated herself; they were the advance guard for the unit she'd been following.

Hands up? she thought. That seems a bit superfluous. I'm half-buried under this immovable, overgrown pussycat and they want my hands up? These boys have been in the field too long.

'Help,' she said feebly.

They continued to advance cautiously and she couldn't control her amusement, breaking into chuckles despite her wounds and the weight of the tiger. Even at her most subtle she couldn't have arranged such a scenario. This was way too over-the-top to be anything but real. So what did they think was going on here beyond what was going on? To be fair, though, the tiger is dead.

'If you're looking for its mama I don't think you need to worry,' she said at last.

'It's not full grown, but I think it's old enough to be on its own.'

The soldiers continued to ignore her.

'Help!' she said again.

One of them came over at last and dragged the tiger off of her.

'Oh!' she said sincerely. 'Thank you.'

'Jesus, lady,' he said, looking her up and down. 'You're a mess.'

Serena looked at him, grinned, and for the first time in her life genuinely blacked out.

'Can she make it?' Lieutenant Zeller asked.

'She's feverish, these wounds are infected, and she lost an amazing amount of blood from that tiger bite.' Corpsman Gonzales shook his head. 'I can't say, ma'am. It all depends on her constitution and her will.' He shrugged his big shoulders. 'We'll know more when she wakes up.'

'And when will that be, Gonzales?' Zeller was aware that her corps-man had a soft side and might well stack the deck in the stranger's favor.

'Uh…' He looked at the woman on the ground.

'Now,' Serena rasped, weakly raising her hand.

'Now,' he said with a grin. He turned back to his patient. 'This may sound stupid, but how do you feel?'

'Sick as a dog, I hurt all over, my arms and legs feel like they're full of hot, wet sand.' She grinned weakly. 'Feeling this bad is a sure sign I'll live.' Serena pulled herself up onto her elbows and regarded the lieutenant with bloodshot eyes. 'Serena Burns, ma'am. Rodriguez's Rangers, 17-A440. My commander was Lieutenant Atwill.'

'So what's your story, Burns?' Zeller asked.

'I was on rear guard, we were heading north to hook up with the Mendocino Command, carrying dispatches for Fujimoro. Things were quiet, we'd been lucky…' Serena paused for dramatic effect and let herself lie back with a