I carefully peeled off the glove and exposed my poor twisted fingers. The pinkie finger and the one next to it – the one I had twice worn a wedding ring on – had been pulled out of their sockets. Thankfully, the skin was unbroken. I needed to get the fingers back into place before the pain-killer wore off. I knew it was still going to hurt and I knew I had to avoid screaming because that would just alert the robot to my position. One at a time or both together? I gripped the ends of both fingers tightly and pulled as hard as I dared.
I passed out for the best part of ten minutes. Whether or not I screamed, I don’t know. There was a good chance I did. My injured fingers looked like they were back where they were supposed to be. But they looked a lot fatter than they used to. I used a piece of clean white bandage to bind them together with my middle finger and then wrapped the rest of the bandage around my hand. That was as much protection as I could give them. The anaesthetic was wearing off, but the pain that was resurfacing was just a dull throbbing. I used an antiseptic wipe on my face – there wasn’t much blood on it when I looked down at it. My left eye was almost completely swollen shut now. During all of this I had been listening carefully, but the jungle around me was silent except for the gentle swooshing of the trees. And the distant rumble of thunder.
I looked into my backpack, doing a quick inventory. I had just under a litre of drinking water left and a protein bar that claimed to be chili con carne flavoured. And I was all out of clean underwear and socks. As near as I could judge, the Trekker was parked about ten miles north-east of my current position. It was now late afternoon and there was no way I could reach the vehicle before nightfall. That and the threat of a rainstorm set me to thinking that I would need to find somewhere to shelter. Preferable somewhere I could defend if the security robot made an appearance. I had two shots left in the rifle. My pistol was fully-loaded, but unless I was at point-blank range, it wouldn’t do me much good. And I didn’t want to get that close to the robot.
A nice dry cave would have been an ideal spot to hole-up for the night, but I had no idea whether the jungle offered anything like that. Without Trixie, I had no way of finding out. Lacking any other data, I had to consider the fact that the best source of shelter within easy reach was the wreck of the Celestia. But did I really want to go back there? And if I did, how was I going to get in? I couldn’t use the hatch I’d originally opened because some fool had jammed it shut from the inside. And was that last security robot still at the crash site, waiting for me? I soon had the answer to this last question.
I was just about to get to my feet and choose a direction when I saw something that kept me frozen in place. Through the leaves of nearby undergrowth I could see the security robot. It stood motionless, rifle held ready, scanning the area. If I moved from my hiding place among the tree roots, my body heat would provide the robot’s vision with a bright orange-red target to fire at. I slowly raised my rifle, resting it on the tree root and taking careful aim. I couldn’t afford to waste my last two shots. The chest provided the best target and I breathed out slowly and then squeezed the trigger.
A hit! But only in the shoulder. The robot staggered backwards, firing its own gun up into the trees. I didn’t wait to see what happened then – I scramble to my feet and ran.
I could hear the robot crashing through the undergrowth in pursuit. But worse than that was a sound somewhere off to my right. It was the roar of a dragon. The gunfire had attracted its attention. I veered left, away from the sound.
Another rifle blast and a tree just in front of me exploded, a hole blasted through the trunk. The tree shook, shedding leaves, and then started to fall. I tried to curve around it, but I couldn’t get away far enough and the branches of the falling tree knocked me to the ground. I tried to get out from under it, but a branch was pinning my leg to the ground. Hearing the robot approach, I lay as still as I could and looked out through the leaves.
The robot appeared from the shadows and stopped in the little clearing, scanning the ground and the trees around it. The still smouldering fallen tree might be shielding me from the robot’s infrared sensors, but as it got closer it was sure to see me. The rifle had been knocked from my hand when the tree fell. I drew my pistol, knowing it would be useless unless the robot was right on top of me.
The robot took a step towards me. Then another. Its head swept from left to right as it scanned. Another step. The head stopped and its eyes were pointing directly at me. It had picked up my heat signature. It raised the rifle. Foliage to the right of the robot seemed to explode suddenly as something big leapt into the clearing. The robot half-turned,
