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Chapter 1

The shot crackled through the forest air, a line of exploding leaves and twigs marking the passage of the sputter-beam. The man who stood in its path was unaware of his danger, for an instant that lasted forever: he observed the flicker of the beam, and wondered at its source, and even its target. He was just beginning to wonder if the target could be him, when, with no more awareness of the hole in his chest than a slight tingle, he collapsed.

And then he died, scarcely feeling the scream of pain that his shattered nerve endings sent toward his brain.

He never felt at all the second, and entirely unnecessary, shot through the base of his neck.

 

* * *

 

The forest was still, as though all of its walking and flying creatures had paused to listen to the death-sigh of the man's passing. Then the rustling, the buzzing began again, and life returned to normal—except for the fallen man. Three grebel-mice hunted on the needles and leaves that matted the forest floor. They scampered near the dead man's left arm, which had twisted and dislocated at the shoulder as he fell. His fingers twitched once, but that was a dying reflex, nothing more. His eyes were open, vacant.

Overhead, felker birds soared high against the golden sun, gliding in effortless circles on the updrafts over the mountain escarpment that jutted up out of the forest. Two of the birds sank toward the treetops, swooping, peering through the tree cover, investigating a possible late afternoon meal. The grebel-mice scurried for cover. A rust-fox trotted past the dead man, unafraid of the felker birds and uninterested in the corpse.

The felker birds were not quick to action, preferring caution. While they were watching, so too was something else a short distance away in the woods, peering at the dead man through high-powered optics. Hir watched as one of the felkers landed in a treetop, then hopped to a lower branch above the corpse. After a few minutes the felker was joined by one of its brethren, and a moment later by a third, then a fourth. The birds peered down at the body, as though puzzled.

The killer, watching through the expensive optics, was puzzled as well. There had been a movement, a twitch. That was extremely odd. The body had registered in the sensors as cooling, unmoving, lifeless. In fact, hir had stayed only because prudence demanded it, not because there was any reason to expect anything to happen.

There was another twitch.

The dead man's dislocated left arm jerked toward his side. It appeared to pop back into place. The dead man rolled slowly onto his back and gazed sightlessly at the sky.

The killer moved to the left, seeking a clearer view. Was it possible that the man was breathing? More powerful optics clicked into place.

Slowly the dead man raised his hand.

 

* * *

 

The awakening was accompanied by a rush of pain, but it was masked and separated from the inner consciousness as though by a sheet of glass, one room from another. The man looked at the pain, felt it in a tentative, testing way, and wondered where it had come from.

A moment later he became aware of another sensation:

He saw the sky.

It was a deep blue ceiling visible through the treetops, a golden sun shining through one branch. It was an unexpected viewpoint, as though he were on his back under a tree. Under a tree? As though he were waking from a nap. There was a buzzing in his head and confusion in his mind. He shivered. His left shoulder ached dully. Overhead he saw several shapes silhouetted, like birds of prey: felker birds. Vague signals of danger rang in his mind, but they, like the signals of pain, were on the other side of his brain, isolated.

Felker birds. Carrion eaters. Why here; why now?

And simmering beneath the surface was a more urgent question:

Where am I?

 

* * *

 

The killer carefully raised the sputter-rifle and brought its sights to bear on the target, but desisted from firing. Instead hir waited, curiosity joined by astonishment—and by a slight but nagging sense of fear. The man had been killed; the long-range biological scan had confirmed it.

Then why had its arm moved? Why were its eyes blinking?

The assassin waited. It didn't make sense. But if the subject had to be killed twice, then it would be killed twice.

 

* * *

 

His head cleared slowly. He started to push himself up; but he was weaker than he could have believed possible, and his left shoulder was throbbing. He collapsed again and lay flat on his back, breathing with difficulty. His ears were ringing. He moved his right hand to scratch at a burning sensation on his chest, then froze. There was a hole in his jacket and shirt, near his sternum. Fearfully, he probed at it with his finger. He gasped, drew a sharp, ragged breath. The hole went into him, and it hurt like hell.

And yet. Even as he touched it, the hole seemed to be closing, seemed to hurt less. The skin was tightening; the hole was becoming a tender-bottomed depression. It itched.

For a moment, he lay motionless, breathing quietly. Then he struggled again to rise. He felt a little stronger this time, and with a great effort, pushed himself awkwardly up onto one elbow. He squinted, looking around. He was surrounded by a dense wood. There was no sign of human life. Overhead, the felker birds flapped their wings, squawking in annoyance. Not today! he thought at them.

He heard a branch snap and turned to look.

 

* * *

 

Rifle at ready, the assassin watched in amazement as the man pushed himself up from the ground. The angle of attack was not quite right; the assassin crept a little farther to the left—carefully, but not carefully enough. Hir felt the branch underfoot only an instant before it snapped.

The man's head turned in surprise.

Aiming at the center of the man's forehead, the assassin squeezed the trigger.

 

* * *

 

The awareness of it lasted only for an instant: fire blazing in his eyes. Then he died again. His last memory was of a single dazzling star in darkness.

 

* * *

 

The hrisi assassin rose from hir crouch and stepped out of concealment. This time, no chances were to be taken. Hir aimed again from half the distance and burned another hole through the man's head. Moving closer still, hir shot the man several times in the chest. Finally, crouched near the body, hir took sensor readings and determined that: body temperature was dropping, heart-action had ceased, blood was pooling in the abdomen, electrochemical brain-function was nil, and pupillary reflexes were absent. Hir prodded the body once with hir foot. There was no response.

The assassin was not satisfied. The job was done, really, but the subject had already come back to life once and might do so again. Out of curiosity as much as caution, hir retreated to a protected position to observe again. As the minutes passed, hir opened a shoulder pouch and withdrew a small plastic bag. Opening the bag, hir took out a food bar, unwrapped it, and began to eat.

Overhead, the felker birds circled against the sun.

 

* * *

 

Consciousness returned like a predawn light, and with it a memory. The memory was without context, but he remembered raising his head—and dying. It was enough to trigger the thought: Don't raise your head.

Sensation returned slowly. His face was pressed to the ground, his nostrils filled with the scent of humus and fallen needles—and the smell of burned flesh. A thread of fear rippled through his mind. Don't raise your head. He was so frightened that he held his breath for nearly a minute.

He lay absolutely still, trying to think. Where am I—and why? He had no recollection; no data. What happened to me? There was no memory of that, either—but he felt a burning itch in the center of his forehead, and in his chest, and at the base of his neck. He started to move his hands, heard the inner voice warning him again; he drew a slow, deep breath instead. The itch was subsiding anyway. Lying motionless, face to the ground, he thought: At least I know who I am. There was a long inner hesitation. I am—

His thoughts stopped, blank.

He remembered the sound of a snapping branch; remembered a wound in his chest. There were no sounds now. Perhaps he had imagined it. Perhaps whatever had made it was gone now. He couldn't lie here forever.

Decision made, he drew a sharp breath—and got a mouthful of needles. Coughing involuntarily, he spat the needles out and pushed himself up. His muscles hurt, but there was strength in them. He rolled and sat up and looked around. Nothing here but trees and brush. His gaze dropped, and he raised a hand wonderingly to an array of holes in his jacket. Tugging open his jacket and shirt front, he examined his bare chest. There were four wounds healing between his sternum and his left nipple. Three were angry red, but closed. The fourth was already covered over with pink scar tissue. Warily, almost not wanting to know, he touched his forehead—and trembled, as his fingers found another wound.

He heard something, caught a movement to his left, turned his head. Something stepped through the brush. A tall figure, crouching. Bringing a rifle to bear. No, God, not again!

 

* * *

 

The hrisi was growing impatient with this charade. And angry: Why was this target so reluctant to die? It should not have been difficult to dispatch a single unarmed man and make it stick; and yet, here it was, coming back to life again. The assassin inspected the sputtergun and tuned it to maximum power. One shot at this setting would use up most of the gun's reserves, but one shot was all hir would need.

The man coughed and sat up, looking around. It seemed not to see the assassin, but began inspecting its wounds.

The hrisi rose out of hir hiding place. As a precaution, hir projected an illusion, altering hir own appearance. Hir stepped through the brush toward the man—and brought the gun to firing position. Allowing a heartbeat or two to pass (enough time for horror to appear in the eyes—hir was angry with this man), the hrisi aimed at a point between the man's eyes.

And fired.

The eruption sent a shock wave through hir own shoulder—and took half the subject's head off. The man couldn't have felt a thing.

The hrisi stepped forward and gazed at the smoking remains with distaste. Hir checked the sensor readings, but it seemed superfluous; the corpse was a shambles. The brutality of the shot was offensive; hir greatly preferred a clean kill. Behind the corpse, a bush was blackened and smoldering; small flames were licking at the underbrush. The assassin carefully stamped out the flames; a forest fire could cause considerable damage. That would be not just offensive, but unprofessional.

The man must have moved at the instant of firing. A fair portion of the left side of its head was gone, but less than hir had been aiming to remove. Still, this time it was dead, incontrovertibly so.

And if it wasn't, this hrisi did not want to be here to face it again. Slinging the rifle, hir turned and strode off through the forest.

 

* * *

 

The felker birds glided in descending, tightening orbits. Eventually they landed in the treetops. One by one they dropped to the lower branches. Yawking to one another, they sharpened their beaks on the tree bark. And they waited a few minutes longer, just to be sure.

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Framed