CHAPTER 6
The storm that had bounced the skimmer around like a wood chip in a wind tunnel was not the last they encountered as they continued northward, but it turned out to be the most severe. By comparison, the occasional subsequent snow flurries and intermittent assaults by windblown hail seemed almost benign. Allowing for the skimmer’s need to follow a route through deep canyons to avoid having to crest ten-thousand-meter-high mountain peaks, another day or two of comparatively easy travel should find him and his escort at his chosen destination.
Then would come the initial encounter and introduction. Hopefully, it would be followed by a cordial interview and, if fate and fortune were with him, the means to obtain the minuscule volume of organic material that would allow him to determine with certainty if he bore any genetic relationship to the person he had spent a bit of time and money to meet. And if, in the end, nothing along the line he hoped for eventuated from that?
He would return to Tlossene, and he would try again.
For now, it was enough to relax and enjoy the uninspired but nourishing qwikmeals the rented skimmer’s cooker served up, to chat with his ebullient escort about her people and their culture, and to continue his hesitant forays into the throat-spraining complexities of the Tlelian language. Much as voyagers on the ocean grow familiar with the motion of a boat and thereby gain their sea legs, he had become accustomed to the occasional jolts and bounces the northland weather imposed on the skimmer.
The small missile that flew past, however, was another matter entirely.
It had happened so fast that the craft’s AI had not even had time to make a warning announcement. One moment they were cruising along as usual: Flinx in his forward seat, Bleshmaa busying herself in back, Pip coiled on the console in front of him. The next, the skimmer took a lurch to port more violent than any induced by wind or storm. Out of harness, he was nearly thrown from his chair.
“I must please ask you to secure yourselves in your seats,” the synthesized voice hastily declared, “as we are—”
“I know, I know!” Ignoring the preprogrammed regulation warning, Flinx stumbled to the rear of the skimmer. From a standing position and despite her sturdy Tlelian posture, Bleshmaa had been thrown to the floor. He helped her up, for the second time in as many days careful not to put too much overbearing human weight on her upper arms.
“Someone is trying tu kill us.” Her disbelief was palpable. It was as much question as statement. He shared her bewilderment. Taking evasive action, the skimmer slammed back to starboard, nearly throwing them to the floor together this time.
He did not venture to disagree with her analysis. But who, and why? Here on Gestalt, of all places! He had no enemies here.
He quickly corrected himself. That conclusion was self-evidently mistaken.
In any event, on the all-too-numerous occasions in the past when he had been confronted by other sentients whose intentions toward him had tended to the homicidal, they had invariably declared themselves as well as their objective. As the skimmer rocked and weaved, dodging the occasional explosive projectile flung in its direction, no angry voice spat from its speakers, no accusatory projection coalesced in its interior. Whoever was pursuing them was apparently content to commit murder anonymously.
Except that with Flinx as the intended target, no would-be murderer could remain completely anonymous.
Despite the skimmer’s violent bucking as it fought to avoid obliteration, he reached out with his Talent. The source of the enmity that was pursuing him opened immediately to his probe. Its most notable characteristic was a cool detachment. The individual who was trying to kill him was not particularly angry. Yes, his emotions were heightened by the exhilaration of the chase, but insofar as Flinx could tell the man’s feelings were devoid of personal rancor. It was a state of being Flinx recognized immediately because he had encountered it previously. The feelings of professional assassins such as the Qwarm differed noticeably from those whose actions were inspired by raw emotion. The man (as usual, it was easy for Flinx to identify the gender of the individual whose emotions he was perceiving) who was pursuing him was not entirely all-business. There was a feeling of excitement, a sense of glee at what he was doing, that was starkly at odds with what Flinx had once sensed in the mind of a Qwarm. His pursuer was not a member of the Assassins’ Guild, then. They truly were all-business, as cold and unfeeling when cutting throats as a designer cutting fabric.
The skimmer sought salvation in low clouds. The attempt did nothing to throw off the pursuit, or even to slow it down. Clouds, fog, snow—in these days of heightened instrumentation that rendered climate of any kind invisible, weather made bad camouflage. That the man hunting him was properly equipped for his murderous work was evident by the alacrity with which his own craft followed Flinx’s through the cloud bank where his and Bleshmaa’s shuttle had sought refuge.
The forest would have offered more cover, but darting through the densely packed growths would have forced the skimmer to slow, thus rendering it an even easier target for the craft on its trail. It and its occupants were not entirely helpless, however.
Though the rental was equipped to protect those it transported from the depredations of inimical fauna, no maudlin regulations prevented it from defending itself when attacked by sentient beings. The same shell-pumper that had messily dispatched the attacking hlusumakai now fired back at the pursuing craft. In forcing it to take evasive action of its own, their pursuer fired less often, choosing its shots with greater care.
That one would eventually hit home was likely, Flinx knew, given that his skimmer’s ability to keep flying and dodging was severely circumscribed. A commercial rental, not a stingship, it was being asked to perform maneuvers for which it had never been designed. The assassin on their tail knew that just as well as Flinx himself, he reflected. It would be interesting to know why the man wanted Flinx dead. Under tight control, however, the killer’s emotions offered no clue as to his motivation.
There was a loud bang, as if a large container full of trash had been dropped onto the plexalloy canopy. The skimmer endured an abrupt drop of several meters and broke off several treetops before recovering altitude. He did not have to ask the AI for an explanation. One was supplied anyway. The calm, emotionless tone of the skimmer’s voice was maddening.
“We have been hit. My defensive weapon has been disabled and is not repairable. I will continue evasive maneuvering.” A pause, then, as air roared around them, “I have made several efforts to contact the craft that is assaulting us, in an attempt to obtain an explanation for the hostile and dangerous behavior it is displaying. Neither it nor any plausible organic occupants have responded.”
If he had been with his own skimmer from the Teacher, Flinx knew its far more advanced weaponry would already have dispatched the pursuing vehicle. His craft mounted concealed armament that was not only illegal but also well in excess of that available to most nonmilitary transport. Seeking as low a profile as possible while on Gestalt, he had opted instead for the local rental. Now he was paying for it. In more ways, possibly, than one.
Still, even though the rental skimmer’s own weapon had been put out of action, they were not entirely defenseless. He still had his pistol—as well as access to another, far less visible weapon. In order to make maximum use of its potential, certain forced adjustments would first have to be made to the skimmer’s present tactics. Orthodox instructions would have to be manually countermanded. Fighting to keep his feet as the deck rocked and bucked beneath him, he turned his full attention to the craft’s console.
In the pursuing skimmer, Halvorsen was hard-put to rein in his frustration. Judging by the make of skimmer that his quarry had rented, it ought to by now be a smoking ruin somewhere on the ground below him. Instead, its unexpected ability to avoid obliteration was continuing to delay his return to Tlossene. Must be a newer model, he told himself. He sighed. Its strained efforts to evade his assault were only postponing the inevitable. Especially now that its single defensive weapon was out of action.
Secure in battle harness while his own craft’s automatics managed the pursuit—indeed, managed it far better and more efficiently than any organic pilot could have done—he contented himself with firing at the target whenever it fell within range of his own skimmer’s weapons. In this almost leisurely manner he sought to murder the occupants of the craft that was desperately trying to shake him. It could not do so, he knew. There was no chance its internal AI could outthink his far more sophisticated craft’s instrumentation. His skimmer had been specially modified to win this kind of chase. A rental whose principal function was the shuttling of people and light cargo back and forth between towns would eventually run out of evasive options. One by one, his own skimmer’s adaptive intelligence would record them. As soon as one previously utilized maneuver was repeated, as it inevitably would be, his craft would be ready to respond with a corresponding fatal blow.
Diffidently, he checked the chronometer. Another ten minutes, he told himself, and no matter how new, his quarry’s AI would surely have run out of evasive options. Twenty at most. If a lucky shot didn’t precede a predictive one. Either way, he was confident he would be on the ground scraping up proof of his labors before the hour was up. That was why he did not employ his vehicle’s most powerful weapons. Utterly obliterating the frantically dodging craft in front of him would be counterproductive. He needed to be able to recover at least a little intact DNA to attest to his accomplishment in order to collect the promised payment.
Struggling to keep erect, Flinx did his best to secure Pip inside his jacket. He didn’t want her flying free inside the wildly gyrating skimmer. For one thing, despite her exceptional aerial skills, an unexpected jolt of sufficient violence could send her crashing into dome or deck.
Also, he had something else in mind.
“Open rear canopy!” he bellowed, directing the command to the skimmer’s AI.
Well behind him, a frightened and shaky Bleshmaa flashed her horizontal ocular in his direction. “Open? What fur du such a thing, Skua Mastiff?”
“Call me Flinx,” he yelled back. If he was going to die, he resolved, he did not want to do so with a lie lying on someone else’s lips. Even a nonhuman’s. Even one who had no lips. “I’m not through fighting back!”
Though it briefly demurred, the skimmer’s AI finally opened a small section of the rear canopy. Screaming cold wind promptly rushed in to fill the skimmer’s interior. As he stumbled toward the rear of the passenger compartment, Flinx drew his pistol. Inside his jacket, an agitated Pip bumped and twisted against his chest. Unable to unfold and spread her wings, she kept her movements restrained. He knew his companion. Sensing the threat to her master, she would immediately detect the opening in the canopy and zoom out to attack their pursuer. Fast as she was, however, she would quickly be left behind by both speeding craft. Having nearly lost her on several previous occasions on other worlds, he had no intention of losing her here.
Turning to watch the human, an uncomprehending Bleshmaa fought to keep her balance while clearly wondering what her apparently daft offworld employer had in mind.
“Cannot confront skimmer-mounted weapons with handgun! Target is tuu far away! Pleaseplease, come back and close canopy!”
“I’m a pretty good shot,” Flinx shouted back at her. “We have to try something.”
She was right, of course. At this range and under current conditions, with both craft swerving and bobbing madly, the best pistol shot in the Commonwealth could not hit the skimmer that was shadowing them. Besides which, before it would allow itself to come within range of a hand weapon, its own much heavier armament would blow their own craft to bits.
If it was fired, he thought determinedly. No doubt whoever was controlling the weapons could not imagine a scenario under which the larger craft would close the gap between them without making use of such an advantage. Flinx, however, could.
“Reduce speed!” he yelled in the direction of the skimmer’s console.
Mad he surely was, Bleshmaa must have decided. “Order countermanded!” she gargled hastily in quite serviceable terranglo.
“Reduce speed!” Flinx repeated, as forcefully as he could. “I am the renter of record here!” The AI should recognize his voice, not Bleshmaa’s, and should respond accordingly.
Cilia crawled over his lower left arm. “This is matter uv dying, not commerce protocol!”
“That’s why you need to trust me.” He shrugged her off. “If you have a better idea, I’m listening.” Squinting into the cold air and over the slightly bulged stern of the skimmer, he struggled to level his pistol. Precise aiming would have to wait. At present and though he knew it was right behind them, he could not even see the pursuing craft.
“Complying,” the AI responded. “Reducing speed. At this time I feel it is appropriate to point out that certain damage is covered by the insurance option that you elected to take at the time of renting. Damage not covered under the present circumstances includes…”
Flinx ignored the AI’s recitation of what expenses were covered and which he would be responsible for in the event of the skimmer’s destruction. The craft was only following preprogrammed procedure, he knew. As a distraction, it was negligible. It did not prevent him from continuing to hold his weapon aligned with the rear of the vehicle. It did not prevent him from half closing his eyes and concentrating.
It did not prevent him from projecting.
Beneath his jacket, Pip’s coils relaxed as she detected her master’s efforts. With only two other sentients in the immediate vicinity, Flinx had no difficulty focusing on the one who was behind the imminent threat. In the swirling, almost freezing atmosphere at the stern of the skimmer it was hard to hold the pistol steady. The weather did not, however, affect the feelings he cast forth as sure and accurate and true as any explosive projectile.
Secure in his harness, safe from the violent jolts and swings his craft was abiding, a confident and patient Halvorsen suddenly sat bolt upright and blinked. As his skimmer suddenly and unexpectedly closed on its target, he knew he should be firing one or more of its integrated weapons. Instead his hands hovered, palms facing downward, fingers trembling slightly, several centimeters above the pertinent controls. Nor despite straining his brain could he find the right words to activate them using verbal instructions. Had he been wearing an induction headband, it was doubtful that at that moment he could have summoned the will to put forth even a mental command.
Despite the rapidly increasing proximity of the target, he did not fire. Not because something had suddenly gone wrong with his skimmer’s weapons systems, nor because his quarry was out of range, but because he had, inexplicably, undergone a sudden change of heart. For someone oft accused of not possessing one, the abrupt shift in sentiment was striking.
His fingers quivered as he sought to depress one of several contact points that would send death in various high-tech forms streaking toward the other craft. Why do such a thing? he found himself thinking. Isn’t there enough misery in the universe? We all of us are going to die soon enough. Even Norin Halvorsen was going to die. Probably in some wretched, depressing hole somewhere, sick and alone, with no one to murmur a kind word or two over his decaying bones. Taking up space better reserved for neutral neutrons, wasting oxygen, contributing nothing to a society of fellow sentients—that was what his life had come to. That was the pitiful summation of his miserable existence. What he had believed passed for enjoyment was nothing more than the instinctive utilization of various primitive stimulations designed to numb his nerve endings. In striving to survive, he had done little more than anesthetize his soul.
He started to sob. A small, submerged part of him was screaming, shouting its outrage, trying to revive the cool calculating killer that reveled in professional accomplishment, expensive liquor, and cheap women. Normally dominant, this segment of his character had at present been reduced to a small squeak buried beneath a tsunami of despair. Had Halvorsen been able to identify the source of this anguish and gloom he might have had a chance to fight back, to resist it. He could not. He could only suffer beneath the weight of a crushing despondency the likes of which had not affected him since the earliest days of his unspeakably dismal childhood.
If he was not going to fire, the professional, calculating part of his mind that still functioned insisted, then he needed to back off. Or at least to change course or commence evasive maneuvers of his own. But he failed to issue the necessary orders to implement those actions as well. All he found himself able to do was sit in his harness and sob a steady stream of melancholy whose source remained a mystery to him.
That source was looming rapidly larger as the pursuing skimmer drew steadily closer to its decelerating target. Standing straight and tall and exposed to the elements in the rear of that craft was a singular slim figure. Staring unblinkingly into the approaching cockpit of the second skimmer, it was holding something tightly in both hands.
A gun. A hand weapon of a style that was known to Halvorsen but had been modified with a flourish that was new to him. It was not a large gun, but it did not have to be.
Move! a part of him shouted frantically. Shoot back, dive, climb, do something—or the skinny son-of-a-bitch is gonna etch you a new hairline. Lower down. Wonderingly, Halvorsen found himself wrestling with his own unresponsive body, trying to find the missing will to make his impassive limbs function. Desperation and fear proved strong enough to finally force one hand downward, toward the skimmer’s console and the weapons controls embedded there.
At the same time, Flinx fired.
His shot struck Halvorsen’s skimmer just as it started to climb. Penetrating the plexalloy canopy, the beam missed its weeping target. It did, however, pass through a portion of the craft’s control console. A number of critical connections were instantly severed, melted, or fused. Rising from the console, smoke began to fill the interior of the pursuing skimmer. As a consequence of this damage, it took evasive action by banking away from its quarry far more sharply than its pilot would have preferred. But not before getting off a single blast of its own.
Subsequent shots went completely wild. Unleashed more with frustration than skill, every one of them went wide. Air was seared, tree-like growths were incinerated, but none came anywhere near the rented skimmer—except for the first one. As he ducked reflexively, Flinx’s carefully wrought emotional outpouring was jolted by the attack. One consequence of this was that he projected even more strongly on his pursuer than he had intended.
Rattled to the core of his being by the potent emotional projection, Halvorsen tore himself out of his harness with a cry of utter despair. Fully intending to end it all by cracking the skimmer’s canopy and flinging himself outside, he was saved only by the smoke that was now filling the interior. Coughing and choking, he was unable to see his damaged instruments or voice the necessary command. Instead, he stumbled several times before collapsing to the deck. Alternately weeping and coughing, he lay helpless, his right thumb jammed in his mouth, his legs drawn up against his chest in full fetal position.
Only the planning that was the hallmark of an astute professional saved him. Badly damaged, his craft sought instructions on how to proceed. When none were forthcoming, and perceiving that its master was at present unwilling or unable to respond accordingly, the skimmer’s advanced AI reverted to the installed programming that was designed to deal with just such an emergency. Reversing course, with speed and maneuverability reduced, it headed home.
That greatly-to-be-desired option was not available to Flinx’s craft. At close range, Halvorsen’s final, agonized shot had severely damaged not only the craft’s instrumentation, but also its power and propulsive systems. Fighting with the manual controls, barking desperate commands in a harried mixture of Tlelian and terranglo, and despite her best efforts, Bleshmaa was unable to halt its sudden, sharp descent.
The plunge threw Flinx off his feet. Yanking open his jacket, he let Pip out. Freed, she immediately took to the air inside the compartment. She did not try to escape out the opening that still gaped in the rear of the canopy. The hostile mind that had been threatening them was now distant and moving rapidly away. The real and present danger was not one that could be dealt with by her singular abilities.
Rolling over, Flinx struggled to his feet and staggered forward to rejoin the frantic Bleshmaa. Devoid of the elaborate backups that were built into the Teacher’s skimmer, the simple rental craft was finding it impossible to cope with the damage Halvorsen’s weaponry had inflicted on its vital components. Never far below, the flaring crowns of the great Gestaltian forest loomed steadily larger through the transparent canopy.
“Pull up, pull up!” As Flinx threw himself back into his seat’s harness, there was no response to his verbal directive. The skimmer’s AI was dead, leaving them entirely on manual control. He looked over at Bleshmaa. “We’re going down—find a flat place to land!”
Even as he voiced the appeal he could see that he might as well wish for the smooth tarmac of a shuttleport and for its own master AI to take control of their damaged craft and automatically bring it in to a safe, gentle touchdown. The surface below was as thickly forested as any field of ripe grain. Where bare ground showed through, mounds of naked rock thrust sharp stone fingers skyward. Directly ahead, a soaring cliff marked the far side of the valley through which they were rapidly descending. Crumbled scree at its base promised a landing even rougher than that offered by the thick forest below.
As he became convinced they were going to slam into the granite rock face, Bleshmaa’s cilia executed a frenetic dance on a pair of control contacts. The mortally wounded skimmer shuddered, fell—and turned to the left. Left, left, ever so slowly, until he was certain it was going to impact the snow-streaked black rock ahead.
Then more valley appeared, cut by white froth. He barely had time to register the abrupt change in terrain when Pip let out a violent hiss somewhere aft of his right shoulder, there came the terrible high-pitched shriek of splintering composite, and the light went away from his eyes.
Only for a moment. It was soon replaced by diffuse sunshine, the crackling and moaning of disintegrating structure, and an entirely new sound: that of rushing, churning water. Cold it was, and pouring excitedly into the interior of the downed skimmer where portions of the plexalloy canopy had been snapped away. Already it was over his ankles and climbing energetically up his legs. Nor was it the only thing in motion. The skimmer was still moving: erratically, intermittently, but continuously forward. Loud crunching and grinding noises came from below. He could feel the recurring impacts beneath his feet as the splintering craft was systematically torn to pieces by the rocks over which it was being dragged.
Bleshmaa had managed to set them down on the only relatively flat surface for kilometers around—smack in the center of one of north Gestalt’s innumerable raging rivers. The grating sounds he was hearing came from the skimmer sliding and banging over the unyielding, uneven riverbed.
The craft slewed suddenly sideways. A fresh incoming torrent struck him in the face. Swallowing some, he choked on the icy flow, shook it off, released himself from his seat’s harness, and began battling his way toward the nearest breach in the canopy. Having no idea how deep the river was, he knew he had to get out before the skimmer filled completely with water. Hovering above him now, immune to such land-bound perils, an anxious Pip hissed encouragement.
The edges of the fissure in the plexalloy were not sharp, and he was able to grasp both sides with his bare hands. Outside and beyond, a riverbank lined with twisted blue growths any one of which would have stood out starkly in a park on Nur or Earth or Kansastan was gliding past at an uncomfortably swift pace. Gripping the broken canopy tightly, he prepared to pull himself out and swim to shore. A sudden realization stopped him.
Where was Bleshmaa?
Cursing silently, he paused in the opening to look back. Because of the rising, rushing water it was difficult to see anything inside the damaged, rapidly submerging skimmer. He shouted, trying to make himself heard above the river’s roar. When no response was forthcoming, he growled silently one more time, then plunged back inside.
She was halfway out of her harness. It was all that held her upright. It was not necessary to be familiar with Tlelian biology to realize that she was unconscious. In the absence of any eyes to see closed, her limp limbs and utter nonresponsiveness, both verbal and emotional, were proof enough. Wrestling the alien body out of the seat as icy river swirled and surged around them, he slung the flaccid form over his left shoulder. It was surprisingly heavy.
By now the skimmer had sunk far enough so that water merely poured through the multiple gaps in the shattered canopy instead of rushing in furiously. While it was easier now to make his way outside and onto the intact portion of the sinking craft, the constant damp cold was beginning to overwhelm the ability of his special clothing to counteract it. After all he had been through in his short but hectic life, after defeating menaces both sentient and unthinking, it was sobering to think that he might die from something as primordially austere as hypothermia.
For the moment, swimming to shore was out of the question. The skimmer was banging and bouncing its way down a succession of Class V rapids that were disturbingly broad in extent. Setting his escort’s body down alongside him, Flinx studied the near shore. Better to pick a spot, however daunting it appeared, and swim for it than wait for the skimmer to sink completely or break up beneath them, leaving him no choice when to make the attempt. Though a good swimmer, he knew that white water and cold would combine to rapidly sap his remaining strength. Once committed he would have to swim hard and fast, as it would be impossible to return to the skimmer. Glancing up, he could only envy Pip. Riding the air currents above the river, she effortlessly kept pace with the helpless, sinking transport.
Whether because it was too low on the emotional scale to be noticed, or because he was cold, tired, and preoccupied, Flinx failed to notice the diving jaslak. As a consequence, he also missed its unique style of attack, whereby it did a complete revolution in the air in order to maximize the impact of the lump of solid bone contained in its tail. Though it missed Flinx’s head and struck his shoulder, it still hit him hard enough to knock him down and dizzy. Feeling himself sliding off the skimmer’s broken, sloping canopy, he fought to hang on and keep from slipping into the river.
Both eyes focused on the injured potential prey, a second jaslak came diving headlong out of the sky. Trailing its bone-heavy tail behind a pair of broad furry wings, it dove straight at the struggling Flinx. Usually one blow from the club-like tail sufficed to knock a quarry off a rock or out of a tree, but this strange animal floating downstream was larger than the flock’s usual prey. It was clear that it would take several blows, precisely directed, to render it insensible. Only then could all the members of the flock safely descend, to land on the body and pick clean the damp flesh with their protruding, incisor-laden jaws.
Taking careful aim, the second jaslak spun—and howled in mid-flip as a thin but potent stream of toxin struck not one but both eyes. In acute pain, it brought its wings to its face as it fell toward the river, plummeting harmlessly past a still-dazed Flinx as he pulled himself back up onto the skimmer alongside the motionless Bleshmaa. Still in its service belt holster, his pistol would make short work of his aerial attackers—once he was out of the water and his head had cleared enough for him to activate the weapon and take aim.
As their comrade splashed into the river and was swallowed by the roaring, boiling foam, other jaslaks folded their wings to their sides and plunged to the attack. It was likely they had never before encountered another flying creature as swift and nimble as the Alaspinian minidrag. Agile as an oversized hummingbird, Pip danced circles around her stymied assailants. Two crashed thuddingly into each other, sending both tumbling into the water, snapping and yowling as they fell. Struck by a second spurt of the flying snake’s venom, another dropped screaming to smash against a protruding boulder.
Loath to let such a fine meal escape but unable to get past the murderous flying creature circling protectively above it, the rest of the flock gradually fell away, letting wind fill their wings to lift them higher as they sought easier prey elsewhere upstream.
It was not necessary for Flinx to say thanks aloud. His constant companion could read his emotions even if he could not quite decipher hers. It was also possible that she recognized the significance of the smile that now transformed his expression. Turning away from the patrolling minidrag, he looked down at the Tlel he had dragged clear of the skimmer’s rapidly filling interior. Ignorant of the location of Tlel lungs—or even if the natives of Gestalt possessed analogous organs of respiration—he could not tell if she was still breathing. Beneath the sodden, transparent upper garment, however, her torso was still warm. The feeding appendages beneath her jawline quivered like semi-invalid eels. He hesitated at gripping her cilia lest in their chilled condition he inadvertently damage one of the delicate digits.
His attention diverted by a rising roar, he looked up- and downriver. The sound arose from an as yet unseen source. It took him a moment to identify it. Alas, it was not the rumble of an approaching rescue craft. Instead, the source of the thunder was entirely natural.
Unable to gain a more elevated perspective, he could not tell the height of the waterfall the helpless skimmer was fast approaching. From the increasingly deafening rumble he estimated it to be at least twice the height of the worst rapid they had so far run. That being the best-case scenario, he knew it was time to abandon the skimmer and strike for the nearest shore no matter how difficult the route or inhospitable the potential landfall.
At first he started to slip his right arm around Bleshmaa’s neck, much as he might have done in preparing to tow a human. After taking into consideration the extreme slenderness and unknown carrying capacity of that particular Tlel body part, however, he decided instead to try a chest carry. Fortunately, his arm was long enough to reach around the entire upper portion of the escort’s conical shape and beneath both long arms.
In the river these trailed beside her like seaweed. By now he was too numb, mentally as well as physically, for the cold water to affect him. He was less worried about becoming chilled than he was about growing drowsy. Increasing lethargy would be a sure sign that hypothermia was beginning to set in.
Though he swam hard for the heavily vegetated shore, the force of the current increased as the river drew closer to the falls. For every meter he gained shoreward, he felt he was slipping twice that far downstream. The roar of the still-unseen cataract was loud enough now to reverberate in his ears. Trying not to think of how high it might be or what unyielding rocks lay jumbled at its base, he concentrated on kicking and paddling.
Azure undergrowth, dark and promising, grew steadily larger in his vision. His grip on the trailing, dragging body of Bleshmaa was so tight that his fingers had cramped into a hook. Judging by the unrelenting thunder of it, the threatening cataract was very near now. But so was the shore.
The physical feeling of something giving way as he banged into and off a submerged rock was matched by a sudden lightness. Momentarily bewildered, he saw that he still had his unbreakable grip on the female Tlel. Something else had been lost to the implacable current, then. With a start, he realized what it was. His service belt was gone, ripped off by the formidable flow. Belt, pistol, communit, firstaid apparatus and medicinals, emergency food rations—everything gone, gone, all gone, swept away in the dark, fast-moving water like a dead serpent. Without the aid of the belt’s gear he had little hope of survival, let alone rescue.
Going after it would mean abandoning Bleshmaa to the current and to the approaching cascade. Furiously treading water, he debated for perhaps ten seconds. By then it was too late. The belt had surely been swept beyond immediate recovery now. Maybe he could retrieve it later, somewhere downstream. It might be rolled and pushed to shore. More likely, he realized despondently, it would wrap itself around an underwater rock or snag, never to greet the anxious eyes of its owner again.
He resumed digging water. If he didn’t make it to shore very soon, the matter of his belt’s destiny would be rendered moot. He and Bleshmaa would expire within the river, or go over the looming falls to be broken on the rocks below. Only Pip would know of the time and manner of their passing, and be left to mourn.
His flailing right hand contacted something hard and unyielding. No attacking predator this time, but a protruding branch, so dark blue it was almost purple. He grabbed for it gratefully.
It pulled away from him.
His one exhausted thought was that he had no time for any more surprises. A second branch or root bobbed in the water slightly farther downstream. As he drifted toward it, he reached out anew. For a second time, the promise of safety drew away from him. Some kind of instinctive, reactive defense mechanism on the part of the parent plant, he found himself thinking, unable to keep from analyzing his surroundings even with death stalking him by, literally, degrees. Maybe the river was full of aquatic herbivores that liked to gnaw on water-loving tree limbs. Maybe, the inopportune line of thought logically continued, the river was full of creatures that liked to gnaw on other things.
The realization caused him to expend his remaining energy in a sudden burst of effort. Exerting all his strength, he kicked hard, simultaneously paddling frantically with his free hand. The effort thrust him forward through the water just enough to push his chest out on land. The fragment of beach was cold, it was hard, and it most certainly was not dry, but it was solid beneath him. Half pulling, half kicking, he willed himself out of the river, dragging the dead alien weight of his escort behind him. Water sloughed away from his body, leaving behind only the chill that was its shadow.
Rolling over, he sat up, breathing hard. Settling on a bush nearby, Pip watched her master intently. Faint burbling noises came from Bleshmaa. He hoped she hadn’t swallowed a lot of water, because he did not have the faintest idea how to go about performing emergency resuscitation on a Tlel. After sitting for a while as his thermotropic clothes slowly shifted away the tiny beads of water adhering to them, he crawled over to sit closer to his unconscious escort. If not exactly warm and dry, neither was he in imminent danger of freezing to death. Silently, he thanked the unseen, unknown manufacturers of the high-quality attire he wore. In ancient times, he knew, anyone who had undergone a similar icy submersion would have perished as the primitive fabric of their water-soaked garments turned to a frozen cocoon around them.
Damp and cold, his translator necklace still hung around his neck. That was fortunate, because his weary brain was having enough trouble forming coherent thoughts in his native terranglo. For the moment, at least, venturing anything in the throat-twisting Tlelian language was beyond him.
“We’re clear of the river,” he murmured to her. Only when he spoke did it strike him that there was absolutely no other sound to be heard in the immediate vicinity of the beach beyond the erratic snarl of the nearby waterfall. “How do you feel?”
“Not—gud.” The words emerged feebly, like a failed effort. “Something brokebroke—inside.”
He would have disregarded propriety even if he had known the physiological intricacies of the Tlel. Taking his time, he examined her from flat head to broad feet. At first nothing seemed amiss, or missing. Pulling aside the battered poncho-like outer garment, he lifted up the right half of the transparent vest beneath. That was when he saw that her entire left side had been caved in. In the absence of blood he had not noticed it earlier.
“Excuse me” was all he could think to mumble as he began, ever so gently, to feel of the flesh beneath the short, glass-like fur. Her skin quivered under his touch. He could not tell for certain, but the partial collapse of the upper body cavity seemed quite extensive. Maybe even, he told himself, too extensive. He sat back, gazing down at her.
“Sit me up,” she wheezed weakly.
“I don’t know if that’s such a good—”
“Upup.” When she started trying to push herself into a sitting position, bracing her weight with arms that threatened to give way at any second, he leaned forward to help her.
She sat that way, staring. First at the forest, then at the sky. She asked questions. Some of them he was able to answer; others he could not. A number of them had to do with which way the river into which they had crashed was running. After a while, she raised one arm and pointed. All the manipulative cilia were lined up and pressed together to form a single thick digit.
“That way. Nearest civilization lies…that way. Yu go fur help. I cannot walk. Will stay here and wait yu return.”
She did not know about the lost service belt, he realized. How could he tell her that without it and the equipment it held, his chances of reaching anything remotely resembling civilization, much less in time to return and save her, were minuscule? Not that he intended to leave her, anyway. She was being more than disingenuous if she thought that in her present injured condition she could survive the forest for more than a few days. He started to remind her of the obvious.
She did not respond. When he put a hand on her upper right arm and squeezed, she still did not react. His next breath was long and drawn out. Surviving the forest was not something she would have to worry about. She would not, in fact, have to worry about anything any longer. She could wait for his return without trepidation.
She had no eyes to close, but he noted that her formerly moist and bright eyeband had both dimmed and dried out.
A weight settled on his shoulder. Seeking warmth, Pip had left her bush. Pulling his collar out away from his skin, he waited while she slithered down under his inner shirt. Her flesh was cold at first, but warmed quickly.
He recalled the nature of the rugged, forbidding country they had overflown before they had been attacked. High mountains, sheer precipices, raging rivers, ice and snow, alien forest inhabited by hungry predators, and who knew what else. He had nothing left in the way of equipment except his translator, which would not help him in dealing with famished carnivores. He had that, and Pip, he reminded himself. Pondering his situation, he decided that any reasonable person would concur that he had no chance of getting out of this alive.
Certainly not if he continued to squat by the riverside feeling sorry for himself, he mused. Mother Mastiff would have been appalled. He could almost hear her berating him for such fatalism. Berating him, and boxing his ears. He promptly proceeded to do something else he thought he could not do. He smiled.
It was a start.
Climbing to his feet, he considered his surroundings. Cold, inhospitable, growing dark, starting to snow lightly. Pink snow. He needed warmth, hospitality, light, shelter from the harsh weather. He would not find it here, muttering to himself and bemoaning his misfortune. “Therefore,” he declared aloud, “I had better get moving.”
He started hiking in a southwesterly direction, as Bleshmaa had recommended. Very quickly she faded into and became one with the pink snow and blue growths behind him. Soon the forest swallowed her up, and she then was gone altogether.