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  I let Blade see me walking down from the ridge carrying the lindal. It was all for show, a deception for which, being basically an honest Zentadon, I felt some guilt. It was necessary to lure Blade directly underneath the web tree while I reached a point where I could trigger the web with my vine arrangement. I walked dragging one foot and hunched around my middle, like I was seriously injured and in great pain. I rested every few steps, encouraging Blade to keep coming toward me.

  He stopped short of the trap, a cagey soldier who survived by being perpetually crafty. He scanned every foot of the terrain ahead. His head lifted. I saw him watching the idiot dragonfly now flying so low in circles that it shook water loose from treetops and rustled the uppermost leaves. I thought my heart was going to stop beating from the tension when the dragonfly inevitably turned Blade’s gaze to the spider’s web. Luckily, rain replaced any big drops that I might have jarred loose from the strands when I was rigging my trap.

  Still, a close scrutiny of the type Blade proved capable of might reveal a certain discordance that would tip him off. Thinking quickly, I pretended to stumble and fall, hurling the lindal out in front of me. Blade’s eyes snapped immediately to the black case. He started forward again. Cautiously, but he was still coming. That was what mattered.

  I gained my feet and picked up the Hell Box, struggling to impress Blade with the extent of my exaggerated wounds. We were still well out of Punch range when Blade stopped again. He looked all around, including up at the dragonfly. His eyes scanned past the spider’s web with hardly a notice this time.

  He was short of the trap zone by about ten meters. I had an equal distance to go in order to reach the release that tripped the web. It wouldn’t take much to set the sniper off, cause him to go for his gun and rush toward me laying down a wall of fire. For all I knew, that was what he contemplated all along.

  “Okay, elf!” he called out.

  “We must stop meeting this way,” I retorted in an abnormally thin tone.

  “What did you say?” he shouted.

  I indicated that I could hardly speak and used that as an excuse to proceed even closer. I moved to within leaping distance of my trap trigger. I doubled over in apparent effort to catch my breath from the pain. Humans gave awards called Oscars to actors for roles less dramatic than the one I was playing. While bent over, I examined the trigger hidden in the grass to make sure that nothing had happened to it and that it would still work. I felt vulnerable even thought I was still out of Punch range.

  Closer. I had to get Blade closer.

  I dropped to my knees and huddled there, breathing hoarsely, clutching my ribs and using the lindal as a security shield. Blade wouldn’t want to take a chance of damaging it in the course of ridding the planet of me. He wouldn’t know that it was indestructible.

  “Here is my offer …” I began.

  “What? What? Fu-uck.”

  He took a few more steps to better hear me. Come on! Come on!

  “Give me your weapons,” I called out in the same thin voice. “Then we can talk.”

  “Turn over my weapons, you say? Is that it? You must be crazy.”

  Rain slapped at the trees. Thunder rolled. The dragonfly’s wings whirred low over my head. The flyer continued toward Blade. He ducked and waved the creature off. It climbed steeply and circled above the spider’s web. It was a gray, wet and noisy world.

  “You are the mad one,” I said, speaking so Blade could see I was talking but in such a low voice that he couldn’t hear me. “You are an evil madman and a suitable vessel for the Presence. Three more steps and I will have your scheming, murdering butt so entangled in spider web that you will go to trial and be executed wrapped up like a cocoon …”

  He took one of the three steps. I kept muttering. He took two more steps, calling out, “What? What?”

  Now!

  I lunged for the trigger. In agonizing slow motion I watched the top line of the web begin to crumple. At the same time, the dragonfly soared back around and darted between the two anchor trees above Blade’s head and directly below the collapsing net. In stunned disbelief, I saw the winged creature fold into the net. The force of its momentum collapsed the web around its body. Dragonfly encased in a mass of silver silk tumbled out of the sky and crashed into trees further downhill.

  Blade roared with anger, suddenly seeing how the web was intended for him. He dashed for cover, firing his Punch over his shoulder. The short round expended itself harmlessly before it reached me.

  I fled in the opposite direction, astounded by the way fate and pure dumb luck had saved Blade and defeated me again. The chase was back on. In my wake, the Presence contributed its ghastly peals of humorless laughter. I had no trouble hearing Blade’s angry and indignant braying.

  “You double-crossing traitorous sonofabitch! There’ll be no mercy when I catch you, so don’t expect it. Damn you, elf! Damn you to Hell!”

  C·H·A·P·T·E·R

  FORTY TWO

  I remained frustrated over my failure when the longer of the two Aldenia nights fell and I was forced to seek harbor. For the balance of the day I had made a wide circle to bring me near the fatal sight of the DRT massacre, thinking I might be able to scrounge something useful there on my way through, even though Blade was sure to have booby trapped it. It lay in the high country to the west, the same high country to which Blade had stuck after the fiasco with the dragonfly and the spider’s web.

  I wriggled into a semi-dry fissure in a rock face and decided to put off any further decisions until after I rested.

  Kadar San, help … Help me …

  The plea came so strong and clear that I bolted upright, banging my head on the overhead rock. I recognized the texture of the thought-voice inside my head. But it simply couldn’t be.

  Are you here? I asked the Good Presence.

  No answer.

  I concentrated. Pia …?

  Kadar San …!

  It was her! She had read me. She was alive!

  I felt the Good Presence. You no longer need the evil one in order to escape. You need her.

  Why did you not tell me about her?

  We are prohibited.

  I know. You can only influence.

  Yes.

  Can I communicate with her telepathically?

  Can you?

  Then the GP, the Good Presence, was gone. In its place I felt slimy tentacles and the odor of rot as the Presence sought me out. I slammed a mental door against it and found, to my surprise, that it worked. My mind was clear again.

  Kadar San …? Kadar San …?

  Gun Maid was the living ranking member of the team. The GP was right. The pod would open for her. It wouldn’t open for Blade, after all. Did he know that yet?

  She couldn’t always understand thought words, not yet. Images seemed to work better. I sent her a picture of the river and the pod. Go! I sensed her excitement, but she also seemed confused, slightly disoriented, weak, and injured.

  I transferred some of myself to her and received a chilling image of her huddled alone in the rain with the dead around her. She remained in the rocks with the others. In shock. Helpless as a frightened, lost child.

  I sent her: Danger! With an impression of Blade pointing a rifle at her.

  I need help, Kadar San.

  I cannot come yet, I sent back.

  Blade would finish the job if he traced me to her and learned she was still alive. There was no way she could join me on the run in her obviously debilitated condition.

  Get away! Hide! I thought-shouted. Go to the pod. I will try to meet you there.

  Kadar San …?

  I projected another picture of the river where the pod was and of her running toward it. Do you understand?

  Kadar Sa …?

  Then she was gone and I couldn’t pick her up again. Which meant she must have lapsed into unconsciousness. Or worse.

  C·H·A·P·T·E·R

  FORTY THREE

  DAY EIGHT

  Come
dawn I knotted another day into my cord. Two Galaxia days remaining before those of us who survived became castaways on the Dark Planet. I was fairly rested, and hungry. Both good signs. I tested for Blade and eventually found him out there, non-localized, but out there. Even when he freshly awakened, his aura was dark and menacing. I wondered what Hells his dreams must concoct.

  I sent out energy waves to find the lizards. They were out there also. They were hungry. I wondered about their intelligence. In another thousand millennia, give or take a few hundred, they must likely become sentient beings of some culture and intelligence. They were going to be ugly people with a mean streak.

  Discovering Pia still alive changed once more the rules of this deadly game of strategy in which Blade and I were engaged. It was a game where rules, it seemed, changed minute by minute. Yesterday, I needed Blade alive and captured in order to escape the planet; today, I needed him dead.

  As for Blade, he probably failed to realize how the rules had changed; no longer did he have the option of taking off in the pod. Not as long as Pia lived. To the end of keeping him in the dark, I set out in a driving thunderstorm toward the east northeast, drawing him away from Gun Maid and any weapons or equipment that I might have salvaged from the massacre site. I shunned the lower savannahs and kept to the high ground where my own surveillance was better. I hunted along the way, fishing out a couple of newts for breakfast. I would have liked something different, but the newts were nutritious and no longer posed a threat to my taa system. I crouched under a rock ledge out of the rain and tried to contact Pia again while I ate. Earlier, she had been off the air, so to speak. Another old, old Earth expression.

  Pia …?

  Kadar San … A feeling of relief and joy on her part.

  I thought of how her nipples had hardened. I must be feeling better.

  Kadar San! That’s nasty!

  She had a Talent. She was getting good at telepathy. My ears twitched with embarrassment.

  Pia, where are you now?

  She didn’t understand. I sent her an image of the massacre site with a question interposed. Still confusion. She sent back a big question mark of her own. I replied with a repeat of the black river, the pod, and her running toward it.

  Go to the pod, Pia.

  At least she could escape, even if I didn’t make it.

  Kadar San … I’m sorry …

  About what?

  I received a picture message of her turning her back on me, and by it understood she was apologizing for having rejected me in front of the others a few minutes before Blade attacked with the neural grenade.

  You are forgiven, Pia.

  The connection between us weakened. I sensed she was ill, perhaps injured. I felt her nausea in my own stomach. Its intensity caused me to wretch up newt meat. Pain — her pain — knifed into my skull.

  Can you walk, Pia? I gasped.

  Walk …? Walk where …?

  In her condition, she made easy prey for predators, even the smallest of them. But, still, reaching the pod was her best and only chance.

  Pia …?

  The Presence suddenly appeared in her place. Its wretched scream of interfering laughter echoed among the drenched hills. Down in one of the clearings, the lizards appeared as watery forms, like creatures seen beneath the gray surface of the sea. They reared to their hind legs and then, as one, darted for cover.

  Pia …?

  She was gone, likely returned to unconsciousness. Chilled by the hideous laughter and what it portended, undecided about my next move, I succumbed to a moment of helplessness and indecision. If I did not go to her, she likely perished from exposure or fell prey to some beast. On the other hand, leading Blade to her was even more certain death. It wasn’t so much that the rules of the game kept changing; it was more that there were no rules.

  Pia’s life depended on me; my ultimate survival and escape now depended on her. Blade needed her dead, although I hoped he didn’t know it yet. But perhaps he did if, as I suspected, he and the Presence had become almost as one.

  I decided to feel Blade out. I keyed the squad radio.

  “Good morning out there in Happyville,” I chirped brightly.

  He didn’t answer. He was still sulking from yesterday.

  “Sergeant Kilmer, are we out of sorts this morning?

  “Fu-uck.”

  “Oh. There we are. Sergeant, have we noticed that the lizards you angered are now tracking you, while you track me?”

  It was difficult to tell which of us the lizards were in fact stalking, now that Blade’s cammies were about to go. When they went completely, we would stand on a more equal footing, predator-wise.

  “When they eat you, elf, I’ll get the box anyhow.”

  “But what if they eat you, Sergeant Kilmer?”

  “In your dreams, fairy man.”

  “It is in my dreams, Sergeant.”

  Psyching each other out, playing mind games.

  “Sergeant Kilmer, in two more days the pod will leave without either of us.”

  “We could have made a deal. You fucked it up.”

  “A deal with the Devil would be more appealing.”

  “Give me the case, elf. I’ll let you live. Don’t be a fool. At least you’ll still be alive.”

  “You sound desperate, Sergeant. Okay. Tell you what I will do. Turn your Gauss over to me. Let me have the weapon.”

  “Are you crazy, man? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

  “An old, old Earth expression?”

  “I’ll give you an even better one: Bend over, elf, and kiss your stinking ass goodbye. I’m going to kill you today. I’m going to track you down and waste your sorry ass. Enjoy your last morning on Aldenia, or any other planet.”

  “Oh, but, Sergeant, the hunted is about to become the hunter.”

  “Fu-uck. Watch out, elf. I’m coming.”

  I finished eating, climbed higher, and looked back. The lizards sniffed around in the lowlands. I noticed they kept looking off toward the west. I followed the direction of their gaze and saw a Human form climbing in the rain toward the rocky pinnacle where DRT-213 had started its final camp. Blade’s cammies were going on the blink. I saw him for just a few moments before he blended back into the terrain. The lizards returned to looking for me.

  The rules that were not rules changed again. Blade must have gotten near enough the scene of his crime to pick up Pia on his LF tracker. He was heading her direction. To eliminate all survivors, all obstacles.

  C·H·A·P·T·E·R

  FORTY FOUR

  Playing with lintatai was playing with the dark side. Taa reacted to hatred, fear and aggression, all the demons that lurked in the Zentadon soul. I released a trickle of it, carefully, experimenting, as I threw caution to the wind and hastened from the high ground and back onto the savannah, a straight line being the shortest distance between two points. I counted on Blade’s being so preoccupied with whoever had survived his ambush that he would overlook me for a little while. His LF would not tell him who the survivor was. Whoever it was had to die. Especially if the survivor outranked him and therefore controlled access to the pod.

  I also counted on Blade’s being unaware that I also knew about the survivor. As long as that ignorance continued, he would not expect his prey to turn and become the predator.

  Rain slashed at my face, painfully at the speed I was going under taa, and stabs of quicksilver lightning strobed overcasting grayness into alternating instants of blinding brilliance. It was a little disorienting. I drew my Punch Gun in one hand while carrying the case in the other. I hurried to break a straight path through the purple grass that grew taller than my head. Water and mud sucked at my boots. The strain drew on the frailty of my injured ribs. Someone observing from a high point would have seen the path I made through the grass, like a line drawn on a child’s etch-a-sketch toy. Overtness was a chance I had to take to reach Pia in time.

  I intended to kill the sniper if I could. I was
on the trail of my first kill of a sentient. That thought alone caused a taa feedback, threatening lintatai. The evil genie in the Indowy box was not the only genie attempting to break free. I cleared my thoughts of the killing itself and thought only of Pia. I bulldozed through the grass with deadly purpose.

  My thoughts called out to her desperately. Pia …! Pia …? Without an answer.

  Looking up to the high ground, I estimated Blade’s position relative to mine. He was going to beat me to her, unless I used a significant burst of taa. But if I used it now, it would leave me weakened and there would be little left for the confrontation.

  I explored for Blade’s emotions, finding them at last. They tasted fierce with determination and violent intent. The Presence was with him. At the same time, however, I sensed something else. Uncertainty. Like he knew a survivor was there, but wasn’t exactly sure where he hid. That could mean his LF was starting to fail. Perhaps Pia and I still had a chance.

  Hurry! said the Good Presence.

  What do you think I’m doing?

  Quickly!

  You could help.

  No.

  Can you at least tell me, is she alive?

  She is alive. But hurry.

  I crashed recklessly through the weeds, heedless of the big lizards nearby, having forgotten all about them in my desperation to reach Pia Gunduli. They had not forgotten me. They reminded me of their proximity in a most startling manner. One of them sprang into the air and rode the slash of rain to a landing directly in my path. It towered head and gleaming teeth and unsheathed front claws above me, eyes like black holes punched into leathery skin. A thin screech of triumph hissed from its cavernous gullet.

  Peripherally, I spotted a couple of the others leaping up and down in the grass like hunting terriers in order to get a look at me. They seemed overly cautious as a result of their previous encounter with Blade’s bullets. Their wariness and hesitation gave me a slight edge.