Presently the whole group were flitting through the air ten feet up over the ferns. Hook flew with them, although he had welcomed the exercise of the walk.
Hook liked trees. A single glance at the trees of this forest convinced him he could get to dislike anything given time. The trunks possessed that primitive scaly bark and greasy shining appearance that put him off any desire to touch them, and the leaves and branches jagged spiky and sharp against the sky. A few clouds moved slowly up there; what with the squelch below, the ferns and these disagreeable trees, only the good old sun could give Ryder Hook any comfort.
A flapping scarlet and green reptile form broke from the trees, a whiplike tail lashing, wide pinions beating strongly. Instantly, half a dozen rifles spat and the flying creature crumpled up in midair, falling like a smitten-moth, damaged and drab, tumbled into the trees. At that point Hook made up his mind to leave the safari. He had no need to run over once again all his cogent reasons in the arguments about taking life. He knew what he knew. He had absolutely no desire to travel across this planet shooting at the first thing that moved.
"I hit him clean!" shouted a fat man, waving his rifle in the air. "He's mine!"
"I hit him! He's mine!"
Two or three others joined in. And now Hook noticed a point that was in reality not worth comment. By chance all the members of the safari were humanoid in form, either Homo sapiens, or mal, or representatives of a human form very like that of Homo sapiens. It was only a chance; but it affected Ryder Hook.
The hunters speeded up and shot towards the forest, and in the lead flew those who claimed to have bagged the flying creature. Terifia looked at Hook, whose rifle was carried at the trail. "Give me my gun," she said to her guard. "I thought you'd be handy with a gun, Hook. You didn't even take aim before the others fired."
"True," said Ryder Hook. "I'm going back to Stellopolis."
"What!"
"You can cope without me here, Terifia. I'm not in the mood for slaughtering wild animals."
"You got a weak gut or something?"
"Probably."
"You great gaff, Hook!"
"This seems to be that gonil Foylty's idea of fun. It's not mine."
"Lars is a great hunter! He's often down here shooting." There was no reply Hook cared to make to that.
From the sybaritic lifestyle of Stellopolis and the scientifically-controlled luxury and safety of star city, a jaunt down here must appeal to star city's inhabitants. From metalloy and plastic confining them around in shells of air, to this free-sweeping breeze, the sky high and blue above with the sun shining down in so mellow a contrast to the flaming ball of fire it seemed from space, the Curlmen must relish the deliberate descent to a primitive way of life. There were robots in attendance who had faded down afterwards and no doubt a grand picnic would be provided; but the idea of rustic simplicity, the great hunter stalking his prey in the evil wilds, the space and freedom of all this — oh, yes, Ryder Hook could well see why the Curlmen would go a-hunting.
"That flying reptile was vermin, Hook. Vermin!"
"Maybe it was. But too many people shot who couldn't know that. If that's going to be the way of it — no thank you."
Terifia's anger arose as much from her awareness that if Hook left it would be she who would look a fool in the eyes of these sophisticates of star city. Star City! Maybe Hook was right and they would do well to leave. As for her son, Bunji, he could go disintegrate himself for all she cared now he had come of age. He'd declared his intentions. So she knew what to do about them ...
The main group had reached the trees and were poking about with homotropic and organotropic devices looking for the body of the kill. Other reptiles skeetered up in alarm, and the rifles began to pop in a regular succession, the linear acceleration motors hurling chunks of metalloy and explosive to rip reptilian wings and bodies into scaled wreckage.
"Hook! It's IQ. I’ll come with you. We'll go to a little place I know, all sea and sand, gorgeous black sand that caresses you — oh, yes, Hook. I can't wait."
A thin whine scratched at the warm air. Hook glanced up.
One of the diamond-shaped skeeters used by star city to convey freight or people physically from planet to Stellopolis arrowed in over the horizon. Usually the Curlmen sent down a monstrous great freighter globe with a honeycomb of skeeter ports pocking the curve of the hull so that they might shift materials in bulk. The matra would be uneconomical here. Hook looked at the skeeter, at its narrow flanks and conical central bubble, one dorsal one ventral, and saw it veer in its flight and go slicing down out of sight beyond a clump of giant ferns. Someone was in a hurry.
"Did you hear me, Hook? Let's go!"
"Right, Terifia." He would be glad to get off Stellopolis; but he doubted if the black sand would be much more salubrious.
They turned and with the guards flanking them as before flew back to the fade-spot. The matra block here stood silent and in darkness.
"You'll have to call out, Prezwy," Terifia told one of her guards.
He said: "Yes, my lady," and reached for the call button.
His hand almost touched it. But there was no arm, no body, nothing attached to that hand, save a flare of supernal light. Hook reeled back in the heat blast. He grabbed Terifia. The other guard swung his energy gun in a panicky sweep that crisped fronds and ferns. Hook dived flat into the squelchy muck and Terifia yelped and then gagged as scummy mud choked into her mouth.
The second guard had left it too late. He vapourised in a second discharge. Hook flattened out, the Tonota in his hand, trying to see through the thick ferns around him. Another few seconds and they'd have been safely faded up to star city.
"Goddammittohell!" said Ryder Hook.
The anti-homotropic devices in his skull would keep off a very high quality device indeed, and no doubt whoever was shooting at him was fiddling with his instruments and cursing them for going on the blink at this minute.
"Oh, Hook!" quavered Terifia. She dribbled mud down her chin.
"Quiet, love."
"They're going to kill us."
"They don't know where we are, else they'd have vapourised the whole area around here." As he spoke a flash and a gout of steam and smoke broke twenty metres to his left. Another discharge ripped the sodden mud and ferns away farther off. "They're trying to find us. But they're going the wrong way."
"You know who this is, don't you? It's that mother-hating bastard son of mine!"
"Maybe."
Hook fancied it could be goons from Bandong who'd at last caught up with the creep who'd stolen a star cutter and fifty kilos of art micro-recordings. Whoever it was, they'd muffed their first and best chance, thanks to those circuits in his skull. But very soon they'd sweep this area, and by destroying everything in their way, destroy Terifia and Hook as well.
"Hook! Oh, Hook!" Terifia moaned with a kind of Choked and sob-filled horror that had no place in Hook's scheme of operations.
"Keep absolutely quiet. They'll be listening out. I'll be back for you."
And Ryder Hook slid off into the ferns in a most ugly frame of mind indeed.
CHAPTER NINE
AROUND the other side of the silent silicon cube portal of the matra block the ferns grew more lushly. Hook moved between their sappy and bending stems as silently as the fade-spot waited to be operated. He went to throw the Zable-White rifle down; then paused, and finally slung it over his shoulders. You never knew in this man's galaxy what weapons you might need.
By keeping low he could maintain a profile that would not render him visible to optical sighting. If they had done what most people would have done and relied on a homotropic device, he should be all right. If they had radar it would be more tricky. He kept a lookout above in case they sent a spy-eye over to beam back a tv of him creeping through the ferns.
The sky remained clear apart from the clouds.
He wriggled on, and four more times heard the thumping discharge of a power gun and saw smoke and the di
ssolving cloud of disrupted atoms glowing into a miniature fireball over the ferns. It sounded and acted like a Krifarm model twenty. Potent stuff. He judged his moment and used the concussion of the next blast both to cross a small stream trickling soggily between the ferns and to carry out the last crosscheck on the position of the firer.
The person, whoever it might be, must be crouched down in the ferns, as Hook was, about twenty metres off to his right front. Hook put those famous old black boots of his down with scrupulous care. At his first blast he must do the job. If he missed, the Krifarm twenty would simply take earth and mud and water and ferns and Ryder Hook and whiff them into an atomised nothingness.
He crept forward, and halted, and slunk on again.
One more blast.
He daren't risk waiting for any more, for the circle was completing and the shooter was going to come perilously close to where Terifia crouched shocked and horrified on the muddy ground.
A clump of ferns before him afforded good shelter. He eased up behind them and carefully parted two stems and looked out. Directly ahead lay a wide and placid pool of water. It could only be centimetres deep; but it extended for a good ten metres. To cross that would be to expose himself. The next shot from up ahead would come close to him, and he daren't wait much longer. He slid the Tonota Eighty forward.
In that little silence with the sun glinting off the water in greens and browns, he heard a voice, low, rumbling, complaining. "You must have hit the sonofabitch by now, Art!"
"I ain't sure. This homotrop is plump crazy."
"She's enough money to buy an electronics lab. Get back to her! "
"That guy worries me —"
"Get the dame!"
Hook poised the Tonota carefully. He might not be in a Boosted state; but his hearing picked up words that normal hearing missed, and also he heard the suck and slither of the mud as the two men shifted uncomfortably. He aimed on the point of sound. One blast. If he missed they'd spray back at him and then — goodbye Ryder Hook.
He pressed the trigger carefully.
Ferns vanished, water boiled and whiffed away, mud gouted. Fumes and smoke blotted out the point, of aim and Hoak kept the discharge going for as long as he dared, well past the danger point. Then the auto cut-out clicked and the gun stopped firing. Anymore and it would have melted to slag in his fist. Give him a Martian Mega any time.
The wait was excruciating.
No return blast came in.
He let his breath out and stood up.
"Terifia! It's all right now."
She stood up and he was horrified at her nearness. The next one would have done for her. Only his homotropic befuddlement gear in his skull, presented to him courtesy of EAS, had saved their lives.
"You all right, Hook?"
"Yes."
She ran to him through the sloppy ooze. She didn't even think to use her ag-pak. She flung herself into his arms.
She gabbled at him, clutching him with arms and legs, holding onto him, screaming and shouting in his ear.
He had to get her back to reality at once — his kind of reality.
"Terifia! Where's your Krifarm Sharpshooter?"
She shuddered. She shook her head. "My — my what?"
"Your rifle, Terifia, your rifle! "
"I left it — I don't know! Who the hell cares about a lousy rifle! I was nearly killed! Don't you understand that?"
"Yes. Now we'll go back and find your rifle."
He took her elbow and guided her back, having to activate her ag-pak. The rifle lay half in a scummy pool and that annoyed Hook as much as anything.
"Fine way to treat a weapon," he grumbled. "Even if it is a Krifarm. The Krifarms make fine weaponry."
"Oh, Hook, can't you think of important things? There might be more of them! Bunji might have sent a lot — oh, Hook, I've got to get away! "
Hook wanted to find Lars Cu-Foylty. The great hunter had a problem he didn't yet know he had, and Hook wanted to hand it to him fast. He also did not want Terifia, in her present frame of mind, to find out for herself. He manipulated her away from the holocaust. One of the sprayed bursts of fire had vapourised the matra-block. The fade-spot had vanished. There was no way of return to star city via matter transmitter from that terminal.
"If he had sent more men, Terifia, we'd have known by now."
"I suppose so."
Many men might have gone into what they would regard as a highly sympathetic job of psychological rehabilitation, trying to soothe Terifia, trying to relate general concepts of what they would regard as their rightful place in life with the dangers that besets all life. Educated people would know exactly what they were up to. Terifia would understand. For Hook these concepts were there to be studied but had no place in the suddenly violent environment in which they now found themselves. He knew the answers were imponderable enough to make him pragmatic enough to reach the end conclusions, and know there is no certainty in life. So he presented Terifia with those conclusions and acted on them, and cut out all the philosophic route in between. He often did this and wondered why people wanted to argue about matters that were clearly self-evident.
Probably that was why people he had known called him a tough bastard — and meant it.
They flew towards the forest where the reptile creatures were being hunted, and Hook took some comfort from the knowledge that Shaeel would understand. Ve could tolerate the rough tough barkiness of Ryder Hook, and laugh, and call him 'ook, and ve'd always come back as unreliably reliable as ever. This galaxy would be a goddammed miserable place without Shaeel around.
Lars Cu-Foylty and a number of the others who had not been completely absorbed in their hunting met Terifia and Hook halfway there. They were excited and apprehensive and yet quite without any real fear, and Hook's news had no real power to terrify them. Star-spanning civilisations gave to their citizens a power and a contempt for mundane matters. Rigging a new matra was a mere trifle. Cu-Foylty said: "I'll call Stellopolis after lunch. There is a party of Voydun in that forest somewhere and I want to roust them out."
Terifia had regained her poise. She reacted to the way Foylty took the occurrence in his stride, a mere trifle, annoying but of no importance. These Curlmen carried with them their surety of power quite beyond arrogance. They knew they controlled the powers of life and death and they had convinced themselves that they were most important people indeed.
Hook could not fail to be aware of this quality of assured confidence unmistakably displayed by the Curlmen; he was also tending to the sour belief that they thought too much of themselves by half; they were cocksure, self-preening, quite unable to understand anything not going the way they decided.
Felton excitedly chewing his stim gum so that his words gobbled out half-garbled yelled: "I've got 'em! The cunning bastards hid out in that arm of the wood — past that rock outcrop!"
A group of hunters winged up on their ag-paks, their rifles angular against the sky, eagerly searching.
"They're there all right! Come on! It's all IQ."
Terifia became caught up in the furore and Hook saw she was anxious to jump into this new experience in order to shut out painful memories of what had just happened. Everyone flew across the forest to the wood outskirts past a scraggly and wind-eroded jut of rocks. There were caves down there.
The Voydun had left their caves and hidden in this end of the woods. They had hoped to avoid the hunters. But they were tracked by homotropic devices that could sniff out a human being's betraying secrets and locate him unfailingly on a glowing screen. These Voydun were not equipped with any homotrop bafflement gear.
In company with the hunters but conscious that he had practically nothing in common with them, Ryder Hook flew over the jagged trees of the forest. The trees were those he had experienced nauseatingly in the Exper game; the same greasy scaled trunks, the sharply jagged leaves, the tainted colourations. People lived in that forest, with squelchy mud and ferns outside, and Hook felt sorry for them. The emotio
n astonished him a little, for since when had Ryder Hook had the great superiority in his own lifestyle to feel sorry for anyone else's? But, still, the Voydun lived in an unenviable situation.
"Now!" shouted Felton. He forged ahead.
Hook caught up with Terifia. The whole pack of hunters soared across the sky. The trees fled past below. Now they were out over the last straggling growths and here the encircling ferns had been razed a short time ago and had grown back in patches and only to knee-height.
The Voydun ran.
There were perhaps fifty of them, and they ran in crazy bounding leaps over the ferns, seeking to reach the taller growths beyond where they imagined they would be safe from these flying terrors of the skies.
Lars Cu-Foylty took out his pocket radio and spoke quickly, his mouth angled against the microphone.
"We have them now. Lock on. You'd better give three quarters amplification to begin with. Then boost to a hundred percent at the kill. Check?"
Whatever the answer was, Hook could not pick it up; but Foylty nodded in satisfaction.
Between the last few trees and the deeper growths of ferns lay this killing stretch of low greenery. A tech with Foylty looked up from the screen of his homotrop and said: "You won't need this any more." He shut the device down.
"Too true we won't!" screeched Felton. He lifted his rifle — it was a Krifarm Sharpshooter — and fired. The rifle made only that soft soughing sound of a linear acceleration job; but the explosive bullet sounded harsh and final, blowing off the arm of a running Voydun woman. She collapsed in the mud, screaming. A man halted to pick her up. A laughing woman from star city, poised on her ag-pak, shot the man in the back.
Other rifles coughed and the bullets tore into flesh and bone. Blood spilled to stain across the ferns and the mud.
A Voydun looked up, screaming, running madly in any direction from these dark hunters of the air.
"You getting all this?" Foylty was gabbling into his radio. He nodded, emphatically. "If you foul up you'll be castrated." More guns shot and more Voydun collapsed, bleeding.
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