He woke an hour before dawn to ready himself. The medcomp had finished the second blood recycling; he felt weak, but healthy. He showered without incident. He ate a serving of specially cultured yogurt, and he didn’t throw up. The washer had cleaned the onesuit‚ and he applied the patches.
Then he had to decide what to take with him. There was no training or tradition here, no oiling of the bow, no laying out of arrows and checking for bent ones, no extra application of poison on the foreshaft; here it was guesswork and good sense. He rooted through the lockers, those that Dikobe had left neat, and those that had become a jumble of tools and equipment. The larger of the two med-kits was gone; he packed the lightweight one. Both fire cones were still there; he took one. The sleeping bag was gone; he grabbed the heat-sheet, which he had cycled through the washer, off the top of Dikobe’s bed. The needle rifle was still in the locker, but it looked like she had taken the pistol. One set of rain gear was gone; he took the other. She had left behind three onesuits; he was sure there had been four. There were two torches; she must have the third, unless it was at the bottom of locker three, where everything had been recklessly piled. He also took along ten rations, twelve drink packs, and his own pistol, torch, and tracking disc. He was sure he was forgetting something, but he wasn’t sure what it could be.
Nowhere could he find the chi!kan or the pubic apron he had fashioned for Dikobe. She must have taken those with her, and he now had a sense that she had left here intent on doing the research the way she had originally wanted, coming to some place alone, like any other slazan‚ and setting up camp, ready to do good, old-fashioned, outdated participant observation, as she had talked about back on the Way of God. But how wrongheaded she was! How long could she survive on whatever rations and native fruit she had taken? She had no skills and she had no gifts.
Outside was mist. The sun was a distant glow. He was accustomed to the carefully filtered air of the shuttle, and the alien smells of the open air struck him with a mild shock. Everything he had grown accustomed to seeing on a series of screens looked alien and misshapen.
He stepped down onto the ground, and the shuttle door followed its new programming and slid shut behind him. No more open doors and surprise visitors. He pressed his thumb against the eyeplate‚ more a ritual than a necessity. The door slid open. He stood there and watched it slide shut again.
He scanned the area and saw no one. The tracking disc picked up no movement. He walked to the hillside, to the trail Pauline and N!ai had followed, and he found their separate tracks. He was surprised by the clarity of the tracks, and he found in that surprise a degree of hope. Once he was into the forest, the spoor became harder to read. Two nights and numerous animals had passed by. The tracks were partial impressions; here he could make out a heel, there a toe, farther along the instep. If Pauline had been aware that Slazan N!ai was following her, she had made no effort to confound the pursuit. She had stuck to the main paths. If Esoch lost her spoor, it was easy to find it within the next meter or so.
He moved with a degree of stealth because he did not want to attract attention to himself. So his presence ended up surprising a few animals. A dense tree became an explosion of birds who flew up beyond the forest canopy. A long-legged animal—like a lean antelope with awkward legs and a pointy snout—bounded off into the woods, the landing of its hooves a rhythmic fading whisper. Small animals scurried. Insects buzzed, several alighting on him, escaping the brush of a hand and returning again.
He came to a winding river and checked the disc. This was a tributary of the main river, this was the one he had followed south to this area. Pauline’s tracks stopped near the river’s edge. There was a confusion of tracks, N!ai’s‚ and all the animals that must come to drink out of these waters. Among them he found the track of a naked foot with toes he was sure were human. Pauline must have stripped down, stuffed everything into her pack, and gone into the water: the surest way to lose a tracker.
He checked the tracking disc. No one was nearby. He looked around, saw no one. Sure that he was alone, Esoch undressed, folded his few clothes carefully, and left them by the side of the river. Naked, he dove into the water and rose to the surface just as his fingers touched the other bank. He felt vulnerable getting out of the water, but there were some tracks to examine. They turned out to belong to N!ai. Pauline’s were nowhere to be seen. N!ai headed north, downriver. Would Pauline have gone north, toward the river’s mouth, to where slazans were more closely settled, to where nighttime fires were sometimes as close as a half kilometer apart, or would she have headed south, to find slazans who lived in greater solitude?
A loud voice carried through the woods. It started low, grew louder, then diminished. He felt like the call had been directed at him, like he had been spotted and told to halt. The voice sounded again, and Esoch listened carefully the way a child listens to thunder in a storm. The voice sounded even farther away. He dove back into the water and got out of the river near his clothes. He was still naked, but here there was a pistol within his reach.
Once he was dressed, the fabric of his onesuit now damp and clingy, he set off upriver.
Several hundred meters up, there was a tiny clearing, partly flooded by the river’s high water, and there were a tremendous number of tracks. And in the cacophony of prints he found signs of a boot. He spent over an hour searching the area for the second one and found it five meters south, on a thin trail. Pauline had stepped off the trail to make her way around a rather large animal dropping.
He couldn’t seem to find the next track, and he felt at a loss. This wasn’t like tracking an animal for the hunt. If you found fresh, neatly carved tracks, of, say, a wildebeest, you would follow the spoor, but if a thin layer of sand had filled in the track, if insects had walked across it, if all the signs told you the animal was far away, you wouldn’t bother to pursue it. The only animal you would pursue a day later was one that had already been shot and was slowly dying from the poison on the arrow’s tip. He had never had to pursue an animal with such a good head start.
He almost gave up there, but he knelt at the right time to see the distinct lines of a heel driven into the soil. Her weight was on her heels for that moment, so Esoch also looked up and saw another nest right above him. He walked farther along the trail to get a better look. It was a well-crafted nest, and it was empty. Dikobe had looked up while under it; had there been some noise to catch her attention?
He found the next set of tracks easily enough, but very soon she came to another watering spot along the river, and her tracks were thoroughly mixed with all the others. Was Dikobe drinking the water, or was this her way to confuse any potential pursuit?
He screamed her name out into the woods, and he heard his voice come back. And then another voice. Deep, resonant, distant. He checked the tracking disc: nothing within one hundred meters. The voice sounded again. This time closer.
His hand had gripped his pistol before he had considered the gesture. He felt the same sense of anger he had felt when the mother had approached him. But no one had harmed him. The pistol warmed to his touch. The voice sounded again. He knew it was a long call, that there was a message in the words, but he knew no pan-slazan‚ not even the word for hello. A branch broke in the distance. The slazan was making it clear that he was approaching. Did the nearby nest belong to this particular slazan? Was he claiming his own territory?
Aggression, Dikobe had told him—one of the few things he remembered—was more display than threat. There was no violence unless the two on display disagreed on the outcome. Esoch considered calling out again, then reconsidered: it was his first call that had attracted this attention. Had the slazan heard a challenge and was now responding? A beeping sounded in his head; the tracking disc had registered movement within a hundred meters. The voice was loud this time, impossibly close. Several more branches snapped. The slazan was making his position perfectly clear. Esoch had nothing in particular to defend. The pistol was still in his hand. He could defend h
imself. But Dikobe had suited up and walked off to prevent such violence. He replaced the pistol on its waisthook and chose a path to flee when the slazan stepped out into the clearing. And stopped still in his tracks.
Esoch knew he should run, but something about the slazan held him mesmerized. The slazan was taller than the slazan mother Esoch had confronted, but he hadn’t grown anywhere near the gigantic proportions of the one who had struck Pauline. Under his chin, along his neck, were gray pouches that hung loosely, but they weren’t like the heavy extra jowls of the giant one. His skin was darker than Slazan N!ai’s and the mother’s, but not the ashen gray of the giant. He wore a rough breechclout that did a poor job of hiding his genitals. He carried a finely crafted bag that was bulging with things. And he wasn’t moving. In fact, he now took a step back.
The pistol hung from Esoch’s waisthook, a clearly felt weight. His hand was already beside it, ready to unhook it and take aim. The slazan’s round eyes widened, his head tilted, as if trying to understand the purpose of the sudden gesture. Then the slazan’s eyes were fixed on him, and Esoch could sense the alien’s increasing anger. To stare back might display strength, but it also might provoke even greater anger. Esoch looked away, just for a moment; he was going to look back, but it was in that moment that the slazan leaned down—Esoch’s attention caught by this movement—and charged forward. The trained moves came easily. Esoch twisted out of the way, one foot still in place, the slazan’s shin catching hard against it, stumbling forward, while pain shot through Esoch’s leg, pain he ignored as he brought clenched hands against the slazan’s back, causing the man to stagger a few steps, lose balance, and collapse onto the ground.
A deep core of fear dissolved and filled Esoch’s belly. He knew he couldn’t out-fight the larger man. The slazan rose from the ground and faced Esoch. The slazan’s eyes were dark and watery. Esoch wanted the pistol. Instead, he stared back. He stood like he stood in formation, at attention, rooted to the ground, meeting the glare of belligerent trainers, any twitch or blink a sign of weakness, and so Esoch faced the slazan with the same stiffness, the same open eyed challenge. And the slazan turned, took two careful steps away, turned again to face Esoch. Esoch was still rooted. The slazan walked away.
After another hour of looking, Esoch found Pauline’s spoor. The impression was clear, just to the edge of the trail. Several steps ahead was the clear outline of a boot with a heel, the zigzag features of its tread etched into the ground. It was the same variety of boot he had worn; it made him feel like he was following a version of himself.
It was past mid-afternoon. If he turned back now, he would make it to the shuttle before evening shadows stretched out into darkness. But he had brought the torch and enough rations to continue on through the night. How much of bravery was foolishness, how much of cowardice the lack of conviction?
He decided to continue. This time he walked loudly; he wasn’t going to take anyone by surprise. Any calls he heard were in the distance. Quiet, he decided, must be for hunters.
By late evening, when green forest leaves and brown trunks had taken on a startling dark clarity, Esoch was sweaty and exhausted. His onesuit was rank. His stomach felt continually empty, in spite of his generous supply of rations. And there was the faint hint of nausea; he should return tonight for another blood recycling.
But he couldn’t head back. Her trail was clearer than before. It went straight and sure down the middle of each path she had chosen. It was now an animal trail—there was no evidence of slazan use—and the path got thinner and thinner. She was purposely heading away from any sign of slazan habitation. The woods were denser; nothing had been burned out. Prickly branches and leaves clung to the fabric; one set of thorns, unseen until too late, ripped at his sleeve, exposing his arm.
The torch became useless. It lit up everything in front of him while darkness hovered at his sides, behind his back. Off to his left something tore through the brush; far behind him some leaves rustled, and some distant creature hooted several times and was quiet. Insects swarmed around the light, and he felt quick stings on his face and arms.
He placed his pack on the ground and dug through his gear for the fire cone. After setting the device he laid it in the center of the path and took fifteen steps back. He was able to count to twenty-three before several concise jets of flame shot out, withdrew, and shot out. Five minutes later everything in the radius of one meter had been scorched to the ground. Nearby plants sizzled in the heat, but the area had been too luscious and green for a fire to take hold and spread. The cone glowed with the shifting reds and oranges of a small fire and gave off the equivalent heat. It would have been nice to have had one of these on those nights when he had been making his way to Dikobe’s shuttle.
He sat down near the cone and its wavering heat. His back cooled as the night did, the dampness making him shiver. He turned to let the fire warm his back, and he stared at the night like it was a wall. As he drifted off to sleep, he found himself imagining the //gangwasi surrounding him. There was not only his father and Ghazwan and Hanan, there was Bo and N!ai and N!ai’s father and mother: people from a life he had killed off, but people who should still be alive.
He sat up, shook his head free of them, and stared out into the darkness. The nightsounds seemed to close in around him, and he felt as if there were always something just beyond the nearby brush.
How did a slazan male live alone, night after night, with this noise and their imaginations?
The Eleventh Day
The next morning Esoch awoke, his face puffy and his right arm swollen with insect bites. After finishing his morning rations, he swallowed one tablet to fight fever and another to fight nausea. Pauline had returned to larger trails, where her spoor was mixed with that of a number of slazans‚ but her spoor was easy to follow. At midday her spoor had led him to a swamp.
High grasses and weeds stretched up out of the muddy waters and spread off into the distance. Huge flocks of birds flew about. Insects moved in swarms. Pauline’s tracks ended right where water met land, broken reeds and stalks marking where she had gone in. How do you track someone through a swamp?
Pistol, torch, and tracking disc were slipped off waisthooks‚ were sealed in the pack along with med-kit‚ fire cone, and rations. Esoch set the pack away from the water before stepping in.
The swamp was shallow at first, but the muck took hold of his boots, making progress difficult. Water rose to his ankles, then his shins. The water was cold. There was a sudden drop-off, and he almost stumbled, grabbing at reeds, taking several long strides forward to regain his balance. The water was up to his waist. The fabric of the onesuit billowed out around him, and he could feel the water’s cold in his scrotum. Several green-and-blue insects flitted about his head. Something in the distance splashed into the water. He turned his head. The reeds were now as tall as he was, and he couldn’t see the path or his pack. The swamp had enclosed him. Up ahead there were patches where water flowed like tiny rivers among the reeds, brush, and tangles. There was no clear sign where Dikobe might have gone, if she had walked straight ahead or turned back.
Pauline had taken the next steps, so how could he not? How could he turn and abandon her? Ten more steps: the water, cold and muddy, was up to his chest, and there was no sign that Pauline had been here. He turned, tried to retrace his path, the muck pulling at his boots. He emerged from the water several meters from the trail where he had left the pack.
He stood, shivering and miserable, there among the reeds and tree trunks, his pants drenched, water in his boots, mud squishing between his toes, and the sun shone down with more light than heat.
He emptied his boots of water and set off to walk around the swamp, wet fabric rubbing against the skin of his legs with each step. He stayed as close to the water as he could, looking for broken stalks, for some sign that Pauline had exited the swamp, and whenever he found such a disturbance, he crouched low to look for the corresponding bootprint‚ which he never found.
By late afternoon he had traversed a quarter of the swamp’s perimeter. His face and arm were even more swollen from insect bites, and a dull itching nagged at him. The sun had neared the trees when he knew he had to turn back. How could he abandon her?
Foragers Page 28