A thin film of water covered the boggy surface, magnifying the deceptively solid appearance of the soil beneath. The polite Itepu matched his pace to that of his considerably slower companion.
By evening they had covered more ground than the medic dared hope. As they sat beneath a sheltering leaf the size of a small vehicle eating a peculiar purplish fruit the Lepar had picked, Fifth-of-Medicine felt a little better about their situation. They were in good health and thus far untroubled by the local fauna. He allowed himself to imagine that they might actually have a chance of reaching the outpost.
As near as he could remember, that blessed destination lay on the western shore of a wide, meandering river which ran roughly north-south. If they could make it that far, they could build some kind of raft to carry them the rest of the way downstream to safety. He swatted at something tiny, orange, and persistent. If the local arthropodan life didn’t suck all the blood out of them first, he told himself.
He could envision himself among family again, both close and extended. He even managed to meditate for a while, the Lepar observing him silently as he sat cross-legged in the mud, eyes tightly shut, his back to the imaginary contemplation circle. Warm, bright sunshine and hot, dry sand filled his stabilizing thoughts, relaxing him, restoring mental balance.
After a while Itepu turned away and began digging in the mud for things to eat.
By morning the rain had gentled to an occasional light drizzle, and Fifth-of-Medicine’s scales began to dry out. His misery quotient fell perceptibly. By midday he was feeling well enough to stride through the undergrowth with some confidence.
They had survived, and would doubtless be feted as heroes upon their return. Even Massood and Humans would have to acknowledge their achievement. Among such hopeful musings Fifth-of-Medicine found time to admire the profusion of chromatically hued jungle flowers.
“Do you like your work?”
“What?” The medic glanced sideways at his lugubrious companion. They were making camp for the evening.
Shiny black eyes looked back at him. “Your work. Do you like doing it?”
As the Lepar were not famed for initiating conversation, Fifth-of-Medicine was somewhat startled by the question. It took him a moment to formulate a reply.
“Truly. I am at what I do very good and hope someday to be a third- or even a second-of-medicine called.” To his own surprise he found himself adding, “What about you?”
“I don’t think about it much.” Itepu yawned, his wide mouth seeming to split his face in half. The dark gullet gaped. “I just do what I was trained to do.”
Fifth-of-Medicine was building a bower of leaves and broken twigs. “Sometimes I think it is better that way. Hard it is to see others suffering and not be always able to help. Like the others who out of the sled were thrown but did not survive the explosion or fall. Nothing for them could I do. Truly.”
“You did what you could. Tell me: If any enemy was hurt here, would you try to help it?”
It was surprising enough for a Lepar to initiate a conversation. For one to venture a philosophical query bordered on the shocking.
“Truly I do not know. That is something I have not thought about. It would on the specific circumstances depend.”
When Itepu digested this without replying, Fifth-of-Medicine felt oddly cheated. It was still on his mind when he rose to wash his eyes the next morning.
By then he was more than merely confident. He was convinced they were going to make it back. Even the weather cooperated, as the rains remained light. So relaxed had he become that he did not jump up from his resting place in panic when a clammy hand unexpectedly clutched at his shoulder.
Itepu was bending over him, making small circular motions with his other hand. It took Fifth-of-Medicine a moment to recognize the movement as the Lepar gesture for silence. Puzzled but for the moment compliant, the physiotech rose and followed his crouching companion into the trees.
The amphibian halted behind a wall-like buttressing root and gestured. Following the pointing finger, the medic nearly let out an involuntary hiss.
Not far enough away sat a single Human, perhaps one of those who’d manned an escort slider. No doubt he’d been shot down by the Crigolit and now found himself in straits similar to their own. Fifth-of-Medicine’s spirits rose. If the creature was armed, he and Itepu would be able to travel the rest of the way back to the base in the company of serious protection. In circumstances such as theirs it was better to have the companionship of one Human than three or four Massood. Humans adapted much better to the heat and humidity of Eirrosad.
As he started to rise and wave, the Lepar grabbed him and dragged him down. “I know what you are thinking.” Itepu’s face was uncomfortably close to his own. “Not Human.”
All four of Fifth-of-Medicine’s eyelids blinked impatiently. “What are you saying? Of course it Human is.”
“Not.”
“Look at it. At the lanky form, at the proportions. Human it perfectly is.”
Itepu rose slowly to peer over the crest of the root. “Wait and watch.”
Confused and resentful of being handed an order by a lowly Lepar, Fifth-of-Medicine complied, but with considerable reluctance.
After a while the creature rose to methodically survey the surrounding jungle. The medic’s eyes widened as he hastily ducked back down behind the root.
“Truly correct you were,” he whispered tautly. “Ashregan it is! With Human proportions, but Ashregan.” There was no mistaking, he thought uneasily, those bony ridges over the ears or the wide eye sockets. It was surely Ashregan, despite its height and build.
“A giant among Ashregan,” Itepu agreed.
The medic’s long tongue commenced to vibrate nervously inside his mouth. “By the Circle! It one of the mutant Ashregan fighters may be that so much havoc on Koba wrought. They were spoken of as tall, fast-moving, and much stronger than is of their kind typical. It is supposed they by the Amplitur from normal Ashregan stock bioengineered have been.”
The longer they cautiously observed the creature, the more certain Fifth-of-Medicine grew that this indeed was one of the half-mythical altered Ashregan warriors. It was taller even than most Humans. In retrospect it was not so surprising that he should have misidentified it. After all, the Ashregan bore the same kind of superficial external resemblance to Humans as Hivistahm did to the smaller but distinctly different O’o’yan.
He discussed his observations with Itepu, wishing as he did so that the Lepar was one of his own kind or even a sardonic but brilliant S’van. He could do with a little humor just now.
“How peculiar it is,” he found himself murmuring. “It looks Ashregan but moves like a Human.”
“Amplitur bioengineering.” Itepu was absolutely convinced of the explanation. “They seek to breed Ashregan who will be the equal of Human fighters, so they graft Human characteristics onto them.”
Like the isolated incident it was, sudden realization burst in the Lepar’s slow but persistent brain. A thick black tongue emerged to clean his left eye as he spoke.
“Do you know what this means? Only two specimens of such as this one were found on Koba, both severely damaged. Here is an example that is not only intact, but alive. If we could capture it and take it back with us …”
Fifth-of-Medicine was sure his companion could see the bulging orbs behind the Hivistahm eyeshades.
“Are you truly truly mad? Do you not realize what the creature could do? The Ashregan fighters are. Hivistahm and Lepar are not.”
“But this is important.” The Lepar’s insistence was marked by childlike directness and simplicity. “It would be useful to Weave specialists who are trying to understand what happened on Koba.”
Fifth-of-Medicine clicked the claws on his right hand decisively together. “If we near it go, it kill us will. Truly. I refuse absolutely to have anything to do with such a crazy idea.”
Itepu stared back at him. Surely he will not try anything on his own,
the medic thought. Normally a Lepar would display about as much initiative as a vegetable drying in the sun.
His companion took more time than usual to formulate a reply. “If the Amplitur have been able to give the Ashregan Human fighting abilities in so short a time, it is important that the military council know all about it. It is our responsibility to …”
“Truly in this matter we no responsibility have.” Fifth-of-Medicine was decisive. “I a fifth-level medical technician and physician am. You a maintenance worker are. Let the Massood and Humans specimens capture. Our responsibility is to our way to the river make, our return to the nearest outpost effect, so that those tasks we may resume.”
Ignoring his companion’s protestations, Itepu continued to sneak glances over the root. “I think it is wounded. The chance to find one alone and in such circumstances may not happen again soon.”
While every instinct screamed at him to run, to get away from that place, Fifth-of-Medicine was unable to completely submerge his curiosity.
“Are you sure it hurt is?”
“Come see how it limps,” Itepu whispered down at him.
The physiotech rose alongside his companion. “Even if the injury substantial is, if the creature has been given Human combat abilities, it still more dangerous is than the two of us combined. An ordinary Ashregan would be more dangerous than the two of us combined.” Like any healthy, normal Hivistahm he found himself quivering at the very idea of taking part in actual fighting.
“There are no Humans and no Massood here to help us,” Itepu pointed out. “We must do this on our own or the opportunity will be lost.”
“Then let it be lost.”
“I will try to do something alone if I must.”
Better quickly to die, Fifth-of-Medicine thought, than to be trapped in this place by himself.
“What do you suggest?” he heard a voice asking. Astonishingly, it was his own. “Charging the creature? We have no weapons.”
“It does not seem to have any, either.”
“Here, let me again look.” Fifth-of-Medicine was not about to take the Lepar’s word for it. Though they could see equally well below and above water, the Lepar sometimes suffered from shortsightedness. He flipped his protective eyeshades up onto his low forehead, where they automatically tightened in place.
The Ashregan had resumed its seat and was consuming some kind of local fruit. Stare as he might, Fifth-of-Medicine could not see so much as a crude club. The creature’s clothes were badly torn, revealing blackened splotches on the exposed scaleless skin. So in addition to an injured leg, it was suffering from burns and exhaustion. It wore no body armor at all. Perhaps it was not even a warrior but some kind of frontline technician. Though all Ashregan were trained in fighting techniques, not all were soldiers.
It is not as if we contemplate capturing a Molitar, he told himself. Nor even, he added wryly, a Human. He reconsidered his companion’s suggestion. If they could do this thing, the merit they would acquire would be substantial. His musings in the meditation circle would be honored.
The alternative was unpleasant. If they tried to capture it and failed, the Ashregan might well kill them both. He fumbled at his medic’s belt and removed a small plasticine cylinder.
Itepu watched quietly. “What are you doing?”
“Trying myself to prepare. Be quiet,” the Hivistahm hissed. Tilting back his head, he put the cylinder to his mouth and swallowed two of the pills it ejected. “Field tranquilizers. My reactions will not be affected.” He clicked the claws of his left hand together. “But I will physical conflict be able to contemplate with greater equanimity. I may even actual violent contact be able to experience without vomiting.”
“The Lepar are no more warlike than the Hivistahm,” his companion reminded him.
“If that is meant to encourage me, a dismal failure it is. What do you want to do? I know nothing about fighting.”
Itepu’s tiny black eyes half closed. “We could wait until it sleeps and then sneak up and hit it in the head.”
“Brilliant. If we hit it too hard it dies, and if we do not hit it hard enough it leaps up and dismembers us.”
The Lepar considered, straining. “There are two of us. If the first blow is not enough, the second one could hit it again.”
Typically complex Lepar cogitation, Fifth-of-Medicine mused. He tried to force himself to think like a warrior, ignoring the slight trembling in his limbs and the rising queasiness in his gut. The tranquilizers were helping.
“There are several deep, water-cut holes.” He turned and pointed back toward the tree among whose root structure they had spent the previous night. “If one of us injured pretended to be, he could the creature intrigue and lure this way. We could the hole camouflage: put branches and leaves over it. The one injured pretending to be could carefully avoid the trap but the pursuing creature in would fall.”
“That is a good idea.” There was admiration in the Lepar’s voice. “I would not have thought of it.”
Of course you wouldn’t, Fifth-of-Medicine mused sympathetically, but that not your fault is. “You will toward the trap the Ashregan lure. I will nearby wait …” He started to say “with a club” but knew he could never wield a blunt instrument with harmful intent and so finished, “… to make sure everything properly goes.”
His companion regarded him solemnly. “We are not runners.” He displayed a webbed hind foot. It was bare, the Lepar having discarded his extraneous sandals long ago. “We are swift in the water, but not on land. The Hivistahm,” he added, with sufficient emphasis to startle the medic, “are famed for their sprinting abilities.”
How odd, Fifth-of-Medicine thought, that I had not that considered before my mouth opening. Itepu was staring at him pointedly.
“I cannot that imagine doing. Truly. We will have to something else think of.” His teeth gnashed lightly, indicative of his distress. “To deliberately induce an Ashregan to chase me; no. I could not such a thing do.”
“It would be a brief chase,” Itepu argued ingenuously. “Over a modest distance a healthy Hivistahm should be able to keep ahead of an injured Ashregan. They have short legs.”
“Not this mutant,” the medic reminded him. “It legs like a Human has.”
“You only have to cover a little ground. I will … I will hide in the bushes between here and the hole and if the creature is getting too close to you I will hit it with a rock.” Itepu’s tumescent expression brightened at the unexpected realization. “This is good! It combines my idea and yours.”
“Unless the creature catches me anyway and you miss with the rock.” Fifth-of-Medicine was much subdued. On the whole, he would rather have been meditating.
“I do not see how we can do this without taking some risk. Remember, the creature has an injured leg. Surely it cannot run very fast.”
“Truly, that is so.” The medic felt a little more optimistic. “It might not even try to chase me.”
“You should not be in much danger.” The Lepar was stolidly remorseless.
“How will I its attention attract?”
Itepu considered. “Throw something at it. With luck that will make it mad.”
“With luck?” The Hivistahm were not as skilled in the art as the S’van, but they could still muster sarcasm when the occasion demanded it. “That an offensive action would be.” His stomach roiled at the very thought. “I do not know if I can …”
“Then throw nearby. If you are not actually trying to hit it, there is no offense in the action.”
“Truly,” he had to admit. He flipped his eyeshades back into place. “First we have a hole to choose and camouflage.”
The Lepar’s wide mouth clapped together twice. “I will take care of that. I am good at manual labor.”
And I will watch, Fifth-of-Medicine thought. I am good at that.
By late that afternoon Itepu had demonstrated surprising skill in masking the trap they’d chosen. It was steep-sided and deep enough to keep even
a tall Ashregan from climbing out.
That the easy part was, he reminded himself.
He’d had most of the day to ponder what they planned to try and had almost convinced himself they could bring it off. After all, it wasn’t as if he was going to have to fight. Just attract the creature’s attention, and run. Except for Humans and Massood, the Hivistahm were about the best runners in the Weave, especially over a short distance.
They approached the creature’s resting place quietly. Itepu murmured something intended to be reassuring in his own language, then sank out of sight back into the forest, leaving Fifth-of-Medicine on his own. He hoped the Lepar located a particularly large rock.
Am I actually this doing? he asked himself silently as he advanced. I, Fifth-of-Medicine, sophisticated technician and member of respected circles, stalking a soldier of the Purpose? He was awash in fear and revulsion.
The Ashregan had an injured leg, he kept reminding himself.
He’d adjusted his translator to handle the creature’s own language, having determined that throwing words could be as provocative as throwing stones. It would not work perfectly, but it should function well enough for him to make himself understood. Not that he intended to engage the enemy in an extended conversation.
What he had not counted on was its imposing size as he drew close. It was the biggest Ashregan he’d ever seen. Truly the Amplitur had bred notable Human characteristics into it. His task suddenly seemed more daunting, his companion Itepu much farther away.
They had invested too much effort and he had come too far for him to back away now, he told himself nervously. Nor could he envision himself confessing his inadequacies to a Lepar. Not that he feared being accused of cowardice. Cowardice was a primitive concept invalid among civilized peoples. Fortunately he found himself possessed by a kind of paralysis of determination.
The tranquilizers helped.
It was almost as if someone else were picking the small round stone out of the muck, as though another being was straightening and throwing it in the Ashregan’s direction, supporting its unimpressive trajectory with inane insults in an alien tongue.
The Damned Trilogy Page 44