by Kal Spriggs
“I’m not prey,” Anubus snarled back. “I killed you, didn’t I?”
“You’re weak, not fit for the meat I give you,” October’s deep growl continued. “Soon enough I’ll make you meat for your replacement.”
“I made sure he died before he was ready,” Anubus snarled. “And then I killed you, remember? You’re dead, you’re a ghost.”
October vanished and in his place stood Ghost. The short, snow white Wrethe’s high pitched keen almost put Anubus into a killing frenzy, “No… I’m Ghost. And you only thought you killed us. You never finished us, you never fed. How does that feel, to know you failed, and that your survival is a risk?”
“You’re dead,” Anubus growled. “What happened to your corpse doesn’t change that.”
“But it does,” Ghost said. “What hunter fails to complete his kill, Anubus? Or should I call you what October named you?”
“You wouldn’t know that,” Anubus growled. “This is a dream, one I can wake up from when I want.” Even as he said the words, Ghost faded out.
“You always run from what you fear, don’t you Runtling,” October’s bass growl caused Anubus to spin. “Always so quick to run, to hide. You do that now, even from yourself. So afraid, aren’t you? That’s why you’re weak, you know, your fear. A true Wrethe fears nothing.”
“You could have used some fear, meat, I killed you, didn’t I?” Anubus felt his lips draw back in a snarl. The dream version of his sire seemed to draw taller at his show of rage.
“You tried, but you failed, you never made certain, you never claimed your kill, Runtling,” October chuckled. “And you tried like a coward, in a fashion that would have killed you if not for luck. You know what’s worse than your failures, Runtling?”
“Stop calling me that,” Anubus growled.
October leaned close enough that in his dream, Anubus could feel the massive Wrethe’s hot breath on his muzzle, and he could smell the sharp musk of the ancient Wrethe. “The worst thing about you is that you don’t want to survive, you know you don’t deserve it, but you’re too much of a coward to die.”
Anubus shouted, “All creatures want to survive, October, you taught me that. It’s what we do, and it’s what Wrethe do best.”
October’s features melted back, and the hulking Wrethe shrank into the familiar form of Mike. “Survival requires we work together, that we have rules that govern us, Anubus. Why do you work against us so much?”
“Because you’ll turn on me, as I will, as soon as it works in my favor,” Anubus growled, caught off guard by the sudden change. “It is the only way for a hunter to win, to strike when his prey is most vulnerable. It is the way of survival.”
“That’s why you killed me, Runtling?” A sibilant lisp spoke from behind. Anubus turned to find that Kull squatted nearby. The tan colored Wrethe seemed tiny, still in youth, not yet grown. “We had a deal, and you turned on me rather than face October. We could have taken him together.”
“He would have killed you both,” Ghost’s whine spoke. “Together you are weak. Your friendship made you weaker.”
“He’s right,” Anubus snarled. “There is no other way.”
“Too bad it failed,” October’s voice spoke from behind him. Anubus felt the massive jaws of his sire lock around the back of his neck. “You die now. Because you are weak.”
***
Anubus snapped out of his nightmare. He could sense that many hours had passed, and a moment later he heard what had penetrated his dreams. The scuffle of footsteps in the hallway.
Had the time come? Had someone finally given into their desire for his gold?
“Hey, Anubus, are you here?” Pixel’s voice came from the corridor. A moment later, Anubus caught his scent, and that of the others with him. “We’re here to get the gold for the reactor project.”
Anubus gave a snort of disgust. He shifted his color back to midnight black and growled, “Yes. I know, come in.”
Pixel and five others stepped into the narrow compartment. He could taste their fear at how they shared the close confines with him. Anubus fed off that fear, used it to restore his confidence after the nightmare. Stupid dreams, he thought, October’s dead, and the rest comes of eating scorched meat.
He would have to find something raw… and soon, he decided.
“Yeah, um, we need a hundred kilograms,” Pixel said.
“You’ve said that before,” Anubus growled. He saw no need to make it easier on the engineer. The human served his purpose, but Anubus found him an annoyance, he held power and security through his knowledge, which seemed an alien thought to the Wrethe. Knowledge could serve as a strength, of sorts, yet knowledge shared dissipated that strength.
“Well, we’ll start counting them out…” Pixel said. Anubus felt his lips draw back in a snarl as the engineer rested a hand on the stack of bars. He forced himself to look away, he had grown too possessive of the gold, he figured, yet it hurt to see that much wealth slip away.
Pixel directed the others to start taking bars even as he annotated their removal on his datapad.
“What progress have you made on my ship?” Anubus growled.
“Oh, well, not much, as yet,” Pixel answered. “I did crawl out and do a quick rundown of the systems. The ammo for the weapons is at around twenty seven thousand rounds. You’ve got a bomb bay, with two fission warheads, I’m not sure of the yield on those, but they’re ship-killers for sure. It’s got a fission reactor and…” the human frowned and checked at notes on his datapad. Anubus swallowed a snarl of frustration. The monkey faces the human made as he checked his notes only increased Anubus’s urge to make an example of him.
I would never have tolerated such weakness in my presence before, not when he doesn’t show me proper respect as a hunter of men, Anubus thought. How far he had fallen, all due to a simple miscalculation.
“Oh, here we go, fission plant with a reaction-less drive, looks scavenged from a Centauri Confederation ship, pretty different from ours,” Pixel said. “The whole thing needs a lot of attention, but nothing seems mission critical. You’ll need to wear a suit, though, the environmental pack expired, I wouldn’t trust it.”
“How long to conduct repairs?” Anubus growled.
“Depends on the parts,” Pixel said. “Honestly, I would recommend we wait until I can put new stuff in, especially to replace some of the older systems. It’ll cost more, but I think you’ll see a payout in improved performance.”
“Very well,” Anubus growled. He glanced impatiently at the steadily decreasing stack of gold bars. As he watched, another of the passengers took a pair of bars out. I can’t watch this much longer without killing one of them, he thought. The repercussions would probably not work out favorably, he reluctantly decided.
“I will leave you to finish,” Anubus growled. He stalked out of the room, and tried to console himself that he had invested in a ship, rather than lost the gold entirely.
Somehow, that made him want to kill something even more.
* * *
Anubus returned after he prowled the ship for what felt like forever.
He performed his routine search of the compartment upon his return. He settled into his inventory of the gold, yet he felt his rage return as he contemplated the significantly reduced stack of bars. The count took him over an hour and thirty minutes, because he counted it three times.
The stack held one hundred and ninety eight gold bars.
He would have to kill Pixel.
Anubus spent two hours in consideration. He spent another hour searching for scents and clues of who might have stolen it, but he caught scents of almost all the crew, before he finally left his reduced fortune and located the engineer in the lounge. “You stole two bars from me, why?” He had crept to within centimeters of the human.
The engineer looked up, and Anubus could scent the surprise and fear even as he read those same emotions on the human’s stupid monkey face. Anubus could understand the fear, but the surprise
puzzled him. Surely he must know that Anubus would notice the two additional missing bars.
“Uh, no, we took one hundred bars, exactly,” Pixel said. He held up his datapad, “I took notes.”
“I counted the bars, one hundred and two have gone missing,” Anubus growled.
“I didn’t steal your stupid gold,” Pixel snapped, and Anubus cocked his head at the show of anger. He couldn’t tell if it were genuine, however unlikely, or a show.
“You took responsibility for it when I left,” Anubus growled. “So you are responsible for it’s theft. Therefore it is you that will have to die for it unless I locate the thief.”
“I don’t have time to watch over that gold, I have work to do,” Pixel answered. “And if you’d stop with your paranoia, you’d realize that I don’t care about your damned gold. This ship has a dozen problems more important to me than something we can’t eat or use to defend ourselves. Thanks for ruining my appetite, and please kill me after I finish all my work for the week.”
Anubus watched the engineer walk off. He felt too shocked by the human’s behavior to act. The Wrethe felt a mix of rage, frustration, and oddly enough fear. Did not the human realize what Anubus could do to him? If he doesn’t fear me, Anubus wondered, then do I need to fear him?
Anubus considered a dozen schemes which might show why the human showed such a total disregard for the danger Anubus presented, yet none of them seemed to fit with the engineer’s previous actions. Anubus became so focused on those myriad thoughts that he never heard Rastar come up behind him.
“Annie!” Rastar pounded him on the back, “Pixel said someone raided our gold, what can I do to help?”
Anubus’s claws extended and every muscle in his body tensed at the impact. He barely fought down an urge to lash out at the big Ghornath. “You can stay out of my business. I’ll settle this myself.”
“Dude, this is all our business. Someone stole from the crew, they stole from us all,” Rastar’s hide remained a mellow brown, which made it difficult for Anubus to read him. “Besides, I’m the Master of Arms, shipboard matters like this are my job, man.”
Anubus forced himself to sheath his claws and focused on the steady heartbeat of the Arcavian Fighting Eel. “Then when I find the thief, you may remove the remains. But I will find the person responsible, and I will kill them.”
“No,” Mike said, “You won’t.”
“What did you say?” Anubus felt his lips draw back in a snarl.
“We have rules here, Anubus. This person violated those rules, but that doesn’t justify you doing the same,” Mike said. The human’s calm words seemed a strange echo of his troubled dreams.
Anubus didn’t respond for a moment, half afraid that Mike would morph into October or that Ghost would appear as in his nightmares. A part of him worried most that he would see Kull. Finally he spoke, “Very well, we shall see about your rules, but I will find the one responsible.”
“I’ll help, Annie,” Rastar said. The misuse of his name brought back Anubus’s rage.
“I have a name, one that I chose for myself, I will not tolerate your butchery of it,” Anubus growled.
“Hey, dude, no need to get hostile, I know you’re not real comfortable with open friendship, the whole tough guy thing,” Rastar had gone a green shade, which either meant he found the situation humorous or had tried to make some sort of joke. Either way, Anubus decided he hated the oaf that much more.
Anubus looked over at Mike, “I will find the thief, but I demand that when I do, he receive full punishment for his betrayal.”
“We’ll see,” Mike said. “And trust me, I’m not real happy with someone who provoked you.”
“I don’t trust anyone,” Anubus growled.
“Really?” Mike asked, “I hadn’t noticed.”
* * *
Anubus prowled the ship, his senses alert. He did not expect to actually find his gold, too many locations existed where a cunning opponent might hide it. He did, however, expect to provoke the thief into a panic, or if the theft lay as part of some greater conspiracy as he suspected, then his actions would cause one of the members to act without the support of the others.
Anubus heard snippets of conversation as he prowled the ship, whispers from those who had some idea of what had angered him. The heady stink of fear clung to those he came across, while most of the rest of the passengers and crew seemed to avoid him when possible.
He took note of those who either showed no fear or showed other emotions. The Nova Roma Ambassador was one such, along with her escort of marines. The Ambassador seemed either unaware of his potential threat or thought herself protected by her escort. She smelled of musk and a scent that Anubus associated with confidence, and as Anubus swept past her, he smelled Eric’s scent on her, as if they had recently been in contact. Her marines just seemed resigned, as if they feared nothing more than their current assignment. Anubus did not understand human’s association of authority and position, for he doubted that the Ambassador had earned her position, yet the Marines gave her loyalty all the same.
As the day wore on, Anubus found more and more time to think. After due consideration, he came to realize that the theft could not be the product of a lone thief. The timing and events that surrounded it suggested, instead, that the others had conspired to provoke him. They wanted him to act out of proportion. The only reason Anubus could decipher lay in that they wanted him to make the first move, or seem to, in order to eliminate him without alarm from the other passengers.
If he estimated the purpose of the theft correctly, then Mike must surely serve as the source of the theft. As Captain, he would see Anubus as a threat, therefore, with the further evidence of Ghost as to the danger of Wrethe, he would seek to remove that threat.
The thought of dragging Mike down, of tasting his warm salty blood made Anubus’s heart race. He felt his body start to release some of the chemicals which normally preceded a hunt. Yes, Anubus thought, a hunt of Mike would satisfy my urges, and show that I am not to be trifled with.
Anubus’s obvious counter would be to eliminate Mike. However, he felt that the others would oppose that move, especially Ariadne and Eric, both of whom seemed to owe him some loyalty. While he did not understand Eric’s loyalty to the Captain, Ariadne had as much as admitted to how easily a psychic might control him. Anubus could well understand why she would want a malleable tool in overall command, to take the fall for any failures if nothing else.
While Eric remained largely replaceable, he needed Ariadne’s services, and he did not know for certain if he could manage to hunt her successfully. That meant he must make some less obvious move against Mike and whatever other tools he had in play.
Anubus considered a subversion of Mike’s plan and the thought pleased him. To turn one of Mike’s tools against him, to corner the thief and force him to reveal Mike’s role would both counter the threat and show Anubus as the true hunter. Better than that, he would have the opportunity to break the thief, and to make him reviled not only for his crime but also for his betrayal of Mike.
The only thing I have to do now is find the thief, Anubus thought. That led him full circle however. He didn’t know who had stolen the bars. Which meant he didn’t know where to start.
Anubus returned to the storage compartment that held the remainder of his gold. He stared at the stack for a long while. He knew that if he could not find the thief, then he had only one option. He could not let the theft go unpunished or he would appear weak. If he appeared weak, other hunters would seek to make him prey. Again he came back to the simple brilliance of Mike’s plan, which put Anubus in jeopardy no matter which way he went.
Which brought him back to his original solution. Kill Mike and any one who supported him. Start off with the most dangerous and pick them off while before they knew what happened. He’d have to try for Ariadne tonight, when she slept, he figured. It seemed the only time she might not sense his attack before he had her within his jaws.
; Unless, of course, someone else wanted him to make such a strike. Someone who wanted him to act against the Captain might have set the conditions to make it appear as if Mike planned to eliminate him. That would be the best strategy by a weak hunter, to play the strong against one another, Anubus thought. They might eliminate the most dangerous and capable of the crew, and therefore take over, all for the risk of the theft. He caressed the gold bars and he savored the smooth cold feel of them, even as he felt rage boil up inside. The perfection of the gold calmed that rage, even as the two missing bars marred that perfection and incited it further.
And what if that hunter expected him to figure it out? With his sudden suspicion, Anubus almost turned and headed to find Mike. If someone had played them against each other, then the best option was to team up, to hunt their opponent… No, a true hunter needed no allies, he thought.
Besides that, Mike must have figured out that possibility if he did mastermind the operation. Which meant he realized the opportunity when offered. But does he know, that I know, he thought, and does the lesser hunter know that we both know?
The more he thought on it, the more he realized just how dangerous his opponents were, and how crafty they must be to hide their schemes behind their stupid monkey faces and their prey-like movements. He should have known better than to trust humans, especially after what happened at Garris Major. The trap there, so perfectly timed to intercept his forces…
He knew his executive officer had betrayed him, then, even if the coward pleaded for his life and that of the rest of the crew after Anubus cornered him on the bridge. How else could the Colonial Republic force have emerged from shadow space on top of his own element just as they broke their attack formation?
The betrayal had sealed his fate though, and his pleas for the others had only meant Anubus destroyed the ship with all aboard to prevent the escape of the man’s accomplices. Of course, after the blind jump that took us out of the trap and into Chxor space, that left me adrift in a shuttle for capture, he acknowledged. Still, things had worked out well enough, until now. He had a prowler, he had three hundred kilograms of gold, and he had a pack.