by Paul Chafe
“Vacuum leak! Helmets on.” Khalsa barked the order. “Quacy, get back to your cabin, I’m sealing the cockpit.” Even as he said it the hiss grew to a roar. Tskombe’s ears popped, an alarm blared, and the cockpit’s blast door began sliding shut. Instinctively he launched himself under it and into the passageway leading back to the wardroom and the hold. The door closed behind him with a solid thunk, and his ears popped again as the pressure rose again. He grabbed a handhold and stopped himself. Had the pilots got their helmets on in time? He flipped himself over to a com panel and keyed the cockpit. The indicators glowed, showing the system was intact, but there was no response from the pilots. He went back to the blast door and checked the pressure indicator. The cockpit pressure read zero. The little leak had become explosive decompression, and the pilots had had seconds at most to get their helmets on. Strapped into their command couches as they were it didn’t seem likely that they would have managed it. If that were true the ship was under the cruiser’s guns and helpless, or already in hyperspace and pilotless. Tskombe breathed out slowly as the seriousness of the situation came down on him. Neither option was good.
Steel is no stronger than the sinew that wields it.
—Si-Rrit
The sun was a flaming red ball on the horizon from the gravcar, but the valley below was already in shadow. Ftzaal-Tzaatz sniffed the air, stiff with the charred scent of the burned-over trees, though the fire that consumed them had burned out seasons ago. The vehicle touched down, the others sliding in around it to form a perimeter. He nudged Telepath, lolling in the back seat beside him.
“Here?”
“Close…” Telepath’s eyes fluttered open and he looked around the clearing. “Yes…” His eyes closed again. “Yes, they were here.”
“How long ago?”
“Several days, I think. The memory is still fresh in the kz’zeerkti’s mind, but it has not referenced it.”
“Good enough.” Ftzaal keyed his comlink. “Ftz’yeer Leader! Dismount the rapsari. Sniffers forward.”
“At once, sire.”
The back ramps on the carriers banged down and his Ftz’yeer Heroes swarmed out, red and gold glinting on their mag armor. A brace of sniffers surged to the front, proboscises wiggling eagerly. Ftzaal keyed his comlink again. “Quickly. We want to pick up the scent before darkness falls.”
He leapt from his own car to the ground. He had a decision to make. They would be proceeding on foot from this point forward. Ktronaz-Commander had already demonstrated that combat cars operating on top of the triple layer canopy were essentially useless for supporting troops on the ground beneath it. Simply tracking their quarry was risky, and not likely to be effective. There were too many places to hide in the jungle, and First-Son-of-Meerz-Rrit had already shown himself to be adept at laying subtle traps for the pursuers.
No, simple pursuit would not work. It would be night hunting then, to fix their quarry while they were sleeping. When they knew First-Son’s habits and the paths he followed, ambush teams would be inserted in front of him. Then the pursuit would intensify, sacrificing stealth for speed, to drive their prey into the trap. So the decision was made, no air support. Combat cars whining overhead would only warn him to cover his tracks more carefully.
A deep, booming bellow echoed through the valley, drowning out the other night sounds. Ftzaal froze, his ears swiveling up to home on the sound. I must use caution. Kzinhome’s jungles hold predators more dangerous than feral Jotoki. Even at the thought, something flashed out of the darkness overhead, snapping. He hit the ground instinctively and looked up, saw gray wings and talons against the night sky: a saberwing. He’d never seen one live, but he’d recognized it immediately. They were a frequent feature in the Legends, powerful sky predators but no match for a kzin. They were probably in its territory. He picked himself up and keyed a warning to the Ftz’yeer over his com. It would harass them until they had moved far enough away. For a long moment he watched carefully, but it didn’t return. High up he heard its keening call, and then nothing but the quiet rustlings of his warriors around him. He flashed signals with his tail and they moved into formation.
Another bellow rumbled out of the valley below, followed rapidly by a third. The calls echoed and faded, then another set rose. There was something big out there. Ftzaal pulled his goggle visor down over his eyes and toggled the spectral response to deep infrared. The muted colors of the moonlit scene jumped into sharp black and white contrast. Here and there blurred white shapes revealed the small night creatures, stalking, hiding, feeding, mating in the fields and the jungle fringes, but the burned-out tree trunks prevented him from seeing more than a few eights of leaps away. Whatever had made that call was far down in the valley, to judge by the echoes. He turned slowly, ears swiveled up, his mouth slightly open to enhance both hearing and sense of smell. There might still be something else…
There! A flash of white behind a tree trunk, gone before he could see what it was but big enough to be something. The visor let him see what might otherwise be invisible, but it also reduced detail and restricted his field of vision. He pushed it up again, eyes straining to readjust to the darkness. Had it been a kzin? If they had come down too close to their prey then First-Son would already be escaping. Would Telepath have brought them in too close on purpose? He looked suspiciously at the other, but Telepath was looking around with quick, jittery glances, radiating not guilt but nervousness. He didn’t like being in the jungle in general, and he didn’t like being here in particular.
Enough speculation. Time to move. Ftzaal patted his netgun, found reassurance in the weapon. “Sniffers, over here!” he ordered. “Senior Handler, to me now.”
Shapes came out of the darkness, the pudgy sniffer rapsari snuffling at the ground. “Command me, sire!”
“Over there.” Ftzaal pointed to where he had seen the shape. “Find me a trail.”
“At once.” Senior Handler’s tail flashed signals to his companions, and they moved out in a search wedge. Ftzaal’s own tail signaled his sword leaders into formation on either flank and he moved out after the sniffers.
They were not long in finding the track. A stone’s throw forward Senior Handler halted the formation and whispered into his com, “Sire, we have kzin scent here.”
Ftzaal went to him. His sniffer was waddling in circles, proboscis wrinkling, with faint colors flowing over the chromatophores on its hindquarters. He inhaled deeply. Yes, there it was, faint but clear, the distinctive scent of kzintosh, but strangely muted. There was a something else there, something unfamiliar, that made the scent trail hard to identify. He strained his eyes in the darkness. He was sure he’d seen something. He pulled his goggle visor down again, and saw a glow on the ground, where something warm-blooded had stood for some period. Like the scent, the infrared impression was weaker than it should have been for a kzin. The ground was still warm from the heat of the day, not far off body temperature, so the signal would have been weak anyway, merging with the warm background even with the visor’s signal processors working to find and enhance significant details. Still, there should have been more…
Hunt cloaks dumped body heat to chemical cold packs to mask the wearer’s thermal signature, but if their quarry had hunt cloaks then why hadn’t they been wearing them on the savannah when Ktronaz-Commander’s Heroes had found them? Something else then? The unknown is dangerous. He shook off his doubts. The trail was here; it was the best lead they had, and they would follow it. His tail flashed signals for the trail scouts to advance with goggles down. Perhaps what he’d seen wasn’t a kzin, perhaps it was, but it was a threat, and they needed to know about it. The hunt party moved out again.
Progress was slow, but Ftzaal didn’t mind that, they needed to take their time. The Ftz’yeer were experienced jungle fighters, but Kzinhome’s jungles were a fiercer environment than those of Jotok. Ktronaz-Commander’s troops had come in force and moved fast, but this was an environment where stealth counted for more than firepower. He
did not expect to flush First-Son-of-Meerz-Rrit this night, nor the next. They would track him but not let him know he was being tracked, then, when Ftzaal understood his route and his habits, the trap would be set. Before that could happen the Ftz’yeer had to understand the jungle, and the way to that goal was through experience. We will convert the unknown to the known, and make the environment our ally. There was no hurry, not yet.
Another series of bellows rumbling up from below, definitely closer this time. His comlink buzzed. “Sire, this is First Scout.”
“Go ahead.”
“I saw something, maybe a kzin, I couldn’t tell…”
“Confirmed.” Could they have come down so close to their quarry the first time? Simple probability argued not. He raised his goggles and looked again to Telepath, saw no deception in his miserable face. “Carry on, stay alert.”
Disturbed air overhead, the rush of wings. The saberwing was over and gone before he caught a glimpse. Shouldn’t they be out of its territory by now? Something itched on the back of Ftzaal’s neck. The jungle almost seemed to be watching them. Warning instinct, or simply nerves in a new and dangerous environment? The Ftz’yeer look to me for leadership. I must not show them fear here. First-Son would not be the last fugitive to run for the jungle. If Tzaatz Pride were to control Kzinhome they would have to learn to live, to search, to fight here too. His tail twitched signals and the small group moved on again.
The Hunter’s Moon had slid halfway across the sky and they were deep into the valley. Behind them the smaller Traveler’s Moon was starting to rise. The burned-out tree trunks faded away, revealing a wide open meadow and then, abruptly, the living jungle, a distant dark wall edged by giant spire trees. The forest fire had burned over the upslopes, but this meadow, probably a marsh in the wet season, had stopped it from getting into the low ground nearer the river. A signal came back from Senior Handler. The trail had split. There were two kzin in front of them, each now moving in a different direction. Decision time—split his force, or stay together? No decision really, this early. It was tempting to believe they were right on First-Son’s tail, that he and his sister would both fall into his hands this very night, but that must have been the thinking that had cost so many of Ktronaz-Commander’s Heroes their lives. The real hunt will come later, for now we must maximize caution. He signaled forward for the trackers to advance, together, signaled for the flankers to move into open country formation.
Another cluster of the echoing bellows sounded, these very much closer and something else, a sound like running water, but with sharper notes, like gravel pouring off a conveyer. The sound grew louder, distinct snaps rising over the general tumult. The sound was coming from the jungle ahead, and he strained his eyes in the moonlight to see what might be making it. He became aware of something else, a vibration in the ground.
“Sire! Lead Scout! There’s something moving in the treeline! Something big.”
Ftzaal snapped down his goggle visor and immediately saw large white blobs moving in the tree line, still obscured by dark gray trunks, but huge, swaying ponderously, and coming toward him. The first one cleared the woods: vast tusks on a head bigger than him, a long neck connected to a body the size of a spacecraft. He stared for a long moment before he understood what he was seeing. Tuskvor! As with the saberwing, he’d never seen one live, though he recognized them immediately.
“Tuskvor!” Lead Scout had recognized them too.
Ftzaal keyed his comlink. “Halt in position. We’ll work our way around them.”
It took time to move the hunters around the herd, more time to search the margins of the valley to reacquire the scent trail. Dawn was starting to brighten the eastern sky by the time they’d found it again, running straight along a heavily beaten tuskvor trackway. Ftzaal moved them well off the trail at that point, to the heart of a bramblebush thicket where they should, he hoped, be safe enough to rest for the day. They slept in shifts, with half the force always on alert. When afternoon started to turn into twilight Ftzaal allowed himself to relax, slightly. They’d survived a night and a day in the jungle and successfully avoided some of its more dangerous inhabitants. More importantly, the tuskvor trail had a single pair of kzinti pawprints, made within the last couple of days. It was a tiny clue, but it was enough. The sniffers were on the right track.
When darkness fell they took up the hunt again, paralleling the trail, moving literally paw by paw to avoid making noise. There was little they could do about their scent, but slow movement generated less of that as well. Every once in a while the sniffer handlers would move in to verify that they were still following the right spoor.
Toward dawn his vocom clicked. “Lead Scout. I see a kzin.”
Ftzaal signaled the rest of the patrol to stop and moved forward cautiously. Lead Scout was in good cover, coming up to a bend in the trail. He had his full spectrum visor down, and Ftzaal snapped his into position as well. Lead Scout pointed up, and for a moment Ftzaal couldn’t see what he was indicating, and then suddenly the scene snapped into focus. High up in a spire tree there was a platform, artfully built into the branches so as to be almost invisible. Only the radiative heat difference between live and dead wood allowed the visor’s systems to pick it out. There was a blur on the platform, only faintly visible, but it could only be one thing: a kzin wearing a hunt cloak. They had found something important.
But there was no need to hurry yet. He snarled an instruction for Ftz’yeer Leader to move the patrol back and find a good lair to lay up in, well off the trail. He and Lead Scout worked their way backward into dead ground, then circled cautiously to come at the platform from another angle. From their new position a second platform was visible. As the cold, gray light of dawn began to filter through the triple canopy there was motion. A pair of kzinti arrived on the trackway and scrambled up the spire tree. A few moments later another pair came down and disappeared back into the jungle. Some time later the process was repeated at the second watch platform. The sentries wore hunt cloaks and carried small journeypacks, provisions, perhaps, for a day spent on guard. They must be of the czrav, the primitive jungle dwellers the cvari hunters had told him about. Telepath had seen many kzinti with First-Son-of-Meerz-Rrit through the kz’zeerkti’s mind. Their quarry had gone to ground with these primitives. Ftzaal’s tail twitched unconsciously. The changing of the guard had the feel of long-established routine, and they weren’t doing all that just to protect a fugitive. The question becomes, what are they guarding? Finding out would be difficult. To their left was the river, to their right a steep bluff. The platforms were positioned so that anyone advancing along the trackway between them could not avoid being seen. They could perhaps sneak through at night. Primitives won’t have full spectrum goggles, but primitives shouldn’t have hunt cloaks either. They couldn’t take the risk; they were going to have to find another way.
Slowly he moved back into cover with First Scout. They made their way back to the patrol lair. Ftzaal gestured for his subcommanders and gave them quick orders. Blade patrols, four each, would move up the bluff and around to reconnoiter that way. The cacophony of jungle noises would help to cover their movement, but they were to use maximum stealth regardless, and take no risk of compromise. There would be more guards; they had only to locate them. Even if they saw First-Son-of-Meerz-Rrit they were not to take action; he had proven himself too adept at eluding pursuit. They would wait until the trap was set; only then would they act.
His subcommanders snarled their assent and left to organize their separate subpatrols, leaving only Ftzaal’s personal guard and Telepath behind in the lair. Ftzaal keyed his com to task a high-resolution scan pass by Distant Trader. Its optical instruments weren’t as good as those in the orbital defense network, but using the Patriarch’s assets might invite questions from those still loyal to the Rrit. Using their own ship posed no such dangers, and Raarrgh-Captain could be relied upon to keep it quiet. He was fortunate; the ship’s orbit was favorable, and before the sun was hal
fway up he had the data. He spent the time until noon with his visor down and in display mode, scanning the images through the full spectral range. There was nothing to reveal the presence of anything unusual in the jungle. Even the watch platforms he’d spotted didn’t show up, despite their location high up in the canopy. He pulled his visor up and looked around for a moment, as if he could see with his own eyes what his sensors could not. Whatever the czrav were hiding, they were hiding it well. He pulled his visor back down and began resurveying the orbital imagery, looking for cutoff points and assault landing zones. Ktronaz-Commander could have a rapsari Battle Team assembled in half a day. By then his reconnaissance would be complete enough. The river and the bluff formed a natural channel. Control both ends and nothing trapped inside could escape. If First-Son were there the rules of skalazaal applied, but that would make little difference. The primitives might have hunt cloaks, perhaps even variable swords and mag armor, but the dry season was upon them. The stark landscape of the charred valley they had landed in showed that the jungle would burn, and burn hard. Fire would be his primary weapon.
And I need to know if First-Son is there. Telepath had been hiding something, and he had to address that now. The telepaths have power, if they should ever manage to wield it. A tuskvor snorted from the trackway, close enough to startle him, and he froze. It wouldn’t be alone, and even if they somehow survived a charge it would destroy the stealth on which the mission depended. He listened for the bellow that would warn him they had been scented, but they had picked their cover well and the wind was in the other direction. After a moment he relaxed and got out an infuser and an ampoule of sthondat extract in preparation for another difficult interrogation. Telepath had become increasingly recalcitrant as the hunt wore on, fueling Ftzaal’s suspicions and at the same time obscuring the evidence he needed to prove them. If such evidence exists. He could not yet be sure, today he would learn. He held up the infuser. Sthondat lymph gives us power over the telepaths. In the face of the ability to know another’s mind, it seemed a flimsy tool.