Terson’s first instinct was to put as much distance between himself and the shuttle as quickly as possible, but blindly fleeing danger was apt to get him caught more easily than a slow, methodical retreat. His initial dash had taken him downhill, the direction nearly every human ever born took in flight. Uphill was harder, and slower, but exactly the opposite course they’d expect, especially if they assumed panic had influenced his actions and did not follow his physical trail very far before turning to the shuttle’s advanced technology.
It took a while before he realized that he was getting cold.
The Minzoku woman had taken the brunt of the first blast, and though it was obviously intended to miss it accomplished its purpose by separating captive and captor enough for the second, more prejudicial shot. Whether by mere good fortune, extraordinary reflexes, incompetent aim or a combination of all three, that shot, too, expended its energy against snow and frozen ground, sending him flying in a cloud of scalding steam.
The human nervous system’s ability to differentiate between hot and cold existed within a fairly narrow range. Beyond that range in either direction the signal sent to the brain was basically the same: pain. Applying both extremes at the same time made it difficult to tell where one stopped and the other began.
Terson leaned heavily against the trunk of a tree, chest heaving for breath in the thin, cold air, and pulled off his gloves to check the connections of the power cell at his hip. Along the way his fingers encountered large tattered strips of the coverall’s windproof outer covering where the force of the shuttle’s parting shot had separated it from the inner insulating layer.
The battery was rapidly expending its charge to warm a garment no longer capable of efficiently retaining heat. Alone, without weapon or tool, surviving the night was a dicey prospect. The flashlight was still secure in a pocket and he risked a quick look around. The trees were fewer, petering out at higher elevation, while the snow grew deeper. Shelter clearly lay down slope, but the terrain would funnel him closer to the area that Den Tun’s Onjin were most likely to search for him. The only viable option was to find shelter in another draw. He’d have to traverse the ridge forming the one he was in now, which meant going higher yet.
The temperature dropped quickly as he climbed. The deep wet snow developed a crust almost thick enough to support his weight. Fluffy snowflakes gave way to dry needles of ice driven across the hardening surface by steadily strengthening wind. Terson had never even been as far north as Ipswitch in all the years he’d been on Nivia, and the reason was no surprise: If Saint Anatone felt chilly to him on its hottest day, why would he ever consider going farther north?
Now he wasn’t just cold, he was damn cold. Bone chillingly, mind numbingly, unimaginably frighteningly cold. Colder than he’d ever expected to be on the surface of a habitable world, and uniquely unprepared to deal with it. The one thing he knew with absolute certainty was that he was a dead man if he didn’t find shelter soon.
He paused again to probe about with the flashlight. Snow. Everywhere he looked a whipping sheet of white blocked sight of everything more than a few meters away—everything except the shining orbs of eyes. The twin points of light vanished from one place and appeared in another as the animals moved about, making an accurate count impossible. Half a dozen or fifty, it didn’t really matter: he was outnumbered and unarmed.
Terson had no idea how long they’d been following him, but the fact that they were content to do nothing more was a good sign that he was large or alien enough to make them cautious. The fact that the weather didn’t overcome their interest, on the other hand, was not a good sign at all. He pressed on again with the flashlight constantly in hand to verify that they didn’t come closer or surround him entirely. Soon, he hoped, he’d reach the summit that would signal him to head down again, toward shelter.
The wind whipped heat away from his extremities faster than physical exertion generated it, drawing down his core temperature by tenths of a degree until he began to shiver uncontrollably, staggering forward on legs that couldn’t feel the ground beneath them.
He grew so accustomed to putting his weight on a limb that he couldn’t feel that when his left foot came down with nothing to support it, he didn’t realize it until it was too late. His body pitched sideways, splaying out on the frozen crust, and he began to slide down the side of a monstrously steep incline. Terson fought to get to his feet on the bare, windswept crust but they shot from under him as he accelerated.
A tree trunk flashed by, then another and another, all too large to grab hold of but plenty big enough to smash into. All he could do was roll away as he spotted them, invariably moving into the path of another. They came faster and more tightly spaced the farther he went, and he was skinned and bruised by glancing blows by the time the slope began to level out.
Then he encountered the architect of the ravine he’d fallen into.
The frozen crust beneath him vanished and he fell into the darkness. A light appeared below him, approaching rapidly, and behind it his own shocked face as the surface of a misty, black pool rushed up to meet him. Terson plunged into water so cold it felt like fire. He surfaced gasping and floundered toward shore until his knees touched bottom and he crawled out to collapse, exhausted, in the warm mud.
Warm mud?
Terson sat up and wiped water off his face. He’d lost his grip on the flashlight and its beam illuminated the pool from within. It wasn’t mist rising from the water’s surface, he saw.
It was steam.
Terson stuck a hand back into the pool. It felt scalding to his near-frozen digits for a moment, but both the sensation and the steam was misleading. The water was certainly close to body temperature—sixty degrees centigrade, at least—warm enough to awaken sensation in his flesh, but not warm enough to survive in indefinitely. The air, at least, was several degrees warmer near the water than the surrounding forest, a circumstance that might prevent him from ending up like the trees and bushes surrounding the streambed, which the rising steam had encased in a crystalline sheath of glittering ice.
The indirect illumination from the flashlight shining up from the bottom of the pool revealed a shallow undercut in the bank which offered at least some protection from the snow. The synthetic fibers forming his coveralls’ insulating layer shed most of the water that entered through the damaged outer shell leaving him damp instead of soaking, and once out of the wind the battery was able to make some headway against the cold.
It had been mere hours since he’d left the relative comfort and safety of the Minzoku’s submarine. In that time he’d reunited with a friend only to see him die, confronted his tormentors only to be routed, and escaped death by exposure only to enjoy a respite that could not last. Burying a blade in the chest of Virene’s killer should have offered some solace, but his satisfaction over the revenge he thirsted for so badly faded at the prospect of the suffering awaiting him in the next few hours.
In a just universe, a bullet would have caught him in the forehead while he still felt the gush of the bastard’s blood over his hand.
A chorus of inquisitive yips drew Terson’s attention to the opposite bank, the one he’d flown from so inelegantly a short time earlier. Furtive shadows with luminous eyes paced to and fro in the tree line. Apparently his sudden departure from the slope above had not discouraged the creatures from following. They inched closer, seemingly more nervous of the open water between he and they than the light. Eventually a handful of the bravest padded onto the muddy bank.
They were not particularly large—fifteen to twenty kilograms, at a guess—and appeared dog-like at first glance, though closer examination proved the resemblance vague at best. Their heads seemed out of proportion compared to the rest of their bodies, unusually large for the long necks that supported them. The snouts tapered to a rodent-like point and wide, erect ears with tufted tips flicked independently of each other. The tips of retractable claws glinted between the toes of large forepaws and patterns o
f vertical white and gray stripes broke up dark brown coats.
One or two wouldn’t present much of a danger, but Terson counted at least a dozen in the pack and they appeared a bit gaunt. Like most native life on Nivia they possessed no genetic fear of humans and, unlike those near Saint Anatone, no personal experience that might otherwise cause them to shy away.
Terson decided to educate them.
He seized a nearby rock and sprang from his meager shelter with a shout. The creatures froze, making stationary targets for the stone he flung spinning at the nearest of them. The surprised animal leapt straight up with an ear-splitting screech and scrambled into the trees. The rest of the pack vanished with it, but their retreat was short-lived. Pair by pair their eyes reappeared, but well back in the tree line. Terson decided not to waste any more effort trying to drive them away—they could watch as long as they wanted provided they remained on their side of the stream.
The animals lost interest on their own. Their eyes winked out over the course of an hour while Terson’s bladder filled to the point of discomfort. Only one remained by then. It ventured closer and closer to the bank of the stream until, satisfied that Terson wouldn’t hurl any more objects across, it ventured out to drink. It was twice as large as the others, the coat lush and full without a single rib showing. It sat back on its haunches after slacking its thirst and began to groom, paying the human no mind at all.
Terson decided that he couldn’t hold it any longer. None of the other animals had reappeared, and he wasn’t about to give this one the satisfaction of watching him wet himself. The creature’s mobile ears tracked him like radar when he stepped away from the bank to piss but its eyes remained intent on its own task.
Terson had just finished when the thing pitched its ears fully forward, glanced up and adjusted its stance, eyes intent on something behind him.
Terson spun, swinging his fist with all his might. It caught the first predator in the side of the head mid-leap and sent the animal crashing to the ground, senseless. A second launched itself from the bank above him with jaws agape, claws extended like a double handful of knives. He stepped into the attack, slipping beneath the phalanx to seize the creature by the loose ruff under its chin. His other hand opened to catch the greater part of its weight at the chest as its own momentum carried it up over his head. He straightened his legs to give it a boost and sent it into the pool with a splash. Whatever their other strengths, the creatures were poor swimmers. It struggled futilely for a few seconds before vanishing beneath the black water.
Terson made for the nearest tree.
He leapt for a branch overhead, but his hands slipped from the icy shell and he fell to the ground. He caught movement in his peripheral vision and fended off another lunge with his elbow and a hard kick. With three of their number repelled, at least one fatally, the rest encircled him, none brave enough to charge. Terson shook off his gloves, spit in his hands, and jumped again. This time his hands froze to the ice, providing enough grip to hoist his legs over an adjoining branch.
One of the animals leapt onto the tree trunk. Though its claws were aptly suited to climbing, the sheath of ice couldn’t support its weight and it, too, fell. Meanwhile the rest of the pack fell to fighting over his discarded gloves, reducing them to shreds in a wild tug of war.
Shriveled, ice-coated pods dangled from the branches above Terson. He pulled loose those within reach and flung them down on the heads of the pack until they withdrew from the base of the tree. They settled back on their haunches just out of range, tongues lolling from between their jaws. A few licked and gnawed at the frozen pods he’d thrown, apparently drawn to them by the traces of blood from the missing patches of skin on his hands.
A while later the large pack leader sauntered up from downstream. It eyed him for a moment as if surprised the pack hadn’t already torn him apart and nosed among the shreds of glove until it found one to its liking and settled down, chewing fabric with the same gusto as those with pods.
It must be the blood, Terson thought. His coverall was covered with it from handling Zarn’s body as well as from the wounds he’d inflicted on the man responsible for Virene’s death. Hopefully they’d take what they had and leave.
They didn’t.
The illumination emitted by the flashlight in the water below slowly faded as the night wore on. Hunger began to gnaw at Terson’s gut, but it was far less an issue than the cold working its way back into his body as the battery built into his coverall expended itself. His only satisfaction was that the animals below him were going cold and hungry, too, though he was at a loss to explain why. Rather than gathering around the water or cannibalizing the one he’d brained, they paced round the tree yowling their displeasure.
Terson began to shiver. He blew into his hands, beating them against each other to elicit sensation but they were no more responsive than a pair of sticks. He leaned against the trunk despondently. I’m as dead as if the sons of bitches shot me, he thought. The only difference is I’ll die by centimeters.
As if it mattered. Everyone died sooner or later; at that moment hundreds and thousands of people across human space were dying, some innocent, some not. In the end it did not matter who deserved it.
Terson recalled the young sailor he’d killed on the boat again and the surprise on his face—the surprise of someone expecting to live forever, barring accident. But it was no accident that killed him—Terson Reilly did, abetted by the decisions that led him to that moment with anger in his heart and a finger too tight on the trigger. “I’d take it back if I could,” he croaked.
The wind quit at dawn. Visibility increased to a quarter of a kilometer. Clouds drifted overhead, seemingly close enough the reach up and touch. It was as if Terson sat in the center of a quiet, peaceful box lined with white satin.
His coffin.
His eyes grew heavy. He shook his head trying to stay awake, but the inexplicable warmth he felt made it harder and harder. His shivering slowed. Warm front moving in, he thought. Okay to sleep...
Benjamin Grogan and Sheila O’Brien made their way down the ravine on showshoes.
“You picked a hell of a time to go hunting,” O’Brien told him.
“I didn’t ask you to come,” Grogan replied, an uncharacteristically civil response given his propensity for obscenities and expletives. O’Brien had toyed with the idea of letting him go alone, to fall victim to the elements or wildlife, but he was the only decent pilot in the group.
They reached the bottom and paused to listen. After a moment or two the sound that brought Grogan on his last minute hunt reached them again from the forest ahead. The half-bark, half-roar of the creatures Grogan referred to as hellcats.
Grogan and O’Brien crept into the trees upstream and kicked off their clumsy snowshoes. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” O’Brien whispered. Grogan unslung his rifle and pulled it from its protective scabbard.
“Belters’ll pay a months pay for a mangy hide,” he whispered back. “Imagine what they’ll pay for one of these beauties. You just keep’em off my back.” He stalked forward, leaving O’Brien to uncover her shotgun and follow.
The poachers had encountered hellcats on several occasions. The creatures were territorial and hunted in packs using a cunning method of ambush that sometimes suggested they were smarter than they were. Once hellcats chose their prey the pack leader exposed itself, drawing the attention of the intended victim while the others came at it from behind. The animals used the same method in every circumstance, even when the ploy was inappropriate. Still, O’Brien found it difficult to look behind her when the danger was so obviously ahead.
Grogan stopped suddenly and brought the rifle’s scope to his eye. O’Brien scanned the forest behind them with her finger on the trigger. “They treed something,” Grogan reported. “We can get a little closer.”
O’Brien relaxed considerably. The other characteristic she’d noted about hellcats was their tendency to forget everything else once they’d c
ornered prey. More than once she’d seen slower, weaker wildlife dart from cover only meters from a hellcat whose attention remained riveted on something beyond any hope of reach.
Grogan rested his shoulder against a tree trunk once the snow-blurred forms of the hellcats came into view. They sat in a circle at the base of a tree, heads elevated toward a large animal ensconced on a branch above them. The muzzle of the poacher’s weapon settled on a target.
The barrel jumped with a crack.
The pack scattered with howls of terror, leaving behind one hapless member who spun circles where it landed, painting the snow crimson with its lifeblood. The hunters didn’t approach until they were satisfied that the surviving pack members were gone for good. O’Brien peered into the tree to see what manner of creature they’d saved from tooth and claw.
“I’ll be damned!” she exclaimed. It was a man. He didn’t acknowledge their presence and did not appear to have moved despite the gunshot. “You think he’s still alive?”
“Only one way to find out,” Grogan replied, bringing the rifle to his shoulder.
“Grogan, don’t you dare—”
The base of the branch supporting the man exploded. He tumbled backward, bouncing off branches as he fell and landed in a heap in the soft powder below. O’Brien dug him out and felt a faint pulse in his neck.
Grogan slung the hellcat carcass around his shoulders, gathering the limp front and hind legs together at his chest, and started back up the ravine. O’Brien stood, cursing him furiously. “Where do you think you’re going? He’s still alive!”
“I come for a hellcat, I got a hellcat,” he shrugged. “You wondered if he was breathing, now you know.”
“Help me move him,” she insisted.
“Worst thing about you, Sheila, is you’re never satisfied,” Grogan sighed. He clutched the hellcat’s paws together with one hand and grabbed one of the unconscious man’s sleeves with the other. Together they pulled him through the snow back to their camp.
Pale Boundaries Page 34