Away Games: Science Fiction Sports Stories

by Mike Resnick

  “First, I try to figure out whether it was mischief or malice, and whether he had any idea what havoc it would cause.”

  “You think he might be a little smarter than your average bear in the woods?”

  “I don’t know. He lives like an animal, he acts like an animal, and he hunts like an animal. But in a short space of time he’s killed Marx, and he’s seen to it that the five remaining Men can’t communicate with the twelve Dabihs.” I forced a wry smile to my mouth. “That’s not bad for a dumb animal, is it?”

  “You’d better wake the others and let them know what’s happened,” said Mbele.

  “I know,” I said. I kicked one of the broken t-packs up against a tree. “Shit!”

  I woke the Desmonds and Pollard and told them what had occurred. I thought Philemon Desmond might faint. The others were a little more useful.

  “How long ago did this happen?” asked Pollard.

  “Chajinka could probably give you a more accurate estimate, but I can’t speak to him. My best guess is about two hours.”

  “So if we go after him, he’s two hours ahead of us?”

  “That’s right.”

  “We’d better kill him quickly,” said Ramona. “He could come back any time, now that he knows where our camp is.”

  “Give me a laser rifle,” added Pollard. “I haven’t fired a gun since I was a kid at camp, but how the hell hard can it be to sweep the area with a beam?”

  “You look a little under the weather, Mr. Desmond,” I said. “Perhaps you’d like to stay in camp.”

  Actually, he looked incredibly grateful for the out I’d given him. Then his wife ruined it all by adding that he’d just be in the way.

  “I’m going,” he said.

  “It’s really not necessary,” I said.

  “I paid. I’m going.”

  And that was that.

  “There’s no sense taking gunbearers,” I said as the four of us walked to the safari vehicle. “We can’t talk to them, and besides, the rules don’t apply in this case. If we see him, we’ll take him from the safety of the vehicle, and it’ll give you something solid to rest your rifles on while you’re sweeping the area.” They climbed onto their seats. “Wait here a minute.”

  I went back, found Mbele, and told him that we were going after the Snark, and that he should use the Dabihs to set up some kind of defensive perimeter. Then I signaled to Chajinka to join me. A moment later he had taken his customary position on the hood of the vehicle, and we were off in pursuit of the Snark.

  The trail led due northeast, past the savannah, toward rolling country and a large, lightly-forested valley. Two or three times I thought we’d spot him just over the next hill, but he was a cagy bastard, and by midafternoon we still hadn’t sighted him.

  As dusk fell Chajinka couldn’t read the signs from the vehicle, so he jumped off and began trotting along, eyes glued to the ground. When we entered the valley, he was following the trail so slowly that Ramona and Pollard got out and walked along with him while I followed in the vehicle and Desmond stayed huddled in the back of it.

  • • •

  But the valley grew narrow and narrower still,

  And the evening got darker and colder,

  Till (merely from nervousness, not from good will)

  They marched along shoulder to shoulder.

  • • •

  Night fell with no sign of the Snark. I didn’t want to chance damaging the vehicle by driving over that terrain in the dark, so we slept until sunrise, and then drove back to base camp, reaching it just before noon.

  Nobody was prepared for the sight that awaited us.

  The eleven Dabihs we’d left behind were sprawled dead on the ground in grotesquely contorted positions, each with his throat shredded or his intestines ripped out. Dismembered arms and legs were everywhere, and the place was swimming in blood. Dead staring eyes greeted us accusingly, as if to say: “Where were you when we needed you?”

  The stench was worse than the sight. Ramona gagged and began vomiting. Desmond whimpered and curled up into a fetal ball on the floor of the vehicle so he wouldn’t have to look at the carnage. Pollard froze like a statue; then, after a moment, he too began vomiting.

  I’d seen a lot of death in my time. So had Chajinka. But neither of us had ever seen anything remotely like this. There hadn’t been much of a struggle. It doesn’t take a 400-pound predator very long to wipe out a bunch of unarmed 90-pound Dabihs. My guess was that it was over in less than a minute.

  “What the hell happened here?” asked Pollard, gesturing weakly toward all the blood-soaked dismembered bodies when he finally was able to speak.

  • • •

  “The method employed I would gladly explain,

  While I have it so clear in my head.

  If I had but the time and you had but the brain,

  But much yet remains to be said.”

  • • •

  “Where’s Mbele?” I asked, finally getting past the shock of what I was looking at and realizing that he wasn’t among them.

  Before anyone could answer, I raced to the hatch and entered the ship, rifle at the ready, half-expecting to be pounced on by the Snark at any moment.

  I found what was left of Captain Mbele in the control room. His head had been torn from his body, and his stomach was ripped open. The floor, the bulkheads, even the viewscreen were all drenched with his blood.

  “Is he there?” called Ramona from the ground.

  “Stay out!” I yelled.

  Then I searched every inch of the ship, looking for the Snark. I could feel my heart pounding as I explored each section, but there was no sign of him.

  I went back to the control room and began checking it over thoroughly. The Snark didn’t know what made the ship work, or even what it was, but he knew it belonged to his enemies, and he did a lot of damage. Some of it—to the pilot’s chair and the Deepsleep pods and the auxiliary screens—didn’t matter. Some of it—to the fusion ignition and the navigational computer and the subspace radio—mattered a lot.

  I continued going through the ship, assessing the damage. He’d ripped up a couple of beds in his fury, but the most serious destruction was to the galley. I had a feeling that nothing in it would ever work again.

  I went back outside and confronted the party.

  “Did you find Captain Mbele?” asked Ramona.

  “Yes. He’s in the ship.” She started walking to the hatch. I grabbed her arm. “Trust me: you don’t want to see him.”

  “That’s it!” screamed Desmond. “We were crazy to come here! I want out! Not tomorrow, not later! Now!”

  “I second the motion,” agreed Ramona. “Let’s get the hell off this planet before it kills any more of us.”

  “That’s not possible,” I said grimly. “The Snark did some serious damage to the ship.”

  “How long will it take to fix it?” asked Pollard.

  “If I was a skilled spacecraft mechanic with a full set of tools and all the replacement parts I needed, maybe a week,” I answered. “But I’m a hunter who doesn’t know how to fix a broken spaceship. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “You mean we’re stranded?” asked Ramona.

  “For the time being,” I said.

  “What do you mean, ‘for the time being’?” shrieked Desmond hysterically. “We’re here forever! We’re dead! We’re all dead!”

  I grabbed him and shook him, and when he wouldn’t stop screaming I slapped him, hard, on the face.

  “That won’t help!” I said angrily.

  “We’ll never get off this goddamned dirtball!” he bleated.

  “Yes we will,” I said. “Mbele had to check in with Silinger & Mahr every week. When they don’t hear from us, they’ll send a rescue party. All we have to do is stay alive until they get here.”

  “They’ll never come!” moaned Desmond. “We’re all going to die!”

  “Stop your whining!” I snapped. This is just what I need
ed now, I thought disgustedly; we’re surrounded by dismembered corpses, the very ground is soaked with blood, the Snark’s probably still nearby, and this asshole is losing it. “We have work to do!” They all looked at me. “I want the three of you to start digging a mass grave for the eleven Dabihs. When that’s done, I want us to burn everything—every tree, every bush, everything—to get rid of the smell of blood so it doesn’t attract any predators. What we can’t burn, we’ll bury.”

  “And what are you going to be doing?” demanded Desmond, who had at least regained some shred of composure.

  “I’m going to bring what’s left of Mbele out of the ship and clean up all the blood,” I said bluntly. “Unless you’d rather do it.” I thought he was going to faint. “Then, if I can make myself understood to Chajinka, he and I will try to secure the area.”

  “How?” asked Ramona.

  “We got some devices that are sensitive to movement and body heat. Maybe we can rig up some kind of alarm system. Chajinka and I can hide them around the perimeter of the camp. If we finish before you do, we’ll pitch in and help with the grave. Now get busy—the sooner we finish, the sooner we can lock ourselves in the ship and decide on our next move.”

  “Is there a next move?” asked Pollard.

  “Always,” I replied.

  It took me almost four hours to clean Mbele’s blood and innards from the control room. I put what was left of him into a vacuum pouch, then hefted it to my shoulder and carried it outside.

  I found Chajinka helping with the grave. I called him over and showed him, with an elaborate pantomime, what I had in mind, and a few moments later we were planting the sensing devices around the perimeter of our camp. I saw no reason to stay in the Bubbles with such a dangerous enemy on the loose, so I collapsed them and moved them back into the cargo hold. The grave still wasn’t done, so Chajinka and I helped finish the job. Desmond wouldn’t touch any of the corpses, and Ramona looked like she was going be get sick again, so the Dabih, Pollard and I dragged the corpses and spare body parts to the grave, I added the pouch containing Mbele’s remains, and after we four humans and Chajinka filled it in, I read the Bible over it.

  “Now what?” asked Ramona, dirty and on the verge of physical collapse.

  “Now we burn everything, bury any remaining dried blood, and then we move into the ship,” I said.

  “And just wait to be rescued?”

  I shook my head. “It could be weeks, even a month, before a rescue party arrives. We’re going to need meat, and since we’ve no way to refrigerate it with the galley destroyed, it means we’ll probably have to go hunting every day, or at least every other day.”

  “I see,” she said.

  “And I’m going to kill the Snark,” I said.

  “Why don’t we just wait for the rescue party and not take any chances?” suggested Ramona fearfully.

  “It’s killed thirteen beings who were under my protection,” I said grimly. “I’m going to kill him if it’s the last thing I do.”

  “Maybe Philemon should give you his laser rifle,” Ramona suggested. “He’s not very good with it anyway.”

  Desmond glared at her, but made no reply.

  “He may need it,” I said. “Besides, I’m happy with my own weapon.”

  “Where will you hunt for it?” asked Pollard.

  “Right in this general area,” I answered. “He has no reason to leave it.”

  “We can’t just sit around like bait and wait for him!” whined Desmond. “In all the time we’ve been on the planet you’ve never even seen him but he’s killed Marx and Mbele and our Dabihs. He comes into camp whenever he wants! He sabotages our t-packs and our ship! We’ll need an army to kill him!”

  “If he comes back, you’ll be safe inside the ship,” I said.

  “Locking himself in the ship didn’t help Captain Mbele,” noted Ramona.

  “He didn’t close the hatch. As I read the signs, he saw what was happening and raced into the ship for a gun. The Snark caught him before he found it.” I paused. “He knew better than to be out here without a weapon.”

  “So now it’s his fault that this monster killed him?” shouted Desmond. “Let’s not blame the hunter who fucked up! Let’s blame the victim!”

  That’s when I lost it. “One more word out of you and there’ll be another killing!” I shouted back at him.

  Pollard stepped between us. “Stop it!” he snapped. “The creature’s out there! Don’t do his work for him!”

  We both calmed down after that, and finally went into the ship. There was no food, but everyone was so physically and emotionally exhausted that it didn’t matter. Half an hour later we were all sound asleep.

  • • •

  Each morning Chajinka and I walked across the scorched, empty field that had so recently been covered with vegetation. We would climb into the safari vehicle and prepare to go out to bag the day’s food—and even though there was no longer any place to hide near the ship, I constantly had the uneasy feeling that he was watching us, measuring our strength, biding his time.

  We never went more than four miles from camp. I didn’t shoot the choicest animals, just the closest. Then we’d cut off the strips of meat we thought we’d need and leave the carcass for the scavengers. We’d return to camp, and after breakfast we’d set out on foot to look for signs of the Snark.

  I knew he was nearby, knew it as surely as I knew my own name, but we couldn’t find any physical sign of him. I warned the others not to leave the ship without their weapons, preferably not to leave it at all, and under no circumstance were they to go more than thirty yards away from it unless they were in my company.

  By the fifth day after the massacre everyone was getting tired of red meat, so I decided to take Chajinka down to the river, and see if we could spear a few fish.

  “Can I come with you?” asked Ramona, appearing just inside the hatch. “I’m starting to feel distinctly claustrophobic.”

  I couldn’t see any reason why not. Hell, she was safer with Chajinka and me than back at the ship.

  “Bring your rifle,” I said.

  She disappeared inside the ship, then emerged with a laser rifle a moment later.

  “I’m ready.”

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  We marched through heavy bush to the river.

  “All the local animals must come down here to drink,” noted Ramona. “Wouldn’t it be easier to do your hunting right here rather than go out in the safari vehicle each morning?”

  “We’d attract too many scavengers,” I explained. “And since Chajinka and I come down here twice a day to bring water back to the ship, why cause ourselves any problems?”

  “I see.” She paused. “Are there any carnivores in the river—the kind that might eat a human?”

  “I haven’t seen any,” I replied. “But I sure as hell wouldn’t recommend taking a swim.”

  When we reached the river, Chajinka grabbed a large branch and beat the water. When he was sure it was safe, he waded out, thigh-deep, and held his spear above his head, poised to strike, while we watched him in total silence. He stayed motionless for almost two full minutes, then suddenly stabbed the water and came away with a large, wriggling fish.

  He grinned and said something that I couldn’t understand, then clambered onto the bank, picked up a rock, and smashed it down on the fish’s head. It stopped moving, and he went back into the water.

  “Two more and we’ll have our dinner,” I remarked.

  “He’s really something,” she said. “Where did you find him?”

  “I inherited him.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “He was the tracker for the hunter I apprenticed under,” I explained. “When he retired, he left me his client list and Chajinka.”

  Suddenly there was a yell of triumph from Chajinka. He held up his spear, and there was a huge fish, maybe 25 pounds, squirming at the end of it. The Dabih himself didn’t weigh much more than 85 pounds, the curr
ent was strong and the footing was slippery. Suddenly he fell over backward and vanished beneath the surface of the water.

  He emerged again a second later, but without the spear and the fish. I saw them floating downstream a good ten yards from him. There was no sense telling him where to look; he couldn’t understand a word I said without a t-pack. So I waded into the water and went after the spear myself. It became chest-deep very quickly, and I had to fight the current, but I finally reached the spear and waded back to shore. Chajinka climbed out a moment later with an embarrassed grin on his face. He made another incomprehensible comment, then brained the fish as he had done with the first one.

  “See?” I said sardonically. “Even fishing can be exciting with you’re on safari.”

  There was no answer. I spun around. Ramona Desmond was nowhere to be seen.

  • • •

  So the Snark pronounced sentence, the Judge being quite

  Too nervous to utter a word.

  When it rose to its feet, there was silence like night,

  And the fall of a pin might be heard.

  • • •

  I squatted down next to her corpse. There was no blood; he’d noiselessly broken her neck and left her where she’d fallen.

  “He was watching us the whole time,” I said furiously. “He waited until she was alone, then grabbed her and pulled her into the bush.” A chilling thought occurred to me. “I wonder who’s hunting who?”

  Chajinka muttered something incomprehensible.

  “All right,” I said at last. “Let’s take her back to camp.”

  I lifted Ramona’s body to my shoulder and signaled him to follow me.

  Desmond raced out of the ship when he saw us. He began flagellating himself and pulling tufts of his hair out, screaming nonsense words at the top of his lungs.

  “What the hell is happening?” asked Pollard, clambering out through the hatch. Then he saw the body. He had to work to keep his voice under control. “Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus!” he kept repeating. When he’d finally calmed down, he said, “It’s more than an animal! It’s like some vengeful alien god come to life!”

  Chajinka went into the cargo hold and emerged with a shovel.

  Pollard stared at Desmond, who was still raving. “I’ll help with the grave.”