by Timothy Zahn
“So it was a trap,” Jody said, a bitter taste in her mouth. “You were there the whole time.”
“Hardly,” the Marine admitted. “I couldn’t come out of hiding and get into the sentry post until we were sure all three Qasamans were at the hatchway. But it’s going to work out just fine, thanks to you and your cleverness.” He bent her arm up a little harder toward her shoulder blades, forcing her to speed up. “Oh, and I wouldn’t count on the gas to knock out the other Marines, either,” he added. “The full combat suit includes gas filters.”
Jody said nothing, her stomach churning on the edge of being sick. So it was over. The Marines would capture or kill Ghushtre and the others, bring Omnathi and Rashida aboard, and as soon as the pilots got the engines going Omnathi would be on his way to Aventine.
And unlike Omnathi, Rashida did know how to find Qasama. In fact, if she’d brought Jody’s recorder along, they would have the location without even having to interrogate anyone.
And it was Jody’s fault. All of it. “You’ve got what you want,” she managed as the Marine pushed her toward the open door. Maybe she could at least salvage Ghushtre’s life out of this. “Let Ghushtre and the others go.”
“And you?” Her captor snorted as he shifted his grip on her right hand and took away the gas canister. “Sorry. Commander Tamu’s taking you back to Aventine.”
Jody took a careful breath. The two pilots were already inside the control room, taking their places at one of the consoles. From behind and beneath her, she could hear the rumble as the engines powered up. Whatever was going to happen at the hatchway was going to happen, and there was nothing in the universe she could do about it.
But it suddenly occurred to her that there was a chance for her to do something here. One last chance.
She waited until they was nearly to the room. Then, bracing herself, she leaned forward at the waist, taking some of the pressure off her arm, and kicked back as hard as she could with her left foot.
The kick went a little wide, her heel slamming into his upper left thigh instead of her intended target. But it was close enough. The man didn’t bellow with pain—Dominion Marines were apparently too tough for that—but she had to bite down on a bellow of her own as his fingers dug into her left wrist. She clamped her teeth together and brought her foot back for another try—
With a shove that sent a dazzling stab of agony up her entire left arm, he shoved her hard through the open doorway.
She stumbled forward, trying to get her feet under her. But her upper body was moving too fast, and she toppled forward toward the deck. As she fell, she twisted her torso a few degrees to the side in midair—
“Get in there, you fremping little horker,” the Marine snarled.
—and as she slammed to the deck on top of her other gas canister it went off, wrenching her back as the pressure of its eruption twisted her hip back around and filled the control room and corridor around her with a sweet-smelling mist.
Her last memory before the darkness took her was of the Marine’s body slamming down onto her legs.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Two hours of instruction, Merrick suspected, was considerably less than the typical winghunter got before setting off into the sky.
Unfortunately, two hours was all he was going to get.
It would have been better if they could have done ast least some of the training outside. To spread the wing out all the way, which Anya couldn’t do in the confines of the hut, to strap himself into the harness that hung beneath the wing and actually see how the control bar moved—that would have been far more useful than the half-open wing and tentative examination of the bar and the struts and bracing wire. Even more helpful would have been some actual in-flight training.
But both were out of the question. The two Trofts were tucked into their aircar just across the clearing, and anything that looked like instruction between two supposedly skilled winghunters would only increase their suspicions.
What the effect on those suspicions would be when Merrick fell out of the sky like a rock tomorrow morning was something he really didn’t want to contemplate.
But even more disturbing than the sense of his own impending doom was the fact that Anya didn’t seem at all worried about it. She was glacially calm, as unruffled as if she was instructing him in a new cooking procedure instead of something that could cost him his life.
She wasn’t just putting up a good front, either. An infrared analysis of her face showed that her calm was genuine.
It took him the entire two hours to figure out a way to ask her about her attitude without making it sound like he was accusing her of not caring whether he lived or died. But when he did ask the question all she would say was that she had ultimate faith in him. Whatever that meant.
The hut had only a single bed. Anya insisted Merrick take it, just as she had back in their Qasaman prison cell. For her own part, she wrapped herself in a blanket and stretched out on a pair of woven-leaf mats on the floor.
Merrick didn’t sleep much that night. When he did drift off, his dreams were filled with horrific images of him plummeting toward the forest below while Anya calmly watched. In some of the dreams, she laughed as he fell past her.
They woke early, and ate breakfast while it was still dark. The meal consisted of a piece of leftover dinner meat that Anya had tucked away beneath the embers the night before. Merrick had expected to find the slab burned to a crisp, but Anya had buried it just deeply enough for the heat above it to keep it warm without overcooking. The Trofts emerged from their car midway through the meal, and for a tense couple of minutes Merrick thought they were going to commandeer the slaves’ food for themselves. But they merely watched the humans eat while munching some kind of field rations of their own.
It seemed uncommonly generous of them, especially since they’d calmly helped themselves to the first cut of the meat the evening before. With the already dark mood Merrick was in, the whole thing felt uncomfortably like he was being granted a condemned man’s last meal.
The group set off as soon as it was light enough to see, Anya and Merrick continuing their trudge up the mountain while the Trofts floated behind in their aircar. The terrain was getting stepper, Merrick noted uneasily, and each time they reached a spot that afforded a view downward he felt a fresh surge of acrophobia-tinged trepidation.
But by midmorning, to his mild surprise, the fear had vanished. Either the emotional part of his brain was tired of dealing with it and had shut down, or the logical part had reluctantly realized that a five-hundred-meter fall wouldn’t kill him any deader than a fifty-meter one.
It wasn’t exactly a comforting thought. But the challenge was looming closer and closer, and he was ready to take anything that would help clear his mind.
It was midafternoon when Anya decided they’d climbed high enough.
[The wings, we shall assemble them there,] she told the Trofts, pointing past a row of short trees to a flat rock outcropping that jutted out from the edge of the cliff. [The rock, it will provide a natural jump-off point.]
[The nets, you have brought them?] the first Troft asked. [The jattorns, I long to feast on them.]
[The nets, we have brought them,] Anya confirmed. [Assistance, we may need it in a moment.]
Both Trofts’ radiator membranes fluttered. [Assistance, you will provide it yourselves,] the second Troft said tartly. [The masters, we are they. The slaves, you are they.]
[Your pardon, I crave it,] Anya said, bowing to him.
[The hunt, you will begin it,] the second Troft bit out.
[The order, I obey it.]
She turned and strode between the trees onto the rock outcropping, pulling off her pack as she walked. Merrick followed, setting his folded wing beside hers. “If you don’t mind, I’ll let you go first,” he murmured as he gingerly lowered himself to his knees on the rock.
“There’s no need for you to assemble your wing,” Anya said softly as she knelt down across her pack from
him. “You will not be hunting today.”
A chill ran up Merrick’s back that had nothing to do with the cold mountain air. “What are you talking about?” he asked carefully. For a moment his mind flicked to the Trofts, but his back was to them and without turning around he couldn’t tell whether or not they were watching. “Of course I’ll be hunting today. I can do this.”
She shook her head, a quick, nervous movement. “They’ll know,” she said, her voice starting to shake. “As soon as you take to wing and sky they’ll know you aren’t one of us. They’ll take you, question you, and kill you. And once you are dead, our chance for freedom will be gone.” Her right hand, he noted suddenly, was hovering at the edge of her jacket. “And so, you must not fly.”
“Let me guess,” Merrick said, consciously relaxing his muscles. He saw now where she was going with this. He could only hope that his programmed reflexes could handle it. “You propose to wreck my wing and then take off as if you’re trying to get away from the Trofts. The Trofts chase you, you crash, and they assume you were the spy they were looking for. Problem is, It won’t work.”
“It will work,” Anya insisted. “For I will not simply take to wing and sky and leave the masters with time to give chase and capture me.” Her eyes flicked over Merrick’s shoulder. “First, I will kill them. It will be their fellow masters, those who certainly now watch from afar, who will give chase and drive me to my death.”
Another chill ran up Merrick’s back. He hadn’t realized just how far she was willing to go with this plan. “Does that also mean your plan for putting me out of action won’t stop at simply damaging my wing?”
“I’m sorry,” Anya said, her face glistening with tears. “Please. Free my world.”
Her hand darted beneath the jacket and reappeared with her knife. She hesitated a fraction of a second, then jabbed the tip straight at Merrick’s left forearm.
The blade never reached its target. Moving like a blur under his nanocomputer’s control, Merrick’s left hand snapped up from his side, lightly slapping the back of her hand to deflect the attack, then grabbing her wrist in a lock-fingered grip.
For a second he just knelt there, ignoring her struggles to free her arm, his full attention on her face. Slowly, the twisting and pulling stopped, and the fear and frustration faded from her face. “It won’t work,” Merrick said when she finally stopped struggling, “because I won’t let it.”
She shook her head, her throat working. “You must,” she said, her voice pleading. “If you don’t let me do this, they will kill you.”
“I won’t let them do that, either,” Merrick said. “Neither of us is going to die today.”
“But—”
“Neither of us can die today,” he continued, “because I need you.”
She shook her head. “You need no one,” she said. “You are powerful beyond my strongest night imagination.”
“But I’m a stranger here,” Merrick reminded her. “This is your world. These are your people. We do this together, or it doesn’t get done.” He tried a small smile. “And I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to give up.”
For a long moment she stared into his eyes. Then, she lowered her gaze to the knife, and to his hand still gripping her wrist. “I’ll go first,” she said at last. “Watch how I assemble the wing, and do the same. When we jump, watch how I use my control bar.”
“I will,” Merrick said, finally releasing her hand. “Don’t worry—I’ll be fine.”
[A problem, is there one?] the first Troft called from behind Merrick.
[A problem, there was a small one,] Anya called back, holding up her knife for the aliens to see before putting it back beneath her jacket. [The problem, it is fixed.]
[The hunt, you will then begin it.]
[The order, I obey it.]
Anya had run Merrick through the assembly method the night before, and though the hut hadn’t had enough space for him to actually practice it, the procedure had sounded reasonably straightforward.
In his experience, things in life that promised to be simple seldom were. But in this case, the theory actually matched the reality. If anything, the wing came together even easier than he’d expected.
The jattorn net was only slightly trickier. The flexible ring at the mouth of the long, silky tube was attached to two smaller elastic rings that Anya secured around Merrick’s upper thighs. Once in the air, the rings were designed to slide down to his ankles, which would then allow him to control the size of the net’s mouth by spreading his legs or bringing them together.
It seemed an unreasonably awkward design, but Anya assured him it was how the nets had always operated. The only way Merrick could rationalize it was if the jattorns were so powerful and aggressive that even with their wings pinioned they could fight their way out of the net unless the hunter kept the mouth closed. He made a mental note to take a close look at the first group of birds Anya managed to snare before he went after any himself.
And with that, it was time to go.
Anya went first, leaping off the end of the cliff like a high-diver hanging beneath a giant arrowhead. For a pair of heart-stopping seconds she fell straight down, the net catching the air and stretching out into a long tube behind her. The drag of the net tugged the anchor rings down to their proper position around her ankles, and only then did she pull up from her dive and settle into horizontal flight.
Merrick swallowed hard. She’d never mentioned that as being part of the winghunter technique. For a brief second he considered trying to pull the same maneuver, but common sense quickly intervened. He would go horizontal as quickly as he could and trust that the net would deploy anyway.
[The hunt, you will begin it,] the first Troft called from the aircar hovering behind him.
Taking a deep breath, settling his grip on the control bar, Merrick took a few quick steps to the edge of the cliff and leaped.
A second later, he was soaring through the cool air, gliding like a bird over the forest far below.
“Huh,” he breathed, the gasp a mixture of released tension and unexpected exhilaration. He was flying. He was actually, literally flying.
No—he was actually, literally falling. Clenching his teeth, he pushed the control bar forward.
Pushed it too far. The wing above him angled up toward the position Anya had warned would put him into a stall. Hastily, he pulled back on the bar, again overcorrected, and eased it a little bit forward. A couple of jerky tries later, he finally got the wing flying smooth and steady.
Blinking against the wind blowing across his face, he took a moment to look around. Anya was paralleling him fifty meters to his right, watching him closely. She raised her eyebrows, and he gave her a quick nod. She nodded back, and pointed ahead and a few degrees below them.
He turned to look, careful not to move the control bar. About half a kilometer away a large flock of birds was floating lazily through the sky below them. Giving his wing a quick look to make sure he was still flying level, he keyed in his telescopics.
He’d never seen a jattorn before, but the birds definitely fit Anya’s description. They were large and majestic, with plumage done up in a complex pattern of blue and white, with hawk-like beaks and V-split tails. Their legs were tucked beneath them out of his sight, but given that Anya had tagged them as raptors he imagined the feet included impressive sets of talons.
And he was supposed to fly into the middle of the flock, let those things get right up beside his legs, and scoop them into a net?
Apparently so, because that was clearly where Anya was headed. She had dropped the nose of her wing and was heading down toward the flock, pulling ahead of him as she converted her drop in altitude into extra speed. Wincing, Merrick shifted his attention to the control bar. If he pulled it back just a little…
[The enemy who sent you, who is he?] the first Troft called.
Merrick twisted his head around. The Troft aircar was sitting practically on top of him, pacing him from three
meters back and two meters up. The Trofts had lowered their side windows, and the first Troft was leaning out the left-hand window toward him.
The wing jerked as Merrick’s movement again shifted the control bar a little too far. He spun back to face forward, fighting to get the fragile aircraft back under control. [The enemy who sent you, who is he?] the Troft called again, more insistently this time.
Merrick turned back again, shaking his head and taking the risk of lifting one hand off the control bar to give a gesture of confusion at the question, a gesture he could only hope the Trofts would understood.
The alien seemed to get the idea. He also clearly didn’t believe it. [A lie, do not make it,] he said sternly. [A winghunter, you are not one of them. A spy for our enemies, you are one of them. The enemy who sent you, who is he?]
Merrick again shook his head, trying desperately to try to think of something else he could do to persuade them.
An instant later the wing again jerked as a laser flashed twice from the aircar, gouging out a pair of tears across the center of the wing directly above his head. [A winghunter, you are not one of them. The enemy who sent you, who is he?]
Of course I’m not a winghunter, the protest boiled up through the bubbling panic in Merrick’s throat as he fought to bring the damaged wing back to level flight. We told you that back in Gangari. I’m only a winghunter assistant.
But he couldn’t say that. He couldn’t say anything in his defense. He was a mute, and a sudden recovery of his voice would do nothing but confirm to the aliens that he and Anya had been lying to them all along.
And even if he could somehow persuade them to accept such a miracle cure, his accent alone would instantly brand him as an outsider.
Another pair of bolts sizzled through his wing. [The truth, you will give it,] the Troft insisted. [Or death, it will find you.]
They were baiting him, he knew. They weren’t out here alone—even Anya had realized they had backup and observers somewhere close at hand. This pair was the bait, pushing the suspected spy to see if and how he would react.