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result of her shots.
The torch beam trembled a little but kept the beast pinned.
The first grenade went off in its throat. It shuddered and kept coming, head
jerking about out of control, body juice spraying from the holes in the neck.
The second grenade went off beneath it, drowning it in the pale blue gas mist.
It kept coming, breaking out of the dissipating cloud.
Skeen waited, holding the launcher ready.
One meter, jerky pat-pat of the several feet, lurching plunge that could have
been comic if it wasn't so terrifying. Two meters. Head jerking more and more
wildly. Legs starting to tangle, to lose sequencing. It tripped itself and
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crashed to the ground, making more sound in its fall than it had made in the
whole of its run. Lay scrabbling aimlessly at roots and mold, tearing up and
flinging away clumps of fungus and earth, small weeds, bits of bark.
Timka kept the torch sweeping the backtrail, returning to the beast, moving
away, until Skeen snapped her fingers and stepped onto the faint path once
more, an animal trail leading down to the drinking spot on the lakeshore. They
went on, moving at the same easy trot, breathing through the noseplugs and
fighting the need to gasp in more air through the mouth.
The trees grew smaller and farther apart, then they were on the stretch of red
dust running in a gentle slope to the water.
The camouflaged Lander was a dark mass a few meters off, the low black
miniskip lost in the shadow beside it. Skeen stopped alongside it, tested the
air. The burn smell was almost indetectable. She grinned and shucked out the
plugs. "Gahh, I hate these things." She held them in her fist, looked
wistfully at the lake, slipped the plugs into her belt pouch. "Ti?"
"I'm here." Timka moved up beside her. "The gear's in the cargo pod. We going?
It'll be raining soon." She'd stripped off shirt and trousers and was wearing
a dark sleek coat of fur. Arms folded, shoulders rounded, she was eyeing the
skeletal miniskip with some distrust and considerable disfavor. "Will that&
that& thing fly through the storm that's stirring up there?"
"We won't crash. Climb in. I want to reach the camp area before sunup."
"Hmm. It's your funeral, I can fly out."
"Get in, grump, or you'll get your fur wet." Skeen cracked open the pilot's
pod, stretched out on her stomach and pulled the cover down. She fit the
commandcap onto her head, began a methodical check of the machine. When she
saw that the second pod was filled and sealed, she tapped on the lift field
and began a swift slanting dart for the clouds.
After a cold, rough eight-hour ride twisting through the mountain peaks,
buffeted by powerful erratic winds, battered into wild swoops by a monster
thunderstorm, Skeen eased the skeletal miniskip into a high dry cup just over
a ridge from the lake.
Timka uncurled cramped fingers and retracted her claws. In a stiff silence she
clicked open the pod cover whose padding had proved so inadequate and got to
her feet groaning. When Skeen chuckled, Ti snarled then shook herself through
several transformations before retrieving the hybrid Pallah cat-weasel form
she'd learned on that final rush to the Gate. She bounced on her foot pads,
swung her arms and purred at the rush of energy that always accompanied the
assumption of this form.
Skeen stopped laughing. Her own aches and bruises were going to stay with her.
"Min," she muttered. Ignoring Timka's growing exuberance, she unstrapped the
stunrifle, got the nightscope out of its case and snapped it in place. She
shrugged her shoulders to make sure the pack and the groundsheet roll were
sitting comfortably, then frowned up at the lowering sky. It wasn't raining
here, now, but the storm was shifting north faster than she liked. It was very
dark, a little over two hours till dawn. She fixed hooded stickums to her
boots, straightened. "Ti?"
"Here."
"About two hours till dawn, that time enough?"
"It'll take a while to search the camp. Hadn't we better get started?"
"Be careful when you're down there."
"Take your own advice."
"Not much for me to be careful about. Just sit and watch the rain come down."
With Timka padding silent behind her, Skeen picked her way cautiously up the
scree-littered slope, cursing under her breath as she started small rockslides
every few steps; carefully as she tried to set her feet down she couldn't help
sounding like a herd of links on a mating run, she could move like a ghost's
dream through the most cluttered interiors in just about any city one could
name and steal the sweat off a sleeper, but here&
She reached the top and found a grassy hollow where she could look down the
shallow escarpment at the lake while she lay concealed behind a dead bush with
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brown dead leaves clinging to branches crooked and knotty as arthritic
fingers. She wrapped herself in the camouflaged groundsheet; it was
waterproofed, would keep the threatened rain off her and the rifle, cut the
bite of the knife-edged wind that swept over the top of the ridge and blasted
down the cliff face. When she was settled she twisted her head round so she
could see Timka. "You can fly in this?" She had to shout to break through the
howl of the wind.
"Don't worry about me. You just be ready to drop the rope when I whistle."
"Bona Fortuna give us you have something to whistle about."
"You said it." Timka moved closer to the edge, swaying as gusts of wind
slammed into her; after a swifter shift than usual she was the broad-winged
bird shape she'd found most efficient at coping with the gravity and the thick
air.
Skeen adjusted the night goggles and watched her circle out over the water
then slant toward the thick woolly treetops. Seemed like every day now Timka
grew more restless, more reckless; handling her was like juggling a bomb with
the failsafe missing and the timer running. Skeen watched the Ti-bird slip
like smoke into the tree-tops. The two of them bumped against each other more
and more whenever they were together, whether it was on Picarefy or at a Pit
Stop. Or here. It was becoming obvious they weren't going to settle into a
team no matter how much they liked and respected each other and how
effectively they worked together. Skeen smiled when she remembered the
slippery submissive Min woman way back there on Mistommerk. Set that Timka
next to the one fishing in the leaves down there and you'd hardly think they
were the same species. Scratching at her nose she scanned the silent canopy
then the lake some dozen meters below her. A large cold raindrop splashed on
her cheekbone, rolled past her mouth, another landed in her hair. She sighed,
pulled the groundsheet over her head and settled to what she expected to be a
long wait. Patience, Skeen. It's a job, like all the other jobs, you know how
to be patient when you're working. Don't think about what happens when this is
over, you don't know what's going to happen. One step at a time and keep your
mind on the step, or you'll fall on your face, old girl. The raindrops were
falling more heavily. The dead bush in front of her was rustling with a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]