Dickie hunkered down behind a rock, waiting, barely breathing. He pressed the deadman button to shut off his APOS for extra quiet—the oxygen inside the suit would last him a few minutes if he didn’t exert himself.
The Sholen meandered along, stopping from time to time to pick up rocks or bottom-dwelling life. Finally the alien reached the nets and began taking out the various swimmers and flotsam caught there.
Dickie considered his strategy. If he took out the hydrophone first, the Sholen might hear and come to investigate. But if he tried to neutralize the Sholen, it would certainly make enough noise to alert the aliens inside Hitode Station. The urge to strike back at one of them was strong, but in the end Graves restrained himself. Concentrate on the job you came to do, he told himself.
He let go of the deadman button and took on some oxygen, then pressed it again and pushed off against the rock, launching himself at the hydrophone. Halfway there he had to let go of the button and start swimming. The phone was certain to hear him.
The hydrophone was just where he’d installed it, a bright orange casing taped to a boulder, with a long optical cable trailing off through the silt. He slashed the cable and pulled the hydrophone off the rock. No sense in wasting it; properly set up it could be an early warning system for the new camp.
He swam hard, trying to get away from Hitode before someone came to investigate. His own external pickup detected a sonar ping. The Sholen was swimming toward him. Damn.
Gishora heard the noise of something swimming rapidly and checked the helmet display. He could see no icons indicating other divers around Hitode. So either the noise came from one of the renegade humans, or an Ilmataran organism. Either way, he ought to investigate.
It swam toward a clump of rocks. He gave it an active sonar ping, to get a better image of whatever it was. Four limbs, about half the length of a Sholen, bulbous head and backpack. A human, then. Gishora felt a little bit disappointed at that.
“I want you to stop swimming away,” he called out. “I see no way for you to escape.”
The human ducked behind the rocks and Gishora swam faster to catch whoever it was. In the human’s wake the water contained a great deal of silt. All Gishora could see was the cloudy cone of light from his helmet lamp. It made him feel disoriented and a little frightened. He had to keep checking his faceplate displays to be sure to stay level.
The rock outcropping was a welcome bit of firm reality in the dark chaos of the silty water. Gishora touched it, holding on as though some powerful current might sweep him away.
Something struck his head hard, knocking him down. The displays went crazy, and he could hardly make sense of the text and symbols flashing across his vision. He tried to get up, but felt something land on top of him, clinging to his back.
Gishora gave a cry of surprise, then tried to reach behind him to dislodge the human. He felt cold water against the back of his head, pouring into the suit, separating the clinging inner membrane from his skin. It was so cold it burned. He couldn’t see anything. The water was full of silt and bubbles.
Then he felt a sharp pain in his abdomen, and more cold water. Amid the flashing lights in his hood he saw the MEDICAL ALERT icon and the OXYGEN SYSTEM FAILURE symbol. Behind them, half-obscured by the swirling silt, he glimpsed a face. It was the human Richard Graves, baring his teeth inside his helmet and raising his utility knife for another stab.
The blade jabbed into Gishora’s upper right shoulder. He tried to grab the human, but the cold and the pain made it hard to move, and his suit was filling with water.
Gishora couldn’t see Graves anymore, but he felt the blade slice into the muscles of his back, and again into his side behind his midlimbs. He couldn’t hold his breath any longer, and coughed and choked as the burning cold water entered his lungs.
Broadtail hurries back to the shelter and wakes Oneclaw. “Those bandits want to take the students!”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. I recall Strongpincer suggesting I kill you and join his band with the students.”
“I assume you choose not to?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I ask because it is not illogical for you to be in league with the bandits. I remember worrying about that when rescuing you.”
“I am no bandit!” says Broadtail indignantly. “I am a scientist!”
“You might be a bandit scientist. But never mind that now. I trust you. We have more important problems. How can we stand against a whole gang of them? Perhaps we should flee.”
“In cold water they can snatch us one at a time. Fortifying ourselves within the shelter is the only way. Two of us with spears can hold the entrance.”
“A good plan, worthy of Shortleg 88. But we cannot fit all the students inside.”
Broadtail looks around and makes a quick inventory of their supplies. “I imagine bringing in the two best and leaving the rest.”
“Which ones?”
“The two females. Holdhard is small but clever. Sharpclaw is strong. I imagine both fetching a good price as apprentices.”
“I agree.”
The two of them go out to fetch the two students. Broadtail can hear one of the bandits—probably the big one—moving with them about half a cable away. But nothing happens and they return to the shelter with Holdhard and Sharpclaw. Oneclaw takes them inside and secures them while Broadtail begins fortifying the doorway and plugging gaps in the walls of the shelter.
He hears someone approach, and takes up his spear. It’s Strongpincer.
“Do you accept my offer?”
“Rob Oneclaw and join your band? No. I refuse.”
“Then I plan to take what I want.”
“And we plan to fight you.”
Strongpincer moves a couple of steps toward Broadtail, who swings up his spear, keeping the point between the two of them. Broadtail handles his spear well, like a landowner who hunts and drills with a town militia. Strongpincer backs away.
Broadtail waits until the bandit is half a cable away, then goes inside.
He gives food to the students, to keep them quiet while he and Oneclaw prepare. The old teacher has all his weapons piled in the middle of the shelter. It isn’t a very good arsenal.
There are four hunting spears, but one of them has only the sharpened end of the shaft instead of a proper obsidian head.
He has a couple of hammers, a single bolt-launcher for close-in work, and the noisemaker.
“Do you imagine this working?” Broadtail asks Oneclaw, holding up the noisemaker.
“I cannot remember ever actually using it in combat. It does give us the advantage of surprise—I doubt coldwater bandits ever read Swiftswimmer.”
“Then I suggest using it only in the direst emergency.”
“Agreed. Do you hear them coming? That is the worst part of any fight like this: waiting for the enemy to actually do something.”
Strongpincer knows about attacking a fortified shelter, and what he knows is that surprise is the best tactic. Drop down out of the water onto a farm without being heard, cut off the landowner and apprentices from the shelter, and the battle is all but won.
But when the defenders are barricaded inside, everything changes. Even if there are gaps in the shelter—and Oneclaw’s shelter is old stonework—anyone attacking an opening risks a spearpoint in the head.
But even that is better than the alternative of trying to wait out the defenders. Doing that requires enough food and patience to outlast them, and Strongpincer has neither.
There are the students in the pens, and a few bits of gear left around the school worth taking, but Strongpincer knows all the really good stuff is inside the shelter. He suspects the two students inside are the best of the lot, as well.