Almo's car took off with minimal dust, and Jonny turned both his face and attention to the towering trees. He'd worry about Challinor's cloak and laser later; right now he had a spine leopard to kill. Making sure all the equipment on his belt was secured, he crossed the vegebarrier and entered the forest.
Even after seven years on Aventine Jonny felt a sense of awe whenever he stepped under the ancient canopy of oddly shaped leaves that turned the day into a diffuse twilight. Partly it was the forest's age, he had long ago decided; but partly also it was the humbling reminder of how little mankind knew about the world it had so recently claimed as its own. The forest was teeming with plant and animal life, virtually none of which was really understood. Clicking on his vision and auditory enhancers, Jonny moved deeper into the woods, trying to watch all directions at once.
The extra-loud snap of a branch above and behind him was his only warning, but it was enough. His nanocomputer correctly interpreted the sound as being caused by a large airborne body, and almost before Jonny's brain had registered the sound, his servos had taken over, throwing him to the side just as four sets of claws slashed through the space he'd vacated. Jonny rolled through a somersault—barely missing a gluevine-covered tree—and came up into a crouch. He got a glimpse of the spine leopard as it leaped toward him, razor-edged quills tucked tightly against its forelegs—and again his computer took over.
Standing flatfooted in the open, the only weapons Jonny could bring to bear were his fingertip lasers; but even as it again threw him to the side his computer used them with deadly efficiency. The twin needles of light lanced out, sweeping across the alien creature's head.
The spine leopard screamed, a full-bodied ululation that seemed to bounce off the inside of Jonny's stomach, and its spines snapped reflexively upright on its legs. The instinctive defensive move proved useless; Jonny was already beyond reach of the spine tips. Again he hit the ground, but this time he didn't roll back to his feet. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the spine leopard struggling to get up, apparently oblivious to the black lines crisscrossing its face and to the brain damage behind them. A wound like that would have killed a human outright, but the less centralized alien metabolism wasn't as susceptible to localized destruction. The creature rose to its feet, spines still fully spread.
And the brilliant flash of his antiarmor laser caught the spine leopard in the head... and this time the destruction was more than adequate.
Carefully Jonny got to his feet, wincing at the fresh bruises the battle had given him. His ankle felt warmer than it should have after only a single shot from the antiarmor laser—a heat-sensitization, he'd long suspected, due largely to his overuse of the weapon during the Tyler Mansion escape.
Even on Aventine, it seemed, he couldn't entirely escape the aftereffects of the war.
Taking one last look around him, he pulled out his phone and punched for the operator. "Ariel," the computer's voice said.
"Chin Reston," Jonny told it. A moment later the farmer's voice came on. "Reston here."
"Jonny Moreau, Chin. I got your spine leopard. I hope you didn't want it stuffed—I had to burn its head off."
"Hell with the head. Are you okay?"
Jonny smiled. "You worry too much—you know that? I'm fine; it never laid a spine on me. If you want, I'll put a beacon on it and you can come get the pelt whenever you want."
"Sounds good. Thanks a lot, Jonny—I really appreciate it."
"No charge. Talk to you later." Pressing the off switch, Jonny again punched for the operator. "Kennet MacDonald," he told the computer.
There was a moment of silence. "No answer," the operator informed him.
Jonny frowned. Like all Cobras on Aventine, MacDonald was supposed to carry his phone with him at all times. He was probably out in the forest or somewhere equally dangerous and didn't want to be distracted. "Record a message."
"Recording."
"Ken, this is Jonny Moreau. Call me as soon as you get a chance—preferably before this evening."
Switching off, Jonny returned the phone to his belt and unfastened one of the two tiny transponders from the underside of his emergency pouch. A flick of a switch set it in "operate" mode; stepping over the dead spine leopard, he dropped the device on its flank. For a moment he looked down at the creature, his eyes drawn to the foreleg spines. Aventine's biologists were unanimous in the opinion that the spines' placement and range of angles made them defensive rather than offensive weapons. The only problem was that no one had ever found any creature on the planet that a spine leopard might need such weapons to outfight. Personally, Jonny had no desire to be around when the first of that unknown species was discovered.
Reactivating his sensory enhancers, he began working his way back out of the forest.
MacDonald's call came in late in the afternoon, just as Jonny was looking over his pantry and trying to decide what to have for dinner.
"Sorry about the delay," MacDonald apologized after identifying himself. "I was out in the forest near the river most of the day with my phone turned off."
"No problem," Jonny assured him. "Spine leopard hunting?"
"Yeah. Got one, too."
"Likewise. Must be another migration; they don't usually find the territories we've cleared out quite this fast. We're probably going to be busy for a while."
"Well, things were getting dull, anyway. What's on your mind?"
Jonny hesitated. There could be a good reason why Challinor didn't want any word of his meeting going out on the airwaves. "Did you get any unusual messages today?" he asked obliquely.
"Matter of fact, I did. You want to get together and talk about it? Wait a second—Chrys's trying to get my attention." A voice spoke unintelligibly in the background. "Chrys says you should join us for dinner in about half an hour, at her place."
"Sorry, but I've already got my own started," Jonny lied. "Why don't I come over when I've finished eating?"
"Okay," MacDonald said. "About seven, say? Afterward, maybe we can all go for a drive together."
Challinor's meeting was scheduled for seven-thirty. "Sounds good," Jonny agreed. "See you at seven."
Replacing his phone, Jonny grabbed a package at random from the pantry and took it over to the microwave. He would have liked to have joined the others for dinner—MacDonald and Chrys Eldjarn were two of his favorite people—and if Chrys's father hadn't been out of town doing emergency surgery, he would have jumped at the invitation. But Chrys and MacDonald were a pretty steady couple, and they got little enough time to be alone together as it was. With only two Cobras to guard Ariel's four hundred sixty colonists from both Aventine's fauna and, occasionally, each other, spare time was at a premium.
Besides which, he thought wryly, spending more time in range of Chrys's smile would only tempt him to try and steal her away from MacDonald again, and there was no point in making trouble for himself like that. Their friendship was too valuable to him to risk messing it up.
He had a—for him—leisurely dinner and arrived at the Eldjarn's home at seven o'clock sharp. Chrys let him in, treating him to one of her dazzling smiles, and led the way to the living room, where MacDonald waited on the couch.
"You missed a great dinner," MacDonald greeted him, waving him to a chair.
"I'm sure you made up for my absence," Jonny said blandly. Half a head taller than Jonny and a good deal burlier, MacDonald had an ability to put food away that was known all through the district.
"I tried. Let's see your note."
Digging it out, Jonny handed it over. MacDonald scanned it briefly, then passed it to Chrys, who had curled up on the couch beside him. "Identical to mine," he told Jonny. "Any idea what it's all about?"