“In the name of who?” asked Walter.
“It doesn’t make sense to me,” said Tapper. “A deity?”
“What exactly did the wizard say?” asked Val irritated.
“The exact words are not recorded,” explained Tapper. “I am working with the Harvester’s own memory symbols. The symbol in the blank does not translate.”
“Oh fine!” growled Val. “We had a killer meck on our hands and now we don’t know in whose name it was killing.”
“Tinker?” suggested Walter. “He was handy with meck brains, and he didn’t care for us tracking him and his family. Maybe he booby-trapped the meck to slow us down—like the three old corpses left on his trail. Slow down our search for him.”
Val thought for a minute. “That would be a good idea, except for one little detail.”
“What?”
“That meck was out there sending tightbeams before Tinker even left HC. I took him on the shakedown cruise—remember?”
Walter frowned. “What else do you have, Tapper?”
The little barrel-shaped meck waddled around to face Walter.
“Nothing, sir. That’s all I had time for. The countdown began right afterwards—”
Dead end. Val shrugged: “Well, whoever is responsible for that renegade meck has very little to show for it—just a crater at the base of Mount Tabulum.”
Dag Foringer put down his bow and pulled off his gloves. The powerful overhead lights had pinked up his forehead. He would have liked to have another couple days on the archery corridor to sharpen his aim—but tomorrow was his Hunt.
Later, partially snow-blind, he squinted around in the office of HC.
“Practicing without your helmet again, Dag?” scolded Val.
“Sorry, sir—but it was more comfortable.”
“Try that on the Outside and you’ll be dead. The actinics will peel you. OK. Bird Dog IV will be your ship. This time tomorrow you’ll be shooting at something a lot more dangerous than padded targets. Is your titrator working?”
Dag touched the thumb-sized pump stitched into the side of his neck. “Yes, sir.”
“Fine,” said Val. “I see here that the psych team gave you a high rating. Your hypnoconditioning went smoothly then?”
Dag nodded. “I’ll be going after varmints in the gardens—simple as that. With the suit and the drugs there should be no trouble. I’m really looking forward to it.”
Val smiled. Dag was in for a category nine—tactless achievement. That category was always easy to work with—lots of enthusiasm.
“Sit down, Dag. Walter and I would like to show you some training tapes.”
The wall map flickered off and a larger view of sector Jay took its place. Lines and dots marked buckeye sightings.
“The area of your Hunt is being harvested today. Two hundred miles long and about five miles wide. Elevation fifteen hundred feet average. Buckeye sightings—eight last week. None since.” The screen flicked off and action shots of a Huntercraft appeared. The craft lifted off in a cloud of dust and leaves. “Here is your craft—Bird Dog IV—weak eyes, but a loyal ship—good tracker. Reliable. Sit tight after your MR and he’ll be back to pick you up.”
Val paused to clear his throat.
Walter took up the monologue. They followed a successful hunter through his three days of tracking and the kill.
“Notice how the prey can turn on you when it is wounded. See the vicious struggle it puts up even after it has been mortally wounded. Never relax with these fellows. Now there’s some shots of the trophy.”
The screen jumped from action back to stills.
“These are some of the artifacts that we’ve found in buckeye camps. The bones are both cetacean and human. Those buckeyes will eat any kind of meat—even you, if you’re not careful. These objects are weapons—heavy and light spears, wooden knives, stone-tipped axes. If they don’t contain metals we can’t detect them.”
Dag continued to watch—molecular confidence flowing through his veins.
“These are shots of their efforts with pottery and weaving—very basic skills—primitive. Living alone the way they do forces each buckeye to evolve his own culture. Even their language has no consistent pattern.”
The tapes came to an end.
“Questions?” asked Val.
“No.”
“Well get yourself down to the garage and meet Bird Dog IV.” said Walter. “You’ll be captain of this Hunt.” Dag stood up and started to leave. “By the way,” asked Walter, “what earned you this Hunt?”
Dag Foringer smiled confidently. “Fluidized a tubeway and diverted it into the protein synthesizers. Saved thousands of manhours. The Orange fault moved twenty-three feet and cut into one of the branch lines of the SW tubeway. Lost over a million citizens. I was directing traffic that shift. There could have been a major loss in downtime. But I just waited until the life-support projections moved out three decimal places and fluidized. The projections are accurate estimations of how many can be saved—so with that confidence I didn’t have to wait until each and every citizen had breathed his last. Since there was no way to get them out alive I just converted them to meat patties right away. Saved everyone a lot of time.”
“Very efficient,” nodded Val. “You deserve more than a Hunt.”
Dag smiled: “Won a three-Au-gram raise too. It seemed so logical, I’m surprised no one thought of it before.”
“Oh, it’s been thought of before, I’m sure,” said Val. “Anyone who has wasted an entire shift sorting through a thousand dead bodies for one that is still alive must have thought of it.”
“But it takes efficiency and imagination to do it,” said old Walter. “Your shunting to the synthesizers instead of the digesters saved a lot of calories too—shortened the food chain.”
“It was good protein,” said Dag.
“I’m sure.”
That night Toothpick warned Moon and Moses to sleep in a tree. They hurried several miles to a sweet-thing orchard. A sea of white Agrifoam covered the ground to a depth of several feet—foam that carried nutrients and auxins to push the crop to early maturation. This particular night’s foam was of interest because of its added dose of insect hormones. Designed to trigger premature metamorphosis in insects, Toothpick preferred not to see his human charges exposed to it. Prolonged exposure might upset their own endocrine balance. The molecules were similar enough.
Dawn found them breakfasting on sweet-things—orange, fist-sized fruits.
“Hunters!” warned Toothpick.
They dropped from the tree and crawled into a drainage ditch. Dan mimicked the belly-crawl and joined them. Moon rolled over on his back and held Toothpick up as high as he could.
“Stay below the soil profile until we are sure where they are,” warned old Moon.
Moses froze nervously. He heard rustling further down the ditch. Something was moving his way.
Toothpick scanned.
“There it is—a Huntercraft. Must be a Hunt, the way they’re circling that hilltop—about three miles away.”
Moses remained immobile. The rustling came closer. Something touched his leg. He glanced up and saw a pair of eyes looking back—coweye’s eyes.
“They’ve flushed something,” announced Toothpick. “The craft set down on the hilltop for a second, and now it is moving away at a higher altitude. They probably put down one of the hunters.”
When the craft disappeared over a distant ridge, Moon and Dan crept up to the edge of their ditch to watch.
“Quiet back there,” Moon whispered.
“Sorry,” mumbled Moses under his breath.
Several minutes passed.
“There he goes,” said Moon, pointing down the valley. A naked figure running easily moved into the open and swerved toward the ditch.