He moved out and back to the east, fast but cautiously. Fortunately there was that range of hills between them and the Blob base; with any luck there wouldn’t be any Blob presence over here. He angled carefully upslope, keeping low and keeping trees between him and the open grave of his former buddies. It would be interesting, he thought, to see how the local life disposed of the corpses. Would they do as Earth carrion and eat the eyes first? Strip the bodies, even inside their suits, to bare bones? Or would something jackallike chew the bones at once? What of the gear? Buried, dragged away as trophies or curiosities as rats would do, or left to form new “artifacts” for some other race to find a thousand years hence?
It wasn’t an interesting enough question to risk a billion dollar box over, though. But it could amuse his idle moments in the coming years. Maybe he’d commission a picture. Or hell, on Kali he could pay to have it reenacted with prisoners and watch how they decayed. Import a truck full of bugs and mix up some drinks.
He reached a slight knob about two hundred meters away that offered good visibility. The sun was just rising past it, burning off the haze that had coalesced only a few minutes before, and adding another element of excitement to this contest. The Elf would have an easier time detecting movement in daylight. So would Ferret, though he wasn’t much of a threat. So would Dagger. But it negated some of his instruments, like the heat sensors. That pumpkin-orange ball would soon be a sun near as bright as Earth’s, and was, by the time he’d shimmied around the clearing to the high point. It rose quickly with this short day.
He settled under a mass of leaves, his chameleon gear blending in nicely. Using his scope, he scanned the area again but there wasn’t any sign of the Elf. Good. Well, bad, but he’d deal with that at once. There wasn’t any sign of Ferret. The little twerp really was a good sneak. Not good either. Though he might be dead in the weeds. It wasn’t important, but it would be nice to know.
Obviously Tirdal had gone the other way. So, it was time to head back down, and look for the signs of his passing. That would be like tracking a rhino through a ceramics exhibition. The Elf really had no clue in the woods. He was certainly quiet, but without Ferret to follow, he would leave plenty of sign.
As to Ferret, if he hadn’t popped up yet, either he was injured, or he’d decently crawled off to die. No worries.
Tirdal should have been able to break contact easily. What he had not anticipated was the amount of damage to his chest plate. His suit was broached, and blood leaked from the small hole.
The Darhel chest plate was not just ersatz ribs. It had evolved as both a protection for the heart, lungs and a nerve node that the Darhel had in the same general area as humans, and as a functional diaphragm. Tirdal started off at a good pace, but after a couple of kilometers the tingling pain in his chest exploded into searing agony. He did a quick medical scan and it confirmed his worst fears. What he had hoped was just a hairline fracture in fact was a crack almost across the plate. Using it to suck in and out, especially at high rates of speed, was impossible. He’d be lucky if he could move as fast as the sniper, much less outrun him. Holding the box awkwardly across his shoulder pulled the plate up and sideways, making it hurt worse with every step. He swapped sides, shifting the punch gun to his left and the artifact to the right. That was a bit better. He vaguely recalled that humans were typically oriented to use one side only, usually the right. He’d keep that in mind.
It was then that Tirdal realized that the sniper must kill him. Even if Dagger decided to cut his losses — though the only one so far had been Tirdal’s acquisition of the box — and leave, the pod wouldn’t take off without Tirdal. Unless Tirdal was dead. Nor could Tirdal approach the extraction point until Dagger was dead, because that was the point of failure — they both had to go there, and neither could leave the other alive.
That was for later, though. For the present, he had broken contact, he had defined the parameters of the immediate mission, and now he had to secure the tactical advantage and locate his target. All the text from training came back to him, and he realized how thoroughly humans avoided discussing actualities while burying them in platitudes. He knew exactly what he had to do. He had no idea how he was to proceed. It was probably one of those “you’ll be taught this at your destination unit” bits, like so many others. How odd that humans required all this ritual and what they considered privation to look within and determine if one had the mettle for the job. A Darhel simply meditated, considered the question, and decided if it was something he could grasp. Then the training would begin. The human “training,” however, was nothing but that focusing of thought, that grounding of self, with the essential details left out. Tirdal felt horribly cheated.
Lacking the proper training, the problems then must be resolved through reason. Dagger would seek high ground, attempt to determine where Tirdal was, then pursue to a range that would allow him a shot and no closer. The obvious signs of cowardice Tirdal had seen precluded him from engaging at close range. Therefore, Tirdal needed to find a new area. It should be one not conducive to long-range shooting.
He looked at the river through the trees and debated. Darhel were dense; they had more bone ratio than humans and their muscles were significantly denser than those of most humans. They had very little fat ratio. So they tended to sink like stones. He had learned to use underwater breathing gear and could construct an adequate float. Water was familiar to him. But floating down the river, while it might permit him to throw the sniper off the trail, would be a good form of suicide. If Dagger did follow the river, he’d have the high ground for a shot and the best cover. If he didn’t follow, it was a draw. Draw meant death, because the pod would leave them there.
The only answer, no matter how poor, was to stay in the woods. How long would Dagger wait? Would he wait most of the day to determine if the Darhel would come back? Or had he already raided the camp and started on the trail?
Tirdal thought about the mind that had been revealed in that one moment of assault. It was… slimy. Conceited and emotionless, unless the hint of cruel pleasure in the taking of life was an emotion. It was not like the Blobs, who were very clearly vicious in thought process. Not like most humans, who were quite happy to avoid confrontation most of the time. Similar, really, to some of the baser Darhel he had been exposed to. He understood them, even if it was only intellectually. Dagger’s motives and cause were clearly different, but the results were similar.
Such a mind as Dagger’s would accept the normal belief of Darhel as cowardly traitors. When the Darhel did not immediately appear he would follow. In fact, he was probably trailing Tirdal at this moment.
He started walking as he thought. There was every reason to put some distance between himself and the sniper. He focused his thoughts on the pain, letting insira training grapple the pain until it existed only at a second level below consciousness. With his submind keeping track of the injury, he was able to devote all his concentration to the matter at hand. He moved at a safe walk, twisting and slipping through the branches and over the roots. After a few trudging steps, he adjusted his posture to deal with the pain signals from his submind and slowed slightly. That position reduced the agony to a sharp bite, but it would exacerbate things when the soft tissue tightened up. The box atop his shoulders didn’t help.