It had to be a side effect of fatigue and stims, he thought. He couldn’t be afraid. There was nothing here to worry about.
As he thought that, batlike wings fluttered past his face.
He screamed.
Tirdal didn’t hear the scream, but the sensors on his suit did and reported the anomaly as a possibly wounded “teammate.” He grinned at the confirmation of his deduction. So Dagger was afraid at night. It was unfortunate he couldn’t take the opportunity to just kill him, but the recent kill of the predator made him realize that killing a sentient would toss him into the abyss of lintatai. It was still necessary to be patient and seek the right circumstances for an encounter.
In the meantime, however, there was no reason not to stick a few pins in his opponent. “Oh, Dagger,” he said into the communicator, “how are you doing?”
“F-fine, you little freak,” was the reply.
“Interesting, Dagger, you sound relieved to hear my voice,” he said, goading.
“Well, I’d rather hear your screams, of course,” Dagger said, sounding as if he were trying to be brave. “And as long as you’re on air, there’s a chance of that.”
“I see,” Tirdal said. “It couldn’t be that you’re afraid of the dark?”
Dagger laughed and it sounded forced. “What would make you think that?”
Tirdal scanned back on his sensor log and played the amplified sound in question, with the bellowing noises of nearer animals cacophonous over it. “That’s not your scream of panic, Dagger? Or was it a stubbed toe?”
“You filthy little motherf—” Dagger spewed a stream of profanity for over a minute.
When he slowed for breath, Tirdal said, “Dagger, that was neither creative nor clever, though I’m sure it was heartfelt. Also, most of those suggestions are impossible for humans, much less Darhel. They do tell me much about your personal tastes though. But since you have nothing to say that’s productive, we should end this conversation. Unless you’d like my company in the dark?”
The profanity resumed, louder and even more hysterical. It appeared that Dagger very much wanted company in the dark, but would never say so.
“Very well, Dagger,” Tirdal said after he wound down once again. “I’m closing this channel. And perhaps I should come and put you out of your misery now. Look for me in the shadows,” he added in a lugubrious voice picked from a human “vampire” movie. He wouldn’t attack, of course. But if Dagger thought so, it would be… amusing.
Tirdal brought his attention back to putting distance between them. Perhaps Dagger would curl up in a faint until daylight. Though despite his phobias and moral cowardice, the man was, in fact, brave in many ways, “bravery” being defined as continuing despite one’s fears. If only he’d understood that, he would have turned out a much better human being. Instead, he had apparently spent his life trying to compensate. Such a waste of potential.
There was movement ahead, and he froze. He eased down into a squat and slipped over behind a tangle of bush. He hefted the punch gun, hoping he wouldn’t have to use it. He summoned Jem, ready to lock the tal down if a kill were necessary. Cautiously, he let his Sense feel ahead.
His vision had a slightly greater frequency range than that of humans, so he didn’t really need his night vision gear most of the time. He brought it up now, because whatever was there was just beyond the range of acuity. A glance let him relax. Browsers. The disturbance ahead was large herbivores in a clearing chittering faintly as they snipped off the local woody grass that was not unlike bamboo or felda. Still, he should avoid them.
Or should he? The herd was large and a detour might bring him to predators stalking them. They hadn’t shown any real interest in the team as they’d crossed the veldt, he remembered from the insertion four days ago. Was it only four days? So he might as well go through, cautiously, and trust their noise and form to give Dagger even more fits.
Drawing his Sense in to only a few tens of meters, he stood and walked slowly, weapon raised so as to create a distraction if need be, and approached the creatures.
The crashing, crunching sounds of stalks being pruned and chewed were rather impressive, he thought. These creatures were easily the size of large horses or even buffalo on Earth. No animal from growth-poor Darhel could compare. They towered over him, noting his passage with brief waves and twitches of antennae, but took no further notice. He was not food, nor predator, and so didn’t enter into their world. He kept his distance just the same, lest he spook them. They actually had improved his progress by shearing the ground smooth in this area, and he was through rather quickly.
He reentered the woods proper and it became thick, dark and oppressive once again. Humidity was greater, condensing into a fog in the dropping temperatures, and seemed to close in around him. His pace slowed and he had to meander and detour often. The terrain had changed, and this appeared to be what he’d heard called “second growth.” It was tangled and dense, with quick-growing soft trees, weeds and vines knotted through them and wrapping around the taller trees dispersed through the mess. He thought about hacking his way, discarded the idea because of the obvious signs it would leave, and settled for crawling under and through, pacing around and occasionally scrambling over. There were thorny plants here, too, and some took vengeance for his intrusion in the form of cuts and scratches. He sighed. Those would be beacons to Ferret’s sensors, but the alternative was to take a long detour. Ferret needn’t worry about leaving traces, Dagger and Tirdal must. It was still a stalemate that had to be broken.
Taking a device from his gear, he planted it at the base of a fern analog. It might not be needed, but he wasn’t going to use it anywhere else, and if all else failed it was a little mass removed from his gear. He’d been lucky to have it, but now it was time to get rid of it. He programmed the mechanism, hoisted the box back to his shoulder and kept walking.
He was only about a kilometer past the herd, he estimated, when Dagger screamed again. This time, he could hear it over the background white noise of the forest.
“Ah, Dagger, I see you’ve found the herd,” he said.
Ferret heard the screams, too. At first, he’d thought perhaps Tirdal had scored. There had been no weapons fire, though. So, yes, Dagger was a city boy who couldn’t handle the deep dark. And he was following Tirdal again. Excellent. He wouldn’t say anything yet, but he’d save it for the right moment. He’d also have to keep a good eye out for whatever critter had scared Dagger.
That also told him that Dagger was using a tracer. He’d gone off the track, and been able to spot Tirdal well enough to shoot at him, assuming that had been what he did in the meadow. He’d climbed a tree to shoot, so assume Tirdal had been the target. Had he climbed a tree? Ferret hadn’t seen it, but deduced it. He could be wrong. Fatigue was screwing with his mind. But hell, he had to have some basis for his conclusions, so yes, Dagger had climbed a tree to shoot and missed. Hornet rounds at a target out of direct sight?
But he had peeled off and then come back to resume the stalk. So there was a tracer and it had to be on the box. Likely Shiva or Bell Toll had put it on there as a paranoid measure. More likely Bell Toll. So if Ferret bagged Tirdal, he could use the box as bait. If he nailed Dagger, he could track the Darhel, and use a weapon with greater range to get Tirdal. All useful.