He squatted and searched the ground. It had become gravelly, digesting the ruts. Rising again, he shrugged and continued on. No reason to assume a sudden change of direction. Continue in a straight line for now.
He reinspected the trail periodically, but it retained a coarse, stony texture. I’ll have to search it out in the morning, he decided.
Trudging ahead, he noted a faint flickering off to his left, just becoming apparent about the edge of a cluster of stones. Moving farther, more of the light reached him, finally revealing itself as a small campfire. Only one figure was outlined in its vicinity, a being with a strangely pointed head. It was kneeling, its attention apparently focused on the flames.
Pete slowed, studying the tableau. Moments later, the breeze brought him a tangy odor and his mouth grew moist. It had been a long while since last he had eaten.
He stood but a moment longer,, then turned and made his way toward the fire, moving slowly, cautiously. As he drew nearer, he caught a glint of the light on a metal headpiece. It was a spiked helmet, of a sort he was not likely to forget too readily. Then he glimpsed the features below it. Yes, no mistake there.
He moved ahead quickly then.
“Hunter!” he said. “You are the same man. Aren’t you? Back at the Great C’s—”
The man laughed, three deep-chested explosions that shook the flames he tended.
“Yes, yes! Come and sit down! I hate to eat alone.”
Pete dropped his pack and hunkered beside it, across the fire from the man.
“I’d’ve sworn you were dead,” he said. “All that blood. You were limp. I thought it had killed you. Then when it dragged you inside… I was sure you were gone.”
The man nodded, turning the little spits of bone on which chunks of meat were skewered.
“I can see how you might have been misled,” he said. “Here!”
The man drew a kabob from the fire and passed it to him. Pete licked his fingers for insulation and accepted it. The meat was good, juicy. Pete debated asking what it was, and decided against it. A hunter can always find something edible. Best to leave it at that.
The man ate with an unnatural precision, and Pete could see the reason as he studied his face: his lower lip had been badly cut, split deeply.
“Yes,” the man muttered, “the blood could have been deceiving—part from my mouth and part from a recent head wound that reopened. That’s why I was wearing the armor.” He tapped the headpiece. “Good thing, too. Kept it from pulping my skull.”
“But how,” Pete said, “did you get away from it?”
“Oh. No real problem,” he replied. “I came out of it just as it dragged me inside. I’d already loosened the cranial bolt to the springing point. One twist was what I said and one twist was what it took. With my fingers. Presto!” He snapped his fingers. He popped another piece of meat into his mouth. “Then it was down and I was up and that was it. Pity. But then, I’d given it every break. You know that, don’t you?”
“You were most fair with it,” Pete said, finishing his kabob and eyeing the others that still sizzled.
The man passed him another.
And his hands are still steady, Pete thought, accepting the meat. All in a day’s work. Competency, expertise—nerves like fine-spun filaments of platinum, joints like neatly mashed gears and stainless-steel ball bearings. Skill, guts—that’s what it takes to be a hunter. But he’s got heart, too. Compassion. How many of us would be that concerned over something that wanted to devour us?
“After I left that place,” the hunter said, “I continued on my way, pleased to see that you had had the good sense to clear out.”
Oh my god! Pete thought. I hope he was really unconscious, not just saying that. What if he heard me asking the C to take him instead of me? But then, I really thought he was dead. I just told him so. So even if he did hear me say it, he’d know that—that was why. But I could have told him that now, just to look good, even though it wasn’t what I had in mind when I said it. On the other hand, if he heard it he must be a big enough man to have forgiven me—in which case he is pretending he didn’t hear it—which means that I will never know. Oh my god! And here I am eating his kabobs.
“What became of your bike?” the hunter asked him.
“The autofac turned it into pogo sticks,” Pete said.
The hunter smiled.
“Not surprising,” he said. “Once their naderers go, they do the damnedest things. But you were carrying something you didn’t have before. Did it actually fill an order properly before it ruined your bike?”
“Someone else’s order,” Pete said. “Its delivery sequence is off, too.”
“What are you going to do with all that lube?”
“I am taking it to a man who probably needs it,” Pete said, recalling the C’s statement that the hunter was after Tibor. Easily a piece of misinformation. Still…
He stuffed his mouth to avoid answering anything further without at least a ten-second pause for thought.
Why would he be looking for Tibor, though? he wondered. What could he want of him? What would make Tibor worth hunting? To anyone else, that is… ?
When they finished eating, Pete knew that he should offer the man one of his remaining cigarettes. He did so, and he took one for himself. They lit them with a brand from the fire and sprawled then near the boulders, resting, smoking.
“I don’t know,” Pete said, “about the propriety of the question. So please excuse me if I am being impolite. I don’t meet so many hunters that I am up on the etiquette. I was just wondering: Are you hunting anything or anyone in particular just now, or are you—between hunts?”
“Oh, I’m on a hunt all right,” the man said. “I’m looking for a little phocomelus named Tibor McMasters. I think the trail is fairly warm now, too.”
“Oh, really?” said Pete, drawing on his cigarette, one hand beneath his head, his eyes on the stars. “What did he do?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing yet. He is not especially important. Just part of a bigger design.”
“Oh.” Now what do I say? he wondered. Then, “By the way, my name is Pete. Pete Sands.”
“I know.”
“I forgot to introduce myself earlier, and—You know? How could you?”
“Because I know of everyone in Charlottesville, Utah—everyone with any connection with Tibor McMasters, that is. It’s a small town. There aren’t that many of you.”
“Efficient,” Pete said, feeling as if barbs inserted painlessly into his flesh were now being drawn. “Your employer must have gone to a lot of trouble and expense. It would have been easier to approach the man back in town.”
“But fruitless, there,” the other replied. “And the difficulty and the cost mean nothing to my employer.”
Pete waited, smoking. He felt positive that it would be a breach of etiquette to inquire as to his employer’s identity. Perhaps if I just wait he will volunteer it, he decided.
The fire crackled. In the distance, something howled and something else chuckled.