"I can't go back. You know that. You of all people should know that. They should make a place for us, or let us go after these Shadows and take over wherever they are and stay there and then we won't have to hurt anybody anymor..."
The Deathman choked up, and Hot Rocks looked away. He peeked around the boulders and saw the rest of the squad near the beach, backs together, watching for demons or a Shadow attack.
"You're my brother-in-law, but let's forget that," Hot Rocks said. "You're the best man I've got. These guys are alive today because of you - doesn't that count for something?"
"It don't mean shit," the Deathman said. "It means I've got more ears in my pouch than anybody else. They throw rocks and garbage at us and we hit them with lasguns and gushguns - shit, man, if they were animals we wouldn't even say it was good sportsmanship."
"I think -"
"I think you better stop thinking for me, and start thinking for yourself," the Deathman said. "I've learned how to kill here, but I haven't learned how to like it and I sure as hell haven't learned how to sleep nights. Last I heard, there were no openings for assassins in Lilliwaup."
He stood up, brushed off his fatigues and hefted his lasgun.
"Now this is how it's gonna be," he said. "I'm doing the running whether you let me take the bets or not. You gotta admit, a sizeable winnings is good incentive, and I intend to add an attractive twist."
Hot Rocks flicked his gaze around the beach, the cliff side, the tumble of boulders around them. This was hooded dasher country, and his caution was automatic. Besides, they'd burned out two boils of nerve runners here in the past week and nothing gave Hot Rocks the creeps more than nerve runners.
"Let's do it," he sighed, and they joined the rest of the squad at the tideline.
The bright afternoon suns ate away the tail of the daily squall and glistened off the wet black rocks of Dash Point. The narrow point jutted three kilometers into the ocean, and was named for its popularity as a place to run the P.
"Running the P" was a game as old as Pandoran humans. The first settlers took bets, then ran unarmed and naked around the perimeter of their settlement, hoping to beat the demons for a thrill and a few food chits. Though technically illegal, it was a game resurrected by the Vashon Security Force. In the old days, survivors of the run tattooed a single chevron over an eyebrow to mark their success. Though this tradition, too, had been resurrected, the runs were set in places like Dash Point that were famous for high demon populations. The two in twenty-eight that Hot Rocks had seen survive were exactly twice the actual average.
"Bets are always two to one," the Deathman said. "The six of you match my month's pay, then that means I get a year's pay when I get back."
"When he gets back," McLinn muttered. "Listen to him."
"Well, I want five to one," he said.
"Five to what?"
"You been hit too hard in the head."
"No way."
"Shit," McLinn said, "for five to one he just might make it. I'm out."
"Hear me out, gents," the Deathman said. "See that big rock yonder off the point? Not only will I run the P, but I'll swim out to that rock and back. For five to one."
"Stay awake, men," Hot Rocks warned, and everyone swept the area quickly. "Standing here this long we make excellent bait, remember that. OK, let's get it on. Bets or not? Run or not?"
"I'm in."
"Me, too."
"In."
"Here's mine."
Each of the men handed five of their food coupons to Hot Rocks to hold. Each coupon represented a month's rations in the civilian sector. The Deathman handed over five of his own against their twenty-five. Hot Rocks stayed out of it, and the Deathman didn't press him.
"Do me one favor," the Deathman asked.
"Name it," Hot Rocks said.
"Name that rock after me," he said. "I want something around for people to remember me by. Rocks, they're a lot more permanent than people."
"'Deathman Rock,'" McLinn chimed up. "I like the sound of it."
Hot Rocks gave McLinn one of his paralyzing stares and McLinn busied himself with sentry duty.
"If you're going to do it, do it," Hot Rocks said. "Myself, I'd just as soon shoot you here as see you go out there. Stick around much longer and I just might."
"Here's the paperwork," the Deathman said, handing Hot Rocks a small packet. "Back pay, retirement, insurance all go to my brother."
"Who gets the ears?"
"Fuck you."
The Deathman reached into the neck of his fatigues and showed Hot Rocks the necklace he'd made out of the brown little dried-out ears. Though human ears, they looked like seashells now, or twists of leather. He unfastened his fatigues and stepped out of them without a word. He handed Hot Rocks his lasgun and started running toward the point dressed only in his boots. The heavy necklace spun around his neck like a wot's game hoop as he ran.
They took turns at sentry, keeping him in sight with the glasses.
"He's almost at the point," McLinn reported. "What do you bet he leaves his boots on for the swim?''
The quiet one they all called "Rainbow" took him on for a month's worth. Everyone else was quiet, scanning the point with their high-powered glasses for signs of dashers or, worse, nerve runners. Rainbow lost. They were all surprised when he made the rock.
Nobody more surprised than the Deathman, Hot Rocks thought.
"Well, he's earned his place in history," McLinn said, and laughed.
The Deathman stood atop the offshore rock, yelling something they couldn't hear and shaking his necklace of ears at the sky like a curse.
The dasher must've been lazing in the sun on the oceanside of the rock. The impact from its leap carried the Deathman and the dasher a good ten meters into the narrow stretch of sea off the point. Some of the froth boiling up with the waves was green, so Hot Rocks knew that somehow, before he died, the Deathman had drawn dasher blood. Neither the Deathman nor the dasher ever came up.
Hot Rocks paid off the debts and pocketed the Deathman's packet of paperwork. While he packed up the fatigues, the lasgun and the rest of his brother-in-law's gear, none of his men's eyes met his own. He barked a few orders and walked flank while they finished their long sweep back to camp.
***
Reveries, mad reveries, lead life.
This was the dream Crista had endured for years, the one of her return to the arms of kelp, cradled again in a warm sea. She rubbed her eyes and images flickered across the lids like bright fishes in a lagoon: Ben, beautiful Ben beside her; Rico in a cavern beneath them. There were others, fading in and ou...
"Crista!"
Ben's voice.
"Crista, wake up. The kelp's got Rico."
She blinked, and the images didn't go away, they were just overlain with more images like a stack of wot's drawings on sheets of cellophane. Ben knelt at the center of these images, holding her shoulders tight and looking into her eyes. He looked tired, worrie... scenes from his life dripped from the aura around him and spread out on the deck beside her.
"I saw something around his waist, a tentacle," he said. "I think it pulled him into the water."
"It's all right," she whispered. "It's all right."
He held her as she got her wobbly legs under her. She breathed deep the thick scent of hylighter on the air and felt strength pulse out from the center of herself to each of her weary muscles. Everything seemed to work.