A Call to Darkness - Michael Jan Friedman [93]
Even as she pondered these things, Worf dropped out of sight over the brink of a long, stone escarpment. Pulaski was scared to death to lose him-especially now, so deep into the wilderness-but she also couldn’t go after him right away. First, she had to make sure that he was well beyond the escarpment-that he’d had enough time to descend farther, and wouldn’t hear her scrabbling around behind him.
At times like these, Pulaski wished she had the Klingon’s hunting instincts-not to mention his surefootedness. A single wrong step and she’d be one sore physician.
When she had waited as long as she possibly could, she emerged from her most recent hiding place-some rocks beside a gentle incline that twisted into the steep one-and started down. Of course, there was no way to know if her timing was true until she reached the bottom.
Staying low, using her hands as well as her feet in crablike fashion, the doctor got down the escarpment without any slips-or, for that matter, any noise that would have alerted her quarry. Her arms and legs were charley-horsed by the time she was done, and there was a sharp pain in her left knee from her unaccustomed exertion-but it could have gone a lot worse. Not for the first time that day she was grateful for her good fortune.
As she neared the edge over which Worf had disappeared, Pulaski could see the kind of terrain that prevailed below. It was a broad, meandering valley between two ridges, with a white river frothing at the center of it. One of the ridges was what she and Worf had just climbed out of. Just below her was a drop of another few meters, and then a slope as steep as the escarpment-although this one was grassy, nurtured by the flood.
It was open territory, affording few places where one could conceal oneself. The Klingon should have been plainly visible from the doctor’s vantage point.
But he wasn’t. She couldn’t find him anywhere. Pushing herself up a little off the incline, Pulaski tried to get a slightly better view.
It didn’t change anything. Somehow, Worf had eluded her.
The doctor staved off the panic she felt rising inside her. It doesn’t make sense, she told herself. He’s got to be down there. She looked about the sheer cliffs that defined the slope, seeming to stand guard over it. He couldn’t have scaled those things-nor would he have had any reason to.
There was a thin trickle of ice water down her back. Unless he suspected that he was being followed.
Pulaski scanned the cliffs again, then the slope. Could he have made it all the way down to the river? It didn’t seem possible-he hadn’t had enough time.
Still, it was the least impossible possibility. And that was the one she’d been taught to pursue back in med school.
Allowing herself to slide forward, she dangled her legs over the edge of the naked-stone slope. Then, with a gentle thrust of her arms, she slid the rest of the way over the brink.
Her landing wasn’t dignified, but it was effective. She found herself sitting at the top of the grassy incline, her rear end having taken the brunt of the impact.
That’s when she heard the crunch of gravel behind her, and whirled-just in time to see Worf come out of his crouch at the base of the escarpment. His ax was poised at shoulder height, and there was a killing lust in his eyes.
Without thinking, Pulaski launched herself forward. She tumbled end over end down the slope, certain that the Klingon would bury his axhead in her back at any moment.
When she somehow twisted sideways, and started to skid rather than somersault, she had a fraction of a second to see that Worf wasn’t on her heels after all. She’d left him well up the incline-though he had started after her.
The doctor’s body ached from her tumble, from the nightmarish rigors she’d put it through. As she tried to arrest her descent, to get her feet beneath her again, she began to think: what should I do? Where can I go that he can’t follow?
Or was it best to stop and wait for him-to try to confront him now