Expendable - James Alan Gardner [74]
What was his business? It was time to find out.
It was also time to get the stunner out of my pack.
Three Spears
Motioning Oar to stay put, I swam the creek with the stunner in my mouth, in case I might need it quickly. The afternoon continued quiet and undisturbed—the chirp of birds, the light hiss of breeze ruffling the prairie grass. On the far side of the water, I climbed the dirt bank: steep, but only three meters high, the damp earth providing plenty of purchase. When I was almost at the top, I dug my feet firmly into the soil and did a quick scan with the Bumbler, X-raying through the last few centimeters of bank to make sure Skin-Face wasn’t lurking above. The screen was clear except for pebbles and roots; so with straining caution, I lifted my head over the edge for a look.
No Skin-Face close at hand; but a kilometer downstream, three humanoid figures tracked along the bank, walking away from me. The Bumbler gave me a telescopic view of the trio: three males, all carrying spears and shoulder bags, all wearing strips of skin on their faces. They had skin on their genitals too, carefully wrapped around penis and testicles. One also had a patch of skin on his chest—I could see it through his transparent back.
Perhaps that was the chieftain: the man who could commandeer the largest share of a kill.
Still hoping I was wrong, I magnified the view a few notches higher. Maybe the skin strips were some kind of harmless ornamentation….
No. In extreme close-up, there was no mistake. It was brown human skin, complete with wisps of hair, fastened to the underlying glass flesh.
One man lifted his hand and pointed at the creek ahead of them. The chieftain nodded, and all three started down the bank toward the water. My guess was they had reached a point shallow enough to ford; they were obviously reluctant to cross where the creek was over their heads. That gave me useful intelligence about the enemy…and already I was thinking of them as enemies, although they had showed no sign of hostility toward me or anyone else.
Explorers habitually regard strangers as threats. Shaking hands is for diplomats.
Simple Prairie Hunters
The men appeared on the far side of the creek a short time later and continued north. On their present path, they would run into the buffalo herd we had seen that morning…and that might be their goal. They might be simple prairie hunters, searching for food to feed their families.
Simple prairie hunters who carried radios.
I shook my head to clear it. Explanations would come eventually…or else they wouldn’t. Unsolved puzzles were a permanent frustration of the job.
At last the spearmen disappeared behind a copse of trees and I waved for Oar to join me. She crossed the creek with the scuba breather in her mouth, even though it couldn’t have much air left in it. I didn’t say anything—if she was happier to get air from a machine rather than holding her breath for the few seconds the water was over her head, so be it. The little tank was self-charging, given enough solar energy and access to air; in twenty-four hours it would be usable again.
From the top of the bank, I led us straight to the nearest clump of trees, to make sure we were shielded from the spearmen’s eyes—even though they were more than a klick away, the prairie allowed for long sight-lines. The men had come from this direction; we found their footprints in the dirt when we stopped to collect ourselves.
One good thing about people as dense as glass: they leave deep, clear footprints.
“Who were those people?” Oar blurted when we were safely under the trees.
“I was going to ask you the same question,” I answered. “You don’t know who lives in this area?”
“No. I thought…” She stopped herself. “I thought something very foolish.”
Her face was troubled; I suspected I knew why. Oar might have believed she and her ancestors were the only people in the world. She had seen the transmission from Chee and Seele talking about another city to the south, but she had dismissed that as