A World for the Taking Ch. 07

"You do not wish to continue the pursuit?" Vemmo asked, surprised.

"I'm done in," Roy said. "Gamble is stumbling. It'll be dark by the time we get above the burn. Evening is already coming on, too. When the moons rise we'll have enough light to start again."

It took them another half hour to get to the place where Tammy and F`reet `du Hom had met Jean and Yoshi after the firefight in the burned field. The suns were sinking behind the western rim of the valley but there was still enough light for Roy to see the ground in some detail. There were strange, pear-shaped boot tracks all around and Roy examined them carefully.

"These are fresher than the steelie tracks," he said, using his flashlight to point them out.

"Can you be sure?" asked Vemmo, looking over his shoulder.

"See how this one is pressed into the steelie print?" said Roy, indicating where one of the boot tracks had squashed down the soil across a print of a steelie toe. "This almost has to be one of Boudi's tracks. She's the biggest in that group. Almost as big as Gamble. Looks like there were only two of them. This couldn't be one of the patrols."

"From the flyer, you think?" Vemmo asked.

"Could be." Roy considered the idea for a minute and nodded. "Yeah. Probably flew to the edge of the trees and hopped out long enough to investigate. Has that flyer got a full sensor rig?"

"Not a military grade rig," Vemmo said. "It is intended for search and rescue. We upgraded it last summer."

"Just a full spectrum sensor, then," the teen sighed and sank to the ground wearily. "Is it sensitive enough to detect weapons?"

"It might be, but someone would need to recalibrate it," said Vemmo, sinking down beside Roy. "The basic unit is designed to be easy to operate. Really, all you have to do is turn it on. It is preset to distinguish Human and Vespan signatures from those of animals at an altitude of seventy-five meters or higher. Someone familiar with the system would be required to make the fine calibrations necessary to do the specific adjustments to detect weapons or power cells."

"Good." Roy sighed and began to rise, but his legs betrayed him and he slumped back to the ground.

"Is it safe to rest?" Vemmo asked. He sounded concerned.

"Gamble's had it. So have I," Roy said and forced himself to his feet. "We can stay here for a bit. There's good cover and I doubt the Dusig will be looking for anyone here since they already checked it out."

"Then you and Gamble must sleep," Vemmo said solemnly. "And I will watch over you."

Roy took his pistol from his belt and held it out to Vemmo.

"Do you know how to handle one of these?" he asked.

"Yes," Vemmo confirmed, accepting the weapon a little awkwardly. "You Humans have such large hands. So many fingers."

It was a common complaint among Vespans who had only three fingers and a thumb on either hand. Roy gave him a weary, though, genuine smile.

"I don't have anything else, unless you want the rifle."

"That would kill me just from the recoil," chuckled Vemmo, though it was not true. He grinned impishly at Roy and shook his head. "I will make do with this. Sleep now. I think I will get among those rocks. If something happens, I will wake you."

Roy took a minute to remove the saddle from Gamble and then flopped down in a patch of thick grass with his rifle beside him. He was asleep in moments.

*****

"Roy, you must wake up!"

Roy grunted and was sitting upright before he even realized Vemmo was shaking him.

"What's up?" he asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"I heard the flyer pass near," said Vemmo. "I went to look. It was hovering low near the next spur of the hill. I saw a few of the Dusig moving among the trees there."

"Okay. Okay. I'm awake." Roy hacked and spat phlegm into a bush, then wiped a hand across his mouth. His tongue felt like someone had coated it with tar and tasted worse. He could not recall the last time he had brushed his teeth. He shook his head. That was not important. He blinked around him and up at the branches above. "It's still dark. How'd you see them?"

"I used your binoculars. There are many trees, but if I set them for thermal vision only I can see shapes fairly well," explained the Vespan.

"Right. What was I thinking?" Roy shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. "Let's take a look."

Vemmo took the teen by the hand and led him through the darkened wood to a large boulder that sat like some ancient toad shrouded by bracken and wild rose. Roy ignored the tiny rose thorns as he climbed up it, though Vemmo cursed them. The top of the stone was relatively flat and wide enough for the pair to lay side by side. Vemmo looked through the binoculars first in order to find the spot he had seen earlier.

"There!" he said and thrust the binoculars into Roy's hands.

Though Roy could hardly see him, Vemmo pointed through the intervening trees at a saddle in the distant hill spur. Roy zoomed in on the spot. There was no sign of the flyer and he could not hear it, but he did see a handful of figures disappearing through the saddle to the other side of the slope.

"I see them," said Roy. "Saw them. Gone now."

"What do we do?" Vemmo asked apprehensively.

"Follow them," Roy replied firmly. He thought it odd to be the leader in this situation. Vemmo was considerably older than he was and should be in charge, but Roy knew more of the wild and the petite alien seemed willing to follow his lead. "They're on Tammy's track and we can't let them catch up to her."

"We cannot fight that many, Roy."

"We can't let them catch the others, either, Mr. Vemmo." Roy slung the binoculars around his neck and climbed down from the boulder. Vemmo followed. "I won't make you fight if you don't want to, Mr. Vemmo. I can leave you here. There's water, at least, and I can leave half my food and my pistol. Wouldn't be much good against something like a bear, but you could defend yourself from pumas or wolves."

"No," Vemmo said. "I will stay with you. I do not know how much use I can be, but staying here is out of the question."

Soon they had Gamble up and saddled. By the time they were ready, both moons were above the eastern hills. Fortunately they were waxing and spreading a good deal of their silver-blue light. Roy stayed alert for any sound of the flyer. Only a distant whine could be heard and he felt sure it was coming from the far side of the rise.

"I think they must be flying N.O.E.," he said absently.

"What does that mean?" Vemmo wanted to know.

"Nap-of-the-earth," said Roy "Means they are flying at treetop level. Following the terrain contours. Ground support fighters do that to keep out of the line of sight of enemy weapons."

"You think they are worried about us shooting them down?" Vemmo asked.

"Maybe." Roy shrugged. "After what Tammy and them did to the lifter, the Dusig might not want to take any more chances. It's not like that flyer is some kind of war machine. It isn't even as tough as the lifter. One rifle bullet into its grav plate would probably take it down."

Roy was willing to take a few more chances now that he knew the flyer was not over them. Even so, it was getting on to midnight by the time they made it to the saddle. Roy dropped to the ground heavily and stretched his thighs and flexed his knees. There was a dampness under the bandages, but it did not feel as if his wounds had opened so he said nothing.

"You go ahead and ride, Mr. Vemmo," Roy said, slipping on his NVGs. "I'm going to stay on foot."

"If your steelie is tired, perhaps we should both be afoot," Vemmo said, adjusting the hood of the poncho Roy had given him against the bite of the chill spring night. The garment was comically huge on the diminutive Vespan, but it was all Roy had.

"It isn't that," Roy said. "You weigh half what I do. Gamble can carry you easy. I need to look for tracks and I can do that better down here."

"We know where your friends are going," Vemmo pointed out. "Why not make for the tower?"

"Because the Dusig are on their trail," Roy said. "Come on."

As it turned out, Roy was right. They did pick up the trail. When he saw it, though, he felt a lump of ice form in his belly.

"What is wrong?" Vemmo asked, seeing the teen stiffen.

"There are a lot more than I expected," said Roy, still looking at the tracks.

"More Dusig?"

"Yeah," Roy confirmed. "Keep Gamble here. I'll be back in a minute."

Roy made his way northward back across the belly of the saddle. The further he went, the more he felt sure a second group of soldiers had joined the first. It was not until he found a split in the trail he understood two groups had passed the same way. He rushed back to Vemmo.

"I was right," he panted, taking up Gamble's lead strap. "Looks like the first group has about ten or so. I figure they're from the lifter. Second group has maybe eight. Those are probably the ones I ambushed."

"That is a lot of soldiers for us to contend with," Vemmo observed in a worried tone.

"At least we aren't stuck between them," Roy said. He led the way down the slope. "I just hope they don't join up."

"Would that not be a good thing?" Vemmo asked. "A single group would be easier to keep track of."

"It would be, but it would also mean they have more guns." Roy shook his head, trying to make sense of his situation. "The first ones we fought, the ones at the crash site, were disorganized and stupid. We took them out pretty easy and got away without anyone really getting hurt. I mean, Tammy lost a chunk from her ear, but nobody was seriously wounded. Taking on eighteen of the bastards when they are alert and expecting trouble is going to be a lot different."

On through the night shrouded forest the pair journeyed. Roy kept them on course with the aid of his NVGs. Starlight and moonshine cast weird shadows among the trees, but he was used to such things and his goggles penetrated the darkness to reveal no threats. It was several hours before he noticed a dull glimmer in some of the tracks before them. The boot prints were ever the slightest bit warmer than the surrounding ground. Roy picked up the pace and soon a flicker appeared far ahead. Roy motioned for Vemmo to join him on foot and the pair left Gamble standing beside the trail where there were young shoots for him to crop while they went ahead to scout.

"You notice anything weird about that?" whispered Roy, pointing down the trail.

"No," Vemmo replied, peering through the binoculars again. "Except for the one at the fire they seem to be asleep. There are eight of them, as you said there would be."

The pair had stopped when they spotted the campfire through the trees. They were roughly three hundred meters out and Roy had a bad feeling.

"That first group had a fire and we wiped them out," he said. "These guys, if they're the ones I ambushed, know about that. When I ambushed them, they reacted quick and almost got me. Tells me whoever is in charge down there knows a thing or two. And where is the flyer? I haven't heard it in a couple of hours."

"Most probably, it has landed," Vemmo said, lowering the lenses from his eyes. He cocked his head as if made warry by the caution in the teen's voice. "The flyer is not large. It would need only a small clearing. Or it might be landed in a streambed. Anywhere there is enough room and firm ground would do."

"That's not my point," said Roy. "Why did they stop the search?"

"Do you believe they know we are hunting them?"

"Could be." Roy wiped a dirty hand over his dirty face. "Could be they want to lure us into a trap."

"We cannot know," said Vemmo. "Do we go around them?"

Roy squatted down and peered through the night at the distant fire. His NVGs improved his vision so that he could see the enemy camp as well as if it were full daylight.

"You play chess, don't you, Mr. Vemmo?" he asked after a while.

"Avidly," the Vespan confirmed. "It is one of the greatest contributions you Humans have brought to the Universe."

"I play poker," said Roy. "And I think we have... I don't know. A combination of the two games, maybe."

"I do not understand, Roy."

"Look at that and tell me it isn't a trap," the teen said. "It's bait."

Vemmo crouched down next to Roy and considered the camp through the binoculars again. After a brief study he lowered them and nodded.

"They have exposed a piece with the intention of playing some gambit or other," he said slowly. "I think I see what you mean. If we move past them to join your friends, we are caught between two forces. The larger force from the flyer and this one."

"That's the chess part," said Roy. "The poker part is the bluff."

"What is the bluff?"

"I don't think that camp down there is really what we are supposed to think it is." Roy took out his canteen and drank, then offered it to Vemmo. "Suppose we try skirting around. I mean, that camp is right on the trail. We're in kind of a draw. The terrain, I mean. We'd have to stay pretty close or we'd have to climb up slope a good ways to get out of it."

"Ah! I see." Vemmo handed the canteen back and nodded. "That is another chess move. They will have more soldiers in ambush. They will attempt to take us by surprise. Not checkmate, but certainly we are checked."

"Yep," Roy said grimly.

"We must proceed," said Vemmo, uncertainly. "What do we do?"

"We don't play their game." Roy rose and stalked silently back through the trees to where Gamble stood drowsing. Vemmo followed. Upon reaching the steelie Roy took up his lead strap and began making their way back up the trail towards the saddle.

"Where are we going?" Vemmo asked, puzzled.

"I don't know this part of the valley all that well," the teen told him. "Been fishing down on Big Lake a few times, but it's sort of a long way to go, you know. One time, though, my dad took my sister and me for trout."

"Your adopted father, you mean?"

"Right," Roy confirmed. "We hit a couple of good streams on that trip and I think we're close to them. I need to check the map. I just don't want to do it this close to those guys."

"Surely they cannot see us," said Vemmo, glancing over his shoulder.

"We don't know that," Roy said. "My rifle scope can pick out a target at two kilometers. I know the CP has scopes that can scan out even further. Built right into the helmets. Marines especially. Yoshi said these guys might have stuff we don't know about. We need to assume they can do stuff we can't."

"If so, why have they not already swooped in and captured us?"

"The last time they tried Tammy shot down their flyer," Roy pointed out. "That's the funny thing about poker. You have to guess what cards the other players are holding. With chess, there's less guessing."

When Roy found a spot he was happy with he took out his pad and called up the map. He did not expand it into a hologram which made it more time consuming to find what he was looking for, but eventually he got things narrowed down.

"Okay," he breathed, looking intently at the small screen. "Right there. That's what I thought."

"Right where? What did you think?" Vemmo craned his neck to look at the screen.

"See this creek?" Roy pointed to a thin line on the map. He tapped the screen to enlarge the view. "Right there a stream enters it. A couple of weeks ago that stream would have been full of water. The creek would have been real deep and fast flowing. Now, though, the runoff is less. Still more than what it will be in summer, but not as much as it would have been when the thaw came on."

"So?"

"So those water courses can be used like roads." Roy expanded the view again and pointed to another spot. "That is about where the Dusig camp is. Less than a kilometer from the creek. About two from where the stream joins it."

"Roy, I know little of woodcraft," Vemmo said, shaking his head. "I do not understand what your point is."

"The tower is way the hell over here," Roy said patiently, indicating a pip to the south and west of their position. "We know Tammy and the others are headed that way. The Dusig don't."

"Very well," Vemmo nodded. "You will now go across country to the tower?"

"Not yet." Roy scrolled the map all the way down to big lake. "Not yet, Mr. Vemmo. See, Tammy is smart. Her dad says she's canny. She made that mistake back there at the burned field and she won't make another one like it. She learns quick and adapts. I think she's going to try putting the Dusig off her trail."

"By using the creek as a road?"

"The creek and the stream," said Roy. He smiled knowingly. "I'd do the same thing. See, I don't think she'll follow the creek all the way down to Big Lake. That would mean she'd have to climb way the hell back up these hills to the tower."

"The stream leads up towards the mountains, though." Vemmo shook his head. He did not understand.

"Sure it does," Roy almost chuckled. "You're a Vespan. You aren't a soldier or hunter. You're smart enough to follow tracks in the dirt, though. If those tracks led you to a creek, would you continue to follow the creek?"

Vemmo considered a while and finally nodded.

"I would, given two provisos," he said. "First, I would look for any indication that the tracks exited the creek on the other side. If they did not, I would follow the creek until it met this stream of yours. There I would look for any indication the tracks, or rather, those making the tracks diverted up the stream. If not, I would follow the creek."

"But you wouldn't make for the tower," said Roy seriously.

"Only if I knew they were going to it." Vemmo shrugged. "The Dusig do not seem to know that. At least, for the moment they do not. Two things occur to me, though."

"What two things?"

"Firstly: When your friends turn their course more directly towards the tower, the Dusig are likely to send the flyer ahead of them." Vemmo shrugged. "They may bombard the tower, even. I cannot say. Secondly: The Dusig do not know you and your friends removed the transceiver from the jZav`Etch ship. If they did, they would already be at the tower."

Roy's stomach knotted and he began shaking in fear.

"What if they do know? What if it's another chess move?" he said, breathlessly.

*****

*duroplast - A lightweight polymer used in a wide range of construction applications. Favored in the manufacture of aircraft.