Steve Perry - Aliens vs Predator - 1 - Prey

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2024-12-20 0 0 591.07KB 131 页 5.9玖币

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Chapter 1

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, I still think you're full of

crap."

Scott smiled to take a little of the sting out, but not that much. They'd

dropped out of hyperspace a week back, were running on the new and improved

gravity drives, and the old argument had been lit and burning almost since the

crew left the sleep chambers. The others were working the plant or attending

to ship routine and the two pilots were alone in the control module, staring

into the blackness of the Big Deep. Still a few weeks out from their next

port, but it was starting to look like a few years.

Tom, whose still-short dark hair had been cropped to his skull before he'd

gone into the sleep chamber, was up on his soapbox again, looking kind of like

a military-college freshman in free-speak alley.

Scott stroked his blond beard and waited for the reply he knew was coming.

Around them, the stale ship air smelled like a gym locker.

Tom didn't miss a beat. "Sure, I'm full of crap. Me and everybody else. But

I'm telling you, the bill is gonna come due sooner or later. You can't just

keep raping virgin planets, stripping them of everything valuable, and leaving

the hulks behind."

"I don't recall that I stuck my dick into the dirt anywhere lately," Scott

said.

"You know what I mean."

"No, I don't. The Lector, in case you fell asleep during the orientation

session, is a tug. We're towing a half-full barge with about fifteen million

tons of rendered fish and animal products and the processor that did it to

collect more meat on the hoof from the poor suckers on Ryushi, a bunch of

shit-kicker cowboys-no, not even cows, they're rhynth boys living on a

middle-of-nowhere planet."

"Scott-"

"And," he continued, ignoring Tom, "and the barge, this ship, the cowboys,

and you and me are all owned body and soul by the Corp. Talk to old man

Chigusa with your raping-the-environment complaints."

"Jesus, you are so damned close-minded-whoa!"

Scott waved his hands over the controls, trying to get a fix on the blip.

Here in the middle of the Big Deep, where there was nothing but their vessel

and occasional hydrogen atoms to bounce off it, something had just shot past

them so fast it wasn't even a blur. And gaining speed like a bitch, too. Okay,

yeah, it was a couple hundred klicks away, but out here, that was almost a

sideswipe.

"Goddamned cheap fucking doppler!" Tom said, trying to get the computer to

adjust its scan. "What the hell was that? A ship?"

"Not hardly. That acceleration would probably turn people into seat

pancakes. Nova debris, maybe, old rock spat out by a real big planet-buster

blast."

"Yeah? Maybe it's God on His way to the Final Reckoning. Better scrub your

conscience clean, Scotty."

"I'm just a grunt, pal, don't blame me for the way the universe gets run."

"Fucking spectrograph missed it altogether." He slammed the heel of his

hand against the console. Nobody wasted any money on these ships for such

things as decent hardware.

"Like we were going to chase and catch it even if it was solid platinum,

right?" Scott smiled. "It's not our job, buddy. One more rock in the dark, who

cares?

Seated in front of the sensor array on Ne'dtesei, Yeyinde watched the alien

ship dwindle in their wake. He was Leader; his very name meant "brave one" but

he knew the warriors called him "Dachande" when they thought his ears too dull

to hear them. That name meant "different knife," and it referred to his left

lower tusk, broken in a bare-handed fight against the Hard Meat, the kainde

amedha, they of the black armored exoskeletons and acid blood. He smiled

inwardly at the name. It could be considered an insult, but he was proud of

it. The Hard Meat, save for the queens, were no smarter than dogs, but they

were fierce and deadly game. Good prey upon which to train the young warriors.

He could have had the tusk capped and reground, but he had left the broken

fang a dull stump to remind himself-and any warriors who felt brave or

particularly stupid-that only one yautja of all had ever faced the Hard Meat

unarmed and walked away. As befitted a true warrior, Dachande himself never

spoke of the battle, but let others tell the tale, holding a serious mandible

at the embellishments they added in the singing of it. He was Leader of the

Ne'dtesei, son and grandson of ship leaders and warrior trainers, and he bowed

to no one in his skill with blade or burner. He had taken hundreds of young

males out to learn the Hunt and had lost but a dozen, most of whom would still

be among the living had they obeyed his orders.

But he sighed at the ship now so far behind him as to be invisible to even

the sensors' keen eyes. Oomans flew in that vessel. He knew of them, the

oomans, though he himself had never Hunted them. They were tool folk, had

weapons equal to those of the yautja, and were, if the stories could be

believed, the ultimate pyode amedha. Soft Meat. But with deadly stingers, the

oomans. A true test of skill. What were they doing out here? Where were they

bound? A pity he was locked into this Hunt, responsible for a score of itchy

would-be warriors full of themselves and ready to show off their prowess.

Well. Someday he would Hunt them, the oomans.

For now, he had a ship to fly, Hunts to prepare.

He switched to the electronic eyes that watched the Hard Meat queen in the

nest they had made for her deep in the belly of the ship.

The image blossomed on the plate in front of him.

Tall she was, the queen, twice his own height, massive even in the reduced

gen-pull of the ship, probably four times his weight. Black as a nest

cleaner's hands, gleaming dully under the lights, the queen looked like a

giant zabin bug, with the addition of a long segmented tail and smaller

supplemental arms jutting from her torso. Her comb rose high like antlers,

flat and flaring, and she had two sets of needle-toothed jaws, one nesting

inside the other and able to extrude a span from her mouth to grab like

pincers. Freed, she would be a formidable opponent, fast, powerful,

intelligent. But she was not free, the queen. She was bound in bands of dlex,

wound in restraints that could resist the sharpest blades, the hottest fires,

the strongest acids. Bound and made into nothing more than an egg-laying

captive, subject to the will of the ship's Leader. A conveyer ran beneath her

massive ovipositor, catching the precious eggs and carrying them to the

packing compartment. There, they were fed into the robot crawler in the sucker

ships connected to the Ne'dtesei like leeches on either side. Inside the

suckers the robots-treaded machines designed for one purpose-prepared

themselves to transport and place the eggs on fertile ground. Like a

mechanical mother, the robots would leave the eggs where they could open and

the crab like first stage Hard Meat could find game to infect with the next

stage. Those embryos would eventually chew their way free of the hapless host

to become drones, the final stage for most of the Hard Meat. Prey, to the

warriors he had brought to learn the rules of the Hunt. Stupid but deadly, the

Hard Meat would teach the main lesson the young ones needed to know: move well

or die. There was no room for error in the Hunt.

Dachande looked at the fettered queen, the fleshy eggs she laid. His own

trophy wall on the homeworld held half a dozen of the Hard Meat skulls,

bleached and clean, including the one he had killed with his bare hands, as

well as a queen, taken during a hellish hunt in which nine already-Blooded

warriors had died. He had killed fifty others, but had kept, as was proper,

only those he had thought worthy of his wall. They were fierce, but usually no

challenge to one such as himself. If he had occasion to face one on these

Hunts, he would limit himself to spear or wrist knife. After all, any yautja

could burn the Hard Meat; a Leader had to handicap himself. The females smiled

upon a brave male more often than they did others; Dachande had never lacked

for female attention before, nor did he intend to begin now. He had sired

seventy-three suckers over the years since first he had become a Blooded

warrior and he was planning on reaching eighty by the end of the next breeding

season. A yautja did what a yautja had to do to bolster his line and when his

Final Hunt took place, he intended to leave behind a legion of younglings.

He grinned. Any Hunt could be the Final Hunt, that was the Path, but he did

not think this would be the one. This was routine; he had led a score of

missions such as this one, and he could do it blindfolded, with dull blades

and a dead burner in his sleep. An easy run, gkei'moun simple.

He switched off the eyes watching the queen. He should go and release some

of the pressure that had built up among the young males. A couple of them in

particular were showing signs of preparing to do something stupid, such as

challenging a Blooded warrior or even the Leader himself. Young males were not

a whole lot brighter than the Hard Meat, Dachande sometimes thought. He could

still recall his pre-warrior days when he had known everything, was the

bravest yautja ever born and ready to prove it at the slightest provocation.

Ah, the days of his invincible youth. Surely there could have been no male who

had swaggered more, thought more highly of himself, acted as if he were the

linchpin around which the galaxy would someday turn. A creature of destiny, he

had thought, different from the other obnoxious would-be heroes who strutted

and stood ready to be offended at the hint of disrespect.

He recalled an instance when a younger male had glanced at him with what he

thought an inappropriate demeanor, had allowed his gaze to linger a quarter

second longer than the galaxy's would-be linchpin had deemed respectful. How

he had puffed up like a poison-toad and stepped forward to issue a claw

challenge, and that only because death challenges were forbidden to the

un-Blooded. How when crossing the empty space between himself and the insolent

pup who had offended him, he had been knocked sprawling by a female going

about her business. By the time he had recovered, the disrespectful one had

gone and the female, if she had even noticed, had also continued on her way.

He grinned, tusks going wide. Such a long time ago that had been, before

most of the current class of pups had been sap in their fathers' rods. They

would learn, just as he had learned. They were not the gods' gift to the

universe. He would see to it. Or he would see them dead. Either way was the

Path.

Chapter 2

Dachande walked, slowly down the dim corridor toward the kehrite, the room

where the training yautja learned blade and simple unarmed combat. Many

Leaders focused on the importance of shiftsuit mechanics and burners in the

teaching of the Hunt, but not he; from long experience Dachande knew that

sometimes there was nothing to rely on outside of one's own prowess. To teach

anything else would be to risk the death of future warriors, and a good Leader

had many students still Hunting.

The measure of a teacher was the life span of those he taught. The longer

they lived, the better the instructor.

Dachande inhaled deeply as he neared the kehrite. The musk of aggression

was strong in the air, an oily, bitter smell that promised confrontation, but

he did not hurry. Being the eldest Blooded on a Hunt had its privileges; no

fight would begin without the Leader to witness it.

The winding passageway narrowed to an arched entry in front of Dachande,

the walls lined with Hard Meat armor. Already he could hear the clatter of

taloned feet and the mumblings of expectation. He stepped through the arch and

waited for acknowledgment. Quickly, he located the few students he had picked

to cause trouble early on and marked them; Mahnde, the short one; Ghardeh,

with the long tress; and Tichinde, who talked louder than any other. Of the

three, Ghardeh would be the least trouble; he was but a follower. But the

other two . . .

Within a short span, all yautja had turned their attention to him. There

were fourteen in all who wore the plain dlex headband of student, plus two

Blooded warriors who helped supervise; these two, Skemte and Warkha, were also

the navigator and flyer. The ship was fully automated, a single trained yautja

could handle it-but it did not hurt to take precautions. Both warriors carried

Dachande's signature mark upon their foreheads like a third eye, the etch of

Hard Meat blood from their first kill, and they watched him carefully for

direction; each sought their own Leaderships; both were wise enough to know

such achievement would not be through Challenge against him.

One by one, all heads bowed to him. Dachande nodded curtly, never taking

his sharp yellow gaze from the group, Tichinde in particular. What he saw did

not surprise him. Tichinde had lowered his head but kept his own gaze on

Dachande. When he saw that his Leader watched in return, he flared his lower

mandibles and raised his head to face him-a sure sign of aggression. It was

insolent, but forgivable, were his Leader a patient one; had Tichinde begun

the low growl of confrontation, it would not be so easy to allow him to remain

unmolested. As it stood, this was a prime opportunity to let the cooped-up

young males practice.

"Tichinde!" Dachande made his voice angrier than he was. The yautja

surrounding the arrogant youth stepped away from him, tusks opened wide.

"You may show your `skills,' " Dachande continued, his voice threaded with

sarcasm, "by a jehdin/jehdin spar with . . . Mahnde. First fall determines the

winner."

There were rumblings of disappointment as the young males moved from the

match area to line the scarred kehrite walls; with no weapons to be used, both

combatants would probably still be alive after the match. Still, the energy

was high. Several yautja had seen the look between Tichinde and the Leader,

and all could see the disrespectful face of the student now. What would the

Leader do about this? How would he respond? Was he weak enough to allow a

Challenge to pass, even one so veiled?

Dachande paused until all were in place before giving the command.

"Begin,"

As one, the yautja began to howl and chant as the two young males circled.

Dachande watched carefully as Mahnde lunged forward for the first blow, arms

raised.

Tichinde blocked easily and countered with a jab to the throat.

Mahnde moved aside, not fast enough to avoid the shot completely. A chorus

of guttural hisses filled the room as he stumbled and pulled back. A clumsy

response. No one was impressed.

Tichinde shrieked and ran at Mahnde, talons extended for a stab to the

abdomen.

The defender, already off-balance, blocked too high. Tichinde hit full on

and knocked Mahnde to the padded floor. The victorious youth threw back his

head and screamed in triumph. The kehrite pounded with the cries of the

agitated students. The match was over.

Too soon. Blood was still too warm; none would be satisfied with such a

quick bout.

Dachande looked for a challenger amidst the yowls and clicks of the

clamoring spectators, displeased with Mahnde's performance. Perhaps Chulonte,

he showed promise . . .

A score of new sounds filled the room as the yautja began to scream in

surprise and renewed excitement. Dachande's gaze flickered back to the match

area, and he watched in amazement as Tichinde kicked his fallen opponent in

the head.

"Ki'cte!" Dachande had to shriek to be heard. "Enough!"

Tichinde kicked again. Mahnde rolled over, tried to cover his face and grab

at Tichinde's foot at the same time. The yautja were going wild. Blood was

molten; spittle flew as they shook their heads in excitement.

"Tichinde!" Rarely had Dachande seen such disobedience. He stalked onto the

match floor and shouted again.

Tichinde turned to face the Leader. He snarled. The young male extended one

hand and shoved at Dachande's left shoulder.

Dachande avoided the push automatically.

The clawed hand fell short.

The watching yautja suddenly fell silent, only a few dying clicks and cries

of wonder. Tichinde's movement was unmistakable, and since Dachande had

attained Leadership, a move that he had not seen. The sign of direct

challenge.

Dachande sighed to himself silently. What an idiot this one was. How had he

survived this long?

The baked dirt that covered the valley floor appeared nearly lifeless under

the searing heat of the dual suns. What vegetation there was appeared stunted,

twisted, cooked. The twin stars were hardly an exact match; the secondaries

shadows were barely visible, a frail blur next to the deeper charcoal hues

cast by the primary. The towering plateaus of dirty tan rock-there had once

been water here to cut them so, ran in corridors throughout the basin and

offered no comfort unless you crawled among the stones-which no sane human

would want to do for all of the venomous forms of hidden life there. Besides

the stinging flies and poisonous snakes, there was a particularly lethal form

of scorpion that nested amidst the boulders during Ryushi's nineteen hour day.

Even after sundown, the heat rarely fell below body temperature, and without

the relief of the cool breezes that sometimes came with desert climate after

dark. The air was always bone-dry and the feverish winds that occasionally

blew were sharp and unpleasant, the crack of a hot whip. Maybe it was

somebody's idea of paradise

But not mine.

Machiko Noguchi ran a delicate hand through her short black hair and

punched the scan button. The portable eye panned across the barren wasteland,

showing her more of the same. It was identical to almost everywhere else on

Ryushi. Besides the few artificial watering holes and the settlement itself,

the whole planet looked like a desert prospector's version of hell-rocks, dirt

and heat, and no precious metals hidden there, either.

Noguchi sighed and tapped a few keys. As the small screen faded to black,

she leaned back in her form-chair and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath

and growled softly through clenched teeth. When the opportunity had presented

itself, she had not hesitated. Only twenty-nine years old and already offered

an overseer's post for the Chigusa Corporation. Prosperity Wells, at the far

edge of the Beta Cygni system, very quiet; "Sounds exhilarating," she'd said.

Right. Only her six months of phase-in was almost up and she was so sick of

this rock she could vomit. A necessary career move, she kept telling herself.

Well, at least there's air-conditioning . . .

Noguchi stretched her arms over her head and arched her back. Her lunch

break was almost over, time to get back to the office. She usually ate with

Hiroki, but he'd had a meeting with a few of the ranchers and she had decided

to slip back to her apartment and go over a stat report for the company. Might

as well let him keep the reins for the last few weeks of his stay. Besides,

only in her private chamber did she feel free to relax; to let her feelings

show anywhere else was-it was not an option. There was too much at stake for

her to be anything but completely professional.

She glanced at the holo-mirror by her door on the way out and nodded at

what she saw-cool, composed, detached. Attractive in a typical Japanese way,

although that was not important to her. She looked. . . authoritative. The

ranchers didn't seem to like her very much, but they would respect her-her

honor would accept nothing less.

Dachande felt his anger flare and then, almost regretfully, he let it pass.

Half a lifetime ago, such a display of brash audacity would have meant a quick

death for the young male; the yautja who would dare to challenge him? Certain

thei-de. And grinning all the while he delivered it, too.

But he was Leader now. Not a kind Leader, but a just one. There were others

who would kill for such an offense-but these days, he would teach. There was

no point in a match you knew you would win. Doubt was necessary or it was but

an exercise.

All of this flitted through his mind in less than a second.

Tichinde pushed at him again.

Again Dachande slipped the move unthinkingly. He saw the surprise on the

young one's face. And perhaps, too late, a touch of realization that he had

made an error. A very bad error.

The juvenile yautja gave up their stunned hush at this new transgression

and roared for blood. It did not matter whose.

Dachande reflected no longer. He grabbed Tichinde's hands and held them

high with his own.

Tichinde screamed into his face, the shrill sound blended with the cries of

the spectators.

Dachande did not pause.

The Leader jerked his head forward. Their skulls met with a dull crack that

sent a peal of renewed clatterings and hisses through the assemblage.

Tichinde pulled his hands loose and staggered back, arms still held high,

but dazed.

They circled.

A tiny trickle of pale blood ran down Tichinde's face from beneath his dlex

band. Without taking his gaze from Dachande, the student reached up and

touched the flow, rubbed it between his fingers for confirmation; he did not

seem to like the feel.

Too bad.

Tichinde spread his arms wide, back hunched, and screamed. The sounds were

garbled with fury, but the inflections unmistakable Nan-deThan-gaun. The Kiss

of Midnight.

Tichinde's intentions were crystal: he would kill his Leader, if he could.

Enough was enough. Dachande locked his fingers together and leapt. He

landed beside the impudent yautja and brought his double-fist down, hard, into

the small of the still screaming Tichinde's back. Tichinde fell to the floor.

His lower jaw smacked the mat quite audibly.

Dachande jumped back quickly as Tichinde slowly regained his feet. Aware of

his audience, the Leader moved with all the grace and skill he could muster.

The motion was nearly perfect and any of the watchers who could recall even a

bit of training would be impressed by the flow of it. Which was the point.

New blood oozed from the young male's lower mandibles. The watching

students sang out calls of victory for their Leader as Tichinde turned to face

Dachande. The cries of derision from his peers were perhaps what spurred the

young male into action. With a strangled hiss, the bleeding yautja ran at

Dachande, fists extended.

Give him credit for spirit. Credit for brains, no. For skill, hardly. But

he was no coward.

Still, it was poor form. Dachande fell to his knees before Tichinde reached

him and grasped the student's over-stretched upper body with one hand, his

nearer leg with the other. Suppressing a grunt, he strove to make the move

appear effortless.

As if the youth weighed no more than a suckling, Dachande stood and thrust

Tichinde high over his head.

The howling yautja tried to escape and regain the floor, but his writhings

were to no avail. Dachande held the young male high, let out a growl of

conquest-then threw Tichinde across the room.

The mob of howling young males split, narrowly avoided the flung body

before it smacked into the wall. They chanted triumph for Dachande, harsh

sounds of vain-desintje-de; pure win.

Dachande made no chant himself and none was needed. The fallen Tichinde

spoke for him.

For a short time, nobody moved.

Finally, Tichinde staggered upright and walked slowly toward his Leader,

head bowed. The outcome was obvious, and a further display of aggression would

be dishonorable, not to mention stupid. Tichinde stopped in front of him and

raised only his eyes to see what Dachande would decide; in such a Challenge,

death was not an unreasonable punishment.

Dachande pretended to consider his options as the chants fell to a

breath-held stillness and over-stretched tension. There was really no question

for him; a good Leader did not have to kill one of his own to prove

anything-and to embarrass the young male would tell later in Tichinde's Hunts.

He waited because all eyes watched and the hesitation was penalty enough.

After a few breaths-time Dachande tilted his head to one side and spoke.

"Payas leitjin-de. " He paused. "Hma'mi-de. "

Tichinde hung his head lower and stepped back, his relief visible. Several

young males came forward to touch Tichinde's hair in appreciation of the

Leader's compliment. The precise tip of Dachande's head combined with the

words indicated both acknowledgment of the student's submission and a respect

for his bravery-"Remember God's practice." Tichinde was allowed his life and

his name, but with the ritual warning a slap to his embarrassed face. Still,

there was no real shame in losing to one who had faced the Hard Meat with

nothing but talons and blade.

Dachande almost allowed himself a grin, but did not want to lighten the

effect of his pronouncement; he raised his hand and gestured for the students

to fall in line for training. Tichinde knew who was Leader, and would not

forget it. And if another yautja strayed from obedience . . . ?

After this, it would not likely happen. If it did, there would be more than

one "dachande" on ship. His honor would accept nothing less.

Chapter 3

They were still in space, but it wasn't nearly so deep now. The ship's

drone had mellowed as the gravity drives slowed them to intersystem speeds.

"Eleven days, buddy boy, and then no more of your dick in my ear for what,

seventy-two hours?"

Tom grinned and shook his head. "You wish."

Scott raised his coffee cup in a mock toast. "Here's to pretty girls and

sunny days, Tommy." He sipped the watery liquid and grimaced. "Nothing like a

nice mug of shit to put a shine on the morning, hey?"

"It's . . ." Tom glanced at his terminal. "Four in the afternoon, you pig.

Happy hour."

"Right," said Scott. "Whatever."

They sat in silence for a few moments. Tom worked studiously at one of his

crosswords, tapping in words and erasing them at the same rate. Scott gazed

into the darkness and tried to remember the words of a poem he used to know.

He could probably just look it up in the ship's library, same as Tom and his

puzzle, but learning how to kill time was a good trick in their line of work.

Nothing to do and plenty of hours to do it.

'Twas brillig and the slithy toves, did gyre and-something-something

wabe-all mimsy were the borogoves and the something-bath outgrabe-

"Six-letter word for `saint'?"

Scott thought for a second and then smiled. "Thomas."

"Funny. Like not wanting to fuck over all things great and small makes me

some kinda prince. I mean, really-" Tom paused. "Hey, that's it. Prince.

You're good for something after all, you pagan asshole."

"You still pissed about last night?" Scott shook his head. It seemed that

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Chapter1 Well,nottoputtoofineapointonit,Istillthinkyou'refullofcrap." Scottsmiledtotakealittleofthestingout,butnotthatmuch.They'ddroppedoutofhyperspaceaweekback,wererunningonthenewandimprovedgravitydrives,andtheoldargumenthadbeenlitandburningalmostsincethecrewleftthesleepchambers.Theotherswerewo...

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