Hunter's Run Part 7

"Yeah?" Ramon said, yawning. "Well, you should try it sometime."

"The sleep is complete," Maneck said. "It is time to start fulfilling your function."

"Not so fast. I've got to p.i.s.s."

"You made p.i.s.s before."

"Well, I'm an ongoing f.u.c.king process," Ramon said, misquot-ing a priest he'd heard once preaching in the plaza at Diegotown.

The sermon had been about the changing nature of the soul, the man who was delivering it red-faced and sweaty. Ramon and Pauel Dominguez had thrown sugared almonds at him. It wasn't something he'd thought of in years, and yet he could recall it now as clearly as if it had happened moments before. He wondered whether the alien goo in which he'd been incarcerated might have done something to his memory. He had heard that men waking from stasis sometimes suffered episodes of amnesia or powerful dislocation.

Now, standing before a mesh-barked pseudo-pine and p.i.s.sing at its base, Ramon found more strange rushes of memory returning to him. Martin Casaus, his first friend when he'd come to Diegotown, had lived by the port, in a two-room apartment with b.u.t.ter-yellow bamboo flooring that peeled up at the corners. They'd gotten drunk there every night for a month, singing and sucking down beer.

Martin had told him stories about being out in the forest working asa trapper, tricking a chupacabra chupacabra into a spear pit with fresh meat, and Ramon had made up s.e.xual exploits from his time in Mexico, each one more lurid and improbable than the last. Martin's landlady had come once and threatened to have them both arrested, and Ramon had exposed himself. He remembered the old woman's shocked expression, the way her hands had fluttered, unsure whether his p.e.n.i.s was an insult to her or a threat. It was like seeing a recording of it: a flashback as powerful as the experience, and then gone again and only a memory. into a spear pit with fresh meat, and Ramon had made up s.e.xual exploits from his time in Mexico, each one more lurid and improbable than the last. Martin's landlady had come once and threatened to have them both arrested, and Ramon had exposed himself. He remembered the old woman's shocked expression, the way her hands had fluttered, unsure whether his p.e.n.i.s was an insult to her or a threat. It was like seeing a recording of it: a flashback as powerful as the experience, and then gone again and only a memory.

Ramon scratched his belly idly, fingertips moving over the smooth curve of his skin. Poor old Martin. He wondered what had happened to the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Nothing, he had to imagine, worse than what he himself was going through now.

"You don't p.i.s.s either, do you?" Ramon said, shaking the last drops from his p.e.n.i.s.

"The voiding of waste is necessary only because you ingest improper foods," Maneck replied. "Oekh provides nourishment without waste. It is so designed, in order to increase efficiency. Your food is full of poisons and inert substances that your body cannot absorb. provides nourishment without waste. It is so designed, in order to increase efficiency. Your food is full of poisons and inert substances that your body cannot absorb.

This is why you must make p.i.s.s and dump. This is primitive and unnatural."

Ramon chuckled. "Primitive, maybe," he said, "but you you are the one who goes against nature! We are animals, both of us. Animals sleep, and eat other animals, and s.h.i.+t, and f.u.c.k. You do none of those things. So who is the unnatural one, eh?" are the one who goes against nature! We are animals, both of us. Animals sleep, and eat other animals, and s.h.i.+t, and f.u.c.k. You do none of those things. So who is the unnatural one, eh?"

Maneck looked down on him. "A being possessed of retehue retehue has the capacity to be more than an animal," it said. "If an ability exists, it must be used. Therefore has the capacity to be more than an animal," it said. "If an ability exists, it must be used. Therefore you you are unnatural, because you cling to the primitive although you possess the ability to transcend that state." are unnatural, because you cling to the primitive although you possess the ability to transcend that state."

"Clinging to the primitive can be a lot of fun," Ramon started to say, but Maneck, who seemed to be growing impatient, cut him off.

"We have begun with making p.i.s.s," it said, "and we have returned to 95 95 this place in the cycle. We are now prepared. You will enter the yunea yunea.

We will proceed."

"Yunea?"

Maneck paused.

"The flying box," it said.

"Oh. But I need to eat still. You can't have a man go without breakfast."

"You can continue for weeks without food. This is what you reported in the night."

"Doesn't mean I'd want to," Ramon said. "You want me working at my best, I've got to eat. Even machines need to be refueled to work."

"No more delays," Maneck said, fingering the sahael sahael ominously. ominously.

"We go now."

Ramon considered objecting, claiming that there was some further biological function that humanity required-he could spit for an hour or two, just to take more time. But Maneck seemed resolute, and he didn't want it to resort to the sahael sahael in order to get him to obey. in order to get him to obey.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming. Just wait a second."

Ramon had done what he could for the policeman. Any b.a.s.t.a.r.d who'd come out to arrest him should be f.u.c.king grateful for what he'd done so far! Ramon s.n.a.t.c.hed up the leaf-wrapped strips of smoked fish he'd prepared the night before and followed the alien back to its bone-white box. A cold breakfast in transit would have to do.

His belly lurched as the strange s.h.i.+p took to the air. They flew south and west. Behind them, to the north, were the tall peaks of the Sierra Hueso, their upper slopes now obscured by wet, churning gray cloud-it was snowing back there, behind, above. South, the world flattened into forested lowland, then tilted down toward the southern horizon, steaming and slopping like a soup plate, puddled with marshes on the edge of sight. Also on the edge of sight, fromup here only a thin silver ribbon in a world of green and blue and orange trees and black stone, was the Rio Embudo, the main channel of the great river system that drained the Sierra Hueso and all the north lands. Hundreds of kilometers to the southwest, Fiddler's Jump sat high on its rocky, red-veined bluffs above the same river, its ramshackle wooden hotels and houses full of miners and trappers and lumberjacks, its docks crowded with ore barges and vast log floats soon to be launched downstream to Swan's Neck. It was there, to the safety and lights and raucous humanity of Fiddler's Jump, that the policeman was almost surely headed.

How would he do it? Anybody who could construct a lean-to as well as the policeman had would have no trouble constructing a raft out of the materials ready to hand. Once he reached the Rio Embudo and built his raft, he'd be off down the river to Fiddler's Jump; much easier and faster than walking through the thick, tangled forest. It was where he he would have gone and what would have gone and what he he would have done had he been stranded out here without a van, desperate and alone. And he was sure that the policeman would do the same. would have done had he been stranded out here without a van, desperate and alone. And he was sure that the policeman would do the same.

The aliens had been smart to use him as their hunting dog after all-he did did know what the policeman would do, where he would go. He know what the policeman would do, where he would go. He could could find him. find him.

How long would he have to stall to give the policeman time to get away? Could he have reached the river yet? From the foothills of the Sierra Hueso, it was a long way on foot through rough terrain.

On the other hand, a number of days had gone by . . . It would be close.

Below them now was another thick forest of iceroot-tall, gaunt trees with translucent blue-white needles like a million tiny icicles.

They flew on. Here a great tower-of-Babel hive had pushed up through the trees, the strange, metallic-looking insects, like living jewelry, swarming up to menace them in defense of their queen as they pa.s.sed. A clearing empty but for the wide, six-legged carca.s.s of a vaquero vaquero-the horselike body half eaten by a chupacabra chupacabra and left to and left to 97 97 rot. The iceroots again. They were circling. How did did Maneck intend to find the policeman? Maneck intend to find the policeman?

"What are we looking for?" Ramon called over the sound of the wind rus.h.i.+ng past them. "You can't see anything from up here. You got sensors on this thing?"

"We are aware of much," Maneck said.

"We? I'm not aware of a f.u.c.king thing."

"The yunea yunea partic.i.p.ates in my flow, the partic.i.p.ates in my flow, the sahael sahael partic.i.p.ates. It is your nature that you must fail to partic.i.p.ate. That is why you are an occasion of great sorrow. But it is your partic.i.p.ates. It is your nature that you must fail to partic.i.p.ate. That is why you are an occasion of great sorrow. But it is your tatecreude, tatecreude, and therefore it is to be accepted." and therefore it is to be accepted."

"I don't want to partic.i.p.ate in your G.o.dd.a.m.n flow," Ramon said.

"I just asked if you had some kind of sensors on this thing. I wasn't asking if you put out on the first date."

"Are these noises needed?" Maneck asked. If Ramon had had any faith that the aliens experienced emotions a human being might comprehend, he would have said that the thing sounded annoyed.

"The search is the expression-"

"Of your tatecreude, tatecreude, whatever the f.u.c.k that is," Ramon said. whatever the f.u.c.k that is," Ramon said.

"Whatever you say. Since I'm not able to do this flow thing, maybe this is the best thing I can do, eh? Make some friendly conversation?"

The quills on Maneck's head rose and fell rapidly. Its thick head jounced from one side to another. It turned to him, and the slats of the bone-pale box thickened, the sound of wind lessening. "You are correct," Maneck said. "This spitting of air is the primary communication available to you. It is right that I should attempt to engage your higher functions to aid you in avoiding aubre aubre. And if I better understand the mechanism of an uncoordinated self, the nature of the man will also become clearer."

"That half sounded like an apology, monster," Ramon said.

"This is a strange term. I have not fallen into aubre aubre. I have no reason to express regret."

"Yeah, fine. Be like that."

"But if you wish to speak, I will partic.i.p.ate in this fas.h.i.+on. I do indeed have sensors. They are of the nature of the yunea yunea as the drinking of your flow is of the nature of the as the drinking of your flow is of the nature of the sahael sahael or the management and direction of this form," and the alien gestured at itself, "is mine. The man, however, is much like the other creatures, and discovering the channels which he has been bound into is subtle." or the management and direction of this form," and the alien gestured at itself, "is mine. The man, however, is much like the other creatures, and discovering the channels which he has been bound into is subtle."

Ramon shrugged.

Their best bet of catching the policeman was to head west for the Rio Embudo, get well south of where he could have reached on foot, and then wait there by the riverside until the b.a.s.t.a.r.d came floating by on his raft, but if the alien didn't see it that way, Ramon felt no particular impulse to enlighten his captor. If the alien wanted to swing uselessly back and forth all day like a missionary's b.a.l.l.s, Ramon was fine with that.

"What are you going to do with the poor f.u.c.ker when you catch him?"

"Correct the illusion of his existence," Maneck said. "To be observed cannot happen cannot happen. The illusion that it has has happened is prime contradiction, happened is prime contradiction, gaesu, gaesu, the negation of reality. If we were to be seen, we would not be what we are, we would the negation of reality. If we were to be seen, we would not be what we are, we would never have been never have been what we are. what we are.

That which cannot be found cannot be be found. This is contradiction. found. This is contradiction.

It must be resolved."

"That doesn't make sense. The man, he's already already seen you." seen you."

"He is still within illusion. If he is prevented from reaching his kind, the information cannot diffuse. He will have been corrected.

The illusion of his existence will have been denied. If he he is real, however, is real, however, we we cannot be." cannot be."

Ramon unwrapped the hierba hierba leaf, sucked the meat from his strip of smoked fish, then dropped the empty bone on the slats at his feet. leaf, sucked the meat from his strip of smoked fish, then dropped the empty bone on the slats at his feet.

"You know, monster, to make as little sense as you, I have to drink for half a night."

99 "I do not understand."

"That's the point, cabron cabron."

"Your consumption of liquid affects your communication? Was your time at the camp insufficient to express this?"

"That was river water," Ramon said impatiently. "Liquor. I mean, drink liquor liquor. I've got the only devil in h.e.l.l that's never heard of hard drink!"

"Explain to me 'hard drink.'"

Ramon scratched his belly. The smooth skin under his fingertips seemed momentarily odd. How could he explain drinking-really drinking-to a thing with a half-crazed devil's mind?

"There's a thing. It's a liquid," Ramon said. "It's called alcohol.

You get it from things fermenting. Fermenting. Breaking down. Po-tatoes make vodka, and grapes make wine, and grain makes beer.

And when you drink it, when a man drinks it . . . it lifts him up out of himself. You understand? All the things he's supposed to be, they don't bother him so much anymore. All the petty f.u.c.king s.h.i.+t that ties him up, it lets loose a little. p.i.s.s. I don't know. This is like telling a virgin what it's like to f.u.c.k."

"It loosens bindings," Maneck said. "It makes you free."

Memory a.s.saulted Ramon again; the world vanished.

He was fourteen, two long years stretching out before him until he would elect to join a job gang and get off Earth. August brought thunderstorms to the mountains of Mexico, great white clouds that went gray-black at the base. Having come down from his tiny cliff-top pueblo, Ramon was living in an older boy's shack in a squatters'

village on the north slope of a mesa near Mexico City.

The day of his memory, he'd been sitting on the misshapen ma.s.s of rotten wood and worn plastic that he and the older boy jokingly called their front porch, watching the clouds form and rise toward the sky. The storm would reach them by night, Ramon had guessed. He was trying to judge whether the shackcould withstand another hard storm or if it would collapse under wind and water when the older boy appeared, sauntering down the thin street of mud and rocks that separated one line of hovels from the next. He had a girl with him, his arm around her waist.

He had a bottle in the other.

Ramon didn't ask where he'd found either of them. He remembered the astringent fire of the gin, the fascination and repulsion of listening to the older boy and the girl f.u.c.k while he sat outside drinking and counting the seconds between lightning flashes and thunder.

By the time the rain came, the older boy had pa.s.sed out, and Ramon, drunk, had split the last of the gin with the girl and she'd let him f.u.c.k her too. The wind had rattled the walls. Rain leaked in, running down the windows in rivulets while he bent over her, thrusting, and she looked away.

It was the best night Ramon remembered having on Earth. Possibly the best night he'd had since. He couldn't remember the older boy's name now, but he could see the mole on the girl's neck, just above her collarbone, the scar on her lip where it had split badly once and healed strangely. He only ever thought of her when he was drinking gin, and he preferred whiskey.

Maneck's arm touched his shoulder, steadying him. Ramon batted it away without thinking. "There was turbulence," Maneck said. "You gained focus, but its reference was obscure."

"I remembered something," Ramon said. "That's all. One time when I was drinking. When it made me free."

"Ah. Fidelity continues to increase. This is an excellent thing. Your tatecreude tatecreude gains focus. But you are still unflowing." gains focus. But you are still unflowing."

"Yeah, well, and you're still f.u.c.king ugly. You wanted to know about drinking hard liquor. Here. Hard liquor makes a man able to stand the things he can't stand. It makes him free the way nothing else can. When a man's drunk, it's like being alone. Everything's possible. Everything's good. It's like having lightning in your 101 101 hands. There's nothing that makes a man feel so complete."

"So hard drink is good. It increases flow pathways and focuses intention. It makes freedom, and this is among the man's central desires. To drink is to express virtue."

In the alleyway, the European sat down, hand to his belly. The crowd drew back. Ramon felt again the cold sense of having been betrayed by them.

"It's got its good points," he said. "Why are you asking me all these d.a.m.n questions? Aren't you supposed to be hunting someone down?"

"I wish to partic.i.p.ate in you," the alien said. "You cannot sense flow. These words are your only channel." The thing sounded like the s.h.i.+p psychiatrist from Ramon's jump out. Ramon lifted his hands, palms-out, pus.h.i.+ng the thing's attention away.

"I'm tired of talking," Ramon said. "Leave me the f.u.c.k alone."

"You may require a period of a.s.similation," Maneck agreed, as if they were talking about a lift tube that needed tuning. The alien turned away. Ramon leaned against the thin white slats of the box, peering out over the s.h.i.+mmering orange-and-black sea of leaves below them. If he hadn't been drunk, he probably wouldn't have killed the European. He would never have come out so far, the constabulary silently on his heels.

But to be in Diegotown and not be drunk was unthinkable. As well tell him to fly a van without fuel or dig a mine by hand. It was how he could stand people. Ramon was a drinker, and a good one, but the bottle didn't control him. When he was here, out in the world, alone and away from the press of humanity, he didn't need the whiskey, so he didn't drink it. A single bottle could last him a month in the field, and half a night in the city. He wasn't a drunk. That was his proof of it.

The first sign he had that something had changed came when the flying box stopped suddenly, hovering silently in the air as if they'dbeen hung there by a rope from heaven. Ramon looked down, squint-ing against the early evening sun, but the trees below them seemed no different from any of the other hundred thousand trees they'd flown over.

"There's something?" Ramon demanded.

"Yes," Maneck answered, but said nothing more. The flying box descended.

This new camp was larger than the one they'd left. The lean-to was larger-big enough to sit up in-and a fire pit made of stones and sand held the remains of several fires. The fugitive might have remained here for a day if he'd kept the fire going the whole time, or several if he'd only used it to cook. Maneck led the way, moving slowly across the small clearing, its head swaying back and forth, keeping time to some slow internal music. Ramon trotted behind, led by his neck. A pile of sug beetle sh.e.l.ls glittered in the dapples of sunlight. A pile of flatfur pelts lay abandoned, one of them gnawed at and then ignored by some small, toothy scavenger. The gray-blue b.u.t.t of a cigarette lay withered beside the lean-to.

How far, Ramon wondered, had the policeman traveled? Three days the man had been running before Maneck had led Ramon into the hunt. Another day since. If the man had spent a single night at the first campsite and two here, that meant he now had only one day's lead on them. Ramon silently cursed the cop for dawdling. Everything depended on the b.a.s.t.a.r.d getting to the river, floating away to the south, and bringing back help. The governor, the police, maybe even the Enye and some alien security force from the Enye s.h.i.+ps that would be arriving any day now. That would be best-humanity's great alien patron species rolling through like moss-covered boulders and licking Maneck to death.

Ramon chuckled, but the alien ignored him, continuing its inspection.

There were several places, Ramon saw, where the policeman had 103 103 ventured out into the forest, and several where he had returned.

Broken branches and scuffed, turned litter showed it as clearly as if he'd left signs. This was a base of operations, then. The man had some plan or thought deeper than simple flight. Perhaps something he was searching for. Could the constabulary have an emergency beacon hidden somewhere nearby? It seemed too great a coincidence, but the thought alone was enough to make Ramon's heart beat faster. Or perhaps the man was an idiot, and still thought himself the hunter and Ramon the game. In which case, Maneck would surely find him, kill him, and return Ramon to the sickening darkness and noise of the alien hive, never to be heard from again.

Maneck stopped at the lean-to and reached down, stirring the leaves the man had used as bedding. Something among the green and blue leaves tumbled-dirty white and the black-red of old blood. Maneck leaned forward and made a rapid clicking sound that Ramon interpreted as pleasure. Ramon scratched his elbow, vaguely uneased by the sense that something had gone wrong.

"Que es?" he asked. he asked.