Hunter's Run Read online

  In the center of the chamber was a deep, circular pit, lined by metal, and at the bottom of the pit was another alien.

  It was even taller than Ramón’s guides, and much fatter, the lower part of its body bloated to four or five times the circumference of the other aliens, and its crest and quills were much longer. Its skin was maggot-white, and completely free of markings. White with age? Dyed white as an indication of rank? Or was it of a different race? Impossible to say, but as the alien’s eyes turned upward, toward Ramón, he was seized and shaken by the force behind its gaze, by the harsh authority it exuded. He noticed, with another little shock, that the creature was physically connected to the pit—things that might have been wires or rods or cables emerged from its body and disappeared into the smooth metal walls, forming an intricate cat’s cradle around it. Some of the cables were black and dull, some were luminescent, and some, glossy red and gray and brown, pulsed slowly and rhythmically, as if with an obscene life of their own.

  The hot orange eyes considered him. Ramón felt his nakedness acutely, but refused to bend to this alien’s will even to cover himself. The great pale head shifted.

  “Noun,” the alien said. “Verb form. Identifier. Semantic placeholder. Sense of identity.”

  Ramón stared at the alien, fighting to keep surprise from his face. It had spoken in Spanish (Ramón also spoke some English and Portuguese and French, as well as, of course, Portuglish, the bastard lingua franca of the colony), and quite clearly, though its voice was disturbingly rusty and metallic, as though it was a machine. How in hell had it learned a human language? “What the fuck are you saying?” Ramón said. “By Holy Jesus, what do you want?”

  “Idiomatic vulgarity. Religious fear,” the alien said, and then, with something that sounded like disappointment, “Unflowing.” The great beast shifted in its web of wires and cables, its swollen abdomen rippling as if with a life of its own.

  Ramón felt his gorge rise. “What do you want from me?”

  “You are man,” the beast intoned.

  “Yes, I’m a fucking man. What did you think I was?”

  “You lack tatecreude. You are a flawed thing. Your nature is dangerous and tends to aubre.”

  Ramón spat on the ground. The arrogance of the harsh, unused voice and the steady gaze of those orange, unblinking eyes made him angry. In times of stress—when he had lost his first van in a drunken bet, when Lianna had finally left him, when Elena threatened to throw him out—Ramón’s rage had never deserted him. Now it returned, flushing him with heat and certainty. “What are you, you creatures?” he said. “Where do you come from? From this planet? Somewhere else? What do you think you’re doing, attacking me, keeping me here against my will? And what about my van, eh? Who’s going to get me a new van?”

  Suddenly, the absurdity of the situation struck him. Here he was, in an alien hive, locked away in the middle of a mountain, surrounded by demons. And he was bitching about his van! He had to fight down the urge to laugh, fearing that once he started he would be unable to stop.

  The alien was staring at him wordlessly. “If you want to talk, talk sense,” Ramón rasped. Anger gave him a sense of power and control that he knew was at odds with the truth. Any small thing that kept his mind his own, however, was precious. “You don’t like what I am, you can show me the way out of this shithole.”

  The great pale alien seemed to take a moment to consider Ramón’s words. Its snout lifted as if it was tasting the air. “Those are sounds, not words,” the alien said after a long pause. “Discordances outside proper flow. You must not speak in meaningless sounds, or you will be corrected.”

  Ramón shivered and looked away; his rage had ebbed as quickly as it had flared, and now he felt tired, chilled by the alien’s imperturbability. “What do you want from me?” he asked wearily.

  “We do not ‘want’ anything,” the alien said. “Again, you speak outside the way of reality. You have a function: therefore, you exist. You will exercise that function because it is your purpose to do so, your tatecreude. No ‘wanting’ is involved: all is inevitable flow. You are man. You will flow in the pathways in which a man would flow. As he is of you, our path to him will be carved clean. You will fulfill your function.”

  The creature’s voice seemed to be growing clearer as it spoke, as if every word brought it a greater understanding of Ramón’s language. He wondered how long he’d have to talk to the thing before it took on a Mexican accent and started cussing. “And if I do not function as you wish?” Ramón asked.

  The alien paused, as though briefly puzzled. “You live,” it said finally. “Therefore, you exercise your function. Nonfunctioning, you could not exist. To exist and yet not exist—you would be a contradiction, aubre, a disruption in the flow. Aubre cannot be tolerated. To restore balanced flow, it would be necessary to deny the illusion that you exist.”

  That at least was clear enough, Ramón thought, feeling gooseflesh sweep across his skin. He chose his words carefully when he spoke again. “And what function am I to fulfill?”

  The hot orange eyes fixed on him again. “Take care,” the alien warned. “That we must interpret your tatecreude for you is a sign that you incline toward aubre. But we will grant you a dispensation, as you are not a proper creature. Listen: a man has escaped from us. Three days ago he fled from us, and we have not been able to find him. By this act, he has shown himself to be aubre, and so proved that he does not exist. The illusion of his existence must therefore be negated. The man must not be allowed to reach a human settlement, to tell other humans about us. Should he do so, that would interfere with our own tatecreude. Such interference is gaesu, prime contradiction. Therefore you will find him, negate him, in order to restore balanced flow.”

  “How am I supposed to find him if you could not?”

  “You are man. You are the same. You will find him.”

  “He could be anywhere by now!” Ramón protested.

  “Where you would go and where he would go—they are the same. You will go where he has gone, and you will find him.”

  Ramón considered that.

  “So you mean there’s a man out there who found you and got away, and now you want me to help you catch him before he can get back to civilization? You want me to hunt for you? Is that what you’re saying?”

  The thing in the cables considered this.

  “Yes,” it said.

  “And why the fuck would I do that?”

  The deep, awesome, booming sound rose from the depths of the planet below. Ramón was reminded again where he was, and to what sort of creature he was speaking. Vertigo washed through him. The great alien didn’t seem to notice his distress.

  “You are imbued with purpose,” it said, almost patiently. “Your heart beats. You exchange gases. You do so for a purpose. To be and yet be without purpose is contradictory. Your language is flawed in that it can express illusory states. Your purpose is to aid in locating the man. If you are without purpose, the illusion of your existence must be rectified.”

  Well, Ramón thought, that was clear enough. Hunt or die. The answer was simple. He would lie. He had no intention of playing Judas goat for these demons, but likewise he would never be able to break away from them as long as he was ass-deep in their mountain. If he could make his way to the open air, there was at least hope. A chilling thought struck him.

  “How long did you keep me here?” he asked. “Is it still summer out there? Because tracking some mad fucker in winter isn’t going to work.”

  The beast was silent. Ramón grew impatient. If the time he had spent in darkness had been long enough for the seasons to change, escape from the aliens would be suicide. The weather would kill him as effectively as a knife in the ribs.

  “How long was I in that fucking vat?”

  “Three days,” the thing said without hesitation.

  Ramón felt a stab of fear, sharper for being unexpected.

  “The man you want tracked down. That’s how long he’
s been running? All the time I’ve been here?”

  The alien paused for a long moment, before its deep, hoarse voice answered.

  “Yes.”

  This far to the north, there was no way it could be coincidence; Ramón had been followed. Some poor fucker from the constabulary had come north after him, searching for the European’s killer, and instead had walked into this scene from Hell. Ramón couldn’t help imagining it—a Diegotown cop, or maybe one of the governor’s own security agents, making his stealthy way toward Ramón’s camp only to find scorched ground, twisted plastic, and these monsters flying from the great metal wall he had uncovered. Had the bastard had time to call for help? No satellites reached this far north, but the police had radio they could bounce off the atmosphere. Had the aliens destroyed the policeman’s van as they had Ramón’s?

  Ramón had been poor all his life, and, like most poor people, the instinct to be afraid of the police had been burned into his soul. The thought that they had been close enough to him to fall into the same alien snare brought the coppery taste of panic to Ramón’s mouth. And yet, his logical mind told him that the constabulary was his best hope now. Usually the last thing he’d want to see were the police, but there were situations dire enough, like this one, when even somebody like him, who had frequently run afoul of the law, would be damn glad to see the cops coming over the hill. If word could get as far as Fiddler’s Jump, aid would come. The military forces of the colony. Ramón had to hope that the man who had been set to follow him was as good at fleeing as he’d been at shadowing him.

  And if the cavalry came, and Ramón was freed, what then? He had killed the European. Would the governor still be hot to have Ramón hanged for it? Or would his part in discovering the alien nest win him amnesty? He was trapped between the Devil and the deep blue sea.

  “All right,” Ramón said. “You want the guy found, I’ll find him for you. He’s no friend of mine.” He rubbed his chin shrewdly. It wouldn’t do to give in too easily, though. Even things as strange as these might recognize that as subterfuge. “If I do this thing for you,” he asked slyly, “what do I get out of it?”

  The alien stared at him for several long moments, long enough that Ramón began to fear that he had overplayed his hand. “You are an improper and contradictory creature. Aubre may manifest in you. We will ensure against such manifestations by accompanying you.”

  “You? All of you?”

  “We. Not-we. Your language is flawed, it admits contradiction where none exists. We will separate part of the whole. Maneck will sacrifice himself to maintain the flow. Maneck is we, and not-we. Maneck will accompany you and watch over you. Through him, your tatecreude will be protected.”

  Well, the thought that the aliens would send him out alone into the bush, trusting him to keep to the task they had assigned, was one that had always been too good to be true. But the fact that there would be only a single guard was a blessing. Two or three of the things would have been difficult to evade. More than that, impossible. Only one, however…

  The alien who had led him here moved silently to Ramón’s side. It was eerie—nothing so big should be so quiet.

  “Maneck, eh?” Ramón said to the thing. “Your name’s Maneck? I’m Ramón Espejo.”

  While Ramón was still wondering if he should attempt to shake hands with it, Maneck abruptly reached out and took him by the shoulders, lifted him like a doll, and held him immobile in the air. Ramón fought instinctively—nights at the bar and in the street coming back to his arms and legs in a rage. He might as well have punched the ocean. Maneck didn’t budge.

  Up from the pit rose a pale white snake.

  Ramón watched in horrified fascination. It was obviously a cable of some sort—two bare wires protruded from the visible end—but its movements were so supple and lifelike that he could not help but think of it as a pale and sinister cobra. It reared almost to eye level, swayed slowly from side to side, and aimed its blind pallid head at Ramón. The head quivered slightly, as though the snake was testing the air in search of its prey. Then it stretched out toward him.

  Again Ramón tried desperately to break free, but Maneck wrenched him effortlessly back into position. As the cable-snake came closer, he saw that it was pulsating rhythmically, and that the two naked wires in its head were vibrating like a serpent’s flickering tongue. His flesh crawled and he felt his testicles retract. He felt his nakedness vividly now—he was unprotected, helpless, all of the soft, vulnerable parts of his body exposed to the hostile air.

  “I’ll do it!” Ramón shrieked. “I said I’d do it! You don’t have to do this to me! I’ll help you!”

  The cable touched the hollow of his throat.

  Ramón felt a sensation like the touch of dead lips, a double pinprick of pain, a flash of intense cold. An odd, quivering shock ran up and down his body, as though someone were tracing his nervous system with feather fingers. His vision dimmed for a heartbeat, then came back. Maneck lowered him to the ground.

  The cable was now embedded in his neck. Fighting nausea, he reached up and took hold of it, feeling it pulse in his hands. It was warm to the touch, like human flesh. He pulled at it tentatively, then tugged harder. He felt the flesh of his throat move when he tugged. To rip it free would obviously be as difficult as tearing off his own nose. The cable pulsed again, and Ramón realized that it was pulsing in time to the beating of his heart. As he watched, it seemed to darken slowly, as if it were filling with his blood.

  He saw with horror that the opposite end of the cable had somehow linked itself to the alien that had held him, blending into its right wrist. Maneck. He was on a leash. A hunting dog for demons.

  “The sahael will not injure you, but it will help to resolve your contradictions,” the thing in the pit said, as if sensing his distress but failing to understand it. “You should welcome it. It will help to protect you from aubre. Should you manifest aubre, you will be corrected. Like this.”

  Ramón found himself on the floor, though he did not remember falling. Only now that the pain had passed could he look back at it and realize that it had been the worst pain he had ever experienced, as a swimmer turns to look back at a wave that has passed over his head. He didn’t remember screaming, but his throat was raw, and it almost seemed as if the echo of his shriek was still reverberating from the chamber walls. He caught his breath, and then retched. He knew that he would do whatever was required to prevent that from happening again, anything at all, and for the first time since he woke in darkness, Ramón Espejo felt truly ashamed.

  I will kill you all, Ramón thought. Somehow, I will cut this thing out of my throat, and then I will come and kill you all.

  “School yourself,” the pale alien said. “Correct aubre, and even such a flawed thing as yourself may achieve cohesion or even coordinate level.”

  It took Ramón some time to realize that this gibberish had been a dismissal: a stern but kindly admonition, hellfire threatened, the prospect of redemption dangled, and go forth and sin no more. The sonofabitch was a missionary!

  Maneck lifted Ramón back to his feet and nudged him toward a tunnel. The fleshy leash—the sahael—shrank to match whatever distance was between them. Maneck made a sound that he couldn’t interpret and apparently gave up gentle coaxing. The alien moved briskly forward, the sahael tugging now at Ramón’s throat. He had no choice but to follow, like a dog trotting at its master’s heel.

  And you, mi amigo, Ramón thought, staring at Maneck’s indifferent back, will be the very first to die.

  Chapter 7

  Back through the tunnels they went, through cavern after cavern, through rhythmic noise, billowing shadow, and glaring blue light. Ramón walked leadenly, like an automaton, pulled along by Maneck, the tether in his neck feeling heavy and awkward. The chill air leached the heat from his body, and even the work of walking wasn’t enough to keep him warm.

  As he stumbled along, in the privacy of his mind, Ramón searched for hope.

  How l
ong would it be before Elena noticed his absence? Months, at least. Or she might think he’d gone off again, down to Nuevo Janeiro without her, to file his reports and collect his fees and keep his money for himself. Or run off on a drunken spree with some other woman. Rather than start a search for him, she was more likely to work herself into a blind rage and go fuck some hairy prospector from a bush bar or rum shack in revenge. Likewise, Manuel Griego would expect him to be in the field for three or four weeks at the least. Ramón silently berated himself for talking about hunting and his fantasy of disappearing into the Sierra Hueso to live off the land. Manuel might assume he wasn’t coming back at all, especially if he suspected (as he probably did) that Ramón knew that the cops were after him.

  The only ones who would look for him were the law, and the law would have followed him with public execution in mind.

  There was no one. That was the truth. He had lived his life on his own terms—always on his own terms—and here was the price of it. He was on his own, hundreds of miles from the nearest human settlement, captured and enslaved.

  If he was going to get out of this, he would have to find his own way out.

  Maneck tugged at the sahael and Ramón looked up, aware for the first time that they had stopped. The alien thing pushed a bundle into his arms. Clothes.

  The clothes were a sleeveless one-piece garment, something like pajamas, a large cloak, and hard-soled slipper-boots, all made from a curious, lusterless material. He pulled them on with fingers stiff from cold. The aliens were obviously not used to tailoring for humans; the clothes were clumsily made and ill-fitting, but at least they afforded him some protection against the numbing cold. It wasn’t until his nakedness was covered and warmth began to return to his limbs that his teeth began to chatter.