Forever Midnight by John Shirley

Author:John Shirley [Shirley, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, Media Tie-In, Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9781595820341
Google: dc7-AQAACAAJ
Amazon: 1595820345
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Published: 2006-03-14T23:00:00+00:00

TWELVE. COME TOGETHER, OVER ME

May 23, 2117 - 8:00 a.m.

Mannen was running through the thin screen of willowy trees on the edge of the jungle, with a pike in his hand, several strides ahead of his master Shesh-Kuk.

The Hunt! Mannen thought. The Joy of Hunting! My master lets me lead the Expedition!

He could feel the forest nearby, hulking over him, nurturing its black shadows, as if it watched to see if he was worthy; he heard the glottal growls of the Hish coming behind him, spreading out as they hunted the Karna. The pike was slippery with the sweat of his palm; his heart was thumping in his ears; the excitement was almost unbearable.

There-the three Karna were running, close together, up ahead. Two large and a small. Perhaps parents and a child.

The Karna had bandoliers of darts across their chests, and blades in their four-fingered hands. He knew, from his briefing, that the Karna were an advanced race, from a star system ten light years from this one, but their energy weapons were battery-based and had gone dead long ago. They were good metallurgists and made throwing darts and knives on Midnight. They survived in burrows under the great trees, and in dried-up river-tunnels, but there were thought to be no more than a hundred of them surviving in all the jungle, and perhaps a little over two hundred of the atavistic humans.

Pumped with the joy of hunting, Mannen felt light on his feet as he pursued the Karna, as if he could run forever without tiring. The trees flashed by him; the rays of the sun, penetrating the thin foliage of this belt of smaller trees around the edge of the great forest, slanted to strobe past his eyes. Leaves and moss and leaping insectlike things churned up around his feet, and four-winged flyers squawked, disturbed from their nests as the hunters passed beneath. And still they pressed on, closing on their quarry, for the Karna were short-legged creatures, more suited for climbing trees and slithering in burrows than longdistance runs. They had come out into the veldt in search of a grub they liked, which they found under stones out on the plains, and now they regretted their temerity.

Mannen was within four meters of the smaller Karna. It looked over its shoulders and squeaked in terror, on seeing him, and redoubled its speed. He was vaguely aware that Shesh-Kuk was using him to chivvy the Karna as human hunters sometimes used dogs to drive game, and it gave him a twinge-just a twinge. He wanted to be a Hish, like the others, to be a warrior equal to them.

Had he not distinguished himself in the swamps on the homeworld, killing two with one stroke, and...

No.

No that had been Shesh-Kuk, not Roy Mannen. Hadn’t it? Or had it? He wasn’t sure. It was all blurred together...

There-the younger one had stumbled! Time for a kill!

He raised his pike-but then a dart flashed past his cheek, making him stumble in surprise, and another struck him in the front of his right thigh, a piercing high-pitched note of pain.

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