The Hugo Stories (Volume 5) by Mike Resnick

Author:Mike Resnick
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: ZappTek
Published: 2010-10-15T05:00:00+00:00

* * *

Jeremy jolted instantly awake, his heart pounding, his body drenched. But this wasn't fever.

Something was watching him.

He forced himself back into stillness, keeping his eyes shut. His hand, hidden beneath his head, gently released the safety on the pistol. Leopard or bandit or whatever, whatever tried to attack him was going to be very, very surprised, and then very, very dead.

Steady there. Play possum. He slowly opened his eyes. When they adjusted to the darkness, he glanced stealthily about. A tiny blot of shadow detached itself from the doorway of the sick woman's hut and paused, staring at the truck.

Dammit, those kids had no business wandering around here at night! He'd seen the fence around the old man's grave. Maybe the local scavengers would like live meat for a change. The children seemed eager to provide it.

You know perfectly well why their mothers can't watch the kids, he told himself. They're sick or they're dying. Probably both. Never mind what Elizabeth had said about miracles. The fact that her parents had survived the madness of Idi Amin had made her a cock-eyed optimist.

He'd give the kid five minutes, Jeremy decided. Five. If it didn't do its business in the bush or wherever, then go back into the hut, he personally would escort it back to its mother.

Wait. Don't move.

The shadow detached itself from the shelter of the hut and moved out into the clearing, toward the fenced-in grave. It squatted there, and Jeremy could see the tremors that shook it. No, shook her. Had one of the little ones been a girl? He couldn't remember. There'd been so many children, each to be greeted with a grin and a loop of scarlet ribbon as long as supplies held out, that sometimes he didn't look at them as the individuals they were—or that they would grow into if they lucked out and lived.

This was a girl, barely four feet tall. Much too small to be out alone. He gathered himself to leap down from the truck and take the child in charge.

Not yet.

The child's shoulders shook. Why, she's crying for her father! Jeremy's own eyes filled. He blinked frantically, and when his sight cleared, he found that the child had turned around.

And it was no child.

It had the face of a withered old woman—with eyes that seemed filled with love and compassion.

This is crazy! Africa's finally got to me. I must be hallucinating. How can you look at a pair of eyes, especially in that ancient face, and read compassion or anything else into them?

A cough came from the darkness of the forest, a cough and a rush of paws, followed by a squall of pure rage as the child with the ancient face beat at the predator with a club. Finally Jeremy could make out her attacker: a small, scrawny leopard, made bold by its hunger.

No time for waiting now. Jeremy grabbed for the pistol, aimed as best he could, and fired.

The explosion woke up the village. Jeremy built a huge fire and reconnoitered, pursued by Elizabeth's ironic comments about mighty hunters.

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