The Hunters of Vermin by H. Paul Honsinger

Author:H. Paul Honsinger [Honsinger, H. Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: H. Paul Honsinger
Published: 2017-11-29T07:00:00+00:00

About 30 kilometers as the crow flies.

He looked at the terrain between the two points. There were some steep hills that he thought it best to avoid. Then there was an area of swamp that transitioned to marsh that transitioned to a low river flood plain that, as far as he knew, could very well be flooded.

I’m not homesick enough to go that way.

He marked a tentative path with a pencil included in the miscellaneous tools in his pack, and then worked out the distance from waypoint to waypoint.

Closer to 40 kilometers as the Max walks.

Fast moving, experienced hikers traversing prepared, familiar trails could cross that distance in a single very hard day. Infantry crossing average terrain under noncombat conditions would normally allow two days to cover that distance. In light of being on an alien planet and having no idea what lay ahead except for what he could see on his map or with his own eyes, Max thought it best to allow three days. The Vaaach had given him food for four days, though, and he thought that he should be prepared to be in the field for that long.

Max measured the map bearing to his first waypoint: 322 degrees true. He picked up the compass, popped up the electro-optical sighting system, sighted down that bearing, and picked a landmark in that exact direction. He put the compass in a jacket pocket, folded the map and put it in another jacket pocket, took a sip of water from the canteen, shouldered the pack and boarding cutlass, and started out toward his landmark at an easy pace.

In less than an hour, he reached the edge of the clearing. Max stopped and peered into the forest ahead. His initial impression had been correct--it was essentially a temperate zone hardwood forest. The trees were a reasonable distance apart—a meter or two in most places, and there were several apparent animal trails through the ankle to knee-high vegetation on the forest floor. He checked his leg protectors--something like leggings that went from the middle of Max’s boots (just above the ankle) to just above the knee--a useful piece of gear that turned back thorns, shed plant saps and resins to protect the wearer from plants like poison ivy, and instantly turned hard as rock when struck hard, thereby protecting from snake bite.

If these woods are like the ones back home, there are at least a dozen species of poisonous snakes between me and where I’m going. I don’t want to be the test subject who determines whether “universal snake anti-venin” works on these snakes.

The training manual for such things, which Max had dutifully studied as a midshipman, said that he should pull out his binocs and give the forest a thorough visual scan, especially in infrared. But, it was a bright, sunny day with the sun filtering through the trees to provide plenty of light for Max to see nearly half a kilometer into the woods from where he was standing.

Standing here

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