Purgatory by Mike Resnick

Author:Mike Resnick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ePublishing Works!
Published: 2011-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

21.

Fuentes followed the trail, spotting a patch of crushed grass here, a piece of shedding skin hanging from a thorn branch there. They were running aimlessly, panicked, using up too much energy. He knew from his long association with the Fani and the Tulabete how far they could run under normal circumstances . . . but the Tulabete were plains dwellers, and the higher they climbed, the more difficulty they would have as the air became thinner. They'd drop, exhausted, in another mile and a half, possibly less.

He surveyed the landscape, the contours and ridges of the mountain; he'd hunted it a year ago, and he knew it fairly well. They'd never make it up past the treeline, nor would they want to. They'd feel safe in the forest, and would wait for his team to depart. That meant they'd need a vantage point, a place from which they could observe his cavalry's departure. And water, of course; they couldn't know how long the Men would remain in the area, and they'd have to have water.

His keen eyes sought out and found the three likeliest spots from which the two Tulabete could watch their camp without being spotted from below. One had the wrong kind of shrubbery, a dryland bush that required minimal water; it would never have grown up there if there had been an ample supply. That narrowed it down to the other two sites, one quite steep, one a much easier climb. They couldn't know they were being followed, and they'd be exhausted by now, so he opted for the latter.

When he was half a mile away from it, he left the more obvious route and began silently climbing up through the bushes and trees that clung to the mountain. After a few moments he hit a thick grove of thornshrub, and stripped down to his shorts and shoes, leaving his outfit and his socks behind. He'd rather have his body take the scrapes and wounds from the thorn than give himself away by a sound of ripping fabric.

The site was empty when he arrived half an hour later, but that didn't surprise him. He had analyzed where they'd go, but they would arrive only after some trial and error. He felt he had at least an hour before they showed up, and he spent the time creating a blind behind the thick bushes and then waited patiently inside it.

And it was an hour later, almost to the minute, that two Tulabete cautiously approached the site, obviously exhausted from their exertion. He waited until they were almost on top of him, then fired his rifle once and instantly trained it on the second Tulabete as the first dropped to the ground. His finger was tightening on the trigger when he recognized the Tulabete's insignia, and instead of firing, he stood up.

"Don't move!" he said in Tulabete.

"Go ahead and kill me, as you killed all the others," answered the Tulabete in excellent Terran.

"I have no intention of killing you," said Fuentes, stepping out of the blind.

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