“I’m starving,” she whined.
His tongue pushed into one cheek. “I’ll just get on my comm and ring up the nearest mobile fastfood bot. What would you like? Fried chicken? A burger? Sushi? Köfte?”
“Shut up!” She glared at him. “Anybody ever tell you there’s no sustenance in tempting imagery?”
“Not really. The folks who inhabit the circles I move in don’t use words like ‘sustenance.’ ”
Her frustration and anger gave way to curiosity. “What about you? You’re not hungry?”
He rested a hand on the lower portion of his nearly concave midsection. “Had a NEM put in long time ago. Nutrient extractor and maxi—”
She cut him off. “I know what a NEM is. I’ve had patients who had them put in.”
He nodded amiably. “Then you know that I don’t have to eat much, and that what’s left of my digestive system can process pretty much anything.” He turned serious. “Though I’ll need my supplements eventually. But gut-wise you’re a miserable unmaniped Natural, so we’ll have to see if we can find you something to eat besides roots and berries.”
He turned away from her and toward the overhang’s opening. The stone-circumscribed vista revealed more rocks, an assortment of the hardy trees and scrub that somehow managed to make a living in such hardscrabble terrain, and cephalopod patches of some thick green vine. A fair number of the vines terminated in pale-green-and-white bulges the size of footballs.
Stepping out from beneath the shelter he walked over to the nearest eruption. The vines spilled from a gap between two boulders that was higher than his head. Fecund little suckers, whatever they were, he decided. Bending, he rapped the nearest globular extrusion with the bony knuckles of his left hand and was rewarded with a hollow sound. Following some strenuous tugging and twisting accompanied by suitable invective, the vine surrendered the oval shape.
He presented this to her, if not quite triumphantly, at least with a certain self-satisfaction. She eyed it dubiously.
“What is it?”
“How should I know? It’s something that didn’t come vacuum-wrapped in plastic and delivered to your codo door. I think it might be some kind of wild melon.”
“You ‘think’ it might be?”
He shook his head pityingly. “For someone with so much education you sure as hell are pretty goddamn helpless in the face of the real world.” He started searching their immediate surroundings. “Wish I had a knife.”
Finally settling on a pointed rock that was sticking out of the ground, he walked over to it, raised the maybe-melon high, took careful aim, and slammed the globe down on the point. A second attempt was sufficient to split it in half. Rather neatly, he thought to himself with pride. The juice that spilled from the interior was aromatic, the seeds small and black.
“I’m not as helpless as you think,” she protested crossly from behind him. “Higher education counts for something. For example, I read somewhere that if you’re lost in the jungle you can tell what’s safe for your system by watching what the monkeys eat.”
“Crap, and here we are fresh out of monkeys.”
She said nothing. Just ground her teeth in silence.
Taking one half of the melon he dug out a piece with his fingers and tentatively popped it into his mouth. Engineered to extract nutrients from anything short of raw wood, his NEM shouldn’t have any difficulty processing something that actually looked edible. But despite the bravado he had paraded before Ingrid he knew nothing about what he was eating, and there always existed the possibility that the innocent-looking fruit harbored unknown toxins.
Going by what she had said he expected her to wait until long after he had finished to see if he experienced any aftereffects, but she was just too hungry. All but wrenching the other half of the split melon from where it balanced precariously on his spindly legs, she shoved her face into it and began chewing furiously. When she was halfway through he found himself having to repress a chuckle.
She noticed anyway. “What are you laughing at, stick-man?”
He restrained himself with an effort. “You’ve got melon juice running down your chin, pulp all over your face, and seeds in your nice new melded hair.”
She paused a moment, then nodded agreeably. “It’s all good. Maybe you can find another one of these? It’s actually—delicious.”
“Sure.” Tossing the empty rind outside the shelter, he rose to his feet. Beyond the massive overhang the last flickers of daylight were following the sun over the horizon; yellow streamers from Apollo’s chariot. “They’re all over the place.”
They chowed down on two more of the unidentified but wonderfully refreshing melons. Ingrid could have consumed another couple all by herself, but she was wary of overeating. Her digestive system had not yet fully processed the strange fruit and the last thing she needed or wanted was an upset stomach, or worse. But the hunger was gone. She would be able to sleep.
Tomorrow they would run into some other Preserve visitors, she told herself. Or a park floater would spot them and call for help. One way or another, surely they wouldn’t have to hike all the way to the cross-country highway. Equipped now with a full belly her body was able to fight off the creeping chill of evening. Finding a flat place she started to settle down for the night.
“Wait.” Watching her, Whispr shook his head pityingly. “You really don’t know anything. Do you have any idea how many nights I’ve had to spend on the street, sleeping in city parks or alleys?”
Without waiting for a response he pivoted and exited the shelter again. When he finally returned it was bearing an armful of leafy vines. Spread out on the patch of dirt she had chosen they made a crude bed. She looked up at him.
“Whispr, I—thank you. What are you going to sleep on?”
He indicated the pile of inviting greenery. “There’s more than room enough for tw—”
She was on her feet and moving past him. “Thanks for the chivalrous gesture, but I think it’s my turn to get the vines.”
He put out an arm to block her while being careful not to make contact. “Never mind. I’ll go get some more.” Pain showed in his expression. “Even though I’ll just rip them up and you’d probably remove them with surgical precision.”
“Whispr, I’m just not—”
“Forget it, forget it.” He was already out past the overhang, walking fast.
She followed him as he headed toward the nearest clump of vegetation. Was she being unfair? He was keeping her alive, tending to her needs. How far, how much, did that obligate her to reciprocate? She deliberated, quickly came to a conclusion.
She would reciprocate fully—once they had unraveled the secret of the thread and were safely back home. She had money, he needed money. She would do right by him, and comforted herself by imagining the look on his face when she handed him the reciprocation she calculated would be fair and just.
She didn’t know him at all.
Whispr did not grumble to himself as he set about gathering a second armful of soft green bedding. Griping never did any good. When life is nothing but a steady succession of disappointments one soon grows inured to the repetition. While ever hopeful, he had received nothing more than the response he had expected.
Still, there was time yet. It was a long way to the Namib.
FROM HIS VANTAGE POINT just below the crest of a line of rocks Napun Molé watched as the preposterous but persistent stick-man struggled to wrench a couple of stubborn vines from their rocky moorings. Behind the willowy Meld the renegade physician was lying prone beneath the outthrust granite overhang. From a distance it appeared that she was already asleep, or nearly so. In twenty minutes it would be dark and both of the stranded visitors dreaming soundly of softer beds and the delights of climate-controlled lodging.
Molé glanced upward. The three-quarters full moon would give him plenty of light with which to finally finish off this particular bit of unexpectedly time-consuming work. Not that he needed the moonlight. His exquisitely
engineered artificial left eye allowed him to see comfortably by starlight alone. But he welcomed the moonlight for the shadows it brought with it. He was very fond of shadows. Among other things, they reminded him of himself. Cold, silent, impenetrable, and to many people who happened to sight them unexpectedly, slightly unnerving. If he could have done so he would have dispensed with his clothes and dressed wholly in shadows.
While he marked the passing of the hours he lay back against the rocks, put his hands behind his head, and regarded the moon while listening to the nocturnal birds of the Little Karoo. This was a beautiful part of the world and he was pleased that he had been able to experience it on an expense account.
Following the conclusion of tomorrow’s business he would start the long hike back toward the lodge. The closer he got, the more likely that he would encounter a tour bus or an official Preserve floater. When asked by the authorities what had happened he could reply truthfully that he had missed a turn and crashed his vehicle. He would be dutifully apologetic. By the time anyone thought to broach the possibility that he might have crashed because he had been traveling at an excess rate of speed, he would have taken his leave.
Closing his left eye left him with only moonlight to steer by. Opening it activated a plethora of internal sensor mechanisms that allowed him to see as clearly as if by daylight, albeit daylight tinted a pale green. As a last unidentified warble faded into the night he rose from his resting place, drew his pistol, checked to make sure it was active, and started down from the top of the ridge.
He did not head directly for the cavernous overhang. Instead, he angled toward the river. He would approach from that direction. While comfortable in the water, swimming was not one of his specialties nor was he especially fond of the activity. Where water was concerned he preferred to avoid intimacy unless it was contained in a glass. None of his many distinctive manips included melds designed to put him at ease in lakes or oceans. Or rivers. So on the wild chance that the stick-man or the doctor might be a better swimmer than he and might try to break for the tributary in hopes of making an escape, he chose to block that route, just in case.
Pistol gripped firmly in his right hand he was soon circling back toward the rear of the overhang and his prey. Clumps of boulders he went around, individual rocks he clambered noiselessly over. He was near enough now to view the overhang in its entirety. His heart did not accelerate and his blood pressure did not rise as he found himself closing in on the end of what had been too long a pursuit. Reaching down, he sought a grip on one of the last rounded boulders that lay between him and the cavelike opening. All that remained for him to decide was whether he was going to wake the stick-man by shoving the muzzle of his pistol into the other man’s mouth or into an ear.
Which was when Fate’s handmaiden Irony stepped in, and the thrust of “rock” he had clutched to support his purchase turned out to be an ear.
Shaking off the tiny two-legged creature that had roughly disturbed its rest, the Megatherium rose up on all fours. In that stance it was as big as an elephant. When upon hitting the ground Molé fired instinctively at the monster that now loomed before him, it rose up bearlike on its hind legs to blot out not only the moon but much of the night sky. It was, of course, only a ground sloth whose species had, like so many in the Preserve, been resurrected.
Except that unlike its placid and far smaller modern brethren, Megatherium was four tons of ground sloth. With claws like scythes. Who did not appreciate being roused from its nap by a violent tug on one ear and a reflexive follow-up slug to the shoulder.
Shrugging off the bee sting the infuriated sloth glared down from its six-meter height and swung a right arm the size of a scoot at what it rightly perceived to be the source of its rude awakening. Only Molé’s maniped muscles allowed the old man to roll clear in time. Robust enough to decapitate a grizzly with one blow, the enormous claws on the end of the huge hand gouged parallel grooves in the ground where Molé had been lying an instant earlier.
Swinging its left arm as it lurched forward, the sloth reduced to kindling the trunk of the small tree behind which Molé had taken shelter. As he continued to retreat he fired a second time, and a third. Of sufficiently large caliber to kill a human outright, the shots only further enraged the massive mammal that was lumbering toward him. From its throat came a bellowing like the mother of all hogs.
The repeated bursts from the silenced weapon did not wake Whispr, but the thunderous bawling of the Megatherium shook the air around him sufficiently to make him sit bolt upright. Sprawled on her bed of vines it took the dog-tired Ingrid a moment longer to rouse from dreamland. When a second nightmare roar rattled the semicave she abruptly found herself as awake as her companion.
“Mother of … what is that?” Her eyes were wide in the near darkness.
Having scrambled hastily to the edge of the overhang Whispr was peering out into the moonlight. “It’s close, but it doesn’t sound like a cat. Not that I’m any kind of expert on cats, contemporary or resurrected.” The bellowing shook him again. “Sounds like a herd of cattle being squished together. I can’t see anything and I’m not really interested in identifying species right now.” He looked back at her. “I know you’re exhausted, doc. I’m tired, too. But on the off-chance that this place might be a temporary den for whatever it is that sounds like it’s trying to take down the moon, I think we’d better move.” He looked up. “There’s enough light for walking. And it’s nice and cool. We can sleep during the day.”
Brushing greenery from her arms she came up beside him. A mixture of fury and pain, the horrific bellowing continued. The unknown source was somewhere behind their shelter. “What if it comes after us?”
In the dim light her melded companion was more of a phantom than ever. But if his silhouette was uncomfortably spectral his words were determined. “I don’t know about you, doc, but I’d rather have some open ground between me and whatever it is that’s making that racket than take a chance on being cornered in here.” He stepped out into the moonglow.
She stared at him. “You’d leave me here, wouldn’t you?”
“In a southern-country minute. You coming? Or are you gonna try and go back to sleep?” He was looking not at her but in the direction of the roaring that if anything had grown louder and more terrifying.
She hurried past him.
FINDING HIMSELF BACKED INTO a crevice Molé held off letting loose any additional shells. The ones he had already pumped into the giant ground sloth had been about as effective as spitballs against a rhino. If the monster would hold still long enough for him to get a clear shot at an eye, a bullet so directed would likely penetrate the Megatherium’s brain and kill it. But it was remarkably agile for so massive an animal. Instead of its head it was the flailing, girderlike forelegs and their disemboweling claws that commanded most of his attention.
He didn’t think it could reach him this far back in the narrow cleft in the rocks. While he could not line up the killing shot he needed neither could it grab him to rend him limb from gut. He steadied himself. He was safe and his options were improving. Either it would grow bored and wander away, allowing him to make a dash for safety, or it would eventually lean in for a better look, in which case the next thing it would see was a bullet on course for a pupil. Periodically switching the pistol from hand to hand so that his fingers would not get cramped he waited for the hulking, previously extinct mammal to declare its intentions. For the first time in quite a while the thoughts at the forefront of his consciousness were not of his human quarry.
There was, however, a third option that he had not considered, and it soon presented itself. Molé possessed an impressive command of a wide variety of knowledge, some of it as arcane as it was deadly. He was not, however, conversant with the capabilities of the resurrected species called Megatherium. One of these abilities now made itself known to him in a manner that left no doubt as to why the monster was classed in a group loosely known as ground sloths.
Employi
ng all of its considerable strength, the Megatherium began to tear the assassin’s rocky sanctuary apart stone by stone.
WHISPR WAS RECITING AN endless string of four-letter words as they ran. Struggling to keep up with the muscle-maniped, long-legged Meld, Ingrid barely had enough strength to keep moving while voicing a plea.
“Take it easy! I can’t even hear it anymore.”
She looked back the way they had come. Bathed in pale silver moonlight the rocks behind them seemed to glow from within. Nothing moved save a gang of hyrax. The tiny relatives of the elephant were as equally panicked by the Megatherium’s sudden eruption as the two fleeing humans.
“Can’t slow down.” Thin puffs emerged from between nearly nonexistent lips. “It’s him.”
She blinked at her companion, who despite his insistence had reluctantly slowed from a sprint to a jog. “What? It’s ‘who’?”
“The shunt who tried to kill us in Florida. The stocky assassin. The old Mole—‘Molé.’ ” Eating up the terrain with long, lanky strides, he jerked his head back the way they had come. “When we came out of the shelter and started toward the river I looked back and I saw him. He was moving away fast from what looked like one of the bigger boulders—one that was really hairy and really angry.”
Still struggling with the aftereffects of having been so roughly awakened, Ingrid found herself having to deal with this new revelation. Their remorseless hunter was here?
“What was after him—another Smilodon?” Her tone indicated that she was as hopeful as she was curious.
Whispr shook his head, his reply terse. “Something bigger. Much bigger.”
She tried to recall her minimal university paleontology. “A mammoth? But there probably aren’t mammoths here. At least, we haven’t seen any. I’d think the summers are too hot. There are just mastodons.”