-
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
got stunned; otherwise, they might be shouting, "He's here, he's here," and
bringing the militia down on my head. That would be very bad.
Half a kilometer and six more unconscious bodies later, I came to the escape
pod. It was still floating in the middle of the canal, barely moving on the
slow current. A scatter of Mandasar bodies lay flumped unconscious at the edge
of the water, all of them warriors... as if there'd been a pitched battle
here, not just sentries caught off guard in the dark.
No human bodies in sight. So far, the navy folks were holding their own.
I used my wrist implant to take another direction reading on the Mayday. Now,
the signal was coming from the far side of the canal. The recovery team must
have decided it was crazy to go farther into the marsh; instead, they'd headed
across the water, where the land wasn't cleared for crops. Nothing over there
but scruffy black forest, and the ground sloping upward into low hills. The
navy people were obviously running for cover and getting the heck out of
Hollen valley.
Good,I thought,they'll be okay now. The recovery folks were retreating, and
they didn't have far to go till they'd be safe; Counselor had said there was
no Mandasar population once you got to higher ground. I could go back the way
I'd come, without having to worry about the navy team... and I'd better do
that fast, before I ran into someone who wanted to slice first and ask
questions later.
When I turned around, the starlit marsh was alive with warriors galloping in
my direction.
Page 57
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
The Mandasars hadn't seen me yet: I was standing in dark shadows under trees.
One of the unconscious warriors lying in the mud must have got off a signal
before he was stunned it only made sense that someone would be carrying a
radio. Now the whole militia was charging toward the battle site... and I
wanted to be long gone before they arrived.
As quietly as I could, staying in shadow, I knelt and slipped into the canal.
The water was just as cold as at lunchtime; just as muddy too, with the
stagnant smell of algae right under my nose. I took a deep breath, then
slipped beneath the surface, swimming with my eyes shut because I wouldn't be
able to see in the black muddiness anyway.
My plan was to reach the trees on the other bank and just hide in the woods.
I wasn't one of those stealthy stalker-types who could slip silently past a
horde of warriors on the hunt. My only hope was that they wouldn't bother to
search the far side; none of their people lived over there, so the warriors
would likely concentrate their efforts on patrolling the main valley rather
than making forays across the canal.
I slid onto the opposite shore just before the first warriors arrived. When
they saw the heaps of unconscious bodies, they broke into an angry chatter
that covered any noise I made creeping into the woods. I kept going, crouched
low and moving as fast as I could, trying to put distance between me and the
Mandasars. Any second, I expected someone to shout, "Look over there!" But
they were all too busy gabbling over their fallen comrades, and pointing
toward the evac module bobbing quietly in the water.
As I moved, things squished softly under my feet. I didn't know what they
were: insects, or puffballs, or jellyish Celestian lifeforms, I couldn't tell.
Fleeing through the dark doesn't give you much chance to appreciate alien
ecologies. I just hoped I wouldn't disturb any teeny critters with venomous
bites. The Mandasars would've cleared out all larger predators their race has
no guilt about endangering species they don't like but they wouldn't bother to
deal with anything whose teeth were too small to go through carapace. Black
widow spiders, for instance. The closest real black widow was surely forty
light-years away, but I still managed to make myself nervous about them as I
slunk through the pitch-dark forest.
Every now and then, a puff of breeze brought the burning-wood smell of Musk
B. The warriors behind me were keyed up, just itching to fight something. If I [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- matkadziecka.xlx.pl