Cyberpunk (31 page)

(Odd tactical, I thought, given they were only two people.) I hadn’t

gotten as far as I’d hoped, hadn’t found the spot I was really looking for,

but I could still make a good show of Harris’s Last Stand. A fair-sized

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tree stood alongside the trail; I got behind it and crouched down low.

Holding my crutch like a bat, tensing my muscles, I shut off all pain

inputs from my ankle and concentrated on how good it would feel to

take one of them with me.

Kao Vang never saw it coming. He stomped past the tree, still

swearing at the top of his lungs; I swung my crutch around so hard it

broke across his shins. For a moment he had the most
startled

expression I’ve ever seen, and then he let out a real satisfying painful

bellow, collapsed like a wet dishrag, and I was on top of him, grabbing

his collar, groping for his wimp switch—

No pull-tab. It was already gone.

“Goddammit Harris!” he yelled when he figured out what was going

on, “that
hurt
!” He wasn’t fighting back, I noticed. And once the

hand-to-hand rush ebbed, I also noticed he didn’t have his knife,

canteen, or far that matter most of his clothes. “Harris,” he said with

forced calm, “it’s okay. Honest mistake. I’m not mad.” He lifted his

chin, to show me the empty pull-tab socket. “I’m dead, see?”

I rolled off and let him sit up. He started rubbing his shins. “What

happened?” I asked.

“Fuggin’ Deke took me out!” he spat. I looked him in the face and

dumped off some disbelief. “No zut! Goddam S.I. woke us this

morning—you know they have two-way voice on these fuggin’

collars?—said it was his last warning to split up. Right then and there,

fuggin’ Deke reaches over and yanks my switch!” Kao Vang calmed

down slightly, looked at me, and asked, “Say, can I have a drink? That

barf-brain took my canteen.”

I unhooked mine, unscrewed the cap, and handed it over. He took a

deep drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, said, “Thanks.”

Another swig, and he added, “I tried to pull his switch, but the dead

can’t take out the living. Fuggin’ pull-tab locks. So I slugged him, and

the slimeball pulled his knife. Made me hand over my canteen, my

clothes, my... “ He shrugged, and gestured at himself. “See? Everything

but boots, undies, and compass.” He looked at me, appraising. “You got

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anything to eat? I haven’t eaten in three days.”

Damn him for reminding me! My stomach growled in sympathy.

“Where you going?” I asked, changing the subject.

“The S.I. radioed after my switch went. Congratulated Deke on his

fuggin’ clean kill, gave me a heading for the Grade Five camp, told me

to hike out! Speaking of which...” Vang started to look around in the

weeds. I helped, and in a minute we found his compass. He took another

hit on the canteen. “I
told
Deke we shoulda gone ‘round the marsh, but

no-o! We couldn’t find jack squat to eat, and then all our matches got

soaked. I was so hungry yesterday I caught a frog. Ever try to eat raw

frog?”

“You checked your compass?” I asked. “Mine is off by ninety

degrees.”

“No zut?” He looked at his; I unscrewed mine and handed it over.

He looked at them both, frowned, swore some more. “You mean I been

walking south when ... ? Thanks, Harris.” He handed my compass back

to me. “Y’know, if you can just stay loose another day or two, Deke

won’t have
time
to hunt you. He’ll be too busy looking for something he

can eat. God, what I wouldn’t give right now for a steak! I’d even settle

for one of those hockey pucks the mess hall calls—”

“Vang?” I asked. “Shut up. Just, shut up.”

He got to his feet, pretending to look at a watch. “Well, I simply

must
get going,” he said, oozing sarcasm. “Places to be, people to meet,

y’know. Say, if you get back to the academy alive, we’ll just
have
to do

lunch some—

“Vang?” I asked again. When I got his attention, I pulled out a ration

bar and threw it to him.

He looked at it a minute, then grinned. “Harris, you are something

else.” He offered me a hand up, and that’s when he noticed my ankle.

“Oo, that’s bad,” he said after he checked it out. “You considered bailing

out?”

I shook my head. “It’s down to me and Luger now. I might actually

have a chance.”

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He smiled wry. “You’re crazy.” Then he started peeling the wrapper

off the ration bar. “No, I take that back. You’re a weird kind of twonk,

Harris, but you’re okay. Now Deke,
he’s
crazy.” Vang took a bite out of

the bar and tried to snicker with a full mouth. “Y’know, he thinks you’re

gonna double-back again and he’ll outfox you by going due
east?
”

I considered that data worth another ration bar and gave it to Vang.

After finishing both bars and washing down the crumbs with a swig

from my canteen, he did me an incredible good turn and cut a strong

staff to replace the one I’d broken across his shins. We hiked half a klick

together, and when his last try at talking me into bailing out failed, he

split off to find the Grade Five camp by dead reckoning.

Ten steps down the path he stopped and turned around. “Say, Mike?

There’s something I should tell you. Deke’s trying to carve a bow; say’s

he’s going to risk tularemia and hunt rabbits. I don’t think he’s sharp

enough to make one that really works, but if he does, I wouldn’t put it

past him to take a potshot at you. Be careful, okay?”

“See you back at camp,” I answered, cheerful. A good plan, a really

good piece of tactical
and
gamethink was coming to me at last. For the

first time in three days I was starting to feel confident.

Vang waved, then headed east; I went west. Progress was slow

‘cause of my ankle, but faster than before because I was taking a straight

line and knew exactly where I was going. By dark I’d found my chute

again. Rolling myself up in the camouflage fabric, I settled in for a

comfy night of resting and stepwise refinement of my plan.

#

Day Four dawned perfect and clear, all calm blue skies and

sunshine. Even the birds seemed really pleased with it. In five minutes

I’d limped back down to the lake and was refilling my canteen. The little

fish were still there.

Odd, how in the end it all came back to a question of catching fish.

Unzipping my jump suit, I pulled out my Starfire and hefted it.

Flipped up the wafer display, checked the power indicator; it still held

55% charge. Maybe there was still time to think of a brilliant piece of

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programming?

Nah. I poked through the weeds at the water’s edge until I found a

precision circuitry conversion tool, or as we call ‘em in the profession, a

big fuggin’ rock. Diodes, resistors; the Starfire was just
full
of shiny

little lure-like things.

Late in the afternoon, I cleared a firebreak and built a greenwood

fire so big even Luger couldn’t miss it. Loaded on lots of fresh, resiny

pine branches; the smoke rose up in the still sky like a big arrow saying,

“You are here!” If Luger was where Vang said he was going—and I

didn’t doubt Vang anymore— at best speed it’d take him five, maybe six

hours to come to me. I was counting on him showing up well after dark.

I checked the ‘chute-fabric decoy tent one more time, then started

whittling my staff down to a nasty sharp spearpoint. Just about dusk, I

spitted a bunch of fish, set them far enough from the fire so that they’d

cook slow, and slithered into my blind.

Sounds cocky don’t it? Truth was, I was still scared stiffless; the

whole plan hinged on two assumptions. One was that Luger’d be using

his stomach instead of his brain. Given how hungry Vang was, and given

that Luger had forty more pounds of body mass to feed, I felt pretty

good about this one.

The second assumption, though, was the one that would get me
real

hurt if I was wrong. It was convoluted double-gamethink: Luger’s

paradigm of me ran on a heavy mix of fear and wimpishness. But how

did he weight my hate for the academy? And did his paradigm allow for

me being scared reckless, scared crazy? If it came to a crunch, did he

think my core personality was a totally gutless wimp or a terrified

nutcase who’d do
anything
to get away from him?

Time to find out. And the throbbing in my ankle said I only got one

chance.

#

A few hours after dark, in the bloody red light coming from the last

coals of the dying fire, I spotted Luger circling around in the shadows

and checking out my camp. He was wearing Kao Vang’s black jammies

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and carrying a crude bow and a couple arrows, with one nocked and

ready to shoot. Trying his best to be wary, cunning, he slipped from tree

to tree, drawing closer to the tent.

With luck, he wouldn’t get close enough to see the trash in it wasn’t

me.

My luck held. Suddenly, he stopped. Sniffed. Turned his head from

side to side like a radar targeter, zeroing in on the broiled fish still

spitted over the coals.

Another of the colonel’s sayings goes, “If a
real
war ever starts, all

the sophisticated weapons will be gone in a week. Then we’ll be back to

bows and arrows.” I’d always wanted to argue with that one. A bow is a

complex weapon: Takes practice to use it, two hands to hold it, and you

have to put it down if you want to do something else.

Like eat.

Stealthy, Luger grabbed a fish and scuttled around to the side of the

fire opposite the tent, where he crouched and started eating. Chomping

and growling like a bag full of hungry cats, his hands full of greasy fish

bits, he kept a nervous eye on the tent.

And his back to me.

Quiet as the pain in my ankle allowed, I crawled out of my blind, got

to my feet, and crept up on him. He didn’t see me coming until a

nanosecond before I teed off into his ribs with the shaft of my spear.

Damn, he had good reflexes! Surprised, winded, knocked flat on his

back, he
still
managed to get hold of his knife. He was really good!

But not fast enough. Before he could get off his back I was standing

over him, the point of my spear resting lightly in the hollow just below

his adam’s apple. The knife twitched, nervous, in his hand.

“Harris!” he gasped, trying to bluster but without cooperation from

his voice. “The game’s over, Harris! Let me pull your switch now and I

won’t hurt you!”

I let out what I hoped was a convincing hysterical cackle.

“Hurt
me
?” I laughed. “You miserable pusbag! You’ve been

badgering me and buggering me for two years, and now you think I’m

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