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Eye and Ear with Peggol.
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"You'd best believe it, freeman." Radnal recounted the story of the lost
tourist who'd stayed lost. "No matter how many helos search, they'll be
covering a big area and trying to find people who don't want to be found. We
stay in the hunt till it's over. By the way the Krepalgans fooled us all, they
won't make things easy."
"Shall we keep resting, or head out now?" Peggol asked.
Radnal chewed on that for a few heartbeats. If the helo was here, that meant
the people at Tarteshem knew from its radiophone how bad things were. Andthat
meant helos would swarm here as fast as they could take off, which meant his
group would probably be able to get supplies. But he didn't want to lose
people to heatstroke, either, a risk that came with exertion in the desert.
"We'll give it another tenth of a daytenth," he said at last.
He was first up when the rest ended. The other six rose with enough groans
and creaking joints for an army of invalids. "We'll loosen up as we get
going," Fer vez Canthal said hopefully.
A little later, panic ran through Radnal when he lost the trail. He waved for
Peggol and Horken vez Sofana. They scoured the ground on hands and knees, but
found nothing. Rock-hard dirt stretched in all directions for a couple of
hundred cubits. "If they pulled up a bush and swept away their tracks, we'll
have a night demons' time picking them up again," Horken said.
"We won't try," Radnal declared. The rest of the searchers looked at him in
surprise. He went on, "We're wasting time here, right?" No one disagreed. "So
here is the last place we want to stay. We'll do a search spiral. Zosel vez,
you stand here to mark this spot. Sooner or later, we'll find the trail
again."
"You hope," Peggol said quietly.
"Yes, I do. If you have a better plan, I'll be grateful to hear it." The Eye
and Ear shook his head and, a moment later, dropped his eyes.
While Zosel stood in place, the other searchers tramped in a widening spiral.
After a hundred heartbeats, Impac vez Potos shouted: "I've found it!"
Radnal and Horken hurried to see what he'd come across. "Where?" Radnal
asked. Impac pointed to a patch of ground softer than most in the area. Sure
enough, it held marks. The more experienced men squatted to take a better
look. They glanced up together; their eyes met. Radnal said, "Freeman vez
Potos, those are the tracks of a bladetooth. If you look carefully, you can
see where it dragged its tail in the dirt. Donkeys never do that."
"Oh," Impac said in a small, sad voice.
Radnal sighed. He hadn't bothered mentioning that the tracks were too small
for donkeys' and didn't look like them, either. "Let's try once more," he
said. The spiral resumed.
When Impac yelled again, Radnal wished he hadn't tried to salve his feelings.
If he stopped them every hundred heartbeats, they'd never find anything. This
time, Horken stayed where he was. Radnal stalked over to Impac. "Show me," he
growled.
Impac pointed once more. Radnal filled his lungs to curse him for wasting
their time. The curse remained unspoken. There at his feet lay the
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unmistakable tracks of three donkeys. "By the gods," he said.
"They are right this time?" Impac asked anxiously.
"Yes. Thank you, freeman." Radnal shouted to the other searchers. The seven
headed southwest, following the recovered trail. Fer vez Canthal went up to
Impac and slapped him on the back. Impac beamed as if he'd performed bravely
in front of the Hereditary Tyrant. Considering the service he'd just done
Tartesh, he'd earned the right.
He was also lucky, Radnal thought. But he'd needed courage to call out a
second time after being ignominiously wrong the first, and sharp eyes to spot
both sets of tracks, even if he couldn't tell what they were once he'd found
them. So more than luck was involved. Radnal slapped Impac's back, too.
Sweat poured off Radnal. As it evaporated from his robes, it cooled him a
little, but not enough. Like a machine taking on fuel, he drank again and
again from the bladder on his back.
Now the sun was in his face. He tugged his cap over his eyes, kept his head
down, and tramped on. When the Krepalgans tried doubling back, he spotted the
ruse instead of following the wrong trail and wasting hundreds of precious
heartbeats.
By then, the western sky was full of helos. They roared about in all
directions, sometimes low enough to kick up dust. Radnal wanted to strangle
the pilots who flew that way; they might blow away the trail, too. He yelled
into the radiophone. The low-flying helos moved higher.
A big transport helo set down a few hundred cubits in front of the walkers. A
door in its side slid open. A squadron of soldiers jumped down and hurried
west.
"Are they close or desperate?" Radnal wondered.
"Desperate, certainly," Peggol said. "As for close, we can hope. We haven't
drowned yet. On the other hand" he always thought of the other hand "we
haven't caught your two sluts, either."
"They weren't mine," Radnal said feebly. But he remembered their flesh
sliding against his, the way their breath had caught, the sweat-salty taste of
their skin.
Peggol read his face. "Aye, they used you, Radnal vez, and they fooled you.
If it makes you feel better, they fooled me, too; I thought they kept their
brains in their twats. They outsmarted me with the fornication books in their
gear and the skin they showed. They used our prudishness against us how could
anyone who acts that way be dangerous? It's a ploy that won't work again."
"Once may have been plenty." Radnal wasn't ready to stop feeling guilty.
"If it was, you'll pay full atonement," Peggol said.
Radnal shook his head. Dying when the Bottomlands flooded wasn't atonement
enough, not when that flood would ruin his nation and might start an exchange
of starbombs that would wreck the world.
The ground shivered under his feet. Despite the furnace heat of the desert
floor, his sweat went cold. "Please, gods, make it stop," he said, his first
prayer in years.
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It stopped. He breathed again. It was just a little quake; he would have
laughed at tourists for fretting over it. At any other time, he would have
ignored it. Now it nearly scared him to death.
A koprit bird cocked its head, peered down at him from a thornbush that held
its larder.
Hig-hig-hig!it said, and fluttered to the ground. Radnal wondered if it could
fly fast enough or far enough to escape a flood.
The radiophone let out a burst of static. Radnal thumbed it to let himself
transmit: "Vez Krobir here."
"This is Combat Group Leader Turand vez Nital. I wish to report that we have
encountered the Krepalgan spies. Both are deceased."
* * *
"That's wonderful!" Radnal relayed the news. His companions raised a weary
cheer. Then he remembered again his nights with Evillia and Lofosa. Andthen he
realized Combat Group Leader vez Nital hadn't sounded as overjoyed and
relieved as he should have. Slowly, he said, "What's wrong?"
"When encountered, the Krepalgans were moving eastward."
"Eastw Oh!"
"You see the predicament?" Turand said. "They appear to have completed their
work and to have been attempting to escape. Now they are beyond questioning.
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