Jack Chalker - Priam's Lens

Unlike her, he could keep firing for a while, keeping her pinned down while he continued on toward the shore which was now not very far away. Hell, she could already see him, if she and her targeting system were good enough to figure out what his defense was doing, but if she fired, then he knew her precise position. She was cutting back and ducking for cover under the barrage.

Using that, he made it to the fixed point he’d picked on the other side and immediately turned and did a camouflage blend, just where the water met the shore and against the backdrop of the forest and wisps of fog. He instantly powered down all targeting and sensor systems to minimum level and remained perfectly still, all systems and weapons still at the ready. Now she had to come to him in the open. Either that, or she’d have to abandon the hunt, and he knew it wasn’t in her to ever do that.

Sweet Jesus, he was good! For the first time, the rush replaced the lingering fear and he felt his old confidence. Still, it was tempered with the knowledge that it wasn’t anywhere up .to the levels he’d once had and probably would never be again. Even Bambi would eventually have to face, if not the doubt and fear that he had, then the fact that everybody slows down sooner or later. But, right now, if he didn’t have to think about it, or if he was in the winner’s seat, he was as good as they came and he knew it.

“Eugene? How the hell did you do that? You ain’t supposed to be able to move and shoot like that both at the same time!”

He kept his transceiver off. He could pinpoint her if she kept on a few more sentences, even from across the lake. He’d rather she didn’t know his position, or, worse, imagine him on a beeline for the exit.

Damn! He hadn’t thought about that. Seventeen minutes! And they’d have laid some kind of tricks right at the end he’d have to figure out, too. C’mon, Bambi! 1 ain’t got time to wait you out!

She could afford to just wait him out, if she could be certain that he was stopped and waiting for her, but she wouldn’t want to win that way. No, she’d come across now, everything on, lit up like a Christmas tree, inviting him to the duel. Now he had the free shots.

And, within a minute, here she came. She did surprise him for a second or two, coming out well down the Lakeshore from where he’d started, and that did gain her a few points, but now she was clear as a bell, all sensors on, full scans and instant tracking. The moment he opened up, she’d return fire to the exact same point automatically. He might well get her, but it would probably be mutual destruction if he did. She’d figured out that he had the advantage now, and she knew that coming as she did was suicide but that he could not stop her from returning fire until she was knocked out.

So he let her come, watched her come, let her go right past him and into the jungle, almost feeling her confusion that she was still “alive.” Then he opened up with everything he had from behind her, and he heard her scream in pain and go down and out even as she was still letting loose with the longest string of creative cussing even he, a lifelong Navy man, had ever heard. She kept it up, occasionally switching to Italian, until the bushes and vines closed in and finished her off. Well, she’d now have to lie there in a dead suit and wait until he exited. Then she could either call for aid or, once the sim was switched off, manage to get out on her own.

He felt so good about it that he stood there, hovering just above the edge of the lakeshore, looking at where she’d bought it, enjoying the moment even as he knew he had only fourteen minutes to get out himself.

It wasn’t a serious problem.

The sea monster reared up with lightning speed and swallowed him in mid-gloat.

There was a storm coming. Even before you could see it in the sky or hear it in the distance you could feel it—everybody could. The temperature dropped, and for a moment it seemed like the whole world paused to get a breath, so quiet and still it was as the clouds rolled in fast, then ever faster, covering the sun and then the rest of the sky with a bubbling, frothing mass of angry cloud.

Father Alex looked at the sight and shook his head. It wouldn’t take more than one or two more generations before the faith of their fathers was even more muddied than it was now, and this sort of thing would be taken as the act of an angry god, and perhaps not the only one.

The camp was already on the move, and in a manner that their ancestors would have found astonishingly wrong had they seen it. Instead of moving to shelter, to groves of trees that weren’t all that far off, they instead all moved quite efficiently out into the open, away from trees or flowing water, out into the tall grass. Only then did they huddle together, the women cradling and comforting the children, the men simply standing or sitting, waiting. They retained their guard circles, of course, but each had stuck his spear in the earth at a slight angle, where it was available but not in his hand.

Jagged lightning darted out of the clouds and found targets on the ground. Storms here, always violent, had become even more so since the Titans altered the planetary ecosystem to suit themselves. The storm sounded like an artillery barrage, and the lightning danced all over the sky and the ground as the sky grew so dark it seemed that the sun had already set. There was no way you could outrun such a thing, and if any of that hit you it was God’s will. But it was less likely to strike you in the open, they knew by experience, and more likely to strike trees or wooden poles or reclaimed pieces of metal than someone simply standing or sitting naked in the open.

Even Father Alex found it difficult during times like these to maintain his faith, though he knew that when his faith wavered he was in no position to require the straight and narrow from his flock. Had not he been taught that the great leader of God, Moses, had seen his flock turn from God and be nearly destroyed? And he was no Moses; God had never spoken to him, nor dictated to him holy books, nor did he even have holy books to look at and take comfort from. How much error was already in the memorized texts held by various Families? How much understanding was possible in such a system that, each generation, grew farther away from the source of light?

And Daniel was cast into the lion’s den—but what was a lion? A beast, certainly, but what else? Did it stalk and eat people like the Hunters or serve the Kingdom of Evil as they did? How could he know? It was as difficult as understanding what an ark was, or how anybody could write books and carry them around. How could he keep the people from worshiping the elements when he did not know these things himself?

Still, no matter what they believed, no matter if such storms as these caused occasional injury or even a death, they would always be welcomed as friends by the Families, for they obliterated most traces of group habitation. That was the key to the survival of the Family: move fast, move often, leave no mark on the land or give sign of activity, and let the storms wipe out your trail and traces.

Father Alex did worry about the two boys he’d sent off to find out about those Hunters. He was confident that they were smart enough and good enough not to get caught, but this storm would leave them out in the wilderness, far from the camp, and if it lasted much longer it might well not end until night fell. The small and distant moons of Helena gave little light even if the clouds lifted; it was pretty damned dark out there after the sun went down.

There were not many predators, except the Hunters, but there were some real dangers and a few minor nasty little creatures that had managed to retain a hold on their turf even through the Titans’ massive re-terraforming of the planet. These were mostly burrowing creatures, creatures that could live underground and remain out of the way and that, nonetheless, could adapt to a changing climate so long as there was water and above-freezing temperatures. There were also teeming native insects that not only hadn’t been wiped out but apparently had quickly become a part of the new land, fertilizing and aerating and doing the things this lush Titan garden required. The Titans had adjusted the whole of the planet to their liking, but they had brought no supporting animals and had adapted native plants as well.