Джон Макдональд - The Hunted [Short Story]

The strain nearly tore his arm out.

The platform loomed up with startling suddenness. Finger on the button, he held the rod aimed at the two of them, saw them driven back off the platform in a spray of the clear watery liquid that had stained the street of the city.

Their empty platform shot by him on one side so close that he could have touched it. He scrambled quickly to the front of his own platform, grasped the leading edge and once more switched to full speed ahead.

The other two platforms were much closer. Almost as close as the first one had been. He did not dare try the trick again. They had seen it, certainly. They would be waiting.

Far ahead rode the empty platform that had passed him. Without the burden of passengers, it quickly increased the distance.

The sun was high when he approached the fringes of a huge forest. He glanced back. The pursuers held their position. He looked ahead. They would never find him in the immensity of that forest; yet they might mark the spot where he landed, and blast the earth with some weapon other than the black rod.

He lowered the platform slowly without diminishing speed until he was but a few feet from the tops of the highest trees.

It was worth a chance. They were far behind him, so far behind that they were two white dots on a metal sheet half the size of his little fingernail.

He made his decision. Bracing himself as before, he threw the lever into reverse, and, as the platform came momentarily to a dead stop, he pushed the lever forward again, yanking the altitude lever back.

He let the platform speed out from under him. He had hoped to drop into the trees. Instead, he landed in a small clearing, landed with a force that drove the wind from him, dropped him into sudden darkness...

“So they were all killed?” Riss asked.

“Nineteen of them were. The twentieth, the one you saw the day before yesterday, fled on a platform. He dropped off over the northern forest. An hour later his platform ran out of fuel and it was only then that the stupid ones who followed him found the platform empty and discovered that he had fallen. They could not find the place of course, but it is obvious that he died.”

“He was more intelligent than the others,” Thome said.

“A good beast to hunt, my friend. A dangerous beast. The best kind. Better than the fire lizards of Venus or the winged snakes of Callisto. This beast called man is the best of all.”

“When is the next hunt?”

“We’re expecting a shipment next week. But for the next hunt, there will be special, complicated controls on the platforms and thrust guns, so that the creatures cannot capture them and use them.”

“Splendid idea,” Riss said. He looked down toward the pen where the creatures were fighting to get at the food trough.

It was night when Peter awakened. His head throbbed. Something bit into his side and he found that it was the useless fragments of the black rod, broken by his fall.

His sensitive nose savored the light breeze that blew along the forest floor. He broke the rope that still held the club to his waist. He got to his knees and listened. Something rustled in the leaves. He crouched, sprang, and killed it with the first blow of the club. It was a small animal.

By the pale light of dawn he saw that it was a beast with a hide covered with long stiff thorns. Its belly was soft. He tore it open with a sharp stick, ate the raw meat. It would have been better cooked, but there was no way to make fire.

An hour later he found a cold brook, drank deeply and bathed his bruises. He was stiff from the fall.

It was good to be free, to walk where he pleased. The free air had a good smell. The forest floor was pleasantly springy under his feet.

He walked aimlessly under the huge trees, and it was as though deep instincts were reawakened, as though all his senses had become sharper.

Even so, he did not know that they had surrounded him until he heard the hoarse shout that was a signal.

It happened in the middle of a clearing. He paused, saw the men step out from behind the clumps of brush. He turned, found them on all sides.

They were powerful men with wary eyes, tangled beards. They wore the skins of animals, belted around them with leather thongs. He was oddly conscious for the first time in his life of his absolute nakedness.

There was no escape. They carried clubs, even as he, but to the ends of their clubs were lashed sharpened stones.

One of them, not as powerful as the others, and unarmed, stepped toward him. Peter lifted the club in a threatening gesture.

“Who are you?” the stranger asked.

“I am Peter.”

“I am Saul. Where do you come from?”

“I was in the pens. The masters put me in the ruined city so they could find me and kill me. I killed them instead. I took their platform and their gun and I came to this place.”

Saul looked at him with contempt. “You wear no skins and you are dirty. You come from the pens. That is plain.”

Peter threw aside his club and growled low in his throat. “You lead these men? I can kill you.”

“It is like that in the pens, but not here, my friend. He who leads here is the one best able to lead, not the one with the sharpest teeth. Should you strike me, these others would kill you quickly.”

Peter looked sullenly around at the waiting men. He saw, on their faces, not the blood lust of those who watched the fights in the pens, but rather a sort of contempt, and amusement. It made him ashamed.

“Did you escape?” Peter asked the one who called himself Saul.

“My father escaped. I was born here in the forest. This place is called Nicolet. All of us were born here, except that one over there. He escaped five years ago.”

“What do you do here?” Peter asked him.

The man called Saul looked proud. “We live in huts in the forest. We trap game, plant crops and increase in numbers. We are free and strong. We no longer call those beings our masters. We are our own masters.” He looked around. The other men rumbled agreement.

“What will you do to me?” Peter asked.

“If we do not want you with us, we will kill you. If you want to come with us, you must remember that we do not fight among each other. We work, all of us. It is hard, but it is good. We will find you skins to wear. Among the daughters you will find a wife. Then all will help to build your hut. You will obey our laws and vote in the council of the adults as does every one of us.”

As the first touch of night began to shade the forest, the hunting party topped the crest and went eagerly down the slope to the village. Peter was with them, clothed in fresh skins.

Hidden among the trees, the lights of the cooking fires twinkled. He heard the glad welcoming cries of the women, the soft sounds of the voices of the children.

He stood alone for a moment, and there was an odd slinging in his eyes and it seemed to him that he surely had been in this place before, heard these same warm sounds.

He started violently as Saul touched his arm.

“Come, Peter,” he said. “They are eager to see you. Already the men have told about you. Tonight you will share my food and drink and sleep in my hut.”

Peter followed him slowly down into the glow of the firelight.