The Star Fox

“We did,” Heim answered. “Wars have casualties.” He clapped the minstrel’s shoulder and walked toward Jocelyn. Sweat, runneling down his body, squelched in his boots. He felt a tightness in chest and gullet as if he were about to cry, but he wasn’t able.

“You all right, Joss?” he asked. She backed away. “I won’t hurt you,” he said.

“But I shot at you!” Her voice was as a frightened child’s.

“That’s in the game.” He laid his arms around her and drew the helmet against his breast. She sobbed for minutes. He waited it out from a vague sense of duty. Not that he hated her; there was a strange ashy vacuum where she had been in him. His emotions were engaged with the man who had died, his thoughts with what must be done.

At last he could leave her, seated and silent. He went on to the wrecked flyer. Fragments and cargo were scattered from hell to breakfast. He found an unharmed entrenching tool and several machetes and carried them back. “Start digging, Bragdon,” he said. “What?” The man jerked where he lay. “We’re not going to leave Greg Koumanoudes unburied. It’ll have to be a shallow grave, but—Get busy. Somebody will spell you when you’re tired.”

Bragdon rose, centimeter by centimeter. “What have you done?” he cried.

“I didn’t kill that man. You did, with your insane attempt to—to what? Do you think you can stand off our flyer?”

“No,” Heim said. “I don’t plan to be here when it arrives.”

“But—but—but—”

“You left your motor running.” Heim gave him the tool and continued on to Vadász. Uthg-a-K’thaq bestirred himself and came to help, scooping dirt with his hands.

“Did you think of anything beyond getting control?” Heim asked the Magyar.

“No,” said Vadász. “A dim idea of—I knew not what, except that my forefathers never quit without a fight.”

“Sit down and let’s look at the poopsheets.” Every suit had a pocket loaded with charts and other local information. There wasn’t much about Staurn. Heim unfolded the map of this region. It fluttered and crackled in the wind. He spread it across his knees. “Greg would have known what these symbols mean. But look—” His finger traced the outlines. “Those mountains are the Kimreth boundary and this is the River Morh; we know that. Now, see, Mount Lochan is marked as the highest in the northern sierra. In fact, no other peak stands that much bigger than its neighbors. So yonder old volcano has to be Lochan. Then we’re about here.”

“Yes.” A certain life returned to Vadisz’s speech. “And here is the Hurst of Wenilwain on Lochan’s northern slope. About a hundred airline kilometers hence, would you not say? I doubt we can survive that big a walk. But if we can get moderately near, someone flying on patrol or on a hunt ought to spy us.”

“And Wenilwain knows us. Uh-huh.” Heim shook his head. “It’s a long chance to take, I admit. What are these areas marked between us and him? The Walking Forest; the Slaughter Machines; Thundersmoke.”

“Let me try—” Vadász riffled through the pitifully thin handbook. “No entry. But then, this is a stat of a map annotated by Gregorios and Charles, on the basis of what they learned while dealing with the natives. They must have planned to pass the information on when they got home. It’s a common practice.”

“I know. And Greg’s dead. Well, we’ll find out.”

“What of those?” Vadász pointed at Bragdon painfully digging, Jocelyn huddled by herself.

“They’ll have to come along, I’m afraid. For one thing, it’ll puzzle and delay their, friends, not to find anybody here, and so give us time to find cover. For another thing, we’ll need every hand we can get, especially when we hit the foothills.”

“Wait!” Vadász slapped the ground. His voice Weakened. “Gunnar, we cannot do it. We have air recyclers, but nothing for water except a day’s worth in these canteens. That isn’t even allowing for what we will need to reconstitute powdered food. And you know that ten kilometers a day, afoot, will be fantastic progress.”

Heim actually noticed himself smiling, lopsidedly. “Haven’t you ever met that trick? We won’t be far from native water at any time; notice these streams on the map. So we fill our canteens, put the laser pistol at wide beam and low intensity, and boil out the ammonia.”

“Spending the capacitor charges,” Vadász objected. “That leaves only your slugthrower for defense.”

“Shucks, Endre, local tigers are no problem. We’re as unsavory to them as they’d be to us. Our biggest enemy is the gravity drag; our second biggest the short food and medicine supply; our third, maybe, bad weather if we hit any.”

“M-m-m … as you say. I would still like to know precisely what the Slaughter Machines are. But—yes, of course, we will try.” The minstrel got up almost bouncily. “In fact, you have made me feel so much better that I think I can take my turn at digging.”

They had not much time to spare, enough barely to scrape a little earth over the fallen man and hear Vadász sing the Paternoster. Then they departed.

V

Four Staurnian days? Five? Heim wasn’t sure. The nightmare had gone on too long.