learning before now, Petrovich.”
“I learned something this last year. Something you don’t know. Systemwide has a bounty on it.”
The Colonel said, “What? For killing it?”
Petrovich grinned, having deflected the talk where he wanted it. “No killing. Capture.”
Major Sánchez frowned, outflanked. “You sure?”
“Found it in the old records. Ought to scan those sometime yourself, my friend.” He added, deadpan, “Learn a little.”
“You have hard copy?” the Colonel asked.
Beaming, Petrovich produced a stack of slick sheets. “Reading for the long nighttime.”
It was there. The men passed the records around, calling out snatches of official directives nearly a century old, laughing at the stiff Earther terms and mush-mouthed way of talking. Few of them ever wrote anything down, so anything in hard form was fancy and fussy and unnecessary. Old Matt got hold of the original directive and showed it to Manuel. “Made up about the time the scientists discovered the stuff on the outer moons,” he pointed out.
“When they gave up here?”
“Approx’ly, yes. Guess they figured somebody might find a way to slow it down or stop it so they could study it safely. I seem to remember something like that—I mean, why people started hunting it down.”
“You were around then?”
Old Matt grinned; his metal cheek creased and rasped faintly. “Still up in the orbital labs, and then out at Titan—but around, sure.”
“Madre.” To the boy, the old man and the Aleph both came out of a faceless time before anything he knew for certain, both from origins lost forever to him, and with the conserving blinkered concentration of humans, he was blissfully secure and at peace in his ignorance.
“See in this one?” Manuel pointed at an old fastframe picture. “The text says they had to go real fast to see the spots on the side.”
“Ummm.”
“ I can see them easy.”
“Right.”
“It must be slowing down.”
“We saw it take its time, is all.”
“Maybe it’s getting weaker.”
Old Matt laughed. “Chew up a mountain in a minute, if you think that’s weak.”
Undaunted, the boy stuck a finger at the print. “What’re the spots? They don’t show on many frames.”
“Holes.”
“Anybody know what kind?”
“They change all the time.”
Manuel nodded. Old Matt was tired from a day of potting at sleppers, the new bioform introduced to fill in a step in the biochem chain that led toward an oxygen atmosphere. They were efficient, big and bulky and ugly as sin. They mutated easily and were hard to chase down. Manuel stayed up long after the old man had slumped into his sleeping bag. He peered at the old prints, read the data. It had not occurred to him to study up on the Aleph. Studying was to learn pipe fitting or thermodynamics and the Aleph was like none of those—no formulas or procedures: just a fervent running wildness that could be claimed only by sensing it and feeling your way. But as he frowned down at the frozen images of amber and alabaster he nodded to himself, concentrated and intent. The next morning he spoke to Eagle, not knowing if he was understood, but trying anyway. And each morning thereafter trying again.
For eleven days they ran down slepper-muties, with Eagle making the most kills, always far faster than the animals and always quick and remorseless in the killing. The McKenzie man had a partial insulator breakdown from his own ineptness and within five minutes got frostbite in a leg, the skin frozen to the suit wall so that it tore off when they dragged him out of it.
Eagle was leading them all now, with an instinct made sure by time, so that without discernible sign it knew which cañon to choose, which purple-shadowed pocket sheltered the growing communities of muties, where the scattered and warring lifeforms preyed and mated and died. Eagle ran with an unthinking ferocity that daunted some of the men. The kindly and condescending affection that evolution
“I learned something this last year. Something you don’t know. Systemwide has a bounty on it.”
The Colonel said, “What? For killing it?”
Petrovich grinned, having deflected the talk where he wanted it. “No killing. Capture.”
Major Sánchez frowned, outflanked. “You sure?”
“Found it in the old records. Ought to scan those sometime yourself, my friend.” He added, deadpan, “Learn a little.”
“You have hard copy?” the Colonel asked.
Beaming, Petrovich produced a stack of slick sheets. “Reading for the long nighttime.”
It was there. The men passed the records around, calling out snatches of official directives nearly a century old, laughing at the stiff Earther terms and mush-mouthed way of talking. Few of them ever wrote anything down, so anything in hard form was fancy and fussy and unnecessary. Old Matt got hold of the original directive and showed it to Manuel. “Made up about the time the scientists discovered the stuff on the outer moons,” he pointed out.
“When they gave up here?”
“Approx’ly, yes. Guess they figured somebody might find a way to slow it down or stop it so they could study it safely. I seem to remember something like that—I mean, why people started hunting it down.”
“You were around then?”
Old Matt grinned; his metal cheek creased and rasped faintly. “Still up in the orbital labs, and then out at Titan—but around, sure.”
“Madre.” To the boy, the old man and the Aleph both came out of a faceless time before anything he knew for certain, both from origins lost forever to him, and with the conserving blinkered concentration of humans, he was blissfully secure and at peace in his ignorance.
“See in this one?” Manuel pointed at an old fastframe picture. “The text says they had to go real fast to see the spots on the side.”
“Ummm.”
“ I can see them easy.”
“Right.”
“It must be slowing down.”
“We saw it take its time, is all.”
“Maybe it’s getting weaker.”
Old Matt laughed. “Chew up a mountain in a minute, if you think that’s weak.”
Undaunted, the boy stuck a finger at the print. “What’re the spots? They don’t show on many frames.”
“Holes.”
“Anybody know what kind?”
“They change all the time.”
Manuel nodded. Old Matt was tired from a day of potting at sleppers, the new bioform introduced to fill in a step in the biochem chain that led toward an oxygen atmosphere. They were efficient, big and bulky and ugly as sin. They mutated easily and were hard to chase down. Manuel stayed up long after the old man had slumped into his sleeping bag. He peered at the old prints, read the data. It had not occurred to him to study up on the Aleph. Studying was to learn pipe fitting or thermodynamics and the Aleph was like none of those—no formulas or procedures: just a fervent running wildness that could be claimed only by sensing it and feeling your way. But as he frowned down at the frozen images of amber and alabaster he nodded to himself, concentrated and intent. The next morning he spoke to Eagle, not knowing if he was understood, but trying anyway. And each morning thereafter trying again.
For eleven days they ran down slepper-muties, with Eagle making the most kills, always far faster than the animals and always quick and remorseless in the killing. The McKenzie man had a partial insulator breakdown from his own ineptness and within five minutes got frostbite in a leg, the skin frozen to the suit wall so that it tore off when they dragged him out of it.
Eagle was leading them all now, with an instinct made sure by time, so that without discernible sign it knew which cañon to choose, which purple-shadowed pocket sheltered the growing communities of muties, where the scattered and warring lifeforms preyed and mated and died. Eagle ran with an unthinking ferocity that daunted some of the men. The kindly and condescending affection that evolution
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