hotmtlnovel Book 3: Chapter 1: Face-Off
Book 3: Chapter 1: Face-Off
Book 3: Chapter 1: Face-Off
My agent, Ethan Ellenberg
Steve Feldberg from Audible
My editor, Kat Howard
I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man that he should live out the life-time of his God?
― Herman Melville
Bob
March 2224
Delta Eridani
The pigoid erupted from its lair with an angry squeal. It displayed startling speed for something with such short legs. The two rock throwers sprinted to the side, fur erect along their spines and ears sticking straight out in excitement. The rest of us set the butts of our spears into the ground and braced them with a foot. And waited.
This time, I wasn’t an observer. If I had been nervous before, I was terrified now. I could feel the fur standing up along my spine and all the way up to the top of my head. I kept telling myself that I was actually ten thousand miles away, in orbit. Didn’t help. My eyes told me the pigoid was ten meters away, charging at me at what appeared to be about half light speed.
Then the animal ran into the spear points. Still not breeding for intelligence, apparently. The spears bowed but held, and the animal slammed to the ground with a final squawk.
Bernie sidled up to it and poked it in the face a few times. Getting no response, he waved his spear in the air and yelled, “Whooo!”
The rest of us raised a fist and responded, “Hah!”
Well, that’s how the translation routine handled it. Deltan speech sounded more like pigs loudly wallowing. But the software converted everything to human equivalents for me, including names and colloquialisms.
Donald slapped me on the shoulder. “Come on, Robert, help me string it up.”
Donald and I moved forward, and the other group stepped aside. As I passed Fred, he glared at me. I said, “Any time, kuzzi.” He didn’t respond, but then he was still trying to breathe.
There was a huge component of surrogate vengeance in my behavior, of course. I had a lot of years of being on the wrong end of bullying to look back on. But a rational part of my mind told me that I would have to watch out for Fred, now.
Donald slapped me on the back again. I made a point of staggering. I didn’t want him to decide we were competing.
We finished our hike to the village on high alert. No singing, no joking around. A couple of the guys took the kill to an agreed-upon fire pit to be divvied up. I turned to head back to Archimedes’ tent, but Donald put a hand on my shoulder and motioned me to come with him. I realized within moments that we were heading for the Council Circle.
One of the many universals that I’d discovered while studying the Deltans was that politicians and leaders always reserved the best for themselves. The Council Circle location got full sun first thing in the morning, and was in the shade by late afternoon. A few Council members were always at the circle, no doubt trying to look official and stay comfortable.
Donald walked up to Jeffrey, the current Council leader, and waited to be acknowledged. Jeffrey was a bit of a dick, and liked to keep people waiting, just to show how important he was. Donald accidentally stood in Jeffrey’s sun and began cleaning his spear while he waited, the dried pieces of blood and hide landing all around Jeffrey. I looked around and tried to keep a straight face.
Finally, Jeffrey accepted the fact that he was being out-ignored. He looked up and gestured for us to sit. We made ourselves comfortable and Donald explained about our encounter with the Caerleon gang.
When we were done, Jeffrey made a face. “That’s now almost a hand of encounters in the last three hands of days. A couple of people were stabbed when they refused to give up their kill. I’m going to have to bring this up with the full Council. Something has to be done.”
“All by people from Caerleon?” I asked.
“Yes, it looks that way. Leave it with me. I’ll get the Council started on it.”
Donald nodded to Jeffrey, and we got to our feet. As we walked away, I said to Donald, “Do you think it’s the one gang, or different ones?”
“Fred’s been mentioned more than once. There might be others involved, but it’s mostly him and his group.”
“And all lately? What’s changed?”
Donald stared into space for a moment. “Um, I don’t think it’s a case of something changing. It’s more likely that Fred just saw a way to take advantage of something that’s been brewing for a while. We’re just not sure what’s behind it.”
We walked in silence for a few moments while I thought through an idea. I looked up to Donald. “I have a plan. Can we get an extra dozen people or so? People who won’t mind some close-up action?”
Donald grinned. “Yeah, I think I can scrape that together.”
I grinned back. Time for some dirty tricks, Earth-style.