Hunters Run Page 0,28

could almost believe that he was listening to a human being - Maneck's Spanish was much more fluent than that of the alien in the pit, and its voice had less of the rusty timbre of the machine. But then Ramon would open his eyes and see that terrible alien face, ugly and bestial, only inches from his own, and his stomach would turn over, and he would have to adjust all over again to the fact that he was chatting with a monster.

"Stand up now," Maneck said. It helped Ramon up, and supported him while he limped and stomped in a slow semicircle to work out cramps and restore circulation, looking as if he was performing some arthritic tribal dance. At last, he was able to stand unsupported, although his legs wobbled and quivered with the strain.

"We have lost time this morning," Maneck said. "This is all time we might have employed in exercising our functions." Ramon could almost imagine that it sighed. "I have not previously performed this type of function. I did not realize that you possessed retehue, and therefore failed to take all factors into account. Now we must suffer delays accordingly."

Suddenly, Ramon understood what retehue must be. He was more baffled than outraged. "How could you not realize that I was sentient? You were there all the while I talked to the white thing in the pit!"

"We were present, but I had not integrated yet," Maneck said simply. It did not elaborate further, and Ramon had to be content with that. "Now that I am, I will observe you closely. You are to demonstrate the limitations to the human flow. Once we are informed, the man's path is better predicted." It gestured around them. "Here is the last of places the man was known," it said. Its voice was deep and resonant. Ramon could almost think that the thing sounded sorrowful. "We will begin here."

Ramon looked around. Indeed, there were signs of a small, improvised camp. A tiny lean-to hardly big enough to sleep in had been constructed with fresh boughs and tied together with lengths of bark. A fire pit ringed by stone showed ashes where the lawman had cooked something at the end of a fire-hardened stick. Whoever they'd sent after Ramon had spent enough time in the field to know how to survive with what came to hand. Good for him.

Maneck stood silent by the bone-colored box, the thick, fleshy sahael attached to its arm. Ramon looked at it, waiting to see what strategy the thing would adopt. The alien, however, did nothing. After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Ramon cleared his throat.

"Monster. Hey. Now we're here, what is it you want me to do, eh?"

"You are a man," Maneck said. "Behave as he would behave."

"He's got tools and clothes, and he doesn't have a leash on," Ramon said.

"Your confluence will be approximate at the beginning," Maneck said. "This is expected. You will not be punished for it. Your needs will lead you to a matched flow. That is sufficient."

"Speaking of needs and flowing," Ramon said, "I got to piss."

"That will do," Maneck said. "Begin by achieving piss."

Ramon smiled.

"You stay here, then, I'll go achieve piss."

"I will observe," Maneck said.

"You want to watch me piss?"

"We are to explore the banks which bound the man's possible channels. If this task is a necessity of his being, then I will understand it."

Ramon shrugged.

"You're just lucky I'm not shy about this kind of thing," he said, walking to the nearest tree. "There's some men couldn't get a drop out, not with you watching them, eh?"

The ground was rough, and Ramon's feet were tender. The long bath in the alien gel seemed to have softened away all his calluses. As he relieved himself against the tree trunk, he tried to make sense of the alien's behavior. The limitations of human flow, it had said. For a being so impatiently concentrated on pragmatic results, Maneck was strangely interested in Ramon's need to urinate, which ought to have struck it as irrelevant. It wasn't an activity that seemed important to hunting the fugitive. But it had not known that binding his arms behind him would discomfort him, either. Perhaps the aliens needed him to understand what the habits of a man were. He was more than a hound. Merely by being human, he was a guide for them.

Ramon stood for a long moment after his bladder was empty, taking the opportunity to turn his mind to strategy.