Hunters Run Page 0,37
flew south and west. Behind them, to the north, were the tall peaks of the Sierra Hueso, their upper slopes now obscured by wet, churning gray cloud - it was snowing back there, behind, above. South, the world flattened into forested lowland, then tilted down toward the southern horizon, steaming and slopping like a soup plate, puddled with marshes on the edge of sight. Also on the edge of sight, from up here only a thin silver ribbon in a world of green and blue and orange trees and black stone, was the Rio Embudo, the main channel of the great river system that drained the Sierra Hueso and all the north lands. Hundreds of kilometers to the southwest, Fiddler's Jump sat high on its rocky, red-veined bluffs above the same river, its ramshackle wooden hotels and houses full of miners and trappers and lumberjacks, its docks crowded with ore barges and vast log floats soon to be launched downstream to Swan's Neck. It was there, to the safety and lights and raucous humanity of Fiddler's Jump, that the policeman was almost surely headed.
How would he do it? Anybody who could construct a lean-to as well as the policeman had would have no trouble constructing a raft out of the materials ready to hand. Once he reached the Rio Embudo and built his raft, he'd be off down the river to Fiddler's Jump; much easier and faster than walking through the thick, tangled forest. It was where he would have gone and what he would have done had he been stranded out here without a van, desperate and alone. And he was sure that the policeman would do the same. The aliens had been smart to use him as their hunting dog after all - he did know what the policeman would do, where he would go. He could find him.
How long would he have to stall to give the policeman time to get away? Could he have reached the river yet? From the foothills of the Sierra Hueso, it was a long way on foot through rough terrain. On the other hand, a number of days had gone by ... It would be close.
Below them now was another thick forest of iceroot - tall, gaunt trees with translucent blue-white needles like a million tiny icicles. They flew on. Here a great tower-of-Babel hive had pushed up through the trees, the strange, metallic-looking insects, like living jewelry, swarming up to menace them in defense of their queen as they passed. A clearing empty but for the wide, six-legged carcass of a vaquero - the horselike body half eaten by a chupacabra and left to rot. The iceroots again. They were circling. How did Maneck intend to find the policeman?
"What are we looking for?" Ramon called over the sound of the wind rushing past them. "You can't see anything from up here. You got sensors on this thing?"
"We are aware of much," Maneck said.
"We? I'm not aware of a fucking thing."
"The yunea participates in my flow, the sahael participates. It is your nature that you must fail to participate. That is why you are an occasion of great sorrow. But it is your tatecreude, and therefore it is to be accepted."
"I don't want to participate in your goddamn flow," Ramon said. "I just asked if you had some kind of sensors on this thing. I wasn't asking if you put out on the first date."
"Are these noises needed?" Maneck asked. If Ramon had had any faith that the aliens experienced emotions a human being might comprehend, he would have said that the thing sounded annoyed. "The search is the expression - "
"Of your tatecreude, whatever the fuck that is," Ramon said. "Whatever you say. Since I'm not able to do this flow thing, maybe this is the best thing I can do, eh? Make some friendly conversation?"
The quills on Maneck's head rose and fell rapidly. Its thick head jounced from one side to another. It turned to him, and the slats of the bone-pale box thickened, the sound of wind lessening. "You are correct," Maneck said. "This spitting of air is the primary communication available to you. It is right that I should attempt to engage your higher functions to aid you in avoiding aubre. And if I better understand the mechanism of an uncoordinated self, the nature of the man will also become clearer."
"That half sounded like an apology, monster," Ramon said.
"This is a strange term. I have not fallen