Hunters Run Page 0,43

it fully, you would diverge further from the model. It interferes with our tatecreude ."

"My belly. My arm. The scars I had ..."

"Perfect fidelity was sacrificed. As time progresses, they will tend toward the forms that express the whole."

"I'll get my scars back?"

"All of your physical systems will continue to approximate the source form. The information retrieval is similarly progressing."

"My memory? You're saying that all this is fucking with my memory too?"

"To better approximate is to better approximate," it said. "This is self-evident."

Ramon stared at Maneck. All at once, he realized why the aliens didn't have sex. They were grown in vats too, just like he had been. Maybe they'd been created in the same one! He and this ugly sonofabitch were brothers, more alike than either of them were like the real Ramon Espejo.

"You've made me a monster, just like you," he said bitterly, feeling himself beginning to shake again. "I'm not even human anymore!"

The sahael pulsed once, as if in warning, and Ramon's belly went cold and tight with fear, but the pain didn't come. Instead, to Ramon's great surprise, Maneck extended one long, oddly jointed arm and placed its hand awkwardly on Ramon's shoulder, like a gesture of comfort copied from a bad description. "You are a living creature possessed of retehue," it said. "Your origin is of no consequence, and you should not concern yourself with it. You may still fulfill your tatecreude by exercising your function. No living being can aspire to more than that."

This was close enough to his earlier thoughts to give him pause. He pushed the thing's arm away and stood up. The sahael thinned and extended, letting him walk some distance away. Surprising Ramon again, Maneck made no attempt to follow. At the fire pit, Ramon sat, taking the cigarette case from the ground, flipping it open. It was the nearest thing he'd had to a mirror since he'd been lifted from the vat. His face was smoother than the one he was accustomed to, fewer lines at the corners of his eyes. The moles and scars were gone. His hair was finer and lighter. He looked different, unformed. He looked young. He looked like himself, but also not.

The world threatened to whirl around him again, and he steadied himself with his hands, his palms against the solid ground of S?o Paulo, anchoring himself in reality, anchoring himself in the present. If what Maneck had revealed was true, if there was another Ramon Espejo out there, that changed everything. There was no advantage to stalling anymore. If the other Ramon returned to Fiddler's Jump, there might be a reaction to his story of a secret alien base, sure, but neither that other Ramon nor anyone else would have any idea that he existed. An armed party might come to follow up, or even attack the aliens, but they wouldn't be looking for him. Maybe if he could actually find that other Ramon, though, together they could somehow turn the tables on the alien. He knew what he himself would have done if he knew he were being hunted. He would have found a way to kill his hunters. And that now was Ramon's only chance. If he could alert the other Ramon that he was being pursued and trust him to take the right action, together they might destroy the alien that held his leash. For a moment, he hoped deeply that what Maneck had said was the truth, that there was another mind like his own out free in the wilderness. He felt an odd surge of pride in that other Ramon - in spite of these monsters and all the powers at their command, he had gotten away from them, fooled them, showed them what a man could do.

But would the other Ramon help him, or would he be as horrified by him as he was by the alien? If he helped the other Ramon escape from his pursuers, surely the other Ramon would be grateful. Ramon tried to imagine himself turning away someone who had come to his aid when he was most in need. He didn't believe it was a thing he would do. He would embrace this new man like a brother, hide him, help him. Set him up in business, maybe go into business with him ...

Ramon spat.

That was bullshit. No, instead he'd put a knife between the other Ramon's - his - ribs, and laugh while the alien abomination died. And yet, what other