Hunters Run Page 0,51

"Some food, but he's probably already eaten that. There's an emergency beacon, but it's short-range. It's designed to trigger a bigger beacon in the van, and you motherfuckers already took care of that. A pistol. I had a pistol."

"That is the device that accelerated metal using magnetic fields?" Maneck asked. Its voice seemed flatter and more mechanical. Ramon didn't know if the change was in the alien's voice or his own ears.

"That's the one."

"It was removed from him," Maneck said. "It was this that separated the man's appendage."

"The pistol guard ripped his finger off?" Ramon asked. "You mean that pendejo's done all this without his trigger finger?"

Maneck blinked, the red eye's lid not entirely closing.

"Is this significant?" Maneck asked.

"No. It's just kind of impressive."

A low wheeze came from the alien that, in another context, Ramon might have mistaken for laughter. Instead, he wondered if the thing was suffering a seizure or choking on something. The mucus flowing from its snout became a violent blue for a moment, then turned pale again.

"How many more charges of this kind does the man possess?" Maneck asked.

"I don't know," Ramon said. "I had four in the pack. That's standard. I used one finding you bastards, so that's three, but I don't know if he just used one charge on this or all of them."

"Can this be determined?"

"Sure, probably," Ramon said. "I can take a look. I should probably do something about my leg first, though. And you look like shit."

"You will determine the number of charges used," Maneck said, its voice becoming strident and tinny. Ramon decided that his high-register hearing was starting to come back. "You will do so immediately."

"Fine," Ramon said. "I have to go over and look at the crater. You think this fucking leash stretches that far?"

The alien was still for a moment, and then began to haul itself across the wreckage of the flying box toward the new scar in the landscape. Its steps were pained and awkward. Ramon could hear its breath; the low wheeze again. It had clearly been seriously hurt.

The crater was wide but shallow. Ramon considered the stone where the blast had sheared away the corners of the granite. If the charge had been shaped to burrow into or even under the slab, the damage to stone would have been much more extensive. The other Ramon had angled the blast up, toward whatever set it off. The triggering branch was currently nothing more than a handful of toothpicks scattered from the meadow up toward low orbit. He had a momentary image of a flapjack somewhere high in the air, surprised at being impaled by a length of branch, but he suppressed a chuckle.

If the edge of the stone had been more intact, he could have gotten a better idea of how the trigger had been set. It would have been tricky to isolate the movement of the stone from the vibrations of the branch and its flapping banner. He could think offhand of three ways that might have done the trick, depending on the formation of the rock.

But that wasn't the critical issue. The important thing was that the blast had been pointing upward. He paced the crater's perimeter, limping when the wound in his leg sent an unexpected pain shooting through him. The blast pattern was lobed and roughly triangular. He could almost see how it had been done. The branch had been set as a trigger particularly sensitive to the relatively stable stone, but anyone taking the shirt off or shifting the branch itself would have set off the charges as well. His twin hadn't known what direction the hunters would approach from, and he'd set the blasts meant to make a rough circle. He'd bet everything on the one trap, and it hadn't been a bad wager at all.

Ramon squatted, his fingers brushing the dirt more for the simple pleasure of feeling fresh soil than for anything he expected to learn. The ground smelled strongly of the explosives. He wondered what it had been like, setting the trap. Joyous or nerve-wracking? Or both? Fumbling with coring charges and an improvised trigger, and working with a mutilated right hand besides. And it had worked. The yunea was wrecked, Maneck badly injured. The score was even now - blow for blow, van for flying box. Ramon had a feeling bordering on presentiment that his other self out there in the trees was going to win.

"Hey, monster!" Ramon called. Maneck had not moved from its