place at the crater's edge. Its stillness, so eerie before, now seemed like an indication of weakness. Ramon limped back toward it. "Are you dead? Can you hear me?"
"I hear you," Maneck said.
"I'm pretty sure he used all three charges. There aren't going to be any more like this."
Maneck didn't reply. Ramon spat and scratched himself. The alien shuddered once and lowered its head. The quills lay as limp as wilted ivy.
"I have failed to fulfill my tatecreude," the alien said. "I am damaged. The man has progressed. We will return to the others and confer."
"We can't do that!" Ramon said, fearful images of the alien hive filling his mind. He couldn't return to that, to be trapped in that smothering darkness for the rest of his life; the hunt had to continue, or he had no hope of getting free of this thing. "He's got to be close. He's got nothing now. What, he's going to stop us with a hunting knife and a pair of dirty pants?"
"I am weakened," Maneck said.
"So's he! You shot his pinche finger off! It's been festering for days. He's been running for days. He's got to be ready to collapse!"
Maneck went silent. Ramon tried to will the alien on, tried to push something - anger, bloody-minded resolve, duty, thirst for revenge, anything - send it up the bruised sahael and into the thing's flesh. They couldn't turn back now.
"Is it your fucking tatecreude to give up and run back to your fucking mother? Like a coward? Is that it? The man is still out there, still heading for Fiddler's Jump, only now we know where he's going. We can get to him. If we limp back, it's going to take days. By then, he could have gotten anywhere. It'll be too late to stop him from telling everybody about you!"
Maneck didn't reply, so Ramon pressed on.
"This trap he set? It can't have been set for very long. Something would have triggered it by accident. No, he's close. He probably stayed to watch and see if it worked. Even if he was in a treetop someplace, he can't be more than two or three klicks from here. You can still get to him."
Maneck's head shifted slowly from side to side as if the alien were shaking its head no. A cold dread shook Ramon. It couldn't end like this. They had to go after the other Ramon. They had to. There had to be something - some way to make the injured alien keep going rather than folding up and running. Ramon's hands were trembling, his mind whirling like a storm. He had to struggle not to lash out at the thing, kick it, punch it, make it do the right thing. He didn't consider what he was going to say, and when he spoke, his own words surprised him.
"What will they think of you? The other ones back under that mountain, your brothers? They know you're out here. They know why, and you can't fucking tell me they don't admire you for it. You want to go back in shame as a failure and see how they look at you then? Fine. You want to know what it's like to have your own people turn their backs on you? Fine. Let's go, then. Come on, you great fucking bitch!"
Ramon did swing a foot then, kicking the alien where its ankle would have been if it had one. The impact was soft and hard at the same time, like kicking a tree wrapped in a layer of rubber. Maneck didn't react.
"Go back, then, you sad little devil!" Ramon shouted, his rising blood making his face warm with rage. "Turn around, and let's march back home and let them see that you're nothing. That you're connected to nothing. You aren't a part of them. Let's see how you like it that they don't want shit to do with you anymore. Or keep moving forward, do what they want you to do, and finish this thing! They don't have the balls to do it. Show them that you do! What's the worst that can happen? That shit-crazy ratfuck out there could kill us. Is that what you're worried about? Is going back as a failure better than dying in a fight? Have some balls! Be a man!"
The alien bowed its head, the quills stirring slightly.
"I must rest," it said, its voice low. "But you are correct. To cease to function is aubre. To express my tatecreude