Hunters Run Page 0,83

against the blue arcing sky, strewn like dark stars against the daylight. One precocious colony had bloomed, sending out streamers of yellow and red that were likely miles long, though from so far away, Ramon could cover them with his thumb. When the others joined it, it would look like a flower garden swimming up into space.

But it was the hovering black Enye ships that kept drawing his attention. Six of them hung in the air. It struck him for the first time how much the ships were shaped like ticks, and once the image was in his head, he couldn't get rid of it. He had ridden from his home, his world, his past in the belly of a great tick, and been puked out onto this beautiful planet. None of them belonged here - not the Enye, not Maneck and its people, not humanity. And yet S?o Paulo suffered them.

Maybe he could ship out again. Get back on the Enye ship, move to some other colony. Or cast his fate to the sky and come down wherever God put him. S?o Paulo wasn't so big he could be assured of never running into his twin again. The universe, on the other hand, was that big. Bigger. For a moment - as strong as a memory reawakening - Ramon felt again the gaping abyss from his dream. He shuddered and looked back at the river's edge.

Shipping out would mean getting a false identity, but anything meant that now. The real problem was going on the ship. Smelling the skins of the Enye, hearing their voices. Knowing what they had done, and what they were doing, and the real purpose of these colonies. Before, he might have been able to do it. His twin, sitting on the edge of the raft with his head resting on his good hand, he might be able to do it. But Ramon had felt the flow, had become the abyss, and heard the cries of dying kii. Of dying babies. He couldn't do it. Not anymore.

The easiest thing would still be to kill the man. If his twin were dead, all this would go away. He could step back into his own life, call in the little insurance policy he had on the van, and try to start over. It had been hit in a rockslide. Why not? The policy was cheap enough that no one would bother with more than a cursory investigation, and they wouldn't find any pieces chopped and sold secondhand. He could have his life back instead of ceding it to this cabron. And if the cops were looking for someone to pin the European's death on, they'd have found someone else by the time he got back.

It wouldn't even be that hard to do. He cooked. He kept watch while the man slept. Even if he didn't have the knife, there were other ways. Shit, he could just push the bastard off the side of the raft. Ramon had damn near died in the river before, and he'd been nearer shore then. Trapped out in the middle of the river, where the current was strongest, the other man would almost certainly drown. And if by some miracle he did reach land, there were redjackets out there. And hundreds of miles to Fiddler's Jump. It was the safest thing. It was the sane thing.

He let himself imagine it. Standing up, pulling in the oar. Two steps, three. Then bringing the oar down fast and hard. He could almost hear the man's cry, the splash, the gurgling scream. It would fix everything. And would it really be killing? Would it really be murder? After all, one Ramon went into the wild, and one Ramon came out. Where was murder in that?

Under what circumstances do you kill?

Ramon blew out his breath and looked away. Shut up, Maneck! You're dead! The man jerked his head back toward Ramon, distrust in the dark eyes.

"Nothing," Ramon said, raising a hand. "Just caught myself dozing off."

"Yeah, well. Don't," the man said. "We don't have another oar, and I don't want to have to push this sonofabitch to shore so we can look for one."

"Yeah. Thanks," Ramon said. And then, "Hey. Ese. You mind if I ask you something?"

"You gonna tape it? Tell it to the judge?"

"No," Ramon said. "It's just something I was wondering."

The man shrugged and didn't bother to look back.

"Ask if you want. I don't like the question, I'll tell you to go fuck