Chapter Chapter Nine

We are all hunters. We are all prey.

PUMAN PROVERB The Test Windett Kanoshon stood overlooking a sea of clouds. Here, on the observation deck on Nekuar’s Pinnacle, he felt like a star looking down upon the world. This far above the cloud-line, only a few peaks of the northern Gologne range were visible, poking their craggy heads upward like curious children. A roiling, billowing plain of white surrounded Nekuar’s Peak and those other rocky islands, stretching to where the horizon should have been.

Kanoshon pulled his cloak tightly about him. The wind whipped cold and sharp, biting through most conventional protection. Even his warm pelt of downy fur couldn’t keep out all the chill.

Nevertheless, Kanoshon rumbled a low, appreciative growl. He leaned against the railing, his meta-sharp senses basking in the magnificent view. I would never have seen this sight had I not become a paid killer, he thought. How ironic. And how cruel.

He turned and climbed down from the deck, taking the steps two at a time. He carried his long fighting staff, its sleek carven design typical of most Puman woodcraft. In his belt, the litha blade vibrated warmly against his hip.

As he walked across the rear section of the landing field’s smooth, stone tarmac, he observed the airship as it began its docking ascent. Hooked cables had been lowered from the great, oval-shaped craft’s fore and aft deck reels. The ground crew busily hooked the metal rope-lines into their rock-hewn clasps, anchoring the ship as it floated above the mountain top to keep its buffeting by the winds to a minimum.

Kanoshon grunted as the ship slowly descended, its crew gradually releasing some of the gas that kept the huge craft aloft. He had ridden in airships before but never from this high an altitude. Though his people were mountain-dwellers, it had taken him longer to acclimate to Nekuar’s Pinnacle’s thinner atmosphere and sheer elevation.

He moved quickly toward the landing strip, striding through the unlocked rear gate and into the open back door of one of the smaller storage hangars. Cutting through the hangar would save him from walking completely around the building complex to get to the ship. There, as arranged, he would meet his employer for this trip, the member of the Ahnka who would give him the details of the hunt.

It was at that moment he sensed them. A tingling, a warning fluctuation within the psi-ether.

Two of them, predators, hiding among the cartons and boxes stacked on the floor of the hangar. A third positioned on an upper level walkway. He continued his pace, giving no outward sign he had detected a possible ambush, only casually reaching to his neck to unhook his cloak clasp. His knife became warmer, the living litha energy radiating its own warning.

A movement, just the tiniest of atmospheric ripplings. Dropping his cloak, Kanoshon stepped to his left and whirled. He brought his staff up and parried the downward knife thrust of his attacker, then slashed the bottom end of the staff up and across the knifer’s throat, crushing his windpipe.

As his opponent went down, choking and flailing his arms, Kanoshon hit the floor and rolled. A beam of lase-fire hissed through the air above him. He leaped into the narrow space between two piles of large crates, barely dodging another blast from overhead.

The upper walkway. Kanoshon pressed a stud on the side of his staff causing a sharp, thin blade to snick out of the top of it. He continued moving, using the rows of crates, cartons and random piles of equipment as cover. Barely winded despite the thin air, he stopped and leaned against a support pillar, his nostrils flared, his pointed ears open to any sound.

Again, a sense of motion, a momentary tremor in the psi-ether. Kanoshon pushed off the pillar and arced his fighting staff behind his back, blocking the killing blow delivered by the third attacker. He too has a staff.

He bent his right leg and kicked back with his left, catching the staff-wielder in the stomach. Kanoshon turned and struck out with his own staff as his attacker stumbled backwards a step. But his adversary recovered swiftly, blocking the blow and countering with a series of short, sharp, pointed jabs.

Kanoshon parried each one, spinning and twirling his staff as if it was an extension of his body. His opponent was good but an opening in his defense presented itself and Kanoshon took full advantage. He brought the blade at the end of his staff up and across his attacker’s chest, tearing deeply into the skin. The staff-wielder grunted in pain and surprise and fell back against one of the crates. Kanoshon batted away his opponent’s weapon and ran the staff’s blade into his chest.

The lase-beam almost burned him. Only at the last instant did he smell the hot blast as it disrupted the molecules in the air around it. He sidestepped the beam and, using an overturned box for leverage, vaulted into the air. Spear-like, he hurled his staff while airborne, straight toward the upper walkway.

A wet, crunching sound followed by a scream greeted his satisfied ears. And then silence.

Kanoshon landed, knees bent, his body poised in a defensive stance. Searching the area around him for any other signs, he turned back to the second fallen attacker. He was a Senitte, clothed completely in a form-fitting black skinsuit. Only his blank, staring eyes and nose were uncovered. Assassins, he thought. Professional. But why?

A fourth one, behind him.

“Turn around slowly,” a strangely familiar voice said.

Surprise? Alarm? An emotion almost unknown to Kanoshon coursed through his taut body. The hackles on his back began to tingle. How did I not sense this one? The Puman turned, his hand itching to grasp the litha blade. Fool!

“Don’t touch the knife. Hands out at your sides, man-cat. Or is it paws?” Another black-clad assassin stood before him, a gun in hand, but a weapon not familiar to the Puman. The sleek, compact pistol looked custom-made, one only another professional could afford. And, unlike the assassin’s dead companions, this one’s skinsuit was webbed with intricate whorls and minute hair-line designs.

“Camouflage webbing, white noise actuators and built-in light absorbers. Jams the ether just enough so you couldn’t detect me until I was almost on top of you.” He reached up and pulled the webbed hood from his face. But Kanoshon already knew who he was.

The Puman’s cat eyes narrowed. “You,” he said. The sentient before him was a Terran, as tall as the Puman with solid, rock-hard muscles rippling beneath the skinsuit. His skin was the color of night, Afra-Terran black.

This was the one who had contracted him, one of the few Terrans who were members of the Ahnka. They had spoken only two suns previously, the Ahnkan contacting him through the information provided by Kanoshon’s old comrade, Androsia. They had met face-to-face in a neutral place of the Puman’s choosing, discussing only the barest particulars of the hunt. The Ahnkan would confer with him at the landing strip before Kanoshon left for Frenati City to give him what the Ahnkan termed a ‘packet’, the concise details of his contract.

“Sometimes even the Ahnka needs to employ someone from the outside,” the Terran had said, grinning widely. “This is one of those times. Your references are ace and we need someone who has the best trackin’ and removal skills and is, uh, discrete. Right?”

They have failed in this themselves. Interesting. Kanoshon released the negative tension from his body, focusing only on the Terran, his body, nevertheless, ready for action. Yet, a slow curiosity was building. “Why this attack?” he asked carefully.

The Terran smiled. It seemed he always smiled. “Why, a test, man-cat,” he replied. “What else?” From somewhere outside the hangar, members of the ground crew yelled instructions. Kanoshon heard the whoosh of the airship’s gas jets. A blast of wind shot through the hangar, cold and harsh. “You weren’t thinkin’ we’d pay all this money, take all this risk without testin’ you, did you?”

I should have known. “No. I see your point.”

“Call it protection of our investment. You’re famous in certain circles. Windett Kanoshon, the mysterious Puman gun-for-hire. We had to see if the stories were true. You know?”

Kanoshon nodded. “I would have done the same.”

“But you stroked it! Oh, three of my best operatives are dead. That’s impressive, I’ll give you that. Especially the way you lobbed that staff. Ace. But here I am with the gun, a pulse-beamer by the way. I could have burned you when your back was turned.”

“True. But you have this technological advantage, this camouflage webbing.” And you are standing here talking to me. That is your mistake.

“How about that? My skinsuit, right? But you should have anticipated that. You need to update your methods, my friend! The target we want you to burn also has the same technology as well, but he doesn’t need a skinsuit. He possesses certain implants, weapons if you will, that make him not only untraceable but unbeatable, even from us. In some ways, he’s almost in-strokin’-destructible because he has these ace regenerative nano-tech capabilities on top of everything else. How do you kill a scut like that?”

The Ahnkan paused, smiling and shaking his head. He seemed to be enjoying himself. “We hoped you’d be able to circumvent those kinds of safeguards. At least some of us did. But you stroked it, man-cat. Very disappointing. I wager your rep isn’t as cranked up as it’s supposed to be. Looks like the airship will leave here minus a passenger, won’t it?”

Yes, but it will not be me. The litha blade pulsed at his side now, its energy building. If he could keep the Terran talking, he would be able to pinpoint the weakness of his ‘technology’.

But, it looked like the Terran didn’t need any encouragement to keep up his running spew of blather.

“Tell me,” he said. “Keep your hands where I can see them! Tell me, is it true? We’ve heard you’re not much for killin’ though you do it for a livin’. And you use the money you get for your tribe. Is that it? To help your tribe? Nothin’ for yourself?”

“Pumans do not live in tribes,” Kanoshon said, slowly and evenly. “Our villages are constructed throughout the forests of the Gologne range, built within the branches of the Ada groves.”

“So I’ve heard. Huge strokin’ trees, right? What do you need the money for?”

There! The litha stones imbedded in the handle of the knife had scanned the Terran and radiated its impressions back to the Puman through the psi-ether. Nothing verbal, nothing mental, just a feeling. But it was enough.

Kanoshon’s lips curled in a sneer. “Why, to train more mercenaries like myself. The world is shrinking since Contact. We will not be driven off our land and put in relocation camps again.”

The Ahnkan nodded approvingly. Force and power were something he understood and appreciated, it seemed. But, Kanoshon knew, profit was the real driving motivation behind his actions. “Too bad. You could have set yourself up very nicely with all that credit. You know, centralize your weapon-forgin’ industry. That would be the best revenge, right? Take all the money from the ones who stole your land.” The Ahnkan laughed, apparently pleased with that observation. “But another question. The knife. Is it litha?”

Kanoshon said nothing.

The Ahnkan smiled. “I thought so. Supposed to be alive, right? A semi-sentient mineral. That it? Attuned to its owner or somethin’ magical like that; will return to you after you’ve thrown it. So, it’s real and not just a myth. How does that work? Is it like a pet or something?”

“Why did you not shoot me when my back was turned?”

The Ahnkan paused and, just for a heartbeat, his concentration wavered.

Kanoshon’s hand moved with blinding speed. He grasped the litha blade and flung it underhand at the Ahnkan. The Terran fired, at the same time attempting to dodge the blade. The knife pierced his shoulder, slamming him back against the pile of crates behind him.

Kanoshon sidestepped the pulse-beam. He leaped forward and raked his claws against the Ahnkan’s gun, knocking it to floor. With his other hand, he inserted a claw through the skinsuit at the base of the Terran’s neck. “Located here is one of your suit’s power modules,” he said. “I pierce it and the suit partially self-destructs, making you as vulnerable as an infant.”

Kanoshon’s gaze bored into the Terran’s. The Puman could see the surprise and self-anger reflected in them. What did the fool expect?

Slowly, the Ahnkan nodded. Kanoshon pulled the knife free and stepped back, keeping the blade pointed outward in front of him.

“Stupid,” the Terran said, rubbing his neck. “I tend to talk too much. My superiors always call me on that during my evaluations.”

“And have I passed your test now?”

As if in answer, the Terran pointed to his shoulder. A white froth bubbled at the knife wound site, a small hint of vapor rising from it. “This is what your target possesses as well,” he said. “We’re both from the same vat, so to speak, although I don’t have the anti-tracking bugs. At least, not yet.”

“This is the self-regenerative capabilities you spoke of?”

“A strand of nano-tech. Ace, huh? You could have injured me severely, almost killed me, but, dependin’ on the extent of the damage, I’d be repaired and good as new in a matter of hours.”

Kanoshon grunted. “Impressive.”

“Unless, or course, you lopped my grinnin’, handsome head off.” The Terran reached into a pouch at the side of his belt and pulled out a small, traveler’s bag. “Here’s the packet,” he said. “The data-disc and the samples you requested. There’s a data-reader available for your use on the ship. Study the information. You can contact me via the comm number listed when the job’s done.” He smiled again. “That is, unless your aversion to high-tech won’t permit it.”

“I make exceptions when the need arises.”

“Don’t we all. Good huntin’ then... man-cat.” He turned and walked out of the hangar.

Kanoshon looked at the disc in his hand and then back to the fallen assassins. Expendable, he thought. As I am. I was lucky this time. The one I am supposed to kill may not like to listen to the sound of his own voice.

He let me go, Kanoshon thought again later, in the comfort of his airship cabin. He had just finished meditating and, revitalized by that calming process, clicked through the data-disk’s contents. He could have killed me the minute I walked into the hangar. He deliberately hesitated long enough for me to find his weakness and, thereby, my prey’s potential weakness as well. He wants this ‘target’ eliminated.

But Kanoshon had no time to ponder Ahnkan internal politics or rivalries. The hunt was all that mattered. Yet, at this point, he didn’t know whether he should thank his old friend, Sharlen Androsia, or not.

He paused as a lase-pic of his prey scrolled up on the data-reader screen. Senitte; square, tightly muscled face; a z-shaped scar over his right temple. Interesting, the Puman thought. Even with such an undisguised, identifying mark and their vaunted technology, the Ahnka themselves cannot find him. He breathed deeply, his thoughts all business. This one will not be so easy then. I have some work to do.

He looked again at the Ahnkan’s demographics. Special operative; test subject for new nano-technology; disappeared two moons ago.

Mish’Ton, Kanoshon mused. His name is Mela Mish’Ton, but he has gone by others in the past. Frento, Tarem, Kazrah.