The Leapers were fast learners. Rene had erred in setting off that one bomb amid the pines. Rather than catching a whole bunch of them by surprise, he had given away the presence of his boobytraps. The warband stayed well clear of the tree line and patiently found and marked the fire gourds, pointing them out to each other and sidling around them with unhurried steps. Rene counted thirty-one braves, give or take a couple more veiled by the dissipating fog. Individuals were easy to tell apart, as it turned out. He began to make out variations in the shades of their fur; a few sported thick honey-brown manes of hair around their necks and down their shoulders. Others had clearly bulkier and more muscular frames than their brethren. Most telling of all were the heraldic tattoos on their abdomens. Generally, the larger the adult was, the more intricate their markings were. Like the chevrons or pips on an officer’s uniform, patterns of dots and geometric shapes radiated outwards from the central motif, which for all the Leapers in the warband was a red-and-orange viper with a flaring hood and fangs bared in an expression of gleeful malice.

The older heads among them were conferring with each other with rapid-fire clicks of their palps and mandibles. Planning their next attack, no doubt. Then the crowd parted to let a trio of them through, a large and flabby Leaper being borne on a woven stretcher carried by the other two. The wounded elder on the stretcher seemed to command considerable respect among the others, for they all turned to him and awaited his next move.

Riveted by the all-too familiar display of martial social dynamics, Rene studied the leader. His rank designator was a unlike all the others in that it was a coal-black snake whose coiled tail formed a neat spiral before passing over the Leaper’s shoulder. Something about the wide set of his upper torso was strangely familiar. Rene’s eyes widened in recognition.

“Kryptus,” Rene said with bitter regret, “I should have known.”

Rene could’ve beaten his head in when he had the chance. But perhaps there would be an opportunity to correct that mistake. Kryptus’ bearers moved a few steps forward and the alpha rolled off his litter, boldly approaching Rene all by himself. The other Leapers chattered and gesticulated at him, trying to dissuade him, but Kryptus shrugged their objections aside and went on waddling up the hill.

The alpha had somehow regrown his helm and watched Rene intently through his new set of eyes, giving the Pathfinder a cheeky wave with all four of his arms.

We’ll see if you’re still smiling after this, Rene malded. Kryptus’ path took him directly under a hanging gourd. But before Rene could swing up the gauntlet in time, Kryptus shot out a lasso of silk and yanked the mine out of its nesting place, tossing it casually behind him. The warband scattered as it bounced among them, groveling on their bellies as it rolled down the slope and out of Rene’s sight.

When nothing exploded, the Leapers sprang to their feet and immediately began imitating what their leader had done, dismantling Rene’s minefield with great enthusiasm. Understanding the peril he was in, Rene dashed outside the hedge of stakes and gathered up all the field that he could and planting them in a tight circle around his position. In short order the pines were completely cleared of boobytraps and the warband advanced on Rene’s position, wary but determined to avenge themselves upon him.

Rather unexpectedly, Kryptus ordered them all back, again strolling up to Rene all by his lonesome self.

“Parley, hatching?” he shouted up to Rene.

Parley? So the swine did understand the concept of bargaining. Rene held up a mine as if to hurl it like a hand grenade, and Kryptus froze.

“Exar?” Rene pleaded.

“T-minus eleven. Just stall em for as long as you can, cap’n.”

“I will try,” Rene lowered his arm but kept a tight grip on the bomb. Eventually Kryptus regained his courage and started waddling again.

“Say, Exar,” Rene said by way of idle conversation as the Leaper hiked, “Is there some reason these kits don’t come with guns? Bit of an oversight, wouldn’t you agree?”

“It isn’t,” Exar said, conversation, “You remember that 95% I was telling you about? Well, as to the other 5%...how can I say this? See, the company T.O.R.U’s are almost exclusively deployed on exoplanets completely devoid of life even down to the microbial level. In which case there’s nothing much to shoot at to begin with. A man gets marooned on a place like that, at the absolute tip of the Alcubierre trade routes where supply convoys crawl along at just under relativistic vees,” Exar stopped, considering his next words very carefully, “The human mind goes funny in places like that. It’s the loneliness that does it.”

“You mean they would…”

“Pretty much. Usually they’d punch their own tickets during that first month, once it became clear that nobody would be coming for a very long time.”

“I hate to say it,” Rene said after a contemplative moment, “But I’m starting to envy their fate.”

At last Kryptus came within speaking distance.

“We meet again, hatchling,” he greeted Rene quite jovially. The alpha surveyed the line of staked corpses and added: “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

“Do you really?”

“No,” Kryptus replied, a hint of bright fury in his warbling baritone, “I tried telling the youths that you were a forsche not to be reckoned with. But the young never listen, do they? Today is an important lesshun for them. They will never again take your kind lightly. You fight like demonsh.”

Rene nodded respectfully at the compliment.

“I would have preferred it otherwise, but you forced my hand. What do you want, Kryptus?”

“You sspared my life lasht night. I would offer you the shame courtesy. You will not be killed or devoured. We sseek only the genetic material within you, and the knowledge contained therein.”

“You’d let me live? Why?”

“You professh to believe in the mythical origins of our genuss. You think that we have a common progenitor, and that thish makess ush one brotherss.”

“I would like to. But your actions towards me have been anything but brotherly.”

Kryptus tucked his chin and cocked his head back in a very recognizable expression of outrage, shouting:

“Your fire giant laid waste to our territory, razing the Looms of many tribes, not just the Weeping Vipersh! A spawning chamber full of hatchlings not yet borne from their egg sacks…” Kryptus broke off, struggling to master his emotions.

“We are the injured party here, not you,” he continued, “Thoushands of acres of prime hunting grounds, reduced to ashess. Where will the herds of frillhead migrate to now for passsturage? What will they eat when the dry spellss come? What will we eat? The Vitalush will do what It can, but make no misshtake—there will be famine. And with famine, war among the kindredss, among Leapers tribesh, even. But shurely you already consssidered thissh?

“I…I had not.” The Pathfinder was rendered speechless by the Leaper’s outburst. Kryptus gave a shrug that somehow implied that he understood and forgave Rene’s ignorance.

“Desspite all that, I am willing to make you the same offer you gave me. In fact, I will make you a better one: put ashide your weaponsss and I will take you back to the Loom. I will clothe you in the armored hide of a Leaper, and henschforth you shall become one of us.”

Rene goggled at him. He could sense sincerity in the Leaper’s words, and something else. Caution? Duplicity? The expression in those four bulging eyes was hard to read.

“You would make me a Leaper? Is that even possible?”

“Look at me. Do you not notice anything different?”

Kryptus did a slow turn to show Rene the entirety of his body. It was even more unwholesome now beneath the light of day. The right half of his body was larger than his left, the disproportional muscle densities skewing the angle of his torso off-center and giving him the lurching gait of a cripple. His new headpiece as also too small for the rest of his frame, giving him an almost comical, pinheaded look.

Tufts of golden fur had sprouted on his shoulders and underarms, rough and patchy where they met the velvet black of the rest of his hide. Rene squinted at him uncertainly—his vision was starting to get cloudy, his facial muscles trembling along his jawline.

“You’ve grafted on some new additions,” Rene finally deduced.

“Not quite, hatchling. Thish entire exomorph is made of spare parts. The damage that mad Gallivant did to me wass irreparable,” Kryptus corrected him, pointing at the comatose Zildiz.

“But my immune system would simply reject it,” Rene objected, putting what Zildiz had told him to good use.

“I think not,” Krytpus said, wagging a claw at him, “You shee, I’ve finally worked out what you are. You aren’t from any of the kindredsh. You are of the primordial genetic stock which the Vitalush has not yet altered—the genome of the Betrayerss. Your nucleotidesh have not been bonded with the miraculous gilt helix, which meanss you are not yet confined into any of the kindredssh. You can become one of ush, the loom-motherss could weave our blessed pattern within you. We would gird you in the finest armor and give you the rank of alpha, making you my equal. You will never want for food or brood mates. And mosst important of all, we will keep you hidden from the wrath of the Vitalush.”

Rene tried to imagine himself in the bones of a Leaper, flying through the woods on transparent sails and riding the coattails of the mighty Storm Catcher. Hunting his prey on moonless nights, a perfectly adapted killing machine that would never have to confine itself to the rank, festering holes of the mounds. For the first time in his life, he could be truly free to live as he pleased, pursue any wild pleasures he wanted without the nightstick of the law to beat him into submission.

The thought was certainly intriguing.

“I, uh, I thought you…you were…” thinking clearly was fast becoming a chore to Rene, “…you worshipped the Vitalus as a deity?”

“It ish a god, make no misstake. But it is not one of our choosing. For shome of ush, that ish. There are ssecretss that it consseals from ush mortulss. It has snarled and twisted the tapesstry of hishtory for its own purposess. We could unravel thossh ssecretsss together, beginning now…”

Kryptus extended a hand in an unmistakable gesture of friendship. Rene squinted at it uncertainly—his vision was getting awful cloudy. All the exertion and excitement had accelerated the effects of narcosis. In no time at all he would lose control of his body entirely.

“And what ‘bout her? Rene sleepily nodded at the unconscious Zildiz.

“She musst die, naturally,” Kryptus said frankly, “We will make her dishappear. She is not the only Gallivant foolish enough to challenge us in our own biome.”

That was what decided Rene. The Pathfinder held the mine out dangerously close to leaping bonfire.

“Have you losht your mind?” Kryptus was apoplectic with rage, “Why would rissk yourshelf for this she-devil, this ravening beasst?”

“I’s ken barely wrap my head around it meself, governor,” Rene blathered, hanging his head in weariness, “But either she comes with me, or…or the whole thingy is off. Deal, I means. Whatever!”

“We cannot axshept that! She would inform the Vitalush, bring about the extinction of my tribe!”

“Then go catch a fruit fly in your mouth, or somefing,” Rene said irritably, “Pish right off.”

“You will not live to regret your idiocy!” the alpha said with haughty imperiousness.

Rene’s left arm spasmed and he nearly dropped the mine into the side of the bonfire. He spent a very intense couple of seconds juggling with it in the air, desperate not to blow himself up by accident.

“Whoah! Close one, heh heh,” he slurred at Kryptus, finally snatching the mine out of harm’s way, “S’alright now. No worries!”

He looked up to see Kryptus beating a hasty and undignified retreat, roaring at his warband to begin the final attack. At least one mine had not been discovered, and Rene trained the beam upon it, thumbing the button hard.

No light shone from the underslung lamp--the gauntlet's mysterious juices had run dry at last.

Slicing open one of the dead Leapers, he gouged out a mass of silk and used it to glue a mine to either of his hands.

“C’mon then!” Rene invited them in, holding the explosives up in a crucifix-pose and preparing to sell his life dearly, “C’mon if youse hard enuff!”

The Leapers saw his suicidal measures and held back, hovering just out of the likely blast radius. Sorry kid, he thought with a glance at Zildiz. At least you won’t be awake for this part.

“Birds are inbound, boss!” Exar blared, “I repeat, the chickens have come home to roost!”

The timing was nothing short of providential. The warband pointed and blubbered at a dot on the horizon as a keening banshee’s wail filled the air. As one they turned and spun their airfoils to their underarms, gliding off into the lowlands as if their lives depended on it.

It was too much. Tears of joy stung Rene’s irises and he collapsed next to Zildiz, sobbing fitfully as he was wracked by a myriad of bottled-up emotions.

“Thank the ancestors,” he whispered, gazing at the rapidly widening speck with a swell of gratitude and joy.

“Uh, I don’t mean to rain on your parade, sir,” Exar tooted sympathetically, “But that’s not our ride.”

“What?”

“I’m picking up two flyers on my visual feed. Our shuttle is still three minutes out. I haven’t been able to identify the one you’re seeing right now. It picked up on my comms chatter, but it’s not responding to my hails. But whatever it is, it’s moving hellaciously fast!”

 

#

 

Once fog had rolled away, the Vitalus had found the pilot at last. Its first clue had been the Leaper warband running silent with their magnetosynaptic activity switched off. They had probably shirked their duties on the storm catcher out of idle hunger. They had thought themselves undetectable, but the Vitalus had contingency after contingency in place for just such an eventuality. Duplicity was ever the way with the sons of Arachnea. They had no idea what they were dealing with here, the danger this one human represented.

As the Leapers of the warband had died, the secret tracker implants within them had broadcasted their successive deaths.

Now the Hollowore homed in on its target below, broad wings tucking in close as it dove in for an attack vector. Rows of barnacle-like growths on its armored belly belly gaped open, revealing a battery of underslung nozzles or udders which now seeded the lower atmosphere with trailing transparent aerosol clouds of nano-thermite fuel mix.

The god was not taking any chances. The Engine’s bonded pilot had to die, even if it meant rubbing out a whole tribe or several minor subspecies in the process. As for the warband below. It was unfortunate that they now stood in the way. Leapers had a prodigious birth rate in any case and would recover in a decade or so. There was always time enough to rebuild.

This, however, could not wait. The Hollowore draped the shroud of invisible death over the unsuspecting jungle, and with a single spark of the nerve terminal in the electrogenetic cells on the hairy tips of its hind legs, the thermobaric holocaust began.