Authors: Bruce Bethke
(Odd tactical, I thought, given they were only two people.) I hadn’t
gotten as far as I’d hoped, hadn’t found the spot I was really looking for,
but I could still make a good show of Harris’s Last Stand. A fair-sized
Cyberpunk 1.0
166
©1982, 1998 Bruce Bethke
tree stood alongside the trail; I got behind it and crouched down low.
Holding my crutch like a bat, tensing my muscles, I shut off all pain
inputs from my ankle and concentrated on how good it would feel to
take one of them with me.
Kao Vang never saw it coming. He stomped past the tree, still
swearing at the top of his lungs; I swung my crutch around so hard it
broke across his shins. For a moment he had the most
startled
expression I’ve ever seen, and then he let out a real satisfying painful
bellow, collapsed like a wet dishrag, and I was on top of him, grabbing
his collar, groping for his wimp switch—
No pull-tab. It was already gone.
“Goddammit Harris!” he yelled when he figured out what was going
on, “that
hurt
!” He wasn’t fighting back, I noticed. And once the
hand-to-hand rush ebbed, I also noticed he didn’t have his knife,
canteen, or far that matter most of his clothes. “Harris,” he said with
forced calm, “it’s okay. Honest mistake. I’m not mad.” He lifted his
chin, to show me the empty pull-tab socket. “I’m dead, see?”
I rolled off and let him sit up. He started rubbing his shins. “What
happened?” I asked.
“Fuggin’ Deke took me out!” he spat. I looked him in the face and
dumped off some disbelief. “No zut! Goddam S.I. woke us this
morning—you know they have two-way voice on these fuggin’
collars?—said it was his last warning to split up. Right then and there,
fuggin’ Deke reaches over and yanks my switch!” Kao Vang calmed
down slightly, looked at me, and asked, “Say, can I have a drink? That
barf-brain took my canteen.”
I unhooked mine, unscrewed the cap, and handed it over. He took a
deep drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, said, “Thanks.”
Another swig, and he added, “I tried to pull his switch, but the dead
can’t take out the living. Fuggin’ pull-tab locks. So I slugged him, and
the slimeball pulled his knife. Made me hand over my canteen, my
clothes, my... “ He shrugged, and gestured at himself. “See? Everything
but boots, undies, and compass.” He looked at me, appraising. “You got
Cyberpunk 1.0
167
©1982, 1998 Bruce Bethke
anything to eat? I haven’t eaten in three days.”
Damn him for reminding me! My stomach growled in sympathy.
“Where you going?” I asked, changing the subject.
“The S.I. radioed after my switch went. Congratulated Deke on his
fuggin’ clean kill, gave me a heading for the Grade Five camp, told me
to hike out! Speaking of which...” Vang started to look around in the
weeds. I helped, and in a minute we found his compass. He took another
hit on the canteen. “I
told
Deke we shoulda gone ‘round the marsh, but
no-o! We couldn’t find jack squat to eat, and then all our matches got
soaked. I was so hungry yesterday I caught a frog. Ever try to eat raw
frog?”
“You checked your compass?” I asked. “Mine is off by ninety
degrees.”
“No zut?” He looked at his; I unscrewed mine and handed it over.
He looked at them both, frowned, swore some more. “You mean I been
walking south when ... ? Thanks, Harris.” He handed my compass back
to me. “Y’know, if you can just stay loose another day or two, Deke
won’t have
time
to hunt you. He’ll be too busy looking for something he
can eat. God, what I wouldn’t give right now for a steak! I’d even settle
for one of those hockey pucks the mess hall calls—”
“Vang?” I asked. “Shut up. Just, shut up.”
He got to his feet, pretending to look at a watch. “Well, I simply
must
get going,” he said, oozing sarcasm. “Places to be, people to meet,
y’know. Say, if you get back to the academy alive, we’ll just
have
to do
lunch some—
“Vang?” I asked again. When I got his attention, I pulled out a ration
bar and threw it to him.
He looked at it a minute, then grinned. “Harris, you are something
else.” He offered me a hand up, and that’s when he noticed my ankle.
“Oo, that’s bad,” he said after he checked it out. “You considered bailing
out?”
I shook my head. “It’s down to me and Luger now. I might actually
have a chance.”
Cyberpunk 1.0
168
©1982, 1998 Bruce Bethke
He smiled wry. “You’re crazy.” Then he started peeling the wrapper
off the ration bar. “No, I take that back. You’re a weird kind of twonk,
Harris, but you’re okay. Now Deke,
he’s
crazy.” Vang took a bite out of
the bar and tried to snicker with a full mouth. “Y’know, he thinks you’re
gonna double-back again and he’ll outfox you by going due
east?
”
I considered that data worth another ration bar and gave it to Vang.
After finishing both bars and washing down the crumbs with a swig
from my canteen, he did me an incredible good turn and cut a strong
staff to replace the one I’d broken across his shins. We hiked half a klick
together, and when his last try at talking me into bailing out failed, he
split off to find the Grade Five camp by dead reckoning.
Ten steps down the path he stopped and turned around. “Say, Mike?
There’s something I should tell you. Deke’s trying to carve a bow; say’s
he’s going to risk tularemia and hunt rabbits. I don’t think he’s sharp
enough to make one that really works, but if he does, I wouldn’t put it
past him to take a potshot at you. Be careful, okay?”
“See you back at camp,” I answered, cheerful. A good plan, a really
good piece of tactical
and
gamethink was coming to me at last. For the
first time in three days I was starting to feel confident.
Vang waved, then headed east; I went west. Progress was slow
‘cause of my ankle, but faster than before because I was taking a straight
line and knew exactly where I was going. By dark I’d found my chute
again. Rolling myself up in the camouflage fabric, I settled in for a
comfy night of resting and stepwise refinement of my plan.
#
Day Four dawned perfect and clear, all calm blue skies and
sunshine. Even the birds seemed really pleased with it. In five minutes
I’d limped back down to the lake and was refilling my canteen. The little
fish were still there.
Odd, how in the end it all came back to a question of catching fish.
Unzipping my jump suit, I pulled out my Starfire and hefted it.
Flipped up the wafer display, checked the power indicator; it still held
55% charge. Maybe there was still time to think of a brilliant piece of
Cyberpunk 1.0
169
©1982, 1998 Bruce Bethke
programming?
Nah. I poked through the weeds at the water’s edge until I found a
precision circuitry conversion tool, or as we call ‘em in the profession, a
big fuggin’ rock. Diodes, resistors; the Starfire was just
full
of shiny
little lure-like things.
Late in the afternoon, I cleared a firebreak and built a greenwood
fire so big even Luger couldn’t miss it. Loaded on lots of fresh, resiny
pine branches; the smoke rose up in the still sky like a big arrow saying,
“You are here!” If Luger was where Vang said he was going—and I
didn’t doubt Vang anymore— at best speed it’d take him five, maybe six
hours to come to me. I was counting on him showing up well after dark.
I checked the ‘chute-fabric decoy tent one more time, then started
whittling my staff down to a nasty sharp spearpoint. Just about dusk, I
spitted a bunch of fish, set them far enough from the fire so that they’d
cook slow, and slithered into my blind.
Sounds cocky don’t it? Truth was, I was still scared stiffless; the
whole plan hinged on two assumptions. One was that Luger’d be using
his stomach instead of his brain. Given how hungry Vang was, and given
that Luger had forty more pounds of body mass to feed, I felt pretty
good about this one.
The second assumption, though, was the one that would get me
real
hurt if I was wrong. It was convoluted double-gamethink: Luger’s
paradigm of me ran on a heavy mix of fear and wimpishness. But how
did he weight my hate for the academy? And did his paradigm allow for
me being scared reckless, scared crazy? If it came to a crunch, did he
think my core personality was a totally gutless wimp or a terrified
nutcase who’d do
anything
to get away from him?
Time to find out. And the throbbing in my ankle said I only got one
chance.
#
A few hours after dark, in the bloody red light coming from the last
coals of the dying fire, I spotted Luger circling around in the shadows
and checking out my camp. He was wearing Kao Vang’s black jammies
Cyberpunk 1.0
170
©1982, 1998 Bruce Bethke
and carrying a crude bow and a couple arrows, with one nocked and
ready to shoot. Trying his best to be wary, cunning, he slipped from tree
to tree, drawing closer to the tent.
With luck, he wouldn’t get close enough to see the trash in it wasn’t
me.
My luck held. Suddenly, he stopped. Sniffed. Turned his head from
side to side like a radar targeter, zeroing in on the broiled fish still
spitted over the coals.
Another of the colonel’s sayings goes, “If a
real
war ever starts, all
the sophisticated weapons will be gone in a week. Then we’ll be back to
bows and arrows.” I’d always wanted to argue with that one. A bow is a
complex weapon: Takes practice to use it, two hands to hold it, and you
have to put it down if you want to do something else.
Like eat.
Stealthy, Luger grabbed a fish and scuttled around to the side of the
fire opposite the tent, where he crouched and started eating. Chomping
and growling like a bag full of hungry cats, his hands full of greasy fish
bits, he kept a nervous eye on the tent.
And his back to me.
Quiet as the pain in my ankle allowed, I crawled out of my blind, got
to my feet, and crept up on him. He didn’t see me coming until a
nanosecond before I teed off into his ribs with the shaft of my spear.
Damn, he had good reflexes! Surprised, winded, knocked flat on his
back, he
still
managed to get hold of his knife. He was really good!
But not fast enough. Before he could get off his back I was standing
over him, the point of my spear resting lightly in the hollow just below
his adam’s apple. The knife twitched, nervous, in his hand.
“Harris!” he gasped, trying to bluster but without cooperation from
his voice. “The game’s over, Harris! Let me pull your switch now and I
won’t hurt you!”
I let out what I hoped was a convincing hysterical cackle.
“Hurt
me
?” I laughed. “You miserable pusbag! You’ve been
badgering me and buggering me for two years, and now you think I’m
Cyberpunk 1.0
171