DELIVERY
1544 4D
He and Alliji dozed fitfully through the early evening. Andrew had patrol at dawn. Two hours before midnight he whispered to Alliji, “I’ll be back in an hour or two,” and crawled out of the shelter to go to the waste ditch.
He positioned himself at the ditch, as if to urinate, across from the point where he’d seen the Novander men vanish with the plains deer. When the patrols were out of sight, he stepped across the ditch and slipped into the high grass.
Instantly he lost orientation. Although he could see stars directly overhead through the overhanging blades of grass, he didn’t know them. The trail before him was so dark and uncertain that he had to feel his way with his toes and hands, making the dry parts of the grass rustle as if they were blowing in a strong breeze. He stopped and looked back. His path inward was shrouded in blackness.
He had thought that this was no worse than tunnels in the City, but he hadn’t realized that the branchings and openings were so many in the grass. After about ten shuffling steps, he was lost. “Ah, shit,” he whispered. He hadn’t brought a weapon — it wouldn’t have made sense to go armed here — but now he wondered about the animals. Did the prohyenas live here, too?
Stooping with splayed arms and hands, he found a wider gap in the grass and went through it. The trail now twisted and turned, branching here and there, but he held to the widest way. He had to keep pushing away the sharp-edged grasses from his face and wide-open eyes. He froze when a cord tightened around his neck.
A voice said, “You’re way out of your place, City boy.” The cord choked off his breath; his attempts to move only increased its grip. He fell onto his hands and knees, and choked out in a whisper, “Mazzin… Grey.”
The cord loosened a little. “What do you want with Mazzinart Grey?”
Andrew gasped, rubbing his throat, “I need to talk to him. I have a message for someone. I need to deliver it personally.”
The cord stayed tight. “Yeah. And you’re wrapped in Hi-Blo, ready to splatter, aren’t you? Or you’re carrying comm for your unit? Or you’ve got biocam? We’ve had all that City shit here, little man.”
“Search me any way you like,” Andrew rasped. “I just want to give a guy some personal effects from his lady. My unit killed her, but I saved this for him.”
“You kill her?”
“No.”
“Well, you’ve got a ten-pounder swinging to come in here like you did, shitbrain. Who’s the guy?”
“His name is Linderus.”
“Not one of us. Sorry.”
“I know that. His lady’s name was Ti’Ann. She was up over Abridor.”
Another voice exclaimed, “Abridor! That’s--“
“No! Shut up, he can’t hear that.”
“Look,” Andrew said, “I don’t need to see the man’s face, I don’t need to hear his voice, I just want him to have her last letter. If it was me I’d want the same thing. Wouldn’t you?”
“Let’s see this letter.”
“No. If I wouldn’t give it to my top barker, I wouldn’t give it to you.”
The cord tightened again, gagging Andrew. “You’ll give it to me, or you’ll give it to me.”
Through a growing fog of red, Andrew heard the other voice. “Hey, stop. We can find a way.”
“Why? They’ve done this shit before.”
“Yeah, I know, over in North Sector. But this cock‘s too dumb for that.”
“Search him, then. Use the scan. Shit, you just won’t give up, will you?”
With a last squeeze of the cord, Andrew blacked out.
