Page 71 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

“That has been suggested to me many times before. Today it’s tactical.”

Rhazek sits inside the salt circle, jaw tight, one hand braced on the stone. The damaged wing lies close to his back. Every few breaths, the green under his ribs gives a faint pulse beneath the salt cloth. Not bright enough to call the sky. Bright enough to make my pulse notice and act like an idiot.

“Can you feel direction?” I ask.

He closes his eyes, which I hate because it makes the hard lines of his face less guarded for one breath. I’m having enough problems without discovering softness under all that enemy-shaped control.

“South,” he says. “Then east. Not far.”

“Define not far.”

“Far enough to regret.”

“Excellent. I love precision with an emotional garnish.”

Orek’s voice comes from above. “Dust line.”

Everyone shifts.

I climb out of the hollow before Syin argues. The land south of us breaks into shelves, shallow cuts, and heat shimmer. For a moment I see nothing. Then the dust line rises, thin and regular, beyond a low ridge.

That’s not wind; it’s a pulse made visible.

Once.

Pause.

Again.

The relay below us answers. Rhazek doesn’t make a sound, but the salt crust around him clicks. Lio swears softly. I point and signal to hold.

The dust line fades.

“Mechanical burst,” Rhazek says from the hollow. His voice is rough. “Receiver checking range.”

“Good. It checked wrong.”

Syin looks at me. “Did it?”

“Mostly.”

“Mostly is not a word I enjoy in war,” Syin says.

“Then you’re going to have a terrible afternoon.”

The receiver pings again. The dust line lifts farther east this time. It’s not thinking, it’s sweeping. That helps. Thinking enemies make grudges. Mechanical ones make patterns. Patterns can be poisoned.

I draw two route lines in the dirt. One real, one stupid. The stupid one goes through open glare, loose salt crust, a stone shelf too thin to hold Zmaj weight, and a stretch of ground I would not trust with a dead insect. Rhazek opens his eyes and looks, frowning.

“No one would take that route.”

“Exactly.”

“Then why draw it?”

“Because the receiver doesn’t know me. It has samples. Not judgment.”

He jerks his gaze up to me, eye sharp.