William C. Dietz - Imperial Bounty

Imperial Bounty: Copyright 1988 by William C. Dietz
All rights reserved.
ISBN10: 0-441-36697-X
ISBN13: 978-0-441-36697-2
First E-Reads publication: 2004
www.ereads.com
All persons, places and organizations in this bookexcept those clearly in the public domainare fictitious, and any resemblance that may seem to exist to actual persons, places or organizations living, dead or defunct is purely coincidental. These are works of fiction.

This one is for my father, William Holt Dietz

McCade was hunting an icecat. Or maybe the icecat was hunting him. It wasn't clear which, but it didn't matter much, since he was in deep trouble either way. First, because he didn't know much about hunting icecats, and second, because icecats knew a lot about hunting people. Which wasn't too surprising since they'd been at it for fifty years. That's how long humans had been on the iceworld called Alice. The process of natural evolution had molded icecats into killers, and to them, humans were targets just like everything else.

Naturally the colonists had fought back, but it wasn't easy. Icecats can move with amazing speed, and never give up. Their name comes from a vague resemblance to Terran cats. Unlike Terran felines however, icecats have heat-sensitive membranes located in the center of their foreheads. Operating like infrared scanners, these membranes allow them to lock onto radiated heat, and follow it even through a raging blizzard if necessary. They also have excellent vision, good hearing, and lots of teeth. All of which explains why icecats are normally hunted by well-armed groups instead of individuals. "Not that I planned it this way," McCade said to himself.

It had all begun when a roaming icecat attacked a small herd of variant caribou about twenty miles to the south. In a matter of minutes the rampaging beast had almost wiped them out. By the time Lane Conners arrived, there were bodies everywhere. And when Conners attempted to defend a wounded animal, the icecat jumped him too. He had used his pocket com to call for help. Moments later his wife, Liz, hit the big red panic button just inside the door of their pre-fab dome and raced to his side. A general distress call went out, and as luck would have it, McCade was closest.

McCade was returning home from a series of routine law and order visits to the small mining settlements which dotted Alice when the alarm came in. It had been a long trip. But on Alice you don't ignore a distress call. Not if you want anyone to show up when it's your ass on the line. Amazingly enough the rancher was still conscious when the medics arrived. As they loaded him into the chopper he grabbed McCade's arm. "Get the sonovabitch for me, Sam. Otherwise he'll be back... and next time it might be Liz or one of the boys."

McCade saw such agony in the rancher's eyes that like a fool he agreed, ready to say anything to get Lane into the helicopter and on his way. So as the med evac chopper disappeared into the southern sky, McCade got into his aircar and took off toward the north. What looked stupid now had seemed reasonable back then. Rather than wait for help, or take the time to put together a pack, he'd decided to follow the icecat's tracks north hoping for a quick, easy kill. He should've known better. When it comes to icecats... there's no such thing as a quick, easy kill.

So he'd dropped his aircar into a clearing, and set out on foot, trying to get ahead of the beast and ambush it. But so far all he'd seen was ice, snow, and the low, twisted evergreens which passed for trees on Alice. "Where the hell are you anyway?" he asked in frustration, but there was no answer except the crunching sound of his own footsteps as he walked through the ice and snow. Around him the shadows grew longer and darker, creating a thousand hiding places, any of which might conceal an icecat.

As evening approached it brought with it a frigid breeze, supercooled by glaciers a hundred miles to the north, and sharp as a knife against the small area of unprotected skin at his throat. Walking cautiously he reached down to turn up the internal temperature of his heatsuit. Eventually he'd run out of power for it. Maybe he'd freeze to death while waiting for an icecat to kill him. The thought struck him as funny somehow, so why wasn't he laughing? "You're losing it, Sam old boy," he said to himself. "Pull yourself together. You've been in worse spots."

And it was true. In his days as a professional bounty hunter he'd come close to death many times. But somehow those encounters were different. He'd been in control, always the hunter, never the hunted. Here that was reversed; the icecat was in control. It could fight or disappear, and whichever it chose, there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

Suddenly he stopped, his eyes riveted to the snow in front of him. The icecat was close. There was no mistaking the huge plate-sized paw prints which overlaid the cross-hatched pattern of his own boots. The sonovabitch was following him! And had been for some time. Together they'd made a large figure eight. With a sinking feeling McCade realized how far he'd come. The aircar was miles away.

He glanced over his shoulder one more time, and started up a nearby slope, instinctively seeking higher ground. Perhaps he could find a better vantage point toward the top. Eventually his path was blocked by the sheer face of a cliff. Locating a small crevice which would protect his back, he forced his way in, and did his best to make himself comfortable.

During his climb, the already dim sun had sunk farther in the overcast sky, making it even colder. McCade reached down to turn up the gain on his heatsuit, and then thought better of it. Even on its present setting the power pak wouldn't get him through the night. He did his best to settle down and concentrate on the task at hand. "All right you flea-bitten sonovabitch... I'm ready when you are... come and get it."

Another hour passed. He scanned the area below for the umpteenth time. Even under his visor's high mag setting, there wasn't much to see. He was about to give up when he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. Or had he? Maybe it was just a trick of evening's half light. No, there it was again, a shadow among shadows, a momentary blur only half seen.

Then he had it, a long low body, winter white giving way to summer gray, almost invisible against the volcanic rock. A strong neck supported a large triangular head, with two fan-shaped ears that twitched slightly as they sampled the evening breeze. Huge eyes moved this way and that, each independently scanning the area for any signs of danger. If they looked his way would they see him? And what about the animal's ability to sense radiated heat? Could it detect him?

McCade felt a lead weight drop into his gut as the beast's hideous head swiveled toward him and stopped. How good was his heat shielding? Maybe there was some leakage that the icecat could detect. The icecat snarled, the thin lips of its false mouth pulled back to reveal razor-sharp teeth. The sound echoed back and forth off the cliffs.

The last echo of the icecat's snarl was still dying away when the animal vanished into the shadows. McCade thought about all those teeth and shuddered. The ones he'd seen were bad enough, but he knew there were still others located in its abdomen. Icecats have two mouths. A false mouth used for breathing and killing, and a real mouth, exclusively devoted to eating. Having made a kill, icecats immediately drape themselves over the body to keep it from freezing, thus bringing their real mouths into contact with the carcass. By sliding this way and that, icecats can efficiently strip a man-sized carcass in minutes, all the while keeping their false mouths and sensory organs available for defense. It is, the biologists like to point out, a very efficient adaptation to conditions on Alice. McCade didn't doubt it, but had no desire to take part in the process himself.