8

Gau pushed the pannier of replicated Arashal meat along the edge of a wooded ravine that paralleled his camp. He crept in the wake of the rustling trees and intermittent bursts of flechette fire that marked the passage of Arkk and its pursuer. For once he was grateful for his small stature. Gau wouldn’t get hit unless he was incredibly unlucky.

Still, he’d never put much stock in luck. He jumped at every salvo, and his back and shoulders ached with tension by the time Gau reached the tree he’d noted when foraging earlier. He’d given it a wide berth then, recognizing what the purple-black vines wrapped around its trunk meant.

He detached the pallet’s control pad from its fittings, manipulating the control blisters until the cart had lined itself up with the trunk three meters away. Gau pressed forward on the controls and the pallet lurched over the uneven ground. At the last moment, he wrenched the pallet into a tight turn; it went up on two wheels, teetered for a moment, then fell on its side.

Gau was already backing away when the pannier spilled its contents across the base of the tree. He covered his mouth and nose with his cloak as the venomvine seedpod hidden in the tree’s branches released its acidic sap onto the unfortunate “Arashal” Gau had grown in his synthesizer. The pile of inert tissue sizzled and bubbled; the smell, halfway between scorched meat and burnt plastic, burned into his nostrils even through the cloak. It didn’t look much like an Arashal, but then it wouldn’t after being exposed to such a strong acid.

Gau hoped it would be enough to fool the Urd, anyway. He righted the pallet and used a long branch to hook the pannier back onto it, then made for his clearing.