Free Hunter's Run by George R. R. Martin

toward aubre. But we will grant
you a dispensation, as you are not a proper creature. Listen: a man has escaped
from us. Three days ago he fled from us, and we have not been able to find him.
By this act, he has shown himself to be aubre, and so proved that he
does not exist. The illusion of his existence must therefore be negated. The
man must not be allowed to reach a human settlement, to tell other humans about
us. Should he do so, that would interfere with our own tatecreude. Such
interference is gaesu, prime contradiction. Therefore you will find
him, negate him, in order to restore balanced flow.’
     
    ‘How am I supposed to find him if you could not?’
     
    ‘You are man. You are the same.
You will find him.’
     
    ‘He could be anywhere by now!’
Ramon protested.
     
    ‘Where you would go and where he
would go - they are the same. You will go where he has gone, and you will find
him.’
     
    Ramon considered that.
     
    ‘So you mean there’s a man out
there who found you and got away, and now you want me to help you catch him
before he can get back to civilization? You want me to hunt for you? Is that
what you’re saying?’
     
    The thing in the cables
considered this.
     
    ‘Yes,’ it said.
     
    ‘And why the fuck would I
do that?’
     
    The deep, awesome booming sound
rose from the depths of the planet below. Ramon was reminded again where he
was, and to what sort of creature he was speaking. A sense of vertigo washed
through him. The great alien didn’t seem to notice his distress.
     
    ‘You are imbued with purpose,’ it
said, almost patiently. ‘Your heart beats. You exchange gasses. You do so for a
purpose. To be and yet be without purpose is contradictory. Your language is
flawed in that it can express illusory states. Your purpose is to aid in locating
the man. If you are without purpose, the illusion of your existence must be
rectified.’
     
    Well, Ramon thought, that was clear
enough. Hunt or die. The answer was simple. He would lie. He had no intention
of playing Judas goat for these demons, but likewise he would never be able to
break away from them as long as he was ass-deep in their mountain. If he could
make his way to the open air, there was at least hope. A chilling thought
struck him.
     
    ‘How long did you keep me here?’
he asked. ‘Is it still summer out there, because tracking some mad fucker in
winter isn’t going to work.’
     
    The beast was silent. Ramon grew
impatient. If the time he had spent in darkness had been long enough for the
seasons to change, escape from the aliens would be suicide. The weather would
kill him as effectively as a knife in the ribs.
     
    ‘How long was I in that fucking
vat?’
     
    ‘Three days,’ the thing said
without hesitation.
     
    Ramon felt a stab of fear,
sharper for being unexpected.
     
    ‘The man you want tracked down.
That’s how long he’s been running? All the time I’ve been here?’
     
    The alien paused for a long
moment, before its deep, hoarse voice answered.
     
    ‘Yes.’
     
    This far to the north, there was
no way it could be coincidence; Ramon had been followed. Some poor fucker from
the constabulary had come north after him, searching for the European’s killer,
and instead had walked into this scene from Hell. Ramon couldn’t help imagining
it - a Diegotown cop, or maybe one of the governor’s own security agents,
making his stealthy way toward Ramon’s camp only to find scorched ground, twisted
plastic, and these monsters flying from the great metal wall he had uncovered.
Had the bastard had time lo call for help? No satellites reached this far
north, but the police had radio they could bounce off the atmosphere. Had the
aliens destroyed the policeman’s van as they had Ramon’s?
     
    Ramon had been poor all his life,
and, like most poor people, the instinct to be afraid of the police had been
burned into his soul. The thought that they had been so close to him as to fall
into the same alien snare