Free Orphan's Triumph (Jason Wander) by Robert Buettner Page A

Weichselan cave bear bumped its head on the fifteen-foot-high cave ceiling. This just made it grumpier.
    I backed out of the cave as I unslung my rifle.
    “Howard, bears eat berries and salmon, right?”
    “Not cave bears. Their remains are high in Nitrogen-15.”
    “Meat eaters?”
    “When available.”
    Any Weichselan two-legged hunter that this bear had encountered up until now would have been very available. The bear dropped down on all fours, lowered its head, and snarled. I thumbed the selector switch on my rifle to three-round burst as we backed out, then tugged a smoke grenade from my thigh pouch. With personal transponders, smoke is obsolete as a position marker, and the cans are clunky to carry, but I carried them anyway. As Ord said, it was better to have and not need than to need and not have.
    The bear stepped forward and bared its teeth.
    I stepped backward as I popped the can and rolled it like hissing dice under the bear’s nose. When the can popped and hot crimson smoke billowed out, the beast yipped and jumped back into the shadows.
    Howard and I ran like our hair was on fire.
    An hour of exploring along the escarpment later, we probed another cave. This one wasn’t as deep or as warm as the first one, nor was it as crowded.
    We bundled our prisoner in a corner where the temperature measured thirty-six degrees Fahrenheit. There the blob seemed as comfortable as a blob can seem. Then Howard and I sat facing each other on the cold stone, while he uncoiled a hose that connected his scapular vent to my foot vents. His batteries were fully charged, and the barely warmed air he trickled over might stave off frostbite for me, even though the throb of returning circulation made me grit my teeth.
    Howard said, “You didn’t shoot the bear.”
    I shrugged. “I didn’t have to.” I jerked my thumb at the Ganglion. “Will it survive?”
    It was Howard’s turn to shrug.
    “If it does, how much can it tell us?”
    “Ask me again after we get it to Earth alive.”
    I disconnected from Howard’s armor and tugged my boots and gauntlets back on. Howard said, “We could stay connected. That would be more comfortable for you.”
    I shook my head. “One of us needs to stay at the cave mouth, on watch. I’ll take the first watch. While I’m warm.” A relative term.
    A half hour later, I sat at the cave mouth with my rifle across my thighs. At two a.m. local, the sky cleared enough to show stars. Weichsel’s version of the North Star sits in a constellation that looks like a bear.
    At three a.m., the first dire wolf came sniffing around the cave, its eyes glowing red through the dark. A rifle shot would wake Howard. More important, it would flash a heat signature unlike anything natural on Weichsel. The Slug Warriors might be as disorganized as Howard thought, but why take chances?
    I gathered a little pyramid of throwing stones, then pegged one at the wolf. It bounced off his ribs, and he trotted into the darkness, more confused than hurt.
    Later, I shook Howard awake, then turned in.
    Blam-blam-blam.
    The assault rifle’s burst snapped me awake inside my armor, and the armor’s heater motor, ineffectual but operating, teased me by prickles between the shoulder blades. The shots’ reverberation shivered the cave’s ceiling, and snow plopped through my open faceplate, onto my upturned lips.
    “Paugh!” The crystals on my lips tasted of cold and old bones. There was no cave bear in here at the moment, but there had been. I scrubbed my face with my glove. “Goddamit, Howard!”
    Fifty dark feet from me, silhouetted against the pale dawn that lit the cave’s mouth, condensed breath ballooned out of Howard’s open helmet. “There are dire wolves out here, Jason!”
    “Don’t make noise. They’re just big hyenas.”
    “They’re coming closer!”
    “Throw rocks. That’s what I did. It works.” I rolled over, aching, on the stone floor and glanced at the time winking from my faceplate display. I