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Hunters loved an honor match, but they wouldn't let her walk away afterward.
Unless . . .
"Nirasawa," she said, still watching the Hunters, watching as another novice took Shorty's blade from
him, "it's too late for you to help your master . . . but if there's any part of your programming that
under-stands revenge, now's the time to access it. These are the beings responsible for his condition."
The Hunters uncloaked, stepping farther away from the backdrop of jungle. Shorty took off his mask,
throwing it aside, and the Hunters began to trill to one another, clicking and clattering excitedly.
"I understand," Nirasawa said, and Noguchi glanced back to see that he'd put his master down, lay-ing
him gently in the grass.
"The rest of you, get to the ship," Noguchi said. "I'll be there as soon as I can."
"Machiko . . ." Lara started, but Noguchi shook her head. There wasn't anything that she or Jess could
say that would change her mind.
"I have unfinished business here," she said grimly, and started across the clearing, Nirasawa falling in
be-hind her. Perhaps it was lunacy, perhaps she would only get herself killed, fighting for an integrity that
wasn't even in question but perhaps, after all this time, she'd finally grasped the Hunter's way.
It's about doing what you have to do, regardless of the outcome. And it's about killing your enemy,
because he doesn't understand how only the strong have a right to honor.
With a scream of undisguised glee, Shorty stepped out to meet her.
Ellis understood enough of what was happening to know that Max shouldn't kill the creatures
badguys five object
so they watched without acting, as the small woman and the inorganic moved away, each step
add-ing to the numbers that ran across Ellis's eyes, distance and speed. Ellis thought that he might be
bleeding; Max didn't register a change in fluids, but there was enough wrong with Max that Ellis decided
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to abstain from deciding.
we have to go now, ellis, can you hear
ellis, can you
help me pick him up
Max looked down at their friends, not sure who had spoken, Ellis pleased by the sounds of their voices.
what are you doing, you said yourself that briggs is be-yond help
I'll explain later ellis, help me
Jess. Jess wanted their help. He had crouched next to the unmoving human, touching him, trying to move
him. Ellis explained to Max what Jess wanted and Max took a step forward, knees bending, the glowing
plain of the ground line rising in front of their eyes. Ellis felt his body moving within, leaning over, and felt
warmth against skin, wet motion across his lips.
Bleeding, I am bleeding.
Jess pushed the human into the crook of Max's right arm and they stood up, 82.72 kilos heavier than
before. Max made adjustments for the difference, tak-ing up enough calculation space that Ellis couldn't
make out any more words.
Both humans,Lara, Jess, made sounds, speaking, and Ellis understood the meaning if not what they
said; it was time to go.
Max and Ellis stepped forward, avoiding the dis-traction that was taking place nine meters away,
between the small woman and the nonhuman bad-guys. From the sharp sounds and quick movements,
they decided it was highly probable that the interaction was violent.
Ellis was glad to be leaving; he was getting tired, and thought that he might like to sleep soon.
27
Nirasawa's capacity for retal-iatory action was well mapped and undamaged, a self-contained 3
LCerabyte module that had been inte-grated into his reasoning after his assignment to Mr. Briggs. The
humans that he'd recognized, Katherine Lara and Martin Jess, had been telling the truth, as had the
woman Lara had called "Machiko." No pupil dila-tion, no change in respiration; Mr. Briggs would not
survive.
Protecting Mr. Briggs was no longer his primary function, which meant that he had to report back to his
Weyland/Yutani AI Assignment Officer as soon as he could find a transmitter and he now had the
option to physically incapacitate the perpetrators of Mr. Briggs's inevitable death. The woman Machiko
started for the group of five alien/organics and Nirasawa followed, the stimuli from the tapped module
flooding his driver.
"Nirasawa, the small one and I will engage," Machiko said as she walked, and flexed her right arm. A
pair of sharpened knives projected from the back of her wrist with a click, snapping into place. "The
others
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may wish to involve themselves in our fight. If you choose to keep them from interfering, you will cause
them psychological damage."
Nirasawa didn't respond, but decided that inflicting more than just physical injury was appealing. His
mod-ule had been designed so that associates of a damaged or dead consumer could feel that some
justice had been served; it did not recommend any one method of reci-procity over any other, but did
suggest that a combina-tion of methods was highly effective.
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