True Spear marched into the woods. As soon as he was out of sight of the scene with the Demons the wounded, he was surrounded by Sunrise tribe Hunters with Spears levels at him.

True-Spear's face contorted in anger.

"Talk to me." Strong Voice said, mildly.

True-Spear's voice seemed as contorted as his face. "The Demons want you to come adopt the wounded."

"Have you perhaps had time to reconsider your approach to this situation?" Strong Voice asked.

"If it takes me the rest of my life, if it takes until the end of the world, I'll see the demons and all of you dead." True-Spear said. His voice was calm and his face was totally committed.

Strong-Voice had all he could do not to rear back in front of the madness displayed to him. "May the Creator have pity on you."

"No. Save that for yourself." True Spear turned and kept walking into the woods. "You'll need it."

-*-

Strong Voice and Sees Far turned to look at the assembled Demons and wounded.

"We have some wounded people to recover." Strong Voice said. His voice dry.

"What the hell?" Sees-Far set aside his spear. "It worked for Stares-Into-Night. Let's go say hello."

Several hunters set aside their weapons.

"Too Many." Strong Voice said. "I'll go first with Sees-far. If they don't react badly then the rest of you come."

The rest of the Sunrise Hunters nodded.

Hidden-Color, the defector from True-Spear's hunting party said "I must return to the Rock Skin Tribe and tell them of what I have seen here, including True-Spear's madness. Attacking the demons sounds easy until you see it tried."

"If the Rock Skins are willing to take back some of their own wounded, that would be nice, too." Strong-Voice said

Hidden-Color bobbed a salute and quickly disappeared into the woods.

"Shall we?" Strong Voice said to See-Far with false jauntiness.

"Indeed." Sees-Far replied

They stepped out of the tree line and started walking towards the Demons and their wounded.

-*-

"They'll be alright." Jon Dou said. She was wearing a white smock smeared with Lemurite Blood. Operating to stabilize the small people with no information about them and no anesthesia was as far from fun as Jon Dou ever wanted to get. Fortunately the basic principles were easy, keep as much blood as possible inside, make sure as little else as possible got into the wound. Stop the bleeding, let the body do its job.

Michelle looked at Jon Dou. Michelle looked gaunt eyed and haunted.

"How are you?" Jon Dou probed.

Michelle looked back at her. "That was just another day in E.R. for you, huh?"

Jon Dou sighed. "No. Usually we can use drugs to shut them up. And usually I know exactly what I am doing."

Michelle recalled holding the larger hunter down while he screamed and writhed. Jon Dou's treatments were evidently extraordinarily painful. At least that's the impression that the agonized shrieks of the two injured gave her.

"The one with the hand was still trying to fight." Michelle said. She couldn't understand the language, but the emotion was clear.

"There's another good argument for morphine." Jon Dou shrugged it off. The emotional state of a basket case in E.R. didn't matter. Pain drove people to odd places some times. Nothing they said mattered until their problems were treated and their pain medicated. And even then, they might be crazy anyway. It was someone else's problem. "That was a good call, sending him away."

Michelle looked at the ground. "We took his hand off. He'll be a cripple forever."

Jon Dou Shrugged. "At least until we get landed. I think we do a prosthetic for him. And the one with the feet."

"Without the feet." Rudy corrected blandly.

Jon Dou snickered.

Michelle glared. "And what's he going to pay you with, nuts and berries?"

Jon Dou shrugged. "I just work here. Collections is a different department. Thank you for calling Bendross International. Now go home."

Rudy was also in a white Smock with blood smeared all over it. "Fresh fruit doesn't sound too band right now, does it?"

"Company." Hamilton pointed.

Two Lemurites approached slowly, stiffly, their tails bushed out and eyes wide.

"I guess the one with the hand wasn't so crazy after all." Rudy said.

Michelle walked over gently touched her new friend, and drew attention to the newcomers. He looked and his ears perked forward. His tail curled weakly and he held his hands out to them.

Michelle nodded gravely and stepped back "Let's give them some space."

-*-

The Demons stepped way back to clear the approach to Stares-Into-Night.

Strong Voice saw this. "Look, they're inviting us."

Sees-Far looked at the Demons. "That's so scary. With their ripping deaths, they could have killed us back there."

Strong-Voice marched forward "This means that they're trying to address our feelings, Sees-Far. Stares-Into-Night was right. Our old ideas of what Demon means is not good. We need to throw it away and relearn."

Strong Voice stopped and looked at his hesitant Hunter. "They still scare the piss out of me."

"Good. One mad man in the tribe is enough." Sees-Far said, catching up.

The approached the Demon encampment. The cries of the Big Hunter were disturbing. Another Hunter, covered in blood and gore wept and rocked.

Strong-Voice gathered his will about him and ignored them, making straight for Stares-Into-Night.

His Shaman looked very bad, indeed. His face was swollen, there was a small brown streak of blood on his lips.

Strong-Voice's heart broke at the sight. "We were on our way to rescue you."

"I know." Stares-into-Night said stiffly. "True-Spear didn't want to wait."

"We all saw it. We were in the tree line," Strong-Voice said, "You were tremendously brave."

"I would like to hear of it. I didn't see much. I heard the ripping and the screaming. Were there Raptors?" Stares-Into-Night said.

"How much did you see?" Strong-Voice asked.

"The Ripping Death rips flesh as easily as a sharp knife through a fresh fruit. Easier." Stares-Into-Night said. "They exterminated one Hunter casually. Like slapping an insect. Then the one dressed in blue with the brown mane yelled, and the big one in blue gave an order. I think she's the Chief and he's the Hunt Master."

Strong-Voice shuddered. "What now?"

"I need to get to my supplies. These Demons can be very cruel. They don't seem very interested in stopping pain." Stares-into-Night said. "I think they want us to take these crippled ones in."

Strong Voice nodded. "Are you in condition to do this?"

Stares-Into-Night sighed. "Holds-Bird can make pain killing potion, and she's better at practical nursing than I am. I just want to show her where I keep my supplies."

"Alright then, we'll take these hunters home." Strong-Voice sighed. "I hope the Rock-Skins are interested in recovering some of them. Feeding them is going to be a drain."

Stares-Into-Night Shook his head. "Rock Skin Tribe lost a lot of hunters last night. Feeding themselves is going to be difficult."

Strong-Voice turned to Sees-Far "Bring the rest of the hunters up. We have some wounded to bring home."

-*-

"Should we help them?" Hamilton asked. "They're kind of small." He was watching the Lemurite hunters rig travois and litter to cart off their wounded comrades.

"Assuming that Michelle is right and there are two factions, one less than hostile and one all the way hostile, How can you tell which is which?" Martin asked.

"I don't think they'd feel comfortable showing any of us the location of their tribe anyway. Michelle said. That just leaves them open for a counter attack."

Hamilton reluctantly stood back and let the Lemurites handle it.

-*-

That night Martin woke up. It was the middle of the night and he should have been sleeping soundly. The day had been a long one and combat was always very draining.

Something tickled the back of his mind. Martin reached up and with fluid grace hauled himself out of his bunk. There was really no other way to do it. The motion always reminded Martin of squeezing a tube of Marine. The bunks on Expedition One were modeled after old Japanese coffin motels. A hexagonal tube, open at one end, with a terminal and comm-gear built into the overhead. There were two groups of coffin-bunks on either side of the ship, which quickly became segregated.

Martin pulled on his cover all and went down the short stairway to the main deck.

Michelle was there, working at a bench, cataloging the life forms that she examined several lifetimes ago. Her eyes were rimmed with red and she moved slowly.

Martin stepped up besides her, careful to make a reasonable foot step noise so he wouldn't surprise her.

Michelle looked up. "Hey." It was a greeting, it carried subtexts of fatigue and wariness. Michelle was feeling traumatized.

"Hey." Martin's reply carried warmth and joy at greeting her again, with a subtext of sympathy and support.

"Can't sleep?" Martin's question sounded obvious, but carried subtexts. "I know you can't sleep and are feeling bad. I am inviting you to talk with me about it."

"No." This also meant "I am not sure if I want to talk about it right now."

Martin looked at her for a moment, a frank, penetrating look, but one that carried an infinity of acceptance. "Okay."

Michelle looked back and the pain came. It washed over her. It filled her eyes first, and then affected her face.

Martin's expression was calmly sad. Martin felt very, very sad on many different levels.

"I. . . I can still see the one that Vasquez got." Michelle said quietly. The colors and smells of the dead Lemurite hung in her mind as if it was happening right in front of her. His viscera were surprisingly colorful, the smell surprisingly bad. The pain surprisingly intense for a creature that was dead before it had a chance to feel it, entirely.

Martin saw it all dancing in front of her. He nodded slowly but thoroughly, understanding completely.

Michelle saw this. "Does it ever go away?" her question had an edge of desperation.

"You saw what they did to your little friend, right?" Martin asked. "You saw the spear aimed at me, didn't you?"

Michelle nodded. "Somehow, it doesn't seem to matter."

Martin's voice took on the faintest hint of steel. "It does matter."

"Answer my question."

Martin looked at her. "It grows less and less over time. It doesn't grab you as often. It never goes away entirely."

Michelle looked at him.

"You will survive this." Martin said. It carried undertones. "You're strong. You're a survivor. I believe in you. I love you."

Michelle leaned forward and without another subtly spun word put her face in Martin's shoulder.

Martin held her.

When the tears came, they came quietly and softly, but they carried a lot, too.

-end-

Jay P Hailey

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