“Once,” said Deborah.
“She thinks because she has no eyes, she’s already invisible,” said Wheaton.
“Maybe I did when I was little,” said Deborah, “but I can see now.”
“The kill happens right over there. At that time, there must be a little gully, because the prey goes down a little and they take it on the uphill slope on the other side. Nothing deep, but it slows the prey down enough.”
“Where should we be watching as they approach?” asked Wheaton.
“The prey comes from over there,” said Noxon. “The wing men are there and there. The followers form a U shape right behind the prey. Most of the way, the prey kept leaving them behind, then stopping to breathe and rest and recover while they just kept jogging along. But the wing men—they’re real runners. Fast and steady, so the prey can never turn very far out of the direct line of the hunters behind them.”
“And where will we hide?” asked Ram. “Right now this is pretty open land.”
“Well, first we’ll hide by ducking down in the grass,” said Noxon, “so safari tourists won’t take a vid of us simply vanishing. And I won’t know for sure where we can hide from the Erectids till we’re in that time. Trees and bushes don’t leave clear enough paths for me to see them after five hundred years, let alone a million and a half.”
A minute or so later, holding hands, facing toward where Noxon could see the path of the approaching prey, they all sank to the ground and Noxon jumped them back in time.
It was almost a relief not to be slicing—to hear normal sounds and not be in that state of eerie deafness that Param had spent so much of her life in. Noxon had gotten used to it when he and Param were practicing together constantly, but since then it had grown strange and uncomfortable again. Now, in the million-year past, they could hear insects, could hear each other’s small noises.
“We don’t have to keep particularly silent right now,” said Noxon. “There are no predators near us, and no Erectids, either.”
“How long?” asked Wheaton.
“Getting impatient?” asked Ram.
“Father was born impatient,” said Deborah. “With everything and everybody except me.”
“Except you,” said Wheaton, right along with her. “She says that, but of course I was impatient with her all the time. What a little brat.”
“As bad as the disobedient little Erectids?” asked Deborah.
“Much worse, because you had such a mouth on you, and if you ever were getting the worst in an argument, you’d act extra blind. What a cheater.”
“How does a person act ‘extra blind’?” asked Deborah.
“Deliberately reaching out toward me but in a direction where you knew perfectly well I was not standing,” said Wheaton. “Deliberately tripping a little when you walked. Bumping into the furniture—but I noticed you always chose upholstered or lightweight items.”
“The real question,” said Noxon, “is whether ‘extra blind’ kept working for very long.”
“It worked every time,” said Wheaton. “Every single time.”
“That’s a lie,” said Deborah. “I never got my way.”
“But I felt horribly guilty about it,” said Wheaton.
“I didn’t want you to feel guilty, I wanted you to give in.”
“That wasn’t one of the options,” said Wheaton. “If I ever let you win you would have become a monster.”
“Instead, I thought I was being raised by one,” said Deborah.
Noxon could see that they meant what they were saying, to a point. But under it all was the clear message that they loved each other, that they had loved each other even then.
The conversation ended abruptly when they began to hear shouts from far out on the savannah.
“Shouldn’t we hide now?
” asked Deborah.