The Tejano Conflict by Steve Perry Page A

behind you, at where you and I walked.”
    â€œYep, I can see that, we’re sublime, we’ve left footprints in the sands of time.”
    â€œBut Kay came this way, and she didn’t leave obvious footprints. You see any?”
    â€œI do not. How did she do that? She float?”
    â€œSort of. She hopped from one bit of vegetation to the next. Plus the odd rock here and there.”
    â€œAh.”
    â€œIf I examine the grass within a Vastalimi’s jumping range around this one, I should be able to find two places where Kay came down. One getting here, another leading away. The closer the distance, the harder it will be to see.”
    He thought about that for a moment. “Because she can step lightly from this to that, but if she has to jump farther, the impression will be deeper. Or if she lands on a stone that doesn’t leave any sign.”
    â€œSee, already you are learning. Since I know I’m tracking a Vastalimi and not a human, I know she can jump farther. I can look at the closest grass first, and if I find something, recalculate where her next step or leap might be. If I don’t find anything close, I range longer.”
    â€œMakes sense. Doesn’t even sound that hard, once you explain it this way.”
    â€œYeah, except that Kay knows I’m tracking her.”
    â€œSo . . . what?”
    â€œShe might backtrack.”
    â€œUm . . . ?”
    â€œShe knows what I’m doing because she taught me how to do it. I’m looking for a flattened bit of vegetation, maybe a partial print slopping over onto the bare ground. Maybe a squashed insect.”
    â€œYeah . . . and . . . ?”
    â€œThink about it.”
    He did. Didn’t come up with anything. He gave her an offhand shrug. “I’m just a doctor. I can follow a blood trail.”
    â€œOkay, so we have this sign we just saw. And back to my left, there’s another sign. Past that, a couple of meters away, another one. That’s how she got here.”
    â€œI got that part.”
    â€œWhat if Kay came that way, then went back onto the same spots? She’d use them twice.”
    He considered that. “Ah. So if you can’t find any other sign past this one except the one that led you here, you work on that assumption.”
    â€œYep. And if that’s right, somewhere back along the way, I should find
two
disturbed bits of vegetation, where she backtracked to leave a false trail, then went off in another direction. Plus landing on the identical area twice should, in theory, make it a little deeper and messier than doing so only once.”
    â€œRight. So, not as easy as it seems.”
    â€œNope. And slow. Hard to cover a lot of ground when you are spending a fair amount of time lying down and trying to see which way she went; it makes for painstaking work.”
    â€œIf you could use your enhanced vision, you could do it faster.”
    â€œSure. And if I com her and ask her where she is, I can do it really fast. If I were trying to track somebody for real instead of this game, I’d dial up the magnification, and it would be relatively easy. I could maybe use IR to see warmer patches, except that in this weather, it doesn’t work so well. But the idea is to get good at doing it the hard way; after that, you can cheat.”
    â€œWell, have fun out here broiling in the sunshine. I’m going to go change clothes and have myself a cold beer.”
    â€œYou don’t want the thrill of victory when we find her?”
    â€œYou can tell me about it, I’ll share your joy.”
    â€“ – – – – –
    It took Jo nearly two hours to follow the winding trail Kay left, stops and starts and backtracks, but eventually, she came to where Kay sat on a tree stump, waiting.
    â€œVery good, Jo Captain.”
    â€œHow long would it have taken you to follow that trail?”
    Kay shrugged.