It seemed unfair that if I were to eat even the tiniest piece of setti it would kill me, but if the setti were to eat me the worst it would get would be an upset stomach.
The problem of the setti pod in the gloride mine was of sufficient importance that a Great Hall had been constructed near the entrance to the mine. I entered the hall where I would make the formal request to hunt the setti. I was warned not to mislead or exaggerate in even the smallest detail. I was only to speak the absolute truth and I would be believed. My complete credentials, including recordings of my previous battles with the gloride monsters had been sent ahead, as well as autopsy reports on the creatures, explaining the gloride monster’s cause of death compared to the blows I had struck.
A tall Kinzu with graying skin around his ears and the outside of his arms, a sign of great age, asked me why I had come. I had no problem looking into his eyes as I had no intention of lying or twisting my words.
“I have come to try my hand at killing a setti. I have killed a croc and a tic with my bare hands and I seek a greater challenge.”
A young male stood up. “Why Hunt These Setti? Why Here? Why Now?”
“I am not of your world. I am not fleet of foot in your gravity. I could not catch setti were they to run from me. In the mine they are trapped, they cannot run from me,” I told him calmly.
Another young male stood up, a look of triumph on his face. “Is it not true you hunt for the money? That the money is the reason you came, not the challenge of the hunt?”
“The challenge of the hunt was made to me and I accepted before the money was offered. I at first refused. I need no fee. The money was offered again and it was made clear to me that there were no conditions. The money was mine whether I hunted the setti or not. I accepted. If the money is the fee you require me to pay that I may have the glory of the hunt, the money is yours.”
Half a dozen young males stood up to avenge this insult, but more stood up to stop them. They could see the truth in my eyes as I spoke. The insult of implying that one would need to pay money to be allowed to hunt setti was no worse than the insult of asking someone if they required money to want to hunt setti.
After all the young males sat down, a male with so many streaks as to almost have more gray skin than blue stood up.
“The setti has only a shell. There are no bones to break. No pieces of bone to shove through a vital organ, and the spines of a setti are far more agile, far more dangerous than the claws of a croc or tic. Do you simply not go to your death? How do you plan to kill setti without weapons?”
“I did not know how to kill a croc or a tic until the last moment before it was killing or be killed. I feel that when the time comes I will know how to kill a setti. What good is life without a challenge?” As I spoke those last seven words I knew I had won. The vote to allow me my chance was unanimous.
I was invited to break bread with the Kinzu warriors in their great hall. It was a singular honor for a non-Kinzu. I drank Kinzu water filtered many times and ate food which I had brought with me. The only light was from huge fireplaces at each corner of the room which glistened off the walls and ceiling made of shiny white and gold marble. They spoke only standard speech so I could speak and listen to them as well as understand conversations that had nothing to do with me. I felt as though I was in Valhalla. I did not want the evening to end.
The next morning the guards at the mine, force rifles in hand, opened the gate to the mine to let me in. Ischuk stood at my side. “You don’t have to go,” Ischuk told me. “If you don’t want to do this, the money is still yours and I will take you back to the planet Cocuru in my own ship.”
I tried to pull my mouth into as much as a smile as I could manage. “Ischuk I have to go. This fantasy is the high point of my life.”
“Would you like me to come with you? If you’re ability wasn’t up to killing setti, I could hold them off while you run to safety,” Ischuk said solemnly.
“I have to do this alone. It will work out. My ability can do this.” Ischuk turned and started to walk away. I called after him. “Ischuk, if I don’t make it you will tell my Uncle?”
Ischuk smiled at me. “Failure is not an option. After your triumph I will take you to the planet Udell in my own ship and we will tell your Uncle together.”
The guards shut the door behind me. I had not been in a gloride mine for the better part of a year, but I was immediately at home. As I broke each successive gloride web, it was as if they were welcoming me back.
The air in the mine was far too thick and heavy. I looked for the atmosphere regulation equipment. They used an older model I was familiar with. It took only a few moments tinkering to get the air flowing again. I tuned the settings for human standard which would be thin and dry for a Kinzu, but I soon found breathing much easier. Each box I came across I tuned for human standard.
I wondered if it was too much to hope that the thinner air might make breathing difficult for a setti and give me an advantage. It was all very good to speak of the glory of dying for the glory of a challenge of a hunt when one is surrounded by Kinzu warriors in a nice safe great hall. Alone in a mine, the thought of being sliced to pieces by those razor sharp spines, and having those very same spines pick up the pieces and throw them in the setti’s maw, did not seem glorious at all.
I badly needed a drink. I told them I did my best work when drunk. They laughed at me, certain I was making a joke. I laughed too. I couldn’t face them again until all the setti in the mine were dead.
The first two setti I came across already were dead. They had many stab wounds. They had not started to rot. Nothing ever rots in a gloride mine. One at a time I dragged the setti shells in front of the nearest point recorder. The point recorder was not equipped for sound so I made the hand signals showing that these kills were not mine. To emphasize the point I pulled out a piece of broken ceramic blade out of one of the wounds. As the only blade I carried was the belt cutter, and that blade was not designed for fighting, the wound was not made by me.
I tried to cheer myself up with the thought that there were only 10 left and maybe I would only come across dead ones. There was no sign of Kinzu warriors, only Kinzu blood on the stones.
Three setti charged me from a side corridor as I came around a bend in the main path. As they closed with me The Ride began. At the last instant The Ride moved and the spines missed. The setti moved to try to strike me, but The Ride continued to move me so they were in each other’s way and the spines missed time and time again. At last The Ride moved and the nearest setti was between me and the other two setti.
The Ride avoided the leading setti’s spines and moved close enough that my body was able to push away the spines from the bottom of the slit they were coming out of. With the other hand my body pushed through the thin muscle sheeting and into the soft setti flesh up to my shoulder. My body grabbed something the size of a double human fist and with my knees up against the side of the setti shell pushed with all my might. My slime drenched arm emerged holding a still beating organ and the setti collapsed.
My body swung its arm at the other two setti splattering them with slime and they recoiled, but almost immediately attacked again. Again The Ride moved so the spines barely missed and moved in close so my body could strike. By the time the last setti circled to have a better shot at me, my body already had another setti heart in hand. The Ride moved and my body struck. The third setti heart completed my collection.
I was in control again. One by one I dragged the three
