Trapped

The Explorer pulled the trigger. The pistol made a soft whir-an extra sound added to the gun's mechanism so the shooter would know it was working. (The hypersonics themselves were beyond the range of human hearing.)

Yet the man did not fall down. He whispered, "Surprise, Explorer. Your toy doesn't work on me."

Without conscious thought, the Explorer dived to one side, like a woman throwing herself from the path of a runaway horse. It was an automatic action, instilled by her training-whenever something caught her completely by surprise, combat reflexes took over. Dive, roll. As she landed, she crushed a dozen tobacco plants beneath her weight; but that barely registered on her consciousness. Her mind was occupied with more pressing concerns. How did the man know she was an Explorer? And how could he have been waiting for her?

She knew Chee had come to this place before-every year at this time, he sent one of his Explorers on a tobacco raid-but it was a big island, and Chee never targeted the same farm twice. How could this man be in exactly the right place at the right time to meet her? How could he resist the hypersonics? How could he know to call her "Explorer"?

From a few steps away, the man laughed. He was coming toward her through the tobacco, intentionally trampling plants as he passed. It wasn't easy-tobacco grows tall, with a tough thick stalk-but the man stamped hard, apparently from sheer spite. He seemed to relish the destruction.

The Explorer had rolled to her feet and was trying to put some distance between herself and the man; but the clothes she wore were bulky, and would slow her excessively if she tried to run…

[I had the vision of Opal in some kind of cumbersome spacesuit. Did that make sense? Yes. If she came from a world beyond our own, she might want to avoid exposure to our local microorganisms… and to prevent her own microbes from infecting Earth. Therefore she'd wear some airtight outfit like a perfectly sealed cocoon. It would be heavy and need its own oxygen supply-an unfortunate weight to bear if you wanted to flee from a threat.]

Meanwhile, the man just laughed and slashed through the tobacco after her. She tried to shoot him again, but the gun had no effect. Then he grabbed her and knocked the pistol out of her hand.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Everything," he said. "Your weapon. Your equipment. You."

She tried to break free, but her clothes impeded her movement. The man held on. She stopped her struggles and asked, "How did you know I'd be coming here?"

He said, "Because I arranged it."

"That's not true."