Beastchild

human. He remembered then how little tolerance these people had to changes of temperature. Two hours exposed like this could do great damage to one of their frail systems.
        He rummaged through his suitcase, brought out the powerful personal heat unit and thumbed the controls on the smooth, gray object that looked like nothing so much as a water-washed stone. Immediately, there was a burst of warmth that even he appreciated. He placed the device next to the boy and waited.
        In a few minutes, the snow that had blown in melted and ran away, down the slanting floor to collect in the corners. The blueness left the boy's face; Hulann deemed it proper to inject a stimulant now. From the sparse medicinals in the case, he filled a hypo with serum and slid the needle into the visible vein in the boy's wrist, being careful to do as little damage as possible with the naoli-broad point.
        Eventually, Leo stirred, kicking as if in a nightmare, Hulann quieted him by stroking his forehead. Ten minutes after these first signs, he opened his eyes. They were bloodshot.
        "Hello," he said to Hulann. "Cold."
        "It's getting warmer."
        The boy moved closer to the heat unit.
        "Are you all right?"
        "Cold."
        "Aside from that. Broken bones? Cuts?"
        "I don't think so."
        Hulann leaned against the back of the passenger's seat as he sat on what should have been the wall of the car. He breathed a sigh, realized his primary nostrils were still closed, and opened them. The warm air was good inside his chest.
        In time, Leo sat up, held his head in his hands, began to massage his temples.
        "We have to get out of here," Hulann said. "They'll be after us soon. We can't waste any time. Also, the heat source is going to give out if we have to keep it on full power. We'll have to find someplace to shelter and regain our strength and perspective."
        "Where?"
        "Up the mountain. There's no sense in going down. We don't know if there's anything down there. But there's a road at the top. If we get back on that, follow the guardrails, we should come to a building sooner or later."
        Leo shook his head with doubt. "How far up?"
        "Not far," Hulann lied.
        "I'm still cold. And tired. And hungry too." 'We'll use the heat unit," Hulann said. "We'll have just a little to eat before we go out." You'll just have to fight the weariness. We must make time. The Hunter will surely be sent out soon."
        "Hunter?"
        "One of my kind. Yet not of my kind. He hunts."
        Leo saw the terror in Hulann's eyes and stopped arguing. Maybe there were two kinds of naoli. The kind men had fought, Hulann's kind. Hulann was friendly. The other kind hunted. Maybe that explained the war. Yet Hulann had given him the impression that there was one Hunter-no more than a few. So that did not explain the war. That was still a mystery.
        Hulann withdrew some doughy material which he compared with wheat bread-though Leo thought the taste altogether different, and inferior. He did not say so. The naoli seemed proud of the quality of the food he had been able to bring and considered these things minor naoli delicacies. To argue otherwise would only be to insult him.
        They also had the eggs of certain fish suspended in a sour honey-gel. This, Leo thought, was indeed something special. He would have eaten much more if Hulann had not pointed out the danger of requiring too much heat for digestion and thereby forfeiting that needed to keep from freezing to death. Also, it might be wise to begin rationing.
        When they finished and were as warm as they could get, Hulann closed the case, shoved it through the window. It slid down the hood, caught in among the rocks of the column on that side. He went out next, back into the maelstorm, and pulled Leo through the broken windscreen. They scrambled down until they were on the ground. Hulann fetched the case. He had Leo hold the heat unit, though the boy protested that Hulann was the naked one. He promised he would take turns with the unit now and then, and stay within a few feet of the boy in order to benefit by what it broadcast.
        They turned and faced up the slope. Though daylight was now upon the land, visibility had not increased much. He could see an extra thirty feet, no more. The sky was low and threatened to stay that way for many hours to come. Hulann was thankful. At