I landed well outside the yeti’s camp. Between the darkness and the suit’s vastly superior stealth abilities I was able to run the remaining mile or so in complete silence and in just under five minutes. I stood in the same spot that I’d crouched at a week ago, peeking over a snow dune to watch the yeti guards. Had it really only been that long?

I stood there, able to ignore the wind now and watched the pair of gigantic guards huddled in the cold. I doubted anyone enjoyed the night duty here. But on the bright side, they didn’t have to stand out there as long as they did in the day. The guards rotated between positions a lot more at night.

“Suit, estimated time until Cyrus arrives at the Ariel?”

“Two hours and forty five minutes.”

I bit my lip in annoyance. It took me about an hour and fifteen minutes to get here from the Ariel. I guessed I’d need another half hour to get to Cyrus. That wouldn’t leave me with a lot of time to work once I got to him. And I had no idea how long I would need. Even with the more rapid changing of the guards, I didn’t have time to wait.

“Suit, how well can your stealth mode hide our tracks?”

“Extremely well. In this light they should be almost completely indistinguishable as such, except on new snow. Even there they will be difficult to spot unless these yetis, as you call them, have uncommonly good eyesight.”

“And I’m basically invisible right?”

“Even in motion, so long as you don’t try to run. The system has difficulty with swift changes in speed or direction.”

“So if I just walk I’ll be fine?”

“Indeed. You may walk with confidence."

“Confidence. Sure. Great. I’ve just got tons of confidence. It practically oozes out of me.”

“If you are experiencing oozing I will run a diagnostic check on your health and thoroughly clean the affected area.”

God, I needed Ai to wake up.

I took a deep breath. If it came to running, I’d have much bigger problems anyway.

So I walked at a steady pace, like I was just walking down a hallway to ask a friend for a favor rather than walking into a horde of bloodthirsty yetis. Walking casually went better than I would have expected. The suit’s feet spread out to keep me from crunching into the snow and because of that I had to concentrate hard on not tripping over my own feet. It gave me something to think about besides the distinct possibility of being eaten.

I came to the gate, got close enough to see the way the pair of hulking forms shivered against the night wind. They were both massive beneath layers of clothing and thick cloaks, and yet the glittering light of their eyes beneath their hoods were not watchful so much as miserable. As I snuck past them, I couldn’t help but feel a little of my fear turn to pity.

Which of course took my mind off of walking in the stupid wide shoes. I nearly tripped over my own feet. I caught my balance quick enough to avoid falling and creating a Euclid-shaped snow angel directly between the two yetis. But the edges of the suit’s snowshoes clacked together. They both heard it and both turned to look questioningly at the other.

Then, they both looked down at me. Really more at where my feet were, but with the height difference it was essentially the same thing as looking me straight in the face. The one on my right moved its hand out and waved it through the air.

I never want to play a game of limbo with stakes that high ever again.

It brushed its hand through the air, waving around like it was trying to catch a fly. I leaned away and flexed as hard as I could. I would have fallen without the suit’s help. But each time its hand came by I managed to lean just far enough out of the way to keep from being touched.

Then the other yeti made a noise. Both the waving yeti and I looked down at where it was pointing. By leaning while standing still, I’d put more pressure on the wide shoes I was wearing. That had helped me keep my balance but it also meant the edges of the shoes pressed down into the snow making a unnatural flat area.

The yeti turned to take a step closer.

And then from back towards the huts there came a loud grunt. Two more yetis were shuffling out in their cloaks and furs to take their turn at guarding. Trembling, I took the moment of opportunity to walk further into the village. The two guards were distracted just long enough. It was a good thing I’d moved when I had. The first yeti swept his spear through the air where I’d been and stabbed down at the snow where my shoe had made a noticeable imprint. I’d never have been able to avoid that without being seen.

The guards switched places and, though they stopped to talk briefly, it seemed to me that the two that I’d slipped between were more worried about getting out of the cold than they were about telling their replacements about what they’d heard.

“Suit, do you have… I don’t know, like a heat vision setting or something?”

“You would like to be able to see how many yetis are in each of these huts?”

“Exactly that, yeah.”

“I will do what I can but it will not be very exact. These structures are built to capture heat and hold it in. Between that and being made of ice themselves, heat signatures will not be very accurate.”

“Well, I guess that makes sense.”

As we talked, a small overlay popped up in my vision. It didn’t change the way I’d expected. Instead, the suit took my regular field of view and laid a filter over it that showed blurry forms in dark dull reds within a few of the different ice huts. They faded in and out of sight like ghosts.

I looked around for the biggest hut in the village and hoped I was right. The last time I was here I’d only really been looking for the one hut, the one where they stashed all of their technology. And I would need to make a quick trip there, but I also needed to see the layout of the village if I was going to be able to find the yeti I was looking for.

Being able to come in the night made a world of difference though. During the day, the village was bustling with people going about their business, talking in small groups, the littlest yetis playing in the snow. Now, everything was still and silent. It should have been gloomy but instead it felt peaceful. This was a hard place to eek out a life from, but they were doing it and they were doing it together.

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I shook my head and continued my survey as I headed for the tech hut in the back of the village. I had a job to do.

This time getting into the tech hut was as simple as could be. I walked down into the depths and found it basically the same as it had been. I spent maybe ten minutes sifting through the piles of random technological pieces before I found what I was looking for. The device was long, maybe two and a half or three feet tall. I couldn’t slip it into the suit’s pack so I’d have to carry it. Hopefully the guards wouldn’t turn around and see it floating in mid-air.

After that I had to do some high-risk guess work. Which had basically been my whole week at this point. There wasn’t really a biggest hut as far as I could tell. I’d hoped that the chief’s hut would be easy to spot, but no such luck. However, there was one that had noticeably more decoration than the others, as well as a small defensive structure near the door. If the yeti I was looking for was likely to be anywhere, it was there.

I expected to find guards there. I guess the leader of the village was well-liked enough that he didn’t need them. Slipping inside was surprisingly easy. The entrance was basically a stairwell leading down beneath the ground level before a sharp climb upward into the actual living space. I suppose that was how they kept the heat in. With the new suit I couldn’t feel any real change in the temperature, something that I was still getting used to.

Inside it was dark, with shadows cast by the low fire in the center of the room. There weren’t really distinct rooms. Instead there were areas partitioned off with curtains made from animal skins. Now that I was inside the suit was giving me a lot more information with its heat sensors. Behind one of the curtains there were two enormous mountains of red and yellow heat. I could hear them snoring softly. But they weren’t the ones I was looking for. In fact, if I had my way, they’d never know I’d been here.

There was another heat signature behind a curtain on the opposite side of the hut. It was much smaller than the other two but no less warm. I lifted the curtain aside and slipped into the room that belonged to the small yeti I’d seen back at the cave. At least I really hoped that was who this was. He looked like that yeti to me but I wasn’t exactly good at telling apart yeti faces.

Now that I was here, I wasn’t sure how to proceed. I needed to wake the yeti up but I also really didn’t want to be trapped in this hut with three angry, scared yetis. Waking him up to see me in his room seemed like an excellent way to accomplish just that. But I just couldn’t think of a better, smarter way to do this. And I was running out of time.

So, after setting the thing I’d brought from the yeti’s tech hut on the ground, I turned off the suit’s visual stealth, stepped over to the little yeti, and put a gentle hand on its shoulder. I shook it just a little and it shook me off, annoyed, and rolled over in it’s sleep. I took a deep breath, clenched my jaw and tapped it firmly three times on the head. That got its attention.

It jerked and looked up and then finally turned around and saw me. It’s eyes went wide and I heard its sharp intake of breath. Quickly, I raised my hands in front of me to show it I didn’t have any weapons. Its eyes were still darting around the tiny room but it hadn’t made a noise yet.

“Suit, can you show it my face?” I hissed.

“Of course.” The suit said. I wasn’t sure exactly what it did. Probably just projected my face using the same function it used to make me invisible.

“Let it hear what I’m saying. Very low volume.”

“Of course.”

“Hey, I’m not here to hurt you. You remember me? From the cave?”

There was absolutely no way it understood my words but I hoped that the tone of my voice would reach it. But its eyes were still very wide, very scared. It looked how I felt.

A noise came from across the hut. It was a sleepy, grunting noise. I imagined it meant something like, “what’s wrong?” or “you okay?” I also imagined the large fangs of the mouth saying it.

The little yeti looked from me, to the curtain behind me. I put my hands together in a praying gesture, suddenly very aware that even basic sign language like that might not make sense across the language barrier between us. But the yeti bit its lip and then let out a quick hoot of its own. I waited for the burst of noise that would come when the huge yeti leapt off its bed and attacked but it never came.

The little yeti and I just watched each other quietly until the soft snoring resumed and I felt a little bit of the tension ease out of my neck and back. Then, very slowly I reached over and touched the thing I’d brought from the tech hut. The little yetis eyes followed my action and I saw the moment that curiosity overtook fear on its face.

From the pack on my back I withdrew a battery that I’d brought just for this. I had hoped I wouldn’t need to use it, that the heater would have some sort of built in power source. My suit was already down to seventy nine percent power, even after recharging it in the ship. The battery wouldn’t have given me more than a couple of percentage points but every point counted.

I attached it to the boxy piece of metal and little lights blinked to life in the darkness. The yetis eyes went wide again and I saw its breath catch. If it thought that was impressive then maybe what I was about to do really would work.

I pressed a button on top and the heater came to life. From the look on the little yeti’s face you’d have thought I’d just brought him a Christmas present, birthday present, and a year’s worth of candy. He put his hand down by the heater, felt the warmth flowing off it. Everything —sleepiness, suspicion, fear— all fell away from the little yeti as it looked at the heater. If I was honest with myself, that nearly felt like it was worth the time I’d spent coming here on its own. But I did have a purpose in being here.

“Suit, can you project holograms?”

“Yes, from your palm.”

“Awesome. Project a picture of the nano-immunizer I saw the last time I encountered this yeti.”

“Give me just a moment to search the memory from your previous suit… Is this what you mean?”

The suit threw up a still image of the yeti holding a nano-immunizer back in the cave.

“Yep.”

“Hold out your palm.”

I did so and from it came a soft blue light. A moment later the light resolved into a slowly spinning image of the badge-like object. The yeti looked from me to the badge, cocked its head, and then rocked back as it understood. It’s bed creaked under its weight and it glanced at the curtain in the direction of its parents. It held up its hand in a ‘wait a second’ type of gesture. Or at least that’s what I took from it. Then it very slowly and carefully stood, wincing at every noise from the bed.

It rifled through a pack that lay near in the corner of the room. It seemed like the light was making it difficult so I instructed the suit to give the yeti a bit more to work with. This elicited another wide-eyed stare as the yeti came to grips with what the suit could do. But soon it was back to work looking through the pack, and a moment later it pulled the nano-immunizer out.

Something settled in my chest as it handed me the object. That was the last step before the confrontation. Now there was nothing standing between me and Cyrus. Nothing but a few million tons of steel and reanimated corpses anyway.

“Thank you,” I whispered to the yeti. It cocked its head at me quizzically. I couldn’t think of a gesture to translate that. And I also wasn’t sure what to do since I couldn’t show my gratitude.

I turned to go, but the yeti caught me by the arm. It tapped its chest with the tips of its hands and said something.

“Choota,” it sounded like. Then it reached out and touched my chest the same way. It only took me a second to understand.

I pointed at it and repeated the word it had said. It nodded, and I touched my own chest the same way.

“Euclid,” I said. It grinned and pointed at me and said the word too. It sounded odd, but it was recognizable. I nodded and smiled back.

Before we could do anything else one of Choota’s parents snorted and rolled over in its sleep. The rustling of its movements settled quickly but it was still time for me to go. I smiled at Choota again and moved towards the exit. He shooed me away and went back to putting its hand in front of the heater.

With the stealth back on I slipped outside and quickly made my way outside the village. Slipping past the guards was easier this time. Now if they caught me I could just run.

As I ran out into the night I couldn’t stop smiling. Even though I was weighed down with thoughts of what I had to do to stop Cyrus, I couldn’t help it.

I’d made a friend.