Oxygénia

with a merciful nod. He rose up and gave the sign for the beginning
of the hunt.
"I've never been to a hunt before", Peter said to the prince. "I
don't know what I have to do there."
The prince looked at Peter somewhat bewildered. For the
inhabitants of Oxygenville, hunting was a popular pastime.
"Get on your watching post and have fun there", he said, a bit
condescendingly.
The horns sounded and got ever more exciting, energizing. The
dogs became impatient and sniffed in all directions. The groups of
young men stopped their talking. No one of them bore a weapon
with him.
Now, the king started. Both princes walked closely behind him,
and they waved for Peter to join them. The other young men, too,
followed in small groups of two or three. Walking was again as easy
as from the car to the clearing. While they were on their way, the
one or other young guy friendly patted Peter on the back. As soon
as they had passed a few hundred meters towards the thicket, the
path suddenly divided. A dozen of narrow paths led to the right and
the left. Everyone knew where he had to go. Peter stopped for a
moment, hesitatingly. The successor turned around and indicated
towards a path. As Peter entered it, he noticed that it was a moving
rollway. It worked invisible and totally silent and brought him
through the dry leaves to the inside of the forest. Here, he was
completely alone. The lush forest hid him from his hunting
comrades; in the thicket, neither the dogs nor the hunters were to
be seen. Here, the quiet of the soon-to-come morning reigned.
The moving path ended at a massive oak. Peter looked around.
On the moss-grown side of the tree was some sort of ladder so he
could climb up very easily. Obviously, that was the perch that was
meant for him. He climbed up and looked around. Between the
branches, he found a marvellous hunting rifle equipped with a
scope. Back on Earth, he had seen similiar ones in the Anti-war
museum of the United Nations. As a school boy, he had visited it,
even took some of those murderous weapons into his hand, but
never had come to the idea to ever direct it at a living being. He
lifted the weapon to his shoulder, as it was shown in a movie in the
museum, pressed his eye to the scope and watched the forest. But
then, he put the rifle back down and looked at the tree more
attentively. In a cave, he found a nice canteen with spring water,
and fruits and biscuits on a tray. Peter bited in a fruit that looked
like an apple, then he directed his attention back to the landscape.
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