Predator Billy's powers

For though no one among the commandos knew it yet, much rested with the Sioux warrior, and the thousand years of magic handed down through generations of his shaman forebears. Billy himself didn’t know it. What the team did know was that the Indian had the best tracking nose of any soldier they’d ever encountered. Thus none of them hesitated to give him the lead. Just now he picked his way along the riverbank, his concentration rapt and keen, and that was all they ever needed of him. His face was fixed trancelike as he led his rattled comrades, and nobody knew how far he could see because all they wanted was to get through the next ten miles.

But the alien knew.

...

While the others scouted around, Billy remained frozen in place, transfixed as he stared at the treeline. He was aware again of a strange density in the air around him, but couldn’t locate any solid evidence to confirm his suspicions—not a sound, not a shadow or even a rustle of leaves. The blue macaws sat row upon row in the fir trees, seeming to mock him. Yet he was certain something was out there, waiting, watching and burning with danger. On and on he stood motionless as a statue, till he seemed lost in a self-induced trance.

Schaefer, aware that his Indian tracker was going mystical on him, sidled up to Mac as if for the reassurance of a blunt, uncomplicated military animal. Mac chewed a dead cigar butt and watched the Sioux in the clearing with curiosity.

“What’s got him so spooked?”

“Can’t say yet,” Schaefer replied without emotion. “But he’s on to something. I’ve seen him do it before and I know enough not to get in his way.”

After another couple of minutes Schaefer walked up softly behind Billy and stood watching as the lean Indian became more and more absorbed in his ritual. He reached half-consciously to his throat, grasping a thin rawhide cord secured around his neck. He ran two fingers under the cord, almost as if he was trying to breathe easier. In his head he imagined there was a small leather pouch attached to the rawhide, and Billy was reaching in and pulling out a pinch of dark powder, a powerful mix of mushroom buttons and moldy herbs that would deepen the trance. The whole time his eyes were wide, riveted on the canopy of leaves above him, pupils dilated and unblinking as he stared among the branches.

He was tapping another dimension now, the culmination of hundreds of years of inherited psychic sensitivity, Billy’s birthright as the last of the shamans of his tribe. He had never been taught any of it. As he opened his mind now to vibrations from the unknown and unseen around him, as he zeroed in on the presence and drank its thoughts he was fully magic for the first time. What Schaefer had seen in him before was only a shadow of his transformation here. Billy had always ducked it in the past, or he shook it off like a dog shook water. Now he could not turn from it. He’d been waiting all his life to see as deep as this.

He was cast adrift in his tribe’s collective memory, suffused with legends and ancient battles. He began to sway as he murmured an old Sioux chant, and though he could never have told what the words meant he saw the image clearly. The legend described a Herculean adversary who had come from the meadow beyond the sky, a god-creature of wrath who had murdered half of Billy’s people. This was all a hundred generations ago. But the chant was very clear as it repeated over and over that the god-creature would return again. Billy quaked with fear as the chant locked in his throat. He could feel the breath of the ancient marauder, and the recognition sent shockwaves of horror through his soul.

Billy’s eyes were wide and glassy now, as if he no longer needed them to see. Now he could focus directly on the alien’s mind. He gathered all his strength till his ears rang with the beating of his blood. Now his own soul broke open like an extradimensional searchlight, and he scanned the jungle sky and intercepted the alien’s thoughts, slicing into them like a laser.

But the intensity was tortuous, and Billy wavered and tried to pull back, his mind screaming from the stress of the trance. The ringing in his head accelerated now to a louder pitch as he began to lose his grip on the alien. He knew he had encountered a force stronger than all the hundred generations. Then his soul faltered, and his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed in Schaefer’s arms.

The major crouched gently, lowering Billy to the ground, the Indian’s chest heaving as he gasped huge quantities of air. It was as if he hadn’t breathed at all in the last five minutes. The sweat soaked out of him. His pulse beat furiously, his face beet red, and his temperature hovered at a hundred and three. He was like an overworked engine with burned-out gears and pistons, and for a moment Schaefer wasn’t sure he could bring him back.

The major pulled a canteen from his belt and gushed water into Billy’s mouth as if the choking would wake him up. Then he drenched a handkerchief and folded it over the Indian’s eyes. After a couple of interminable minutes Billy blinked and stared into Schaefer’s face. Still he seemed utterly dazed, as if some circuit in his brain had been snapped irrevocably.

“You okay, Billy?” Schaefer asked tensely.

For a moment, nothing. Then out of nowhere the macaws in the fir trees began to gabble and sing again. Schaefer looked up. Several were flying in whirling circles above the clearing, as if they were trying to charm Billy back.

“Yeah . . . yes, sir,” Billy nodded feebly as he focused again on the real world. The color came up cooler in his face, and he struggled to sit. One hand gripped the major’s arm as if he needed an anchor to keep from falling backward again.

“What the hell happened?” Schaefer asked in an awed whisper. “What did you see?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Billy replied in some bewilderment. “I had this dream. It was like a story somebody was trying to tell me. Only it was like I was supposed to know it already.” He shook his head in confusion.

“What story?” demanded the major impatiently.

“The story of this place,” said Billy with a strange smile. “The god-creature was here too.” And before Schaefer could speak again Billy had held out an arm and pointed to the ground. Schaefer looked down and for the first time saw the faint trace of a broken wall, just a few stones mortared together amid the surrounding rubble. The side of one stone was incised with glyphs. Billy waved his arm in a casual circle, and suddenly Schaefer understood they were standing in the flattened ruin of a huge temple.

“God?” said the major with a faint distaste. “Whose god?”

“It’s just the same,” breathed Billy in a low voice, a look of astonishment in his eyes. “My people and these people—they both saw it. And they sing the same song too. That the god will return.” There was no fear in Billy’s voice just then. Perhaps that was the most fearful thing of all.

   The Predator (1987 novelization), chapter 8