by J. L. Curtis
Fargo bristled, “Should I have let it eat the two victims? That’s where it was headed.” Turning to Mrs. Gann he said softly, “I’m sorry for your loss. I will offer up a prayer for…”
Mrs. Gann interrupted with a screech, “Shut up! You killed my daughter! You murdering bast…” Palette grabbed her before she could physically attack Fargo, mumbled something in her ear, and led her back toward the shuttle.
Jiri broke the tension saying, “We better go get the ‘gator’s belly skin before somebody else does.”
Fargo looked at him curiously, “Why?”
Adhit rolled his eyes, and covered what sounded suspiciously like a laugh with a cough, “You don’t know? If you don’t, I’ll take it. No problem,” he said with a smile.
Mikhail laughed, “Ethan, that belly skin is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of forty to sixty thousand credits. It’s so rare, you can almost name your price. It makes some of the most beautiful iridescent leather you’ve ever seen!”
Fargo shook his head, and the group started toward the ‘gator’s body. As they walked through the crash scene, Allan and two others were removing the bodies from the liteflyer and putting them in body bags. They stood solemnly until that duty had been performed before continuing.
Once they got to the ‘gator, they were met by the remaining GalPat soldiers, oohing and aahing over the carcass. With their help, they flipped the ‘gator onto its back, and Fargo saw what they meant. The belly skin was as beautiful as the armored scales of the back were ugly. And this belly skin was almost unmarked. As he walked around it, he noted how the colors shifted in the light, and whistled at the beauty of it.
Handing his rifle to Jiri, he took out his vibro knife and carefully cut away the belly skin, getting as little meat as possible. Once that was done, he carved away as much meat as he could and confirmed he had in fact broken the spine with one or more shots. Peeling away the upper armor was fairly easy, and he popped out the eye, probing the skull to see if there was a way to get to the brain pan. It appeared there was a tiny opening, and he filed that away for future reference.
As he got to his feet, Adhit reminded him to cut one paw off, as he would need to make a necklace of the claws. Not that I’ll ever wear it, but if it makes them happy, I’ll do it. Damn, I was just flat lucky on this one!
Mikhail trotted over as he got up, “Allan says we can go, he’s got all he needs from us, but we’re stuck here one more night at least. He’s going to send a crew out to retrieve the flyer tomorrow morning.”
***
Two days later, with the new site up and fully operational they made it back to Rushing River, Mikhail took the belly skin from the Slashgator, promising to get it to the taxidermist to get it processed, and said, “Ethan, I wasn’t going to say anything, but you know you’ve made an enemy, probably two of them, right?”
Fargo shrugged, “Not the first, won’t be the last. I’ll be glad to get back to the Green, and the peace and quiet. As long as they leave me alone, it’s not a problem.
Mikhail just shook his head as Fargo climbed into his liteflyer.
Green Sweet Green
Fargo juggled the bulb of coffee as he settled into his chair on the front porch. He’d taken the liteflyer exploring a few times in the last month, killed a pair of Silverbacks about sixty miles north of the cabin, and cleaned and prepped the hides. Nothing had happened since the incident down at White Beach, but the niggling thought that kept recurring was Mikhail’s comment about enemies, but he figured he was too far away and down the food chain for it to really be a problem. He owned what he had, didn’t have any bills per se, and wasn’t beholden to anyone on Hunter. His retired pay was enough for him to live on, even if he never worked for TBT again.
Suddenly his empathic sense alerted him to multiple things coming at the cabin. Fargo started up out of his chair, and saw probably thirty nearwolves, some mountain lions, and four bears intermingling as they came up from the flower field. Torn, Fargo extended his sense as far as he could, but didn’t sense any anger or hunger in any of them, and sank slowly back into his chair, afraid to make any sudden movements. He did his best to remain calm and project harmlessness through his empathy.
The nearwolf female and mountain lion female, he finally realized, were carrying things in their mouths that were moving. They both paced up on the steps and stopped directly in front of Fargo, with the near wolf dropping the pup she had in her mouth in his lap. The mountain lion did the same thing with her cub. One of the bears swatted at her cub, sending it scrambling up the steps and it sat next to Fargo’s chair, and squalled. Fargo was afraid to move, then had to grab both the wolf pup and mountain lion cub them as they pounced on the squalling bear cub. All three females howled, yowled, and roared together and stalked off the porch, leaving him holding the cub and pup. The bear cub, scared by the noise was doing its best to climb into his lap, and he finally reached with one hand and picked it up to save his leg from being clawed. Now all three of them were filling his lap, and he was afraid to move.
To his further amazement, a huge bear carried a full grown and obviously dead neardeer to the foot of the steps and dropped it there, earning it a lick from the female nearbear who had swatted the cub. His mind whirling with what he had just witnessed, he thought back to the night four months ago, when he’d shot the Silverback at the falls. He’d wondered then about the species fighting together, having never seen anything like that anywhere.
Now it was obvious there was at least some level of communication between the species, and he wondered if they had been genetically mutated by SierraSafari on purpose, or whether this was an outgrowth of some genetic strain that happened on Hunter in the intervening four hundred years.
As he thought about it, all the animals dispersed as quietly as they’d come. A sudden pain in his hand caused him to focus and he found the lion cub cheerfully trying to chew on his finger. Pulling his hand away, he saw the cub had drawn blood. Looking at the neardeer, he guess that was the food offering, and, based on the cub’s nibbling him, they were probably hungry.
Projecting at the cubs and pup, he set them on the porch and grabbed the neardeer by a hind leg, dragging it over to his shed. He’d rigged a pulley after he’d killed the first deer, and quickly strapped this one into the spreader. Taking out his vibro knife, he quickly made the cuts and dropped the offal on the ground, planning to carry that off as soon as he’d finished getting the meat off the deer. The cubs and pup had other ideas, diving into the offal as if it were the finest steak in town.
Fargo just shook his head as all three of them, growling, hissing, and swatting at each other, while they set about devouring what was on the ground. He stepped away, washing his hands on the outside bench, leaning against it as the three of them went at it. He stepped quickly back in the house, picked up his datacomp, and sat down on the steps as he watched them eat. Doing a quick data search, he didn’t find anything more than that the species had been introduced as mating pairs by SierraSafari as ‘stocking’ animals. Nothing about any genetic engineering, nothing about intraspecies or interspecies communications.
He rocked back against the steps. What the fuck do I do now? Surely the xenos would go bat shit crazy over this, especially since it appears there are multiple modes of communication at some level, probably fairly high for the three groups… What if it’s not just these three? Shit…
If I tell anybody, they’ll take these cubs and the pup, probably try trapping the adults. Picking up the datacomp again, he quickly pulled up what was known about all three species on Hunter. All of them were labeled as dangerous to approach, with warnings against hunting them alone or in small groups. All of them were considered game species according to the data, but were far down on the list of trophy animals.
Lupus or Canis, Cattus, Urso. The ancient Latin roots for the three species stuck in his head, and Fargo rolled them around in his mind, inadvertently naming the pup and the cubs as he did so. He glanced back up as it got
quiet to see the three of them in a pile, all sound asleep.
Shaking his head, he put the datacomp down and finished skinning out and getting the meat off the deer. Since the skin was in good shape, other than the ripped neck, he spent some time cleaning it as well as he could, setting it in the shed on top of the storage rack.
***
A month later, Fargo huffed his breath out in frustration as he found another chewed up boot, and Canis, tongue lolling with it firmly between his paws, with Cattus sprawled on his bed. If there was a bright spot, it was Urso. She didn’t like being inside, preferring to loll on the porch instead.
The only good news, if you could say that, was that the autochef actually had a setting for pet food. He laughed to himself, remembering one meal from the autochef that he ended up feeding to the animals, something called kimchee, all three of them had refused to eat. Cattus had actually pawed at her nose for a good ten divs after sniffing it. He’d ended up putting it back the autochef, expecting it to burp like the one Diez had modified once.
The downside was that Fargo was having to hunt twice a week for neardeer to keep the three of them in food. Grumbling, he said, “You two are going to be the death of me yet. And do you know how hard it is to find a damn pair of boots that fit?” Turning on Cattus, he continued, “And you. You, and your damn claws. At least you’re only shredding tree limbs, and not the furniture, except for the end table. Agghhhh…”
Fargo clicked the e-tainment off and stood in the middle of the room, “Now what the hell do I do with y’all,” he asked the air as he stared down at Canis and Cattus, lying in the middle of the floor. “I’ve got to go to Rushing River, and I’ll be dipped if I’m going to leave you inside. You’d tear the whole damn place down before I could get back.”
Walking in the kitchen, he picked up their bowls, carried them to the porch and came back for the water dishes. As he carried them out, they followed him curiously. Urso was sprawled in front of the steps, sound asleep in a patch of sunshine, and they both pounced on her in glee. Fargo quickly grabbed what he needed, sealed the door, and projected stay at the three as he headed for the shed.
Dragging the liteflyer out, he quickly configured it, loaded the eight neardeer hides in the storage, and maneuvered it carefully past the three still playing. Launching down his runway, he settled back for the ride to the spaceport.
***
Mikhail leaned back from the holographic presentation, “Any questions?”
A chorus of, “Nope, not really,” were heard around the table as the techs, and Fargo digested the latest update on Hunter’s TBT status, and the plans for the next month.
Finally Jergens, the lead for Adelaide, near the fourth transformer in the southern hemisphere asked, “Mate, what are the plans for the expansion down in our area? We’re growing with every ship, hearing rumors of another couple of thousand Aussies coming in on the next colony run.”
Mikhail grimaced, “Yes, I’ve heard the rumors, Jergens, but nothing firm that actually says we are actually getting the folks. I’ve pinged White Beach every other week, but trying to get any plascrete information out of them is like getting blood out of a GalPat administrator.”
Everyone chuckled at that, and Mikhail continued, “I’ve got a set of contingency plans I’d like you and Fargo to review. Your area is a bit of a problem, with very little actual high ground. One of the easy ways to fix that is Geosync’ed sats, but I haven’t heard back from Earth on approval, or any of those sats even being allocated to this sector.” Turning to the others he said, “Why don’t you take a lunch break while they look over the security details? We’ll reconvene at thirteen.”
Luann brought in sandwiches as Fargo and Jergens poured over the plans and security arrangements, with a number of discussions on procedures, time frames, and standard work schedules. Fargo finally stood up, arching his back and sighing in relief when it finally popped. “Fresher break, then we’ll hit Mikhail with what we’ve come up with. Fair enough?”
Jergens stood, stretched and groaned, “Sounds good to me, mate.”
***
Fargo finished presenting the changes he and Jergens had come up with, and Mikhail looked at Jergens, “You agree with this?”
Jergens nodded, “Sure do. There isn’t any other way to get that much power moving that quickly. Your plan would drag it out too long.”
Mikhail glanced at Fargo, “Security costs?”
Fargo shrugged, “It’s going to go up, instead of one site, we’ll need security for four sites simultaneously. Realistically, we’re going to need a second shuttle, too. And possibly additional large caliber weapons too. I don’t want to try one of those nearelephants with a sixteen. I’d say at least a twenty mil, if not thirty.”
Mikhail winced at that, “Really? One, no, four thirty millimeters on a maybe need them?”
“Well, maybe you can borrow a couple from the GalPat det. I know they’ve got tripod mounted ones. I’ll comm Jiri about getting extra personnel from him, so that’s not an issue. They’ll all know how to use one.”
Mikhail mumbled, “I’ll talk to the sergeant.”
***
After an early dinner, Fargo loaded up the liteflyer with the things he’d gotten from Luann, including a new pair of boots. He wasn’t looking forward to breaking them in, but he needed to do it before the next job started.
Pushing the speed up to just under what would classify as emergency, he was gliding in for a landing forty-five minutes after taking off from the spaceport. As he came in on short final, he noted a number of nearwolves and nearmountain lions surrounding the house. As he rolled out, he saw Canis, Cattus and Urso all sitting on the porch, watching the liteflyer come up to the shed. Stretching his empathic sense, he could feel a number of animals out to quite a distance from the house. I really need to figure out a way to measure that. Never did that in the Scouts.
He unloaded it, pushed the button to configure it for storage, pushed it into the shed, and carried the first load to the cabin. As he rounded the corner, he was met by what he’d termed the three matriarchs, wolf, mountain lion and bear. They were grooming their respective pup or cub, and watched him as he continued onto the porch and into the cabin. He couldn’t help but wonder if the matriarchs were watching over the cubs from afar.
Coming back out for the second load, he stopped and knelt, filming them as they sat side by side, muttering, “Nobody is going to believe this, nope, I’m gonna be the crazy old man back in the Green.” Getting up, he retrieved the last of the supplies, including his new boots. Loading everything in the cabin, he eased back onto the porch with a coffee bulb in hand, watching the interactions.
The more he thought about it, he was glad that he’d had the presence of mind to keep a video diary of the growth and interactions of the three. As he picked up the camera again, he saw the three matriarchs look at each other, then at their children. Canis, Cattus and Urso immediately came bounding up on the porch, jumping on him as he juggled the camera and coffee bulb to protect them and not burn the animals. When he looked back up, the front yard was empty.
After he’d petted and scratched all three of them, he got up, stretched and looked at the sky. The stars and George and Celeste were up, lighting the area with a brightness he’d never have believed back on Earth. With a sigh, he opened the door, and Canis and Cattus scooted by. With a pat and a scratch for Urso, he followed them in.
Flopping down on the lounge chair, he called up the e-tainment and the research link he’d been going through. Something really strange was going on with the animals on Hunter. According to the research papers he’d been working through, all three species were normally patriarchal, not matriarchal. They had been known to share territory, but that was up by Yosemite. It didn’t explain, oh wait. This is very similar to Yosemite, the altitude, remoteness, lack of people. Yeah, maybe those SierraSafari folks were smarter than I thought. What if they stocked all the regions on Hunter that were equivalents of places on Earth?
Damn, we didn’t do a full scale flora/fauna mapping when we did the second in. I wonder…
Three hours later, he groaned and stretched. It looked like the settlement types had sent an advanced party to select sites and they at least had done a full mapping of those areas. But nothing had been done in the Green or any of the more rugged parts of Hunter.
With another groan, he got up, promptly tripped over Canis and almost went facedown. Canis yelped, startling Cattus who came up snarling and spitting as she turned to face a stumbling Fargo. He finally caught himself on the wall, cussed, and stumbled off to bed.
About 0300, he was awakened by Canis whining and Cattus’ rumbling growl. He sat up and said grumpily, “Now what the hell do y’all want?” They both went out of the bedroom and Fargo followed them into the kitchen. He realized the food bowls were still outside. Cussing himself, he opened the front door, only to find Urso was blocking it. Stepping over her, he picked up the two food bowls and brought them inside, filled them from the autochef, pulled a leg bone out of the chiller and went back for the water bowls, giving the leg bone to Urso as he stepped out.
Shutting the door gently, he walked slowly back to his bedroom, scratching as he listened to Canis and Cattus eating nosily and Urso cracking the bone outside. He shivered as he thought of what they could do to him, or any human. Finally dropping off to sleep, he was visited by one of his many nightmares, this time with the sound of jaws tearing flesh.
Tick Tock
Fargo sat in the eating nook, staring out the plas-steel window at the striations of rock, nearpine, and nearoak on the far side of the canyon. Without realizing it, he was idly thumbing his ID chip from active to retired and back to active, his thoughts in turmoil as he sipped one of the few cups of real coffee he allowed himself on a monthly basis. Being this far out on a rim world like Hunter, a pound of coffee often cost more than five thousand credits, if it was even available; hence the few times he let himself actually enjoy, nay savor, a cup of real coffee. He even went so far as to brew it himself, rather than using the installed autochef.