Balook

by Piers Anthony

  Thor smiled, remembering how the tremendous humped nose had poked into the second storey window, horrifying an unwarned nurse. The special rhino smell had percolated through the building, generating consternation in the staff and delighted comments from the children, who were reminded of the zoo or circus. That first visit had done him much good—and so had the laugh. The other children at the hospital had been thrilled by the strange event, and thereafter Thor had been very popular with them. That, too, had been an unusual pleasure. Balook had made Thor a person of momentary distinction.

  "What are you grinning about?" Scale demanded testily. "You don't seem to appreciate that this is a serious business, Nemmen! Five hundred million dollars on the line, and if he balks—"

  Evidently they had made some plan, that Thor should have been paying attention to. "I wasn't laughing about what you said, sir," he admitted. "I just remembered how Balook scared that nurse when I was sick—"

  "You weren't paying attention to what we said?" the man demanded ominously.

  Thor made an embarrassed shrug. "I guess not."

  "Listen, Nemmen, even a person of minimal intelligence—"

  Skip interceded for him, as he often did. "The lad's honest, Don. Balook trusts him. That's what counts, isn't it? You know the farrier couldn't even trim his hooves if Thor wasn't there to tell Balook to lift his feet. So Thor thinks about Balook in off moments; that's what he's here for, not high finance. He's Balook's friend."

  Which was about as good a summary of Thor's place in the Project as could be offered. Skip had made Thor's inattention seem like an asset!

  Scale sighed windily, blowing out his cheeks. It was a natural enough gesture, typical of him. Scale was always a bit grumpy. But this time it triggered an odd alarm in Thor.

  For Scale's left hand came down to rest on the side table, on the trailing leads of the lie detector. And the needle shot over to FALSE. Thor's peripheral vision caught the motion; he had the sense not to look directly, but there was no question what it was. The needle normally rested on TRUE; motion could be only one way.

  Scale was hiding something.

  No—the man was merely tense because of Balook's breakout; naturally that tension registered on the detector. Thor cautioned himself about being too eager to blame the man he didn't like anyway.

  "And that nurse incident was funny," Skip continued. "Also the way Balook left droppings all over their ornamental lawn, with all the patients watching. Great fertilizer; we should've charged them for it! Can't think why the administrators weren't amused. Remember how that obnoxious hospital-ground bulldog went after him, and a pellet fell right on its head?"

  Thor choked, and Scale finally had to smile. "Served that canine right," he agreed. When it came to any threat against Balook, no matter how minor, Scale was one with Skip and Thor. "Lucky Balook didn't step on him." He removed his hand from the table, and the needle moved back to TRUE.

  Sure, Scale was worried. But who was more worried about Balook's absence than himself, Thor wondered. He couldn't resist a comparison. Without looking, he put his own hand on the table, across the leads of the lie detector, as though by accident. His eyes flicked over to the meter.

  The needle was holding steady about halfway toward FALSE.

  Either Scale was twice as worried about Balook as Thor was—surely impossible!—or Scale had some guilty knowledge. It had to relate to Balook, for that was the subject of discussion.

  Or, could it relate to Thor himself? Skip had just vouched for Thor's honesty, and Scale had sighed and touched the leads... and the needle had given him the lie. Did that make sense?

  Skip turned to Thor. "As we see it, lad, you're our best hope. Balook will pay attention to you when he won't to us. He's too big to transport by truck; it would take a flatcar to carry him—"

  "You can't put him in a box!" Thor cried. "Balook hates confinement. He's never—"

  "That's what I'm saying, lad," Skip said gently. "Anything smaller than a barn makes him nervous, and his nervousness is like the rumble of a volcano. He has to come back under his own power, and nobody can lead him on a tether! He's stubborn as—"

  "As a rhino," Scale said. "And not one whit smarter."

  "Sure he is!" Thor protested loyally.

  Scale scowled. "Very well. One whit."

  "So you'll have to ride him in," Skip concluded, overriding Thor's objection to Scale's comment.

  "I ride him all the time! He guides perfectly!"

  "Around the pasture, sure. But what about crosscountry, watching out for people and traffic? It's a hostile world out there, lad—hostile for him and maybe for you too. If he spooked, you'd be finished."

  "Balook would never hurt me!"

  "Not intentionally," Skip said soberly.

  "I'll bring him back!" Thor said. "Just as soon as I can find him!"

  "He's naturally shy of people, and that's good," Skip said. "There's quite a bit of forest land around here, thanks to the ecology splurge of the Seventies. If he stays out of trouble a few more hours, maybe you can do it."

  "But you'll have to run him down cross-country," Scale said. "A copter would spook him, even if we had one ready. So would a car, if it could get close."

  "I know," Thor said eagerly. "I'll go on foot. I'm in pretty good condition, and he can't be far—"

  "Lad, he walks at fifteen miles an hour, and runs at twenty-five or better," Skip said. "You'd never have a chance."

  Again Thor had to convert to more familiar terms. Balook walked about twenty-four kilometers an hour, and ran at forty. Yes, that was fast, too fast for a man on foot to maintain, cross-country.

  "Can you ride a bicycle?" Scale asked.

  "Who can't?" Thor returned, surprised by the question. "I've got one at home. But how would I make it cross-country on wheels, let alone across streams and limited access routes?" Even as he spoke, he wondered why the man had brought it up. Scale could not be so far out of touch with reality as not to know that everyone rode bikes, and that Thor, like most others, had traveled thousands of kilometers, cumulative, in his life that way. It was excellent exercise for an isolated boy.

  "I mean a high-tech bike," Scale said, frowning.

  "Oh, sure, if I had one. Principle's the same."

  "We've got a lightweight with boosters," Skip said. "Been saving it for an emergency—and this is that. Think you could handle it?"

  Thor's eyes went round. "That must be a thousand dollar machine!"

  "Eight hundred and seventy-nine dollars, including booster fuel," Scale said. He knew the price of everything.

  "Come on," Skip said. "We can't waste time."

  The bike was beautiful. It had thin foam-metal tires and a twelve speed gearshift, and it weighed fifteen kilos. Two V-thrust boosters were mounted fore and aft, and there was a tube of energy syrup clamped to the frame.

  "Remember," Skip warned. "The boosters are for emergency use only. They're warranted for fifteen minutes' air-time, and you can't count on more than a couple minutes beyond that. Don't waste them!"

  Thor nodded, licking his lips. What a machine! He had had dreams of riding a bike like this, but the reality was hard to assimilate so suddenly. In fact, it seemed too convenient, having this fabulous machine here. If Scale knew something, something that Thor might find out, and if he had known the appeal that such a bike would have for any boy—could the bike be somehow booby-trapped?

  No, he was veering into paranoia! He did not much like Scale, and the feeling was mutual, but Scale was not out to get rid of him, because Scale knew Thor was good for Balook. The bicycle made sense. Only a copter could locate Balook rapidly, and the two-day delay for requisitioning made that pointless. Naturally they wanted little publicity, for that would alert the curiosity seekers. Balook was a tremendous curiosity!

  Skip had known about the bike too. So it hadn't just been brought in for this occasion. Skip would never betray anyone. So the safest assumption was that the bike was legitimate, and that Scale's guilt, as s
hown by the FALSE reading, was about something else.

  Was Scale himself in some way responsible for Balook's breakout? That seemed crazy, yet it could account for his secret reaction. Scale's whole effort to recover Balook would be a lie, if he wanted the animal loose, perhaps even dead. But he would have to seem to do everything to save Balook.

  Thor shook his head. It was all too complicated, right now. Scale was an honest man, and devoted to Balook's interests; he had proved that long ago. In fact his job depended on Balook. Maybe the lie detector had somehow miscued.

  Probably Don Scale would put out a private police alert. But the police could not bring Balook back alive. Only Thor himself could do that—and he had to approach the huge rhino alone.

  "Get moving, lad," Skip said.

  Thor mounted the bike. It was a little large for him. Skip lowered the seat and handlebars and made other adjustments, quickly. "Here," he said. "You'll need a credit key. Take mine."

  "Thanks," Thor said, gratified at the man's trust. "But it'll only be a couple hours—"

  "Maybe. But we'd better play it safe. Here's a phone—you know how to operate it?"

  Thor glanced at the instrument—and did a double-take. It was a ring-transceiver, the kind that buzzed or glowed to signal an incoming call, and had a button setting for two-way dialogue. It could call out only to the preset station, but was otherwise a competent phone.

  Awed, he slipped it on his ring finger, but found it too large. He tried the middle finger, and that was better. "Yes, I can use it."

  "We'll notify your folks," Skip said. "In case you don't catch him soon. Just keep going, and keep us posted." Then Skip gave the bike a starting push, and Thor was on his way.

  PURSUIT

  2

  THE BICYCLE WAS so smooth-riding that at first Thor thought something was wrong. He was used to a middleweight machine, twice as heavy as this, with inflated composition tires. The foam metal on this one flexed away from ground irregularities, providing a special spring that made bumps a pleasure. The guidance was so light as to seem automatic; he could steer entirely by shifts of his body weight, even on rough ground, so that his hands were free for other tasks. That was a trick his regular bike could not do, not cross-country; he had the memory of old bruises to prove it. The gears were pressure coordinated, so that changing pedal force adjusted the ratio for maximum efficiency; he could turn it off when his definitions differed from those of the machine. The brake was American style, with optional hand brakes; he could have it either way.

  Thor was in love with the bike before he had covered the first five hundred meters. It was a boy's dream machine.

  He was at the break in the fence so quickly he was surprised. Now he could test the first special feature. He approached the gap broadside and touched the booster switch. The hot gas fired out instantly, down and back and to the sides, lifting the bike high while maintaining its balance. Too high—he was heading for the unbroken top strand!

  He cut the boosters. They diminished slowly, not dousing entirely, so that he first leveled off, then slowly descended. He passed safely under the wire and glided to the ground beyond. He was elated; the boosters had worked perfectly, being fail-safe and foolproof. But he knew he would have to be more careful in the future; he could have caught his neck on the wire and been knocked right off the bike, six meters in the air. He could have broken something, and had a nasty electrical shock in the bargain. Those wires were paired; it was not necessary to make contact with the ground to receive the current. Birds stayed clear.

  Had Scale been hoping for some such miscue? No, Thor couldn't believe that! Scale was concealing something, but he was no murderer. In fact, Thor knew that Scale no longer wanted to be rid of Thor, because of Thor's value to the project. So the mystery remained: why had the lie detector given him the lie?

  Now it was time to be alert for Balook's traces. They were clear enough: broken branches, huge footprints in the soft ground, and occasional swatches of shed hair. It was no longer the fine, soft fur of calfhood; today Balook's hair was sparse and bristly, more like pine needles than fur. In fact, the huge animal used the spokelike hairs of his legs to sense obstructions; it wasn't always convenient to look. This was surely one reason he was able to move and forage well at night; his legs took care of themselves.

  There was no visible damage to the upper foliage. The fallen branches were from the lower branches, torn off by the animal's massive torso. Balook was traveling, not browsing, and that was ominous. Usually he could not resist high, fresh leaves and twigs. He had to consume tremendous amounts each day, to maintain his vigor. That was why he required a formidable forest pasture; the trees of a small one would soon be denuded.

  Was Balook sick? That could account for erratic behavior and the loss of appetite. There could be some special malady; there were volumes they had yet to learn about Baluchitherium. But Thor had always been the first person Balook turned to in time of distress. Also, this direct route away from the ranch was not that of a confused, ill animal. There was purpose in it.

  Balook was going somewhere. His trail was neither meandering in the fashion of exploration nor arrow-straight in the fashion of a stampede. The wide spacing of the giant three-toed prints showed he was traveling at cruising velocity: about forty kilometers per hour. As fast as Thor could ride this bike across this terrain! But of course the animal would not keep it up; Balook was really not a running creature, and soon overheated when he put out too much energy. He had ways of handling that, but seldom drew on them.

  Yet obviously Balook had already traveled faster and farther than normal, and the trail showed no sign of easing. This was something new to their experience, this motivation to travel. Balook was the only creature of his kind man had ever seen alive. He had put on a lot of muscle recently, especially in the legs and chest—more than he seemed to require for the normal routine. Maybe this was an aspect of his maturity. Maybe now he could sustain a rapid pace. The physical situation was less perplexing than the rationale: why was Balook doing it?

  The barricades of the freak zoo loomed ahead. Of course that wasn't its real name, and it wasn't a zoo at all. It was part of the Project, though it lay beyond the pasture. There had been abortive experiments on animal tissue, preparing the way for the final success that was Balook. This was the original laboratory.

  Balook was a strange creature, in more senses than one or two, and the freak zoo helped show why. Computer technology had merged with genetics to make it possible. Theoretically any animal, real or imaginary, could be formed. But there had been surprises, for the genetic code was complex beyond man's imagination. Some of the failures had been gut-wrenchingly grotesque, and even the successes, such as Balook, had had astonishing aspects.

  One of the more significant surprises had been the way Balook handled heat. In cold weather he had little trouble, as he achieved his grown mass; he simply exercised, and his body and hide hoarded the heat. But in hot weather, when he overexerted himself, he had more of a problem, for he did not sweat. He tended to forage at night, when the heat generated by his motion compensated for the cool of the evening. But he could handle day too. He kept his body mostly in the shade of the trees, avoiding the direct sun. But even so, he grew hot—and it turned out that this was part of his makeup. When he was conserving heat, his outer body cooled, much as did the hands of a man, but more extensively; snow could actually fall on his back without melting rapidly. He had a blubbery layer of fat that could cool almost to freezing without damage. In summer this same layer could heat to well above the danger point for man, so that the hide felt burningly hot, and radiated heat efficiently. Balook could also conserve that excess heat, as night approached, and use it as a buffer against the developing cold. It was a sophisticated mechanism for survival—all hidden there in the small print of the genetic code, not understood until it manifested in life.

  How was it that Balook's kind had become extinct, when it was so much better equipped to survive than th
e cousin rhinos that did carry on to the present day? That was one of the mysteries that remained unresolved.

  But Thor had a more immediate concern. Could Balook have come to meet his soul-cousins in the zoo? No, his trail skirted the barricades, and nothing was broken. Thor heard a grunting inside that was probably the six-legged pig. Once it had been thought that creatures like this would prove the gene-splicing technique, but opponents had claimed that fetal surgery accounted for the extra legs. Indeed, it could have, for that aspect of medicine had progressed too. So the pig, an actual success, was a practical failure; it was too easy to disbelieve.

  The majority of the experiments had been true failures, even those that lived. It was illegal to kill any wildlife, so these had to be maintained for their full natural spans. Rather, their unnatural spans. Thor had never been inside the compound, and could only speculate what other monsters were hidden from public view, the shame of science.

  Thor rode on, glad that Balook had passed by the zoo. Balook was no freak! The proof of the technique could not be in the recreation of an existing animal, for there would always be the suspicion that a natural embryo had been substituted for the laboratory specimen. Indeed, the process started with natural tissue, whose genetic blueprint was then modified by radiation and laser surgery and chemistry.

  Thus the decision had settled on the past: the recreation of some long-extinct animal, perfect in every detail. No slight-of-hand could explain that away, or make it smell of freak or fluke. To make it impressive, for that inevitable day the Project would face appropriations cutbacks, they chose a large animal. Not a dinosaur; the reptilian environment would have been too difficult to duplicate on that scale. Not a sea creature, for that would not have been suitably visible.

  So it was Baluchitherium, the hornless rhinoceros of the Miocene Epoch, thirteen to twenty million years ago. The experts had used a battery of computers to analyze the rhinoceros chromosomes, then had done the laser surgery on the living tissue: the fertilized rhino egg. A few small changes, meticulously scripted to make it conform to the pattern derived from painstakingly analyzed Baluchitherium bones, and the sample was ready.