But now the rep was in trouble. Used to dunking its head under the surface in the process of catching fish, it had not considered that land was different. It had bashed its snout hard against the ground. The jaws had actually snapped at the level of Orn's body, but reflex and follow-through had carried head and neck on down. Now its neck was spread full-length on the dirt and its mouth was bleeding where its teeth had crushed against stone and earth. Yes, it was crazed; it would ordinarily have been more cautious this near land.
Orn whirled and struck at the exposed neck near its joining with the torso. The creature was vulnerable now but would be deadly in its rage once it got reoriented. He dug his talons into the glistening, smooth-skinned column and, probed with his beak for some vital or crippling spot. But the mass of flesh was too great and strange; he did not know where the key tendons were, and claws and beak were lost amidst its layer of blubber.
Elas emitted a high-pitched squeal and hauled its up in a magnificent undulation. The head looped back to come at Orn from the side, and he was unable to break lo Immediately because his members were mired. He was lifted helplessly into the air, dangling by both feet.
Ornette leaped to help him. She aimed her beak at rep's eye, but the Elas turned on her quickly and met her with wide-open mouth. She squawked once, pitifully, as a pointed teeth closed on her wing and breast; then she carried upward.
Orn fought loose and fell into the water a wingspan from the rep's front flipper. He tried to attack again, but the Elas was already paddling away, Ornette dangling.
Pursuit was useless. Orn could neither catch the Elas harm it, and Ornette was already dead.
Orn climbed back on the island, blood-tainted and disconsolated. It was not exactly grief he felt, but a terrible regret. Ornette had died defending him, as he would have died defending her, and both defending their lone egg. Now her companionship had been severed and he was alone again.
Except for the egg! The most important part had salvaged.
The quilon still warmed it. She had not moved during the struggle, and this was right. Ornette would not have attacked the Elas had the egg not been secure without her protection. Nothing took precedence over that egg.
Again the oddness came to him: stranded on an exposed island, he without his mate, the mam without hers, the two of them guarding the egg neither had laid.
What was there to do but go on?
XVIII - VEG
Veg recovered consciousness painfully. He was lying on a hard beach, his face against a wet rock, his feet in water, and he was hot. He did not know where he was or how he had come there. His head was aching, his innards soggy, and the rest of him was hardly robust.
He sat up carefully and waited for the resultant dizziness to pass. The beach was scant, hardly more than a hesitancy between land and sea, and the land itself was brief. In fact, it was no more than a pylon of rock jutting up from the waves, with a single ledge he perched upon. Similar to the jigsaw reefs separating this section from the main ocean, really - not that that improved his position.
He had lost his quarterstaff, but retained his knife. The quarterstaff idea hadn't turned out very well; nobody had any good use from the weapons. Well, next time he wouldn't bother. His clothing was torn, and his neck was welted with insect bites where it had been exposed. He wished he could puke up some of the muddy water he must have swallowed - but then he would probably feel hungry.
Strength seeped back unwillingly, and with it some spongy nories. He had fought a government agent - no, that was on Earth, too long ago, and the man had turned out pretty decent in the end. Veg had been arrested and put into bit with Cal and 'Quilon and the eight, no seven, mantas. Then - here to Paleo, with four mantas and a trip on the ocean. And a bash with Brach, the arm-leg lizard ten times life size. And a bird, and -
He had made love to Aquilon! 'Quilon!
After that it became fuzzy. Her soft thighs, and Cal in trouble, and guilt and a swim and a run through the swamp and -
And here he was, tossed on a rock by himself. No friend, no manta, no woman, no bird. Time had passed; now he had a memory of shivering in the night and fading out again.
Why had he done it? After all this time, on three worlds - why had he taken her? It had not been a physical thing between them, only a promise. Now that promise was gone.
Then he remembered the rest of it. Cal - they had broken with Cal! The tyrant lizard was after his friend, while Veg had been mucking about with Aquilon. Too late he had remembered his loyalty and tried to get there. On the way there had been another quake that threw him into the water, and he had swum blindly, trying to get out of it.
He had been lucky he had not drowned. The waves had been bad enough, and any of the great sea animals could have gobbled him en route. Unless those swimmers were as shaken by it all as he.
He peered over the level water. They would not be shaken now - and the tide was rising. He had perhaps another hour before his island disappeared entirely.
Well, better get on with it. Maybe Cal was dead, and Aquilon too. But maybe they were just waiting for him to find them. He'd save his regrets for the facts.
He faced toward land and dived in, the splash a mark of defiance. The impact of the water against his skin invigorated him, and he stroked strongly for the shore. There were scratches on his back, and the salt sting did its part to spur him along.
Salt? He had thought this area was fresh water, from the stream and swamp. But maybe that was only when the tide was out, or in the river channel itself.
Something moved in the ocean. A snout broke the surface - a mighty beak. Veg saw it coming toward him.
A swimming Tricer?
It was a huge sea turtle, attracted by the splashing. Veg had little concern for turtles ordinarily, but this was hardly the kind he was accustomed to. It was twice as long as he was, with a heavy leathery skin instead of a true shell, and its beak was horrendous. Its two front flippers were roundly muscled paddles, propelling it rapidly forward. This was the beast that Cal had termed Archelon, when they had observed it from the raft. The only reason Veg remembered the name was its resemblance to Aquilon. Arky, he had dubbed it, and forgotten the matter; but it didn't seem quaint or funny now. The head alone must weigh as much as Veg did!
He treaded water, uncertain how to react. He didn't think turtles ate people...
Arky glided up, sleek and swift in its element. Veg realized that he had been foolish to judge its capabilities by those of its cousins he had observed on land. This was a mighty creature, capable of wiping him out casually. He gripped his tiny-seeming knife. Would it even pierce that skin?
The turtle sniffed him. Veg wasn't sure that was possible with its head under water, but it remained the best description. Then it decided he was not edible, and nudged away, its ballroom carapace brushing his legs. He felt giddy with relief - a sensation rather strange to him. Obviously he wasn't as much recovered as he had thought. The cuts on his back smarted again.
Arky lifted its head above the water. Veg followed its seeming glance - and spied a ripple coming in from the open sea. - It was another creature.
And - he saw the disk of a manta, also coming toward him. That was immensely reassuring. Hex, probably, on the lookout for the lost party. Now he could get in touch again, and find the others.
Provided they still lived. That quake had been rough.
Hex arrived before the sea creature, but not by much. The turtle floated just under the surface, twenty feet away, facing the swimming newcomer. Veg, now assured of his safety, stroked once more for shore.
He heard the thing come up behind him, splashing softly, and had to look. It was a mosasaur - the most vicious reptile of the sea. Thirty feet long, the torso highly flexible, the tail splayed vertically and quite powerful enough, and four paddle-shaped limbs. The head was narrow, the nose pointed, but the jaws were lined with ample sharp recurved teeth. A kind of crest or ridge commenced at the neck and trailed all the way back into the tail, and th
is waved ominously just above the water as the creature swam. It was as though the worst features of crocodile, turtle, and shark had been combined and magnified - and Veg was frankly terrified.
Suddenly Hex's protection seemed scarcely sufficient. Mosa was too big, too ugly - and most of its body was shielded by water. It could come at him from below, and the manta would be unable to strike.
Mosa circled both him and the turtle, as though considering which one to attack first. Arky, fully alert to the danger, rotated in place, always facing the predator lizard. Evidently the turtle did not trust its armor to withstand Mosa's teeth, though possibly it was only the turtle flippers, which could not be withdrawn into the body, that it was concerned about. If Arky were worried, how should Veg feel?
The shore was far too far away; he could never make it now. The diminishing rock he had nighted on was still fairly close, thanks to his dawdling - but he couldn't get there either while Mosa was watching.
Hex paced above the water, making a tight circle inside that of the mosasaur. The reptile was aware of the manta, but not particularly concerned. Probably it thought Hex was a pteradactyl, waiting for the remnants.
Veg was pretty sure Mosa would decide on the warm, unarmored appetizer: himself. Then, invigorated by the morsa, it could tackle the tougher turtle at leisure. No particular genius was required to select the easy prey.
Mosa decided. It angled smoothly in toward Veg.
Hex struck out the exposed eye.
The reptile didn't seem to realize what had happened, immediately. It continued its charge, drifting in the direction favored by the remaining eye, its teeth snapping.
Veg started to swim for the rock. Mosa spotted the motion and came at him again, jaws wide. By accident or design, its good eye was under the water, safe from Hex's lash.
Veg had an inspiration. He launched himself at the big turtle.
Mosa sheered off, momentarily confused by the combination of objects: two together in the water, a third in the air. Veg remembered something Cal had said once, about animals becoming confused by more than two objects; they could not count. Arky was also confused, unable to concentrate on Veg while the dangerous lizard was so close behind. It was also annoyed by the manta.
Veg bypassed the beak and touched the smooth hull. It might not look like a turtleshell, but it seemed rock-hard. He got behind it and stayed close. There wasn't anything much to hang on to. Mosa made a feint, and Arky forgot about Veg as it braced against the greater menace. Hex continued to pace the surface. It was an impasse of a kind.
Mosa circled, adapting to its limited vision. It had no intention of giving up the chase; in fact, the taste of its own blood might well be stimulating it to some berserker effort. And it seemed to Veg that mosa did have the physical wherewithal to prevail, for it outmassed man, manta, and turtle combined and was fully adapted to combat in the ocean. Even completely blind (Hex might yet get the other eye) it could probably sniff him out and finish him off. Arky was only a temporary cover; once the turtle decided to depart, mosa would pounce on the mouthful remaining, shrugging off the superficial lacerations Hex might inflict.
It was death in the making for him. A kind of checkmate demise, as one piece after another was nullified, but inevitable. Somehow the end no longer frightened him the way he thought it should. Had there been an element of chance about it, he might have been eager and nervous. As it was -
Chance struck. A school of sharks converged on the scene, slim sleek missiles of appetite. In a moment mosa, the wounded one, was the center of attention.
Suddenly Veg understood what had happened. He had dived off his rock, originally, making a splash that attracted the turtle. But meanwhile his scratched-up back had been bleeding into the water, and mosa had smelled it. Then the commotion and mosa's own injury had alerted the sharks...
Chance? Maybe less than he had supposed.
But very soon those killer fish would come after him.
Mosa was now in a fight for its life. No single shark approached the reptile in size, but there were as many as a score of them, some as long as fifteen feet, all maddened by the blood. Already they had torn great gashes in mosa's hide. Several of their own number were dead, for mosa as an individual was more savage than they - but now the checkmate had been reversed.
Arky, no dumb bunny, took this opportunity to dive for safer territory. Its mighty flippers clove the water, creating a turbulence that jounced Veg around and towed him under.
Then the turtle was gone, moving more rapidly than he could follow.
Veg struck for the rock. Two sharks detached themselves from the main platoon as though central command had allocated them, and cruised after him. Hex sliced up their projecting fins and set them to fighting one another. This diversion was sufficient. He made it to safety.
He stood ankle-deep on his isle and wondered what he would do when the tide made him available to the sharks again. Hex could not divert them indefinitely. Veg could not expect luck to save him again. He was not, in sober analysis, one of those hero types who won out no matter what the odds against success. He felt empty without Cal, and deep remorse for the split that had overtaken them. It hadn't really been Aquilon's fault, either; she hadn't meant to make trouble like that.
How easy, now, to pass judgments on his prior conduct.
Hex perched on the highest point of the rock, his foot splaying out to grip it clumsily. It was a sitting and pushing type of foot, rather than a grasping member, and the posture had to be uncomfortable - but Hex appeared to be staying until the end. There was no use in Veg himself trying to climb that point; it was too small and steep for anything but a perpetual balancing act, and this would only postpone the finish, not change it.
Where was Cal now? The manta Circe had said the tyrant lizard was after him, alone. That was sure death for the little man. But Cal was funny about that sort of thing. He might have found a way to -
Impossible. What could a man, any man, do against Tyrann? Cal was digested by now.
No, he couldn't be. Not his friend!
Veg realized that he had only to ask Hex. The manta would surely know. A snap of the tail would tell him Cal lived; two snaps -
He choked on the question. It would not come out. He was afraid of the answer.
The water was at his knees. Already a small shark was circling the rock, waiting.
Should he die without knowing?
Maybe this was his punishment for despoiling Aquilon.
Veg looked across the water, at the savage valley, the snow-topped mountains, the islands reaching into the sea, the level horizon showing beyond the channel between the large harbor islands, Silly and Cheryb-dis. He looked, expecting nothing. And saw a ship.
XIX - CAL
Tyrann's bulk almost blocked the opening. The carnosaur was sleeping, his body spread out along the stream bed to capture every vestige of warmth therein. The hot water from the cavern puddled at his nose and coursed along his neck - the only thing, in this snow-line dawn chill, that was keeping him reasonably functional. The flesh was discolored where the hottest water touched, but evidently the reptile had elected some heat discomfort in spots instead of the lethargy of cold all over. Probably it inhaled warmth this way. This was courage of a kind.
Cal stood just within the cave mouth, where a refreshingly cool circulation occurred, and surveyed the situation. It was possible that Tyrann was playing possum, waiting for the prey to come out - but Cal doubted that the reptile was capable of such subtlety. It was not an art large predators usually needed for survival. Tyrann would normally sleep until the heat of the day raised his body temperature to a suitable level. In the valley this would be a simple matter - but the chill of this upper region was apt to make it a long sleep indeed. It had been a mistake for Tyrann to settle down here, for without continuous muscular exertion to maintain his body heat, he could not survive.
Probably Cal could climb right over the ugly jaws and be on his way with impunity. Victor in thei
r contest, he could make his way along the shore to the Paleocene camp. It might take him several months to make it, and there would be other hazards - but if he made it to that radio, his course was justified. To the victor belonged the spoils - the spoils of a world.
Yet he hesitated, looking down at the great prone reptile. He was not afraid of Tyrann - indeed, had never been - for he understood the creature's needs and motives. They were the same as his own: survival. Tyrann accomplished his purpose by size, power, and determination. Cal used his intelligence - and determination. The fact that he had won did not mean that his cause was morally superior. It meant simply that he had demonstrated a greater capability for survival, in this instance.
If he summoned the forces of Earth (for casuistry aside, that was surely the gist of his report), he would be pitting an advanced world against a primitive one. That would not be a fair contest. Very soon the dinosaurs would be extinct again, and Paleo would be just like Earth: crowded with neurotic humans, its natural resources depleted...
Of Man and Manta Omnibus Page 42