Vlashraa gestured at the location Flinx had indicated. “There is some difficult terrain between. It would require a number of days tu reach the place yu have specified.” She looked over at him. “There are also possible dangers.”
“On the positive side, there will also be opportunities fur hunting,” Zlezelrenn pointed out encouragingly. “There is nothing along the obvious route that gaitgos cannot negotiate.”
“Gaitgos?” Flinx inquired. No one answered him. The Tlel were too busy chattering among themselves.
“This is a venture fur volunteering.” Healer Fluadann studied the human. “Having treated youths whu have lost parents, I believe I understand better than most the importance of this tu yu. I will go.”
Zlezelrenn and Vlashraa added their assent almost before Fluadann had finished speaking. By the time word had spread through the rest of Tleremot, the proposed expedition was oversubscribed with volunteers.
The Tlel might have skinny arms and funny-shaped heads, an overcome Flinx reflected somberly, but there was no disputing the size of their hearts.
A gaitgo’s function was immediately apparent even to an outsider such as himself. Each of the motorized walking devices would accommodate a single Tlel comfortably. Behind the padded, slanted seat there was storage for supplies. Though open to the weather, the extremely lightweight frame formed a protective cage around the driver. Designed for travel in Gestalt’s rugged backcountry, the individualized transports boasted eight legs. Or maybe, Flinx thought as he studied the line of waiting vehicles, eight arms. Since the mechanical limbs were attached to both the bottom and the top of the transports, he was not sure how to label them.
Vlashraa explained the design. “Yu have seen enough uv ur mountains tu know that it is as important tu be able tu climb and descend as it is tu travel in a straight line. The gaitgo has the ability tu du both. It can even travel sideways across a vertical wall. That is not the problem we face right now.” She studied the tall, lanky human. “The problem lies in finding one tu fit yu.”
In the end, it was decided not to try to supply their guest with a transport of his own. That suited Flinx just as well. Time that would have been spent instructing him in the use of Tlelian controls and instrumentation was time better spent crossing open country. His dignity would not suffer from having to make the journey as freight. As for Pip, as soon as they settled into the modified open cargo bay in the back of Zlezelrenn’s gaitgo, she rose and found herself a perch atop one of the protective composite honeycomb beams that came together above the Tlel’s head. The multiplicity of openings in the material offered dozens of gaps into which she could insert her coils. If her presence riding directly above him in any way unsettled Zlezelrenn, he did not comment on it.
There were a dozen gaitgos in the expedition. All were the same size, all individually piloted. Comparable scaled-up devices could be used for transporting cargo and multiple passengers, but for those purposes imported skimmers were more practical. Able to ascend precipices, crawl through narrow tunnels, ford rivers, and even climb trees, the one-Tlel gaitgos were the favored means of mechanized local transportation among the inhabitants of Gestalt’s innumerable smaller communities. And unlike skimmers, they were manufactured right on Gestalt, in its other major city of Tlearandra.
All those villagers who were not engaged in essential work turned out to see the travelers off. Yet again Flinx was struck by their kindly nature and general geniality. He could not have been rescued by representatives of a more affable species. At ease around humans and secure in their relationship with them, the Tlel were in no wise subservient. As equals, they truly wanted to help.
And, as Zlezelrenn had pointed out previously, the expedition offered those participating a fresh opportunity to engage in traditional ritual hunting.
While it may have felt perfectly natural to his Tlel driver, it took Flinx awhile to get used to the gaitgo’s rocking forward motion. Considerably more unsteady than a skimmer, the vehicle’s movement was defined and made possible by the smooth operation of no fewer than four and sometimes as many as all eight of its mechanical limbs. Once most of him (with the notable exception of his cramped backside) became accustomed to the jerky, uneven motion, he was able to marvel at the device’s abilities. He found himself wondering if it had been designed by the Tlel themselves and made a mental note to put the question to his new friends at the first opportunity.
By the end of the first day he was convinced that, should it have been necessary, Zlezelrenn and his fellow villagers would have been able to find the valley of the two tributaries even without the aid of a map. Several times he was certain the expedition had made a wrong turn or had begun to retrace its course. Each time he was assured by his hosts that they had not deviated from the predetermined itinerary, and that sometimes the shortest and quickest route to the next waypoint was not a straight line.
In addition to the awkward walking motion, the gaitgo’s climbing ability took some getting used to. It was one thing to be striding along up a gentle slope, quite another to find himself dangling out over emptiness as Zlezelrenn sent the multilegged mechanical clambering up a sheer rock wall. Not once, however, did one of the unique grasping legs lose its grip.
Strange, Flinx thought, how one could wholly without fear traverse immense distances when traveling between star systems through space-plus, yet suffer panic and disorientation when suspended only a few dozen meters above solid ground. It was all relative. Or a matter of relativity. One just had to have confidence in the relevant machinery. In that respect the gaitgo was no Teacher. It wasn’t even a rented skimmer. But after a day of watching it clamber over and around seemingly impossible obstacles without losing so much as a composite digit, he finally found himself starting to trust the vehicle as much as its operator.
One time the gaitgos in the lead touched off a small landslide. It was at once frightening and enlightening to see the several machines caught up in the slide skitter downhill among the tumbling rocks without a single one toppling over or losing its gyroscopically enhanced balance. Eight computer-coordinated legs provided the kind of stability that would have eluded a tracked or wheeled vehicle. Once the rockfall had rumbled to a stop, Vlashraa led those who had successfully ridden out the slide back upslope to rejoin their companions.
When it began to snow lightly, a touch on a control caused the protective arching framework to unfurl a lightweight, transparent rain shield that kept both driver and cargo clean and dry. Streams were easily forded and deep, narrow canyons effortlessly negotiated.
“Tu more days,” Zlezelrenn called back to where Flinx had folded himself into the gaitgo’s modified cargo compartment. “Then we will arrive at the valley yu seek.”
“I won’t be there long.” Flinx shouted to make himself heard over the steady, metronomic thudding of multiple artificial feet. “It should only take a short while to find out if this person is the individual I’ve been looking for.”
“Take yur time.” Everything was running smoothly, and Zlezelrenn was very much at ease. “We are all uv us enjoying the change frum daily routine.” From the emotions that emanated from each of the gaitgo drivers, Flinx knew that Zlezelrenn was telling the truth.
It was the following day when a different and less enjoyable change in routine interrupted the morning meal. The disturbance also served to remind Flinx that while his new friends and companions might be wholly civilized, the world that they had so magnanimously agreed to share with humans was not.
He had just finished eating and was watching the Tlel pack the last of their supplies and equipment onto their vehicles when activity ceased. Whatever realization was dawning over his companions, it occurred progressively instead of all at once. First Sladehshuu, their lead driver, stopped what he had been doing. From busily adjusting the seals on his gaitgo’s storage locker, his cilia stopped moving. His attention shifted not to another member of the party, not even to the surrounding dark blue forest, but to the mountainside that l
oomed off to the left. Then he was shouting as he hopped—given their low center of gravity, the Tlel could not leap—and pulled himself into the driver’s cage of his vehicle.
“Ressaugg, ressaugg!” he yelled. The word was new to Flinx, did not translate, and sounded as much choked as spoken.
The cry was rapidly taken up by the others. Zlezelrenn was at Flinx’s side in seconds, urging him to mount their gaitgo. With his escort not lingering to answer questions, Flinx had no choice but to throw himself into the open cargo bin that had been adapted to accommodate him. An increasingly agitated Pip swooped back and forth overhead, rising skyward in ascending spirals until she had climbed above the treetops.
Gaitgos were starting up all around Zlezelrenn. Supplies and personal gear not yet packed were abandoned where they lay. Casting aside any pretense at organization, drivers slammed their machines into sprint mode and began to race away in all directions. No attempt was made to coordinate the wild flight. Unlike every previous morning, the Tlel did not line up themselves and their machines in single file. Witness to the near panic, Flinx had the distinct impression that for the first time since he had known them, the best and brightest of Tleremot’s normally mutually supportive inhabitants had degenerated into a self-centered mob. There was no avoiding the impression that, whatever the cause of the confusion, at that moment it was every Tlel for itself.
Though he had no way of realizing it at the time, the apparent randomness of the scattering and flight was not indicative of panic. It was a proactive reaction, the defensive opposite of fish schooling.
Concentrating on his driving, Zlezelrenn ignored his passenger’s increasingly anxious queries. Seeking the source of the disorder, Flinx looked around repeatedly. He found what he was looking for moments later, and not by picking up on any broadcast emotions.
How had he overlooked something so massive when every Tlel in the group had detected its presence? True, it was projecting nothing in the way of strong feeling, but its size alone should have revealed it to him more or less at the same time his friends became aware of it. As he stared at the onrushing monster, the explanation presented itself to him.
Something that big, he realized, must generate a proportionate quantity of flii. Every Tlel in the traveling party would have picked up the monster’s particularized electrical field at approximately the same time. It was an identifying characteristic Flinx could not have detected even if the creature was right on top of him.
Which, if Zlezelrenn’s gaitgo could not muster more speed, was liable to be exactly the case.
CHAPTER 10
“It is a ressaugg!”
Flinx could barely hear Zlezelrenn’s shouted words. Not because the smooth-running, engine-dampened gaitgo was making too much noise, nor because its composite feet were making loud scraping sounds each time they slammed down onto the rocky ground, but because the monster his Tlel friend and driver had finally identified was smashing down entire trees and splintering them beneath its weight as it barreled toward them. The deafening electric crack of wood being violently splintered combined with the rumble that accompanied the creature’s attack to drown out all but the most penetrating cries.
Superficially it resembled the round, furry rollers that had come bounding toward and past him on the tarmac of Tlossene’s shuttleport as they had frantically sought escape from the kasollt that had been pursuing them. Sheer size was the most obvious difference between those panic-stricken herbivores and the creature that now threatened the fleeing Tlel. The largest of the rollers had been thirty or forty centimeters in diameter.
The gigantic mass of dense pale pink and white fur that was bearing down on him now was bigger than his shuttlecraft.
Like the harmless rollers, the ressaugg was also propelled by four limbs. Unlike them, these did not terminate in flat, fleshy pads. Instead, each tapered to a single five-meter-long curving claw. As the creature rolled downhill, the fully extended arms rotated madly. So, naturally, did the four scythe-like claws. The spinning blades sliced through tree trunks as if they were made of gelatin. Clearly, they would effortlessly and instantly dispatch anything softer they happened to come in contact with. Prey, for example. Himself, for example.
Almost lost against the booming hulk of onrushing inimical whiteness, a tiny pink-and-blue shape was whizzing back and forth just in front of it and out of its reach. Realizing her master was in danger, Pip responded as she always did: by confronting the threat. That was all she could do. Somewhere within that tumbling mass of fur there were likely to be eyes, or an enormous eyeband akin to those of the Tlel. It didn’t matter. Whatever organ or organs the creature utilized to perceive the world around it was completely hidden within the rolling thunder. Even if she attacked randomly with her poison, the corrosive effects of her toxin could not halt so mammoth a monster in its tracks. Much less the avalanche that accompanied it.
Not only did the ressaugg half bury itself in a snowbank to mask its presence, but when it had started downslope on the attack it had brought all that snow along with it, Flinx realized. Though he had spent time on many dangerous worlds and had emerged unscathed from a number of hostile environments, this was the first time he had encountered a predator that utilized snow as a weapon. If prey was not cut to pieces by the monster’s extended, rotating talons or crushed beneath its massive weight, there was a good chance it would find itself buried beneath the snowfall the ressaugg deliberately brought crashing down around it. At the bottom of the slope atop which it had positioned itself the patient carnivore could then collect itself, gather its quadruple limbs around its enormous body, and leisurely set about the task of picking up the pieces of its sliced or smothered quarry. The ressaugg’s method of hunting was exceptionally energy-efficient: it did not even have to walk, much less run, after its intended prey.
Flying ahead of the oncoming predator like dozens of small, stinging, winged scouts, snow at the forefront of the avalanche struck Flinx’s face as he looked out over the back of the gaitgo. He could no longer see Pip. He could see nothing but hungry, flying pinkness. The expansive flii of the rolling, tumbling ressaugg remained invisible to him.
Then the wall of snow slowed, along with the beast it shrouded. The roar of the avalanche faded together with its force. Pink snow settled into drifts against the splintered shells of smashed trees. Looming above it all and now clearly visible against dark rock and blue sky, the ressaugg retracted its scythe-tipped arms and began burrowing into the new snowfield. A worried Flinx strained to see even as Zlezelrenn’s gaitgo continued to put distance between its two passengers and the spherical monster shoveling snow behind them. Had any of his new-found friends been too slow in initiating their escape? How many Tlel lay buried beneath the combined weight of snow and ressaugg?
None, as it turned out. Individually and in pairs, gaitgos and their drivers reassembled on the far side of a small but fast-moving tributary of the main river. Stimulated by the near escape, the collective pong they emitted was heady, almost overpowering. It did not affect them, of course. Among the group there was in fact only one who had to struggle not to gag on the stench. As visitor and guest, Flinx would have been too polite to mention it. He would have been wasting his time if he had, since his olfactory-deprived companions would not have had the slightest idea what he was talking about.
A final head count confirmed that everyone had survived the assault. Having now lived through it, Flinx did not need to ask anymore for an explanation of the seeming panic that had enveloped the party when the attacking ressaugg had first been detected. The predator’s method of assault was clearly designed to take down as much prey as possible as quickly as possible. Since its mass and lack of bona fide legs rendered it incapable of swift pursuit, it had to situate itself to bring down not just a single animal but an entire herd at one swoop. By scattering as they had when the attack had first been detected, the Tlel had deprived the ressaugg of an obvious target.
As the re-formed expedition resumed its cours
e, Flinx found himself frequently glancing up at overhanging ledges and heavy snow-banks that he’d previously ignored. What else might lurk among Gestalt’s mountainous heights, waiting to roll, plummet, or perhaps drop down on unsuspecting passersby?
“A great many harmful creatures make their lairs and nests in such places,” Zlezelrenn elaborated in response to Flinx’s inquiry. “Usually they leave signs that can be recognized, so that they may be avoided.” Raising a long, slender arm, he used his cilia to point to the lead gaitgo. “That Sladehshuu did not detect the ressaugg before it attacked shows how effective was its camouflage.”
Flinx considered. Once again tucked comfortably beneath his jacket, Pip had finally relaxed. He wondered if the minidrag was experiencing frustration at her continuing inability to counter the threats this world posed.
“I’d think more than one of you, not just Sladehshuu, would have sensed its flii before it started toward us.”
Zlezelrenn looked back at him, the sun glistening off his eyeband. “Did yu not know, Flinx, that many predators possess the necessary biological mechanisms tu suppress their flii?”
Of course they would, he told himself reprovingly. Now that it had been pointed out to him, it was obvious that such an ability was vital. Otherwise flii-sensitive prey would always be able to detect the presence of those stalking them. A predator unable to mask its flii was less dangerous to prey able to sense it than a cat with a bell around its neck was to a mouse. He should have realized that before he asked a Tlel what must have sounded like a stupid question whose answer was blatantly obvious.
“You said a great many harmful creatures,” he submitted. “I take it there are worse dangers in these mountains than the ressaugg?”
“Yes,” Zlezelrenn told him. “Much more dangerous. And probably not like what yu think.”
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