by David Drake
Vonones stared at him without comprehension. Licking his lips, Lycon continued. "I can't say who could have owned it, or what sort of beast it is—but I know the arena, and I tell you that thing is a superbly trained killer. The way it ambushed the dogs, slaughtered them without a wasted motion! And that thing moves fast! I'm fast enough that I've jumped back from a pit trap I didn't know was there until my feet started to go through. I knew a gladiator in Rome who moved faster than any man I've seen. He'd let archers shoot at him from sixty yards, then dodge the arrow, and I never could believe I really saw it happen. But that thing out there in the fields is so much faster there's no comparison!"
"How did the Numidians capture it, then?" Vonones demanded.
"Capture? Maybe they took its surrender! A band of mounted archers on a thousand miles of empty plains—they could have run it down and killed it easily, and that damned thing knew it! Then they welded it into an iron cage, and strong as it is, the lizard-ape can't snap iron bars."
"But it can pick locks," Vonones finished his thought.
"Yes."
The dealer took a deep breath, shrugging all over and seeming to fill his garments even more fully. "How do we recapture it, then?"
"I don't know."
Lycon chewed his lips, looking at the ground rather than at Vonones. "If the lizard-ape sleeps, maybe we could sneak up and use our bows. Maybe with a thousand men we could spread out through the hedgerows and gullies, encircle it somehow."
"We don't have a thousand men," Vonones stated implacably.
"I know."
Smoky clouds were sliding past the full moon. With dusk the drizzle at last had lifted; the overcast was clearing. A few stars began to spike through the cobwebby sky. Across the twilit fields, shadows crept out from hedgerows and trees, flowed over the rocky gullies.
"I can lay my hands on a certain amount of money at short notice," Vonones thought aloud. "There will be ships leaving Portus in the morning."
But Lycon was staring at the nearest cage.
"Vonones," the hunter asked pensively. "Have you ever seen a tiger track a man down?"
"What? No, but I've heard plenty of grisly reports about man-killers who will."
"No, I don't mean hunt down as prey. I mean track down for, well, revenge."
"No, it doesn't happen," Vonones replied. "A wolf maybe, but not one of the big cats. They don't go out of their way for anything, not even revenge. That's a human trait you're talking about."
"I saw it happen once," Lycon said. "It was a female, and one of my men had cleaned out her litter while she was off hunting. We figured later she must have followed him fifty miles before she caught up to him."
"She followed her cubs, not the man."
The beastcatcher shook his head. "He'd given me the cubs. The man was three villages away when she got him. Her left forepaw had an extra toe; there was no mistake."
"So what?"
"Vonones, I'm going to let that tiger out."
The dealer choked in disbelief. "Lycon, are you mad? This isn't the same at all! You can't . . ."
"Have you got a better idea? You know how all the animals hate this thing—that tiger even broke a tooth trying to chew his way to get at the lizard-ape. Well, I'm going to give him his chance."
"I can't let you turn yet another savage killer loose here!"
"Look, we can't get that blue-scaled thing any other way. Once it runs wild through a few more tenant holdings, Domitian isn't going to do any worse to you if you turn the whole damn caravan loose!"
"So the tiger kills the lizard-ape. Then I'm responsible for turning a tiger loose on his estate! Lycon . . ."
"I caught this tiger once. I know about tigers. This thing, Vonones . . ."
The dealer's hand shook as he turned the key over to Lycon.
* * *
Muttering, the drivers made an armed cluster in the middle of the road, watching Lycon as he unlocked the cage and vaulted to the roof as the door swung down. The tiger bounded onto the road almost before the door touched gravel. Tail lashing, he paused in a half-crouch to growl at the nervous onlookers. Several bows arched tautly.
Lady Fortune, breathed Lycon, let him scent that lizard-ape and follow it.
Turning from the men, the cat moved toward the other cage. He rumbled a challenge into the empty interior, then swung toward where the tracks stabbed into the damp earth. Without a backward glance, the tiger headed off across the field.
Lycon jumped down, boar spear in hand, and stepped across the ditch.
"Where are you going?" Vonones called after him.
"I want to see this," he shouted back, and loped off along the track he earlier had followed with the hounds.
"Lycon, you're crazy!" Vonones shouted into the night.
Even after the earlier run, Lycon had no trouble keeping up with the tiger. Cats have speed but are not pacers like dogs, like men. The tiger was moving at a graceless quick-step, midway between his normal arrogant saunter and the awesome rush that launched him to his kill. Loose skin behind his neck wobbled awkwardly as his shoulder blades pumped up and down. Moonlight washed all the orange from between the black stripes, and it seemed to be a ghost cat that jolted through the swaying wheat. He ignored Lycon, ignored even the blood-soaked earth where the first victim's corpse had lain—intent only on the strange, hated scent of its blue-scaled enemy.
Following at a cautious distance, Lycon marveled that his desperate stratagem had worked. It seemed impossible that the great cat was actually stalking the other killer. It was pure hatred, the same unnatural fury that had maddened the dogs, that had turned the compound into a raging chaos as long as the sauropithecus had been among them.
And the men? None of the men had liked the lizard-ape either. Uncertain fear had made Vonones' crew useless in the hunt. And Vonones had unloaded the thing for a trivial sum, because neither he nor the buyer from Rome had wanted the beast around. Why then did he himself feel such fascination for the creature?
The tiger changed stride to clear the first hedgerow. Lycon warily climbed through after him, trotting toward the pall of reeking smoke that still hovered over the ruined hut. Vonones would see to things here, the hunter thought, praying that there would be no more such charnel scenes across the maze-like estate.
A dozen men passing and repassing had hacked a fair gap through the second hedge, and Lycon was glad he did not have to worm blindly through again. The tiger leaped it effortlessly and was speeding across the empty field at a swifter pace by the time he stepped through. Lycon lengthened his stride to stay within fifty yards.
More stars broke coldly through the clearing sky. The cat looked as deadly as Nemesis rippling through the moonlight. Lycon grimly recalled that he had thought much the same about the pack of Molossians. The tiger was every bit as deadly as the blue-scaled killer, and probably five times its weight. Speed and cunning could only count for so much.
The third hedge had not been trampled, and Lycon's belly tightened painfully as he dived through the gore-splashed gap where the killer had awaited the dogs. But the tiger had already leaped over the brushy wall, and Lycon disdained to lose time by detouring to the opening farther down. He pushed his way free and stood warily in the field beyond.
Here the soil was too sparse and rocky for regular sowing. Left fallow, small trees and weedy scrub grew disconsolately between bare rocks and shadowed gullies. The wasteland was a sharp study of hard blacks and whites, etched by the pale moon.
The tiger had halted just ahead, his belly flattened to the rocky soil. He sniffed the air, coughing a low rumble like distant thunder. Then his challenging roar burst from his throat—moonlight glowing on awesome fangs. Far away an ox bawled in fear, and Lycon felt the hair on his neck tingle.
A bit of gravel rattled from the brush-filled gully just beyond. Lycon watched the cat's haunches rise, quivering with restrained tension. A man-sized shadow stood erect from the shadows of the gully, and the tiger leaped.
Thirty yards separated the cat from his prey. He took two short hops toward the lizard-ape, then lunged for the kill. The scaled creature was moving the instant the tiger left the ground for his final leap. A blur of energy, it darted beneath the lunge—needle-clawed fingers thrusting toward the cat's belly. The tiger squalled and hunched in mid-leap, slashing at its enemy in a deadly riposte that nearly succeeded.
Gravel and mud sprayed as the cat struck the ground and whirled. The sauropithecus was already upon him, its claws ripping at the tiger's neck. With speed almost as blinding, the cat twisted about, left forepaw flashing a bone-snapping blow against the creature's ribs—hurling it against a knot of brush.
The cat paused, trying to lick the stream of blood that spurted from its neck. Recoiling from its fall, the blue-scaled killer gave a high-pitched cry—the first sound Lycon had heard from it—and leaped onto the cat's back.
By misjudgment or sudden weakness, it landed too far back, straddling the tiger's belly instead of withers. The cat writhed backward and rolled, taloned forepaws slashing, hind legs pumping. Stripped from its hold, the lizard-ape burrowed into the razor-edged fury of thrashing limbs.
It was too fast to follow. Both animals flung themselves half-erect, spinning, snarling in a crimson spray. A dozen savage blows ripped back and forth in the space of a heartbeat as they tore against each other in suicidal frenzy.
With no apparent transition, the tiger slumped into the mud. His huge head hung loose, and bare bone gleamed for an instant. Blood spouted in a great torrent, then ebbed abruptly to a dark smear. The tiger arched his back convulsively in death, as his killer staggered away.
Lycon stared in disbelief as the blue-scaled killer took a careful step toward him. Blood bathed its bright scales like a glistening imperial cloak. The tiger's blood or the lizard-ape's? Its scaled hide had to be unnaturally tough—else it would be gutted like a fish.
Murder gleamed joyously in its eyes. Lycon readied his spear. He knew he was fast enough to drive home one good thrust, and after that. . . .
Another step and the lizard-ape stumbled, bracing itself on the ground with one deadly hand. The other arm hung useless—its shoulder certainly broken by the tiger's mauling. The sauropithecus jerked erect and grinned at the hunter, its demon's face a reflection of death. It started to lunge for him, but there was no strength to its legs. Instead it skidded drunkenly on the gravelly soil, again groping for balance. It must have suffered massive internal injuries, but it staggered upright once again.
Lycon knew a stir of hope and dared take a step forward, advancing his boar spear. His own legs felt none too steady, but there had to be an end made of this night.
The lizard-ape spun about gracelessly, suddenly making for the farther hedge. Despite its stumbling gait, it easily pulled away from the pursuing hunter—Lycon afterward wondered if he might not have run faster—and gained the distant hedge. Too weakened to rip through the interlaced branches as before—or to vault the barrier—it darted headlong into the base of the hedge, wriggling snakelike between the rocks and roots.
Lycon hesitated, realizing his chances but not willing to abandon the hunt. From beyond the thorny barrier he heard a quick splash, then silence. Gritting his teeth, Lycon dropped to his belly and crawled after the lizard-ape, following the bloodtrail through the hedge.
Nothing lay beyond the hedge but the steep-banked Tiber, and the bloodtrail slid down the muddy slope and into the oblivion of black rushing current.
The moon glared down, drowning the stars with chill splendor, and casting light over the river's unbroken surface. Lycon shivered, and after a while he walked back to the road.
He felt old that night.
Chapter Three
The starship hung in orbit like a mountain of dirty ice.
To RyRelee, watching the viewscreen as his shuttlecraft drew near, the Coran starships always called to mind a congealed comet, bereft of its tail and frozen in some ungainly posture. He loathed embarking from the firm-walled compartments of the trim shuttlecraft from his homeworld to enter the seemingly organic mazes of a Coran starship, but a summons from the rulers of the measurable galaxy was not to be denied.
Such occasional summons invariably had prefaced demands upon his considerable abilities to carry out certain tasks for the Cora as their emissary—usually without the knowledge of those to whose world RyRelee was sent. While such missions inevitably entailed deadly risks, RyRelee did not normally respond to their summons with such a sense of fatalistic dread as he now felt. While the Cora had not yet informed him of the reason for this summons, RyRelee thought he knew why, and had there been any possible alternative but to obey, he would have taken it.
The interior of the Coran ship was small improvement over the comet-like appearance it gave from the outside. It had the look of something hacked from soft stone, or foamed into shape out of the spittle of an insect. The hatch closed behind his shuttlecraft as though it were growing together by a process of greatly accelerated crystalline accretion. The efficiency of Coran science was beyond question, but the organic nature of it bothered RyRelee every time it called itself to his attention. It disturbed him that he, himself an interstellar emissary and one whose race had long ago developed its own stardrive, should nonetheless be unable to comprehend the technology of the race that ruled the galaxy.
A ragged hole dissolved in one wall of the air lock. RyRelee waited for his crew to release the hatch of the shuttlecraft, then steeled himself to disembark. Though the atmosphere within this section of the starship was breathable, it smelled musty and had overtones of old meat. It was also very cold, though RyRelee's shivering was not solely a result of that physical cause. That his shuttlecraft had orders to depart immediately after bringing him here only confirmed his fear.
He had guessed quite well why the Cora had summoned him, must have summoned him; and he had obeyed nonetheless. If the Cora required his presence, they would get it—however far he ran before they made it their business to catch him. One could be reasonably safe in one's personal projects so long as such enterprises did not come to the attention of the Cora. If they did . . . well, there was always the chance of mercy.
The crewman who now gestured peremptorily through the opening to RyRelee was neither a biped nor, of course, a Coran. It walked on six of its eight flat, multi-jointed limbs. Their surface and that of the crewman's segmented body were covered with fine yellow bristles. As RyRelee followed down the twisting corridor, he noticed that the carrion odor was stronger close to the crewman. Perhaps, then, the cold temperature and musky atmosphere were balanced for the crewmen rather than simply being faults in a life support system built by methane breathers for servants who required oxygen. RyRelee knew from experience that a Coran starship might contain any number of environments within its various sections, each suited to the needs of any particular race of beings that might be on board. The Cora were not the only intelligent race to exist in an atmosphere of liquid methane, but RyRelee knew of few others.
The crewman stopped and waved RyRelee ahead with either a limb or a mandible. The corridor, never more than a blue-lit wormhole in the ice, ended ahead of him.
The emissary stepped forward to the end of the corridor, pretending not to give any sign that he knew the next few seconds would determine his fate. He did not turn to watch the crystalline wall grow shut behind him, but he felt a change in the ambient pressure. He stood in a cell instead of a hallway, and he did not know whether he would ever be allowed to leave during his lifetime.
An atmosphere bubble popped into being around him. RyRelee guessed that it was maintained somehow by a sort of forcefield despite the presence outside either of a vacuum or a thousand atmospheric pressures. He disliked both its apparent insubstantiality as well as its further evidence of Coran technological superiority.
The wall at the end of the corridor dissolved. He was not to be entombed, then—not, at least, until he had been interrogated about his part in the fiasco. He stepped forward,
holding himself tall within the atmosphere bubble as it moved with him. The lock closed behind him, leaving him alone in an immense chamber with one of the Cora.
The Coran also was huge, though it was hard to arrive at specific dimensions. Within the roiling currents of hydrocarbons, the flowing multicolored veils of the Coran's tissue both swam forward and receded beyond his view. None of its sensory apparatus was visible—or at least recognizable. The vague blue light that illuminated the atmosphere bubble pierced the sea of methane adequately for RyRelee to glimpse the Coran, but he suspected that such lighting was for his benefit alone. The Coran itself seemed to shift colors constantly as it swam above the bubble. RyRelee understood that the Cora communicated through such subtly changing veils of color; such a medium was far beyond the capabilities of his eyes to translate.
The communications node affixed behind the external tendrils of his ears began to transmit in the colloquialism of his homeworld. If RyRelee chose to relax—which he did not—he might pretend he was listening to the actual speech of some congenial high official of his own race—which of course he was not.
"We Cora thank you for answering our summons so promptly once again, RyRelee." The counterfeit voice even managed to convey an official tone of impersonal politeness. "We have a problem beyond our own physical capacities—one which is serious enough to force us to require the special talents of an emissary such as yourself."
"I have always considered it my privilege to be able to serve the Cora," said RyRelee formally, covering his surprise. While he suspected that the courtesy invariably shown by the Cora in fact masked a sneer toward the lesser races, nevertheless the galactic rulers did not indulge in sadistic jokes. If the Cora had indeed known what RyRelee had assumed they knew, they would not toy with him now. RyRelee would have been formally charged, found guilty, sentenced, and the sentence carried out—hardly a minute needed, all told.