by John Norman
It was his unusually fine hearing that at last convinced him that he was not, as he had hitherto assumed, alone in the forest.
At first it was the soft flaking, and crushing, of dried leaves, closer now, and less mistakable than formerly. It was mostly on his right, and behind him.
A little later Brenner stopped, suddenly, and, to be sure, there was the sound again, but then it stopped, as he had stopped.
He removed the knapsack uneasily from his back. He clutched the stick more firmly.
Then he heard the sound, or a similar sound, from his left.
Brenner hurried to the next stone. It was fortunate that there were such stones. Without them he would have been lost, utterly confused, disoriented, in the forest. Even with a map and compass it would have required skill to find Company Station. Without them, trying, say, to find one’s way by marks of weathering, by the growth of moss, by stars, and such, there would have been but small prospect of success. Company Station was no more than a dot in the trackless forests of the northern hemisphere of Abydos. In searching for it, one might pass within a mile of it and never know it. But, felicitously, there were the stones! They would be his guideposts. They comforted him, providing him with assurances of Company Station, with its fence and gate.
“Go back!” screamed Brenner. “Get away!”
This was his first clear visual contact with what was out there. It was a dark shape to his left, as he had turned. It was not like the thing which had seized Archimedes. It was quite different. It was not nearly as large. It sat back on its haunches. It seemed almost, facing him, as though it had no head, until Brenner realized that what he had taken for the shoulders was actually a gigantic knot of muscle, humplike, below which, there emergent from the shoulders, was the head.
“Get away!” screamed Brenner.
When the beast turned its head to the side, Brenner could detect that it had an odd silhouette. There was something running the length of its skull. Brenner spun about. There was another noise there. Brenner was extremely quiet.
He now heard, clearly, from at least two quarters, quick, breaths, those which might be expected of animals with heavy coats, which might have become overheated in movement. Such creatures perspire primarily through their mouth, and the pads of their feet.
Then, from the darkness, there emerged another such beast. Its eyes flashed, suddenly, reflecting the light of one of the dangling fruits.
“Stay away I” said Brenner.
Then it had backed away, and was crouching down, watching him.
On its skull, running the length of it, beginning above and between the eyes, visible in the dim light of the lantern fruit, seemingly yellowish in its light, was a hairless, serrated bony plate, or ridge.
Brenner then detected two more of the creatures, farther back.
The muzzles of these creatures were very broad, and powerful. Brenner could see teeth, they, too, in the light of the lantern fruit, appearing yellowish.
“Go back!” said Brenner.
Suddenly one of the ungulates, the fourth he had seen, emerged from the darkness and darted, with odd bounds, through the beasts, and disappeared amongst the trees.
That is it, said Brenner to himself. They do not want me. They are pursuing that. That is what they want. That is what they are after.
Another pair of animals appeared.
They appeared, silently, from the direction from which the ungulate had come, fleeing.
“Get back!” said Brenner.
Brenner backed away, and the nearest animal, crouching down, inched forward.
Brenner could now detect several of these beasts about him. There were, though he could not be sure of it, given the darkness, seven of them.
“Get back!” said Brenner.
Another animal came a little closer. They expected Brenner to run.
Brenner, holding to a strap, flung the knapsack out at the closest animal. It struck it across the face, and it drew back. Then it bared its teeth. Another animal, crouching, head up, teeth bared, approached. Brenner struck out again with the knapsack. Then again, at another animal, he struck out. Then the sack was torn from his grip and he saw the knapsack attacked by two other animals. Three fought for it. Brenner saw the great knots of muscle in the necks bulge, the wide, powerful jaws closed like clamps on the object. Then it was being fiercely shaken by one or another animal, the others, too, rolling, snarling, in the dirt, not relinquishing their grip. Then each had a portion of the heavy leather and canvas object, the contents scattered for yards about, on the leaves, amongst the trees. The great mass of muscles in the back of the neck, of course, a feature in this life form, tended to average out successes in such vigorously prosecuted contests. Doubtless it had been selected for. It was useful in the retention of shares of food. These animals, like many social beasts, acquired food in concert, but its division, except for the young, which in the dens tended to be fed on regurgitated prey, was decided on a much more individualistic basis. Needless to say, the broad jaws, the tenacity of their grip, and such, had similar utilities. Although Brenner was not interested at the moment in such zoological matters it might be called to the attention of the reader that the hairless, serrated ridge on the skull was also of some importance. As these beasts were not merely hunters but scavengers it tended to reduce the danger of contamination from decomposing prey, guarding the head and jaws to some extent as they were thrust into the bodily cavities of carrion. The ridge also, of course, to some extent, enlarged the area within the cavity for the feeder, this giving freer play to the jaws. Its function apparently did not have to do with enabling vision within the bodily cavities, at least in the present form of the animal, as they fed with their eyes closed, a useful disposition to protect the eyes from bone and reduce the possibility of infection.
Brenner moved back, further.
The knapsack was now in pieces.
The beasts who had disputed it now sniffed it. Others, too, crept forward, to be warned away by menacing noises. One beast bit at another, and for a moment there was a flurry of snarling and biting. Then they had backed away from one another. One of the beasts looked up from the knapsack, and then it stepped over it, toward Brenner.
Brenner took another step back.
He raised the stick.
He looked into a yawning maw and thrust the stick at it. It tore into the side of the beast’s face and it drew back.
Brenner spun about. Another animal was quite near now. He struck down with the stick, slashing the beast across the nose and muzzle. Another approached and he jabbed out with the stick. It put up its paw, as though to fend it away. But Brenner had neither managed to touch the animal, nor had it touched the stick.
Brenner turned about and, crying out, thrust at another beast, which seized the stick in its jaws.
Brenner could not pull the stick from its jaws.
The beast gripped it near the end, that end emerging from the right side of its jaws.
Brenner pulled at the stick. He backed away. Forward was dragged the beast. The weight of the beast, which seemed fastened to the stick, was some seventy to eighty Commonworld pounds. It looked at Brenner with its left eye. Its jaws moved up an inch on the stick, and then, opening and closing, another inch, toward his hand. Brenner released the stick, and the stick, still gripped in the beast’s mouth, flew to the side, the animal turning fully about with it.
Brenner then turned and ran.
The animals hung about him, a few yards back, a few yards to the side, running with him, always leaving an open space before him. This action on Brenner’s part, not standing in one place, or not yet doing so, and moving, was familiar, and comprehensible, to them. It returned their world to its normal form. Before, when Brenner had seemed at bay, they had not been fully certain as to how to proceed. It was too early for the attack. It was too early for the kill, for the feeding. The movements of the thing were not erratic. It was not stumbling. It was not panting. It was not exhausted. It had not yet f
allen, unable to move, its lungs sucking in air, its eyes wild, waiting for the fangs. But now things were as they should be. They padded along with Brenner. Tenacity and stamina were features of their life form. When it slowed down they would snarl and bite at its heels. They would try to keep it moving. They would try, even, after it had run further, to guide it back toward the den, that they might be nearer home when the kill was made.
This thing, they thought, is strange, as it has only two legs. But it does run. Not well. But it runs.
Too, it was strange, they thought, as it was already gasping.
This was not like the small, horned ones, the leaping ones, whose stamina almost matched their own, whose fleet, bounding gait was so difficult to match, which so often eluded them in the forests, the scents mixing with so many others. No, this chase would be short.
Brenner stumbled and he felt his leg slashed with teeth. Crying out, he rose to his feet, his trousers torn, his leg wet with blood and saliva. He ran on. His heart was pounding. It seemed he could not breathe. In his terror he was only vaguely aware of the pain in his body. It was like someone else was in agony. He struck into a tree. He saw another white stone. He ran toward it. I am going to Company Station, thought Brenner, wildly. I am going toward Company Station! I will see the gate! I will see the fence! But he knew, too, that he was days from Company Station.
Yes, it is nearly time, they thought, were they capable of such thoughts. But it has not lasted very long. This is a strange runner. It is too slow. It is no wonder there are so few of these in the forest.
Brenner spun about, his legs buckling. Things began to go black.
He began to sob and cry, and gasp for breath.
Then he found himself backed against an outcropping of rock.
Yes, there were seven of them. He could see that now. He counted them.
There was nowhere to run.
He covered his face with his arms and crouched down.
Yes, they thought, it is now time. And each thought, I must not delay, there are the others!
Brenner lifted his head from his folded arms, after a time.
He had not felt the charge, the rending, the tearing.
He looked about himself. There was no sign of the beasts. They had melted away, back into the shadows, through the trees, disappearing in the darkness.
It was very quiet.
He stepped away from the rock outcropping. He peered into the darkness. He turned about, and screamed.
On the rocks, above his head, not yards from where he had been, he saw a gigantic, terrible shape, a huge, monstrous, sinuous, catlike form. It was not so unlike the stealthy one which had seized Archimedes, except in its dimensions. It was sitting back on its haunches. Its broad head, with its sharp, erected ears, must have been twenty feet above the rocky level on which it sat. Brenner, with his arms outstretched, could not have begun to measure the span of its chest. Its eyes, which were large, were separated by some eighteen Commonworld inches. They were set forward on the face. It doubtless had excellent binocular vision. Its pupils were black, large and round. The creature seemed excellently adapted for night vision. Such eyes would not need the feeble aid of the lantern fruit. They would have served in darker, more terrible places. Yes, it was not unlike the stealthy one Brenner had seen, that on which Rodriguez had fired, missing his shot as the creature, alarmed, had leaped away. It, too, clear in all its lineaments, in the lithe, beautiful, savage form, was a predator. That it would live by killing, and the death of the slower, the weaker, the less clever, the less fierce, was visible in every inch of its frightening beauty. It was terrible in a way that was beyond ruthlessness or cruelty. It was terrible in a simple, natural way, as lightning is terrible, or fire, or storms. It, like the stealthy one, was a product of evolution, and the coming of kings and terrors, a product of what was to be fed upon and what must be done to obtain it, of how cunning one must be, how secret, how swift, how terrible. It, like the stealthy one, was a handiwork of nature, of nature in all its merciless innocence, and yet, it seemed, of a nature more terrible than that which, over thousands of years, had fashioned the sinews of the stealthy one. Brenner shuddered to conceive the nature that might produce such a shape, and being. This, thought Brenner, is that which is first in the forest. Here, in this world, this majestic horror is king. The smaller beasts, the humped, crested ones, the pack, had slunk away. They did not do contest with one such as this. With one such as this they would dispute nothing.
I am dead, thought Brenner. But he was awed, as well. Better, thought he, to be eaten by this, to serve such a king, than to die beneath the jaws of the pack, to be torn to pieces by the small ones, to die of a hundred wounds, to feel the lacerations of tinier, fouler teeth, to expire choking in fetid breath.
Brenner looked up at the beast above him. “I salute you,” he cried, lifting his hand to the beast. “I await you!” He tore open his shirt.
The beast looked down upon him.
“Kill me,” invited Brenner.
The beast did not move.
Brenner, in the ensuing interim, suddenly became very much aware of the pain in his body, of the soreness in his leg, where it had been bitten, of the blood in his boot, of how he was breathing heavily, of how his heart was pounding.
“Kill me!” called Brenner.
The beast turned its head to one side, and licked at the fur on its left shoulder.
The others disturbed it, thought Brenner suddenly. Its lair is about. It came out to see what was occurring. It may not be hungry. It may not recognize in me anything that it is accustomed to preying upon!
Brenner’s resignation to death, and the perhaps somewhat hysterical bravado which he had managed to muster up, perhaps somewhat belatedly, to face it, suddenly evaporated.
He took a step backward, and then another step.
At this point the beast looked up, observing him, and Brenner stopped.
They faced one another for a time, Brenner not knowing what to do. The best thing, he knew, was not to make eye contact. But that had occurred. Many encounters with predators, particularly with ones which were not hunting, were avoided by so simple an expedient as both turning about, each as though they had not seen the other, and going their own ways. Also, he must not approach within a certain critical distance. But he had already discovered the presence of the beast within what must surely count as a critical distance, that distance within which the beast is provoked to action, either to turn and flee or, in the case of one such as this, more likely, to charge. But Brenner had not been approaching it. That was a point. Indeed, he had drawn back a little.
Brenner stood very still.
Suddenly the beast put down its head a little, and hunched its shoulders, and snarled. That sound raised the hair on the back of Brenner’s neck.
Wise or not, Brenner then began to back rapidly away.
It just awakened, it is hungry, thought Brenner, in misery. Then, although it was surely not wise, he turned about, and ran. The foolishness of this, however, for flight tends to elicit pursuit, occurred almost immediately to him, and, miserable, he stopped, and turned about.
His heart sank as he saw the beast lightly, with a swiftness, and agility, and grace, that was odd in so large an animal, descend from the rock.
Brenner turned about and fled through the trees.
It was doubtless not wise, but sometimes one’s body makes such decisions for one, not taking the time to weigh the pros and cons involved. Reflection is often useful, and is doubtless to be accorded great respect. In certain cases, however, as when it betrays the animal, it can be the road to misery or death. Some ten minutes later Brenner, gasping, caught hold of a tree, to keep from falling, and looked about himself.
He was lost, of course, but, more importantly, from his point of view, was still alive. If one is not alive, it is not of great importance, after all, whether one is lost or not.
It did not follow me, thought Brenner. It is not hunting me. To be sure, it had desc
ended from the rock. It might be about, somewhere.
It was rationally reassuring to Brenner that it had not brought him down already. Surely anything like that could outrun him, indeed, overtake him in a few bounds, and, too, it could presumably follow his scent, fresh as it was, if it were so inclined.
Whereas these reflections might have brought comfort to a fully rational mind, it must be conceded that Brenner, exhausted, frightened, lost in the dark, only recently having escaped from savage beasts, and having just encountered another, did not fully appreciate their weight.
That his trepidation might not be ill-founded was surely suggested, too, by what occurred almost immediately.
He had scarcely made his best judgment as to the direction of Company Station and started in that direction when, some forty yards ahead, amongst the trees, in the dim light of lantern fruit, he saw the form of the gigantic, catlike animal. It was standing. It must have been some fourteen feet high at the shoulder. It then growled. That sound, low and rumbling, seemed to come from deep within it. In its undulations, it was almost as if it were moving, rapidly crawling, toward him through the trees.
Brenner turned about, hurrying in the opposite direction. For a time the beast was behind him. Once Brenner picked up a rock and hurled it at the beast. He did not manage to strike it, which was perhaps just as well. Brenner also picked up another branch and tore away smaller branches and leaves from it. It might serve as a weapon. He wished he had the electric match which had been in his knapsack. He might then have managed to light some dried branch, and use it to thrust at the animal, if it approached too closely. To be sure, it may never have seen fire. Still it might not care to approach a light so bright, one contrasting so intensely with the darkness, one perhaps actually painful to look at, in its vision’s current dark-adjustment. Too, it might find the heat unpleasant, and an actual burn, particularly a severe one, would surely teach it quickly enough the menace, the power, of that bright, flickering stranger in its kingdom.
Then it seemed the beast was gone.