The subject of their discussion was presently admiring the strength of a young allosaur—he liked the way
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its muscles rippled when it moved; but then it began to tear at his carefully prepared meal for the deathbeast, and he said, “All right, let’s chase him away.” He took aim with his rifle.
“Right,” said Megan.
They began firing—low-level bolts that burned the air red and sawtoothed the night with electronic shrieks. The creature was too big for them to kill easily or fast, and besides, they were saving their charges for something larger. The allosaur hissed and screeched as tongues of fire flicked across its sides. It backed away uncertainly.
Ethab was concentrating on his firing—but even so, he had the time to notice, “You’re pretty good—”
Megan’s attention was also focused on her weapon’s aim. “Thanks—”
fithab dropped the other shoe. “—when you’re not being a guide.”
“—for nothing,” Megan finished.
Her shots snapped out more rapidly now. Her bolts snicked and sizzled, touching the allosaur up and down its flanks. The giant warm-blooded lizard-thing thundered, jerked, and screeched like ripping metal. It bellowed, “What the hell is this?” in dinosaur, and tried to feed upon the carrion again. And again, Ethab’s and Megan’s bolts flicked out and scored and creased its scaly sides.
“It’s too big for the blazers,” Megan said. “And you want to kill the big one ... ?”
“You just find the beast for me,” Ethab replied. ‘Til worry about killing him. We can chase this fellow away,” he added. “That’ll be enough. Come on, fella, get out of there—I set that spread for your big brother.” He fired and fired again.
The creature roared, but showed no inclination to
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leave-—it kept darting in to snatch at the tempting food. Again and again it approached—and again and again, the crimson beams flashed out at it—
“Not too smart, is it?” Ethab observed as he keyed in a new fuel-cell.
“They didn’t breed ’em for brains,” Megan said; she squinted through her scope-sight, then flashed a steaming bolt across the creature’s mouth. To her right, Ethab took aim again; his bolt arced redly across the meadow, also scoring the allosaur’s muzzle.
The allosaur was perplexed, annoyed, puzzled, confused, outraged—all that delicious carrion was lying right there and it couldn’t get near it—something wouldn’t let him. It backed away from the strangely burning flashes; he hissed and bellowed his anger, but he kept backing away.
“Attababy,” said Megan.
“That did it,” noted Ethab.
Megan took another couple of shots—“Just to make the point,” she explained—then lowered her rifle.
Out in the darkness, something grumbled as it stamped off. It almost sounded like it was saying, “To hell with it.”
Both Megan and Ethab readjusted the range of their goggles to see. The allosaur was indeed moving off. It was headed sideways toward the crest of the slope; on the other side, the ground fell suddenly away into deeply eroded badlands. The allosaur topped the ridge with a grumpling noise, then began stomping angrily down the opposite side. Its roaring and bellowing, now faded and muffled, went on for a long long time.
Even at the camp, Nusa and Loevil could hear the sound of its roaring like a distant engine in the night. “A complainer,” noted Loevil.
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“Is that normal?” asked Nusa.
Loevil shrugged. “Sometimes. Sometimes they stamp around their territory, bragging and yelling, but it’s not a good idea.”
“Scares away prey?” ,
Loevil grinned. “Brings down property values.”
The allosaur was still roaring in the distance—
“He is going on for an awfully long time,” Megan said to Ethab.
“That’s okay,” said Ethab. “It’s just like a dinner bell fox the big one.” He breathed softly, empathizing with the deathbeast. “The big one isn’t afraid of anything.” They fell silent then, listening—
... and the sounds finally faded into the wind....
“And now, it stops....” Ethab said with finality.
Megan pulled her scanner to her. “It’s still out there. I’m still getting readings.”
“Maybe the big one’s in the neighborhood.”
Megan frowned at the scanner. “No... hot yet. I don’t think so.”
The noises of the night were only now, very slowly, beginning to come back. Soft insect buzzes, the whir of tiny wings and the scrape-chitter of things calling to each other; a background of rustling life crept up slowly behind them, a warm blanket to shroud whatever was still hiding in the silence.
Ethab touched his implants with one hand, verifying their condition; he touched his communicator with the other. “Everybody stay in place. Something odd is going on ”
The meadow was empty now and still.
The stars were cold and bright.
The night was deafening.
They waited, frozen in place.
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It was Megan who broke the silence. She looked at her scanner and said, “It’s going away.”
Ethab looked at her. “?”
“The uninvited one,” she explained.
He absorbed the information without expression, then turned and stared out at the bait again. “But why didn’t the big one come? Why didn’t the beast come? ..
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The first rays of the sun were stretched across the meadow and Ethab’s eyes were narrowed against the glare. “Why didn’t the beast come? ..he repeated. “Why didn’t he come?”
He touched his communicator, “Nusa, come up to the point. Everybody else, stay where you are.”
Megan looked at him expectantly. Her bones ached, her arms and legs felt stiff and leaden—the cold air and a night spent cramped on watch had left her feeling like the early stages of rigor mortis. She flexed herself tentatively and stretched; her spine cracked as she did so.
Ethab was also straightening; he stretched professionally, a series of quick limbering exercises. He did them without enjoying them. Megan couldn’t imagine anyone stretching without luxuriating in the sheer physical pleasure of it, but that was Ethab. “Let’s go for a walk,” he said. His tone was mean; he didn’t stretch for pleasure, he didn’t walk for pleasure. There was some-
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thing he wanted to see. Megan shrugged and picked up her rifle.
Nusa was just coming up as they slid down from the rocks. Ethab nodded at her. “Take the lookout.” He moved off toward the rancid bait, Megan following at a distance—she was studying the screen of her scanner as she walked.
Ethab strode halfway to the scattered carcasses of the bait, then stopped. He sniffed the air, he tasted it, he studied the sky, the meadow, and the distant forest— then he took a mental step back and looked at the whole of the matter, not just its individual pieces. He waited for a pattern to form—and when one didn’t, he cleared his mind and listened for his intuition.,..
“Over there,” he pointed. “Let’s go see what our party crasher found so interesting all night.”
They started up the slope. Megan’s calves complained at the steepness of the rise, but she forced herself to keep up. It was like climbing a long flight of stairs, with the spacing of the steps the most awkward possible, high enough to require an effort, but not high enough to feel like a full step—and just far enough apart so that it was a step and a half to each new rise; not one step, not two, but something in the middle, requiring two short strides or one long one—either was an uncomfortable pace. And with the scanner in her hands, she couldn’t swing her arms as easily for balance.
They reached the top then—and as they cres
ted the ridge and looked down the opposite side, the blood drained from their faces. Megan jerked—even Ethab was visibly startled.
Smeared across the downslope was last night’s allo- saur—the remains of it were tom apart in bloody disarray. Its sightless head stared up at them, black eyes glaring lidless in the cold morning light. Its tail, ripped
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lengthwise, was a bloody mess—and everywhere between were gobbets of flesh, scraps forgotten from a frenzied meal. Here a limb struck upward, empty- clawing at its enemy, the sky. There another claw hung broken from a shattered leg attached to nothing. The pieces of dismembered dinosaur lay everywhere—a splash of red and wetly-shining pieces describing the location of last night’s feast: scraps of hide and flesh, splintered bones and sections of the rib cage—something big and hungry had taken the allosaur apart as if it were a ripe and swollen melon, tearing it up the middle, ripping it open to gobble ravenously at the spurting blood and dripping flesh—
Bait? The deathbeast didn’t need it.
The allosaur’s head, disembodied and bloody, stared sorrowfully, expressionless—without accusation. The tail lay like a discarded lance. The claws were open and defeated. Its hide was a tom bag and its organs were scattered and eaten. The flesh was deathbeast flesh now....
There was meat still steaming in the cold dawn; the interior heat of the animal took a long time to dissipate; the wisps of warmth were tiny curling streamers.
Ethab finally spoke; his voice was like a rustle of leaves. “The beast did come....”
Megan’s voice cracked—as if unused for a hundred years. A eulogy and an explanation; “So much for our uninvited guest ”
Ethab didn’t hear her, he was lost in his own thoughts. “I should have figured it....”
“Our bait wasn’t good enough....” Megan continued to herself.
“... he likes his meals warm.... ”
“...it was the beast I was reading all night... he was here, eating.
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"... alive ... ” whispered Ethab, “ ... he likes his food alive . . . of course—something that big doesn’t have to be a scavenger . . . he can kill whenever he’s hungry. ...”
There were flies as big as hummingbirds buzzing around the meat, lighting on it, exploring, then buzzing up again—a blue-black haze in the air, a chitinous bottle of interest, a demonish sound of desire and delight. When the deathbeast ate, everybody enjoyed; the scraps from the Tyrant’s table would feed a host of lesser fiends and terrors. Already goblins were coming out of the woods, sniffing the air in hunger, horrible little things, all mouths and claws, slavering bigger things—Ethab’s bait was nothing compared to the feast the deathbeast had left behind. The flies buzzed angrily, rose and flickered and lit again; they were a shiny coat of tiny glittering bodies—nature’s little machines, soulless eaters, makers of maggots....
“What a mess....” Megan said.
Ethab answered bitterly, “The beast isn’t known for his manners. He eats and runs.”
“When we chased away this fella,” noted Megan, “we probably chased him right into the deathbeast’s mouth.”
“Then maybe the bait did work ... maybe he was coming....”
Megan pointed. “Look—his tracks ”
Off to one side, like the traces of a giant bird, half- sunk into the soft, muddy earth, were the footsteps of something big and heavy—three huge toes pointing forward on each foot, and another toward the rear; the claws dug into the ground like shovel points.
Ethab nodded at them. “Let’s go.” He didn’t wait for her response, but started immediately downslope, following the deathbeast’s steps.
The downslope was more rugged than the way up;
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this side was rockier and the rocks were steeper and streaked with slippery moss. Megan picked her way with care.
“There’s too much dead meat around here now,” Ethab was saying, “—ours and his. Every freeloader in the neighborhood will be showing up as soon as they smell the wind—and some of them won’t be too choosy about whether their meal is dead yet.” He added, “This could be a very noisy afternoon.”
At the bottom of the slope, Ethab hesitated to study the tracks. The beast had paused here, sniffing the air and turning. Ethab’s gaze narrowed. He cast about himself, as if echoing the deathbeast’s moves.
Megan pointed, “He went through the gully....”
The gully? Ethab turned and looked. He clicked on his communicator. “Kalen? Nusa? Report.”
The speaker made static at him.
“It’s line-of-sight only,” Megan said thoughtfully. “Wait till we come around the rocks.”
They moved forward cautiously.
The walls of the gully were like teeth; they rose high and jagged on either side. Unsightly growths, like decay, hung from narrow crevices. The surface of the rocks was pitted and yellow. They were moving back toward camp now, the long way around—but the deathbeast had come this way too, and only recently. The floor of the gully was too rocky to take a firm track, but here and there they could see the fresh scrape of the beast’s claws across the flatter rocks, and once in a while there was an impression in the muddy creek that trickled down the center of the gully; the little stream writhed like a sidewinder. Here, the deathbeast track came down squarely on its back and broke it—water filled the step like blood, the creek puddled up around it.
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Ethab touched his communicator tab again. “Everybody report.”
Nusa’s voice crackled back. “It’s dead, around here.” Her voice was thin and filtered in the cold air.
Another voice came in on top of hers, Loevil’s; there was the sound of his yawn, then, “Huh? We’re all okay.” Ethab waited, but no third voice snapped in.
“Kalen?” he asked.
Static answered.
“Kalen! Report!”
Static. Crackling and empty.
“He must be tracking the beast,” Ethab said. “He’s out of range, that’s all.”
He looked at Megan.
“Behind some rocks ... ” he explained.
-—her eyes were carefully neutral—
“ ... or something.”
—she waited, expressionless.
“We’ll keep going,” he said, turning away. He couldn’t stand her look.
He started to move on.
Megan touched her tab. “Loevil, stay with Tril. Nusa, meet us in the gully. Be careful.”
Ethab turned back to her. “Why did you do that?”
“I don’t like to be surprised.”
“You could have called Kalen.” He touched his own tab again. “Kalen? Report.” A beat, and again: “Kalen!...”
Megan didn’t say anything.
Ethab’s tone was distant. “He’s all right,” he insisted quietly. “He knows how to take care of himself....” They came to a place where the gully widened and branched. Here the slopes were tinged with pink, shading toward red. The gully was no longer teeth, now it was bloody gums. The ground was colored rust, the rocks were
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ochre, the gully bed was dark rich clay. The deathbeast’s steps were sharp and distinct in the oily mud, and Nusa stood above them, looking doleful. She and Megan exchanged a glance as they approached; Ethab hardly noticed.
“The camp’s up there,” Megan pointed. “He turned off this way. Because of those rocks, we never saw him, couldn’t even scan him—” She hesitated, then said, “Ka- len was over there—” She pointed up into the branching of the gully.
Ethab nodded, looking at the way the deathbeast’s tracks turned into the branching. “Kalen must be following him now....” The branch of the gully sloped upward and Ethab strode into it with purpose.
Megan and Nusa exchanged another glance and followed.
Ethab climbed up to K
alen’s last position. He had staked this place himself the night before; he had even taken the third watch here. It was perfectly safe—it was a branch of a gully behind the camp—nothing could pass through the bigger gully without being visible from the smaller one. And if the beast came up here, well, there was still plenty of cover—the little gully went up and turned back onto the tableland, on the other side of camp, opposite from where the allosaur was killed.
Nusa picked something up from behind a sheltering rock and held it aloft; a gaudy shattered rifle, shiny and broken—once Eese’s—once Kalen’s— It was twisted, bent and bloody.
She looked to Megan, ashen.
Megan hid her own reaction. She’d been expecting this. She turned toward Ethab, still staring up the gully. “Ethab,” she said firmly.
He turned slowly and looked at her. He stood astride two boulders and looked down at her like a warrior.
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“Ethab,” she repeated, pinning him with her eyes. Caught by her expression, he stepped down off the boulders and approached slowly. Megan nodded toward Nusa. His gaze moved slowly to her to focus on the broken rifle—and he turned mechanically, as if on rails, and went to her. She held the weapon out to him.
“It was on the ground...” she said, pointing with her head, "... over there....”
He touched the butt of the rifle with his fingers, hardly seeing it.
“Yes,” he said. “Kalen must have dropped it.” He turned away and touched his communicator tab. “Kalen, report please.” He started back upslope again, following the tracks of the beast. “Kalen... ?”
Nusa and Megan exchanged a final glance. Resigned.
“Kalen ... ?” Ethab called. He was very distant.
Megan said to Nusa, “You go back to camp. Tell Loevil. I’ll stay with Ethab.”
Nusa nodded and moved off down the gully, her rifle held in wary readiness. Megan sighed, checked her scanner for safety, then her rifle, and followed Ethab upslope, but keeping a respectful distance.
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