Loevil murmured softly next to her, “Don’t you feel like a pomographer doing that? I feel like a voyeur just watching.”
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Nusa was annoyed. “Don’t you ever take anything serious?”
“Why should I?” he snapped back. “Nobody ever takes me serious.” It was only after he said it that he realized how revealing a remark it had been. He glanced over at Nusa, but she didn’t seem to have noticed.
The two brontosaurs were unaware that they had an audience. The female one was playing hard to get. Coyly she kept turning as the male nudged her; he’d bump her with his head and she would turn, then he would circle, turning with her, bumping her again to make her stop, and she would turn the other way. She made sounds, a hissing in her throat—it almost sounded like a giggle. This was a giant, boisterous game of lovers; they turned around each other in passion ponderous and almost comical—like the mating of dirigibles. And yet—there still was something lovely in their movements, something natural and simple; it was beautiful and joyous, and all expressed aloud in a huge and thundering playfulness of Brobdingnagian proportions. The brontosaurs were both enraptured and their desire was a hundred tons of bubbling prancing beastliness, all abounce in prehistoric pastorality. Welcome to wonderland, where mountains mate like meat, and meat moves like mountains—
“They’ll probably have to go into the water to finish,” noted Megan.
Ethab couldn’t have cared less. He was visibly annoyed at the interruption of his hunt. “Let’s go,” he said, pushing back through the bushes.
“Hey!” called Loevil. “I wanna watch—I wanna see how it’s done!” But the others were already following after Ethab. Loevil sighed bitterly to himself. “No sense of romance. . . .” He tugged at Tril’s arm and turned her toward the others.
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Tril had plucked a flower from a bush, a pretty yellow blossom; she held it like an offering. She turned to Loevil suddenly and showed it to him, as if to say, “See?” Loevil smiled at her gently. “Yes, it’s very pretty.” He took the flower from her and stuck it in his hair above one ear. “Thank you, Tril. But we have to go now.” He took her by the arm and pulled her after him. She came reluctantly. She kept looking back toward the silly sauro- pods with wide-eyed innocence and wonder.
The happy smile never left her face; she thought the big green things were pretty; but as Loevil tugged her along, and the brontosaurs were lost to view, her expression turned more introspective, even wistful. . . .
Fourteen
SEEK AND DEVOUR
Tril kept opening her sidebag and looking at her little passenger. She peeped at him and stroked him with her finger. He huddled in the bottom of the case, trembling slightly, relaxing only at the warmth of Tril’s inquisitive touches. She cooed and peeped and chirruped in a steady trickling stream of syllables, a babbled journey for a frightened mind.
Loevil kept moving over to her, making her close the case, but she would only open it again to see her tiny friend. “Peep, peep?”
They were crossing a landscape of rolling hills shaped like a scattering of breasts—Les Petits Tetons. Loevil liked the metaphor, he’d been struck immediately by the resemblance of the shapes; the hills were gently rounded and covered with a tufted moss-like carpeting, a patternless spread of yellow-green, blue, and gray. The five of them would come up one side, reach the crest and scan the landscape, then they’d pick a new direction and move
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down again, down the other side and up the next Earth- breast that gently rose before them.
Each time they paused, Ethab would look to Loevil and Megan and the two of them would make a show of scanning all the neighborhood around. Tril would open up her case and make peeping noises to her furry little friend. Then Loevil and Megan would look up again and shake their heads—no, there was nothing near. Nusa would make Tril close up her case, and Ethab would look equally annoyed and fierce. Pointing with his rifle, he’d go on. Then the rest would follow after, they seemed shrunken now, dispirited and resigned.
And all of them were talking to themselves. Just >as Tril kept cooing at her specimen case, so did Megan keep on making reassuring noises at her, and to all the rest. “It’ll be all right, just keep calm for now—try not to be upset...” but mostly she was talking for herself. And Loevil too, was singing to himself, and telling jokes unquietly, but not for any audience—he made quips and comments, a one-man dialogue, a sportscaster and color-man, the chorus of a classical Greek tragedy commenting on the action as it happened. Ethab was whispering aloud, a steady chant of hatred for his distant enemy, as if it were a constant fire that he kept building in his brain to keep him moving. Nusa followed close behind him, muttering too—echoing with her own antipathy, but focused now on something closer, more immediate. She glared at Ethab as she spoke. “This is a waste of time... we haven’t seen any tracks since before the fucking brontosaurs.” She dropped back and said to Megan, “Why do we keep going? There’s less than twenty-six hours to pickup—why can’t we just leave him here and go back?”
Megan touched Nusa’s arm, as if to caution her. She
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said compassionately, “It’ll be all right, Nusa—try to understand. We •couldn’t leave him behind any more than we could leave Tril.”
Nusa glanced forward at Tril, who ambled smiling just' ahead of them, then at Ethab, grim and forbidding.
. Her answer was succinct. “I could,” she said.
Ahead of Tril, Loevil was keeping watchful eyes on Ethab. The hunter’s face was set like granite, petrified and frozen; his lines were tight and etched in acid. His tattoo shone. His eyes were narrow squints like wounds. His body was held stiff and he carried himself arched forward in an intense, determined posture. His head jutted forward, his chin was like a prow; his eyes swung back and forth like arcs of fire, and his mouth was working like an engine. A stream of words, mechanical and clipped, precise as gleaming packages, fell from his lips, “Where are you, beast?” he whispered softly. “Come on out, my little beast. Come to Poppa here. The day is right for dying. It’s time to meet your human masters—”
They started up a new slope and Loevil glanced back questioningly to Megan. She held up her wrist and pointed at her watch. Loevil nodded, and when they came up to the crest of this little teton, he hesitated purposely as he unclipped his scanner from his belt, till Megan came up, puffing slightly. She moved to Ethab with a quiet step and spoke in gentle tones, “We’re running out of time, Ethab—”
“No,” he said it firmly. “Not yet—Loevil, what are you waiting for?”
Loevil shrugged and began turning slowly, with his scanner held out like an offering to the distant hills— they were dusty, tinged with blue and brown as they receded into distance and atmospheric haze. He watched the screen of the device, but the meters never jiggled.
“Ethab...” Megan’s voice was firm, but low. She
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didn’t want to challenge him—she didn’t want to embarrass him.
“No!” he snapped, a little too loudly, even before she had said what she was going to. “Not yet! Not yet!”
“Ethab!”—that was Nusa—“Give it up! The beast has beaten you!”
“No! Never!” He glared at her and fire could have blazed out from his eyes, he was so angry. Despite herself, Nusa took a startled step backward.
Ethab didn’t wait for Loevil to finish scanning, he started down the hill. “We’ll find him yet, and when we do we’ll show him who’s the master of the world, we’ll show him who’s the bigger beast—” There was a sharp chasm at the bottom of the slope, a deep gully cut through the landscape here, and Ethab headed toward it.
Loevil made a sound, a razzberry of disgust, and hung his scanner back on his hip, his survey uncompleted. He followed after Eth
ab like a warden. “Feed the dinosaurs,” he said acidly. “Feed the dinosaurs. Just bring a bag of idiots, damn fools, and heroes.”
“Just a little more—a little farther, that’s all; we’ve checked so many places and this is his territory, he must be around here somewhere and we have the time to find him—”
Megan came loping after, she was almost running to keep up. “We’re out of time, goddammit!” she was yelling. “Even if you found him now, Ethab, you couldn’t—”
“No!” He kept on striding. “I won’t go back without— without—” He couldn’t finish the thought.
“Much more of this,” Loevil put in, “and none of us will be going back—”
Ethab whirled to confront them—they were spread across the slope of the hill above him, Megan and Loevil close above, Nusa halfway up, Tril left at the top, idly
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clucking at the creature in her specimen case. Ethab was only a few meters from the gully.
“Cowards!” he bellowed. “You want to go back? Go, then! Go! I don’t care! I don’t need you! Hell! I don’t even want you—I never wanted you—I can do it without you! I’ll do it without you anyway—”
Megan took a step forward. “Come with us, Ethab.” Her tone was easy, but persuasive.
“I have something to do! He’s around here—I know it. I know it. So stop wasting my time—the sooner I do what I have to do, we can all go home—”
He turned to move parallel along the gully. He would follow it southward, down to where both it and the hill flattened into plain again—
Loevil snorted, readjusting the scanner strap across his shoulder. He exhaled loudly—this wasn’t a hunt any more, it had never been a hunt, it was a joke, a mad obsession of a man who was afraid he wasn’t man enough. They weren’t going to find anything, he should have known it all along. Loevil let himself relax a little with that realization; his step became a little jaunty, his attitude more devil-may-care. He didn’t have to worry any more, they weren’t going to find the beast—they’d never see the beast again; there wasn’t time enough any more.
Megan wasn’t far from him, he looked to her and met her eyes—there was a question in them—he nodded yes. She nodded in agreement and opened up her sidebag, reaching for a small white pistol. There was no longer any choice in this decision, it was made. They’d talked about it earlier, they were agreed already, and now the time had come. Megan held the pistol in her hand and looked at Ethab with regret; she slid a feathered dart into its chamber.
At the bottom of the slope, they’d shoot Ethab with a tranquilizing dart and he would never know what hit
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him—and then they could go home. Ethab would be a zombie till they woke him in a hospital. He’d be a broken man, of course, having been defeated, but so what? He couldn’t be convinced that it was over, they’d have to take him back the hard way. He’d only done it to himself.
Megan moved after him. “Hey, Ethab,” she called. “Wait a minute—”
“I don’t want to hear it—” his voice came floating back.
“Aww, come on—be a good sport—” Loevil wailed, also following.
Ethab’s reply was muffled. It sounded like, “Fuck you.”
Loevil shrugged and sighed. Well, Ethab was only asking for it. He hung his scanner on his shoulder and started singing, almost happy and relaxed. “Oh, show me the way to go home—”
Ethab whirled on one foot, he glared back at Loevil. “You just keep your eyes on your goddamn scanner—”
—and behind him, rising sideways, huge and gleaming- dark, from the chasm of the gully, its red eyes blazing in the sun, the deathbeast head bulked massively and swung up from its sheltered overhang to stare—
—Ethab saw Loevil’s sudden expression—the blood draining from his face in ashen fear—he turned back and saw—
—the deathbeast’s head dipped back down into the gnlly, then rose up again and stared at him. Ethab and the deathbeast. Finally eye to eye. Ethab’s tattooed eagle wing caught the sun and shimmered in a golden blaze. The deathbeast’s eye was red and clear, almost transparent, as if aglow and lit from deep behind.
Ethab, small and presumptuous, stared up at his adversary’s face and knew it was the moment of fulfillment.
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The deathbeast’s bulk blotted out the world. There was only Ethab and the eye, the single staring crimson eye.
And Loevil, close behind, was frozen as if an icy pole had been driven up his spine; his stomach was a hollow place where panic gibbered like a tiny chittering ape— but the deathbeast wasn’t moving, and he wondered why it wasn’t. It just studied Ethab, blinking slowly—as if it didn’t care. Loevil saw that great, gigantic eye and knew the truth of mythic horror—there were things so vast that puny mankind was no more than insects to them. There were larger purposes upon this Earth, and here was one of them transformed into a mountain, huge and godlike. For the first time in his life, Loevil knew awe. A myth is truth transformed into a larger truth: Moby Dick and King Kong and the Wicked Witch of the West; Satan with his fires—a pool out of hell, the eye was like a mirror, and demons could be seen dancing at the bottom of it—
Ethab had taken one involuntary step backward in his startlement. Now he stepped forward again, intrigued— entranced. This was it, his moment!—Even he hadn’t let himself fully believe that he would have it—
The beast turned its head from side to side to look at him. It blinked, its lids were doors, its eyes were embers— waiting to be spotlights.
Ethab stood only a few meters from the edge of the crevasse and stared in wonder. The beast could have reached out and taken him. But the two of them just looked at each other like ... friends. Like adversaries respecting each other’s power. Like a mongoose and a cobra—each too wary to move suddenly.
And Ethab opened up his mouth then, his words escaped unnoticed, a breathy sigh, “He’s beautiful . . . he is.... ”
The deathbeast’s hide was like the shining armor of a knight, all black and oiled; it looked like metal in the
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gleaming sun. His forearms seemed too thin and puny- looking, but only in proportion to the rest of the creature —they were articulated and the grip of those angry claws could still be powerful. His jaw was like a cavern, his teeth were shining knives. His tongue flicked wet and massive, and flecks of spittle dribbled from the sides of his jaw. There was a stench like drying leather, and a deeper bloody smell beneath it too, a hint of garbage rotting.
“He’s so beautiful... and he’s mine—”
Ethab was in ecstasy. He was transfixed, exalted. The moment was transcendent.
And still the deathbeast didn’t move, it merely studied, blinking quite mechanically. Its eye would blink and then the head would turn and then the other eye would blink. Ethab took a step forward, then another....
Behind him, Megan murmured, realizing, “It’s torpid.”
Nusa buzzed off picture after picture. “Incredible,” she gaped. “Just incredible.”
“I don’t even think we’re in danger,” Megan added.
“I don’t know,” whispered Loevil, edging back to join her. “You ever wake a day sleeper?” This was followed by a quick sidelong glance, but Megan wasn’t listening. The beast was—overpowering.
Far up on the hill, Tril was whimpering slightly. No one heard.
Their attention was all focused on the beast. It was a mountain and uncurious. It dipped its head back into the gully.
Loevil exhaled like a-sigh—“Whew! He’s too tired to get mad.”
—and then the head rose up again—
—and Ethab raised his crossbow—
—the others saw it then, how did it get into his hands like that—?
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He raised it slowly, still talking softly to the beast, “So beautiful . . . so
truly truly beautiful. ...”
—and fired.
The bolt screamed like a banshee. It arrowed straight into the deathbeast’s eye and exploded with a flash of many colors.
Nusa moaned.
Megan despaired, “Oh, no—”
“Shit!” Loevil realized that all hell was about to break loose—
—the deathbeast’s roar was like the voice of a volcano. The air was shattered into quivering shards and glassy pieces—
The eye socket was burning. Smoke rose up from it and the deathbeast was pawing at it with one claw, trying to knock loose the still-burning bolt. He raged and rolled and turned around around around—his tail lashed and savaged, thundering against the cliff, breaking loose the rocks. The bolt was still whooping like a sonic bomb. The beast fell rolling in the gully, then came roaring up again, still pawing, pawing at his ravaged right eye—
The ground shook with the deathbeast’s agony and anger. Ethab bounced and danced in barely held excitement. He held the crossbow in one hand and another electronic bolt in the other—
The deathbeast’s shadow passed over him briefly—
“Let’s get out of here!” said Megan, grabbing Nusa’s arm. “Loevil—move!” They started backing away. No one wanting to be the first to turn and run. Megan called, “Ethab!”—a single warning, then she was the first; she pushed Nusa on ahead of her, and then they all were pelting headlong up the slope toward crying Tnl.
Ethab stood amazed and happy that one single bolt could cause the beast such anguish. It still turned upon itself in agony. Its claws worked like insect mandibles,
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reaching, grabbing emptiness. The thing stopped abruptly, seeing Ethab with its one remaining eye, the left—and bellowed like a steam engine—
Loevil came bounding up the hill only a few paces behind Megan and Nusa; he grabbed at Tril and pulled her with him. He yanked her arm and she went tumbling on her side. Loevil caught himself, he scrambled back and pulled her to her feet—she was pulling at the lid of her case; but no—there wasn’t time! “Run with me, Tril! Run!” And as if she understood, she did.
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