Of Man and Manta Omnibus

by Piers Anthony

  'Brach,' Veg said, pinning down the name. 'Sounds like some fantasy hero.'

  Aquilon merely shook her head, not recognizing the designation.

  'Brachiosaurus - meaning "arm-leg", because its arms are longer than its legs, in a manner of speaking. Brontosaurus was the other way round, its hips being higher than its shoulders.'

  'I always thought Bronto was the largest dinosaur,' Aquilon said.

  'Bronto weighed as much as thirty-five tons. Brach may have gone up to fifty tons.'

  'Oh.'

  'Quite innocuous, except through accident. The sauropods are herbivorous, and would not become violent unless hard-pressed. But their size -'

  'Vegetarians.' Veg said. 'Good guys. Let's get acquainted, then.'

  'With fifty tons of nearly mindless reptile?' But Aquilon shrugged. She, like Veg, seemed to have become inured to a certain extent to personal danger - and Paleo so far, was as safe as Nacre had been.

  They advanced again, cautiously. The head and neck remained, feeding as before, resembling a crane as it hoisted up and down, with visible bulges from the down-traveling boluses of greenery.

  'Harmless, you said.' Veg murmured, losing his bravado as he was forcefully reminded of the scope of this creature.

  'Bear in mind that the sauropods are not very bright, as 'Quilon mentioned.' Cal said. 'And as you mentioned, big vegetarians -'

  'Are good guys - but sometimes squish nasty little carnivores by accident.' Veg said, smiling.

  The carnivores were not necessarily small, in the age of reptiles. But as I was explaining, this creature may run eighty feet in total length, and it takes time for the neural impulses to travel along its -'

  'Yeah, I know about that.' They were whispering now, subdued by the presence of the giant. 'So if Brach thinks we're food, some kind of new turnip maybe, and wants to take a bite, it'll be a while before he gets around to doing something about it.'

  Aquilon was now busily painting the portrait of the fleshy column. 'By the same token, if it changes its mind and decides not to take a bite, we may be halfway down its gullet before it desists.'

  Cal smiled. 'Actually, it could probably desist from biting quickly enough, since its brain is adjacent to its eyes and jaws. But larger motions -'

  They were now quite close to the feeding head, lulled by its pacifistic and plodding manner. Down - bite - up - swallow, and repeat. Veg glanced into the cabin to see how the mantas were taking it, and discovered that only two remained. The others had evidently left during the excitement, perhaps taking advantage of the temporary overcast that now existed. But he couldn't spare the time to investigate; Brach was too important.

  Closer yet, and - an impressive view. The skin of the neck, rather than being smooth, was covered with wartlike tubercles, and on the head wrinkles overlay creases on bulges, the topology changing with every slow shift of the jaw. The mouth swept up leaves, stems, water, and mud from the bank, straining some of it back out in the haphazard process of mastication. Brach was either very old or very ugly. But the muddy water still concealed the rest of the reptile's body.

  'I heard once that if a dinosaur were walking along,' Aquilon. remarked, 'and discovered that it was about to step over a cliff, by the time it could make its legs halt it would have gone over. So its very size led to its extinction.'

  'Like much hearsay, not true,' Cal said. 'I suppose that if a creature the size of Brachiosattrus were proceeding on land at a full gallop, its mass could carry it over the cliff in such a situation. Fifty tons do not stop on a dollar. But Brach would never find himself in such a predicament.'

  'Why not?' Veg's own query, though he was hardly interested. This dialogue was merely a way of rationalizing the incredible and postponing healthy fear. They were talking too much. Yet the monster went on feeding.

  'Because Brach would not be found innocently trotting along like that. Full-grown, he's far too heavy to walk on land with any comfort. He must stick to water, or at least swamp, so that his body is buoyed up.'

  'So I see,' Aquilon said.

  'Brach, much more than Bront, is adapted for deeper water,' Cal continued. 'Note the placement of the nostrils and the angle of the head. But his range is sharply limited to the coastal shallows. His presence here, rather than Bront's, is an indication that the flat swamps are less extensive than they were. And of course we've seen that directly. Evolution is never random.'

  'Perhaps we should get moving again, if we're going to,' Aquilon said gently.

  'But all we've seen is his head!' Veg protested facetiously. Fifty tons was too large, even if all he could actually see were two or three tons; it alarmed him.

  'That's all anyone usually observes,' Cal said. 'Assuming that anyone before us has had the opportunity. Better be satisfied.'

  Veg was willing to be convinced. He poled the craft into deeper water, and he and Aquilon took up the paddles. They passed about forty feet behind the busy head. He judged that Brach was standing in about twenty feet of water - and that implied much about its size.

  His paddle struck something. 'Obstruction!' he said. 'Log, maybe, under the surface. Sheer off before we -'

  Too late. The raft collided with the object, jarring them all. Veg felt the rending of the keel as it tore off. There would have to be substantial repairs.

  'Reef?' Aquilon inquired, brushing back hair that had fallen across her face.

  Veg probed with the pole. 'Water's deep here. I can't find bottom.' He angled the pole forward, searching for the obstruction.

  Cal had been shaken harder by the bump, partly because he was less robust physically, and partly because he had not been anchored by a paddle. He must also, Veg thought, have been preoccupied. Veg himself was able to accept something like a dinosaur on Paleo, but the concept evidently came harder to Cal. The little man was sitting very still now, recovering his wind while the others assessed the situation.

  'Move out - fast!' Cal snapped.

  Again they responded to the need of the most urgent member. First it had been Veg, spotting Brach; now it was Cal, not as winded as he had appeared. They had worked together long enough on Nacre, and now on Paleo, to know almost intuitively when life depended on instant cooperation.

  As the raft began to move, thanks to the strenuous efforts with the paddles, Cal explained: 'That was no log or reef. That was the tail.'

  Aquilon looked at the troubled water behind. 'The tail - of the dinosaur?'

  But again events provided confirmation. From the water came the tip of a massive fleshy extremity, stirring up waves.

  Veg peered across at the head. 'It's still feeding. This can't be the same -'

  Then the head stopped chewing and sifting. It lifted and rotated to face them, while the tail struck the water furiously.

  '... that slow reaction time,' Aquilon murmured.

  'Keep moving,' Cal said urgently. 'It's aware of us now, and that blow to the tail must have hurt. If it decides we're an enemy -'

  'Harmless, you said,' Veg repeated, with some irony.

  'Oh, I'm fairly certain it won't attack. Its natural inclination would be to flee from danger. But -'

  'We did bruise its tail,' Aquilon said.

  They could all see it now, as the tail lifted clear of the waves again. Diluted blood streamed off it. Their keel had cut a gash in the spongy flesh - not a serious injury to an animal of that size, but enough to color the surrounding water.

  'Smarts, I'll bet,' Veg agreed with some sympathy. A wound of that magnitude in a lesser creature would have been fatal. It was several feet long and inches deep.

  Then the water churned in earnest. Brach had made its decision.

  'Move!' Cal cried. 'He's running!

  The two mantas remaining in the cabin popped out, though there was still direct sunlight. They sailed over the surface. Veg knew they couldn't keep it up long; the sun would burn them terribly and injure the eyes.

  But the dinosaur was coming toward the Nacre! The tiny yet ponderous head lo
oped about, gliding low over the water, and the neck threw up a white wake. The tail retreated its tip skipping over the waves smartly. Between the two - a distance of about fifty feet - something like a whirlpool formed, and from it several tiny indentations spun off.

  'Divert the head!' Cal called. 'Don't attack! Herd it!' He was addressing the two mantas, who now circled the raft uncertainly. 'Bluff it! Move it aside!'

  Hex and Circe (Veg was sure he recognized them) seemed to understand. In turn they swooped at the head, banking with kitelike flares of their bodies. The head reacted fairly quickly, flinching away from them, but still approaching the raft. As Cal had explained, it took time to change the course of such a mountain.

  Brachiosaurus came at the trio - but the head missed by twenty feet, the eyes not even focusing on them. Water surged aside, rocking the raft as though a huge mass trailed that worm-like forepart. In a momentary eddy they saw the speckled flank, and the muscular rhythm of it.

  The body missed them by only ten feet, and that because the raft moved with the current of water thrust aside.

  Then the main torso was beyond, and they balanced precariously on the swell, relieved. In that unguarded moment the tail struck. It was not the cutting whip of the manta, but its blind ponderosity was fully as devastating.

  The tail rose from the water under the rear edge of the Nacre and flipped it over, Aquilon dived away sidewise, hitting the water before the raft toppled. Veg hooked his right arm around Cal's mid-section, lifted him as the Nacre came up, and shoved off to the left. The raft hobbled endwise, sinking into the water; then it rebounded and seemed to fling itself on over. Veg kicked his feet, keeping his arms wrapped around Cal, driving away from the splash.

  The waves subsided. The dinosaur was gone, the raft inverted but steady, and already the two mantas perched on it. Aquilon waved, snowing that she was all right. And, blessedly, a cloud dimmed the sun, giving the mantas relief.

  Veg lifted up Cal, hoping the man had not taken in much water, but his concern was needless. Cal blew out the breath he had held during the upset, smiling. Veg kept forgetting that his friend had recovered considerably since Nacre. Cal remained small and light, but by no means infirm.

  Veg let go, and together they swam back to the raft. Aquilon joined them there. They peered at one another over the shattered keel, and at the two mantas.

  'Does this seem familiar to you?' Aquilon inquired with simulated brightness. Her hair was dark and lank, now that it was wet, and her eyes more gray than blue.

  He knew what she meant. Back on Nacre, at once like yesterday and a decade past, they had begun the adventure that was to meld them into the trio. Beginning at the corpse of a tractor, and knowing that their journey back to the human camp would be a terrible one. Blood had been shared, literally.

  He clung to the edge of the raft and looked about at the debris. A can of kerosene floated nearby, but there was no sign of the lantern it serviced. Beyond it was a wicker basket, empty of the food it had carried. Aquilon had found ways to occupy her nimble fingers during the long southward voyage, fashioning things from natural materials; it hurt him to see her handiwork adrift. Most of their equipment remained lashed to the raft, for the bindings were tight. It would be a tedious job getting it loose safely, but could be done.

  Their radio set, so carefully conserved if used, had ripped away from its mooring, and now surely lay in the bottom of the channel. Their theoretical contact with civilization was gone.

  Yes, it was like old times - and he wasn't sorry. They could stay lost forever here, and he'd be satisfied. A friend like Cal, a woman like Aquilon, and of course the mantas.

  At least the paddles remained. One was broken, but could be mended or replaced: palm fronds were plentiful. The stout bamboo pole was undamaged.

  It would be pointless to try to right the raft here. They would have to haul it onto land, then see what they could salvage... Most of their supplies could survive such a dunking.

  Hex and Circe took off and pounded over the water. At once they circled back. 'Oh-oh,' Veg said. Trouble?'

  Two snaps, almost in unison: each manta agreeing. They seldom spoke at once like this.

  'Predators!' Cal cried, 'I should have thought! The wound -'

  He meant the blood that still discolored the water around them. Veg knew that Cal still did not like to say that word - blood. Of course the flavor would attract the vicious creatures of the sea. Brach must have bled gallons, kegs, barrels...

  'Sharks!' Aquilon exclaimed.

  And the three human beings were out of the water and aboard the inverted raft. Veg was sure that neither of the others was aware of scrambling up, any more than he was. When one thought of sharks or crocodiles while swimming, one left the water in a hurry, that was all.

  It was no mistake. There were sharks, invulnerable to the lash of the mantas' tails because they swam below the surface. Veg splashed with the good paddle - how had he brought that up with him? - and they retreated, but not far.

  Cal's face was pinched. 'The sharks won't come up after us,' he said. 'But the reptiles - if Kronosaurus ranges these waters -'

  'Who?' Aquilon had the broken paddle, and was fishing with it for the floating pole. Veg let her fish; if he moved over to her side, the raft would tilt, and stability was suddenly very important.

  'Kronosaurus - a short-necked plesiosaur. Fifty feet long, jaws twelve feet long, the size of a small whale -'

  'I get the message,' Veg interrupted. Prodded by this vision, he thought to pry his own paddle against his side of the raft, pushing forcefully outward so that the Nacre nudged toward the pole Aquilon wanted. She hooked it in, then went after the kerosene.

  They conferred hurriedly and decided on the obvious: landfall at the nearest point. That way the Nacre's beach-bead could mark the spot where the lost radio lay on the ocean floor. Assuming recovery of it would do any good at this stage, since it hadn't been sealed against such total and prolonged immersion. He and Aquilon started paddling.

  'Harmless, you said,' Veg muttered, his spirits rising as they passed out of the pink water, spotting nothing but frustrated sharks. 'Would run from danger, you said.' But he was smiling.

  'It did run, if you mean Brach,' Cal replied. 'But it ran to deeper water. Most of its enemies are land dwellers.'

  And they had been between the dinosaur and deeper water, and Brach was not very bright. It figured.

  He still had not seen the creature. Only its head and tail, and a portion of its shoulder.

  The sharks, apparently satisfied that no advantage remained in following the raft, disappeared. But no one offered to swim.

  Laboriously they brought the raft to poling depth, and then shoved the ungainly monster up against the shore.

  Fern trees leaned over the water, giant cousins of the plants Veg once had picked by hand near his cutting acreage on earth. A strange conifer rose above them, its needles bunched peculiarly. He saw no grass, no flowers. Half-floating water plants massed at the tideline.

  'Cretaceous landscape,' Cal murmured. 'Astonishing.' But he sounded awed rather than surprised.

  There were, fortunately, no shore-dwelling predators in sight. Calf-deep in muck, Veg and Aquilon hefted the loaded raft up. But it was far too heavy to be righted this way. They would have to hold it while Cal braced it with sticks; in this marshy terrain there were no rocks to set under it, and no really solid footing. But first they had to slide it up beyond the level of high tide, so that it would not be carried away in the night.'

  'Aquilon, you steady it while I heave,' Veg said.

  They tried, but the Nacre lifted only inches while his feet skidded away in brown slime. 'No use,' he grunted. 'We'll just have to take it apart and rebuild it right side up. Might as well make camp.'

  He was not unhappy at the prospect. Sailing, he decided, was not his forte; hiking and camping were better. It reminded him of their other hike together, on planet Nacre. Something had begun then between him and Aquilon. Somethin
g intriguing. More and more, his mind was coming to dwell on that. His gaze met hers, over the raft. She realized it too. Their return to Earth had cut off what had been developing; she had wanted it that way for some reason. But now - now there could be a middle and an end to that beginning.

  No, he did not mind being stranded for a few days or weeks or longer. He did not mind danger or hardship. To be here in the ancient forestland with Aquilon, here for the second session...

  'Probably Brach wouldn't have been feeding here if it weren't fairly safe,' Cal remarked. 'A large land carnivore might bite off Brach's head, and that would be, eventually, fatal. Reptiles die very slowly. So while I couldn't call our encounter with the monster exactly fortunate, it does have its redeeming aspect We can't tell what we might have met, farther in.'