Koban 4: Shattered Worlds

by Stephen W Bennett

  Stewart, following Mind Tap learned instructions from a man that had done this type of work decades ago, had rotated the extrusion slit to vertical, and was about to form inner walls and doors, working their way out to the outside edges to finish the basic house frame.

  Suddenly, there was the loud sound of Raspani squealing from their adjacent compound, many of them at once. He’d never heard their version of screaming, but it seemed to have that same quality of panic to him.

  Slapping off the machine’s power, he ran for his nearby rifle, calling for some of the other workers to follow him. “Jack, Winona, grab your guns. Something’s happening in the Raspani enclosure.”

  He slung his automatic rifle’s strap over his shoulder, and in fifty feet reached the heavy plastic mesh that formed the fifteen-foot high fence. There was a gate a hundred yards away, but he took the most direct route, climbing the fence, which had six-inch wide openings in its inch thick material, suitable for footholds and handgrips. After two decades of living on Koban, the last year with clone mods, and now on a world with a half gravity less than what he was used to, he jumped halfway to the top and scrambled over, hitting the ground on the run, while the two people following him had just started for the fence with their retrieved weapons.

  The squealing continued, and came through a thick stand of trees, obscured at ground level by underbrush not yet trampled down by their low-slung browsing bodies. He’d been inside the compound by truck, but had always entered from the far end gate, closer to the Prada forest village.

  He’d participated in the roof raising in the compound days earlier, climbing up supports, clumsily when compared to the Prada who rapidly swarmed up them. They then used their thick prehensile tails to hold on, freeing both of their hands. They’d deftly inserted the quick lock fasteners that secured the roof section to the top of a fifty foot tall support, then either came down to run to the next one, or they swung between roof support beam elements by hands, feet, and tail, to reach another support.

  They each finished five or six supports to his every one. He had far more strength, but not their agility, nor their complete lack of fear of heights. When all was secured, they flattered him like some child, patting him on the back and head as if he’d done something grand…, for a slow, slightly retarded biped.

  Running, he passed one of the outer roof supports as he passed under the roof edge, which covered only a fraction of the center of the whole compound. He realized where the sound originated now. It was coming from the spring fed water wallow, and the trees he was now passing through provided shade along one side of that, under the transparent roof.

  The Raspani liked to wade, or even swim, in the cool clear pool when the day was hot. There were no muddy banks, only a wide gently sloping rock entry area on one side, and about a two hundred foot long pool, ranging from fifty to seventy feet wide, that ended at some low cliffs at the far end. The clear cool spring water was perhaps a hundred feet deep by the backside cliffs, and the bottom back there was always in shadow. Not that the Raspani liked to swim very much, and certainly not deep underwater. Their lower torso bore a slight resemblance to pigmy hippos, with a hog-like face on a fat neck that topped their upper body. They only liked the water for its cooling and cleansing benefits. They were fastidious about staying clean.

  Stewart was nearly bowled over by two obviously terrified Raspani that, heedless of scratches, burst through a thicket of bushes he was about to skirt around. Lacking real speech, there was no point in trying to ask them anything, nor did it appear they would have tarried to answer him anyway. He took advantage of the broken branches to follow their back trail.

  The squealing continued but it had lessened in volume, it sounded only like one individual now. He thought that was probably the result of Raspani fleeing from what had frightened them. The trees were thinning and he could see the start of the clearing around the pool, and the echoing of the Raspani cry was louder, as the sound reflected from the low rock cliffs along the sides of the pool.

  Unslinging his rifle, Stewart burst from the trees and in twenty feet was on a ledge that overlooked the water. Below, there was rippling bloody turbid water, with flashes of several long, pale green slender shapes, twisting and turning below the surface. The normally clear water was so full of blood and bits of tissue that it was difficult to see what the shapes were. Then the source of the screaming squeals revealed itself, by apparently catching a fresh breath.

  An adult Raspani was trying to drag itself up the gentle sloping rock surface at the shallow end of the pool to his left. There was thrashing bloody water near its hindquarters, which Stewart first took to be its back legs kicking, in an effort to swim or push its way up the slope. Its short thick arms were flailing the water backwards frantically, but the creature was inching backwards, not forward.

  An armored looking pale green, flat-sided tail suddenly broke the surface behind the Raspani. In an instant, Stewart knew what was attacking the poor creature, if not how it had managed to get into this landlocked pool. It was what the Prada called a skather, and the humans had retained use of the same name.

  Skathers were Haven’s analogue to a crocodile, except these animals had no external legs, just vestiges of ancient foot bones preserved internally. The predators, found in the nearby river, grew to at least twenty-five or thirty feet, but were very awkward when trying to slither on land. They normally preyed on migratory herd animals that tried to ford the river, or that came to the banks to drink. A sudden surge, powered by their muscular tails, and they could lunge several feet up a bank to catch and hold their prey, using long powerful jaws that had evolved to resemble those of the crocodiles of Earth.

  Stewart ran along the side of the low cliff, trying to take a bead with his rifle on the skather, which apparently had a grip on one of the Raspani’s short thick and muscular back legs. It was jerking and trashing, trying to pull the squealing prey back to deeper water. Like Earth’s alligators and crocodiles, these predators generally needed the aid of their fellows to twist and tear pieces from large victims, even after they drowned them. Their jaws could hold onto their prey, and rip and puncture, but they were not suited for chewing. They would swallow whole whatever chunks of flesh or limbs they could tear free. Two of them working together, twisting and pulling on the same carcass, could rip off small enough pieces to swallow.

  The blood and flesh bits in the deeper water, and flashes of multiple skather bodies there was evidence of why the earlier multiple screams were now silenced. Those victims were feeding the cooperating predators as they ripped them apart. This last Raspani was about to join them, if Stewart couldn’t shoot the skather’s flailing body, mostly concealed below the bloody water.

  He fired several shots into the water behind the Raspani, afraid the bullets could deflect to hit the creature he was trying to save. He didn’t have a heavy rifle, although it had a high rate of fire. He was told it was a .25 caliber weapon, having less recoil than the larger guns that were available. He was no hunter, but had been told that people not familiar with accurate shooting should be able to use it effectively against oncoming predators. Its rate of fire would better ensure hits on the modest sized animals his Hub City people were most likely to face, such as wild marsh dogs, or even a werewolf pack.

  He didn’t think he was doing the skather any harm with his few tentative shots. Part of the time, its splashing and lashing tail whipping had the exposed part alongside the Raspani’s flanks, where he refused to even aim. Stewart had seen many skathers at the riverbank, although the adults there were much larger than what he was seeing here. The Raspani, upper torso extended flat in the water, with his lower half trailing at the surface behind him, was roughly eight feet long. The unseen head and jaws of the skather, with only the tail sometimes visible, could not be even twice that length. It had to be a much lighter weight adolescent.

  He had lost his brother and sister-in-law to a predator, inside the Hub City compound twenty years ago, to a ripper. H
e was often haunted in his imagination of the fear his family members had felt, and wishing he’d been there, armed, to try to save his younger brother.

  The terror of this pitiful, half-brainless creature stirred his soul to save it if he could. He liked the newly awakened minds of the Raspani he’d met and spoken to, and knew this one would be one of those soon, if it lived to receive a mind enhancer. He was going to save it, somehow.

  When he neared the shallow end of the pool, he made the mistake of promptly leaping into the water from the side of the pool, at the same distance from the edge of the shallow water as the Raspani was. He found himself in water just below his belt. There was a firm flat rock bottom to move over, but he had to push his way the thirty feet to the bleating Raspani against the water’s resistance. He wanted to get close enough that his poor marksmanship would spare the victim injury. Belatedly, he realized he should have ran all the way to the end, and dashed in from the easier to navigate inches deep water to run out to the Raspani.

  He heard shouts from behind, as Jack and Winona broke out of the trees and spotted him and the Raspani. “Stew, what were you shooting at?” was Jack’s shouted question. All they could see for the moment was the struggling Raspani.

  He shouted back, to warn them in case they couldn’t see the threat. “Skathers have gotten into the pool. I’m going to shoot the one that has this one by the hind leg.”

  Just then, the skather’s tail obligingly flailed above the surface of the water, proving that Stewart’s claim wasn’t imaginary in this land locked pool.

  He finally drew near enough that he could start firing into the water closer to where he saw ripples of the powerful tail just below the surface. The Raspani had lost more ground as Stewart had made his way closer. He was forced to move down the gradually sloping bottom towards the tiring Raspani, and the water rose above his waist. His angle to shoot at the skather was lower, and he saw some shots strike the water, and skip up to knock chips from the far wall.

  He held the lightweight rifle higher with his right hand, and waded closer to the Raspani, extending his left hand. The Raspani desperately reached for his hand, having floated beyond the point where its short legs and feet had traction with the bottom, being pulled to deeper water. Its grip had the desperate strength of any frightened creature being attacked, and at simultaneous risk of drowning.

  Stewart, with his longer legs in contact with the bottom, leaned back and pulled as hard as he could, and the Raspani floated closer. However, his own feet slipped the other way a foot. He backed up a step, and pulled again. The water behind the Raspani whipped into a froth of bloody water as the skather’s tail and body jerked harder as its prey seemed to show fresh strength.

  The Raspani’s ear piercing squeals increased in volume, from the pain caused by the beast latched onto its right rear leg, as it bit down harder, and whipped its head and body back and forth. Holding his rifle as high as he could, his hand on the forward part of the stock as if it were a pistol grip, he pulled and held the trigger with the barrel pointed at the splashing water behind the Raspani. He fired perhaps eight or ten rounds, while the weapon jerked as he fired from that awkward, one-handed overhead grip.

  The receiver click, after the magazine fed it’s last round was easily heard, despite the ringing in his ears. He didn’t have any spare ammunition, not that he could have pried himself loose from the Raspani’s death grip on his left hand and forearm to reload right then. However, the last several rounds had an effect when the tail and body of the skather was near the surface, sometimes exposed as it fought for its meal. It must have been hit one or more times, because the Raspani was suddenly able to move forward faster, with Stewart’s assistance.

  As the side of the lower torso drifted to him, he reached back with his rifle barrel and pressed that against the rump, to try to push it ahead. The Raspani wasn’t so panicked now that it couldn’t see that it was getting away. Holding onto its benefactor’s extended left arm, now behind it’s shoulders, would slow its progress to escape, so it released the man’s hand, and resumed the two handed imitation of a sloppy breast stroke, while its undamaged legs pumped to help move it forward.

  Stewart placed his free left hand on the creature’s butt as it passed and shoved, causing the Raspani to drift ahead quickly, and its feet touched bottom. That was obvious when its long back, previously barely above water, lifted several inches, as it was able to stand.

  Feeling good about this rescue, he was reveling in the shouts from his friends on shore, now directly in front of the Raspani, encouraging it with beckoning gestures, ready to help it clamber out of the water. Why they weren’t going in deeper to help was curious. They would have good footing, with water only up to their hips.

  That was when the tone of their urgent shouting actually registered with him. It wasn’t joyous sounding, as the rescue he’d performed should demand. It was an urgent warning of something behind him.

  He looked back and saw the rippled trails of two skathers gliding through the water towards him, only their nostrils and eyes above water. He turned and started wading as fast as he could, but the water seemed to have turned to molasses to his perceptions, only reluctantly passing around his chest, as he tried to outrace the toothy death gliding smoothly his way.

  He reached water only up to his waist, but a glance back told him he wouldn’t make it. They were mere feet behind him, and his companions had moved to the sides, staying clear of the dangerous water, seeking better angles to shoot. Even if they hit their targets and not him, they wouldn’t do enough damage to prevent the two submerged skathers from grabbing him. He had less than a quarter of a Raspani’s mass. They’d easily pull him under water and tear him to pieces, out of reach of his friend’s equally lightweight weapons.

  He whirled around to face his attackers and backed away, determined at the very least to strike a blow in his defense. Grasping the rifle with two hands, he smashed the butt down hard on the closer animal, striking at the eyes located two and a half feet behind the opening jaws on his left. The one to his right suddenly surged ahead, rotated its head and snapped its jaws closed on his right thigh, and immediately twisted its body to his right, to roll over and try to tear the flesh from his leg or break a bone. He flailed at it with the rifle butt, but the water cushioned the blow, and he deliberately threw himself in a roll in the same direction as the skather rotated, to delay its tearing his leg off.

  The other one would likely join in as soon as it blinked off the blow to its eyes, and find a grip on another limb. He instantly lost sight of the second one as he went under, and the blood from the Raspani had left the normally clear water cloudy. His knew his blood would be added to that murk in a moment. He wondered if his brother had felt this mentally collected as he faced his own death. He was frightened, but not paralyzed with fear, even knowing he was about to die a nasty death.

  He completed two rollovers in the water, and he was trying to work the rifle barrel into the gap between his thigh and the opening at the back of the beast’s jaw. He hoped to jam the rifle muzzle into some tender throat tissue and force it to release him.

  He knew it was over when he heard a roar and felt the heavy impact of the second skather strike. Apparently, in the murk and feeding frenzy, it hit the other skather in the process. He felt the teeth in the jaws gripping him rake along his thigh, as the pressure eased slightly. He took the opportunity to shove hard on the rifle butt, causing the teeth to tear his flesh more because that was the only way he had leverage, to force the metal barrel deeper into the open throat.

  There was violent shaking, as if the other skather had a grip on the one that had him. It hadn’t looked that much larger, but all he’d seen was its eyes, and nostrils at the front of its upper jaw. There was another roar, and he wondered how they did that underwater. He had about used up the last breath as he went under. The exertion had consumed the oxygen in that last hurried gulp. If he was lucky, he might drown before they tore his living, feeling body a
part. He let his air escape in a rush, ready to inhale the water to end this as quickly as he could.

  His fatalism firmly in place, he was rudely disabused of his preparations to meet his death, when the jaws on his right leg suddenly released their grip. He was confused as to which way was currently up, after the several rolls he’d endured. He realized it was brighter to his left, which meant that had to be the direction of the sky. His right hand found the stone bottom and he pushed off, towards the light.

  Suddenly a large dark form hulked over him, and then he saw gaping jaws coming for him through the water. The blue jaws clamped firmly over his left shoulder, but not as crushing as before. He shoved his hands up to fight off the beast, when his tired oxygen deprived mind recalled that skathers were light green, not blue. His hands reached and touched the monster, and FUR!

  Suddenly his mind seemed to explode with a confusing kaleidoscope of images, colors and…, rage.

  His head broke the surface and he gasped in one more breath beyond he one he’d thought had been his last, and choked as he inhaled water running down the face of the jaws that held him firmly by his entire left shoulder. His hands, futilely pushing on the animal, were the source of the images flooding his mind. Somehow, in some sort of near death delirium, the skather had morphed in his mind into the beast that had taken his brother’s life. It seemed transformed into an enormous ripper.

  However, the rage he sensed was not directed at him!

  His limp form was easily carried up the incline to the dry part of the rocky slope, and released gently. Then the ripper turned to roar another challenge to the skathers still in the water, now feeding on the one that the ripper had surprised and killed. That was where its rage was directed. At those water creatures, which had dared try to kill one of the humans this ripper claimed as extended pride mates. It turned to leave, with a calm blue-eyed glance at the man he’d rescued, and padded away, licking at its own bite wounds.