The visit to the pair of lions had been more productive. The lions, no dummies, were quick to back away from their still fresh hadrosaur kill when the two gigantic cats suddenly strolled up on them. The rippers politely walked slowly around the half-eaten prey towards the nervous pair, and Kayla turned her head to the side to offer the lioness her frill. This was a gesture clearly inviting communication, and it placed the one offering at risk, with their throat so exposed.
Neither of the lions had ever encountered, or had even seen frill images of rippers before. However, the feline body type, their scent, and the frill ruff were unmistakable evidence of similarity. Besides, these two midsized feline killers, built for the chase, instinctively recognized that the two massive and muscled giants didn’t need to be polite if they didn’t wish to be.
Seladaq glanced at her mate, Hasbuk, for moral support, and then tentatively moved forward to touch frills with the huge teal cat. Her tan, lanky body looked even more vulnerable next to Kayla’s bulging muscles. That was why Kopper had stopped well back and sat on his haunches. His even greater bulk, at just over eight hundred Earth pounds was too intimidating. The three hundred pound female already looked small next to Kayla’s six hundred fifty pounds. Even the male lion weighed only about four hundred.
Kayla slipped naturally into the nonverbal speech she used with her wild pride relatives at home. Human language and their different styles of images and thinking would not help establish a rapport here, if one were even possible. Her mother Kit, and her uncle, Kobalt, had not received a welcoming from any of several lion pairs they had contacted previously. That was in an area almost a thousand miles away from this region.
As was typical in a frill contact, images were exchanged rapidly. The first ones from Kayla were of identification of herself and Kopper, and assurances that the rippers were only visitors, passing through this area, and they did not intend to stay. Although she was firm in stating that they would hunt as they passed by, and there were two more rippers in their pride. The concept of a large pride took more explanation, and Kayla projected that previous meetings with others like Seladaq revealed lions formed only small family pairings.
Seladaq, feeling relief that these were not to be competitors for their territory or for their prey, was nevertheless not pleased that four of these huge predators would possibly disrupt their own hunting. She wanted to know why they were passing this way and how long they would be here. Was it a migration, like the large herd animals, which passed this way between the rains and dry times? That didn’t seem right as she asked this. It wasn’t possible these large hunters had passed here before, undetected.
The next images from Kayla clearly seemed to have family emotions attached, except Seladaq was shown images of strange pale animals that stood on two legs, and used incomprehensible not-life things that moved on the ground and lifted in the air like giant fliers. The rippers went inside these not-life things also, and were not eaten, or even afraid. She was told the group would all be far from here, towards the mountains, in another two or three days. If the lions would give them information about the dangers here, about recent giant predators that follow the herds, there would be a kill made of a large animal, and left for them.
Seladaq couldn’t repress a sense of scandal at the image of an entire one-ton corpse of a two horned grass eater. She and Hasbuk could not consume so much meat before it rotted, and they had no cubs at home to feed. It was wasteful!
Kayla noted with satisfaction the offer of a food payment for information wasn’t rejected, instead it was the thought of the waste, a concept a ripper entirely supported. The offer was amended to reflect a smaller prey, such as the one the pair had killed today.
Instantly, the lioness projected embarrassment, at having forgotten they already had meat for the remainder of the week. She explained she needed to frill with her mate, who had started to pace nervously at the lengthy exchange.
Kayla used the opportunity to frill-in Kopper on the proceedings so far, and then the two females resumed their negotiation. Because neither lions, nor rippers, were mentally or emotionally capable of lying during frill contacts, beyond withholding the truth or a thought, the offer of food for information was accepted as sincere by the lion pair.
Hasbuk wanted them to transit through their territory quickly, and approved of giving the visitors information that would help them go faster. They would leave their hunting range even sooner if they crossed the river a short distance ahead, at a place where the herds crossed.
Seladaq saw no advantage to tell them of the occasional fresh meat of herd animals they could cautiously be scavenged from the safety of sandbars at the edge of the river. No need to give them a source of food they did not earn by hunting. If they didn’t go look for that food, they didn’t need to fear what lived in the deeper waters.
Kayla learned about a pack of the two-legged, blue-feathered predators which were following the heard of “two-horns.” A ceratopsian was too large for just a pair of lions to take down, aside from the waste of meat, so the four giant predators were no competition for the lion’s normal food source, merely an easily avoided threat to themselves. The lions could outrun them, and their bodies represented too little energy return for their meat, for the effort of pursuit. That was a calculation both cat species could make instinctively, as could any successful predator that had eaten recently. If hungry, almost no prey was ignored.
To avoid the large predators, they were told they could cross the river where the herds crossed. The largest predators generally did not follow them there.
Kayla knew the images from Seladaq were of what the human pride called a K-Rex, one of the more dangerous threats the wolfbats were asked to seek, and had so far not reported. She would take pleasure in reporting not only how many there were, but how to avoid this group.
Seladaq told her that the K-Rex never pursued any herd animal that reached the safety of a wide rock ledge that went across the widest part of the river, where shallow water slowly drifted over when the rainy season ended. It was a place to ford to the other side of the river, which herds had used for thousands of years of migrations.
It was perhaps the risk of slipping on slimy rock and an inability to swim that held the K-Rex on the banks. An apex predator was surely not otherwise afraid of something a ceratopsian was willing to brave. The lions didn’t particularly like to get into water, a trait that rippers shared, and the lions feared the river water animals. They had no clear mental picture of those creatures, simply of large surges of water seen and remembered, via frill images passed on from other lions that had narrowly escaped becoming prey, while drinking at the edge of the steeper riverbanks.
Leaving the lions to their envied feast of fresh tasty meat, the two hungry cats made their opportunistic “prairie dog” kills, with the unsatisfactory outcome for their palates, and then they walked through the afternoon thunderstorm and a “cheerful” soaking downpour.
When they delivered the information about the K-Rex hunting pack of four, probably a family grouping, and learning of the river ford location, Mel wanted to check it out the next day. The river led to the mountains from either side, of course, and they would be separating from a known K-Rex pack. He preferred avoiding them to killing them.
After an uneventful night, other than the occasional distant roars and cries of an equally remote victim, they woke rested at daybreak. An hour at which the two teenagers were certain nature did not intend man to be awake. It was the threat of poured cold water that drew them out of their sleeping bags. That, and exuberant frilling from two big playful cats who eagerly wanted to greet the new day in a strange land.
A quick meal of precooked and packaged food, military rations brought back with the Beagle in storage pods, the tents were emptied, and allowed to automatically collapse and fold. A brief interlude behind nearby trees provided for morning relief of the male physiology, and Neri found a clump of dense bushes to hide her more lady-like ablutions. They were all re
ady to roll in just under an hour.
Ricco took over driving the lead truck today, with Neri Bar and Kally riding with him. They were staying closer to the river today, to make certain they didn’t miss the place to ford the quarter mile wide stream.
This wasn’t one of the great rivers, which satellite pictures had found on Jura, but mineralogical and spectrographic data suggested the volcanic mountains near the river’s origin were rich in heavy metals. Aside from exploration, discovery, and adventure, the material-poor human colony of Koban needed precious metals to pay for what they needed from Human Space. They had found mineral wealth in the foothills of mountains on Cenozo, but they hoped to find other sources, some that were possibly easier to obtain in greater quantity. They had new small scale automated mining equipment to place where they found suitable deposits. The richer the deposits, the greater the early returns.
Kandy and Kopper ranged ahead on foot today, since the going was slower away from the beaten down migration trail. The wolfbats were up, watching for both the K-Rex threats they had been shown, and for the lake, which the lions indicated was just upstream from the river fording point. It wasn’t clear how a lake would form where the river grew so wide and shallow that animals as short legged as the two-horn ceratopsian could easily cross.
Multiple herds of larger animals had taken this route, even sauropods, which so far appeared only on photos. Where there were taller trees closer to the mountain foothills, satellite photos depicted something that looked a great deal like a blue and white giraffe, eating leaves on those trees. It was a chance to name things, which would be remembered and repeated for generations that partly motivated any explorer.
Cory, riding with Cal Branson and Kayla in the third truck today, commented. “The territory for the lions shouldn’t be very large, with so much game around for just the two of them. The fording point should be closer, I’d think.”
“I think you may be confusing the number of predators and type of prey with the size of territory they need. The lions don’t migrate, they stay in one place all year, even when game is scarce in the dry cooler season. I’ll bet this small stream nearly dries up then. They would need more hunting territory for the reduced number of prey. They measure their territory size by that seasonal need. For another thing, the K-Rex and lions don’t usually hunt the same animals, and are not hunting competitors. The big dino herds leave here in the dry season, which is the southern winter, and the largest predators follow them. The adjacent pairs of lions probably determine what each mated pair calls “their territory.” They don’t permit those direct competitors of the same sort of game to intrude on their ranges.
“When this stream gets low, I suspect the lions move closer to the lake. It looked large to me in Kayla’s mind image. The edge could be a boundary of their territory.”
Cory cocked his head, listening to something Cal couldn’t hear. The raised eyebrow from Cal and the look from Kayla showed they both had caught his shift in attention.
He explained. “Big Blue must have found the lake. He isn’t sounding a recall or rally cry for Streaker, which he would if the K-Rex pack were spotted. It’s less urgent, but the Doppler shift proves he’s on his way back here.”
Cal was amazed and a bit envious. “That’s detectable with your new hearing? Not the ultrasonic part, which I know about, but also the frequency shift as he flies towards or away?”
“Sure, I can tell, provided they are making frequent signal calls, when they are circling, or simply floating on a thermal in one place.”
“Man, I hope Avery and Rafe are right about those new nanites. I’d love to get the abilities you have.”
“Right!” he answered pessimistically. “You weren’t awakened ten times last night by each wolfbat doing echolocation for non-existent potential threats from the sky, from the trees, or from the ground. Danner and I heard them. Then the little farts went right back to sleep, and snored in ultrasonic harmony. That’s why we were so sleepy this morning.”
Cal nodded in mock sympathy. “I’m sure that’s why Aldry and Rafe complained about how late you and Danner slept when they watched you while your parents were away? The leakage of wolfbat calls through the soundproof dome, from their closest nest, ten miles away. They say you somehow sleep through loud music from Tri-Vid music cubes you leave playing overnight.”
Cory didn’t answer the obviously rhetorical question and comments, intended only to bait him into responding to some verbal trap that adults always laid for teenagers. It seemed to be one of their main outlets for humor.
Big Blue landed on the roll bar on the second truck, where Jimbo and Danner were riding. They waited for a com set call on the group frequency from Danner, to learn what was reported. The two cubes of antelope tossed to the wolfbat was evidence it wasn’t bonus worthy news, since it wasn’t organ meat.
The call came. “The lake isn’t far ahead. The river flows over some sort of barrier that forms the lake, and drops a couple of feet. On the lower side of the barrier is a smaller collection pool, with a water flow from that down a deeper center channel. It looks sort of like a low dam with a mile wide spillway, with water continuing downstream in a center channel after that. The bat saw a long gray rock ridge that runs for miles on each side of the river. Jimbo thinks it’s a natural fault, which uplifted and trapped water on the upstream side.”
Kandy and Kopper appeared ahead, coming from the river to the left in an easy unhurried walk, where the shallow riverbank sloped up to the trucks. This whole area, covered in lush cropped down teal grass from recent grazing, appeared to have been flooded often in the past, and benefited from the rich nutrient deposits.
Flooding probably happened when the monsoons came in the peak of the rainy season, and overflowed the whole river basin. There were piles of whitened and gray driftwood lying about. Sometimes a large tree trunk had floated down with its huge dirt free root ball washed clean, stranded high and dry now. No tall trees like those grew in this region, so they came from well upstream.
Ricco stopped the lead truck with his arm waving to warn them, because the Krall had no brake lights on their vehicles. He got out and walked over to a cluster of what appeared to be sun-bleached branches jutting from the grass and red soil.
As the others pulled up and stopped, they joined Ricco to see what he found curious about sticks. As they drew close, the jumble resolved itself into bones, a lot of them. The curved and pointed horns mounted on multiple armored frills proved some came from the same type of ceratopsian they had followed since yesterday.
Ricco kicked loose another skull, also partly embedded in dried mud. It was from a different type of animal, with a mouth shaped similar to a hadrosaur’s, but this one was far larger than the variety the lions had killed.
The two rippers arrived, and seeing what was being examined, frilled to tell them that there were many more bones closer to the river, and some were only days old, others looked weeks old, with none yet bleached white by the sun, as these bones apparently were. There seemed to be a death trap near here of some sort, which had acted over an extended period.
They drove down closer to the water, which flowed deep right here, in the normal channel that only spread out when the river flooded. Dozens of skulls and rib bones of five or six large animal types dotted both shores. Danner started to walk down a slight grassy slope to the river to examine some recent carcasses closer, when Mel called out.
“Danner, stop! Remember Gunther’s mudpuppies. You may be a TG2, but you are not invulnerable.”
He halted, and started walking back. “Mudpuppies don’t even live in rivers this size at home. And they aren’t big enough to kill the animals we see here.”
“One was large enough to eat Gunther Wrethov from Hub City, when he stopped to piss in a creek. I don’t mean a giant mudpuppy killed any of these dead animals; I’m talking about you using some caution. However, I see gnaw marks on skull and limb bones, and mudpuppies only have a huge mouth with bony ridges for
biting, not teeth. These bones were chewed on at some point, possibly post mortem if the animals drowned, I can’t say. Nevertheless, there’s no need to get too close to the deep water to find out the hard way.”
Ricco looked upstream. “I think I see the low ridge of gray rock the lions told Kayla about, and which Big Blue said was just ahead.” He shaded his eyes and carefully looked up in the sky towards the ridge. “I don't see Screamer.”
“I do,” answered Cory, glancing that way. “He’s circling on a thermal where we told him to wait. Probably over the edge of the lake. I’ll motion him to come back and report what he sees.” Ripper vision was sharp and detailed but their vision, and what TG2’s now had for long distance vision was considerably less acute than that of a wolfbat. Cory pointed at the distant dot that was Screamer, and with an arc of the same arm motioned him to return.
The highflying dot, obviously watching, dropped into a brief dive to pick up air speed, and started flapping rapidly in their direction. Cory stepped up next to Big Blue, opened the cooler and pulled out the same number of meat chunks, the same type as he’d given Blue, and waited. He wanted the larger bat to see there was no favoritism involved in Streaker’s reward simply because he had stayed behind longer. Equal pay for equal value work.
Cory Tapped Streaker’s mind as he ate his meat payment, then stepped down to describe what was ahead.
“That ridge is worn down some in the river, by years of water passing over it, but there is a sizable lake above that. Water is flowing slightly deeper in a section near the center, passing over a width of at least fifty feet of flat stone. It isn’t very deep even at center, because previously Streaker saw some two-horns suddenly rush across, and the water never even reached their belly. They don’t have very long legs and a sagging gut, so it doesn’t seem more than two feet deep and slow moving at the center.”
Koban: Rise of the Kobani Page 28
