Away Games: Science Fiction Sports Stories
Page 24
He charged again. This time I was ready. I dove beneath his claws, rolled as I hit the ground, got my hands on my weapon, and got off a single shot as he turned to come at me again.
“Got you, you bastard!” I yelled in triumph.
At first I thought I might have hit him too high in the chest to prove fatal, but he collapsed instantly, blood spurting from the wound—and I noticed that he had a festering wound on his side, doubtless from Marx’s shot a week ago. I watched him for a moment, then decided to “pay the insurance,” the minimal cost of a second bullet, to make sure he didn’t get back up and do any damage before he died. I walked over to stick the muzzle of my rifle in his ear, found that I didn’t have a clear shot, and reached out to nudge his head around with my toe.
I felt something like an electric surge within my head, and suddenly, though I’d never experienced anything remotely like it before, I knew I was in telepathic communication with the dying Snark.
Why did you come to my land to kill me? he asked, more puzzled than angry.
I jumped back, shocked—and lost communication with him. Obviously it could only happen when we were in physical contact. I squatted down and took his paw in my hands, and felt his fear and pain.
Then he was dead, and I stood up and stared down at him, my entire universe turned upside down—because during the brief moment that I had shared his thoughts, I learned what had really happened.
The Snark’s race, sentient but non-technological, was never numerous, and had been wiped out by a virulent disease. Through some fluke, he alone survived it. The others had died decades ago, and he had led a life of terrifying loneliness ever since.
He knew our party was on Dodgson IV the very first day we landed. He was more than willing to share his hunting ground with us, and made no attempt to harm us or scare us off.
He had thought the killing of the crystal-horned buck was a gift of friendship; he didn’t understand that he was stealing Marx’s trophy because the concept of trophies was completely alien to him. He killed Marx only after Marx wounded him.
Even then he was willing to forgive us. Those dead animals we found in my traps were his notion of a peace offering.
He couldn’t believe that we really wanted to kill him, so he decided he would visit the camp and try to communicate with us. When he got there, he mistook the Dabihs’ t-packs for weapons and destroyed them. Then, certain that this would be seen as an act of aggression even though he hadn’t harmed anyone, he left before we woke up.
He came back to try one last time to make peace with us. This time he made no attempt to enter the camp unseen. He marched right in, fully prepared to be questioned and examined by these new races. But what he wasn’t prepared for was being attacked by the Dabihs. Fighting in self-defense, he made short work of them. Mbele raced into the ship, either to hide or to get a weapon. He knew first-hand what Marx’s weapon had done to him at fifty yards, and he didn’t dare let Mbele shoot at him from the safety of the ship, so he raced into it and killed him before he could find a weapon.
After that it was war. He didn’t know why we wanted to kill him, but he no longer doubted that we did and while there was a time when he would have welcomed an end to his unhappy, solitary existence, he now had a reason, indeed a driving urge, to stay alive at all costs. Because he wasn’t a he at all; he was an it. The Snark was an asexual animal that reproduced by budding. Its final thought was one of enormous regret, not that it would die, for it understood the cycles of life and death, but that now its offspring would die as well.
I stared down at the Snark’s body, my momentary feeling of triumph replaced by an overwhelming sense of guilt. What I had thought was my triumph had become nothing less than genocide in the space of a few seconds.
I heard the whimpering again, and I walked back to the hollow tree trunk and looked in. There, trembling and shrinking back from me, was a very small, very helpless version of the Snark.
I reached out to it, and it uttered a tiny, high-pitched growl as it huddled against the back of the trunk.
I spoke gently, moved very slowly, and reached out again. This time it stared at my hand for a long moment, and finally, hesitantly, reached out to touch it. The instant we made contact I was able to feel its all-encompassing terror.
Do not be afraid, little one, I said silently. Whatever happens, I will protect you. I owe you that much.
Its fear vanished, for you cannot lie when you are telepathically linked, and a moment later it emerged from its hiding place.
I looked off into the distance. Men would be coming soon. The rescue party would touch down in the next week or two. They’d find Marx’s body in the hold, and they’d exhume the Desmonds and Mbele and the eleven Dabihs. They’d read the Captain’s diary and know that all this carnage was caused by an animal called a Snark.
And since they were a hunting company, they’d immediately outfit a safari to kill the Snark quickly and efficiently. No argument could possibly deter them, not after losing an entire party of Men and Dabihs.
But they would be in for a surprise, because this Snark not only knew the terrain, but knew how Men thought and acted, and was armed with Man’s weapons.
The infant reached out to me and uttered a single word. I tried to repeat it, laughed at how badly I mispronounced it, took the tiny creature in my arms, and went off into the bush to learn a little more about being a Father Snark while there was still time.
• • •
In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away,
For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.
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About the Author
Mike Resnick is, according to Locus, the all-time leading award winner for short fiction. He has won 5 Hugos (from a record 36 nominations), a Nebula, and other major awards in the USA, Poland, France, Catalonia, Japan, Croatia and Spain. He is the author of 75 novels, almost 300 stories, and 3 screenplays, and the editor of 41 anthologies, and is currently the editor of Galaxy’s Edge magazine. Mike was the Guest of Honor at the 2012 Worldcon
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Additional Copyright Information
The Big Guy
Copyright © 2007 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in the June, 2007 Jim Baen’s Universe
The Short Star-Crossed Career of Magic Abdul-Jordan
Copyright © 2001 by Mike Resnick
First appeared, in slightly different form, in The Outpost
Monuments of Flesh and Stone
Copyright © 2007 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in Visual Journeys
Monsters of the Midway
Copyright © 1991 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in The Ultimate Frankenstein
Malish
Copyright © 1991 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in Horse Fantastic
Siren Song
Copyright © 2012 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in Going Interstellar
Post Time in Pink
Copyright © 1991 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in Newer York
When Iron-Arm McPherson Took the Mound
Copyright © 2001 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in slightly different form in The Outpost
Mwalimu in the Squared Circle
Copyright © 1993 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in the March, 1993 Asimov’s
The Kid at Midnight
Copyright © 2013 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in Memoryville Blues
A Very Formal Affair
Copyright © 2008 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in the December, 2008 Jim Baen’s Universe
Royal Bloodlines
Copyright © 2010 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in Running With the Pack
Best in Show
Copyright © 2008 by Mike Resnick
Fi
rst appeared in Here Be Dragons
Costigan’s Wager
Copyright © 1989 by Mike Resnick
First appeared on Magicon bookmark
The 73-Hour Rasslin’ Match
Copyright © 2001 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in slightly different form in The Outpost
Stalking the Unicorn with Gun and Camera
Copyright © 1986 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in the July, 1986 F&SF
Hunting the Snark
Copyright © 1999 by Mike Resnick
First appeared in December, 1999 Asimov’s
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Other WordFire Titles
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