DEATHBEAST
41
his beam aimed to sweep the same area as hers. The key was determination and faith. If you lose your nerve, he told himself, you lose everything.
To his left, Tril switched off her spotlight.
It wasn’t showing her what she wanted to see, so she switched it off. Darkness almost returned—except for a glare behind her. She lowered her goggles and switched on the image-augmentation, blinking as it came to life. She was studying the same landscape, only this time it was filtered, mapped, and gridded, projected on an imaginary frame in front of her in shades of red and purple, blue and white. The logic circuits laid lines and numbers on the image, telling her the range of distant hills and rocks. The silence of the night was compressed and amplified in her ears, a dull buzzing roar, the ambiance of emptiness. She turned slowly, looking, listening.
She was frightened.
She admitted it now; she had heard something. And it wasn’t there now—that was what unnerved her. Things that went bump in the night should have the good grace to stay where they had bumped.
She was determined not to fumble. She had seen how firmly Ethab had dealt with Dorik; she didn’t want that wrath turned on her.
She ought to wake the others—perhaps she ought to tell Eese—except she wasn’t sure. What if she were wrong? She’d look foolish. She really ought to make sure first. Besides, part of her wanted to prove her ability to handle it herself. She wanted to be more than just Eese’s tag-along....
She moved cautiously forward—
Behind her, still a quarter of the way around the camp, Eese was just switching off his own spotlight and lowering his goggles. To his eyes, she became a white silhouette in the processed image.
42
DEATHBEAST
She stopped where she was and stared uncertainly forward—she glanced hesitantly back at the camp. Should she wake them just in case anyway? Better to be safe than sorry.... She lifted her goggles and looked back at the safety of the light, biting her lower lip. She couldn’t make up her mind what to do.
Her ears roared with the absence of sound. The night was hard and ringing, it was a hollow presence. She turned and looked out at it again, lowering her goggles once again across her eyes, turning up the sound in her ears. The rush of air noises rose and faded with an almost regular beat....
—the winking yellow light on Megan’s scanner switched to red, an insistent warning eye. But the scanner didn’t beep. It clicked as if trying to beep, as if trying to find its voice, but the click was nearly inaudible; the frightened ruby pulse flickered unseen and alone in the dark—
—Loevil’s scanner, not quite as sensitive in the middle ranges, went to yellow, then almost immediately to red. Whatever it was, it was moving. The scanner beeped, once a second, a high-pitched steady note congruent with the blinking of the warning light—
—on the other side of the device, Dorik grumphed. He rolled over and brought his hand down on it, his fingers fumbling for a switch. “Not yet, baby . . . just a few more minutes....” Almost instinctively, his fingers found a switch and pushed it in. He rolled back over in his sleep, and within seconds was snoring again. He hadn’t even wakened.
Something had wakened Loevil, however—Dorik’s wheezing?—his eyes came open in a frown and he listened for a moment to the night; but all he could hear was the closeness of a rhinoceros’ rasping snores. Noth
DEATHBEAST 43
ing else. Nothing beeping. Loevil yawned. Still listening, he drifted back into sleep....
Nearby, Nusa pulled her sleeping bag tighter around her, and Kalen rolled over, seeking a new position. Megan brushed at her face once; only Ethab remained motionless, absolutely still.
Beyond, Eese was watching Tril, who was standing in the darkness, pinned by indecision. He knew better than to distract her now. She needed to concentrate on what she was listening for. He would be her backstop. He edged forward as quietly as he could.
As if sensing his approach from the opposite side of the camp, Tril moved forward, moved beyond the perimeter of the electronic fence. The glow-tubes sensed her presence as she passed between them, they flicker- flashed once.
Eese saw the flicker, and increased his pace. “Tril . . .?” he called softly. He didn’t want to wake the others, but he didn’t want her going out so far—
Everything was deathly still. As if the night were holding its breath.
Tril ignored his call. She was listening to the silence. It wasn’t a really loud sound that she thought she heard, and she could have been mistaken. It was just a breathing kind of sound and it could have been the wind—it could have been, but it felt so large and close and deep— if it was really there—
“Tril?” Eese was soft, but insistent. Belatedly, he thought to switch on his communicator again, but Tril was already moving out
She was raising and lowering her goggles, looking and listening. Behind her, off to one side, she could sense Eese’s spotlight coming on again, illuminating her from behind, casting an eerie shadow out ahead of her. She turned her own spotlight on and swept the landscape
DEATHBEAST
44
again. Nothing. She switched it off and lowered her goggles. She stepped forward out of Eese’s beam and into darkness. Behind her, Eese did likewise; his spotlight faded out and night returned. The soft crunching of his footsteps was the only sound.
There were no insects, there was no wind—only the hot, dry, empty night. Eese frowned.
What was Tril stalking?
The landscape was a red and purple nightmare in his goggles. The bushes were blue-black claws; their leaves were invisible to the sensing fields. The hills were flickering glows, still giving off residual heat of the day. The sky was glittery with radio noise. Living objects would be white or yellow silhouettes against the darker shades—but there was nothing. Dammit! Nothing.
Curious and cautious both, Eese moved forward. Three steps, stop and listen, five more, stop and listen. He switched his filters to a different spectrum of scanning, turned and covered an arc of 360 degrees. He turned slowly, listening carefully, studying—he switched to a third scanning spectrum and turned back in the opposite direction. Still nothing.
Annoyed and frustrated, he turned to cover Tril again.
She was nowhere to be seen.
ENCOUNTER
For a moment, Eese thought his heart had stopped. “Tril—?” he called, not trying to be cautious any more. - He crossed beyond the boundary of the fence, the glow- tubes flickering as he passed. “Tril,” he insisted. “Where are you? Tril?”
He scanned quickly from side to side. “Tril—?” He touched his communicator and tried again. “Tril?”
The answer was static.
“Tril! Answer me!”
She could have switched the communicator off, he told himself—to listen to the night. He moved incautiously into the darkness, striking off across the slope of the ground to bring himself to a higher view. There were some rocks on his right, perhaps she was beyond them—
—there! As he moved around, he caught a glimpse of her moving, a flicker of white in a blood-colored image. “Tril?” She didn’t hear him. He began moving toward her.
She was facing in the other direction, listening at the
45
46 DEATHBEAST
rocks beyond. Whatever it was that she thought she heard, she couldn’t locate it now.
And then:—it rumbled. As if clearing its throat. As if getting ready to move. She turned, startled—switching on her spotlight—still nothing; she decided she’d better wake the others, turning to go back—
Eese saw her—they were trapped together in that bright moment—coming toward him, and he waved. “Tril—!” She moved quickly, uncertainly—
—sudden glance sideways, the spotlight stabbing like a torch—across a bush, and—“Oh, my God—!” Something long and large and scaly—unbidden the spotlight
leapt along the haunch, a leg with musculature like iron, climbing into a back arched and turning, a ponderous head swinging around on a neck like a crane—red eyes flashing back the bright gleam of the spotlight, the jaw opening with a wet sound, brief glimpse of a massive dark tongue, then teeth, shining like ivory—and it grunted with the voice of the night. A hot breath, rank with decay, reeking of blood and death; the rumble of a volcano. It took a step, then another, moving round to face her—the ground trembled with its violence. The tail lifted, lashing as the beast shifted its weight; the giant ponderous head lowered toward her. The thing, illuminated only in the single stabbing beam of Tril’s spotlight, began to move. She couldn’t see it all—it was too big!
She leapt back, involuntarily, her breath forced out of her throat by the shock; she brought her rifle up, stepping backward, her foot scrambling for purchase on the uneven ground—firing one wild stabbing shot, a blaze of crackling blue-white fire sizzling through the air across the creature’s lowering head; it flashed across the landscape, outlining and illuminating it in terrifying detail. For one startling instant, both she and the beast were outlined
DEATHBEAST 47
in the white and crimson flare of the bolt. There was a red and purple after-image in the night.
Horrified, Eese was already running toward her, shouting, “Trill” Raising his rifle, not even bothering to aim, hoping only to distract the monster long enough for her to escape, he let off a bolt—searing, arrowing through the darkness—
The beast was moving after Tril. Eese could see her running madly—the thing came lumbering like a demon, the ground was throbbing with its beat—the bobbing of her spotlight cast weird shadows all around; his own light too—the creature was a shape of dragon-dark, balanced high on two great legs of steel-corded sinew, with thin grabbing arms above them, the body curving long and narrow into neck and fearsome head, which jabbed and pointed at its prey. Each step shook the world and forced a blast of fiery air up from the creature’s lungs, out through its throat—its noises were not shrieks or screams, they were grunts of pain as if the effort of each move were agony; its tail lashed in counterbalance, its head came darting in like fire—
She stumbled, her legs still moving, kept on running, scrambled to her feet again, not looking back, she kept on running—the deathbeast followed after—not looking back, it might be gaining, nor screaming either, just a heaving kind of whimper-grunt as she moved across the rocks—behind her something snapped shut like a giant door, she felt the wind of its motion—
—something flared above her, white and ruby-red, a saw-toothed ringing in the air—the deathbeast head, red-eyed in the reflection, whipped up and out of sight. High in the darkness of night, it turned above her, thundering and for the first time, roaring—a blast of sound incredible, a foghorn, steam whistle, trumpeting, volcano burst of pain—
48
DEATHBEAST
—and again the zip-zoop of Eese’s blazer and the crimson sharp illumination broke the night—the bolt struck the creature’s elongated muzzle and there was the smell of burning flesh, smoldering and smoking— and as the pain soaked through, the roaring came again—
And then the deathbeast really moved—
It turned to face its source of pain, momentarily forgetting Tril. She was already scrambling around again— Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! It moved like cannon fire! It barreled across the ground like something evil and possessed, a tidal wave of flesh, the furious god of dinosaurs incarnate; its tail lashing high above its body, its head low and glinting, crimson-eyed, its scales shining in the light of Eese’s spotlight—
—another bolt of sizzling pain, and another slashing after; the air rang and echoed with each blast—the beam snapped out and licked across the deathbeast’s muzzle— quick scarlet tongues of Eese’s fiery touch; each instantaneous flare revealed the deathbeast moving closer, head-on like a tank, a train, a maddened mammoth elephant—Eese fired off a fifth, and then a sixth shot—the deathbeast towered huge above him, eyes like fiery coals; its head came looming down; Eese turned and ran, there was still a chance—
Tril saw the spotlight on his rifle as it jerked abruptly, then tumbled, spinning backward to the ground, its beam of light swung wildly around—
—and there was silence. Something grunting, crunching. Silence again for a heartbeat’s breadth, and then a deeper noise, a gulp of something moving down—the mouthful was still kicking; the monster jerked its head and snapped its meal farther back into its throat—was that a muffled scream—?
The sound of crunching bone and ripping teeth
DEATHBEAST 49
through flesh, the spurt of steaming blood—a horrifying swallow, and Tril was paralyzed where she stood—
And then silence again. This time permanent.
Something fell unnoticed from the deathbeast’s mouth. It turned and disappeared into the darkness. The glare from Eese’s fallen spotlight illuminated its steely flank for just a moment, and then it was gone. Its footsteps faded like drumbeats in the distance.
Tril, breathless and gasping, moving as if entranced, began working her way down the rocks. She fumbled with her communicator as if to call the others, but forgot to work her throat—
“Eese?” she called. “Eese? Where are you?” The deathbeast was forgotten—it was Eese that she was searching for. Her need for Eese was more important than any danger. Eese would hold the danger off. “Eese—” Her voice was barely a whisper.
The camp was an orange glow, visible in the distance, but there was Eese’s spotlight to one side, a fallen splash of light against the ground—she moved to it with curiosity—
—and stumbled over something—a rock, she kept on moving—and stopped when she came to the blazer on the ground. A wisp of smoke curled up from the dust where the spotlight housing burned against it—and glaring in the wash of dazzling light was a single bloody boot, part of the leg still in it—
She screamed. Not in horror, but in anguish—realization of the real horror still to come: the emptiness of existence without Eese. Her throat let loose a breathy wail of pain and terror—she was sinking how, sinking inwardly while sinking to her knees....
Loevil sat up in his sleeping bag, a puzzled look on his face. “Did you hear something?” he asked.
50
deathbeast
Across the camp, Megan rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “I don’t think so,” she answered. Beside her, Ethab sat up abruptly, blinking mechanically awake. She reached over and pulled her scanner close. She studied it uncomprehendingly for a moment Then, “Oh, my God.”
Ethab was already rising, his rifle in his hand. Did he sleep with it? Or was it part of his body?
The others were sitting up now, standing with a babble of mixed voices, “What th—?” “Did you hear—” At a curt gesture from Ethab, they fell silent. Loevil was already grabbing his scanner—he frowned at it in puzzlement; it was switched off.
Ethab touched the communicator at his throat. “Tril? Eese?” He waited for the reply.
Static. Filtered through the tiny speaker.
“Eese,” he said firmly. “Report”
Nothing.
Ethab looked to Megan and Loevil, both studying their scanners, startled looks on their faces.
Loevil pointed out at the darkness. “Over there—”
Megan nodded in confirmation.
Ethab hefted his rifle and moved—the action seemed one fluid motion, it was really several: checking the ready meter, its charge light was green; checking his spare charges, he clicked off the safety. He strode across the camp, lowering his goggles and going to full image amplification and augmentation. Behind him, the others were still scrambling to find their weapons.
Loevil started to fall in behind him, then thought better and ran to grab his other gear. Kalen and Nusa were already arming themselves. Megan was just reaching for a blazer-rifle. Only Dorik was left, trying to get his pants on, hold his
rifle, and follow them, all at the
DEATHBEAST 51
same time. He hopped across the ground, crying, “Wait for me—”
Ethab moved effortlessly to the nearest crag, jumping onto it in one liquid leap—another leap and a half and he was at the top. He surveyed the landscape professionally, adjusting his filters as he turned.
The image snapped into sharp focus. Computer numbers identified the range. A touch and the image swelled. Tril, just sinking to her knees. Magnification: X 55.
Another touch and the image shrank back to a wider angle. Beside him, Megan was already scanning. The others were just arriving on the crag, all but Dorik.
Ethab pointed. “Tril is over there. So is what’s left of Eese.” He looked to Megan for her report
Reading off her scanner, a little stunned by Ethab’s brusqueness—it showed in the unevenness of her voice—Megan managed, “It’s over there—” She pointed off to the left. “—digesting something. It’s in a gully.” She added, “Be careful.”
Ethab ignored the warning. “Nusa.” He nodded toward their Hank. “Over there. Kalen, go get Tril.”
Kalen moved out like a soldier, rifle held ready. As he stepped down from the rocks, Loevil cried out, “Woops!” He hadn’t taken his eyes from his scanner. “It’s moving!” Kalen paused, looking back, so did Nusa. Ethab held up one hand in a “stand by” gesture.
“North-northeast,” said Loevil. “Two kilometers an hour.” Kalen nodded and was gone; he could still get Tril. Nusa waited for new orders.
Loevil studied his meters with growing apprehension, a dawning realization of just what it was that they were reading. “It’s at least sixteen meters long , . . probably more; seven meters high . . .” He added, startled, “Nine tons!”
“Good,” said Ethab, moving out. “A big one.”
Deathbeast Page 4
