The Year's Greatest Science Fiction & Fantasy 6 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Judith Merril

The screecher stopped. It hunched down, as if to leap. They advanced toward it, ice weapons brandished. For a long moment, the screecher did not move. Then, with a snarl, it turned and retreated up the valley toward Qua-orellee.

  Qua-orellee rushed to meet it. It saw him and veered away —started up the side of the valley. One of the people, galloping along in pursuit, headed it off. It swung back down into the valley, toward Qua-orellee. Qua-orellee stopped and stood erect, holding his rock high above him in both hands.

  The beast charged. Its muscles pulsed and slackened rhythmically. It screamed its rage and savagery. Unflinching, Qua-orellee tensed himself to smash his rock down on the beast’s skull. He watched the beast surge toward him, screeching.

  Fearlessly, he waited.

  * * * *

  3

  Ahead, the land loomed in the cold mist, a high mass of darkness rising out of the gray, frosty sea. Hitchcock cringed from it as it rushed overwhelmingly toward him, but then the pilot sent the skimmer sailing toward the crest. Hitchcock looked down dizzily at the crumbling, ice-crusted cliff. Sudden gusts of wind slammed into the small craft. It bucked and jolted, and the pilot fought silently. The engine surged.

  Then they were over the land. The winds fell away. Hitchcock saw spread before him a desolate plain of ice and crumbling stone, and beyond, towering high, the white mountains.

  But not one living thing.

  The pilot twisted around and looked to the man in the midship seat. “Want to check the traps?” he asked. His parka hood was pushed back, and the wind mask dangled from his throat like a bib.

  “Yeah,” Muller said. He had a snarling voice. “Check ‘em. He—” He meant Hitchcock. “He wants to see how we work. But they won’t have caught anything.”

  The pilot nodded, shrugged, and turned front again. The skimmer leaped forward.

  Hitchcock lifted his camera. The utter lifelessness of the rock-littered plain was oppressive. It was something the people back home ought to see. This scene, more than any words he could say to them, would impress on them how dreadful Xi Scorpii was.

  Muller twisted around to face him. Reluctantly, Hitchcock put down the camera and waited for him to speak.

  “We’ll see if our traps’ve caught anything,” Muller said. “If they haven’t, we’ll have to go catch our own.”

  “What? Do you hunt them?” Hitchcock demanded. The mere idea was appalling.

  “We got to get specimens somehow,” Muller told him.

  The skimmer settled down close to the ground and streaked over the plain. The weathered boulders sprawled kaleidoscopically across their path, momentarily slashing at them, then vanished in the distance behind. Ahead, the glacier-choked mountains rose into high, wispy clouds.

  “How’s it look?” Muller asked. “Pretty bare, huh?” He chuckled. “Wait a couple of months. Right now, it’s the tail end of summer.”

  “Summer?” Hitchcock wondered incredulously. Here and there, a few hardy plants dug their roots into chinks in the rock, clinging to existence. Their segmented limbs and stems were frost-burst and coated with rime. Their fleshy, gray-green spines were spread in plaintive supplication to the distant sun.

  Tentatively, Hitchcock raised his camera.

  “Yeah, summer,” Muller repeated. “We get about a whole year of it—one out of four. We’re closer to the sun, then. Sometimes the temperature gets up as high as fifteen, here in the tropics—sometimes for weeks at a stretch.”

  “Only fifteen?” Hitchcock gestured at the rock-strewn, snowless plain. “Why isn’t the snow—”

  “Fifteen centigrade,” Muller explained shortly. “But it just thaws out close to the ocean. The other side of these mountains, there’s plenty of snow. You’ll see.”

  The mountains bulked massively over them. The snow-sheathed slopes and bare rock cliffs reared steeply upward like a titan’s wall. For several minutes, the skimmer cruised along that wall, then swung directly toward it where a glacier oozed from a narrow valley down onto the plain.

  The glacier’s front was like a cliff, sheer and awesome, leaning outward. Berg-sized fragments, broken from it, lay in rubble at its feet. Engine snarling, the skimmer rose before the pebble-pocked wall.

  Strong, battering bursts of wind hit the craft as it cleared the edge. Its engine screamed as it forced its way forward into the cold air flowing down from the mountains. Yawning fissures and dark, rippling veins of embedded pebbles streaked past beneath them.

  Hitchcock lifted his camera again. The glacier imprinted itself on his tape. “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “The other side of the mountains,” Muller said. “Where the floppers are.”

  Hitchcock looked up at the mountains. The valley had curved. Mountains rose skyward all around them.

  “But aren’t floppers—” How he hated that silly word! “Don’t floppers live back there?”

  “Not many,” Muller said. “That section of coast is cut off from the rest, and there’s nothing to live on in winter. Mostly, they stick to the snow country.”

  “Snow country?” It sounded ominous. “How can they live?”

  “They get along,” Muller said.

  The glacier swelled upward steeply where it squeezed between two mountain shoulders. The skimmer sailed loftily over the crest—flew on into the heart of the mountains.

  “How?” Hitchcock demanded. “What do they live on?”

  ‘They take in each other’s wash,” Muller said.

  “I don’t understand,” Hitchcock said blankly.

  “They gnaw each other’s bones. Put it that way.”

  The skimmer descended from the mountains to a land of low hills smothered in snow. The sky was cloudlessly blue, and sunlight shimmered blindingly on the frozen, white wasteland. Hitchcock adjusted his camera to minimum sensitivity, to compensate for the glare.

  “There it is,” Muller said. “Flopper country.”

  Hitchcock thought of a baron showing off his domain from a castle’s wall. “Where are they?” he asked.

  Muller snorted. “Oh, they’re out there. But it’s a lot of land, and not many floppers. Our last census put it at about one for every twenty square miles. And without a body heat spotter, half the time you don’t see ‘em.” He handed Hitchcock a pair of sun goggles.

  The skimmer struck out across the rolling land. It stayed high over the hills. “The traps don’t signal,” the pilot announced. “Check ‘em anyway?”

  “Naw. Skip it,” Muller grumbled. “Just waste our time.”

  He twisted around to speak to Hitchcock. ‘Traps don’t catch much, these days,” he said. “They’re getting too smart to get caught.”

  “Oh?” Hitchcock asked, interested.

  “We use pit traps,” Muller explained. “Any other kind’d be no good in this kind of country. They caught a lot of ‘em, a couple hundred years ago. Not any more.”

  “I see,” Hitchcock said. He was almost delighted. At least the creatures weren’t completely at the mercy of these men.

  “You know what I think?” Muller confided. “I think all we ever caught was dumb ones—the smart ones knew enough not to get caught. Now the dumb ones’ve died out— there’s nothing but smart ones left. So we don’t catch ‘em. Not with traps, anyhow.”

  “But you catch them?” Hitchcock inferred.

  “Yeah. Sometimes,” Muller said. He called forward to the pilot. “Head for that place we found all the tracks last week. Maybe they’ll still be around.”

  “How?” Hitchcock asked. “How do you catch them?”

  “You’ll see,” Muller answered. He rummaged in a compartment under his feet and brought out a net. He unfolded it and laid it in a long, narrow roll on the cowling beside himself and Hitchcock, up against the cockpit’s transparent canopy. He hooked lanyards from the exposed corners to grommets inside the cockpit, just under the rim.

  “Dr. Muller,” Hitchcock said, almost pleading, “haven’t you done anything to help these poor creatures? Do you
simply let them live in this horrible country? And starve? Freeze? Die—?”

  ”Why not?” Muller wondered. “They’re just a bunch of animals.”

  “Why... why it’s your human duty,” Hitchcock protested, shuddering.

  “Look,” Muller said with a firm, inflexible patience. “We’re scientists. We’re here to study these critters—watch ‘em and see if they evolve. If we tried to help ‘em, we’d mess things up. We couldn’t tell what happened naturally and what happened because we made it happen. Anyway, they’re no worse off than if we hadn’t discovered this planet.”

  “Dr. Muller,” Hitchcock said, condemnation in his tone, “you haven’t one spark of humanity in you.”

  Muller laughed. “Good thing I don’t, or I’d be no good here,” he said. “Look, mister. These critters have it hard— they’ve got to live in this country, or they die. And if they live, it’s because they’ve adapted. And if they adapt, it’s because they’re evolving. Do you want to get in the way of that? Do you?”

  “It’s indecent!” Hitchcock sputtered. “Criminal! You’d let these poor creatures die and... and suffer without lifting a hand! Why, they have the same right to live that you do. I will see them granted that right.”

  “Go ahead,” Muller sneered. “Just don’t interfere with our work. This here’s the biggest project in the universe.”

  “Tracks,” the pilot reported.

  Hitchcock looked out. Far below, a thin trail threaded across the crest of a low hill and down a steep slope. The skimmer paused and settled groundwards. The trail became the dragging tracks of a clumsy, struggling animal—the flattish footprints close-spaced and scuffed, as if the feet had not been lifted clear of the snow.

  “It’s a flopper, all right,” Muller decided. “Cruise around —let’s see if there’s more.”

  The pilot kept them low. They followed the low ridge and crossed several more trails, all of them headed in the same direction. “Looks like a hunting pack to me,” the pilot judged.

  “That’s what it is,” Muller confirmed. And to Hitchcock, “They just started hunting like this about forty years ago. Most of ‘em still hunt by themselves, but every once in a while we find signs of ‘em working together—like this.”

  Hitchcock let his camera scan the pattern of tracks in the snow. “Is it significant?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Muller said. “They’re not gregarious critters. Like I said, most of ‘em hunt by themselves. This is the first sign we’ve had of ‘em getting together—they’re developing a social sense.”

  “Civilization?” Hitchcock wondered, awed.

  “It’s the start of it,” Muller said. “Right here.”

  The pilot had turned the skimmer to follow the hunting pack. Muller pointed down at one of the trails in the snow. “That’s the tracks of the thing they’re after.”

  It looked very much like the other trails—slightly messier, with the footprints overlapping in a complicated pattern. Hitchcock gave his camera a long, careful look while the skimmer swept up the slope of the low hill and down the other side into the deep valley.

  “It’s just another sign they’re turning smart,” Muller said. ‘Them hunting in packs, I mean. That’s evolution working. It takes brains to stay alive in a country like this.”

  “Do you mean to tell me,” Hitchcock wondered, “that this is why you refuse to help them—so you can watch their desperate struggles? To... satisfy your own curiosity?”

  “Sure,” Muller said. He sounded very satisfied with himself. “Can you think of a better reason? Besides, we may have to fight ‘em some day. It’ll be a good idea to know all we can about ‘em.”

  “But what possible reason could we have for fighting these... these pitiful creatures?” Hitchcock protested.

  “If they get smarter than we are,” Muller told him, “we better fight ‘em. And I’ve got evidence they’re going to.”

  That seemed to settle that. Hitchcock shuddered with horror. For the first time, he could understand Muller’s attitude. It troubled him greatly, and he knew it was wrong. He was sure it was wrong. It had to be!

  But he, too, was afraid.

  * * * *

  The quarry’s trail turned to follow the valley. The pilot banked the skimmer sharply to turn after it. “Those tracks look new,” he observed.

  “A couple of hours or less,” Muller agreed. The skimmer rocketed down the valley. Hitchcock leaned forward, peering ahead. He held his camera ready to use.

  “Are they very far ahead?” he asked.

  “Hard to tell,” Muller answered. “They can move pretty fast when they want to.” He pointed to a set of tracks that paralleled the tracks of the quarry. “That boy was using three legs—sort of like an ape when it’s running. They do that when they’re in a hurry—or else all four.”

  “They run like animals?” Hitchcock demanded. He had a vision of the bumbling, shambling creatures bounding along on all four legs like beasts. The thought was appalling.

  The skimmer skidded around the curve of a high, moundlike hill. And there they were. Still far ahead and indistinct in the sun-glare, they were nevertheless unmistakable. Floppers—eight or ten of them.

  “Pull back,” Muller snapped.

  The skimmer bucked and shuddered as the pilot slammed it to a stop against the windblast of its fans. Quickly, they slipped back around the curve of the hill.

  “Now you’ll see how we do it,” Muller told Hitchcock. “Better get buttoned up. It’s cold out there.” He helped Hitchcock with the unfamiliar clasps of his wind mask, and made sure his parka was zipped tight.

  Then he got busy in his own part of the cockpit. Hitchcock leaned forward to see. When he had his own wind mask in place, and his parka was tight, Muller opened the canopy on the side where the net lay rolled on the cowling. A blast of cold air burst into the cockpit. Hitchcock felt it even through his thick clothes. It leaked in through his mask and around the brow ridge of his goggles. Painfully, it invaded his nose as he breathed.

  Muller pointed to the grommet near Hitchcock’s knee, where the net was secured. “Is it tied down good?” he asked. His mask muffled his voice. Hitchcock glanced down negligently and nodded.

  Not that he cared if it was tied down properly or not. It was revolting merely to think of using a net to capture a flopper. Such things were unfair—unsportsmanlike.

  But Muller accepted the answer. “Let’s go!” he barked.

  The pilot leaned forward, pushing the control stick all the way front. The skimmer tilted forward. The engine surged.

  They skittered around the curve of the hill, then straightened out and drove. Hitchcock felt the icy wind smash against him. Intense cold leaked through his parka’s fastenings. The wind thundered around him. He raised his camera and focused it on the place far ahead where the floppers were gathered. The skimmer hurtled forward like a boat on the crest of a wave.

  Muller held a set of binoculars up against his goggles, studying the scene ahead. “They got the thing surrounded,” he announced. “One of ‘em’s got a—” He stopped. “Get that one!” he rapped out. “The first one we come to. He’s the one we want!”

  Hitchcock could make them out, now. A line of Floppers was driving a sinuous, short-legged beast toward another flopper. That flopper was standing still, its back to the skimmer. It held something over its head with both of its flipperlike paws. The beast was gliding toward it like a snake.

  “That’s the one we want!” Muller yelled into the wind.

  Muller pushed the rolled net over the skimmer’s side. It unrolled and flapped sluggishly in the wind. The skimmer rocked.

  They were very close, now, and traveling fast. A plume of wind-lifted snow blew up behind them. Hitchcock held his camera fixed on the flopper. The scene exploded into largeness before them.

  At the last moment, the pilot spun the skimmer broadside, setting the net to scoop up the flopper. At that instant, Hitchcock reached down and wrenched the net’s anchor cord fr
om the grommet near his knee.

  Because he was doing that, his camera did not record what followed. The net, robbed of half its support, bunched into a bundle which clubbed the flopper from behind and tumbled it into the snow. A large, ragged, heart-shaped rock flew from its paws.

  The skimmer hurtled onward from its own momentum. The pilot fought to slow it down. Hitchcock raised his camera again.

  He got what happened next on the tape—the catlike pounce of the beast, the desperate struggling of the flopper, and the sudden gush of turquoise blood on the white snow.

  “You see?” Hitchcock cried triumphantly “You see? That’s how you make them live! You murderers!”