IX
A WAIL CAME DOWN AGAINST THE WIND, AND THEY TURNED TO STARE upriver. Several hundred yards away, an animal tall as an elephant had appeared from around a hill. Now it stood between two large boulders, the head on the end of its long neck much like that of a camel’s with antlers. Its eyes were enormous and its teeth long and sharp, a carnivore’s. Its body was red-brown and furry and sloped sharply back from the shoulders. The legs were thin as a giraffe’s, despite the heavy body. They ended in great spreading dark-blue cups. On seeing the cup-feet, Wolff guessed their function. They looked too much like suckers or vacuum pads, which would be one of the few means to enable an animal to walk across this smooth surface. “Stand still,” he said to the others. “We can’t run; if we could, there’d be no place to go.”
The beast snorted and slowly advanced towards them. It swiveled its neck back and forth, turning its head now and then to look behind it. The right front foot and left rear foot raised in unison, the cups giving a plopping noise. These came down to give it a hold in its forward progress. Then the left front foot and the right rear one raised, and so it came towards them. When it was fifty yards from them, it stopped and raised its head. It gave a cry that was half-bray and half-banshee wail. It lowered its neck until the jaw was on the ground and then scraped the jaw against the ground. The head slid back and forth on the pale surface.
Wolff thought that this motion could be the equivalent of the pawing of dirt of a Terrestrial bull before it charged. He put his beamer on half-power and waited. Suddenly, the creature raised its head as high as it would go, screamed-much like a wounded rabbit-and galloped at them. It was necessarily a slow gallop, since the suction cups did not come off easily. To the humans, it seemed too swift.
Wolff could afford to wait to determine if the beast were bluffing. At twenty yards, he placed the end of the beam at the juncture of neck and chest. Smoke curled up from the red-brown fur, which blackened. The animal screamed again but did not stop its charge. Wolff continued to hold the beam as steadily as he could. Then, seeing that its impetus might carry it to the point where its fanged head could seize them, he switched to full-power.
The beast gave a last scream; its long thin legs crumpled; its body came down on them. The cups stuck to the ground, the legs cracking beneath the weight, the body settling slowly. The neck went limp and the head lolled, the red-purple tongue sticking out, the hazel eyes glassy.
There was silence, broken by Vala’s laugh. “There’s our dinner and breakfast and dinner again, already cooked for us.”
“If it’s edible,” Wolff said. He watched while Vala and Theotormon, knife handled by one foot, stripped off the hide and cut out half-burnt steaks. Theotormon refused to test the meat. Wolff shuffled forward very carefully, but even so his feet went out from under him. Vala and Theotormon, who had gotten to the beast without slipping, laughed. Wolff arose and continued his journey. He said, “If no one else dares, I’ll try the meat. We can’t stand around debating whether it’s safe or not.”
Vala said, “I’m not afraid of it, just disgusted. It has such a rank odor.” She bit into it, chewed with distaste, and swallowed. Wolff decided that there was no use his testing it now. With the others, he waited. When a half-hour passed, and Vala showed no ill effects, he started to eat it. The others shuffled or crawled to the carcass and also ate. There was not too much they could stomach, since most of the meat was charred, leaving only a narrow area where the heat had cooked or half-cooked the flesh.
Wolff borrowed Theotormon’s knife and cut out other steaks. Reluctantly, because he wished to conserve the power of the beamer, he cooked the steaks. Then they each took an armful and began to march down the river. Wolff lingered for a while, considering the possibility of severing the suction-pads and using them for his locomotion. He gave up the idea after feeling the thickness of the bones of the legs and the toughness of bone and cartilage at juncture of pad and leg. Vala’s sword might do the job, but its edge would be too blunted for use afterward.