“I see one, flank damaged,” said Tardma, peering over the port side. “Recent attack!”
Varian sighted in on Tardma’s beast and suppressed a shudder. She saw the bloodied mess of flank and wondered at the stoicism of the injured beast, chomping away at tree leaves. Hunger transcending pain, she thought. That’s the dominant quest on this planet, the ease of hunger.
“There is another one. An older wound,” Paskutti said, touching Varian’s shoulder to direct her attention.
The wound on the second beast was scabbed over, but when she intensified the magnification she could see the squirming life that was parasitic to the wound. Occasionally the herbivore interrupted its feeding to gnaw at its flank, and masses of the parasites were dropping off, their hold on the raw flesh loosened.
Slowly moving and staying down-wind of the herd, they made their survey. With few exceptions. the herbivores all displayed the gruesome flank gouges. And the exceptions were the young, the smaller specimens.
“They can run faster?” asked Tardma.
“Not juicy enough, more likely,” replied Varian.
“Protected by the adults?” asked Paskutti. “You remember that the smallest ones ran in the centre of the herd when we first encountered this species.”
“I’d still like to know why …”
“We may find out now.” said Paskutti, pointing below.
At the furthest edge of the rain forest, one of the herbivores had stopped eating and had stretched itself up on its hindlegs, its crested head pointing steadily north. It dropped suddenly, wheeling, emitting a snorting kind of whistle as it began to run due south. Another beast, not alarmed by the departure of the first, seemed to catch the same scent. It too, whistled, dropped to all fours and began to trundle south. One by one, independently, the herbivores moved away, the smaller ones following the elders, and gradually overtaking them. The whistles grew more noisy, frightened.
“We wait?” asked Tardma, her blunt fingers twitching on the controls.
“Yes, we wait,” said Varian, uncomfortably aware of the suppressed eagerness in Tardma’s manner.
They didn’t have long to wait. They heard the crashing approach some seconds before seeing it, a pacing creature, head low, short forepaws extended as it ran, its thick heavy tail counterbalancing the heavy body. The big jawed mouth was open, saliva foaming through but not obscuring the rows of spikey teeth. As it ran past the hovering sled, Varian saw its eyes, the hungry little eyes, the vicious eyes of the predator.
“Are we following?” asked Tardma, her voice curiously breathy.
“Yes.”
“To stop the ecological balance?” asked Puskutti.
“Balance? What that creature does is not balance, That’s not killing for need: that’s maiming for pleasure.”
Varian felt herself inwardly shaking with the force of her words.
She ought not to get so upset.
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” said Paskutti and started the drive, to follow the predator.
Though it was not always in the scope, its course was easily followed by the broken or shaking trees, the sudden flurries of avian life forms or the startled scampering of small ground creatures. Its speed was considerably more than the lumbering herbivores and it was only a matter of time before it overcame the distance between them. If Varian found herself responding to the chase stimulus with quickened breath, dry throat and internal quivering, she was astounded by the metamorphosic of the heavy-worlders. For the first time since she had worked with them, they were displaying emotion: their faces contorted with an excitement, a lust, an avidity that had nothing to do with civilized reactions.
Varian was appalled and had she been at the controls instead of Paskutti, she would have veered away from the finale of this chase. That, in itself, would have been an act to undermine her authority over the heavy-worlders. They were tolerant of light gravity physical limitations, but they would have been contemptuous of moral cowardice. She had, after all, Varian realized, organized this expedition to discover how dangerous the predator was to the herbivores and to secondary camps. She couldn’t turn aside because of squeamishness. And she didn’t understand her own reactions. She’d seen more hideous forms of death, worse battles of animal against animal.
The predator had caught up with the main herd. It singled out one beast, pursuing the terrified animal into a cul-de-sac caused by fallen trees. Frantic, the herbivore tried to climb the trunks but it had ineffectual forefeet for such exercise and too much bulk for the logs to sustain. Bleating and whistling, it slid into its predator’s grasp. With one mighty blow of a hindleg, the carnivore downed the fright-paralyzed herbivore. The predator measured a distance on the quivering flank; its front paws, far smaller than the massive hindlegs, were almost obscene in this gesture. The herbivore screamed as the predator’s teeth sank into the flank and ripped off a hideous mouthful. Varian wanted to retch.