Flight Leftenant Qual knew some of it; city-bred though he was, he’d seen desert wildlife both during his military training and in zoos back home. By default, he was their native guide. But even he admitted that much of it was new to him. “If you espy anything you don’t comprehend, make your path distant from it,” he said cheerfully. The others nodded soberly and did as he said.
This policy was not easy to follow since (following the practice of desert experts everywhere) they planned to travel at night when the heat was least oppressive and when they were least likely to be picked out by anyone watching. Because the indigenous animals were themselves nocturnal in their habits, chance encounters were more frequent than the legionnaires would have liked. Every now and then something close by would make an unexpected noise, and one of the off-worlders was likely to jump. Sometimes Qual told them the names of the creatures: There was a loud-voiced, squatty thing he called a grambler, a little burrowing creature called a western flurn, and a furtive thing with eyes that shone brightly in their Legion-issue night vision goggles, which Qual’s translator solemnly informed them was a spotted sloon.
Most of these were no trouble, but there was a lizardlike thing with half-inch-long teeth that could leap high off the ground to attack whatever had disturbed it. That little pest had them flinching at the least sign of motion in their pathway, with vigorous cursing in three languages and several dialects. The hopper-biter blended invisibly into the low brush. Even with the night vision goggles, it was hard to spot it in time to avoid a nasty bite. After a couple of near misses, the team took to detouring around any patch of vegetation-a tactic which, the farther they got into the desert, cost them more and more time.