IN NATURA: a science fiction novel (ARZAT SERIES Book 2) (10 page)

CHAPTER 14

FOOTPRINT

The two Arzats and their human friends were slowly picking their way down the side of the hilltop where they had emerged from the ARC. Tom had spotted a green area far down below that he thought might indicate a fresh water source. Both Mot and Ara had confirmed it with their noses. It was some sort of canyon, he suspected. They were headed in that direction. The giant herd was still more than a mile away on the opposite side. As the sun rose higher in the sky, the day was becoming even more beautiful.

  “How is it possible, Alex?” Tom asked.

  “I have no idea,” she answered. Alex was trying to watch where she was walking while trying to keep the herd of buffalo in sight at the same time, amazed by their presence and still wondering if she was imagining things.

  She was ecstatic about the condition they had found the world in so far and was becoming more and more convinced with every step she took that the second asteroid had to have missed. Either that, or the date indicators on the cryogenic units had somehow failed, and they had slept much longer than eight thousand years. Even if that were the case, Alex knew it would have taken several hundred thousand years for the world to recover to the extent that they were all now witnessing.

  “I mean, we all saw the first asteroid hit, and we know the carbon dioxide levels went to the moon, at least for a time, right?” she said aloud, but speaking more to herself than the others. “I thought we might be stuck foraging or farming, and maybe, if we were lucky, fishing. Hell, I don’t know what I thought, but I sure didn’t expect to see much in the way of mammals. Maybe some reptiles.”

  “I am very happy we will not have to fish, Alex,” Mot said, still eyeballing the large dark beasts on the far horizon. He flicked his tongue and got a good whiff of them and noted the direction of the breeze. They were definitely downwind of the creatures, an excellent position to begin a hunt from.

  “Are those animals good to eat, Tom Pilot? They smell like they are good to eat.”

  “Yes, Mot, they are
very
good to eat,” Tom said. “But catching and killing one might not be so easy my friend, even for a great Arzat Hunter like you. They are huge and very fast.”

  “You will have to have a plan,” Alex added.

  Tom was still lamenting the fact that they had lost most of their gear in the ARC stair collapse, especially the rifles—more so, now that they had discovered large game. Even a high caliber pistol might have made things a bit easier, but even those were long gone, lost in the stairwell with the other equipment. And, he knew, there was no chance of getting back into the ARC for more of it. At least not in this century, whatever century it actually was.

  Our best bet is to eventually head for Colorado and see if there is still a surviving ARC there,
he thought.
Then, if that fails, there is always Kansas.
Tom started to wonder how long it might take the four of them to complete such a journey on foot. Then, he remembered Mot’s insatiable appetite. At the moment, they needed to eat.

  He suddenly found himself trying to imagine how they could possibly kill a buffalo with their bare hands. Tom knew the Arzats were quick and several times stronger than a man, but buffalo were big and mean and had been known to work together to protect themselves from predators. At least, that had been the case in the world they had come from.

  “Alex is right, Mot. We will definitely need a plan.”

  Mot was not convinced that bringing down one of the beasts, however large and fast they might be, would present much of a problem. In the world he had originally come from, even very large prey were often accompanied by their offspring, which were usually much easier to cull out and kill—and some of those offspring were much larger and much more dangerous than these smaller adult beasts appeared to be.

  I will have to fashion a proper hunting stick at the first opportunity,
he thought, sniffing the air and trying to get a sense of what the animals would taste like.

  “Perhaps, Tom, you will allow me to use your long blade?” Mot asked.

  “Yes, Mot,” Tom said, laughing. “I most certainly will. Let’s see if we can find that water source first, and then we will work on strategy, okay?”

  “Thank you, Tom, son of Richard.”

  Tom’s mind had also been racing to come up with at least a short-term survival plan. Now that they had spotted the buffalo, two of his greatest concerns had been addressed—that of food and clothing. Provided, of course, they could take one of the enormous beasts down.

  His next biggest worry was that they had no first aid supplies or medicine whatsoever.
If one of us were to become sick or get injured, there were going to be serious problems.
And,
he remembered,
Alex is pregnant.
He didn’t even want to imagine how that would go without medical assistance.
First things first,
he reminded himself, switching his thoughts back to the buffalo.

  “Tom, can you believe the size of these aspens?” Alex asked, as they passed under a grove of them growing on the hillside.

  Tom pulled himself back into the present and looked up. “No kidding! I have never seen even
one
that big before, let alone a virtual forest of them!”

  “That thing must be three hundred feet if it’s an inch,” Alex said, pointing at one of them. Its trunk was massive.

  “I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have people chopping them down all the time.”

  No shit,
Alex thought, still looking up in awe.

  When they eventually reached the bottom of the hill, they began to hear the sound of water. The foursome rounded an outcropping of large boulders and spotted a pristine channel of it rushing over the smooth rocks of a wide creek bed. Farther down, the stream slowed and pooled.

  Tom judged that it must be early or late spring, as the level of the stream was far from the high water mark.
Early would be better,
he mused,
more time to prepare for winter.

  They eventually found a clearing at the edge of the stream, and Alex reached in with both hands.

  “Hold on a second, Alex.”

  “What for Tom? Look, it is perfect,” she said, smiling while holding up a handful. “The water is running fast. This should be good to drink, right?”

  “Just let Mot give it a good sniff first before you go diving in, would ya?”

  Tom was about to remind Alex of their poor situation regarding supplies and medicine, then thought better of it. She knew as well as he what the risks were. She had picked the perfect spot to sample it, a part of the stream where the water ran swiftly over the rocks. Still, there was a chance, with so much wildlife around, that the water could be tainted.

  “Ara’s sense of smell is much keener than mine, Tom Pilot,” Mot said, proudly deferring to his mate.

  Ara bent to the water and flicked her tongue. Then she scooped a handful and put it to her nose. She tapped one of the long fingers from her free hand into it and tasted a small amount.

  She had sensed Tom’s concern regarding medicines, and while she was well schooled in the way of Arzat cures, she had no idea of those for humans. She wanted to be sure she made no mistake. She carefully considered her sample before she deemed it worthy of drink.

  “Yes,” she finally said, “the water seems fine.”

  Alex looked at Tom and winked. “Okay
now,
Mr. Cautious?”

  “Of course, Alex,” Tom replied, edging over to help himself to some of the water as well. It was crisp and clean and cold, some of the best water he had ever had. That didn’t mean it wasn’t loaded with some kind of nasty bacteria, but he would just have to depend on the Arzat’s judgment.

  The four of them drank until their thirsts were quenched. Then all of them sat back and looked around. The area they were in was beautiful. A small ravine of black rock outcroppings had been cut into the hills around them. Twenty paces or so from the streambed rested a large flat area of sand and round river rocks that were still several feet above the current water level.

  The ravine made it highly unlikely that the buffalo would come through this way if they got thirsty,
Tom thought.
They would find an easier access somewhere further up or down the water’s course. This looks like a perfect place to spend the night—perhaps many nights.

  “Now even I’m hungry,” Alex said, wiping her mouth with the side of her hand. “And hot.”

  The sun was high enough to have found its way into the shallow valley and the day was warming. Alex peeled off her coat and watched as the Arzats quickly stripped down to their loincloths. She was amazed to find that somehow they had managed to sneak their old reptilian skins on under the clothing they had worn into the cryogenic beds. They seemed happy to have an excuse to remove their cumbersome garments.

  “We didn’t know what to wear,” Ara said, reading Alex’s mind since she had not blocked the thought.

  Alex laughed. “It’s okay, Ara. I just thought you had thrown those out.”

  “Your human skins are fine,” Ara said, embarrassed, “but now I am glad we kept our own. They are very . . . long lasting?”

  “Well, that’s putting it mildly,” Alex said, laughing again.

  The reptilian hides the Arzats were wearing had survived not only Alex’s cryogenic process but also the sixty-five-million-year sleep the Arzats had originally endured. Even Alex and Tom’s clothes had survived cryo—at least until Alex had ripped off her blouse trying to maintain the fire. She could make no sense of it. Something in the cryo-protectant formula must have preserved them. The additional clothing that had been stored in the hermetic safes was easier to explain, as the clothing was made of polyester and had been placed in an airless environment.

  “Perhaps we should go in search of dinner, Tom?” Mot said suggestively. He could smell the creatures just over the hill.

  Tom glanced at the sky. He knew that if they were really going to go after the buffalo, they had better do it soon. There was no telling when the herd would move on and the day wasn’t getting any younger. Under normal circumstances, he would never have even thought of trying to bring down one of the buffalo without a rifle or at least a good bow and arrow.

  Wow,
he suddenly thought,
that is the long-term answer! A bow!
He filed that thought away in the back of his mind. In the meantime, he had another secret weapon—the Arzats! He knew from the stories Mot had told him that the male Arzats had hunted animals far more dangerous than buffalo. Some of the Arzat prey had apparently even consisted of large carnivores—large carnivorous dinosaurs!

  He wasn’t so sure about Ara’s skills as a hunter, but he had a feeling that they were soon going to find out. Just one bison calf would be enough to feed them for days while they figured out a long-range plan for survival. Anyway, hunting buffalo sounded much better than the idea of spending the afternoon foraging around for a rabbit or God knows whatever else had survived the catastrophe.

  “Ara, are you up for a hunt?” Tom carefully asked. He was going to need her speed and agility to even have a chance.

  Ara looked to Mot as if she were surprised by the question. “Female Arzats are not normally allowed to hunt, Tom, son of Richard.” She looked to her mate. Obviously, the decision was his to make.

  “Never in our clan’s history has a female been allowed on a hunt,” Mot quickly replied. “It would be considered an ‘atrocity’ in our culture to permit such a thing, Tom.”

  Mot had to think. What would his father have recommended in this situation? For that matter, what would his mother have said? If he allowed Ara to hunt, he would be breaking one of his clan’s oldest laws. As young as he was, he suddenly realized the importance of this new world he and his mate had become a part of. By default, he was essentially now the clan’s one and only Elder! It was a daunting revelation.

  He looked at Ara and then back at the Pilot. Obviously, Tom had no problem with the idea since he had suggested it, so why not? “I think . . . I think yes, Ara. You should hunt with us.”

  “I think that is most wise, Mot, son of Url,” Ara replied.

  Tom looked to Alex, then back at Mot and Ara. The love between the two Arzats was obvious but surprising. They were so . . . well . . . stoic otherwise. Tom was suddenly worried about Ara. If something should happen to her, he realized he might have to face the wrath of a 350-pound Arzat named Mot. But, he also knew they would need her to have any real chance at actually bringing down a buffalo.

  “Do not worry about me, Tom Pilot,” Ara said, reading his mind and blocking her comments from Alex and her mate. “Mot is a highly skilled hunter, and I can protect myself. I worry much more about you and Alex. We will certainly need your knowledge to succeed, but perhaps Alex should stay while we hunt.” Ara knew she was treading delicate water. She didn’t want to insult Alex, but she was very concerned for her safety.

  “That is not a bad idea, Ara,” Tom said, turning toward Alex. “What do you think about staying here and setting up camp, Alex?”