Lost and Found (11 page)

The latter were oblivious to the stares and attention of their captives. Their concern was only for the biped. When its fellow oxygen breathers noticed where the Vilenjji were taking it, saw outside which enclosure they stopped, there was what amounted to a collective moan of resignation. When they tossed the human inside, there were multivoiced expressions of commiseration. Gradually, in twos and threes and groups, they returned to their prior conversations and activities. There was nothing they could do for the biped. There was nothing anyone could do. Not now.

Ducking behind a tree, George waited until the Vilenjji had taken their leave, crossing back over the grand enclosure with their long, slow strides to the exit area on the far side that they always employed for such purposes. Alone, he crept tentatively out from behind the misshapen blue-green growth to stealthily approach the smaller enclosed space where his friend had been dumped. As he feared, the charged barrier that was usually operating there had been reactivated after Walker had been tossed within. Equally as frustrating, it had been opaqued. These two actions would prevent anyone, such as himself, from entering or observing anything taking place on the other side. More critically it would prevent anyone, like Marcus Walker, from exiting. As did many of his fellow captives, George knew what lived, what lay, behind that charged barrier. He had mentioned it to Walker only once before, and then obliquely. If Walker was lucky, he wouldn’t remember.

Sitting back on his haunches, the dog threw back his head and began, unashamedly, to howl.

7

As control slowly returned to his muscles and his nerves stopped twanging like violins in a Mahler scherzo, Walker rose to his feet. The Vilenjji had vanished. Where the vista of the grand enclosure ought to have been there now shimmered a pleasant panorama of rolling yellow-green hills covered with ranks of what at first glance appeared to be gigantic cacti, but which on closer inspection revealed themselves to be some sort of strange, dark blue-green, nearly branchless trees. A stream flowed close by his feet. Kneeling, he scooped some up in a cupped hand and tasted of it without swallowing. His expression furrowed. It was water, all right, but so heavily mineralized as to be almost too bitter to swallow. He resolved not to drink from the stream unless he was given no options. Not all trace minerals, he knew, were good for human consumption, and his palate was not sophisticated enough to immediately distinguish between, say, selenium and arsenic.

Turning, he brushed dirt from his pants. To left and right, undulating hills rolled off into false distances. Directly in front of him was another hillside, higher than anything he had seen in the grand enclosure. It was topped by a webwork of blue-green roots that resembled fishermen’s nets, a few impenetrably dense bushes from which periodically erupted dark orange bubbles, and some exposed rocks. Slightly to his right, a small portion of the always-present ship corridor was visible. The sky overhead was more yellowish than that of home and his own enclosure, and dominated by a high, thin cloud cover.

It took only a few moments to test the depth of the illusory landscapes. All were clever projections, rich with false perspective, that were in reality manifestations located behind the usual restraining field. He could not get out of the screened-off area into which he had been dumped. Equally clearly, no one could get in. George would have tried by now, Walker knew. Despite the occasional disdain that the dog showed toward his human companion, he and George had become inseparable friends.

What was the point of transferring him to a different environment? he wondered as he explored his new surroundings. Certainly it was less accommodating than his transmigrated piece of Sierra. Here he would have no access to his tent or to his few personal possessions, the latter by now having assumed an importance out of all proportion to their actual functions.

Punishment of some kind. It had to be, he decided. A reprimand for what he had done, throwing the dirt and grit into the unsuspecting Vilenjji’s face. Thinking back on the series of events that had led to him being placed in this new ecosystem, replaying them in his mind, he was not in the least regretful. Although slightly deranged at the time, he had struck a small blow for himself and every other captive. He had managed to incapacitate a Vilenjji, however temporarily. He had given back a tiny fraction of the misery and discomfort with which they had burdened him. More than that, he told himself with growing satisfaction, he had succeeded in frightening their supposedly all-powerful captors when he had nearly managed to get hold of one of their weapons. His actions had obliged five of them to alter their daily routine just to deal with him. With one lone, trapped, defiant human.

Yes, he felt good about it as he sat down on a low hillock covered with cushioning ground cover and considered his new surroundings. At least, he did until the hillock moved.

It did not have to shuck him off because he was already withdrawing as fast as he could while it straightened. Slowly, he backed away until he felt the familiar tingle of a restraining field against his spine. He could retreat no farther in the direction he had chosen. Eyes wide, muscles tense, he watched as the hillock shook itself sleepily and turned toward him.

What he had taken for soft ground cover was in fact fur; more yellow than green, more bristle than soft. Something over nine feet tall, the blond monster had bulging, slant-pupiled eyes that emerged from both sides of its upper body on the end of thick, muscular stalks. Protruding from the center of the upper torso, a similar stalk terminated in a single fluttering, flexing nostril. Below this a vertical slit ran downward for about a yard. When it parted, like a closet opening, Walker could see that both sides of the interior were lined with startlingly white triangular teeth the size of playing cards. The teeth were precisely offset so that when closed, the vertical jaws would interlock seamlessly. There was no neck, and because of the length and position of the mouth, it was difficult to say that there was anything resembling a head. The body was one hulking, unified mass of muscle.

From within the thick mat of dirty yellow-green quills four cablelike tentacles emerged, two from each side of the barrel-like torso, below the equally long eyestalks. Four more emerged from the underside to support a body that looked as if it weighed close to a ton. The beartrap-like jaws flexed, teeth locking and unlocking with raspy clicks, like ceramic tiles being tapped against one another.

“Mmmrrrgghhh!”
the monster rumbled.

As always, Walker’s efficient implanted translator did its work automatically. The bellow was speedily interpreted and replayed to Walker as “Mmmrrrgghhh!”

This was not encouraging.

Searching frantically for a place to hide and espying none, Walker recalled what George had told him about the Vilenjji acquiring captives of wildly varying degrees of intelligence. Staring silently at the specter that had risen up before him, he had no doubts as to which particular species was a likely candidate for occupying the lower end of the sentience scale. Mistaking it for a comfortable resting place, he had disturbed its sleep, or hibernation, or beauty rest, or whatever. Thus far, it had not reacted to his presence in anything that could be construed as a positive manner.

No doubt the Vilenjji were watching every minute of it. Another of their experiments in placing representatives of two highly diverse species in the same environment in order to be able to observe the consequences of their interaction. Walker wondered if the alien whose eyes had been on the receiving end of the flung double-handful of dirt and grit was among those looking on, and if so, if it was particularly looking forward to the imminent confrontation between human and a very large Something Else. Whatever this daunting creature was, he realized, it was not the missing Tripodan. George’s physical description of the latter was proof enough of that.

Would they go so far as to allow one specimen to kill another without intervening when they had the chance to prevent it? Wasn’t he equally as valuable on the open market as this thing? For the first time in his life, Walker wished he had a way to loudly trumpet his novelty value.

How intelligent was it? It wore no attire, displayed no artificial covering or adornment of any kind. That suggested an animal, plain and simple. But not all species suffered from the need to clothe themselves. Would one already covered in thick, albeit short, bristles need to do so? Had in capturing this impressive specimen the Vilenjji picked up an alien nudist?

He was speculating wildly. Trapped in the confines of the isolated ecosystem, it was about the only defense he possessed. Searching for a possible vulnerable spot on his potential adversary, he focused on the protruding eyes. As he did so, both suddenly were drawn in until they were peering out at him from the edge of the creature’s muscular flanks. The retraction rendered them far less vulnerable to a kick or punch. In contrast, any one of the four massive tentacles protruding from the blocky torso looked thick and strong enough to pull his own arms out of their sockets. Hell, all the alien had to do to finish him off was fall on top of him.

The first time he tried to say something, the words caught in his throat. A wonderful impetus was supplied by the creature itself when, flavescent bristles standing noticeably on end, it took a menacing four-tentacled step toward him.

“Hel—hello,” he gargled. Intended to be forceful but not challenging, the stuttered salutation emerged as a frightened croak.

Whether the greeting was understood, or whether the creature decided the sound by itself was sufficient, it halted. In what was possibly the equivalent of a suspicious human raising narrowed eyelids, the two basketball-size eyes slowly extended to left and right on their muscular stalks. Surely, Walker thought anxiously, the gargantuan beast was not afraid of
him.
It certainly did not act fearful. Suspicious, perhaps. If he was lucky and careful in his reactions, he would do nothing to upset it.

They stood like that, man and monster, regarding each other for long moments. Finally the alien must have realized that the human presented no threat. Or maybe it grew bored. Or decided that the new thing that had been inserted into its realm was not good to eat. Or a combination thereof. For whatever reason, it turned with surprising grace on its walking tentacles and returned to the resting place where Walker had mistaken it for a portion of hill. Despite his fear, observing its movements aroused in the human a degree of admiration. Never in his life had he seen anything so big—not a rhino, not an elephant—move so gracefully. It was a thing of beauty to behold. Or would have been, had he not been scared to death that those self-same movements might at any moment be again directed toward him.

Only when he was certain that the creature had once more entered into a state of repose did Walker edge his way toward the artificial panorama that separated him from the grand enclosure. His heart sank when he discovered that the restraining field remained in place. He was trapped in here with this thing. For how long, only his captors knew. Were they waiting to see how long he could survive in what at best was the temperamental presence of his gigantic new roommate? The prospect only intensified the hatred he felt for his captors. How, he wondered, did this creature feel about the Vilenjji? Did it possess enough awareness, sufficient cognizance, to experience such complex emotions? What would it do when it awoke of its own accord, instead of being startled to wakefulness by an unexpected intrusion? Would it be more amenable to the uninvited such as himself? Or would it awaken hungry? Walker felt like dinner, in both senses of the word.

Nightfall tended to arrive more swiftly in the new enclosure while darkness lingered longer, indicating a different night-day cycle than that of Earth. While the enclosure’s denizen slept through it all, Walker found himself being awakened by the slightest sound. Paradoxical that he should be disturbed by the activity of some small alien arthropod or the falling of a root section when the tossings and turnings of the resident he truly feared generated far more disturbance. But when he was asleep, his nerves were unable to distinguish between sounds, and so woke him at the slightest noise. Normally he would have relied on George, who was a naturally much lighter sleeper, to keep watch for him while he rested. But George wasn’t here.

Faux morn brought with it a waking chill that found him shivering in his clothing. No tent, no sleeping bag, had been transferred from his own enclosure to enhance his comfort. Given the insult and hurt he had perpetrated on the Vilenjji, he supposed he ought to be grateful that they hadn’t killed him outright.

Rising, he advanced experimentally toward the resting place of the enclosure’s dominant life-form. Expecting to find it still slumbering, he was surprised to see it squatting down before a flat piece of terrain from which blossomed pitcherlike growths. As Walker looked on, a perfect circle of the flora sank into the ground, to reappear moments later laden with a ceramic cistern full of water and the largest food bricks he had yet seen. There were none of the especially tasty cubes that he and George had come to prize so highly. Only several varieties of food, and the water. He thought he recognized the general appearance of at least one type of brick, though that did not mean he could identify its specific components.

Overnight, the gnawing in his stomach had metamorphosed into a throbbing insistence. He had to eat
something,
if only to keep his strength up in case he had to run. Given a choice between Vilenjji food bricks and alien greensward, he opted for the former. The problem lay in obtaining one.

Looking around, he searched his immediate surroundings until he found a large piece of wood that was banded like a zebra. Though hollow, the broken branch was still sturdy and intact. It was a poor weapon, but better a poor one than none, he decided as he retraced his steps.

Resting the makeshift club on his right shoulder while gripping it firmly with one hand, he made his approach from the side of the food lift directly opposite the monster, advancing one deliberate but unthreatening step at a time. He had covered half the distance between his starting point and the place where the being squatted when it finally took notice of his approach. Contracted against the side of the massive body while the creature ate, both eyestalks now extended to half their length while the narrow black pupils expanded slightly. It was watching him.

It was also feeding an entire food brick into its vertically aligned jaws. Interlocking teeth, some the size of Walker’s open palm, sliced through the dense, compacted loaf of nourishment as if it were made of butter. If his digestive system could tolerate its chemistry, one such brick, Walker suspected, would easily feed him for a week.

He continued his slow, steady approach. Slitted ebony pupils contracted within bulging eyeballs. A low rumbling sound emerged from somewhere deep within the creature. It sounded like the start-up of a piece of heavy machinery in need of lubrication. The food was very close now. Bending forward slightly, his gaze flicking rapidly between bricks and beast, Walker reached for the nearest piece of food.

Two thick tentacles lashed out at him. The speed of the hulking creature’s reaction caught Walker off guard. Tentacle tips cracked like whips only inches from his extended hand. Instantly, he drew it back. A check showed that all five fingers were intact. As a warning, the gesture was unmistakable. Next time, he worried, those flailing twin limbs might break his wrist. Or snap his hand off at the joint. Uncertain what to do next, he hesitated, wondering at the same time if any Vilenjji were studying the confrontation. Or if they cared.