Mirabile (34 page)

I shrugged. “I don’t need a live sample and a dead husband. I won’t quibble when it comes to something that seems to have a taste for attacking humans.”

Leo nodded. “Then you’d better come see the extent of the problem. From a distance, unless you can be as light-footed as Mabob.”

Mabob rattled his scales happily at the mention of his name and Leo scratched him around the eyes.

“From a distance,” I said.

We trussed up the carcass (I wanted a good look at its innards when I had the time and place) and I slung it across my shoulders, careful to leave my hands free.

Leo did a little extra tying, to make damn sure it wouldn’t attract its kin by thumping against me as I walked.

Then they led the way and I followed, as tiptoe as I could considering the brush and the ground cover. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had enough practice that I can stalk most anything safely, but this one had already proved its senses outdid my stalking ability.

Extra careful was the order of the day.

We skirted along the hillside, keeping Loch Moose to our right hand always. It glittered through the trees. In the distance I could hear the otters and their cousins, the odders, playing. Typical day—including the Dragon’s Teeth—except that I

found myself watching the ground more closely than usual.

Every once in a while, there was a soft patch in the earth. And where the soft patch neared vegetation, the vegetation was dying or dead—wasn’t just people this Dragon’s Tooth had a taste for. All in all, I counted some fifty different species of plant that had been tasted to destruction. Most of them had no visible marks above ground. Looked to me like the Dragon’s Tooth was as much a root-eater as its wild boar kin.

I restrained my impulse to check, though. If the click of my safety well above ground had attracted one, my grubbing around in the dirt would sure as hell bring them—and in quantity.

I’d save the digging for later, under more controlled circumstances.

Leo had stopped, so I did too. Mabob stalked a few feet beyond us, but when he saw we weren’t following he made a hasty silent retreat. I looked where Leo pointed.

I didn’t need the point. The state of the trees would have been enough to make me sit up and take notice: an entire grove of smoking pines would never smoke again.

And at the center of the grove I could see a dozen or more holes in the ground, each the size and shape of the hole Jen had made of her hands.

I was looking at an ecological disaster. Smoking pines make most Earth-authentic species sick enough to leave them alone, but they’d had no effect at all on this particular Dragon’s Tooth.

Without protection…

I had a sudden stark image of Loch Moose, still glittering, amid an entire forest of dead trees.

Wasn’t gonna happen. Not if I had anything to say about it. I glared at the burrow holes.

Mabob’s head swung sharply and suddenly to blaze into the woods beyond. I couldn’t see anything but, a moment later, I heard it, too: the footsteps of clashings headed our direction. I got ready to duck, but kept my eye on the burrows.

With a little luck, the clashings would distract the critters and let me in closer. Leo had the same idea, and we edged closer in unison. That was fine with Mabob, who did the same, his eyes flashing from woods to ground and back again like bright orange warning beacons.

Then something startled the clashings, and they aimed straight for us at full gallop.

Leo and I both dropped to the ground, trying to land without a sound so as not to attract the attention of the Dragon’s Teeth.

Mabob watched the wood for a long moment, then returned his very orange attention to the ground in front of us. Ordinarily he’d have given the clashings a warning blast. As he didn’t, I knew he considered the Dragon’s Teeth more dangerous than the prospect of being bowled over and bruised by a clashing.

Leo drew the same conclusion from Mabob’s behavior I had, and we kept out guns aimed at the burrows.

The clashings burst into the dead grove, paused—likely the unfamiliar smell of the Dragon’s Teeth—then charged ahead through. It was a disastrous mistake.

The first one made it across the clearing on luck alone. It was over us and gone before Mabob had a chance to blink up from his crouch.

The next two hit that soft ground—must have been riddled with burrows—and I
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head the bones snap. The otters in the lake probably heard the bones snap. The third—well, the ground heaved up all around it. It was like seeing dirt boil. And for every leg there was a Dragon’s Tooth, with tusks. They dragged the clashing to the ground, with a frenzy of snorts and snarls.

I’d never heard a clashing scream, but this one did. The sound went right through me.

Some of the Dragon’s Teeth went to work on the other clashings as well. I counted seven of them. Once they’d gotten the clashings in the throat, the screaming stopped, except for the echo in my head.

I touched Leo on the shoulder and motioned him back. As we edged away, one of the Dragon’s Teeth spotted the motion and flopped toward us, not nearly so fast above ground as it seemed below.

We kept backing, while it snarled threats it could all too well carry through on. It gnashed those tusks at us for proof.

It might have just been warning us away from its prey, but it got too close to Leo for my taste. I blew its head off.

By the time the shot stopped echoing, every last one of the Dragon’s Teeth had vanished into the ground.

Mabob, who hadn’t been the least bit startled by my gunshot, jerked to sudden attention, eying the ground with fierce suspicion. Leo and I took the cue: they were more dangerous under ground than above. The three of us hightailed it into the bush.

Leo knew the territory better than I did and I followed him. After a hundred-yard dash, he came to an abrupt stop. I looked down at my feet and laughed. He’d brought us to a generous outcropping of rock.

“Good thinking,” I said, once I’d gotten my breath back. “Give ’em all a headache, if we’re lucky.“ I sat down and patted the ground beside me. Mabob stepped into the spot I’d patted, whistled cheerfully, and sat, his long legs seeming to vanish completely beneath his belly. ”That wasn’t quite what I had in mind,“ I told him, but I rubbed him till he rattled anyway.

Renewed snorts and snarls from the direction of the dead grove made him stop rattling and blaze his eyes. From the sound of it, the Dragon’s Teeth had gone back to work on the clashings. Whether the grunts and snuffles and squeals were pleasant mealtime conversation or nasty family squabbles, I had no idea, but I was glad they were otherwise occupied.

Mabob obviously had the same reaction. He resumed his rattle and began to preen, for all the world as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened for weeks.

Taking his example, I leaned back and relaxed just enough to be pissed that I hadn’t gotten a sample from the second critter we’d shot. Dragon’s Teeth can vary wildly from tooth to tooth.

I looked Mabob over, but all that preening was just for the sake of preening. He was too damn clean to help this time. Luckily, I couldn’t say the same for me—I was a bloody mess. I scraped all the most promising bits and gobbets off my pants and tucked them away to gene-read when we got back to the lodge.

Leo smiled at the two of us preening, sat down on the other side of Mabob, and did a little preening of his own. He handed me bits to add to my collection. Then he said, “How do you know that charge was anything more than a ‘keep away from my clashing’?”

“I don’t. But I sure as hell didn’t like the way they brought that clashing down.”

“Does this mean you won’t let me catch you one to study?”

“Who am I to spoil your fun, Leo? But taking one of those alive is going to require some precise
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planning.”

“And a lot of sheet metal, I think.”

Sheet metal. “Well, that’s your department. The carcass is mine. Think it’s safe to head back to the lodge?”

“Better to do it while they’re busy with the clashings,” he said, “but let’s tiptoe.”

We tiptoed all right. And when we got back to the lodge, the first thing we did was warn the folks doing guard duty they’d better be sneaky about it. Second thing we did, once inside, was bellow out a “We’re both fine

!” into the now-empty lobby.

Knew the sound of shots would’ve worried Elly, not to mention the kids.

Then I looked down at Mabob. Usually I don’t encourage such behavior but, under the circumstances… “Give ’em a gronk, Mabob. Let ’em know you’re okay, too.”

I never know how much Mabob actually understands. Whether he got the words of my message or not—maybe he decided it was okay to yell because I had—he got the general idea and let ’em have it with a single ear-splitting, head-rattling

“GRONK!”

Ilanith was the first to the bottom of the stairs. She grinned at Leo. “He’s noisier than you are, Noisy.”

Leo grinned back. “I agree. It just so happens, though, that noisy is not a good thing to be just now, not out in those woods.”

“Likely story,” she said. “Mama Jason, Mike wants you to call him soon as you get back—right now! The other half of the Dragon’s Tooth is mole, but we still haven’t found out what it came from.” She darted her eyes back to Leo. “Sour grapes,” she said.

I shook my head. “Nope, he means it. He’ll tell you all about it while I call Mike.”

Mole—that’s where I’d seen those forepaws before. Not that I’d seen any moles on Mirabile, but in the photos in ships’ files. Just because I hadn’t seen any live ones, didn’t mean they hadn’t sprung up. Maybe they were the source of the

Dragon’s Teeth.

Mike had no new information for me. He just wanted the on-site report. He was still itching to come see for himself. By the time I got done telling him about it, he’d lost some of his enthusiasm.

And when I told him about the damage to the smoking pines, he dubbed them

“frankenswine” on the spot—but his face was a little too grim for the joke.

“You named it,” I said, and I told him what else they’d eaten.

His face got grimmer. “Sounds like we can’t afford them.”

“You know me, Mike: I hate to throw anything away. You never know what might be useful in the long run.” I wasn’t convincing myself, though, so I knew I wasn’t convincing him either. I heard myself sigh. “Damnify know. Leo’s going to try to catch one. When I know more, I’ll call you.”

“Should I arrange rooms for Elly’s kids?”

I shook my head. “The lodge is built on solid rock. It’s not as if we’ll have ’em coming up through the floor.” I shook my head again. “No, I don’t think it’s necessary.”

I did have to swear on Granddaddy Jason’s genes I’d call him with anything new, but he finally let me sign off and get back to business.

First business was Elly, who’d been watching over my shoulder. “You heard?”

“M-hm. I’ve already told assorted parents you hadn’t recommended evacuation of the kids.

Now I can call them back and tell them why. You’re getting Beate Opener Valladin, though, ready or not.”

Valladin—that made her Jen’s genetic mother. “Ready, willing and able to blow away
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frankenswine?”

Elly smiled. “I sicced Leo on her. She’s going to help him trap you one.”

“Leo’s amazing.” I couldn’t help smiling at the thought.

“He is. Especially since I see you had no hesitation about blowing one away.” She pointed.

The ugly carcass lay beside the computer, right where I’d left it.

“Sorry,” I said. “Want me to do the dissection outside?”

“Not on your life! Take it in the kitchen. Chris will give you something disposable to cut on, just in case it’s toxic. She’ll want to kibbitz, too.”

I can do with Chris’s sort of kibbitzing any day. While I took the thing apart to see what made it tick, Chris ran samples through every toxicity test she could think of—and some she’d invented, as well, since Earth-authentic toxicity tests didn’t cover a number of the Mirabilan possibilities.

By the time I got done, I had a healthy appreciation for the frankenswine. It was a beautiful job of bioengineering—couldn’t beat that mole and boar combination—efficient as all hell. I was not happy.

Chris, on the other hand, was ecstatic. “Perfectly edible, Annie, if you peel off that layer of fat.

The fat’s got heavy-metal concentrations you wouldn’t believe—”

Probably from the smoking pine roots it’d been eating. Which did nothing to improve my opinion of the beast.

“But,” Chris went on, “the meat’s not just edible, it’s full of stuff that’s good for humans to eat.” She hovered over me, just waiting to grab the carcass and cook.

I laid a hand on the frankenswine’s haunch.

“Aw, Annie. Come on. Frankenswine is good to eat!”

“Chris, this frankenswine may be good to eat but don’t make the mistake they all are. You’ll have to run through the whole set of tests on each one individually.

Dragon’s Teeth can vary wildly from one to the next in the same litter. One gene off and you could wipe out everybody at the table.”

She looked serious enough that I knew she’d heard me. “Right,” she said, “I test each one separately. But I’m still sorry you couldn’t bring the second one back.”

She held out her hands. “Give. Except for the fat and the liver, this one’s okay to eat.”

“One thing more.” I gave her a grin to let her know this one wasn’t in the doom-and-gloom category. “Get me your best butcher knife. I think Jen ought to have those tusks for a souvenir.”

Her eyes gleamed wickedly. Between us we defanged the frankenswine with a will.

Might have been satisfying, except all I was thinking was if it could handle heavy metals without poisoning itself, how the hell were we going to get rid of it?

Chris was right, dammitall—frankenswine made a really fine tazhine. Stewed up with raisins and onions, it was enough to make even Jen think twice about wiping out the frankenswine altogether. Except it wasn’t worth that dead grove. I kept chewing but I was chewing it over at the same time. Ordinarily, I give Chris’s food the attention it deserves—but I was losing a taste for frankenswine even as everybody else around me seemed to be gaining one.