Galpook herself stood in front of the beast’s muzzle: a blocky black shape, warty this close up, the size of Galpook’s own torso. She signaled for a pair of gloves to be brought to her, and when they arrived she put them on. They had holes at the fingertips allowing her claws to poke through.
Terrified, she furtively brought her hands in toward the creature’s face, carefully pulling on the rounded edge of the sticky sap, which had oozed up and around the tip of the muzzle. She drew the sap away from the blackdeath’s giant, flaring nostrils, ensuring that it could breathe well for the long trip back to Capital City. The thing’s great black eyes stared at Galpook, and it made snorting sounds around the sticky gum.
Although it took well into the night, illuminated by five bright, dancing moons, the blackdeath was eventually transferred onto a massive cart. Galpook’s people were able to round up three of their bossnoses to pull the cart; the other two were long gone.
Most of the secondary team had to disperse as soon as they were no longer needed, for such prolonged close contact was putting nerves on edge. Many went off with some of Galpook’s hunters to try their hand at nocturnal tracking. Others simply chose their own paths back to the Capital.
In the light of the semi-ten of moons, Galpook walked slowly beside the captured killer, its mountainous hide heaving as it breathed.
She did not envy Dybo and the others. Not at all.
*26*
Musings of The Watcher
My time sense is malleable. If I scatter myself widely, signals between parts of myself take longer to travel The delays are completely undetectable to me, of course. It simply seems as though the external universe has speeded up, since my senses are sampling it less frequently. Likewise, if I collapse myself into a smaller area, my thoughts are processed more quickly, and I see the external universe move by at a slower rate.
I extruded a portion of my presence into the outer periphery of the Crucible system’s cometary halo, about one-fifth of a Crucible light-year from its sun. Mustering my gravitational influence, I nudged a cometary nucleus. It began to fall toward the inner solar system.
The pace was indolent. It took 350,000 Crucible years for the comet to traverse the distance to the ninth planet’s orbit (that moon of the eighth planet had indeed broken free by now, as I’d thought it might). I spread myself thin, letting the years pass quickly.
A short time into that long span, a sad although not unpredictable thing happened. The Jijaki, my only companions in a vast and empty universe, discovered energy sources they’d never dreamed of before. A war broke out. I called to them, begging them to stop, but a crazed individual in the principal language group launched a massive attack against those speaking a less common tongue, and, despite my entreaties from the sky, in a very short time the Jijaki had destroyed themselves, leveling their home world and their colonies. I mourn them to this day.
From the orbit of the ninth planet, it would only take twenty-six years for the comet nucleus to reach the Crucible. By now, the comet was moving at a speed of about five kilometers per second. I contracted myself, slowing the apparent pace of time.
With only forty percent of a single year left until the impact, the comet — now whipping along at eighteen kilometers per second — passed through the system’s asteroid belt.
It crossed the orbit of the fourth planet, just nine percent of a year until impact. The reptiles and mammals on the Crucible doubtless saw it in the night sky, for its head now glowed and a diaphanous tail stretched behind it.
I contracted, partly to savor every detail, partly to concentrate my meager gravitational influence to effect the required course corrections. The comet passed the orbit of the Crucible’s moon. Its speed was now thirty kilometers per second. Time to impact: one-eighth of one day.
And then, and then, and then…
Traveling at sixty-seven kilometers per second, it drilled through the Crucible’s atmosphere in less than two seconds, leaving a vacuum hole behind it.
On impact, a lethal shock wave spread for twelve hundred kilometers from the crash site. The comet and much of the target material vaporized completely, electron shells stripped off to form a super-heated plasma. Much of it blew out the hole in the atmosphere, and, in a fraction of a day, enveloped the world above the stratosphere. The planet was plunged into darkness.
In the atmosphere, nitrogen ignited, leading to strong nitric-acid rains.
Forest fires raged across all the continents.
Plant life died on land; photosynthetic plankton expired throughout the seas.
The food chains collapsed.
And, just as I had planned, in a very short time every land animal massing over twenty-five kilograms died, including every single one of the dinosaurs.
The way was paved on the Crucible for the mammals.
Capital City: Office of the Undertaker
Gathgol was used to solitude. After all, he was an undertaker. People didn’t fear death — not exactly — but neither did they like to contemplate it. Being undertaker was a pretty good job. There were only seven thousand Quintaglios in all of Capital province, fully half of them here in Capital City. Gathgol’s services were rarely called for, although he did travel to wherever a death had occurred. More often than not, a death would happen on the hunt — a pack had foolishly gone after a meat-eater instead of a herbivore, or attacked a hornface from the front instead of the rear. In those cases, assuming the surviving hunters had been successful, Gathgol would get to dine on fresh meat before he bundled up the body for the trip to Prath.
These days, though, Gathgol was not getting much solitude. Since the murder of Haldan, he had had many visitors to his small establishment in the holy quarter of town. Today, Sal-Afsan himself had come, along with his assistant, the lanky Pal-Cadool.
"I believe we can determine several things about the person who did the killing," said Afsan without preamble. He groped for a stool. "For instance, to cut Haldan’s neck at the angle he or she did, he or she would have to be of a certain height. Isn’t that right, Gathgol?"
There was no response.
"Gathgol? Are you still here?"
The undertaker found his voice. "Forgive me, Sal-Afsan. Yes, I’m still here. I’m sorry, it’s just I’m flabbergasted that a savant such as yourself would ask questions of me."
Afsan waved a hand in the direction Gathgol’s voice had come from. "You are the expert in matters of death, Gathgol. I am no savant in this area."
"Yes. No. I mean…"
Afsan held up his palm. "Just answer the question as if it were posed by a child, a student. And call me ’Afsan,’ please. The formal name is just adding to your discomfort, I’m sure."
" ’Afsan.’ But that’s what your intimates call you."
"Some of them call me ’fathead,’ " said Afsan, with a disarming wrinkle of his muzzle, "but the ones who like me call me ’Afsan,’ yes."
"Afsan," said Gathgol, trying the name on for size. Then, again, "Afsan." There was wonder in Gathgol’s voice; evidently the undertaker had never expected such informality.
"Yes, Gathgol. Now, if you could perhaps answer my question?"
"I’m sorry. Of course. No one could do this while balancing on tippy-toe. Assuming the mirror was held like this…"