“It’s peaceful,” said Tanya.
Boom! Bang! Rat-tat-tat! came from the direction of the base.
“The devil!” muttered Fokin. “What in hell do we need that for?”
Mboga blew a smoke ring, and, watching it rise, said softly, “I understand, Boris. For the first time in my life I myself feel no joy in hearing our machines at work on an alien planet.”
“It’s somehow not alien, that’s the thing,” said Tanya.
A large black beetle flew in from somewhere or other, buzzing noisily, circled over the Pathfinders twice, and left. Fokin sniffed softly, and buried his nose in his bent elbow. Tanya got up and went into the tent. Komov got up too and stretched happily. It was so quiet and nice around that he was completely nonplussed when Mboga suddenly jumped up on his feet as if shot from a gun, and then froze, with his face turned toward the river. Komov turned his head in that direction too.
Some sort of enormous black hulk was moving toward the camp. The helicopter partly hid it, but they could see it sway as it walked, and could see the evening sun gleam on its moist shiny sides, which were puffed out like the belly of a hippopotamus. The hulk moved fairly rapidly, brushing aside the grass, and Komov saw with horror that the helicopter was swaying and had slowly started to tip over. Between the wall of a building and the belly of the helicopter a massive low forehead with two enormous bulges stuck out. Komov saw two small dull eyes, staring, as it seemed, straight at him. “Look out!” he yelled.
The helicopter tipped over, propping itself up in the grass on its rotor vanes. The monster kept moving toward the camp. It was no less than ten feet tall. Its striped sides rose and fell evenly, and they could hear measured, noisy breathing.
Behind Komov’s back, Mboga cocked the carbine with a click. Then Komov came to himself and backed toward the tent. Fokin scrambled quickly back on all fours, overtaking him. The monster was already just twenty paces away.
“Can you manage to break camp?” Mboga asked quickly.
“No,” answered Komov.
“Then I’m going to fire,” said Mboga.
“Wait a moment,” said Komov. He stepped forward, waved his arm, and shouted “Stop!”
For an instant the mountain of meat on the hoof did stop. The knobby forehead suddenly lifted up, and a mouth as capacious as a helicopter cabin, stuffed with green grass cud, gaped open.
“Gennady!” cried Tanya. “Get back at once!”
The monster emitted a prolonged screeching sound and moved forward even faster.
“Stop!” Komov shouted again, but now without much enthusiasm. “Evidently it’s herbivorous,” he stated, and moved back toward the tents.
He looked back. Mboga was standing with his carbine at his shoulder, and Tanya was already covering her ears. Next to Tanya stood Fokin, with a pack on his back. “Are you going to shoot at it today or not?” Fokin yelled in a strained voice. “It’ll make off with the intravisor or—”
Ka-thwak! Mboga’s semiautomatic hunting carbine was a .64 caliber, and the kinetic energy of the bullet at a distance of ten paces equaled nine tons. The bullet landed in the very center of the forehead between the two bulges. The monster sat down hard on its rear. Ka-thwak! The second bullet turned the monster over on its back. Its short fat legs moved convulsively through the air. A “kh-h-a-a-a” came from the thick grass. The black belly rose and fell, and then all was quiet. Mboga put the carbine down. “Let’s go have a look,” he said.
The monster was no smaller in size than an adult African elephant, but it more resembled a gigantic hippopotamus.
“Red blood,” said Fokin. “And what is this?” The monster lay on its side, and along its belly extended three rows of soft protuberances the size of a fist. A shiny thick liquid oozed from the growths. Mboga suddenly inhaled noisily, took a drop of liquid on the tip of a finger, and tasted it.
“Yuck!” said Fonin.
The same expression appeared on all their faces.
“Honey,” said Mboga.
“You don’t say!” exclaimed Komov. He hesitated, then also extended a finger. Tanya and Fokin watched his movements with disgust. “Real honey!” he exclaimed. “Lime-blossom honey!”
“Doctor Dickson had said that there are many saccharides in this grass,” said Mboga.
“A honey monster,” said Fokin. “Pity we did him in.”
“We!” exclaimed Tanya. “Good grief, go put away the intravisor.”
“Well, okay,” said Komov. “What do we do now? It’s hot here, and with a carcass like this next to the camp…”
“I’ll take care of it,” said Mboga. “Drag the tents twenty paces or so down the street. I’ll make all the measurements, look it over, and then annihilate it.”
“How?” asked Tanya.
“With a disintegrator. I have a disintegrator. And you, Tanya, get away from here. I am now going to embark on some very unappetizing work.”
They heard footsteps, and Ryu jumped out from behind the tent with a large automatic pistol. “What happened?” he asked, panting.
“We killed one of your hippopotamuses,” Fokin explained pompously.
Ryu quickly looked everyone over and immediately relaxed. He stuck his pistol in his belt. “Did it charge?” he asked.
“Not exactly,” Komov answered confusedly. “If you ask me, it was simply out for a stroll, but we have to stop it.”
Ryu looked at the overturned helicopter and nodded.
“Can’t we eat it?” Fokin shouted from the tent.
Mboga said slowly, “It looks like somebody has already tried eating it.”
Komov and Ryu went over to him. With his fingers, Mboga was feeling broad, deep, straight scars on the loin parts of the animal. “Powerful fangs did that,” said Mboga. “Ones sharp as knives. Someone took off slices of five or six kilos each with one swipe.”
“Some sort of horror,” Ryu said very sincerely.
A strange, prolonged cry sounded high in the sky. Everyone looked up.
“There they are!” said Ryu.
Large light-gray birds like eagles rushed headlong down on the city. One behind another, they dropped from an enormous altitude. Just over the humans’ heads they spread broad, soft wings and darted upward just as violently, pouring waves of warm air over the humans. They were enormous birds, larger than terrestrial condors or even the flying dragons of Pandora.
“Meat eaters!” Ryu said excitedly. He started to draw the pistol from his belt, but Mboga seized him firmly by the arm.
The birds rushed over the city and off into the violet evening sky to the west. When the last of them had disappeared, the same disturbing prolonged cry sounded.
“I was ready to fire,” Ryu said with relief.
“I know,” said Mboga. “But it seemed to me—” He stopped.
“Yes,” said Komov. “It seemed that way to me too.”
Upon consideration, Komov ordered the tents to be moved not merely twenty paces, but onto the flat roof of one of the buildings. The buildings were low—only seven feet or so high—so it was not difficult to climb on top of them. Tanya and Fokin put the packs with the most valuable instruments on the roof of the next building over. The helicopter was not damaged. Komov took it up and landed it neatly on the roof of a third building.
Mboga spent the whole night under the floodlights, examining the monster’s carcass. Then at dawn the street filled with a shrill hissing sound, a large cloud of white steam flew up over the city, and a short-lived orange glow flashed out. Fokin, who had never before seen an organic disintegrator at work, dashed out of a tent wearing only shorts, but all he saw was Mboga, who was unhurriedly cleaning a flood light, and an enormous cloud of fine gray dust over blackened grass. All that remained of the honey monster was its ugly head, expertly prepared, coated with transparent plastic, and destined for the Capetown Museum of Exozoology.