There was a growl, right in front other. She glimpsed yellow eyes, like two miniature suns.
She screamed. She picked up handfuls of dirt and threw them at the yellow eyes. There was a howl.
She turned and ran, not caring where she went. But her gait was waddling and stiff, her feet broken and sore.
She could hear steady, purposeful footsteps behind her.
Memories clattered through her mind: of a bite that had crushed the skull of a child in a moment, of the remains of a predator’s feast, bloody limbs and carcass, of the screams of a victim taken live to a nest, where cubs had fed long into the night. She screamed and ran and ran.
There was light ahead of her.
She ran towards the light, panting and hooting. She thought of daybreak in a safe tree top, her nest warm under her, her mother’s massive body close by.
The light was yellow, and it flickered, and shadows moved before it. A fire.
She heard those scampering footsteps. There was a hot, panting breath on her neck.
A stone zinged through the air, past her head. It clattered against a rock, harmlessly. Now another stone flew. It caught her in the chest, knocking her flat on her back.
Behind her, the chasing cat yelped and yowled. When she sat up and turned, she saw its lithe silhouette sliding across the blue, glittering grass.
“Elf Elf away.”
She yelled and scrabbled in the dirt.
She found herself looking up at a tall figure — a woman, perhaps twice as tall as she was, taller even than Big Boss had been, her torso long and ugly. She had small flat breasts. She was hairless, save for knots of hair on her head and between her legs. She had a small face and wide nose, and she carried a stick that she was pointing at Shadow.
She was a Runner.
Cautiously Shadow got to her feet. She jabbered at the woman, a series of intense pants, hoots, screeches and cries. She expected the woman to respond. They would chatter together, sounds without words, their cries slowly matching in pitch and intensity as they greeted each other.
But the woman jabbed with the stick, coming close to piercing Shadow’s skin. “Elf Elf away!”
Shadow feared the stick. But before her was the yellow fire. She could hear the fire pop and crackle, and she could smell food, the sharpness of leaves and burned meat. Many people were there — all tall and skinny and hairless like this stretched-out woman, but people nevertheless. Behind her there was only the darkness of the savannah, like a vast black mouth waiting to swallow her.
She took a pace towards the woman, hands outstretched. She tried to groom her, reaching for the hair on the woman’s head.
The sharp stick jabbed in her shoulder. Again Shadow was thrown back into the dirt. She poked a finger in her latest wound; blood seeped slowly from it, soaking her fur. She whimpered in misery. The sharp noses of the cats would soon detect the blood.
Still the woman stood over her, arms akimbo, stick poised for another thrust.
Shadow tried to stand. A searing pain clamped around her stomach, making her stumble to the crimson dirt. She cried out, and beat her fists on her betraying belly. She looked up at the threatening, curious woman. She whimpered. She held out her feet, and flexed her toes. Helpless, she was reduced to the gestures of an infant.
The woman lowered the stick. She crouched down. Clear eyes looked into Shadow’s. She reached out with her hand and stroked Shadow’s fur. She touched the wounded shoulder, and the hand came away bloody; the woman wiped it in the dirt at her feet. Then she ran a curious hand over the bump in Shadow’s belly.
Again Shadow reached for the woman’s scalp and crotch to groom her. But the woman flinched back.
Shadow dropped her head, her energy exhausted. She lay in the dirt, on her back, her arms and legs splayed; Shadow was beaten.
The woman stared at her a while longer. Then she walked away, towards the fire.
Shadow curled over on her side.
Something hit her chest. She flinched back.
It was a piece of meat. It lay on the ground before her. She saw it had been cut from an animal — perhaps an antelope — by a sharp-edged stone. And people had bitten into it already; she saw where it had been ripped and torn by teeth. But still it was meat, a piece as big as her hand. She crammed it into her mouth, tearing at it with hands and teeth.
When she was done she lay down once more. The ground was hard and dusty, and she longed for the springy platform of a nest. But her arm made a pillow for her head.
Suspended between black night and the flickering fire light, she sank into redness.
Reid Malenfant:
On the walk through the forest with McCann, this oddball English guy, Malenfant got fixated on McCann’s crossbow.
The crossbow, made purely of wood, was heavy. There was a long underslung trigger that neatly lifted a bowstring out of the notch. The trigger mechanism worked smoothly. The string itself was made of twisted vine, very fine, very strong. But there was no groove to direct the bolt. And the bolts themselves seemed crude to Malenfant: about as long as a pencil, but a lot thinner, and with a flight made from a single leaf, tucked into a slice in the wooden bolt, just one plane. It was hard to see how you could make an accurate shot with such a thing. But as they walked McCann did just that, over and over, apparently pleased to have an audience.
Nemoto’s silent contempt for all this was obvious. Malenfant didn’t care. His mind was tired of all the strangeness; to play with a gadget for a while was therapy.
It was getting dark by the time the Englishman led them to a fortress in the jungle. The two of them, bruised and bewildered, were led into the compound, taking in little. Surrounded by a tough-looking stockade, it turned out to be a place of straight lines and right angles, the huts lined up like ranks of soldiers, the line of the stockade walls as perfect as a geometrical demonstration.
“Shit,” murmured Malenfant. “I can feel my anus clench just standing here.”
Nemoto said, “They are very frightened, Malenfant. That much is clear.”
Malenfant glimpsed people moving to and fro in the gathering dark. No, not quite people. He shuddered.
McCann showed them hospitality, including food and generous draughts of some home-brew beer, thick and strong.
The hours passed in a blur.
He found himself in a sod hut, with Nemoto. His bed was a boxy frame containing a mattress of some vegetable fabric. It didn’t look too clean.
They were both fried. They hadn’t slept in around thirty-six hours. They had been through the landing, the assault by the Erectus types, the march through the jungle. And, frankly, the beer hadn’t helped. At least here, against all expectations, they had found what seemed like a haven. But still Malenfant inspected his lumpy bed suspiciously.
“I know what to do,” Malenfant said. “Always turn your mattress. Then the body lice have to work their way back up to get to you.” He lifted the corner of his mattress out of its wooden box.
“I would not do that,” Nemoto said; but it was too late.
There was the sound of fingernails on wood, a smell like a poultry shed. Cockroaches poured out of the box, a steady stream of them, each the size of a mouse.
“Shit,” Malenfant said. “There are thousands in there.” He stamped on one, briskly killing it.
“It’s best to leave them,” Nemoto said evenly. “They have glands on their backs. They only stink when disturbed.”
Malenfant cautiously picked up a cockroach. Its antenna and palps hung limp, and it had a pale pink band over its head and thorax.
“Very ancient creatures, Malenfant,” Nemoto said. “You find traces of them in Carboniferous strata, three hundred million years deep.”
“Doesn’t mean I want to share my bed with one,” Malenfant said. Carefully, as if handling a piece of jewellery, he set the cockroach on the floor. It scuttled out of sight under his bed frame.