The beast howled. I fired again and it let go of my leg. I fired again just as it swatted the barrel, but as the gun left my hand, the beam swept upwards in an arc, from the thing’s gut through the upper part of its back—where its spine would be if it were an Earthly vertebrate.
Its back legs spasmed and it fell back on its haunches. It looked in confusion at its rear, as though willing it to work. Then it looked up, and, I swear, made eye contact with me. There seemed to me to be some fleeting instant of intimate contact—the vanquished acknowledging the victor. Then it collapsed heavily, rolling over onto its side, its panting breath hot on my ankle.
Ever so slowly, I pulled my leg away from the thing’s snout. It made no move to stop me. The gun had gone over the side of the skitter and I didn’t think my leg would support my weight if I went after it. I finally pulled myself into a sitting position, reached over the back of the seat, and retrieved my radio.
“This is Heath,” I gasped. “Anybody there?”
I was just about to call again when Susan answered. “What do you want, Heath?”
“I need someone to come get me.”
“What’s wrong, lover-boy? Get lonely?”
I made a mental note to kill her if I lived long enough. “Susan, I’ve been attacked. I’m hurt. Send someone out here.”
“What?”
“I’ve been bitten by something the size of a bear. My left leg is chewed up.
“Are you under attack now?”
I had to stop to catch my breath, “It’s… here next to me. It’s still breathing.”
“Next to you? Get away from it, you idiot!”
“Susan, I can’t move.”
“Then shoot it!”
“I can’t get to the gun.”
“Then how did you—”
I snapped. “Goddammit, Susan, are you going to sit there and argue with me, or are you going to get someone out here?”
“I’ll find someone. Stand by.”
I collapsed back against the seat. Idly, I noted that the pool of blood under my leg was getting larger. Have to do something about that. I made a mental note to get around to doing so real soon, but just at the moment I was tired and had to rest.
That damned bear-thing was mauling my leg again. I could feel it. And it hurt like hell.
I could hear voices. Human voices.
Gilda’s voice. I had to tell Gilda to stay back. Dangerous animal here.
Cranking my eyelids open took more strength than I had expected. I’d need a full night’s sleep just to recover.
It wasn’t the animal chewing on my leg, it was Nathan Chandler, our doctor. Given a choice between him and the creature, I’d be hard pressed to say which one was worse. Nathan was cutting my pants leg away just above my knee. When he slit the fabric lengthwise, exposing the lower half of my leg, I heard a sharp intake of breath next to my right ear.
I turned my head. It was Gilda, staring in horror at the fresh hamburger. I managed to locate my voice. “Gilda? What are you doing here?”
She looked at me. “You called in. Then you didn’t answer your radio. Did you think I’d sit at camp and wait?”
“There’s a… a thing. Like a bear. It’s—”
“It’s dead. It’s on the ground so Nathan would have room to work.”
Adam Anderson’s head popped up over the side of the skitter. “It’s possible these things are telepathic,” he said conversationally.
“Telepathic? What makes you think—”
“Tony saw one of these things yesterday. A blueheart walked right up to it and got eaten. Tony thought it sufficiently strange that he kept the critter in sight for the rest of the day.”
I gave him a skeptical grunt. “Maybe it uses scent as a lure. Maybe it makes some kind of subsonic call. Hell, it probably—”
He eyed me. “Then it tried to eat Tony. It turned and walked right past him. As soon as he figured out that it might be looking for him, he got scared. Bingo!” He clapped his hands together sharply. “The critter turned and looked straight at him. He said that it was an almost out-of-body experience. He could see himself through the creature’s eyes, almost as though he was outlined in neon. That’s in spite of the fact that he was hidden behind heavy brush.”
“It could see him through brush?” I asked.
Anderson nodded. “Clear as day. It was his fear that it was reading. Until then he was invisible.”
Nathan was tying off my leg with gauze. He gave a particularly vicious jerk that made my head swim. “But this thing evolved here. How the hell could it read our minds if we came from an entirely different evolutionary environment?”
Anderson shrugged. “Maybe fear is universal.”
That gave me something to digest. Whether I liked it or not, it did match my experience. “I’ve got just one more question.”
Anderson looked up from where Nathan was finishing with my leg. “And what’s that?”
“How many more of these things are there?” Maybe I didn’t want to be a colonist here, after all.
Nathan checked my other leg, but it was only bruised. Likewise, my boots had protected my feet from serious damage. He then attended to the cut on my forehead. He cleaned and bandaged it, then pronounced me good as new.
“If this is the condition I was in when I was new, I’d rather be used again, if you don’t mind,” I told him.
“Well,” he allowed, “barring some minor discomfort.”
“Minor,” I said to Gilda. I gestured at my leg. “He calls this minor. Notice that he didn’t offer to trade legs with me while mine heals.”
“I’ll get out a crutch for you when we get back to camp,” he offered.
I thanked him, then struggled to my feet, distributing my weight between my better leg and Gilda’s shoulder. “I want to take another look at this critter. If it’s telepathic, then we’re going to need a better idea of what we’re up against.”
I peg-legged my way to the rear corner of the cargo bin and sat heavily on the edge, looking down at my fallen adversary. Anderson and Mia Sands were crouched on the ground next to it. They were prodding its head like phrenologists.
“So what’s the verdict?” I asked.
“Looking for soft spots,” Mia said.
“I assure you it didn’t have a noticeable soft spot for me.”
She had the grace to chuckle. “We were curious as to whether the skull was continuous or whether there was soft tissue. Telepaths might have made some interesting cranial adaptations.”
Anderson looked up. “We’ll be taking your friend back to camp to dissect. Tony was foolish enough to let his get away.”
“Oh, I meant to ask… how did Tony keep from getting eaten?”
“He climbed a tree.”
I looked up, expecting to see the wallah, but it was nowhere to be found. But the rump of the animal I’d killed had been chewed. The wallah had eaten breakfast before leaving. I felt lucky. It could just as easily have been me.
Obviously, having my leg out of commission was a nuisance, but the corollary was that I got to see more of Gilda. Clouds with silver linings, and all that.
I spent the day catching up on busy work, mostly writing reports, then stumped ungracefully over to eat supper—for some reason, walking on crutches was not coming easily to me. I put my tray on the table, leaned my crutches against the edge and slumped into a seat. It wasn’t long before Gilda showed up.
“Say, fella, is that an empty spot next to you?” she asked, head cocked.
“Sit. I need someone to complain to—doctor’s orders. Supposed to speed the healing process if I act pitiful.”