“OK. They ate plants. The predators could still be as fast.”
“Yes,” she had to agree, “it seems sensible.”
“I hate to disagree,” said Wildwind with an insincere grin and a smug look that he always got when he knew something that others didn’t, “but I didn’t see any predators chasing the herd.”
Annwn refused to look at Wildwind, holding silent.
“How do you know?” asked Kwazar.
“I looked. Carefully.”
“Weren’t you afraid like the rest of us?”
“Oh, I was afraid all right. But not of those overgrown eight-legged elephants. I’ve been among herds before, back in the Elara demo. Large hallucihexadons. Don't you remember?”
Kwazar nodded, grinning at the reminder of yet another Elara sim that all persons present helped progress from bad to worse in rapid order. “Then what were you afraid of?”
“The predators I assumed were there. On Elara, it seemed as if the hallucihexadons were always running from some kind of predator or another.”
Kwazar frowned at the thought. “So what’s your point?”
Wildwind smiled. “The overlegged cows moved with purpose. Something got them running, and, like I said, it wasn’t predators.”
Disturbed by his observation, Annwn quietly shivered and contemplated what he had observed. What motivated the herd to move so fast if not predators? And why did such movement bother her so? For some reason she kept remembering all the times she and her father had talked about Bode’s plants. But what did vegetation have to do with the herd?
Plant eaters ate plants, of course. Yes, she thought, that was part of it. Bode’s disconcertingly speedy seasons were another part. Excited by her discovery, she spoke up, “Maybe the beasts were migrating!”
She had the group’s attention. Wildwind, no longer the center of interest, scowled. Annwn smiled inwardly at his disappointment.
Kwazar asked, “What do you mean?”
“Think of the fast seasons, and the rapid changes in the plants. You’d have to move quite fast to keep up.”
“True,” said Kwazar, “but animals can hibernate, or just skip eating for a few weeks.”
Annwn couldn’t help a smile. She recalled her dad’s serious discussions of evolution, and said, “Your ideas are good, but evolution is not deterministic. Evolution can only work with what is available to it at any given time, not what may be available. The most sensible solutions may be unreachable, for required features may not exist to allow them. In this way, evolution can be counterintuitive.”
“What do you mean?”
“The beasts we witnessed may not have had the necessary features to evolve hibernation, so evolutionarily they have pursued their most achievable and successful solution to eating Bode’s plants. Migration may have been the only method they could evolve.” Proud of her deduction, she felt much better than she had in a long time.
“Herbivores chasing plants,” Wildwind commented dryly. “Kind of hard to believe.”
Annwn glared at him. “Believe what you must.”
Annwn stood up and walked over to the cart, rubbing her arms to ward off the cool night air. She opened up a large “satchel,” made from blankets, and pulled out a medium-sized backpack covered in pockets. “I wish we'd brought more,” she commented.
“What’re you doing, anyway?” snidely asked Wildwind. “Whatever you take out, you’re putting back.”
Exasperated, she turned around and held the pack at her feet, giving him an angry gaze. “Listen, Wildwind, we almost lost the cart this evening, and—”
“And what? You’re taking all your things off the cart? You don’t trust us?”
“Cool it, Wildwind,” said Kwazar. “I think she has a good idea.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to find out what she’s doing.”
“Not in a nice way,” Kwazar said. “And considering what you did to her, I think you should just shut up!”
“Make me!” Wildwind quieted though, and sat back in a huff.
Looking afraid, Miranda covered her ears against the raised voices.
“For your information,” said Annwn stiffly, glancing angrily at Wildwind, “I was going to put food in here for all of us, not just me. We shouldn't have all our supplies in one location!”
Wildwind chuckled.
“A backup just in case the cart is lost, fool.” Kwazar gave Wildwind a hard stare.
“You don’t need to lecture me!” He looked at Annwn. “Who’s carrying the pack?”
Annwn sighed. “We trade off. It’s only fair.”
He nodded. “But how do we know whose food is what?”
“Don’t you think your insistence on dividing the food is a bit selfish? Talk about not trusting people.”
“As long as you have that mutt, we're keeping the food divided.” He glared at the resting puppy.
“He’s little. He hardly eats anything!”
“Still, that little bit can mean a lot in the end.”
“Can’t you let up just once?”
“Not in the case of food!”
“Fine, then, I’ll pack all our rations in separate containers.”
“Good.”
“But,” she added, “the backpack won’t hold as much if that’s the case.”
“That’s just OK with me. I’m not going to let the cart get lost, anyway.”
“What about the others? Maybe they want more food in the pack.” She looked her companions.
“Yeah,” said Kwazar, “maybe we should just leave your food out!”
Wildwind thought about Kwazar’s comment. “Now, I wouldn't go that far—”
“I see, so you do agree with Annwn’s idea!” Kwazar smiled.
Wildwind realized that he had been defeated. “OK! You don't have to separate the food in the pack. But it stays divided in the cart, and we don’t eat any from the pack until the cart’s supply has run out.”
“Or lost,” replied Annwn.
“Duh.”
“Sounds like a fair compromise to me,” said Kwazar, stemming off another argument. “Are you OK with this?” He looked at Annwn.
She nodded, fuming inside. Didn’t Wildwind care about anybody but himself? Regretting that she had asked Wildwind along, she angrily stuffed food into the bag.
Xavier stumbled upon the dead leviathan first. The beast had fallen into a depression in one of the last, most persistent, tongues of basalt before the plain gave away to steep, rounded foothills. Xavier yipped at his decaying discovery and ran to Annwn, tail tucked between his legs. Apparently he hadn’t forgotten the herd encounter.
Adjusting the protective cloak to fit her shoulders snugly, she walked toward the corpse. More than once she was glad to be in SCA. garb, for having a lot of spare cloth proved very useful. Today the dense fabric helped ward away the stench. “Ick!” She put the cloak in front of her nose.
Thickening high clouds covered what had been a sunny sky, muting the usual strong shadows of early afternoon. Yet the corpse stood out starkly from the landscape, resting among the broken rock and sparse vegetation. Huge, magnificent, powerful. Even in death, the beast seemed to be running, still seeking Bode's elusive plants.
“Wow,” was all that Wildwind said. At least he didn’t use profanity.
“Oh, my,” said Miranda. “Look at those legs.”
“Yes.” Annwn had seen the limbs. Eight, just as she had counted on the beasts when they were running. Dense muscle covered long partially exposed bones, all of which were being eaten through by a horde of small insect-like critters. Certainly not insects, she realized, noticing their tiny fuzzy bodies and wings made of broad interlocking hairs, instead of the expected hard insect shells and clear, veined wing membranes of Earth bugs. Bringing her attention back to the beast, she understood that the massive legs bespoke the power required of them, as well as the body, which appeared to be a huge collection of feathery muscles, all attached to broad, strong ribs. Annwn, not fond of internal anatomy, walked away to escape from the smell, adjusting the straps of the backpack she wore.