Fire with Fire(33)

Caine breathed, was ready to indulge in a relieved forward sag—and realized that he had, at most, three rounds left in the clip. And if they hunt in pairs—

He was on his feet, right index finger pushing forward against the magazine release as his left hand tore open the cover of an ammo pouch and tugged out a fresh magazine. As the expended clip clattered at his feet, he brought the other up into the receiver, wrestled briefly to get it seated correctly, and then gave its bottom a sharp upwards slap. A crisp snap announced it was ready. Caine retrained the rifle on the bush that had vomited out the pavonosaur: nothing.

Movement to the left—slow, silent—caught his attention: the biped? Still there?

He turned his head, careful not to have the barrel of the gun track along with his gaze.

The biped was still there—possibly staring back at him. Caine couldn’t tell because he couldn’t see anything that looked like eyes. A smallish and tightly-furred head—shaped like an edge-on tetrahedron—topped an improbably long neck that swayed slightly back and forth like that of an ostrich: that had been the motion Caine had noticed. The body, also closely furred, was akin to a wasp-waisted gibbon with comically long limbs and oddly-flanged hip joints. A knee-length, bifurcated tail flexed once, restively—and then each half pursued its own, independent prehensile coilings and unfurlings.

Now what? Want a nice banana, monkey? Take me to your leader? Let’s pretend this never happened?

Caine decided not to move, not to speak. Anything could be misunderstood—except what he was doing now. With all animals—whether intelligent or not—the best outcome for any first encounter is not a breakthrough in communication, or peace-offerings, or an exchange of phone numbers: it can simply be measured by duration. The longer it is, the better it is—and the more likely that neither party will consider a second contact aversive.

So Caine stood and looked at the biped, which was evidently doing something similar in return. Caine started counting: one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand . . .

At “thirty,” the gangly gibbon-with-double-coati-tail was still there, scratching at one—thigh?—with half of his tail. Evidently, this degree of relief was insufficient; he/she/it reached out a hand—or paw, or something—that seemed to writhe at, rather than scratch, the troublesome spot.

Oh, well, if we’ve become comfortable enough for actual movement—Caine shifted the gun, looked down to check the time—and noted rapid motion from the corner of his eye.

The biped seemed to speed sideways into the bush, as though it had turned its hips without turning its torso, or had somehow rotated its legs at the hip. Either way, it was gone before Caine could blink.

Evidently, the biped’s prior decision to engage in unconstrained movement had not indicated a willingness to tolerate the same from Caine. Instead, the creature had reserved the exclusive right to run like hell at the faintest hint of action from the newcomer. Which was a perfectly reasonable choice, Caine reflected: had anyone taken a picture of him during his motionless half minute, they might well have titled the image, “Still Life of Human with Assault Rifle.” After what the local had seen that weapon do to a pavonosaur, he/she/it had every reason to err on the side of extreme caution.

Local. I’m calling it a “local.” The assumption of intelligence—that’s a big step.

But was it? Bipedal posture, opposable manipulatory digits, a voluntary return to danger in the hope of—what?—luring the pavonosaur away from the hapless stranger? Or was it all on a par with African mountain gorillas—behaviors that mimicked, yet were not really indicative of, intelligence? One way to find out.

Caine moved off the rock slowly—both watchful for other predators and determined not to make any sudden motions that an unseen observer might find unsettling—and walked over to where the biped had stood. A quick scan revealed nothing. Caine followed the creature’s exit trajectory into the bush and again saw nothing—except a large, recently snapped frond stem. Caine frowned: odd. The creature seemed so adept at moving in the forests, it was hard to believe that it would have been so clumsy as to break—

No. That wasn’t what had happened.

Caine darted into the bush, scanning quickly—and five meters further on, found another freshly snapped tuber. No other damage to the foliage was evident: not a leaf turned back, not a weed crumpled underfoot. Nothing except the freshly exposed pith of the tuber, gleaming like a white trail-blaze. Which is exactly what the local was doing: leaving a trail.

Caine looked into the forest: yes, they were locals.