Koban: The Mark of Koban (18 page)

This was the first sizable kill for her since she had parted
from her pride nearly two weeks ago, and she needed to eat for herself and her
cubs. There was a grove of low trees nearby, and she quickly drug the carcass
under them, out of sight of harassing wolfbats or scavenger birds. Without pride
mates to share guard responsibility, a squadron of wolfbats could prove very
troublesome and distracting.

She started feeding, tearing away the unwanted stomach with
her claws and teeth, even bypassing the acceptable intestines, going for the
more nutritious organs, such as the heart, liver, lungs and kidney. The
hindquarters and ribs would come later, since they would keep for a longer
time. Without a need to share the kill with a pride, she would consume all she
could hold over the next week. The head she would save for last provided there
wasn’t a fresh kill to replace this one.

Merki was enjoying a sense of fullness when her keen hearing
detected the sound of a not-life ground carrier like the red ones used. She had
never seen or heard one herself, but the pride had shared mind pictures from
members that had encountered the red ones in the past. She crept to the edge of
the grove, sighting the retreating object. It looked as if it had come from the
cliff wall opening she had used. Despite anxiety to investigate, she waited for
the not-life to disappear around a low hill.

Keeping low, she rushed through the tall grass until she
neared the opening. As she did, the mind image of a scent she had never sensed
directly told her that two of the slower prey that ruled here now had been in
the not-life carrier, not red ones. Looking apprehensively at the opening, she
confirmed her dread. The gray vines now stretched across the opening she had
passed through so recently. She didn’t
know
for certain, but sensed that
they were deadly to the touch once more. The separation from the pride she had
avoided was now genuine, trapped inside this unknown territory.

Except for the gazelles she had followed in here, there
might not be any prey for her to hunt. The uncropped tall grass made it appear
that no herds had grazed this area for a considerable time. What would she eat
when the prey she had now was gone? She had two cubs coming soon.

****

“Amelia, I know you were thrilled to see the rhinolo and
other herd animals, and wanted to stay longer. However, it’s very dangerous out
there. Not only would a bull rhinolo charge us if we got too close, on rough terrain
it might even catch us. You wouldn’t believe how fast those massive animals can
run.”

Lady Simpson hugged Flaven Dawson, her new consort, in
gratitude. “I know Flav, but weren’t they impressive and magnificent? There
haven’t been vast herds like that on Earth for hundreds of years. A handful of
colony worlds have big native animal herds, but not with such rich beautiful
colors, and not animals so energetic and powerfully built. The gravity does add
a sense of ‘irresistible force’ to them. I wish we had some inside the walls where
we could see them all the time.”

Flaven patted her arm in return, keeping a firm hand on the
truck’s steering stick over the bumpy ground. “There are other animals out
there, such as predators, that we definitely don’t want to encounter. Rippers
are just the smartest ones. Koban has jackal type pack animals, and analogues
to Earth cheetahs, leopards, hyenas, the little raptors we call screamers, and those
are just the warm weather killers. The whiteraptors occasionally come this far
south.

“We don’t even have local names for many of Koban’s animals yet,
because it’s so risky to do what we just did, to go outside and study them. If
we had fully enclosed, extra heavy-duty trucks, we might risk it more often.
Only we
don’t
have them now. That’s why I left the gate open, ready to
race back inside if something came after us.”

“Oh, I thought you did that so we wouldn’t accidentally
touch the electrified fencing as we drove through.”

“I wouldn’t want to do that, for sure,” he laughed at her
innocence. “But there are cutoff switches in boxes on the walls next to the
gates. That’s what I was doing when I got in and out of the truck. I bypassed
the voltage before pulling the double gates open, and then I closed the gates when
we returned. They are charged again now, to keep even a rhinolo outside.”

“Flav, you’re sure you won’t get in trouble for taking me
out? The Governor was so mean to me when I asked permission.”

“I made sure I had a valid excuse for taking a truck out,
and just like when we left, I want you to duck down as we pull near the dome
and park under the overhang. Keep your video recordings safe sweetheart. We
each appear in them, so we can’t claim we weren’t out there.”

“I’ll be careful Flav. This was
our
harmless secret
holiday.”

****

Merki was hungry a week sooner than she had expected. Due to
her inexperience, her gazelle carcass didn’t provide nourishment for as long as
expected. For her, that is. The little brown stingers from below the ground had
covered and stripped the meat from the bones overnight, while she slept in the
low tree branches.

After the fact, the reason for the lush small grove of low
trees revealed itself in a mind image previously shared by pride elders. The
roots of the low trees benefited from the soil turnover and waste products of a
subterranean stinging insect colony. The cool foliage refuge sometimes drew
small overnight residents that checked in, but didn’t check out.

The problem with many shared mind images was context. Until
you encountered the circumstances, the images often had no meaning. Thus, Merki
was hungry sooner than expected, but now knew to store her kills in trees, or
at least away from those small low groves.

Her nose and scouting quickly drew her to a strange clear
wall within the larger territory where she found herself confined. Other than
occasional traces of the seven surviving gazelles she had followed inside, the
only prey scented away from the central nest of the slow ones came through small
holes in that clear porous wall.

The second wall proved much tougher than her claws and
teeth. The material yielded slightly but would not tear or puncture. She saw
and scented the sizable but unfamiliar prey animals behind the barrier.
Initially they ran when they saw her prowling the perimeter, but gradually
realized they were safe from attack by her. After that, they would gather to
look at her in obvious curiosity, which Merki found disturbing for mindless
prey animals. That was because they didn’t seem completely mindless in their
behavior.

The slow ones that lived in the central den were definitely not
mindless, but that meant they represented a threat because they used not-live
carriers for protection, and stinging sticks that could injure or kill at a
distance. They also controlled the killing vines that guarded the top of the
cliff walls and the openings. They were seemingly weak prey, yet strangely
powerful.

As a group, they were a great danger to her, but in isolation,
she was certain she could stalk and easily kill two or three. They would not
react fast enough to oppose or threaten her if she got close. They didn’t even
maintain sentinels when outside, or watch anything but the sky, presumably because
they thought the flyers were the only threats that could enter their territory.

Her cubs were sending hunger impressions again, and she
needed to build her reserves to make the protein secretions they needed after
birth, and would suckle from her. That was in two weeks, at most. She had no
choice. Her needs and those of her cubs outweighed the risk of preying on the
slow ones. She had to prepare a suitable birthing den, and then obtain a fresh supply
of meat.

****

Holding hands, the couple was apparently taking a pleasant
evening stroll, enjoying the cool temperature and mild breezes before the heat
and humidity returned. Outdoors was also a place where they could have a
private conversation.

“Candice, Stewart simply wants to improve our relations with
Prime City. We rely on them for food right now, and for manufacturing products that
we need in the machine shops from all of the ships grounded there. Really, all
we can repay them with is our good will. Cahill is risking that source of vital
material with her anti Kobani rhetoric.

“A famous woman like Lady Alstot will gain listeners for a male
like my brother, just by being with her at social functions.” Glen MacDougal
was explaining to his wife why his older brother had formed a consort liaison
with a haughty former socialite. 

“Glen, I understand the why of it, but now you don’t get to
spend much time with him. We aren’t high enough socially to revolve in those elite
circles. I know, like you and I, Stewart doesn’t like Governor Cahill at all,
and yet he’s rubbing shoulders with people in her group, using Lady Alstot’s
celebrity and former position. I emphasize Lady Alstot’s
former
prominent position in Hub and Old Colony high society and wealth. I don’t see
how that translates into the same position now, with her stranded on Koban like
the rest of us.”

They actually
were
enjoying their nightly evening
walk around the dome, it just happened to be away from potential eavesdroppers.
That in itself was an indication of how matters were deteriorating under
Cahill’s administration. Factions were developing, and social cohesion was fragmenting
as informants were
listened
to by Cahill, and their opinions and reports
were solicited and rewarded.

“Candice, Hub society has inertia, it keeps steering some
people after logic says its social construct is no longer the best guide or
even applicable. Even I haven’t given up hope that someone looking for all of
us missing people us will look far enough away from Human Space to stumble onto
this world. Stewart has the same hope. I know you think we should accept where
we are, and turn this into home, in our hearts as well as in fact.”

He looked up into the darkened sky, moon glow faintly
illuminating some of the higher clouds; the view of the moon was blocked by the
bulk of the dome a hundred feet away. The strange constellations were not a
concern to people that had traveled to so many worlds. Almost no one remembered
the sky locations of the random star alignments of Earth, which had ancient
mythical names.

Candice followed his gaze. “This is a beautiful world Glen,
despite its hardships and dangers, I can love it. Can’t you?”

He was about to answer when a click of claws on tarmac, and
the faint scrape of paw pads caused him to start a turn as he reached for the
pistol at his hip. Wolfbats did not fly at night, and it was still too cool for
skeeters to be very active, but anyone with sense went outside armed.

The ripper was on them before Glen’s weapon fully cleared the
holster, and he died without ever seeing his killer. A swift gape jawed bite
and head rotation as it leaped over him twisted and snapped his neck instantly.

Candice, even slower to react, was struck on the back of her
neck and head by a powerful-clawed foreleg as the ripper leaped over them both.
It had determined how to strike them both simultaneously from behind, but the
unfamiliar hard tarmac had thwarted a complete surprise when her claws made
brief contact for the final leap. She had shifted position in midair to adapt
to the prey that was slowly reaching for a stinging stick. That reduced the
force of the impact to the neck of the smaller prey, stunning it rather than delivering
the deathblow intended.

As Merki touched down on the rock-like hard ground, she now
used her claws, fully extended for the greatest possible grip despite the
scraping noise, to turn back and finish the stunned smaller prey animal. It had
fallen forward and rolled, the second stinging stick falling well to the side,
out of its reach. Merki’s night vision could clearly see this, and there were
no other of these prey animals nearby to concern her. There was no rush to
complete the second kill.

She sprang back to the still living prey, intending to
experience its mind terror as it confronted death. She wanted to experience the
thrill of the first kill of one of these prey animals by her pride.

There were no shared mind pictures from any of her elders of
this prey animal. However, she assumed it would match those shared images of the
red ones, rarely slain in the past. They each had held a belief in their superiority
over all living things, and a hatred of her kind, mixed with respect. The mental
images remembered from them came mixed with fear and awe that they were
defeated by one of the pride.

The prey was seriously injured and unconscious, robbing her
of experiencing the animal’s terror.  However, that would not prevent Merki
sensing the most recent thoughts and impressions from the animal’s mind. She
brought her neck frill into contact with the creature’s head, to form a clear
connection.

I love this world my mate is hurt I miss home I hate the red
ones I want cubs how can we get home…

Recoiling, Merki broke contact, stunned at the overwhelming
intensity of the kaleidoscope of images, feelings, and impressions from the
female. That was another shock! She
knew
this unknown creature was
female and her mate, whom she loved, was lying dead near her and was still a
clear sharp image in her mind. These animals were self-aware! As the pride and their
hunter cousins were aware, only this was a stronger sense than she had ever
experienced, even with direct frill contact with her pride mates.

Reluctant to try contact again, Merki nevertheless
approached the female she knew was only moments from death. An impending death
was a sensation any of the pride could feel from a mortally injured prey
animal, and this creature instinctively felt death approaching, even if she was
not conscious.