Koban: The Mark of Koban (28 page)

“Gazelles
HO!” Reading off of his helmet’s range finder, he added, “Two o’clock, at just
over three miles. Seven of the little guys grazing out in the open.”

Thad
stepped over to the other hatch for a confirming look. “Hold up, hover where we
are, Noreen. Don’t go too close or you’ll spook them into running. I have an
idea that might bring the ripper to us rather than our hunting for it over all
this territory. We might be able to catch one or more of these gazelles and
stake them out near the dome.”

Dillon
gave him a look. “How the devil do you propose caching one? All you and I have
ever done is shoot them, and that’s hard enough with those bouncing little blue
and white balls of muscle, changing directions constantly.”

Thad
shrugged. “Perhaps drive them into a bunch of staked out cargo nets with the
shuttle. We have one aboard now, and we can get more back at the dome.”

“What if
these seven scatter instead of running together straight? It isn’t as if we
have a big herd to chase, to increase our chances of snaring one.”

“OK, that
might
not work. Though getting the ripper to come to
us
is more likely to
succeed than what we’ve been doing all morning. We may have already passed it
by without knowing it, if it’s under good cover.”

“Gentle
Men,” Noreen interrupted their manly hunter speculations. “Look out the hatch,
please. They’re running.”

Thad, in
his best “I told you so” tone to Noreen said, “I
knew
if they saw us
they’d spook and run.”

“Then explain
why they’re running
towards
us, oh wise and clever hunter.”

****

Merki’s
stored mind pictures from female pride mates had grown stronger, as her
impending delivery placed them in proper context. The dwindling food value of
the two slow one’s, the carcasses now nearly consumed, would not sustain her or
help her produce the secretions her cub would need in the weeks to come. She
needed the pride to hunt for her, to help her. Too late she realized that her
dead mate’s desire to save his own cubs from other males had caused her to
endanger them in another way.

In fact, a
steadily increasing metabolism was making her hungrier. Her hormone driven body
was trying to make her to eat enough in advance to provide the extra energy for
the double births, and to be able to stay with her cubs and nurse them through
their first weeks of greatest vulnerability. Isolated as she was, her mother
and sisters couldn’t help her now.

From the
protected den in a modest rock outcrop, she constantly looked out over the lush
but empty plains where she had trapped herself. True, she was protected from
the non-existent rhinolo herds that might trample her cubs if found. Equally
absent were other small predators and scavengers, which might threaten her unprotected
cubs when she hunted. However, hunger was now stalking their future, and hers.

When her
keen nose detected the faint scent of gazelle on the northerly breeze, she
quickly moved with maximum stealth to the highest point on her mound of rocks.
The direct breeze there sharpened the scent. She couldn’t see them, but the
strength and variation in scent told her they were not very far, and there was
more than one. Probably the same ones she had pursued into this cursed and
enclosed territory. She started down, and moved into the uncropped grass,
moving in the direction the breeze told her to go. At least the high grass was
better concealment than if vast herds had grazed it all to the shortness found
outside.

 She moved
cautiously, staying low to scent the air, to ensure she was still moving in the
right direction. Luckily, the breeze remained constant, coming off the great
ocean to the south. She knew from experience that it would stay that way most
of the day. However, it wasn’t long before she found a trail to follow that
didn’t depend on the breeze. The small herd had passed this way, moving into
the same breeze, using it to detect the smell of threats in front of them.  Merki’s
nose confirmed they were the same prey she had pursued previously.

She
noticed the freshness of their scent and of their droppings, and observed the small
detail that they were nibbling only the tender tops of the seed laden grass
tips.  This told her the prey was not very far ahead.  The gazelles had browsed
at their leisure, calm and complacent because there had been no sign or scent
of predators for many days. Merki wanted to keep them relaxed that way a little
bit longer.

Confident
she knew where they were, Merki diverted to a gentle rise to her right, where
she would be high enough to see the prey over the grass and what lay ahead and
to the sides. She needed to maximize her chances for a kill, to take advantage
of any terrain features.

From the
higher vantage point, she could clearly see the relatively straight course the
prey had made through the three-foot high grass. Their backs, heads, and horns were
clearly visible above the grass. A darker blue meandering dip in the grass,
away from the rise Merki was on, told her that in heavy rain, the runoff from
this low hill followed that course, towards a spot the prey would soon cross.

That was a
place to lay in wait. To burst out from the side of the trail they were blazing
in the grass. There would be several animals close enough for a good chance to
knock one down. Even a pursuit should be easier in the high grass, since it
would hinder them more than her, with her mass and strength to force her way through
thick grass.

Dropping
to her belly, she crept into the shallow gully and followed it to near where
she could hear them rustling in the grass ahead of her.  They made contented
little bleats and snorts from time to time, as they nibbled the nutritious seed
covered tips. She was careful to stay far enough back to prevent small vagaries
in the direction of the breeze from bringing them her scent. Once they started
crossing the gully, she would crawl until near enough to rush them and pounce.

They were
nearly to the gully when they stopped their rustling of the grass, and made nervous
snorting sounds. Something had put them on alert, but she was sure it wasn’t
herself. She had not started to move again and the breeze had not changed to
bring them her scent. Raising her head slightly, keeping it well below the
grass tops, her nose tested the breeze but detected nothing out of the
ordinary. However, her ears picked up a faint whine in the far distance, from
the other side of the trail the gazelles were making.

It sounded
much like a not-life sound of an airborne carrier for the red ones, or even the
slow ones. She knew the concerned gazelles would all be looking that way. Merki
risked raising her head a bit higher so she could see farther east, where the
sound originated. Low in the sky was a dark shape that was clearly one of the
not-life carriers of the slow ones. It was nearly motionless, but it would
frighten away a desperately needed kill if it came closer.

However,
it did give her a perfect distraction if she acted now, and the slow ones were
less risk to her kind that the red ones. She started crawling along the bottom
of the gully, closing the distance, passing between tufts of clumped grass
silently, the waving tips masked by the breeze, while the gazelles were watching
the not-life noisemaker.

Suddenly,
she saw movement through the grass ahead of her, to the left, the rump of a
gazelle, its hooves dancing nervously,
facing the wrong threat
. She
leaped without a sound, she thought, but the skittish animal appeared to have
heard or sensed something, but the visible threat in front and “something”
heard from behind was enough to confuse and delay its leap. It was still
lowering its haunches to spring when it lost the battle for survival. Merki landed
on the helpless animal, claws firmly implanted, and powerful jaws clamped on
the back of the neck. She snapped its neck with a savage twist and it went limp
and collapsed.

The other
six gazelles started a frantic dash through the grass directly away from the
now definite threat, towards the unknown object that had
not
attacked
them. Merki started back along the trail the gazelles had made, taking
advantage of the tramped down grass to avoid leaving a new swath of waving and
crushed grass to reveal her passage. She needed to get closer to her den
quickly, where there were areas clear of tall grass, and she could make better
time without leaving a visible trail. 

****

Marlyn
offered an observation as they flew towards the panicked gazelles. “They’re
splitting up and turning away now that we’re closing with them, so they were
frightened by something besides us. But I thought you said there were seven,
Dillon.”

Unable to
see them through the hatch once the shuttle turned towards them, Dillon said
“Yes. There were definitely seven. The helmet had an icon for each and numbered
them. Why?”

“Because
only six of them branched away from us as we flew near. There are only six
trails in the grass leading back to where they started. One of them is missing,
so are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Thad
nodded. “There’s only one predator in the compound that we know of, so it may
have come to us after all. Noreen, take us higher and we can look for IR
signatures, starting from where the stampede began.”

From
several thousand feet, the IR splotch streaking along the gazelle’s back trail
was clear. It suddenly made a left turn onto a rock-strewn outcrop and left the
high grass.

“It’s
making for that rock covered hill about a mile ahead, I think. If it has a den,
we’d have to go down on foot to root it out. I don’t plan to face a ripper on
the ground. I lost my sense of sportsmanship with those raptors on a previous
rock pile. A ripper has at least twice the intelligence. Rifles on automatic
Dillon, this magnificent beast can’t be allowed to make it home.”

“Noreen,
we’ll both fire out of the left side hatch, where you have the best view from
the pilot’s seat. Go down to a few hundred feet and overtake the ripper. Try to
keep as steady a pace as possible. Dillon, let’s see if we can make head
shoots. We want as intact a carcass as possible.”

The ripper
obviously knew they were there, the noise would be impossible to miss as they
drew close. Yet it did not drop the gazelle it had in its jaws, which would
have increased its speed and mobility.

Both men settled
on their stomachs at the hatch floor, rifles protruding. The shuttle slowed
from roughly sixty knots to about thirty-five, the pace of the ripper. The
ripper rolled its eyes in their direction, but maintained a grip on the
gazelle. Its reluctance to drop the prey seemed to speak to great hunger, yet
it was a beautifully muscled animal, running steadily and powerfully.

“Dillon,
on my mark, we both shoot. Ready, set,
fire!”

Amazingly,
the first two carefully aimed shots missed when the big cat braked briefly, and
turned away as the muzzle flashes occurred.

****

What Merki
couldn’t anticipate was that these heavier weapons were automatics, something
the pride’s mind images could not convey based on experiences with the red
ones. The volume of stingers that flew from the sticks proved unavoidable. One
bullet struck her right shoulder, and passed down through her body, nicking her
great heart. Another struck her lower jaw, shattering that. She stumbled and
fell, releasing the gazelle her doomed cubs had needed if she was to insure
their survival.

Merki
struggled to regain her feet but her body would not obey. She was bleeding out,
and knew she was dying. She thought these slow one’s might have actually been seeking
her. She had killed two of them, and had a mind image received from the female
before she died, that her “pride” would protect their own. Something Merki
could understand.

She sank
and rolled to her left side, pain wracking her chest as each beat of her heart
pushed her life’s blood through the opening torn in one chamber. The stingers
had stopped flying, but she could do nothing if they had not. She felt
something strange happening inside, where she sensed her cubs in distress. They
were moving, shifting position in response to hormone changes triggered by the
desperate run, and now her injury and blood loss.

Merki
experienced pain and spasms in her rear quarters and internally, not related to
her great wound. When placed in context with existing mind pictures, this told
her she was experiencing an accelerated delivery of her cubs. Her dying body
was attempting to give birth, possibly to permit another lactating female of
the pride to suckle her cubs.