Away Games: Science Fiction Sports Stories (18 page)

“And what do
we
do in the meantime?” asked Desmond in petulant tones.

“It’s up to you,” I said. “We can stay here until the vehicle returns, we can march back to camp, or we can foot-slog to that swamp about four miles to the north and see if there’s anything interesting up there.”

“Like a Snark?” asked Ramona.

“Five Men and four Dabihs walking across four miles of open savannah aren’t about to sneak up and surprise anything. But we’re not part of the ecological system. None of the animals will be programmed to recognize us as predators, so there’s always a chance—if he’s there to begin with—that the Snark will stick around out of curiosity or just plain stupidity.”

It was the answer they wanted to hear, so they decided to march to the swamp. Pollard must have taken fifty holos along the way. Desmond complained about the heat, the humidity, the terrain, and the insects. Ramona stuck a chip that read the text of a book into her ear and didn’t utter a word until we reached the swamp. Marx just lowered his head and walked.

When we got there we came upon a small herd of herbivores, very impressive-looking beasts, going about 500 pounds apiece. The males possessed fabulous horns, perhaps 60 inches long, with a triple twist in them. The horns looked like they were made of crystal, and they acted as a prism, separating the sunlight into a series of tiny rainbows.

“My God, look at them!” said Pollard, taking holographs as fast as he could.

“They’re magnificent!” whispered Ramona Desmond.

“I’d like one of those,” said Marx, studying the herd.

“You took the gazelles,” I noted. “Mr. Desmond has first shot.”

“I don’t want it,” said Desmond nervously.

“All right,” I said. “Mrs. Desmond, you have first shot.”

“I’d never kill anything so beautiful,” she replied.

“No,” muttered Desmond so softly that she couldn’t hear him. “You’d just throw them into jail.”

“Then it’s Mr. Marx’s shot,” I said. “I’d suggest you take the fellow on the far right. He doesn’t have the longest horns, but he’s got the best-matched set. Let’s get a little closer.” I turned to the others as Marx took his rifle from his gunbearer and loaded it. “You stay here.”

I signaled to Chajinka to take a circuitous approach. Marx, displaying the proper crouching walk, followed him, and I brought up the rear. (A hunter learns early on
never
to get between a client and the game. Either that, or he keeps a prosthetic ear company in business.)

When we’d gotten to within thirty yards, I decided we were close enough and nodded to Marx. He slowly raised his rifle and took aim. I could tell he was going for a heart shot rather than take the chance of ruining the head. It was a good strategy, always assuming that the heart was where he thought it was.

Marx took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and began squeezing the trigger.

And just as he did so, a brilliantly-colored avian flew past, shrieking wildly. The horned buck jumped, startled, just as Marx’s rifle exploded. The rest of the herd bolted in all directions at the sound of the shot, and before Marx could get off a second shot the buck bellowed in pain, spun around, and vanished into the nearby bush.

“Come on!” said Marx excitedly, jumping up and running after the buck. “I know I hit him! He won’t get far!”

I grabbed him as he hurtled past. “You’re not going anywhere, Mr. Marx!”

“What are you talking about?” he demanded.

“There’s a large dangerous wounded animal in the bush,” I said. “I can’t let you go in after it.”

“I’m as good a shot as you are!” he snapped. “It was just a fluke that that goddamned bird startled it. You know that!”

“Look,” I said. “I’m not thrilled going into heavy bush after a wounded animal that’s carrying a pair of five-foot swords on its head, but that’s what I get paid to do. I can’t look for him and keep an eye on you as well.”

“But …”

“You say you’ve been on safari before,” I said. “That means you know the rules.”

He muttered and he cursed, but he
did
know the rules, and he rejoined the rest of the party while Chajinka and I vanished into the bush in search of our wounded prey.

The swamp smelled of rotting vegetation. We followed the blood spoor on leaves and bushes through two hundred yards of mud that sucked at the Dabih’s feet and my boots, and then, suddenly, it vanished. I saw a little hillock a few yards off to the right, where the grass was crushed flat, small branches were broken, and flowers were broken off their stems. Chajinka studied the signs for a full minute, then looked up.

“The Snark,” he said.

“What are you talking about?”

“He was hiding, watching us,” answered Chajinka. He pointed to the ground. “The wounded animal lay down here. You see the blood? The Snark was over there. Those are his tracks. When the animal lay down, the Snark saw it was too weak to get up again, but still dangerous. He circled behind it. See—here is where he went. Then he leaped upon it and killed it.”

“How?”

Chajinka shrugged. “I cannot tell. But he lifted it and carried it off.”

“
Could
he lift an animal that big?”

“He did.”

“He can’t be more than a few hundred yards ahead of us,” I said. “What do you think? Can we catch up with him?”

“You and I? Yes.”

Every now and then, when my blood was up, Chajinka had to remind me that I wasn’t hunting for my own pleasure. Yes, was the implication, he and I could catch up with the Snark. Marx might not be a hindrance. But there was no way we could take Pollard and the Desmonds through the swamp, keep an eye out for predators, and hope to make up any ground on the Snark—and of course I couldn’t leave them alone while we went after the Snark with Marx.

“All right,” I said with a sigh. “Let’s get back and tell them what happened.”

Marx went ballistic. He ranted and cursed for a good three minutes, and by the end of it I felt he was ready to declare a blood feud against this trophy thief.

When he finally calmed down, I left Chajinka behind to see if he could learn anything more about the Snark while the rest of us began marching back to the water hole, where the vehicle was waiting for us.

• • •

“We have sailed many months, we have sailed many weeks,

(Four weeks to the month you may mark),

But never as yet (’tis your Captain who speaks)

Have we caught the least glimpse of a Snark!”

• • •

Mbele had himself a good laugh when we got back to camp, hot and tired and hungry.

“You keep talking about the Snark as if it exists!” he said in amusement. “It’s an imaginary beast in a children’s poem.”

“Snark is just a convenient name for it,” I said. “We can call it anything you like.”

“Call it absent,” he said. “No one’s seen it.”

“Right,” I said. “And I suppose when you close your eyes, the whole galaxy vanishes.”

“I never thought about it,” admitted Mbele. “But it probably does.” He paused thoughtfully. “At least, I certainly hope so. It makes me feel necessary.”

“Look!” I exploded. “There’s a dead 300-pound killer cat out there, and a missing antelope that was even bigger!” I glared at him. “
I
didn’t kill one and steal the other. Did
you
?”

He swallowed his next rejoinder and gave me a wide berth for the rest of the day.

• • •

Chajinka trotted into camp the next morning and signaled to me. I walked over and joined him.

“Did you learn anything?” I asked.

“It is an interesting animal,” he said.

I grimaced, for as everyone knows, the Dabihs are masters of understatement.

• • •

“Come, listen, my men, while I tell you again

The five unmistakeable marks

By which you may know, wheresoever you go,

The warranted genuine Snarks.”

• • •

I gathered the hunting party around me.

“Well,” I announced, “we know a little more about the Snark now than we did yesterday.” I paused to watch their reactions. Everyone except Desmond seemed interested; Desmond looked like he wished he were anywhere else.

“Chajinka has been to the tree where we tied the dead meat animals,” I continued.

“And?” said Marx.

“The ropes were untied. Not cut or torn apart or bitten through; untied. So we know that the Snark either has fingers, or some damned effective appendages. And some meat was missing from the carcasses.”

“All right,” said Ramona. “We know he can untie knots. What else?”

“We know he’s a carnivore,” I said. “We weren’t sure about that yesterday.”

“So what?” asked Marx. “There are millions of carnivores in the galaxy. Nothing unique about that.”

“It means he won’t stray far from the game herds. They’re his supermarket.”

“Maybe he only has to eat once every few months,” said Marx, unimpressed.

“No,” I said. “That’s the third thing we’ve learned: he’s got to eat just about as often as we do.”

“How do we know that?” asked Ramona.

“According to Chajinka, he approached the meat very cautiously, but his tracks show that he trotted away once he’d eaten his fill. The trail disappeared after a mile, but we know that he trotted that whole distance.”

“Ah!” said Ramona. “I see.”

“I sure as hell don’t,” complained her husband.

“Anything that can sustain that pace, that kind of drain on its energy, has to eat just about every day.” I paused. “And we know a fourth thing.”

“What is that?” she asked.

“He’s not afraid of us,” I said. “He had to know we were the ones who killed those meat animals. Our tracks and scent were all over the place, and of course there were the ropes. He knows that we’re a party of at least nine—five, if you discount Chajinka and the three gunbearers, and he has no reason to discount them. And yet, hours after learning all that, he hasn’t left the area.” I paused. “That leads to a fifth conclusion. He’s not very bright; he didn’t understand that Marx’s gun was what wounded the animal he killed yesterday—because if he realized we could kill from a distance, he’d
be
afraid of us.”

“You deduce all that just from a few tracks and the signs that Chajinka saw?” asked Desmond skeptically.

“Reading signs and interpreting what they mean is what hunting’s all about,” I explained. “Shooting is just the final step.”

“So do we go after him now?” asked Marx eagerly.

I shook my head. “I’ve already sent Chajinka back out to see if he can find the creature’s lair. If he’s like most carnivores, he’ll want to lie up after he eats. If we know where to look for him, we’ll save a lot of time and effort. It makes more sense to wait for Chajinka to report back, and then go after the Snark in the morning.”

“It seems so odd,” said Ramona. “We’ve never seen this creature, and yet we’ve already reasoned out that he’s incredibly formidable.”

“Of course he’s formidable,” I said.

“You say that as if
everything
is formidable,” she said with a condescending smile.

“That’s the first axiom on safari,” I replied. “Everything bites.”

“If this thing is as dangerous as you make it seem,” said Desmond hesitantly, “are we permitted to use more … well, sophisticated weapons?”

“Show a little guts, Philemon,” said Marx contemptuously.

“I’m a banker, not a goddamned Alan Quatermain!” shot back Desmond.

“If you’re afraid, stay in camp,” said Marx. “Me, I can’t wait to get him in my sights.”

“You didn’t answer my question, Mr. Bell,” persisted Desmond.

Mbele pulled out the Statute Book and began reading aloud. “Unless, in the hunter’s judgment, the weapons you are using are inadequate for killing the prey, you must use the weapons that have been approved for the world in question.”

“So if he presents a serious threat, we can use pulse guns and molecular imploders and the like?”

“Have you ever seen a molecular imploder in action?” I asked. “Aim it at a 50-story building and you turn the whole thing into pudding in about three seconds.”

“What about pulse guns?” he persisted.

“There’s not a lot of trophy left when one of those babies hit the target,” I said.

“We need
something
, damn it!” whined Desmond.

“We have more than enough firepower to bring down any animal on this planet,” I said, getting annoyed with him. “I don’t mean to be blunt, but there’s a difference between an inadequate hunter and an inadequate weapon.”

“You can say that again!” muttered Marx.

“That was
very
blunt, Mr. Bell,” said Desmond, getting up and walking to his Bubble. His wife stared at him expressionlessly, then pulled out her book and began reading.

“That’s what you get for being honest,” said Marx, making no attempt to hide his amusement. “I just hope this Snark is half the creature you make it out to be.”

I’ll settle for half
, I thought uneasily.

• • •

Chajinka, who was sitting on the hood of the safari vehicle, raised his spear, which was my signal to stop.

He jumped down, bent over, examined the grasses for a few seconds, then trotted off to his left, eyes glued to the ground.

I climbed out and grabbed my rifle.

“You wait here,” I said to the four humans. The Dabih gunbearers, who clung to handles and footholds on the back of the vehicle when it was moving, had released their grips and were now standing just behind it.

“Whose shot it is?” asked Marx.

“Let me think,” I said. “You shot that big buck yesterday, and Mrs. Desmond killed the boar-like thing with the big tusks just before that. So Mr. Desmond has the first shot today.”

“I’m not getting out of the vehicle,” said Desmond.

“It’s against regulations to shoot from the safety of the vehicle,” I pointed out.

“Fuck your regulations and fuck you!” hollered Desmond. “I don’t want the first shot! I don’t want
any
shot! I don’t even know what the hell I’m doing on this stupid safari!”

“Goddammit, Philemon!” hissed Marx fiercely.

“What is it?” asked Desmond, startled.

“If there was anything there, Mr. Desmond,” I explained, trying to control my temper, “you just gave it more than ample reason to run hell for leather in the opposite direction. You
never
yell during a hunt.”