Away Games: Science Fiction Sports Stories (22 page)

The Dabih picked up the trail, and we began tracking the Snark. I wanted him so bad I could taste it. It wasn’t just revenge for all the Men and Dabihs he’d killed. It wasn’t even a matter of professional pride. It was because I knew this was my last hunt, that I’d never get my license back after losing fifteen sentient beings who were under my protection.

The trail led back to the camp, where the Snark had watched us bury Desmond’s body. It had kept out of sight until we drove off, and then began moving in a northwesterly direction. We tracked it until late afternoon, when we found ourselves about eight miles from the ship.

“There’s no sense going back for the night,” I told Pollard. “We might never pick up the trail again.”

“Isn’t he likely to double back to the camp?”

“Not while we’re out here, he isn’t,” I said with absolutely certainty. “This isn’t a hunt any longer—it’s a war. Neither of us will quit until the other’s dead.”

He looked at me much the way I’d looked at Desmond earlier in the day. Finally he spoke up: “We can’t track him at night.”

“I know,” I replied. “We’ll each keep watch for three hours—you, me and Chajinka—and we’ll start again as soon as it’s light enough.”

I sat the first watch, and I was so keyed up that I couldn’t get to sleep, so I sat through Pollard’s watch as well before I woke Chajinka and managed a three-hour nap. As soon as it was light, we started following the trail again.

By noon we were approaching a small canyon. Then, suddenly, I saw a flicker of motion off in the distance. I stopped the vehicle and activated my Telescopic lenses.

He was more than a mile away, and he had his back to us, but I knew I’d finally gotten my first look at the Snark.

• • •

Erect and sublime, for one moment of time,

In the next, that wild figure they saw

(As if stung by a spasm) plunge into a chasm,

While they waited and listened in awe.

• • •

I drove to the edge of the canyon. Chajinka hopped off the hood, and Pollard and I joined him a moment later.

“You’re sure you saw him?” asked Pollard.

“I’m sure,” I said. “Bipedal. Rust-colored. Looks almost like a cross between a bear and a gorilla, at least from this distance.”

“Yeah, that’s him all right.” He peered down into the canyon. “And he climbed down there?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“I assume we’re going after him?”

“There’s no reason to believe he’ll come out anywhere near here,” I said. “If we wait, we’ll lose him.”

“It’s looks pretty rocky,” he said. “Can we pick up his trail?”

“Chajinka will find it.”

Pollard sighed deeply. “What the hell,” he said with a shrug. “I’m not going to wait here alone while the two of you go after him. I figure I’ll be safer with you—providing I don’t break my neck on the terrain.”

I motioned for Chajinka to lead the way down, since he was far more sure-footed than any human. He walked along the edge of the precipice for perhaps fifty yards, then came to a crude path we were able to follow for the better part of an hour. Then we were on the canyon floor next to a narrow stream where we slaked our thirst, hoping the water wouldn’t make us too sick, as we’d left the irradiation tablets back at the ship.

We rested briefly, then took up the hunt again. Chajinka was able to find a trail where I would have sworn none existed. By early afternoon the floor of the canyon was no longer flat, and we had to follow a winding path over and around a series of rock formations. Pollard was game, but he was out of shape. He kept falling behind, actually dropping out of sight a couple of times, which forced us to stop and wait for him to catch up.

When he dropped behind yet again, I wanted to ask him if he needed a break. I didn’t dare shout and give away our position to the Snark, so I compromised by signaling Chajinka to slow his pace until Pollard caught up with us.

He didn’t and after a few minutes we went back to see what was the matter.

I couldn’t find him. It was like he had vanished off the face of the planet.

• • •

They hunted till darkness came on, but they found

Not a button, or feather, or mark,

By which they could tell that they stood on the ground

Where the Banker had met with the Snark.

• • •

We spent half an hour looking for Pollard. There was no trace of him, and eventually we were forced to admit that somehow the Snark had turned back on his trail and circled around us or hid and waited for us to pass by. Either way, it was obvious that he’d managed to get Pollard.

I knew it was futile to keep looking for him, so I signaled Chajinka to continue searching for the Snark. We hiked over the rocky canyon floor until at last we came to a steep wall.

“We go up, or we go back,” I said, looking at the wall. “Which will it be?”

He stared at me expectantly, waiting for me to signal him which way to go.

I looked back the way we’d come, then up in the direction of the path we were following and as I looked up, I saw a large object hurtling down toward me!

I pushed Chajinka out of the way and threw myself to my left, rolling as I hit the ground. The object landed five feet away with a bone-jarring
thud!
and I saw that it was Pollard’s body.

I looked up, and there was the Snark standing on a ledge, glaring down at me. Our eyes met, and then he turned and began racing up the canyon wall.

“Are you all right?” I asked Chajinka, who was just getting to his feet.

He brushed himself off, then made a digging motion and looked questioningly at me.

We didn’t have any shovels, and it would take hours to dig even a shallow grave in the rocky ground using our hands. If we left Pollard’s body where it was, it would be eaten by scavengers but if we took the time to bury him, we’d lose the Snark.

• • •

“Leave him here to his fate—it is getting so late!”

The Bellman exclaimed in a fright.

“We have lost half the day. Any further delay,

And we shan’t catch a Snark before night.”

• • •

When we got halfway up the wall, I stopped and looked back. Alien raptors were circling high in the sky. Then the first of them landed next to Pollard and began pulling away bits of his flesh. I turned away and concentrated on the Snark.

It took an hour to reach the top, and then Chajinka spent a few minutes picking up the Snark’s trail again. We followed it for another hour, and the landscape slowly changed, gradually becoming lush and green.

And then something strange happened. The trail suddenly became easy to follow.

Almost
too
easy.

We tracked him for another half hour. I sensed that he was near, and I was ready to fire at anything that moved. The humidity made my hands sweat so much that I didn’t trust them not to slip on the stock and barrel, so I signaled Chajinka that I wanted to take a brief break.

I took a sip from my canteen. Then, as I leaned against a tree, wiping the moisture from my rifle, I saw a movement half a mile away.

It was
him!

I pulled my rifle to my shoulder and took aim—but we were too far away. I leaped to my feet and began running after him. He turned, faced me for just an instant, and vanished into the bush.

When we got to where he’d been, we found that his trail led due north, and we began following it. At one point we stopped so I could remove a stinging insect from inside my boot—and suddenly I caught sight of him again. He roared and disappeared again into the heavy foliage as I raced after him.

It was almost as if the son of a bitch was
taunting
us, and I wondered: is he leading us into a trap?

And then I had a sudden flash of insight.

Rather than leading us
into
a trap, was he leading us
away
from something?

It didn’t make much sense, but somewhere deep in my gut it felt right.

“Stop!” I ordered Chajinka.

He didn’t know the word, but the tone of my voice brought him up short.

I pointed to the south. “This way,” I said.

The Dabih frowned and pointed toward the Snark, saying something in his own tongue.

“I know he’s there,” I said. “But come this way anyway.”

I began walking south. I had taken no more than four or five steps when Chajinka was at my side, jabbering again, and pulling my arm, trying to make me follow the Snark.

“No!” I said harshly. It certainly wasn’t the word, so it must have been the tone. Whatever the reason, he shrugged, looked at me as if I was crazy, and fell into step behind me. He couldn’t very well lead, since there was no trail and he didn’t know where we were going. Neither did I, for that matter, but my every instinct said the Snark didn’t want me going this direction, and that was reason enough to do it.

We’d walked for about fifteen minutes when I heard a hideous roar off to my left. It was the Snark, much closer this time, appearing from a new direction. He showed himself briefly, then raced off.

“I
knew
it!” I whispered excitedly to Chajinka, who just looked confused when I continued to ignore the Snark.

As we kept moving south, the Snark became bolder and bolder, finally getting within a hundred yards of us, but never showing himself long enough for me to get a shot off.

I could feel Chajinka getting tenser and tenser, and finally, when the Snark roared from thirty yards away, the little Dabih raised his spear above his head and raced after him.

“No!”
I cried. “He’ll kill you!”

I tried to grab him, but he was much too quick for me. I followed him into the eight-foot-high grasslike vegetation. It was a damned stupid thing to do: I couldn’t see Chajinka, I couldn’t see the Snark, and I had no room to maneuver or even sidestep if there was a charge. But he was my friend—probably, if I was honest, my
only
friend—and I couldn’t let him face the Snark alone.

Suddenly I heard the sounds of a scuffle. There was some growling, Chajinka yelled once, and then all was silent.

I went in the direction I thought the sounds had come from, pushing the heavy grasses aside. Then I was making my way through thornbush, and the thorns ripped at my arms and legs. I paid no attention, but kept looking for Chajinka.

I found him in a clearing. He’d put up the fight of his life—his wounds attested to that—but even with his spear he was no match for a 400-pound predator. He recognized me, tried to say something that I wouldn’t have understood anyway, and died just as I reached his side.

I knew I couldn’t stay in the heavy bush with the Snark still around. This was
his
terrain. So I made my way back to the trail and continued to the south. The Snark roared from cover, but didn’t show himself.

After another quarter mile I came to a huge tree with a hollow trunk. I was about to walk around it when I heard a high-pitched whimpering coming from inside it. I approached it carefully, my rifle ready, the safety off—

—and suddenly the Snark broke out of cover no more than fifteen yards away and charged me with an ear-splitting roar.

He was on me so fast that I didn’t have time to get off a shot. He swiped at me with a mighty paw. I ducked and turned away, but the blow caught me on the shoulder and sent me flying. I landed on my back, scrambled to my feet, and saw him standing maybe ten feet away. My rifle was on the ground right next to him.

He charged again. This time I was ready. I dove beneath his claws, rolled as I hit the ground, got my hands on my weapon, and got off a single shot as he turned to come at me again.

“Got you, you bastard!” I yelled in triumph.

At first I thought I might have hit him too high in the chest to prove fatal, but he collapsed instantly, blood spurting from the wound—and I noticed that he had a festering wound on his side, doubtless from Marx’s shot a week ago. I watched him for a moment, then decided to “pay the insurance,” the minimal cost of a second bullet, to make sure he didn’t get back up and do any damage before he died. I walked over to stick the muzzle of my rifle in his ear, found that I didn’t have a clear shot, and reached out to nudge his head around with my toe.

I felt something like an electric surge within my head, and suddenly, though I’d never experienced anything remotely like it before, I knew I was in telepathic communication with the dying Snark.

Why did you come to my land to kill me?
he asked, more puzzled than angry.

I jumped back, shocked—and lost communication with him. Obviously it could only happen when we were in physical contact. I squatted down and took his paw in my hands, and felt his fear and pain.

Then he was dead, and I stood up and stared down at him, my entire universe turned upside down—because during the brief moment that I had shared his thoughts, I learned what had
really
happened.

The Snark’s race, sentient but non-technological, was never numerous, and had been wiped out by a virulent disease. Through some fluke, he alone survived it. The others had died decades ago, and he had led a life of terrifying loneliness ever since.

He knew our party was on Dodgson IV the very first day we landed. He was more than willing to share his hunting ground with us, and made no attempt to harm us or scare us off.

He had thought the killing of the crystal-horned buck was a gift of friendship; he didn’t understand that he was stealing Marx’s trophy because the concept of trophies was completely alien to him. He killed Marx only after Marx wounded him.

Even then he was willing to forgive us. Those dead animals we found in my traps were his notion of a peace offering.

He couldn’t believe that we really wanted to kill him, so he decided he would visit the camp and try to communicate with us. When he got there, he mistook the Dabihs’ t-packs for weapons and destroyed them. Then, certain that this would be seen as an act of aggression even though he hadn’t harmed anyone, he left before we woke up.

He came back to try one last time to make peace with us. This time he made no attempt to enter the camp unseen. He marched right in, fully prepared to be questioned and examined by these new races. But what he
wasn’t
prepared for was being attacked by the Dabihs. Fighting in self-defense, he made short work of them. Mbele raced into the ship, either to hide or to get a weapon. He knew first-hand what Marx’s weapon had done to him at fifty yards, and he didn’t dare let Mbele shoot at him from the safety of the ship, so he raced into it and killed him before he could find a weapon.