Tau Ceti (an Ell Donsaii story #6) (28 page)

Picking up the meteorite, Dex gingerly moved it over the smoothed area. The glowing red lines clearly showed a picture now. What was it? Hie tilted hies head back and forth studying it. It looked like it showed a forked stick, either stuck in the ground, or a cut off sapling. Or was it an entire tree? A string, or maybe a rope, went up through the fork and back down to hold the end of a much larger stick, or maybe
a
log up off the ground.

The picture changed. What was that? Oh!
Hie
recognized the western horizon by the outline of Wayvern mountain. The big red spot must be the sun. Suddenly the sun appeared closer to the horizon, then halfway behind the horizon, then gone and all the lines dimmed. Maybe the pictures were trying to show night
time
?

The picture of the forked stick with the string reappeared with the glowing lines dimmer.
Hie
saw that the other end of the string was tied to a trigger like hie used on hies bent sapling snares. That trigger was attached to a noose suspended over… oh a trail. The next picture appeared showing an animal on the trail. Th
e animal looked like a burrower.
The picture changed
so that the animal had its head
entering
the noose
of the snare
. The next picture showed t
hat t
he log or heavy stick had fallen
,
pulling the noose tight around the animal and lifting it into the air.

With a sense of sudden dawning,
Dex realized it was simply showing himr how to use a weight instead of a sprung sapling for hies snares. It looked like it might also be telling himr to use them at night on trails?

The pictures had started over. Dex wondered why a weight instead of a sprung sapling? As
hie
stared at the picture
hie
realized it showed the boles of trees.
Oh! Its showing snares in the forest! There
usually aren’t
any saplings in the right places
here
under
neath
the forest canopy, but there are a lot of dead branches I could use for weights!
Dex looked around, it was getting dark but maybe
hie
could put out one snare? Working quickly
,
Dex set up a snare
powered by
a weight
along
a small game trail.
Hie
had to finish setting it
in the dark
ness
mostly by feel
.

When Dex returned to the campsite hie was pleased to see that Syrdian had
returned,
cleared an area
and started
a fire.
F
our tubers they
had
dug up earlier in the day
were
roasting over the fire. The meteor lay quietly where Dex left it, no glowing red to be seen.
“Are you OK Dex?” Syrdian said quietly.

“Yes. Thank you for making dinner.”

“You’re welcome, though I wish some flyers had attacked us today. I’m hungry for some meat… Were you attacked by the glowing red lines earlier?”

“No. This is hard to believe, but the red lines seem to… come out of the meteor. Once I held the meteor correctly, the lines made pictures like they did that night at the cliff. The pictures seemed to be telling me to make a new kind of snare and put it out at night in the forest.”

“At night? Aren’t the animals sleeping then?”

Dex shrugged hies wings, “Maybe not.”

Syrdian tilted hies head, “Maybe some hunt at night like the taklor.”

Dex tilted hies own head as
hie
considered. The taklor was a hunting flyer
,
smaller than the talor
,
that mostly hunted at night. It had large eyes and seemed to track prey mostly by infrared. Watching taklors attack hot rocks thrown out into the night in front of the cave was a popular pastime for young dalin. It irritated the grown dalin who had to send the youth out to get
more
rocks
the next day. “Maybe, though the drawings showed a burrower caught in the trap.”

Dex and Syrdian ate the unsatisfying tubers and crouched down to sleep.

In the night Dex woke to a loud hissing sound. The fire was out
,
so
hie
couldn’t see much except the infrared glow where it had been. No! There was a bright red glowing spot in the air over where the meteorite had been lying! Wings quivering
hie
poked the fire with a stick and looked around. Behind
himr
hie
saw a large infrared splotch!

Dex grabbed
one of their
pointed
wooden sta
ves
with one hand, two pieces
of fire wood in the other and
leapt to the other side of the fire. Syrdian said, “What?! What?!”

Dex said, “Come over here!” I think
a
forest
beast
is
approaching
on that side of the fire.”

Syrdian scrambled around to Dex’s side but
,
to Dex’s dismay, failed to bring hies
pointed
staff
. Dex gave Syrdian the pieces of firewood, “Try to start the fire back up!”

Syrdian crouched to poke the fire up. Dex peered into the darkness at the large infrared splotch. Suddenly a red glowing dot appeared in the middle of the infrared splotch, then it spread forming horizontal glowing lines covering a large animal, obviously a predator from the shape of its mouthparts. The eyes seemed large. Its head had drawn up and back in reaction to the red lines.

For a moment the animal looked like it would back away into the forest but then it suddenly began to rush forward…

Dex’s wings lifted and
hie
could feel Syrdian’s doing the same, though even if both of them could have flown there was little free space to fly in inside the forest.
Hie
gripped
hies
staff
with trembling hands
and pointed it with a sinking feeling…

Suddenly the lines outlining the predator
coalesced
down to two brilliant spots centered on its eyes…

With a howling sound the predator turned its head and tore away into the forest…

The fire rising up from Syrdian’s efforts showed Dex the meteorite standing there on its bottom end like it had been when it first landed in the meadow. Hie looked down, its little legs were out. The glowing redness that hie’d seen when
hie
’d first woken
was
gone now, but
hie
had no doubt that it had come from the clear spot from which the glowing red lines emanated.

Syrdian’s arms crept tremblingly around Dex
.
Hie
cast an arm back around Syrdian, then
folded
a wing around himr too. Syrdian whispered, “What happened?”

Dex said, “I’m not sure. I think the meteorite hissed to warn us of the predator… Then it shone the little flame that makes the red lines into the predator’s eyes to drive it away. Maybe? But I’m not
sure
that’s what happened.”

“When did you put it up on its little legs?”

“I didn’t,” Dex said with an awed tone.

“Do you think… that it put
itself
up on its legs?”

“I think it’s very powerful. Who knows what it can and can’t do? But if it drove away that predator, I’m glad it seems to be on our side… Let’s not anger it.”

“How do we… not… anger it?”

“I don’t know.”
Dex said quietly.

***

Ell settled back, trembling slightly
in reaction. When Allan had first drawn her attention to a large infrared object approaching the
Teecees
, she had thought that surely they would sense its approach
somehow
. As it came closer and closer and the
Teecees
continue
d
sleeping
,
she became more and more concerned. At first she thought she had no way to sound the alarm but then she thought of the attitude jets and the loud hissing noise they made. Using them to right the rocket and set it on its legs had seemed inspired, not only waking the
Teecees
but positioning the cameras
for
a better view, especially when she thought to paint the approaching animal with the laser. But the better view showed her the size and long pointed teeth of what had to be a
very large predator. It looked fully capable
of taking on
both
Goldy and Silver. Despite the low light cameras she couldn’t see the
Teecees
well in the deep dark of the forest but the way they scrambled to her side of the fire didn’t give her the feel that they were
confident
about
dealing
with such a predator. When it started to rush toward them she’d had Allan turn the laser into the predator’s eyes.

Only after the predator had
bolted back
away into the forest did she think that using the laser on high power might have provided the
Teecees
wi
th some food. Perhaps not too. T
he laser was powerful enough to ablate
tiny bits of
rocks for spectroscopy
,
but it would take quite a while to burn through water laden flesh down to a vital organ, especially if you didn’t know where the organ in question was located
. And if
the flesh in question was moving.

As the
Teecees
settled back down, crouching by their fire, Ell
slowly relaxed. Eventually she
continued the
calculations
she’d been doing
for
Roger’s steam engines
that were
to be powered by heat from the sun.

***

Syrdian awakened with the brightening light in the morning to find the fire stoked up but Dex gone. Hie stood and looked about without seeing Dex. With hunger pangs gnawing and no prospect of food
,
Syrdian
warily
left the camp to go down to the stream they’d been paralleling
. Water
would quench hies thirst and fill
hies
stomach temporarily. A little ways out of camp hie encountered Dex returning with a full water skin and an odd lookin
g animal with large eyes. Syrdian stared, “What’
s that?”

“Apparently some kind of forest animal
of the night
. It
crept into the snare
that
the red lines
said
to
build and put out at night
.
If you’ll notice it has big eyes like the taklor’s do. 
Hope it’s tasty.”

Syrdian dipped hies head, “As hungry as I am, anything would be tasty this morning.”

As they ate the,
tasty
as predicted,
night animal.
Syrdian said, “You were right about climbing the mountain. It isn’t as hot up here, but it’s getting harder to breath.
The air just pours
through me when we’re hiking these days.”

Dex said, “Maybe we should start looking for some kind of shelter to live in and set up a camp for the summer.”

“Do you think we can find a cave?”

Dex shrugged hies wings. “I don’t know. The
y aren’t very common but maybe? N
ext time we reach a clearing, I could fly around and scout?”

***

Kira Piscova’s AI said “Ms. Donsaii is returning your call.”

Piscova said,
“Hello, Ms. Donsaii?”

“Yes, Dr. Piscova. Were you able to work out the issues regarding consulting fees and non-disclosure?”

“Um, yes. I can sign the agreement at your convenience and the consulting fee you’ve offered is quite generous. Thank you.”

“Do you have a PGR equipped AI yet?”

“Sorry, no. I don’t really keep up with the latest tech
. Even
though everyone tells me it’s the greatest, what I have now works fine for my needs.”

“Well we’d like to outfit you with a high end PGR connected AI, both to help you with analysis and to make sure none of the data we provide you goes astray. Could you drop by D5R and we could fit you up and install your AI’s personality on the new headband?”