McLaughlin saw the fanged head emerge, and his reflexes took over
instantly. A streak of flame passed beside the leaping carnivore,
exploding into a white-hot blossom of blazing gas as it contacted the
pile of dirt on the far side of the pit. The guide ducked and rolled
frantically sideward as another spring carried the creature toward
him. Claws raked the air past his shoulder, and he fired again before
the roll was complete and without any sort of aim.
Men and beast alike were spattered with white-hot droplets of metal
from the seismic recorder as the second shot caught it squarely; and
this seemed to be enough for the carnivore. Its next leap was away
from the men instead of toward them. A geyser of steam and mud erupted
beside it as Lampert finally got his weapon into action, and before the
vapor had been beaten down once more by the rain the animal was out
of sight behind the undergrowth. Both men sent several shots in the
direction of the crackling bushes, but accomplished nothing except the
felling of a tree or two and the starting of a bonfire which failed to
make any headway against the rain.
Convinced that the Felodon had gone, the men ran to the pit. Lampert
did not even take time out to glance at the wreckage of his equipment.
There was just enough distance to cover to let each one realize that
he had no idea how long the carnivore had been inside, and what the
"scraping" sound might have been. Both slowed down as they approached
the edge, not relishing what they expected to see. But this did not
prove to be what they had expected. McLaughlin's face, already grim,
turned gray as he saw that his first shot had not merely missed the
animal at which it was aimed.
The bolt had struck the pile of dirt which had been left by the
digging machinery at the far lip of the pit, and scattered most of
it to the four winds. Perhaps half a ton had slid back into the hole
from which it had originally been removed. There was no telling, from
above, what the Felodon had done to Mitsuitei. The upper half of the
archaeologist's body was buried completely, and the rest so liberally
sprinkled with dirt that it was not at once identifiable.
The guide, using language strange even to the widely-traveled Lampert,
leaped the three meters downward without bothering to use the ladder,
seized a projecting leg and tried to draw the little man clear of the
soil. Lampert, equally aware of the possible value of time but feeling
that he would do little good with a broken leg, made the descent in the
normal manner.
By the time he reached the bottom, McLaughlin had succeeded in dragging
Mitsuitei almost completely clear. Lampert started forward to clear
the mud from the still hidden face; then he stopped, and his stomach
abruptly heaved, as he realized that the face was not hidden.
It was gone.
Mitsuitei had removed the head-gear and gloves from his protective
suit for the normal reason--to see and manipulate better. The exposed
head and hands had formed the Felodon's hasty meal.
* * * * *
The paleontologists saw the helicopter approaching this time, for they
were working outside the tunnel. Between them on the ledge lay a block
of stone some five feet long, two high and four wide--over two tons
of material, all told, which had been worked out of the hole rather
ingeniously by the men. Partial undercuts had been made, rollers worked
out of stone by the cutter placed underneath, and the undercutting
completed along a plane which sloped slightly upward into the tunnel.
Of course the block had run off the rollers once it was out in the
open, and the men could no more shift it another centimeter than they
could return to Emeraude without the helicopter; but at least it was
more or less accessible by air. They were chipping waste rock from the
corners when the flyer appeared.
Sulewayo was first up the ladder, unburdened this time. They expected
to have further use for the cutter. He noted that Lampert was alone in
the machine, and promptly asked the question the geophysicist had been
dreading.
"Where's Take? We've found something for him!"
"I'm afraid he won't appreciate it. He was killed a couple of hours ago
by a Felodon." The news silenced even Sulewayo, and the expression on
his junior's face actually startled Krendall when he climbed through
the hatch.
"Ndomi! What in--" Lampert cut in with the same news he had given a
moment before. Krendall reacted similarly; then slowly lowered himself
into a seat.
He did not ask for details. Both men could see that this was not the
time to put such a question to the pilot, though neither realized
then the personal responsibility that Lampert felt over the incident.
Krendall pulled a small fragment of tuff from his pocket, and looked at
it thoughtfully.
Nothing further was said until the helicopter landed once more on the
river near the "city." McLaughlin and the bundle which held what was
left of Takehiko Mitsuitei were waiting on the bank, and were loaded
aboard without a sound.
"It's early. Well take him back to Emeraude tonight, and come back for
your work tomorrow," Lampert said, and lifted into the air without
waiting for agreement.
"All right," replied Krendall, "as long as we come back. I don't think
he'd have wanted us to stop. I'm going to find out about those green
threads of his, too." Lampert nodded in approval. He had already formed
a similar determination. For half an hour they flew on in silence.
The Felodon, half submerged in swamp water a kilometer downstream
from the hill, heard the helicopter hum overhead. It seemed totally
disinterested. For just a moment its fanged head pointed upward, then
settled back again. There was a burn under its jaw, which had been
inflicted by metal spraying from the ruined seismic apparatus. It was
more comfortable to keep it under water....
"What was it you found, Ndomi, that you thought Take would want to
see?" Lampert broke the long silence.
"It was when we were undercutting to get the block out of the tunnel,"
Sulewayo answered. "It's just some more of his green threads, in
the tuff below the fossil. I brought a chunk of the rock showing
them--here." Lampert nodded without taking his main attention from
flying.
"Maybe that fossil of yours was intelligent after all, then," he said.
"It seems to have died under very similar circumstances to Take--just
above a set of those green threads. Maybe it was a member of a party
like ours."
"Maybe. It certainly walked erect. The whole body structure shows that.
If its brain were large enough and it had some sort of manipulating
appendage I'd say it was virtually human--in capacity, that is. It was
more of an amphibian anatomically."
"You have the block out in the open. Haven't you been able to study the
head and limbs?"
"No, damn it." Krendall took over from his junior. "That was the big
disappointment of the whole find. The specimen seems to be perfect
except for missing skull and hands. Not a trace of either."
The helicopter wavered slightly in its path, then steadied as Lampert
forced his attention back to his job. No one said anything for a long
time, but everyone was thinking.
* * * * *
Someone else was thinking too, but wasn't keeping his thoughts to
himself. They were being spoken, and virtually dripped with the
thinker's fury.
"You sloppy, lazy parasites! I don't mind being stuck with a job and
a deadline, even if it's a report that's due in only fifty years and
needs about two hundred for a real conclusion. I'd sooner do it all
myself than have some of you loose thinkers butting in! But if I'm to
give my whole attention to it so I can produce something that won't be
laughed at from here to the Magellanic Clouds, how about some of you
watching what goes on on this planet? I didn't know those creatures
were poking around until they began cutting sensor lines! Thirty, the
protective life we've bred on the surface was your idea; why didn't you
put it to work?"
The answering words tried to be soothing.
"Thirty was working--"
"Dreaming, you mean!"
"But I put one of the guardians on the job for him; it stopped the
digging, didn't it?"
"Sure, after a lot of damage had been done. Do _you_ want to come out
in the open and repair my wiring--with those space travelers poking
around? If they find you at it, the Council won't just laugh at us;
they'll excommunicate us and let this new species of intelligence clean
us out. Why did it take so long for the guardian to do anything?"
"Well, I--"
"Well, you were dreaming too, weren't you. Blast it, you're here to do
constructive thinking, not just to entertain yourself. Haven't you any
self-respect? They actually dug out Sixteen!"
"What difference will that make? He's been dead too long to mind it
himself, and anyway his brain and sensor connections were decently
burned."
"But they wouldn't have had to dig much deeper to get someone who's
_not_ dead, would they, Ninety-Five, my young friend? I suppose when
they cut one or two of _your_ sensors you decided it was time to do
something. Don't interrupt! I'm talking! This planet is supposed to
be a quiet place where people can expect to spend a decent number of
centuries at a time thinking, _without_ being disturbed. If you're too
young or too lazy or just too stupid to do any real thinking yourself,
at least you can devote a little time from your casual amusements to
making sure that other people _can_. Shut up! You'll do some thinking
now or find yourself in real trouble! Here's a problem for you to
solve, and see that you solve it!
"You will get my sensors repaired, making sure not only that you're not
caught at the job by these space travelers but also that they don't
realize it's been done. In other words, don't just neatly fill in the
hole they made after you've finished, so they can't help knowing
they're not the only intelligences on this world. I don't know when
they'll be back any better than you do, so you'll have to guess at
your own time limit. You can booby-trap your canyon with landslides or
anything else to keep yourself from being dug out, but if you fail in
either problem and either of us looks likely to be found I personally
guarantee you'll be found in the same shape as Sixteen. Now get to
work, and let me think. If you think you can get help or sympathy from
anyone else on the planet, good luck to you."
A wave of agreement spread along the countless miles of sensor wiring
that extended through Viridis' crust, but Twenty-Five didn't feel or
hear it. He had already taken the myriad of tendrils that terminated
his arms away from the mosaic console that formed the end of the vast
bundles of greenish threads coming through the walls of his cave, and
had settled back in his lounging chair. That report--only fifty years
to have it thought out--his full attention went back to it.