I wedged myself in a high crotch and listened to stealthy footsteps padding under my perch until dawn.
I found the tracks the next morning when I half-climbed, half-fell from the tree. They were deeply imprinted, too big to cover with my spread fingers, not counting the claws—on the prints, that is. Some kind of cat, I guessed. Down at the water’s edge were more tracks: big hoof-marks the size of saucers. They grew ’em big in these parts. All I had to do was bag one, and I’d have meat for as long as I could stand the smell.
I was getting really hungry now. Following the stream, I covered several miles to the south, gradually working my way into more open country. There were plenty of signs of game, including the bare bones of something not quite as big as a London bus, with condor-like birds picking over them half-heartedly. I had my two spears and my stone fragments, and I was hoping to spot something of a size and ferocity appropriate to my resources—say a half-grown rabbit.
There was a sudden rattle of wings just in front of me, and a grousey-looking bird as big as a turkey took to the air. I advanced cautiously, found a nest with four eggs in it, speckled brown, three inches long. I squatted right there and ate one, and enjoyed every scrap. It would have been nice to have scrambled it but that was a minor consideration. The other three I distributed in various pockets, then went on, feeling a little better.
The country here was higher, with less underbrush and more normal-looking trees in place of the swampy jungle growth I’d started from. During high water, I imagined, the whole area where the shuttle lay would be submerged. Now I had a better view, off through the open forest, to what seemed like a prairie to the south. That’s where the game would be.
Another half hour’s walk brought me to the edge of a vast savannah that reminded me of pictures I’d seen of Africa, with immense herds grazing under scattered thorn trees. Here the trees were tall hardwoods, growing in clumps along the banks of the stream—and the animals were enough to make any zoo-keeper turn in his badge and start keeping white mice. I saw bison, eight feet at the shoulder; massive, tusked almost-elephants with bright pink trunks and pendulous lower lips; deer in infinite variety; and horses built like short-necked giraffes, ten feet high at the shoulder with sloping withers. There they were—and all I had to do was to stick them with my spear.
There was a low snort from somewhere behind me. I whirled, saw a head the size of a rhino’s, set with two rows of huge, needlesharp teeth in a mouth that gaped to give me a view of a throat like the intake duct on a jet fighter. There was a body behind the head—ten feet or more of massively muscled tawny cat, with a hint of mane, faint stripes across the flanks, snow white throat, belly and feet. I took all these details in as the mighty carnivore looked me over, yawned, and paced majestically toward me, frowning across at the distant herds like a troubled politican wondering who to pay the bribe to.
He passed me up at a distance of thirty feet, moved out into the area, head high now, looking over the menu. None of the animals stirred. King Cat kept on, bypassed a small group of mastodons who rolled their eyes, switching their trunks nervously. He had his eye on the bison, among whom were a number of cuddly calves weighing no more than a ton. They moved restlessly now, forming up a defensive circle, like the musk-ox of the Arctic. The hunter changed his course, angling to the left. Maybe he was thinking better of it—
With the suddenness of thought, he was running, streaking across the grass in thirty-foot bounds, leaping now clear over the front rank of tossing horns to disappear as the herd exploded outward in all directions. Then he reappeared, standing over the body of a calf, one paw resting affectionately on the huddled tan corpse. The herd stampeded a short distance, resumed feeding. I let out a long breath. That was a hunter.
I jumped at a sound, spun, my hand with my trusty spear coming up automatically—
A brown rabbit the size of a goat stood poised on wiry legs, snuffling the air, showing long yellow rat-teeth. I brought the spear back, threw, saw it catch the creature in mid-leap as he whirled to flee, knocking him head over long white heels. I came pounding up, swung the second spear like a farmer’s wife killing a snake, and laid him low.
Breathing hard, I gingerly picked up the bloody carcass, noting the gouge my spear had made. I looked around for a place to hole up and feast. Something black moved on my arm. A flea! I dropped the rabbit, captured the parasite, cracked him with a satisfying report. There were plenty more where that one came from, I saw, stirring around in the sparse hair on the foot-long ears. Suddenly I didn’t want raw rabbit—or overgrown rat—for lunch.
As suddenly as that, the adrenalin I’d been getting by on for the past thirty-six hours drained away, left me a hungry, sick battered castaway, stranded in a hell-world of raw savagery, an unimaginable distance from a home which I knew I’d never see again. I had been bumbling along from one fiasco to the next, occupying my mind with the trivial, unwilling to face reality: the chilling fact that my life would end, here, in solitude and misery, in pain and fear—and that before many more hours had passed.
I lay under a tree, staring up at the sky, resting—I told myself—or waiting for another cat, less choosy, to happen along. I had had my chances—more than one—and I’d muffed them all. I’d gotten away clean in the Hagroon shuttle—then let it carry me helplessly along to their den-city, permitted myself to be captured without a struggle, thinking I’d learn something from the gorilla men. And after a combination of the enemy’s stupidity and my luck had given me a new chance, a new shuttle—I’d guessed wrong again, let Dzok beguile me along to be sentenced to life in exile. And a third time—after my wild guesses had paid off—I had panicked, run from the enemy without waiting to test my homebuilt shuttle—and ended here. Each time I had made what seemed like the only possible choice—and each time I’d gotten farther from my starting point. Not farther in terms of Net distance, perhaps, but infinitely farther from any hope of rescue—to say nothing of my hope of warning the Imperial authorities of what was afoot.
I got to my feet, started back toward where I’d left the wreckage of the shuttle, with some half-formed idea of searching through the wreckage again—for what, I didn’t know. It was the blind instinct of one who had absorbed all the disaster he can for a while, and who substitutes aimless action for the agony of thought.
It was harder now, plodding back over the ground I’d already covered. Following the course of the river, I passed the huge skeleton—abandoned now by the birds—reached the mud flat where the trampled remains of my crude hut gave a clear indication of the inadequacies of my choice of campsites.
I had an idea of sorts then. Back at the shuttle there was a lump of metal—the remains of the original Maxoni coil. I might be able to use the material in some way—pound it out into spear-heads, or make a flint-and-steel for fire starting purposes…
The impulse died. My stomach ached, and I was tired. I wanted to go home now, have a nice hot bath, crawl into bed, and be joined there by someone soft and perfumed and cuddly who’d smooth my fevered brow and tell me what a hell of a guy I was…
It was easy to see the mechanics of schizophrenia at work here. From wishing, it was an easy jump to believing. I took a couple of deep breaths, straightened my back, and headed for the burn site. I’d try to retain my grip on reality a little longer. When it got unbearable, I knew the sanctuary of insanity would be waiting.