Suddenly there was a crash. Colene jumped up and flashed her ray toward the sound. A huge pincer appeared above the barricade. It came down by one of the angled branches, clamped on it, and crunched through the wood.
Then it swept sidewise, knocking other branches out of the way.
It was a crab, a big one, and their defense was inadequate. The thing was coming right through the wood, and the mound of dirt did not inhibit it either.
Colene broke contact and joined the others. Then she returned. “Can you read me, Burgess?” she asked faintly.
Yes, he received her.
“Good. Seqiro’s not carrying me, now; I’m doing it on my own. So we can coordinate like a hive. You too, if you respond to me. To fight this monster. Okay?”
To be part of a hive again: that was what he wanted most. However it was arranged. Especially since only hive action could be effective against the crab.
“We can’t stop it head-on,” she sent. “But we can attack its weaknesses. If we know them. Do you know them?”
Burgess oriented all three mobile eyes on the monster, as it widened its channel through the rampart. It was slow, but once it got inside, it would have no difficulty catching each of the aliens in its pincers and crushing them. It would crunch off Burgess’ trunks, rendering him helpless, then consume him at leisure. It was terrible to behold, but it did have some few weaknesses. The eyes and the breathing holes. On the plain, by day, hivers would surround the crab and shoot jets of sand at its eye stalks, forcing them to retract. Then into its holes, clogging its breathing. That would slow it. Then they would try to roll large rocks onto it, crushing it. Or simply flee to their hive, where their rampart of dirt and barrage of stones would dissuade it.
“You’re not that sharp against big crabs,” Colene remarked.
That was true. The armored creatures were formidable. The normal way of dealing with them was simply to flee them.
“Well, we can’t flee this one. So we’ll kill it or drive it away. We’re going to blind it first. You fire dirt at its eyes, and keep doing it, so Darius can get close with his sword.”
Burgess sucked up dirt and sent a stream of it at the crab. The crab’s eye stalks were small, and hidden behind the giant claw, but the dirt blew in on them. The crab scuttled to the side, trying to get clear of the dirt, but Burgess kept blowing it. Colene and Nona were both shining lights so the crab was clear.
Meanwhile the Darius creature moved right in within reach of the claw, waving a bright stick. He struck down with that stick, knocking at an eye stalk. The eye flew off the stalk. Then he chopped at the second stalk.
But the crab, hurt, scuttled away, and the stick—now Colene’s thought clarified that it was not wood, but metal, with a sharp edge, a crafted weapon—struck the shell, denting it but doing no real harm. The claw swung around to grab him, but Colene screamed warning and he dropped to the ground and scrambled away. The pincers clicked together above him, poorly guided because one eye was gone.
Then there came a new emotion: fear. It made Burgess want to turn around and flee, though he had nowhere to go. “Easy, Burgess,” Colene sent. “Seqiro’s doing that. Ignore it.” She removed her hand-appendage from his contact point, and abruptly the fear was gone. Then she touched him again, and it was back. “See? It’s on our side. I’m feeling it, so you are too, when I’m in contact with you. But I understand it, so I can resist it. For a while.”
He tried to tune it out, and it diminished though Colene’s contact remained. What a strange weapon!
The crab turned around and barged back out of the enclosure. Burgess understood why: it felt the fear too, and thought it was its own. The attack-thought of the alien hive had driven it away.
Darius and Nona went to work repairing the damage to the wall, while Colene remained with Burgess, shining the light ray for them. Seqiro merely stood, still sending the fear to the crab. He was able to do it without touching any contact points!
“Well, we won that one,” Colene sent. “But I think we’d better get out of here, first thing in the morning, and find some place we can defend better. The next monster may not scare as easy.”
Burgess agreed. However, there was still time before dawn, and they would have to wait until then to travel.
“We can not relax,” Darius said. “The moment Seqiro eases up, the crab will turn around and come back here.”
“Oops,” Colene said. “Is that true, horseface?”
For the first time Burgess was aware of the four-footed alien’s thought: It is true. I must not sleep. There was a qualitative difference to it.
“What about when day comes?” Nona asked. “Will the crab retire then?”
No. The crab was aware of prey, and would keep pursuing it, regardless of injuries, as long as the crab remained hungry. It was not a thinking creature.
“Then we aren’t going to be able to sleep again, after this,” Colene sent. “We’d all better stay alert, to make sure Seqiro does. But we can use the time to talk. Now I’ll answer your questions about me, Burgess.”
Burgess was satisfied with that. Where did she come from, and in what ways did her world differ from his, and how had she come to know about the ancient shale? What was the significance of reproducing, among her kind? What had brought her and her companions to the Virtual Mode? Where were they going? Why had they so suddenly fled the Virtual Mode, after going there with him? Why was it easier to understand her than it was the others?
Colene sent the laughter emotion, which was odd against the background of the fear the horse was still sending. “You want to know everything all at once, don’t you! Well, we’ll answer you, but it will be better if I show you how it was with me before I ever learned of the Virtual Mode. Then you can pick up on the background, and maybe catch on to how we think. Hang on while I tell you about my crush on Amos.”
Her emotional squeeze on something termed an Amos? This was not necessarily going to be easy to grasp.
CHAPTER 3—CRUSH
AS she spoke, focusing her thoughts, sharing her memory-experience with the others via Seqiro’s telepathy and with Burgess via her hand on his contact knob, Colene pictured herself as she had been barely seven months before, at school’s Spring Break. Oklahoma, America, Earth: a world and a lifetime away!
Only three months before that time, during the Christmas holiday, she had gone innocently on a date with a boy she had not known well enough, and gotten herself educated in an adult fashion by four of them. She had learned way too much about alcohol and sex, and finished the night thoroughly sick of both. She hadn’t told her folks, but the boys had talked, so that her reputation was sliding. Thirteen years old, in the eighth grade, and already she was a known slut, at least among those who kept track. She was still trying to sort out her feelings on the matter, uncertain whether to shut the whole thing out of her awareness forever, or to commit suicide. As time passed, she was coming to favor both courses. At such time as she figured out suitable means to accomplish them.
However, the teachers knew nothing about it, and no one was about to tell them. The best teacher was a completely ignorant teacher, with respect to real concerns. That made it easy to get along in class. Colene was adept at the art of conforming in nonessential ways, so as to conceal the essentials from irrelevant eyes.