Dane slammed the lid back on the cage just in time, for three more heads had arisen from the padding and other forepaws were reaching for the edge of their prison.
He advanced to the cub in the hammock. “Come on—I won’t hurt you. Come on—” he tried to keep his voice low, coaxing, reassuring it as much as he could.
It uttered a high-pitched chittering and tried to horn his hand. But Ali had slipped up behind, using the stuff of the hammock to net it, though he had a struggle on his hands, for the captured one kicked furiously, voicing screeches of mingled fear and rage, which were echoed loudly from the crate. In the end it took all three men to get the kit back with its fellows, and Dane was bitten during that process.
“They have to be fed,” he said as he nursed his hand. “And we can’t put their food in there until we take out some of the packing—”
“Explain it to them then, nice and slow,” Ali suggested. “But I don’t think—”
“All right, I will.” Dane interrupted him. Just how intelligent the brachs now were was anyone’s guess. He was no specialist in wildlife, but he could not let them go any longer without food or water, and it was plain that if he opened the cage again, he would have a struggle.
He wrapped a plasta strip about his hand to cover the bite and brought out the container of water and the bag into which Mura had packed a supply of brach food. Pouring the water into a shallow bowl, he set it on the deck of the LB, then opened the bag, shaking out into another dish a little of the mixture inside—dried insects, shellfish, and some slightly withered proten leaves—so that they could both see and smell it.
All four heads turned in his direction, and they watched him carefully. All he could do now was to try primitive trade procedures. He touched the water bowl and the heap of mixed food with one hand, then pushed it a little toward the cage.
“Is the hatch closed?” he asked without turning his eyes from the brachs, who met him stare for stare. “Dogged down,” Rip assured him.
“All right. Get back, out of their line of sight if you can.”
“How? By melting through the walls?” Ali wanted to know. But Dane heard the click of space boots on the deck and knew that they were moving as well as they could in that tightly confined space.
“You’re not going to let them out?” Ali demanded a moment later.
“If they are going to eat, I have to. But they ought to be hungry enough to want to get to this more than anything else.”
He rose slowly to his knees from squatting on his heels, found the latch of the cover he had just slammed down, and shot it open, moving slowly and with as little noise as he could.
Dane fully expected all four to shoot out the minute the crack was wide enough, with the same speed the kit had shown earlier. But they did not. Still moving with care, he laid the lid all the way back and then inched away himself.
Their regard of him continued for a long moment. Then the kit that had been returned there with such effort made a move. But an adult paw swung, landing on the young nose slightly above horn tip, bringing an indignant squeal of protest. It was the male alone who drew himself up and out of the thick padding. He dropped down beside the food and touched nose to it and to the water pan. Then looking at his family, he made a small muttering sound.
The two kits scrambled over with speed, but the female moved more slowly, and the male returned and balanced on the edge of the cage, cluttering to her encouragingly. Now and then he turned his long head to look at Dane and the other two who had backed away as far as they could.
Neither kit had waited for the parents. Both were stuffing eagerly from the food dish, pausing only now and again to lap water, though one liked to put a forepaw into the bowl and lick the moisture from its pads.
Pads? Dane dared not move closer, but he thought that the shape of forepaws for both kits differed from those of the adults—more handlike somehow. When the male had coaxed the female over the edge and to the dishes, he gave several low growls. And the kits, still chewing, one squealing resentfully, backed away so that the male could push his mate forward, standing guard while she—at first languidly and then with a show of greater interest—fed and drank. It was not until she turned away of her own desire that he finished up what remained.
Now what, wondered Dane. They would have to get them back in the cage, though that would probably be a struggle. Just how intelligent were they? And if intelligent, how alien were their thought processes to those of his own species? Intelligence did not always mean ability to communicate.
He would like their cooperation if he could possibly gain it. To use them as animals might only make them ever ready to escape and force the men to be constantly on guard.
Now he tried to echo the small clucking noise the male had used to urge his mate out of the cage. He was successful in that the heads of all four brachs turned in his direction, and he saw that he did have their attention, but there was a tenseness about them that suggested they were ready for instant resistance. Still clucking, Dane moved, careful not to advance toward them. Facing the four, he edged along the wall of the LB, pushing aside the hammocks until he was on the opposite side of the cage from the brachs.
He raised the lid. Instantly all cowered closer to the deck, the male rumbling deep in his throat, the female standing before the two kits, who in turn chittered.
Dane stooped and felt along the edge of the lid. The cage had been improvised, and he hoped not too well. He held the screen up as a barrier between him and the brachs as he worked to loosen the fastenings.
For a space the male continued to rumble. Then when Dane did nothing but work at the lid, he raised a little, manifestly wanting to see what the man was doing. A long moment more, and he jumped to the top of the box, edging along its rim until his head with its useful horn nudged against Dane’s fingers. The man jerked back in surprise, and straightway the horn fitted under the fastening and pried away until the hinge was loose and off. Then the brach swayed along the rim and followed through with the other. Dane lifted the cover away and stood back, uncertain as yet as to whether this gesture could be understood, though the brach’s aid with the fastening was promising.
The male brach continued to teeter on the rim of the cage, looking from Dane to the lid, now resting against the cabin wall. Dane dared to move, sidling around the cage, still leaving what he trusted would be a reassuring distance between him and the brachs. Then he stooped and pulled at the padding, pulling it out in chunks, until he left only enough to form what he hoped would be acceptable bedding. The brach balanced, still watching.
Then the female brach moved, pulling up and over into the cage. She reached with forepaws and teeth to catch the last puff of padding Dane had loosened, drawing it determinedly out of his grasp and thumping it down with force on the floor of the cage. She called to the kits, who obeyed her, to Dane’s relief. And lastly the male brach jumped down to curl up with his family. Dane stepped away.
“Does that mean that they are willing to stay if they aren’t shut in?” Rip wondered.
“We can hope so. But we’ll have to keep the hatch locked. It is too cold out there.” Dane pushed the extra padding along the floor. Suddenly he was so tired that he felt he could not make another effort, no matter how needful, as if his struggle to communicate with the brach had been in some way as harrowing an ordeal as the one on Xecho. He wanted peace and quiet and sleep, and he only hoped that was what they could depend upon—with no more complications for a while.
6.MONSTER FROM THE PAST