The artificial sun was sinking over the tridiorama world.
Dyak and Semary had eaten. They had come across one of the giant cicadas lumbering along the ground, and Dyak had cut its head off. When they had eaten enough, they jumped in the river to remove the stickiness from their bodies. Now they were on the move again, more quietly, for they were near the lair of the big cruncher.
In the distance ahead of them, Dyak saw the barrier. That was the end of the world; tomorrow, the sun would rise from it. Now that the light was less intense, he could almost imagine that he saw giant human-like faces through the barrier.
He scoffed at the silly things that his head let happen inside it.
Their path was less easy now, and huge boulders towered above them, twice or three times their height. The fleet cruncher could easily pounce on them in such a situation. Dyak halted and took Semary’s hand.
“Semary, you must wait here. I will go on. I will find the big cruncher and kill him with my knife. Then I will return to you.”
“I am frightened, Dyak!”
“Don’t be frightened. Hug yourself to keep happy. If the thing runs away in your direction, I will call, and you must crawl into the cleft between these two rocks where he cannot get you.”
“I am frightened more for you than for me.”
He laughed. “When I come back, I will take hold of you and . . . and I will hug you very closely.” He did it to her then in parting, clutching her naked body against his and feeling the warm missing thing that was at once there and lacking. Then he turned lightly and ran in among the big boulders.
It took him only a few minutes to locate the dinosaur. Dyak knew the ways of the animals in his world. They were always restless at sunrise and in the evening.
He heard the creature moving in the bush. When he caught a glimpse of its greenish hide, he climbed, toe and finger, up one of the large boulders, and peered over the top at it.
The cruncher lay on an exposed slab of rock, moving its tail slowly back and forth. To Dyak, it seemed a vast beast, three times his length. Its head was large and cruel, built chiefly to accommodate its massive jaws. Its body, pressed now against the rock, was a beautiful functional shape. It had two pairs of legs, the great back legs on which it ran at speed, and the forelegs, which functioned as a pair of arms and ended in powerful talons. It was a formidable creature enough, even when its jaws were closed and you could not see its teeth!
At present, the cruncher was not easy. It lay on one flank, its great legs hunched awkwardly, its yellow belly partly exposed to the rays of the sun. After a moment, it exposed its rump to the sun. Then it shuffled again and again lay supine. Its jaw opened and it began to pant, exposing its great fangs. Still uncomfortable, it finally moved into the shade and lay there absolutely still, only a pulse throbbing like an unswallowed boulder in its throat.
Dyak knew it would not lie still for long. The creature was basking.
Having spent most of the day getting its body heat down, it was now in the process of getting it up again, against the comparative coolness of the night. In the morning, it would bask to get its heat up again, coming slowly from torpor to full activity, and then setting out on the day’s hunt. Like all cold-blooded creatures, the allosaur’s metabolism was closely linked with external conditions; it was little more than a thermometer with legs and teeth. To Dyak, the matter appeared more simply: the thing got restless toward sunset.
After a brief sprawl in the shade, the cruncher moved back onto its rock, into the heat. As it went, Dyak slid off his rock. He had seen what he wanted. The cruncher often grew kittenish and accidentally felled trees and branches with its tail. There was a good sturdy length of branch lying in the other side of the clearing. Using all cover, Dyak worked his way round toward it. He trimmed it with his knife. It was crude, but it was what he needed.
He tucked it into the plaited belt he wore about his middle.
Encumbered by his armory, he now climbed a tree and crept along a branch that left him suspended almost directly over the cruncher. The only drawback with this position was that the sun was almost in his eyes.
He had not reckoned for this factor. The sun was lower than he had thought, and he must hurry. Pulling out his knife, he looked down at the cruncher—to find it looking up at him.
The big animal had finally maneuvered itself into a position of comfort, and was huddled on the rock on its belly and its head resting on its forelegs. A sound in the tree had caught its attention, and it swiveled its gaze upwards, scanning the foliage with two baleful yellow eyes.
Though it was fast on the run, Dyak knew that its reflexes in other respects were slow. Before it could move, he jumped down at it.
He landed on the rock, on the balls of his feet, just by its neck. As it moved to get up, its head came forward and it opened its savage mouth. Dyak thrust forward with the broken branch, punching forward with all his weight, holding the branch out like a shield. He jammed it between the open jaws, hard.
Instantly he ducked. The talons were coming up for him. And with the same movement, the cruncher was rising to its feet. Dyak slithered a couple of paces and jumped. He grabbed the creature’s neck and swung himself onto it. It began at once to rear and plunge, growling savagely deep in its throat, so that he could feel the vibration under his clenched hands. The world spun about him, but he clung tight hoping only that the wicked tail would not sweep him from his perch.
For all the terror of those moments, when he knew that if he fell he was lost, Dyak had chance enough to see that his branch had done what it was intended to do. The cruncher’s jaws were wedged open; the branch was jammed behind its teeth, and half its efforts were devoted to removing the wedge. Its forelegs were clawing its face dreadfully, drawing blood.
Keeping his hands linked, Dyak wormed his way to a better position up the neck of his bucking mount. Roaring now with its fury, the cruncher reared up, lost its balance on the slippery rock and slipped sideways, falling on its haunches among bush.
Dyak was almost flung clear, but he used the moment to grasp the creature’s throat tightly with one arm and draw his knife. He struck just as it leaped up and plunged anew into the undergrowth. The blade burst down through one of those glaring yellow eyes.
He was at once thrown free, as all the muscles of the creature’s body were galvanized with pain. He lay half-stunned in the middle of a bush, all the wind knocked out of him. The cruncher screamed with agony and anger, and began thumping the wounded side of its head against a rock.
Feeling that if he did not move at this movement, he would never be able to move again in his life, Dyak tore himself from the bush, dodged in past that murderous flailing tail and once more hurled himself at the monster’s skull. He mistrusted his ability to pierce the armored flesh of the cruncher, but the eyes were a safe target.
With something like a dive, he hurled himself at the cruncher’s good eye. Using all the strength in his right arm, he brought down the weapon, down, down, deep into the squelching eye, pushing in deep through pulp and blood with all the fury of his life behind the blow. Then the great tail came around and knocked him flying.
When he regained consciousness, it was to find himself stuck head foremost in a rhododendron bush. It was a while before he could bring himself to move and drag himself out. He was scratched from head to foot, and soreness filled his left shoulder where the creature’s armored tail had struck him. It was growing dark, and he was alive.
The cruncher lay in the center of a wide area of broken vegetation and churned-up soil. Its tail still slapped the ground, but it was to all intents and purposes finished. He had pierced it to the brain.