“Can’t be,” Sanderson said, his voice frowning. “Those instruments are shortrange—
they’re not designed to scan anywhere but the table.”
“I know that,” Peyton snapped. “So argue with the instruments, not me.”
“Perhaps,” Llos-tlaa suggested, “Gga-ru can confirm this with his sensor equipment.”
“Don’t bother me, Tampy,” Garin bit out, and in his camera view Roman could see the tip of the other’s needle gun. “I’ve got more important things to worry about at the moment.”
“Do it, Garin,” Roman ordered. “If those animals are radiating strongly enough to be picked up by the analysis table, it’s something worth knowing.”
For a second the muzzle remained where it was. Then, abruptly, it dropped from view. “Yes, Captain,” Garin said, the words coming through obviously clenched teeth. “Checking now… no, there’s nothing there. Must be a malfunction in the table.”
“It is not a malfunction,” Peyton insisted. “Check again, especially at the highfrequency end—fifty hertz and up. There’s not all that much power to it, I don’t think. Directional, maybe, or else it’s the high ion concentration that lets it penetrate this far.”
She’d barely finished her sentence when there was a sudden crackle of displaced branches from the forest; and even as Garin snapped his needle gun up again the bushes ahead were shoved violently aside and three creatures stepped out onto the plain.
If the small animal that Garin had gunned down earlier had been a rabbit, these new ones were huge dogs. Dogs with hairless, elephantine skin and flat muzzles; with large paws whose curved feline claws were visible even two hundred meters away; with long shark-like mouths full of white teeth.
And even as the landing party froze in silence, the dog in the center took a step forward, paused… and changed.
Slower than the rabbit had, and far more awesome because of that. The chest and flank elongated as first the front legs and then the rear stretched to half-again their original length. The extended legs seemed to thicken, as if new muscle was reforming there, and the belly flattened. The wrinkled skin, stretched over all the expansion, smoothed out, becoming sleek and shimmery. The muzzle remained the same, but the sides of the head swelled outward, in an odd way that reminded Roman of a bird fluffing out its feathers. The whole operation took perhaps ten seconds… and at the end of it the dog had become a wolf.
A wolf the size of a large grizzly bear. Rearing up briefly on its hind legs, it raised its head as if uttering a soundless cry. Then, bringing the front paws back down again, it swung its head around slowly, studying the invaders of its world. Its eyes fell on Peyton and Ttra-mu, still standing beside the analysis table and the dead rabbit awaiting their study. It raised its head again, uttered its soundless cry… And started toward them.
Chapter 6
“Aim for its legs,” Garin snapped, the muzzle of his needle gun tracking the wolfcreature as it loped forward. “We’ll try to cut it down without killing it, if we can.”
“Do not shoot,” Llos-tlaa spoke up.
“Rehfeldt, switch to explosive; backup aim at the head,” Garin continued, ignoring the Tampy’s protest. “Boschelli, Wehrmann—oh, hell”, he interrupted himself as the two remaining dog-creatures started into wolf transformations of their own.
“Gga-ru—” Llos-tlaa tried again.
“Shut up,” Garin snarled. “That tears it—explosive needles, full-auto; legs first, then heads. On my mark—”
“Do not shoot!”
Roman jerked in his chair, swearing under his breath, his ears ringing with the sheer intensity of emotion in the Tampy scream. Not grief and frustration this time, but desperate urgency and an almost overwhelming sense of righteous anger. “Hold your fire, Garin,” he ordered when he’d found his voice again. The wolf-creatures had covered perhaps a quarter of the distance to Peyton and Ttra-mu now, and were coming on at the same casual lope, completely oblivious to both the Tampy scream and the lethal armament pointed their direction. “Llos-tlaa, why shouldn’t they shoot?”
“ ‘Cause the scitte-head bastards would rather roll over and die than bruise any of their precious woodland chummies,” Garin bit out before the Tampy could answer.
“Llos-tlaa?—answer me.”
“There is no need for killing, Rro-maa,” Llos-tlaa said, his voice pitched normally but trembling right on the edge of another scream. “Ppey-taa and Ttra-mu must move away from the table, but then the creatures will not attack.”
“Bull scitte,” Garin said. “Guards, on three: one—”
“I said hold your fire!” Roman snapped. “Peyton, Ttra-mu—do as Llos-tlaa said.
Move away from the table; try not to make any sudden motions.”
“Captain, they’re skating on damn thin ice down there,” Ferrol put in, his voice taut. “Even explosive needles’ll have only so much stopping power against something that size—if they get within five meters they’re going to do damage no matter how fast they’re killed.”
“More so if they decide to charge,” Kennedy agreed. “Recommend the guards take out the nearest one immediately, try to scare the other two away.”
Roman squeezed thumb and forefinger together. The wolf-creatures were less than sixty meters away now. “Llos-tlaa, why don’t you think the creatures will attack?”
The wolf-creatures covered an additional five meters before the Tampy spoke.
“There is no sense of the predator in them,” he said, and Roman had the distinct impression he was groping for words. “There is none of the hunting posture to them.”
Or in other words, Llos-tlaa didn’t know why he thought what he did. Great.
“Sanderson? Opinion?” Roman called.
“They went through a fight/flight transformation, didn’t they?” the other said tautly. “Do they look like they’re running away from anything?”
No, they didn’t, Roman had to admit. On the other hand, Tampies were legendary for never speculating in new situations… which implied that Llos-tlaa somehow knew what he was talking about, even if he couldn’t put it into words.
But if he really was merely reacting to the crass thought of killing something…
Thirty meters away… and he could put off the decision no longer. “Garin, proximity lock on the lead creature’s head,” he instructed. “Set for eight meters; explosive needles. Rehfeldt, Boschelli—same orders on the other two.”
“Eight meters is cutting things pretty damn fine, Captain,” Garin grunted.
“It’ll have to do,” Roman told him.
“Rro-maa—”
“Quiet, Llos-tlaa.”
“Rro-maa, it is not necessary,” the Tampy persisted. “They are not interested in us.”
“Then who the hell are they interested in?” Garin snarled.
Llos-tlaa’s hand appeared on his camera view, pointing. “They seek the analysis table.”
“They—what?”
And on the tactical display, the lead wolf-creature came to a sudden but smooth stop… at the rear of the analysis table.
“It wants the dead rabbit on the table,” Peyton breathed. “That’s all.”
“Can’t be,” Singh objected. “That’s not a carrion-type physique. More like—oh.
Oh.”
“What?” Roman demanded. “Singh? What?”
Singh snorted, gently, under his breath. “We were wrong, Captain,” he said, an undertone of relief and growing amusement in his voice. “The transformation didn’t have to be just a fight/flight reaction; there’s a third reason for animals to want to look as big and powerful as possible. Namely—well, you can see for yourself. There he goes.”
And even as they watched, the wolf-creature reared up on its hind legs and flopped onto the table, its forelegs straddling the CAT-scanner at the front. Getting an awkward-looking grip with its front paws, it reared its head up again and its entire body started to tremble…
“I’ll be scrooned,” Burch said, a touch of awe in his voice. “It’s mating with the table.”
“All those electrical fields,” Singh said. “Remember, Miki, that you picked up a surge as they started toward you?”
“They were keying on the electronics in the scanners,” she sighed, her voice almost a moan. “They must have thought it was a female. Oh, my poor table.”