The Leagacy of Heorot

The creature nudged the door open. It sniffed tentatively at first, then entered.

There was little light inside, but it needed less than it found. Animals were caged along the walls. Curiosity was almost as intense as the pain and resolve, and it stopped for a moment to peer up into one of the cages. A small white shape curled up in the corner, hidden in a mass of wood shavings. The tiny alien stirred slowly, then jerked to wakefulness, staring, blinking its tiny red eyes.

The creature had seen that look before, many times before. Total submission. A trembling readiness, the prey's acknowledgement that it was ready to be food. No ru

Not now. The creature could smell the man, and it turned toward the smell.

The man lay on a table. He moaned softly, and moved limbs that seemed tangled in short vines. That was just as well. It had no urge to play with this one.

It braced its paws on the table, stretching, feeling the hurts in its body, the pain along its sides where it was burned and torn. The long wound in its flank opened again, trickling fluid. It braced itself and tried to jump up onto the table. The table was not a boulder. It tilted. The safety blocks on the wheels popped free, and the table skidded across the room, tubes ripping free of the man's forelimb, dark fluid spraying as they crashed into the wall and the table flipped onto its side.

As the table thudded to the floor, the man's eyes fluttered open.

Their eyes met.

Here it was. Here was the moment it craved. Here was the moment when the hunger and the pain and the anger vanished, and it saw into those eyes as down a deep, chill waterhole, a bottomless grotto. The man's eyes grew wide, wide enough to sink in, to swim in. The creature drew closer.

This was the deadly one. His skin was so soft, so fragile. It pawed experimentally, raking away flesh. Blood streamed from pinkish pulp beneath. The man grimaced, showed his teeth. Small teeth, flat and harmless.

The man was so weak! and yet he had hurt it as nothing else in its short life. The man was at the moment of death, his limbs bound, drawing back as far as he could, shrinking against the table, but his eyes held nothing of submission. His sluggish muscles struggled in the bonds.

So much had changed so quickly in its life. And this one Man had been at the center of so much of it. End it now.

But his eyes. They met its own so steadily. Helpless, bound, about to die—and yet...

And yet...

There was a scream from outside, and a sound of pounding feet. Its attention was split by confusion and uncertainty. It turned back to the man and saw triumph in his eyes, and it knew that somehow he had won, they would win, and that its life was over.

Pain bit into the back of its head, and it spun as a second bullet missed it by inches. It charged directly at the man holding a long stick which spat fire.

It felt another, awful pain, and then it was on him, his head in its mouth. There was a moment of bony resistance to its jaw muscles, then splintering collapse and softness. It spat him out and rushed for the door.

If it could reach the river...

But the doorway was crowded with men and their firesticks. It howled its agony, reversed directions, flailing its tail at them, feeling the pain bite deep until the thing in its body triggered, and the entire world seemed made of blood.

It exploded in the other direction. There were more of the vinelike things, and small metal objects. Strange smells filled the room as liquids spilled. The walls of this cave were thin, and bulged when the tail struck them. Instantly it wheeled. The head smashed at the thin walls. Something ripped open. An entire corner fell away. Outside was night, and the chance to find the river, to shed the heat that was cooking it from inside.

One man blocked its way, and it slammed its tail into him, the spikes piercing his leg.

It couldn't shake him loose! He screamed and screamed, confusing and slowing it, even with speed raging in its body and fire raging in its mind.

Another flick of the tail smashed him against the corner of a building. It pulled its spikes free, leaving him leaking and moaning on the ground.

But the men were everywhere now, and it ran this way and that, plowing into them, its body spasming, out of control now, blind with the blood in its eyes.

Chapter 10

NIGHTMARE

I fled, and cried out. Death:

Hell trembled at the hideous noise, and sighed

From all her caves, and back resounded, Death.

JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost: Book II

Sounds...

Someone screaming. A shot?

Sylvia groped her way up from a dream that clung like a moist membrane. The bubble of groggy sleep thi

Tactile: Terry next to her, behind her. She felt the soft swell of his stomach against her backbone as they nestled like spoons.

Visual: Darkness. Outside, filtered by the drapes, a dim light glowed.

Searchlight's glow. All was well.

Auditory: The heavy, liquid sound of Terry's snoring. Nothing new or unusual there.

Sleep yawned, beckoned.

No. Wrong thought, wrong time. Her eyes fought to focus in the dark, to find the clock. How long had she slept? Was it time to get up again--?

Another sharp crack of sound, unmistakably a shot. A searchlight briefly lit the drapes. From all around the camp came shouted inquiries, groggy at first, then alarmed.

She lurched up in bed, throat scratchy with sleep, groping out for the reassuring warmth and protection of her clothing. "Terry. Terry—"

"Mmmph. Fug." Terry rolled onto his stomach, surprised when her body wasn't there to support him. His arm flopped out. "Huh? Sylvie?"

She was already pulling on her pants. Terry's fingers stretched out grazingly, and brushed one of her nipples. A wave of desire warmed her, startled her with its strength.

Terry, you pick the damnedest times.

She shut that part of her mind down and focused on the window, on the wildly swinging lights that filtered in through the drapes.

Terry came fully awake as Sylvia slipped on her shoes.

"What fool's raising the roof now?"

"I don't know. It's by the animal pens, and—"

And the veterinary clinic.

"Cadma

A volley of shots. Terry virtually levitated from the bed.

"What in the hell--?"

There was screaming now. "Hurry up." She paused just long enough to be sure that he was rolling out of bed, then ran for the courtyard.

The huts were generally divided into two sections, sleeping and living. Although the communal dining halls were used by all, many—most of the colonists had their own private cooking facilities and a place to entertain friends. The space that she shared with Terry was small and might have been considered cozy, a place of warmth and—

She crossed the courtyard and stopped in horror. Figures backed out of the clinic. They were shrouded in darkness and fog that swirled like milk in thin tea. Four stylized shadows, posed—four generic riflemen. They fired into the doorway. Something within was screaming and shaking the building like a rat caught in a milk carton, screaming with such energized venom that for a moment she was frozen in her tracks.

She made herself move. A row of garden tools leaned neatly against' one of the huts and Sylvia snatched one in a two-handed death grip. She circled the bungalow, seeking a glimpse within.

No room in the doorway. Thank God! But she had to get closer. She recognized one of the riflemen. "Carolyn! What is it?"

There was no answer. Carolyn McAndrews and her companions fired wildly, fired without targets. They're crazy! Rifle bullets tore through the metal walls of the veterinary clinic. There were sounds of shattering glass from three buildings away. "For God's sake, what's happening?"