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Then he was through, into the other chamber. He scrambled backward up over the gours, the grooved stone surface scraping at his hands and legs.
His voice was a squeak into the throat mike. "Danger. Mayday! This is Jerry. I... we found it. Andy is dead. Repeat, Andy is dead. Converge on left tu
Arnie Donovan and Jill Ralston joined him at the water's edge.
Together the three of them backed to the wall, spear guns at the ready.
Shit. He had seen those things kill before, but this... what in the world? Why had it killed Andy? And then thrown the body back almost disdainfully?
Whatever a man might hunt on Earth, there were other men to tell him how to do it. Thinking like the prey is an old game, hundreds of thousands of years old. The first shamans who propitiated the spirits of antelopes might have got it wrong, hundreds of thousands of years back, but the need was there. You ca
With this creature there was nobody to ask.
Carlos popped up in the water, and in a few moments Kokubun and two others joined them. Then Cadma
"What happened?"
Jerry slowed his trip-hammer breathing. His teeth chattered. "Andy and
I went into th-the cave. He surfaced, and that was it. He went straight up. He didn't even have a chance to scream."
"Volunteers," Cadma
"I'm right behind you."
Cadma
Jerry was the last in. Suddenly the water felt slimy to him. Fear constricted his chest, and he couldn't breathe. The water surface was silver above him.
Andy had gone up, arms and legs thrashing, and back down without his head.
A flash of light ripped the darkness from the water. A moment later the shock wave hit, and the numbing, thunderous roar of sound.
Jerry surfaced.
"Dear God in heaven..."
The cave was smaller than the one he had just left, with a broad shelf of gours to the left. On it the creature was whirling, spi
The creature froze for an instant. Jerry had just time to make out its squat monitor shape, the spiked tail thrashing restlessly, the gaping mouth lined with daggers. Then with a blur it was among them, churning in a circle, frothing the water with blood.
Human and reptilian screams mingled. One of the spears exploded against the rock wall, one against the ceiling, another in the water with a blinding flash. The monster's tail whipped twice, then slammed down on a diver's head, driving it under.
There was horrific crunch, and a man flew from the water, smashing into a heap on the shore.
Cadma
The water whirled as if whipped by a centrifuge. The creature righted itself and jetted straight for Cadma
Cadma
For a long moment there was silence. Jerry couldn't help shining his flashlight in Cadma
He spoke slowly. "All right. All clear. We need a net in here, and medical care. Who's got a med kit?"
Mits raised a weary arm.
"Good. All right. Let's get it moving."
Cadma
"Are you all right?" Jerry asked. Why am I nervous?
Cadma
"Never better."
Chapter 20
AUTOPSY II
To stand still on the summit of reflection is difficult, and in the natural course of things, who ca
GAIUS VELLEIUS PATERCULUS (20 BC to 30 AD)
The corpse stretched almost fourteen feet from the tip of a rounded snout to the spiked ankylosaur tail. Its bulk filled two veterinary tables: its sour wet smell hung in the air like a curtain of flies. Its grayish-green hide was rent in a score of places. Ribs poked through in rows of stained ivory, denser and more roughly surfaced than human bone. Its webbed feet were torn and broken. The eyes, once golden, shone dull copper in the unwavering overhead light.
Sylvia noticed half a dozen gawking colonists still crowded in the door. Triumph. They weren't there. They laughed at Cadma
Grendel is dead!
Grim humor that; grim but oddly appropriate even so minutely removed from the horror of Year Day. In death the creature ceased to menace their future, and thus assumed an oddly mythic quality. Grendel is dead.
It was fu
Carlos sat slumped in the corner, trying desperately to get drunk enough to cry.
"Grendel is dead," Sylvia said dully. "In the old legend they nailed Grendel's arm above the entrance to Heorot." She swept her hand to indicate the quarter ton of quiescent monster flesh. "We mutilate corpses too—"
Jerry paused in the act of pulling on surgeon's gloves. "For answers, I hope."
"Damn right you'll get answers," Cadma
There are so many questions.
Life?
Death?
Is the nightmare over? Or just begi
"Please," Jerry said. "I need room to work. Cadma
The doorway cleared and the sheet-metal door closed. But Sylvia knew that their audience had not retreated far: their impatiently shuffling feet and choppy breathing hovered just beyond the threshold of perception.
Jerry inhaled deeply. The light from above shimmered around his stick-figure body like an aura. "Cassandra Program." The jury-rigged computer hummed. Gears chugged and ground. Everyone watched. Then slowly, in jerks, the camera moved to position itself above the table. Jerry nodded thanks toward Carlos. The cameras, like everything else, had been severely damaged during the initial assault. Everything had been designed for durability, but that was on Earth, in a design laboratory, damage simulated by computer, not inflicted by monsters. Now—with Omar Isfahan's help Jerry was redesigning the system, restoring lost capabilities. This was the first practical test of Cassandra's restoration. The computer hesitated another second, and then the gooseneck camera snaked down.