Robert Sawyer - Fossil Hunter

Delplas had used a lot of powder; they’d have to run as fast as they—

Toroca tripped, his toeclaws having caught in a small crevice in the ground. His body slammed into the hard, cracked dirt, his chest riblets pressing in.

Dazed, he tried to make it to his feet, then realized there was no time.

He rolled on his side, looked back. Delplas was the only one behind him still, but now by only a body-length or two. Her face was a mask of concern.

And then the powder ignited, like thunder, each cone exploding at almost, but not quite, the same instant. The face of the cliff seemed to shatter, like an eggshell, then hang, suspended for a half a beat, and then, and then, and then—

—tumbling and falling down, thousands of slabs of gray shale, a massive cloud of dust blowing off to the west, a hail of pebbles raining out of the sky, even this far away—

—wingfingers startled into flight—

—and to Toroca’s shock, a previously unseen herd of wild runningbeasts stampeding away from the cliff’s base.

Toroca brushed himself off and got to his feet. Delplas, mouth open in a loose grin, held up both hands, her badge of office, intact.

The dust cloud was incredible, and the stench of blackpowder filled the air. When it finally cleared, Toroca’s jaw dropped wide open.

Half the embankment had been reduced to rubble. Protruding from what was left of the cliff face was a vast rounded structure, the size of a very large building, made of the enigmatic blue material.

Out on the street, Afsan couldn’t see the crowd, but he knew it was there nonetheless. He could smell it, smell the pheromones of every single one of the passersby. How many? He couldn’t say. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands. The pheromones weren’t just the normal bodily scents, either. He was used to the occasional stuff of a female in heat, or a female about to lay eggs, or an individual of either sex primed for the hunt, or the unmistakable signal of one torpid after a large meal.

But these pheromones were different.

Fear.

Claustrophobia.

A sense of being trapped.

They washed over him, chemical waves. And he—even he, scholar’s scholar, the palace’s foremost intellectual—was not immune to their effects.

The tips of his fingers tingled, his claws itching in their sheaths, eager to pop out into the light of day. Whether those around him were showing the same restraint as he, keeping their claws hidden, he had no way to tell, With each step, he felt his torso tipping forward, as if into the horizontal posture of territorial challenge. He pulled himself right again and again, but the tipping was becoming more and more pronounced.

Muscles in his throat were contracted, held rigidly under conscious control. His dewlap felt as though it was ready, at any moment, to balloon up into a great ruby ball.

And there was a strange sensation, a working of muscles, inside his head. It finally came to him—his eyes would have been darting left and right, nervous, scanning… if he’d had any eyes, that is.

He knew he should get out of there, get away from the crowded streets, get back out into the countryside, to Rockscape, perhaps, where the steady breeze from off the water would blow fresh air onto him, air free of pheromones, free of tension.

The clicking of toeclaws on the paving stones was like hail: a constant rat-a-tat , an unending barrage. How many feet? How many Quintaglios? How big a crowd?

He tried to calm himself, to think soothing thoughts. He thought about the stars, the beautiful stars… the stars he had intended to devote his life to studying, until he’d lost his sight. Afsan shook his head, clearing his mind. Try again. He thought about Dybo, his oldest friend, his greatest supporter… who had allowed his blinding. No. He thought about Novato, lovely Novato, brilliant inventor of the far-seer, and that one magical time when their bodies had come together, that glorious night that led to the existence of his children, Haldan and Galpook, Kelboon and Toroca, Drawtood and Yabool, Dynax and little Helbark, who had succumbed early on to illness. Wonderful children, brilliant children, so many children , children everywhere, underfoot…

Afsan found his body tipping far forward again. He forced it erect, forced his tail to touch the ground—

—and someone stepped on it—

—and that was it—

Afsan felt the change in his body, felt instinct rising up, taking hold.

He swung around, his torso coming forward as he did so, his tail lifting, his body bobbing up and down, up and down, the challenge upon him, dagamant seizing him.

They had called him The One in his youth, the greatest hunter since the Original Five. Even blind, even in a fury, even getting on to middle age, he still had the moves, still had the timing. He could hear the breathing of the one nearest him, short, sharp intakes, as if that person, too, was fighting to retain self-control. It was a male, Afsan knew at once, the pheromone unmistakable.

“Good Afsan,” said the voice, trying to sound soothing but the tone curdled by fear. It was a voice he recognized, a person he knew. Pod-Oro, aide to… to… Afsan’s mind was fogging, his intellect ebbing… to governor Rodlox of Edz’toolar…

So much the better.

Afsan lunged forward, arms outstretched. His hands connected. A shoulder beneath his left, a haunch under his right. Oro was completely horizontal himself, in a pose of challenge. His head would be right about—

Afsan felt his own skin tearing, Oro’s claws slicing through his upper arm. It didn’t matter; the pain didn’t really register. All that mattered now was the kill—

As long as he was in partial physical contact with Oro, as long as he could feel a limb or a bit of his torso, Afsan could extrapolate where the other’s vulnerable parts would be.

The One.

Afsan’s torso shot forward and down, bringing his head in low, jaws agape.

The crunch of neck bones.

Teeth popping from their sockets. And the taste of blood, hot and surging… Oro didn’t even scream as he died. His body just fell to the stone roadway with a dull thud.

And then Afsan felt hands upon his back.

He wheeled again.

The madness had begun.

Toroca had hoped at most to find a few more artifacts. He’d never expected anything like this. Whatever the vast structure was, it was still half-buried in the cliff face. It was big enough to be a large building or a temple or even a great sailing ship. Only one thing was clear at this point: the object was blue, the same cool blue as the small artifact Toroca had found earlier. Ignoring the stench of blackpowder, Toroca moved closer, the rest of his team following behind.

The structure was completely outside of Toroca’s experience, he kept staring at it, trying to fathom what it was, but it just didn’t fit anything he’d ever seen before. The thing was roughly ovoid, assuming the part still buried curved back the way the exposed part did, but it had many projections and its surface was corrugated in some places, fluted in others.

Just getting up the rock face was treacherous. So much new debris had been laid down, and it had had no time to settle. But he couldn’t wait.

Toroca and his surveyors spent the rest of the afternoon clambering around, examining the exterior of the vast blue structure. There was no direct way to associate such a massive object—some thirty paces high—with a single rock layer, but it was made out of the same blue stuff as the original six-fingered artifact, and that had been excavated from the layer immediateh below the Bookmark layer, so it seemed likely this vast structure dated from the same period.