Robert Sawyer: Fossil Hunter

“Exactly.”

“But how does Dybo know this?”

“He knows everything there is to know about blackdeaths now. I made him study every source, every scientific paper, every popular account. I made him spend days just watching the blackdeath in its pen.”

“But he can’t stand still forever. And even if he does, the blackdeath can smell him, and hear him—”

“But something else will attract its attention—”

“You’re right! There goes Wendest now, trying to make it back to the north end. The fool! The blackdeath has seen her and is leaving Dybo behind. It’s on her tail!”

Wendest was short work for the blackdeath. It tore her limbs off, ripped the meat from them, and disemboweled the torso. There were now five bloody corpses spotted around the great diamond field, and three contenders left—Spenress, Rodlox, and Dybo.

Rodlox was targeted next: Rodlox, the governor of isolated Edz’toolar, the one whose challenge of Dybo had caused all this. His belt was brown, the color of his province, the color of barren soil like that which covered much of his land. The blackdeath barreled toward him. Rodlox was strong, strongest of all the contestants. He did not run away from the blackdeath. He preferred to meet it on his own terms. Instead, his muscular legs propelled him toward the creature. The ground shook as the two of them ran together, closer, closer still, a collision imminent…

Suddenly Rodlox feinted to the right, running now in a circle, around and around the blackdeath. The great carnivore couldn’t turn with the facility Rodlox could, and although it tried to bring its jaws to bear on him several times, Rodlox managed to keep out of its reach, running and running and running in circles, around and around, dizzyingly…

The blackdeath continued to circle, too stupid to know that if it simply stopped for a moment, Rodlox would come rushing around into its reach.

The strategy was brilliant—disorient the monster. And what a definitive win it would be! Not just surviving the culling of the blackdeath, but actually defeating the creature. Rodlox would secure his position firmly.

The blackdeath was weaving now, tottering back and forth as it rotated, dizziness taking hold. Rodlox’s strength and stamina were incredible, to keep up the game for so long. At last the great dark beast staggered and dropped to its knees. Rodlox seized the moment and launched himself onto the creature’s back, his toeclaws making red scratches in the ebony hide as he scrambled higher and higher, the bony ridges down the monster’s spine like tiny stairs in profile.

The blackdeath yelled. Rodlox positioned himself firmly between the beast’s shoulders and opened his mouth wide, preparing to chomp into its neck—

But then the blackdeath rose to its feet, higher and higher, Rodlox himself now temporarily disoriented—

And then it did something that no one had ever seen before—

It tipped forward, way, way forward, the upper tip of its muzzle pressing against the ground, then it pushed with its hind legs, its spine curving, and it rolled forward, somersaulting, head over heels, its shoulders taking the brunt of the roll, Rodlox expiring with a loud wet splat between the blackdeath’s shoulder blades and the hard ground of the playing field. The blackdeath completed the revolution, the stiff tail flexing around, and rose back to its feet, shrugging its giant shoulders, as if to dislodge Rodlox’s remains. But the bulk of them were stuck there, a flattened bloody mess. After a couple more futile shrugs, the blackdeath seemed to resign itself to carrying around the residue. Perhaps it would let wingfingers pick at its back later, cleaning away what was left of Rodlox.

Just Spenress and Dybo remained now. Spenress, watching, stunned by what she had just seen, made a mistake. A potentially fatal mistake. She backed into the angle of the diamond, trapped, with no way out. Easy pickings.

Too easy, apparently, for the blackdeath. It ignored her, turning its attention to Dybo. It started to stomp toward him. Dybo stood his ground. The blackdeath let out its characteristic roar, low, rumbling, reverberating deep in the chest, like thunder before a storm…

And Dybo did the same thing . The exact same thing. Roared just like the blackdeath, in an uncanny imitation of its territorial cry.

The creature stopped advancing and tilted its massive head to the left. After a moment, it roared again. Dybo replied in kind.

“Dybo’s turned his back on the blackdeath!” shouted Cadool, the excitement too much for him. “Afsan, he’ll be killed—”

“He’s facing the spectators?” asked Afsan.

“Yes.”

“Perfect.”

“He’s—oh, my God, Afsan! Dybo’s—he’s—”

“Yes?”

“He’s chomping off his own left arm! He’s—he’s brought his jaws down on it—”

“Where? Exactly where is he biting it?”

“Between—God, that must hurt!—between his shoulder and his elbow. He’s biting right through the bone… he’s done it… his arm is falling to the ground in front of him.”

The air split as the blackdeath let out its thunderous call again. Dybo replied in kind, but whether in agony or imitation Cadool couldn’t say. “You hear him screaming?” he said to Afsan.

“Pain can be controlled by a strong enough mind,” said Afsan. “At least, for a short time.”

“I suppose, but—oh, God, he’s doing it again! God, how that must hurt! He’s chewing off his own right arm now! There it goes… that arm has fallen to the ground, too. The blood is soaking the soil. He’s just got two stumps now, coming off his shoulders. He looks—he looks—”

“Just like God,” said Afsan.

Cadool was staggered. “Yes! From the first sacred scroll! After She sacrificed Her arms to make the five original hunters and the five original mates! Just like God!”

There were murmurs throughout the stands, as other spectators realized the resemblance. An Emperor who was as a God! How could they have doubted him?

It was well past noon now. Dybo had maneuvered carefully. He’d positioned himself to the west of the blackdeath, the sun behind him. He turned his body in a three-quarters view, and tipped low from the waist, the short stubs of his arms dangling in front of his torso. He bowed low, lower still, his tail lifting from the ground, matching the posture of the blackdeath. Dybo roared again, precisely mimicking the blackdeath’s sound. The blackdeath roared in return, but then the incredible, the miraculous, happened. The blackdeath took a step backward, moving away from Dybo.

Dybo roared once more, stepping forward. He dipped from the waist, bobbing, up and down, up and down, a territorial challenge, a gesture shared by both Quintaglio and blackdeath, a gesture unmistakable to the spectators and to the great ebony monster.

Dybo was challenging the blackdeath… and the blackdeath was retreating.

“I don’t understand,” said Cadool.

“He may look like God to us,” said Afsan, “but silhouetted against the sun behind him, with his arms only tiny stumps, and assuming the proper posture, to his mighty opponent he looks like a blackdeath—like a juvenile blackdeath.”

The blackdeath roared halfheartedly at Dybo, but continued to retreat, step by step, pace by pace, back farther and farther toward the spectator stands, toward the door through which the challengers had come…

“But why, Afsan? Why is it retreating?”

“A blackdeath is no different from other animals, Cadool, or from us, for that matter. A mature male is often challenged by young bucks. The male endures such challenges—they’re a rite of passage for the juveniles, a growth experience. Among animals, true territorial battles are only ever fought between approximately equally matched opponents. A male that size would never actually fight a juvenile as apparently young as Dybo.”