Andre Norton - Galactic Derelict

Ashe’s lope lengthened into a trot, and the trot into a space-covering run. He was heading away from the wrecked ship to the distant hills, and to reach them they had to round the narrow end of the lake.

They were carefully threading their way through the edge of a marshy spot when a scream halted them. Travis knew that it was a death cry, but the sound was followed by an appalling, yowling squall which could come from no throat, animal or human, of his own time. It sounded from directly before them. The squall was answered in turn by a grunting, such a grunting as might have issued from the deep chest of a giant pig. And that grunting was echoed on a higher note almost directly behind them!

“Down!” Travis obeyed the order from Ashe, throwing himself flat on the muddy ground, wriggling to the left. A moment later all three scouts huddled in a growth of tough brush. They paid no attention to the torment inflicted by its brambles on their arms and shoulders, for they had front-row seats on a wild drama which held them enthralled.

Crumpled on the ground was a mound of heaving flesh, plainly in the death throes, its long, shaggy yellow hair sodden with blood. Crouched at bay behind that body was another animal. Travis could classify it when he caught sight of those long, curved fangs: sabertooth. It was slightly shorter than a lion of Travis’ own day, and its muscular legs and powerful shoulders displayed a threat of force which would daunt a larger beast. But now it was facing a giant….

The opponent, whose cub had been killed, was a mountain of flesh, rearing almost eighteen feet above the ground. Balanced on large-boned hind feet and thick tail, it fronted sabertooth with powerful forearms, each tipped with a gigantic single claw. The narrow head twisted and turned above the slender forebody, the thick brown hair covering it in constant movement.

There was a rank smell of animal blown to the men in the brush as a second monstrous ground sloth moved in to give battle. And the sabertooth spat like the enraged cat it was.

A hand closed on Travis’ arm, jerking his attention from the shaping battle. Ashe pointed westward and pulled again. Ross was already creeping in that direction. The wind was at their back so that they caught the fetor of the beasts without danger of their being scented in turn.

“Get to it!” Ashe ordered. “We don’t want that cat on our trail. It can’t take on two adult sloths and it’ll be one mighty disappointed diner—out looking for another meal pretty soon now.”

They wormed their way forward, trying to gauge from the squalls of the cat, the grunting of the sloths, whether batde had yet reached the stage of actual blows. If the cat was smart, Travis knew, it would let itself be driven off. And knowing the tactics of mountain lions of his southwest, he believed that that was what would happen.

“Okay—run!” Ashe scrambled to his feet and set a good pace across the open lands, the other two thudding behind him. The sun had completely disappeared now, and the gray-ness under those lowering clouds approached twilight. The thin chirrup of their homing device sounded very lonely and far away.

Brown-gray lumps swung up heads with wide stretches of horns. Save that those horns were straight and not curved, the animals might have been the bison of the historic plains. Catching the scent of the scouts, they tossed those horned heads, set off northward down the open land at a lumbering gallop. Among them ran with speed and far more grace large-headed horses equipped with the spectacularly striped coats of zebras. This was plainly a hunter’s paradise.

The rain came from behind the men, making a visible curtain of water. When that enfolded them, Travis gasped, choked, fought for breath under the flood which beat and pounded him. But his legs kept the striding pace Ashe had set, and the three continued to head for the hills which were now only vaguely visible through the downpour.

A rising slope slowed them, and twice they had to leap runnels of streams carrying away the excess of water being dumped on the heights above them. Lightning cracked with a lashing viciousness, bringing a scrap of illumination with it.

A hand caught at Travis to the left, and so into partial shelter from the storm.

He was crowded together with Ashe and Ross, half crouching in the lee of some rocks. It was not quite a cave, but the crevice was better than the open slope.

“How long will this last?” Ross growled.

Ashe returned without much hope, “Anywhere from an hour to a couple of days. Let’s hope we’re lucky.”

They squatted, drawing their hide robes about them, pressing together for the warmth of body contact in the midst of that damp cold. Perhaps they dozed, for Travis became aware of his surroundings with a jerk of his head which hurt neck and shoulder. He knew that the rain had stopped, though there was night outside their inadequate shelter. He asked:

“Do we move on?”

But the reply to that came from the world outside their hiding place, with a roar loud enough to split eardrums. Travis, his nails digging into the wooden shaft of his spear, could not control the shudder which shook him at that menacing blast.

“We do if we want to provide a midnight snack for our friend out there,” Ashe commented. “The rain probably spoiled hunting for somebody. Hereabouts we have sabertooth, the Alaskan lion, the cave bear, and a few other assorted carnivores I don’t want to meet without, say, a tank in reserve support.”

“Cheery spot,” Ross remarked. “I’d say our playmate up-ridge hasn’t had much luck tonight. Any chance of his coming down to scoop us out—or try for taste?”

“If he, she or it does, hell get a pawful of spear points.” Ashe replied. “One advantage of this hole, nothing can get in if we’re firm in saying No!”

There was a second roar, from farther away, Travis noted with relief. Whatever meat hunter on the hoof prowled the hills, it would not have followed their trail. The rain must have cleansed their scent from grass and earth. But they continued to huddle there, stiff and cold, endeavoring now and then to change position of arms or legs so that morning would not find them too cramped to move. They remained until the sky did lighten with the first sign of dawn.

Travis crawled out, straightened up painfully, and bit back a stinging word or two, as a morning breeze with the crisp-ness of about three below zero cut in under the flap of his cloak blanket. He decided that to be properly prepared to roam the Pleistocene world in the garb of its rightful inhabitants, one should practice beforehand by spending a month or so in a deep freeze stripped to one’s shorts. And he was pleased to see that neither Ashe nor Ross was any more agile when he emerged from the hole of refuge.

They mouthed food-concentrate tablets from their storage bags. Travis, though knowing the energy-building uses of those small pellets, longed for real meat, hot, yet still juicy, taken straight from the searing of the fire. There was no taste to these pill things.

“Up we go.” Ashe wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and slung his bag over his shoulder. He studied the way before them to pick out the best ascent. But Travis had already started, winding in and out between boulders which marked the debris of a landslide.

When the scouts at last reached the summit, they turned to look back into the valley of the lake. That smooth sheet of water occupied perhaps half of the basin. And it seemed to Travis that the mirror surface reached closer to the wrecked ship today than it had when they passed it the afternoon before. He said as much, and Ashe agreed.

“Water has to go somewhere and these rains feed all the streams heading down there. Another reason why we must make this a fast job. So—let’s get moving.”