Paolo Bacigalupi - The Drowned Cities

“No spoor,” one of them muttered as footsteps stalked through the grasses. “Tell the LT, we got no spoor.”

Tool could imagine them all on the edge of the swamps, staring out at black waters. Listening to the pulse and scratch of insects and the far cry of a wild panther.

They were hunters. But now, as night closed in on them, and the swamp became black and hot and close, they were becoming prey.

Tool again shook off the urge to hunt. He must still think like prey and take advantage of their failures. He could lie below the surface for as long as twenty minutes, slowing his heart rate, slowing his bulk so that he needed almost nothing at all.

Without exertion, he might even be able to lie there longer, but twenty minutes, he knew for certain—much as he knew that he could run for five miles without rest amongst the high passes of Tibet, or for three days without pause across the blistering sands of North Africa’s Sahara.

He counted slowly.

The hounds paddled and circled as the soldiers tried to figure out what to do.

“You think it doubled back again?”

“Could be. It’s crafty. Ocho can take a squad—”

“Ocho’s all ripped up.”

“Van and Soa, then! Go back along the trail. Spread out.”

“In the dark?”

“You questioning me, Gutty?”

“Where the hell’s the LT?”

The ripple and bubble of the swamp flowed into Tool’s finely tuned ears. He let them spread wide like fans, cupping the waters. Listening.

The flash of tiny pike. The skitter of crawdads. The distant womblike slosh and surge of salt water as it blended with cousin waters on the shore, where swampland and surf smashed together and sought ever higher tide lines.

“It’ll head for the ocean,” one of the soldiers said. “We should put another squad up on the north side.”

“No, it will hide here, in the swamps. It’ll stay right here. Safe enough.”

“Maybe the coywolv will get it.”

“Not likely. You saw how it did those panthers when it fought in the ring.”

“There’s a lot more coywolv out here.”

Deep in the waters, something dark and hungry stirred.

Tool startled, then froze.

A monster was easing through the waters, vast and silent, a shadow of death. Tool stifled a growl as it passed, fighting to keep the rhythms of his heart slow, fighting to save precious oxygen. Meters and meters of leathery hide slid past him, a great king of a reptile. The creature was bigger than the largest Komodo dragons of the equator. A massive horror of an alligator, tail and legs moving easy, propelling it through darkening waters with a predatory grace.

It circled, attracted by the frenetic hounds and their foolish splashing.

The first dog sank before it could yelp. The next went under in a snap. Blood filled the water.

The soldiers yelled and gunshots flashed. Automatic weapons. Shotguns. Sparks of fear as the soldiers peppered the water with their bullets.

“Get it! Get it!”

Heavy impact. A sharp pain blossomed in Tool’s shoulder. He flinched at the bad luck but held still. He’d been shot before; this was not the worst. The bullet had smashed into the meat of his body. He could survive the wound.

“It’s not the dog-face! It’s a damn gator!” The soldiers unloaded more angry shots into the water. Whistled back their hounds. “Heel!”

Blood smoked from Tool’s shoulder. He pressed his fist to the wound, trying to staunch the flow. There was enough blood in the water that Tool’s own blood might not be the bait that it would have been, but he smelled of wounded sickness.

The soldiers remained at the edge of the pool, shooting at whatever moved and cursing the alligator. The monster circled in the water, finishing the remains of the hounds, unperturbed by the powerless soldiers above.

Tool watched the alligator, measuring this new variable in the equation of his survival. He felt no brotherhood with this beast. Reptiles, if they were any part of his blood design, were deeply buried in the helixes of his DNA. This creature was nothing other than an enemy.

Above, the soldiers’ voices finally faded, seeking their prey in other places.

Trapped in the deepening darkness, Tool continued to study the alligator. If he moved, the monster would sense him, and now his lungs were beginning to heave, demanding air.

Tool clenched his jaws and waited, hoping that the alligator might still move off.

Instead, the lizard sank to the bottom of the pool, sated.

If Tool was fast, he might make it out of the water in time, but he would have to be quick. He knew that he had only two hundred heartbeats of air before he became too weak to fight. The blood thudded in Tool’s ears, counting down his death. He could slow the beat of his heart, but he could not stop it.

Tool reached up and took hold of a thick mangrove root, preparing to propel himself upward.

The alligator whipped about. Tool had been about to kick for the surface, but now, if he let himself float free, he would be easy bait. The alligator flashed toward him, jagged mouth hungering. Tool levered himself aside, using the roots to maneuver. Teeth snapped, missing.

The alligator came around. Its tail slammed Tool into the mangrove roots. Tool’s vision went bloody. The alligator arrowed in again, and Tool grabbed for a weapon. He tore at the mangrove roots, but the wood ripped free with only a stub.

The alligator’s maw gaped wide. Vast oblivion.

Tool lunged for the monster, the chunk of splintered root clenched in his fist. With a silent roar, Tool rammed his fist into the monster’s mouth. The alligator’s jaws snapped shut. Its teeth crushed Tool’s shoulder, piercing flesh. Pain like lightning.

The monster rolled and dove, dragging Tool with it. Instinctively, the alligator knew it needed only to suck the air from its enemy. It was born for this fight, and in its decades of life, none had ever bested it. It would drown Tool, as it had drowned so many other unwary beasts, and then it would feed well.

Tool struggled, trying to pry open the monster’s mouth, but even the half-man’s strength was no match for the alligator’s bite. The teeth were clamped like a vise. The alligator rolled, slamming Tool into the mud, pressing him down.

Panic swept through Tool. He was drowning. He barely fought off the instinct to breathe water. Again he pried at the lizard’s jaws, knowing it was pointless, but unable to surrender.

The reptile is not your enemy. It is nothing but a beast. You are its better.

A foolish stray thought, and small comfort—killed by something with a brain the size of a walnut. Tool’s teeth showed in a rictus of contempt as the alligator plowed him through more weeds and mud.

This dumb beast is not your enemy.

Tool was not some brute animal, able to think only in terms of attack or flight. He was better than that. He hadn’t survived this long by thinking like an animal. Panic and mindlessness were his only enemy, as always. Not bullets or teeth or machetes or claws. Not bombs or whips or razor wire.

And not this dumb beast. Panic only.

He could never break free of the alligator’s jaws. They were perfect clamps, evolved to lock down and never release. No one pried free of an alligator’s bite. Not even something as strong as Tool. So he would no longer try.

Instead, Tool lashed his free arm around the beast’s head, locking it in a bear hug, and squeezed. His grip forced the alligator’s jaws tighter around his own arm and shoulder. Its teeth pierced deep. More of Tool’s blood clouded the water.

In the dim recesses of its tiny brain, perhaps the alligator was pleased to have its teeth sink deeper into enemy flesh. But Tool’s other arm, engulfed in the monster’s maw, was free to work. Not from the outside, but from within.