Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

Many fluttering life cycles passed.

Eventually, Karr's ingrained determination did kick in. His sense of duty was just too strong to give up; even though his ship was gone, he must go on. Long Reach would have wanted it that way.

Somewhere in that great, dumb brain it had feelings for its tiny symbiont. Karr was sure of that.

Furthermore, Karr remembered as he rose increment by increment out of the pit of his sorrow, that it was his duty to locate Long Reach's crash sight, record what he saw, and try to transmit an account of the events and his actions for dispersion throughout human-colonized space. Maybe other Pilots could learn from Karr's misfortune and save their ships where he had failed. Only after that would he be free to wallow in sorrow.

Until then, he was still a Pilot.

So, Karr heaved himself into the survival raft and paddled along a trail of floating wreckage. In time it

led him to the heavy lifter. It was submerged on a free-drifting reef of snarled green hoses and wire-like corals, fifteen yards under the surface. Over the rest of that day, Karr made several descents in the kilnsuit, eventually reactivating the orbiter's engines and bringing the wreck to the surface. Karr patched it together as best he could. The Gattler's molecular glue worked very well to bond the larger broken hull sections, but evidently he hadn't found all the tiny cracks because the hull still leaked. Water immediately began to accumulate on deck. He decided he could live with it. The faster he got the vehicle flying, the faster he could head southwest, the direction in which Long Reach had disappeared.

That had been the first day. He fell asleep that night watching a peculiar red glow on the southwestern horizon.

Which brought him back to the present.

So far this second day had not gone as productively as the first The probability that Karr was the only human within twenty light-years was increasing. Karr reasoned that no primate-descended colonist could have watched his fiery plummet from the heavens without swinging by to take a look, but the skies were decidedly clear of flying machines and the ocean devoid of ships. He had to face the fact that he was alone; there might not even be a colony beacon from which to transmit his report. And the planet's bloodthirsty inhabitants would be of no help to Karr. They made the simplest tasks of searching for food and water next to impossible; he had been lucky to escape his first interspecies encounter with his life.

It was at this sorry point in his rumination that Karr heard a voice.

Karr hung the curing Pilot's uniform on the ejector couch and walked to the shoreward side of the lifter. The sound repeated, seeming muffled, weak, and vaguely human. Karr listened skeptically. It was probably those aliens, trying to lure him back for a second round of Capture Lunch. Having already ascribed them a certain degree of intelligence, Karr wasn't going to fall for any of their tricks.

Still, it sure sounded like a human voice.

Karr went to the cockpit, the top of which had torn off during ejection, and leaned in to adjust the throttles. They were the only method of steering the lifter at that point. The landward thrusters were set at a lower power level than the ocean side thrusters, so the large hull chugged along, veering with the gentle curve of the coast. Karr used a fingernail to pry up the stub of a thrust lever. The ocean side thrusters thrummed a little faster and the lifer nosed in toward the ring-island, pushing through a skirt of floating kelp and on under the shadow of overhanging jungle growth.

Karr returned to the landward side.

The repeating voice sounded like a call for attention. No. A warning. Which didn't make any sense to Karr. Even if the aliens could imitate humans, why would they make warning sounds? Karr was just about to go back to the cockpit and make another throttle adjustment when he saw movement in the greenery some distance behind the lifter. He could not be sure what it was, but the warning sound was coming from that direction, too.

Thwump, went a heavy noise behind him.

Karr whirled and came face to face with another of the alien predators. He could not be sure if it was the same one as before, since it was silhouetted against the glare of open ocean behind it. Apparently, it had misjudged its leap from the overhanging jungle growth and missed Karr, but it was still far too close for comfort. Karr lunged for the ejector couch, and the Gattler leaning against it.

"Urrrkurrrkurrrk." The alien rumbled, hesitating.

But when it saw Karr grasp the multi-barreled tool, it sprang, easily swiping Karr's legs out from under him. Karr splashed into the water on deck, rolling and swinging the Gattler to bear. He snapped the selector knob to full-power cutting beam as the alien pounced on top of him.

"Stop!" shrieked a distinctly human voice. "Stop!"

From his horizontal position, Karr saw a lithe, human figure darting along the shoreline, but he was too concentrated on saving his life to give it much attention. He jammed the Gattler against the alien's chest, intending to vaporize its midsection.

An amber colored lump suddenly arched through the air and hit Karr between his eyes.

"Ah!"

Karr flinched and the beast smacked the Gattler out of his hands. It pursed its teeth into a cone. Karr reached up and gripped the soft underside of its neck before it could jab the ivory daggers through his heart.

"Khaaaghk!" squawked the alien.

Karr's human hands lacked the strength to strangle the creature. He let go one hand and groped into a survival kit beside him. His fingers darted into a pocket and pulled out a serrated knife, which he slashed at the creature.

The blade glanced off its thick hide.

More resin lumps pelted down, thrown by the unknown human? a young girl. She wasn't a very good shot; most of the lumps hit Karr and not the beast.

"Stop! Stop!" she screamed. "Don't hurt him!"

Karr wished the girl would take more drastic action. Such a vicious creature would not respond to threats, and the rocks she threw were hurting him more than it.

As if to prove that point, the creature grabbed Karr's knife arm and hammered Karr's knuckles painfully against the ejector couch. Karr lost his grip on the knife? and then almost lost his grip on its neck as the lifter slammed into the shore. Engine thrust pushed the craft up the slope at an angle.

Vegetation ripped and snapped. Water sloshed around the hull and the creature lurched down on Karr, squashing all the air from his lungs. Pain stabbing through his chest, Karr tried to reach the Gattler again.

The girl followed as the lifter skipped along shore. She threw more misaimed lumps.

"Ow!" Karr gasped. "Ow! Ow! Stop throwing rocks!"

The girl sprang onto the lifter.

"Take it!" Karr yelled, nodding frantically at the Gattler. "Grab it and shoot! Shoot!"

The girl darted across the bucking deck, grabbing the Gattler as instructed. She fumbled for a second before locating and crooking a dainty finger over the trigger? but then she aimed the barrels squarely at Karr's head!

"Careful with that!" Karr exclaimed.

"Stop fighting!" the girl warned, looking Karr straight in the eye. Her aim did not veer from the center

of his forehead.

Karr froze.

"Arrou," the girl continued, slowly and vigilantly, "now you stop fighting, too."

"Ghuukk," the beast choked, but to Karr's surprise, it eased up its grip on him. Cautiously, Karr did the same.

"Are you okay?" the girl asked the alien.

"Okay," it replied, rubbing its neck. It growled at Karr. "Not nice."

"It talks," Karr blurted stupidly.

"Of course he talks," the girl snapped. "Why did you attack him? He wasn't going to hurt you!"