Zach Hughes - Tiger in the Stars

aboard the scout. But fast as his electronic reflexes were, the creature was faster. A vast mental roar filled his mind, paralyzed him for that microsecond in which the creature below continued to exist. Then there was quiet. Below him in the clearing, the remaining slug creatures began to nibble foliage. The only evidence of the monster was a reeking pile of the glutinous substance covering large areas of the landmasses of the planet. The thing was gone. Instantly, Plank blinked the scout out into the space between the planet and its sun where the dark ship with Hara and Heath waited. He came out into normal space within 100 meters of the ship, just in time to see it begin to break into colorful planes and disintegrate. Although the loss was a pain in his non-existent heart, he acted instantly, blinking toward the Pride. He boarded and checked. He was alone. The ship was intact. Hara was gone. He had insisted on tracking the tiger and the beast had consumed, not the hunter, but the one most dear to him. Plank screamed into the emptiness of the ship. It was a hoarse whisper of a scream, emerging from his non-existent, fume-scarred throat. It was a sound of desperation, of pain, of mortal agony. And then it was silent. He took but a few seconds to decide his course. Below him, the planet that once had teemed with life was barren. Only a few of the small animals remained on scattered islands. They had come, led to the planet by his instruments. He had surprised one of them and he had failed. He had been too slow to take advantage of the surprise, but if he ever had another chance, he'd be faster. He longed to have Hara near, to be able to tell her, look, we have at least some answers. They are the thing of a nightmare, not some benevolent superior form of life. They had me find that planet to provide them with a meal. And the flesh of those slug animals is surprisingly similar to the flesh of those on… Earth. Was it next? So the choice was whether or not to blink directly home. All this passed through his mind in a few seconds, before the message came. He had no communicator on the Pride, but he heard/felt the words. Plank, said the voice in his head, you were naughty. You interrupted us during our favorite game. For that you should be punished, but since you were good and faithful in bringing us the others, we will forgive, even as we enjoy. Pushing the power to the limit, using the longest blinks possible, Plank flashed through space. His destination was not Earth. The voice of the

tiger was in his ears and he knew, instinctively, the point of origin of that voice. He was sure, as sure as he'd ever been of anything, that he'd meet his tiger again on the tinker-toy planet. CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Pride's memory banks held the coordinates for the route back to the tinker-toy planet, but the trip was still time consuming. Plank would not allow himself to think that he might arrive too late. He found it difficult to believe that a race that could create near miracles could be represented by the thing he'd seen on Plank's World. Nor could he accept the evidence which told him that the super-being, that thing of maw and belly and teeth, had emptied a planet of life in a period of weeks. A horror was there that was almost comical. The plot, he told himself, wouldn't even be acceptable for a kiddies' horror show back home. The monster that ate the world. Indeed. And yet a monster had eaten a world. A sane man just cannot believe that a being who considers man a mere meal exists in the galaxy. But how else to explain? There was the suggestion, made in the endless hours of speculation during the trip to Plank's World, that the other victims of the disappearances had, like Plank, been integrated into ships. Which, to Plank's mind, was only the least of several evils. Hara a starship? For the first time he allowed himself to assess his own situation. Since his awakening inside the new Plank's Pride, he had been able to forestall such self-examination because he'd been busy. He had had purpose. Foremost in his mind was the overwhelming urge to find home. Then the vital business of trying to discover a few whys, a time made tense and desperate by the implied threat to his race. Now, as he waited through the brief periods of recharging at the end of each blink, he pondered. Was it all bad, this being disembodied? He was never hungry. He suffered no pain, not even minor headaches or muscle soreness. And out there was a universe waiting to be explored. Under certain circumstances, he reasoned, his state could even be considered desirable. He entertained thoughts of the Pride and another ship, which would be Hara, blinking into endless distances side by side to unravel the age-old questions. But that was far too platonic. He was, after all, a man. He had loved Hara as a man loves a woman and had looked forward to a normal lifetime with her. He could, even as a disembodied brain, know desire.

And now that she was, at best, like him, he felt a terrible loss, which drove him to push the generator to peak operation. Frenzied repair operations began in the ship's computer as he overloaded circuits and blew them in his wild rush toward the tinker-toy planet. He did not abandon hope. That, he knew, was another very human trait. Man hopes until the last possible instant. He clings to life and to hope even as he feels himself being devoured by a faster and stronger adversary. He would not consider Hara dead. He would not allow himself to believe that the thing he'd seen on Plank's World had, to use the words of the message he'd received, «enjoyed» her. He would arrive before that enjoyment. Somehow, he would save her. And hidden underneath that hope, was a red, glowing anger and the resolution to take revenge, to ruin, to destroy, to burn and blast and crumble. He had only one plan. Simple confrontation. No time for involved actions. Moreover, a creature that could instantly disappear without mechanical aids, that could send messages into his brain from distances, would, in all probability, be able to foresee his actions, perhaps read his mind. Maybe he would be destroyed at the instant of his first encounter. And yet, the thing had seen his small ship, had had opportunity to destroy if it were capable of instant destruction. Was he merely being tolerated? He had been called, in effect, a servant. «Good and faithful.» Well, man had long since given up being a servant. Man, and John Plank in particular, was not geared for servitude. Better to rush into instant oblivion than to admit that he lived to serve, to scout new planets for the provision of a gory meal for a monster. He blinked into planetary atmosphere. Leaving the Pride in orbit, and using his mobile form as eyes and ears, he shot down in the small scout toward the construction that had contained the communications device. Once again the planet was quiet. And it was so large, so cluttered with the wild constructions… He knew that it would take years to do a thorough search, and he began in familiar territory. The communications area was empty. As before, there were functioning things draining power and accomplishing no known purpose. The communications bank, itself, was inactive. Plank used it, sent his thoughts outward. No reply came back, nothing to indicate one way or the other that he was being heard. He knew, roughly, the communications procedure now. As a test, he sent orders to any communications device, anywhere, to answer his contact. He reasoned that if other ships were out in space, ships like the dark one that had followed him during his wanderings, he would receive a response. The communications banks, he reasoned, were merely tools for control of various unmanned vehicles. They, apparently, did not need mechanical things to make communication possible. His orders went out and there were no replies. He tried mental communication. There was no response. Since it would be impossible for him to cover the planet in anything