Harry Harrison: West of Eden

“We will get as close as we can,” Erafnais said, “close inshore.”

Our future, Vaintè thought, the first glorious topping of the males, the first eggs laid, the first births, the first efenburu growing in the sea. Her anger was gone now and she almost smiled at the thought of the fat and torpid males lolling stupidly in the sun, the young happily secure in their tail pouches. The first births, a memorable moment for this new city .

Under the guidance of the crew the uruketo was being urged even closer inshore, almost among the breaking waves. The shore moved by, the beaches came into view. The beautiful beaches.

Enge and the commander were struck dumb by what they saw. It was Vaintè who cried aloud, a sound of terrible tortured pain.

It was drawn from deep inside her by the sight of the torn and dismembered corpses that littered the smooth sand.

Vaintè’s cry of pain ended abruptly. When she spoke next all complexity was gone from her words, all subtlety and form. Just the bare bones of meaning were left, a graceless and harsh urgency.

“Commander. You will lead ten of your strongest crewmembers ashore at once. Armed with hèsotsan. You will have the uruketo stand by here.” She pulled herself up and over the edge of the fin then stopped, pointing to Enge. “You will come with me.”

Vaintè kicked her toeclaws into the uruketo’s hide, her fingers found creases in the skin as she climbed down to its back and dived into the transparent sea. Enge was just behind her.

They surged up out of the surf beside the slaughtered corpse of a male. Flies were thick about the gaping wounds, covering the flesh and congealed blood. Enge swayed at the sight, as though moved by an invisible wind, winding her thumbs and fingers together, all unknowing, in infantile patterns of pain.

Not so Vaintè. Rock-hard and firm she stood, expressionless, with only her eyes moving over the scene of slaughter before her.

“I want to find the creatures that did this,” she said, her words betraying no emotion, stepping forward and bending low over the body. “They killed but did not eat. They are clawed or tusked or horned — look at those slashes. Do you see? And not only the males, but their attendants are dead too, killed the same way. Where are the guards?” She turned about to face the commander who was just emerging from the sea with the armed crewmembers, waving them forwards.

“Spread out in a line, keep your weapons ready, sweep the beach. Find the guards who should have been here — and follow those tracks and see where they lead. Go.” She watched them move out, turning about only when Enge called to her.

“Vaintè, I cannot understand what kind of creature made these wounds. They are all single cuts or punctures, as though the creature had only a single horn or claw.”

“Nenitesk have a single horn on the end of their noses, large and rough, while huruksast also have a single horn.”

“Gigantic, slow, stupid creatures, they could not have done this. You yourself warned me of the dangers of the jungles here. Unknown beasts, fast and deadly.”

“Where were the guards? They knew the dangers, why were they not doing their duty?”

“They were,” Erafnais said, walking slowly back down the beach. “All dead. Killed the same way.”

“Impossible! Their weapons?”

“Unused. Fully loaded. This creature, these creatures, so deadly…”

One of the crewmembers was calling out to them from far down the beach, her body movements unclear at this distance, the sound of her voice muffled. She ran towards them, clearly greatly agitated. She would stop, attempt to speak for an instant, then run closer until finally her meaning was finally understood.

“I have found a trail… come now… there is blood.”

There was uncontrolled terror in her voice that added grim weight to what she had said. Vaintè led the others as they moved quickly to join her.

“I followed the trail, Highest,” the crewmember said, pointing into the trees. “There was more than one of the creatures, five I think, a number of tracks. All of them end at the water’s edge. They are gone. But there is something else, something you must see!”

“What?”

“A killing place of much blood and bones. But something… else. You must see for yourself.”

They could hear the angry buzzing of the flies even before they reached the spot. There were indeed signs of great slaughter here, but something more important. Their guide pointed at the ground in silence.

Pieces of charred wood and ashes lay in a heap. From the center a gray curl of smoke lifted up.

“Fire?” Vaintè said aloud, as puzzled by its presence here as the others. She had seen it before and did not like it. “Stay back, you fool,” she ordered as the commander reached down towards the smoking ashes. “That is fire. It is very hot and it hurts.”

“I did not know,” Erafnais apologized. “I have heard of it but I have never seen it.”

“There is something else,” the crewmember said. “On the shore there is mud. It has been baked hard by the sun. There are footprints on it, very clear. I tore one free, it is there.”

Vaintè strode over and looked down at the cracked disc of mud, bending over and poking at the indentations in the hard surface.

“These creatures are small, very small, smaller than we are. These pads are soft with no marks of claws. Tso! Look there — count!”

She straightened up and spun about to face the others, extending one hand with fingers outspread, angry color rippling across her palm.

“Five toes, that’s what they have, not four. Who knows what kind of beasts have five toes?” Silence was her only answer. “There are too many mysteries here. I don’t like it. How many guards were there?”

“Three,” Erafnais said. “One at each end of the beach, the third near the center…”

She broke off as one of the crewmembers came crashing through the undergrowth behind them. “There is a small boat,” she called out. “Landing on the beach.”

When Vaintè came out from under the trees she saw that the boat was rocking in the surf, laden with containers of some kind. One of the occupants was holding on to the boat so the creature would not stray: the other two were on the beach staring at the corpses. They turned about as Vaintè approached and she saw the twisted wire necklace that one of them wore about her neck. Vaintè stared at it.

“You are the esekasak, she who defends the birth beaches — why were you not here defending your charges?”

The esekasak’s nostrils widened with rage. “Who are you to talk to me like that—”

“I am Vaintè who is now Eistaa of this city. Now answer my question, low one, for I lose patience.”

The esekasak touched her lips in supplication, stumbling backward a step as she did. “Excuse me, Highest, I didn’t know. The shock, these deaths…”

“Are your responsibility. Where were you?”

“The city, getting food and the new guard.”

“How long have you been away?”

“Just two days, Highest, as always.”

“As always!” Vaintè could feel herself swelling with rage that added harsh emphasis to her words. “I understand none of this. Why do you leave your beach to go to the city by sea? Where is the Wall of Thorns, the defenses?”

“Not yet grown, Highest, unsafe. The river is being widened and deepened and has not been cleared of the dangerous beasts yet. It was decided for safety’s sake to site the birth beach on the ocean, temporarily of course.”

“Safety’s sake!” Vaintè could no longer control her rage as she pointed at the corpses, shouting. “They are dead — all of them. Your responsibility. Would that you were dead with them. For this, the greatest of crimes, I demand the greatest of penalties. You are ejected from this city, from the society of speakers, to rejoin the speechless. You will not live long, but every moment until you die you will remember that it was your charge, your responsibility, your mistake that brought on this sentence.” Vaintè stepped forward and hooked her thumbs around the metal emblem of high office and pulled hard, tearing it free. The broken ends cutting the esekasak’s neck. She hurled it into the surf as she chanted the litany of depersonalization.