Harry Turtledove - A Different Flesh

Maybe that was one reason he got on well with sims: they lacked the brains to talk when they did not have something to say. Some trappers, Quick knew, treated sims like wolves or foxes or any other vermin, and hunted them savagely. Sims robbed traps, no doubt of that. They were hungry al the time, and meat already caught was easy meat. Quick was sure the sim in the clearing with him had eaten the marten's carcass as soon as the pelt was off it.

In a way, Quick fol owed the reasoning of the trappers ' who went after sims. Because of their hands and wits, sims made devilish thieves. But those same hands and wits made them dangerous enemies.

By the nature of things, trappers traveled alone or in small groups.

The ones who came down hardest on sims often never returned.

Quick had always felt that making them into al ies worked better.

His initial expense was greater because of the trade goods he bought before every journey, but he thought he got more furs by enlisting the sims' aid than by harassing them. He found a trap robbed every now and again, yes, but more often were cases like this one, sims doing his hunting for him.

The subhuman flourished the hatchet again, making the flair sigh.

Good, it signed, and left the clearing with no more farewell than that.

Henry Quick was not offended; he had scant use for ceremony himself.

He stretched the skin, fur side in, on a piece of wood, and set it aside to dry. He did not have many marten pelts back at his base camp, which made him doubly glad for this one.

He also thought he would have to be a lot hungrier than he was, to want to eat marten meat.

He walked the trap line to check the snares he had set within a couple of miles of the clearing. Blazes he had cut on trees at eye level guided him from one trap to the next. As far

as he knew, sims had not figured out what blazes were for. He had several sets of traps within the territory this band wandered, each grouped around a clearing. He tried to make a complete circuit every couple of weeks or so, to make sure none of the beasts he caught decomposed enough to harm their pelts.

His nose guided him to the first trap. He shook his head in annoyance.

The trap must have taken a victim almost as soon as he reset it the last time through. He was doubly annoyed when

he found the metal jaws holding only a striped ground squirrel, whose skin would have been worthless even if fresh. Doubly disgusted, he threw the little corpse away, set the trap again, stuck on a fresh suet bait, and went on to the next one.

Something, probably a bird but maybe a sim, had stolen the bait from that trap without springing it. Quick sighed and replaced it. The bait on the trap after that was stil intact.

Quick sighed again; he'd have to think about moving it.

When he neared the next trap, he heard a wild, desperate thrashing. He drew his pistol and sidled forward, soft leather boots sliding soundlessly over dirt and grass, leaves and twigs. Catching a sim in the act of robbing a trap would be tricky; finding one caught in a trap might be worse, for that could turn the whole band against him.

His breath hissed out in relief as he saw that the trap held fox.

The animal must have been fighting the spiked iron teeth for some time. It was nearly exhausted, and lay If panting as Quick approached.

His mouth tightened. This was the part of his job he tried not to think about, taking a dead animal from a trap was much easier than dealing with a live one there.

No help for it, he thought. On his belt by his pistol he carried a stout bludgeon for times such as this. He set the gun down, drew it out. The fox's yellow eyes stared unblinkingly at him. Next to the torment of its trapped and broken leg, he was as nothing. He brought down the bludgeon once, twice. The fox writhed and twitched for a few minutes, then sighed, almost in relief, and lay still.

He sat not far from the body, waiting for it to cool and the fleas and other pests to leave it. Then he pried apart the jaws of the trap, rol ed the fox onto its back, and began to skin it. He always took pains at that, and took extra ones today, with the memory of the marten fur still fresh, he did not want any sims work to outdo his.

So intent was he that he had almost finished before he realized he was not alone. A sim stood a few paces away intently watching him. It was a female, he saw with some surprise, unlike the males, they did not usually stray far from the clearing where a band was staying. He kept away from that clearing. Of al his traps, this one was probably closest to it, but it was still a good mile away.

Female sims, Henry Quick thought, were not so brutallooking as males.

Their features were not as heavy, and the bony ridges above their eyes were less pronounced. That did not mean the sim would have made an attractive woman. It lacked both forehead and chin, and short reddish hair covered more of its face than Quick's brown beard concealed of his own.

Like all sims, it wore no clothes, but like all sims, it was hairy enough not to need them. Even its breasts were covered with hair, though the pinkish-brown nipples at their tips were exposed. It had an unwashed reek like that of the one that had traded Quick the marten pelt.

Take shin? it signed. That, at any rate, was what Quick thought it meant. He had trouble being sure; it could not use its fingers well because its hands were ful of roots and grubs, and its gestures were blurry in any case.

Yes, he answered.

He must have understood correctly, for its next question t was, Why club, not noise-stick? It pointed at his pistol.

Not want hole in stil , he signed.

It rubbed its long jaw as it considered that, then grunted, exactly like a person who got an unexpected answer that was still satisfying.

As if putting a hand to its face had reminded it of the food it carried, it popped a grub into its mouth, chewed ; noisily, and swallowed. Like most wild sims, it was on the lean side. Quick glanced down at the fox carcass. To him, it was so much carrion. Not to sims. Want meat? he asked.

Me? It pointed to itself, brown eyes wide with surprise.

Male sims hunted, females gathered; probably, Quick thought, this one had never taken anything bigger than a mouse or ground squirrel.

But it did not need much time to decide. Want meat, it signed firmly, leaving off the gesture that turned the phrase into a question.

Quick handed the fox's body to the sim. It gave a low hoot as it stared at the unaccustomed burden it held. It turned to leave, then looked back at the trapper, as if it expected him to take back the bounty he had given. Keep. Go, he signed. It hooted again and slipped away.

Henry Quick went in a different direction, off to check his next trap. As he walked, he chuckled quietly to himself. There would likely be consternation among the sims toinight, especially if the males had had a luckless day at the chase.

The trapper paused for a moment, frowning. He did not want his gift to land the female sim in trouble. Among humans, that might happen if a woman stepped into men's territory. With sims, on reflection, he did not think it would.

Being less clever than humans, sims lacked much of their capacity for jealousy. Their harsh lives also made them relentless pragmatists.

Meat would be meat, no matter where it came from.

Quick found a rabbit in his last trap. It was freshly dead.

He skinned it, cleaned it, and brought it back to the clearing.

His pack of trade goods was undisturbed. Had he been ," one of the trappers who habitual y maltreated sims, he would not have dared leave it behind . . . but then, had he , been one of that sort, he would not have dared travel alone in this land where men had not yet settled.

He started his fire again, spitted the rabbit on a stick, and , held it over the little blaze. The savory smell the lean meat gave off made his nostrils twitch and his mouth grow suddenly wet. He smiled, wondering what roast fox smelled like.