Blue Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson [218]
He stumbled across a shallow depression, over a knob, between two house-sized boulders. Then in a flash of white a naked woman was standing before him, waving a green sash; he stopped abruptly, he reeled, stunned at the sight of her, then concerned that the hallucinations had gotten so out of hand. But there she stood, as vivid as a flame, blood streaks spattering her breasts and legs, waving the green scarf silently. Then other human figures ran past her and over the next little knob, going where she pointed, or so it seemed. She looked at Nirgal, gestured to the south as if directing him as well, then took off running, her lean white body flowing like something visible in more than three dimensions, strong back, long legs, round bottom, already distant, the green scarf flying this way and that as she used it to point.
Suddenly he saw three antelope ahead, moving over a hillock to the west, silhouetted by the low sun. Ah; hunters. The antelope were being herded west by the humans, who were scattered in an arc behind them, waving scarves at them from behind rocks. All in silence, as if sound had disappeared from the world: no wind, no cries. For a moment, as the antelope stopped on the hillock, everyone stopped moving, everyone alert but still; hunters and hunted all frozen together, in a tableau that transfixed Nirgal. He was afraid to blink for fear the whole scene would wink away to nothing.
The antelope buck moved, breaking the tableau. He rocked forward cautiously, step-by-step. The woman with the green sash walked after him, upright and in the open. The other hunters popped in and out of view, moving like finches from one frozen position to the next. They were barefoot, and wore loincloths or singlets. Some of their faces and backs were painted red or black or ochre.
Nirgal followed them. They swerved, and he found himself on their left wing as they moved west. This turned out to be lucky, as the antelope buck tried to make a break around his side, and Nirgal was in position to jump in its path, waving his hands wildly. The three antelope then turned as one, dashed west again. The troop of hunters followed, running faster than Nirgal at his fastest, maintaining their arc. Nirgal had to work hard just to keep them in sight; they were very fast, barefoot or not. It was hard to see them in the long shadows, and they stayed silent; on the other wing of the arc someone yipped once, and that was their only sound, except for the squeak and clatter of sand and gravel, the harsh breath in their throats. In and out of sight they ran, the antelope keeping their distance in short bursts of flowing speed. No human would ever catch them. Still Nirgal ran, panting hard, following the hunt. Ahead he spotted their prey again. Ah— the antelope had stopped. They had come to the edge of a cliff. A canyon rim— he saw the gap and the opposite rim. A shallow fossa, pine tops sticking out of it. Had the antelope known it was there? Were they familiar with this region? The canyon had not been visible even a few hundred meters back. . . .
But perhaps they did know the place, for in the pure flow of animal grace they half trotted, half pronged south along the cliff edge to a little embayment. This turned out to be the top of a steep ravine, down which rubble siphoned onto the canyon floor. As the antelope disappeared down this slot all the hunters rushed to the rim, where they looked on as the three animals