Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [11]
Vorkosigan pulled his field scope from his belt and took a closer look. "You're right."
Half a dozen coffee-and-cream-colored lumps that looked like rocks on a sandbar proved to be low-slung, thick-limbed hexapeds, basking in the morning sun.
"They seem to be some sort of amphibian. I wonder if they're carnivores?" said Vorkosigan.
"I wish you hadn't interrupted my survey so soon," Cordelia complained. "Then I could have answered all those questions. There go some more of those soap-bubble things—goodness, I wouldn't have thought they could grow so big and still fly."
A flock of a dozen or so large radials, transparent as wineglasses and fully a foot across, came floating like a flight of lost balloons above the river. A few of them drifted over to the hexapeds and settled gently on their backs, flattening over their withers like weird berets. Cordelia borrowed the scope for a closer look.
"Do you suppose they could be like those birds from Earth, that pick the parasites off the cattle? Oh. No, I guess not."
The hexapeds roused themselves with hisses and whistles, humping their bodies in a kind of obese bucking, and slid into the river. The radials, colored now like wineglasses filled with burgundy, inflated themselves and retreated into the air.
"Vampire balloons?" asked Vorkosigan.
"Apparently."
"What appalling creatures."
Cordelia almost laughed at his revolted look. "As a carnivore yourself, you can't really condemn them."
"Condemn, no; avoid, yes."
"I'll go along with that."
They continued upstream past a frothing, opaque tan waterfall. After about a kilometer and a half they came to a place where two tributaries joined, and stumbled across at the shallowest place they could find. Crossing the second branch, Dubauer lost his footing as a rock turned under him, and went down with a wordless cry.
Cordelia tightened her grip on his arm convulsively, and perforce went with him, slipping into a deeper area. Terror shook her, that he might be swept downstream beyond her reach—those amphibious hexapeds, sharp rocks—the waterfall! Careless of the water filling her mouth, she grabbed him with both hands. Here they went—no.
Something pulled her bodily with a tremendous counter-surge against the rush of waters. Vorkosigan had grabbed her by the back of the belt, and was hauling them both toward the shallows with the strength and style of a stevedore.
Feeling undignified, but grateful, she scrambled to her feet and pushed the coughing Dubauer up the far bank.
"Thanks," she gasped to Vorkosigan.
"What, did you think I'd let you drown?" he inquired wryly, emptying his boots.
Cordelia shrugged, embarrassed. "Well—at least we wouldn't be delaying you."
"Hm." He cleared his throat, but said no more. They found a rocky place to sit, eat their cereal and salad dressing, and dry awhile before moving on.
Kilometers fell behind them, while their view of the great mountain to their right scarcely seemed to change. At some point Vorkosigan took a bearing known only to himself, and led them more westerly, with the mountain at their backs and the sun beginning to slant into their eyes.
They crossed another watercourse. Coming up over the lip of its valley, Cordelia nearly stumbled over a red-coated hexaped, lying quite still in a depression and blending perfectly with its background. It was a delicately formed thing, as big as a middle-sized dog, and it rippled over the red plains in graceful bounds.
Cordelia woke up abruptly. "That thing's edible!"
"The stunner, the stunner!" cried Vorkosigan. She pressed it hastily into his hand. He fell to one knee, took aim, and dropped the creature in one burst.
"Oh, good shot!" cried Cordelia ecstatically.
Vorkosigan grinned like a boy over his shoulder at her, and jogged after his prize.
"Oh," she murmured, stunned herself by the effect of the grin. It had lit his face like the sun for that brief instant. Oh, do that again, she thought; then shook off the thought. Duty. Stick to duty.
She followed him to where the animal lay. Vorkosigan had his knife out, puzzling over where