Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [47]
He had to have food. And water.
Unlimbering the club, he held it as high as he could and advanced again toward the food pile, intending to knock a brick off to one side. In the face of such a determined incursion, surely the beast wouldn’t begrudge the harmless biped one brick. Walker’s greatest defense lay in the hope that it would not consider him worth killing. And there was always the chance that the Vilenjji, desirous of defending however small and defiant a part of their investment, would intervene to protect him. He would have had more confidence in the latter possibility had it not been the Vilenjji who had placed him in his present circumstances in the first place.
Chewing slowly, the monster continued to watch him as he moved forward. When he tentatively thrust the tip of the branch toward the food, it struck. Ready for it this time, Walker swung the club up, around, and down with both hands, striking at the two tentacles. He did not miss.
The impact reverberated back up his arms. As for the object of his attack, it did not even blink. Instead, both tentacles wrapped around the length of tree branch and ripped it out of his grasp. Had he not let go, he would have found himself lifted into the air along with the club. The creature considered the length of wood for a brief moment. Then the two tentacles snapped it like a toothpick and tossed the fragments casually aside. Meanwhile, both other manipulative appendages continued their steady transfer of food bricks into the seemingly insatiable maw. This feeding was interrupted occasionally as the creature took long drafts of water from the glossy cistern. Standing out of reach, a weary and frustrated Walker could only eye thirstily the rivulets of water that did not vanish down the slit of a mouth.
Only when it had consumed the last of the generous pile of food bricks and drained the cistern dry did the creature rise to its full height, turn, and amble back to its resting place. When he was sure it had lost interest in him, Walker rushed forward. On hands and knees, he made a minute inspection of the place where the food had emerged from belowground. Not a crumb remained, though he did manage to lap up some spilled water that had collected off to one side in a couple of tiny pools.
Thoroughly disheartened, he sat back and stared at the once-more recumbent form of the entity with whom he was being forced to share living space. If nothing else, he could be grateful for the fact that it was not overtly hostile. More than anything, it ignored him. That did not mean he was incapable of irritating it to the point of taking his head off. Yet he had to take that risk. He needed food, fuel. A few more days of this and he would be too feeble to mount a satisfactory attack.
The wooden club had proven less than a failure. What else could he try? His previous assault had been on the Vilenjji. If he succeeded in throwing enough dirt and gravel into one of those protuberant, side-stalked eyes, would it temporarily blind this creature? If so, he could grab a food brick or two and then run like hell. But run where? Though larger than his piece of transplanted Sierra Nevada, the alien’s enclosure was not extensive. Unlike Sque’s eco-quarters, there were no caves to hide within. Would the creature even bother to come after him, or would it simply wipe its dirtied eye clean and resume eating? He had been unable to come up with a satisfactory approximation of its intelligence level. Clearly, it was aware of him. But in what capacity? As a competitor for food, or as another kind of intelligence?
It didn’t matter. None of it. Because in the final analysis, he had to have something to eat.
He could have made the next assault during the midday meal, or at dinnertime. Despite his hunger, he held off. For one thing, his inaction might help to lull the creature into believing that the