Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [67]
“You senseless cretin!” he cried aloud, not caring who overheard. “You stupid, ignorant, appetite-driven piece of alien crapola. Do you realize what you’ve just done? Do you even know? When you get hungry, does your brain go completely blank?” Sitting there holding his bruised ribs, he began finally to cry: long, drawn-out sobs of hopelessness. He wondered if the Vilenjji were watching, taking it all in.
Wincing with obvious pain, he struggled to his feet. A rational onlooker would have expected him to stagger out of the Tuuqalian’s delimited ecosystem. Apparently overwhelmed by the catastrophe that had struck him and his friends, he did not. As if wishing to wallow in the extended misery of his loss, Walker instead stumbled over to a far corner of the enclosure. There he sat down, his back against a supportive rock, and began to glare miserably at the still-ravenous alien. Indifferent to the human’s presence, Braouk continued to stuff one food brick after another into an apparently insatiable maw. Whenever he would bite one in half with clashing saw-edged teeth, Walker would stir himself long enough to hurl another slur, a fresh accusation. These troubled the Tuuqalian about as much as had the kicks, punches, and thrown stones.
Only when there was nothing left and the last crumb of food brick had been devoured did Braouk move away from the place where the food had been delivered. Choosing a comfortable depression, the Tuuqalian snugged down into it and, without a word to or a glance in his surviving visitor’s direction, immediately fell asleep. Walker continued to eye the alien moodily, reduced to muttering the occasional choice insult.
Several minutes passed, following which a pair of Vilenjji appeared in the corridor. Though they kept their voices down, Walker’s implant was able to pick up enough of their conversation to suggest that they were discussing the events that had just taken place within the Tuuqalian enclosure. Any conclusion or determination they reached, however, escaped him. Occasionally one or the other would raise a flap-tipped limb to point or gesture in Braouk’s or Walker’s direction. When their attention focused on him, he glowered back silently and said nothing. Experience had taught him that they were unlikely to respond in any case.
Eventually they wandered away, disappearing off to the right in the wake of their single predecessor. Within the enclosure, nothing changed. None came to force Walker to move back to his own bit of Sierra. No posse of irritated Vilenjji materialized to take Braouk the way of the Tripodan. Huddled against the rock at his back, knees pulled tightly up against his chest, Walker rested his chin on his hands and scowled silently at the indifferent Tuuqalian. He remained so all that day and on into the night, when at last he managed to fall asleep. Not because he was angry. Not because he was despondent. Not because unanticipated circumstances had stolen all hope and reduced him to gibbering despair. No, he had trouble falling asleep because he was excited.
So far, it had worked.
Braouk had snatched up Sque and shoved the K’eremu into his mouth. He had eventually caught George and put the dog into his mouth. But in the midst of his madness there was one thing the ostensibly amok Tuuqalian had not done.
He had not swallowed.
Braouk had dived on the circular food lift the instant it had begun to descend. In addition to digging and scrabbling for the nourishment it was designed to supply to the enclosure, he had momentarily covered the opening with his upper body, and therefore also