Pathways - Jeri Taylor [223]
This was a fundamental mistake, and it grated at Tuvok that it marked the beginning of his trek, for it seemed to him to taint the entire endeavor. He had lost, at the beginning, the imperative of logic, and had hastened into the journey propelled by need, not reason.
He vowed it would be the last such error.
By resting during the day and walking at night, he was able to move for almost a week more, then had to acknowledge that, without fluids of some kind, he could not continue. There was no water, and so he would have to find liquids of another sort. The most obvious of those was blood.
He had seen no obvious signs of any of the common desert inhabitants—sehlats, lematyas, asps—but he had not been looking for any. He had kept his head up, trained on T’Khut, looking for answers in the heavens rather than in the sands.
As he concentrated on finding quarry, though, he saw much evidence that he was not alone here. Faint pawprints in the drifts, droppings, spoor that carried on the dry air: all spoke of the denizens of this fierce world, and of a means to replenish his depleted fluids.
He rose before the sun had set and there was still at least an hour of daylight in which to hunt. It was an hour when smaller animals were likely to make an appearance, before night fell and the nocturnal hunters began to roam. He searched until he found what seemed to be a fresh set of prints, small tracks that led to an indentation in the sand. This would be the burrow of a merak, a small, catlike animal, and it would suit his needs admirably, being small enough to be dispatched easily, plump with blood that would slake his thirst, and muscled with meat that would refuel his strength.
He sat behind the small indentation in the sand and, using his fist, began drumming in a constant pattern on the surface, creating a vibration that would disturb and confuse the merak in the burrow. Eventually, one would come out to investigate the unusual circumstance, and meet his doom.
Tuvok pounded the burrow for what seemed the better part of an hour. He changed hands every so often, and then finally began using his feet. He began to wonder if this old folktale were true or if he were making a fool of himself, sitting on a mound of sand, pounding on it like a demented drummer.
But, eventually, he saw a slight movement, a shifting in the sand, and then a long pointed snout poked into the air, twisting this way and that, trying to find the source of the disturbance. Gradually the head emerged, protruding eyes scanning nervously, but not, fortunately for Tuvok, behind it, and then furry shoulders shook their way out of the sand, followed by the squat fleshy body.
Tuvok’s knife fell swiftly; the merak went from a condition of animal curiosity to oblivion in an instant, unaware of its own doom. Tuvok turned the creature upside down and slit the underbelly, then lifted it to his lips and drank the dark warm blood that poured forth. It had a salty flavor, musky and fragrant, and he gulped it greedily, hoping to get his fill before it began to clot. When the blood was drained, he skinned the animal and then cut the muscle from its bones, eating it raw, in small bites chewed carefully, until it was gone.
Tuvok had never done anything remotely like this. Vulcans had been vegetarians ever since the time of Surak. He had read of the meat-eating practices of his ancestors, the desert-dwellers, and assumed that he would be able to do the same. But now it occurred to him how primitive an act it was to slay an animal, and how there might have been every chance that, when the time came, he would not have been able to perform it, or that he would have done it so unskillfully that it would have failed.
But those were afterthoughts. In fact, when the time came, Tuvok moved with surety and ease, instinctively doing what he must. He pondered that fact, curious as to how this behavior fit into the continuing enigma: Why was he doing what he was doing, and what would be the result?
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