Phylogenesis - Alan Dean Foster [103]
“Ah, shit,” he muttered as he reached into his pocket holster for the compact pistol.
Edging closer to the combatants, one of whom was tiring rapidly, he tried to draw a bead on the snake’s blunt, shovel-shaped skull. Initially impossible, it became easier to aim as the thranx’s struggles steadily weakened. Sensing the imminence of its prey’s demise, the serpent began to relax. Though he wasn’t sure he had a clean shot, Cheelo’s finger tightened on the trigger. It wouldn’t do any good to wait until the snake stopped moving completely, because by then the thranx would be dead.
When the full charge struck, the constrictor’s head jerked sharply. The tiny anacondan eyes made it hard to tell how effective the shot had been. Risking contact, Cheelo put the pistol as close to the snake’s skull as he could and fired a second time. This time the resultant spasmodic twitch was purely reflexive.
Pocketing his weapon, he began struggling with the weighty mass. It took more than a few minutes to unwind several hundred pounds of solid, limp serpent from the thranx’s body. “How’re you doing?” he queried the alien. “Talk to me, bug. Let me know I’m not wasting my time here.”
“You’re not.” The Terranglo was more heavily accented than usual as the injured thranx strained to mouth the humanoid phrases. “I am alive, but I’m afraid that one of my legs is broken.”
“Ay, I heard it snap.” With a grunt, Cheelo heaved a center length of snake aside. “You hurting?”
“Of course I am hurting!” Freed from the imprisoning coils, a shaken Desvendapur turned to look back at the human who had saved him. “Do you think I’m made of metal?”
“No, I think you’re made of crab shell and bug guts. Pardon me for asking.”
Aware that his artless declaration of fact might have been misinterpreted by his savior, a grateful Desvendapur hastened to soothe any misconceptions. “I meant no scorn. It is just that I would think it obvious to anyone that a broken leg would be found to be painful.”
“I don’t know bullcrap about your internal makeup, or how your nervous system works.” Under Cheelo’s strong fingers, a last span of solid muscle sloughed away from the thranx’s upper abdomen.
“Then listen and learn: We feel pain as surely as do you.”
“But not in the same places, or to the same degree.” Kneeling, Cheelo examined the section of leg where the anaconda’s jaws remained locked, even in death, on the chitin of one foreleg. “If you did, this would have you screaming in pain.” He glanced up, meeting compound eyes, and with both hands wrenched sharply on the snake’s neck. “That hurt?”
“Only slightly. Few nerves run through our outer covering. We are not as tactilely sensitive as you.”
“I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or bad. In this case, though, it’s for sure good. Stay there.”
With a truhand and a foothand Desvendapur gestured down at himself. “I have a broken leg. Where would I go?”
“Beats me. A while ago you were boasting about having four or six legs as opposed to my lousy, inadequate two and how much better the arrangement was for getting you around.”
Sliding his pack off his back he searched inside until he found the multitool. Returning to the alien’s side, he deployed a pliers configuration to remove the great constrictor’s teeth, one by one, from the thranx’s foreleg. Only when the last tooth had been forcibly extracted did the dead snake’s head finally slide away from its would-be prey.
Though he was ready to apply disinfectant and appropriate follow-ups, Cheelo saw that the wound was beyond his simple knowledge of first aid. The chitin was bleeding profusely. A double line of small holes showed where the snake’s teeth had sought and found a grip.
“Can we do anything with this?” he asked curiously.
“With time and the proper dietary supplements, yes.” Looking back and