Phylogenesis - Alan Dean Foster [76]
Rising, he repacked his gear and resumed his march eastward. Surrounded by a profusion of exotic edibles, he did not hesitate to try one after another, but only if he was certain of his identification. Many terrestrial growths contained toxins to discourage the attention of predacious herbivores. Some of these were deadly to humans but harmless to thranx, and vice versa. Strong botanical alkaloids that would have sickened or disabled a biped, for example, the thranx considered piquant and spicy.
Ambling along between the trees, the poet ate as he walked. Truhands reached out to pluck leaves from surrounding bushes or hanging branches. Many things a human would have considered fair game the vegetarian thranx ignored, including the abundance of insects. For Desvendapur to have consumed a plump, protein-rich grub would have been akin to a biped eating a baby monkey.
Water was everywhere, eliminating the need for him to carry a supply. Obstacles that would have given a human pause proved no impediment to a six-legged thranx. His only fear was that there might not be room enough in his scri!ber to hold all of the endless stream of invention that poured from his mandibles.
Carefully picking his way through a jumble of small fallen trees that had been washed up in one place by the annual wet-season flood, he felt something strike his middle left leg forcefully. Looking down, he was intrigued to see the three-meter long bundle of lethal curves known to the humans as a fer-de-lance drawing warily away from him. With a soft hiss it turned to slink off into the rotting litter. Its method of locomotion greatly intrigued him. Nothing half so large lived on Willow-Wane that was capable of rapid movement over land without legs. He observed its departure with interest. A glance at the limb that had absorbed the impact revealed a pair of shallow dimples in the faintly metallic blue-green chitin where the elapid’s fangs had struck. When they had failed to penetrate, the aggressive and slightly bewildered snake had turned to slink off into the darkness of the forest understory.
Having paid close attention to his studies, Desvendapur had been able to identify the snake instantly. Had it bit the soft, unprotected leg of a human, pain and paralysis would have rapidly ensued and—without the prompt application of the appropriate antivenin—death. Unless struck in the eye, the soft underside of the abdomen, or between joints, an armored adult thranx ran no such risk.
Not every threat manifested by the wild rain forest could be so easily dismissed. Knowing this, Desvendapur was alert to its many dangers. A large constrictor like a boa or an anaconda could kill a thranx as readily as an unwary human. So could a startled spectacled bear or an angry caiman. By virtue of his hard exoskeleton the poet was, however, virtually immune to the attentions of the omnipresent hordes of biting, stinging, blood-sucking insects.
Despite the wonderful excess of exotic tastes freely available on the trees and bushes growing all around him, he was careful not to overindulge. It would be foolish to survive the forest only to succumb to a self-inflicted stomach upset. There would be plenty of time later to try everything.
The narrow, shallow rain forest streams were a source of constant wonder and delight, but the first sizable tributary he encountered gave him pause. It was less than five meters across, no more than half a meter deep, and devoid of visible current. Any human child could have plunged in and crossed it easily. Not so Desvendapur or any other thranx. No matter how hard they thrashed and kicked, even with all eight limbs they were feeble swimmers. Their bodies had simply not been designed with buoyancy in mind. And while members of both sapient species could keep their heads above water while they swam, humans breathed through double openings set in the center of their faces. A thranx utilized eight breathing spicules, four to each side, located on the thorax. Following immersion,