Progenitor - Michael Jan Friedman [52]
Picard’s companions lashed out as well, with much the same results. The sanjarra looked angry, discomfited by the turn of events. But then, they were predators. They weren’t accustomed to defending themselves from their prey.
Again, the captain leaped forward and took a swing at the nearest of the bat-faces. And again, it withdrew with a dangerous-sounding rumbling deep in its throat.
Ben Zoma narrowly swung and missed another one. “When do we get to the part where they run away?” he asked.
Picard had been wondering the same thing. “Why do I get the feeling we’re just making them madder?”
“Keep at it,” Simenon told them, “and they’ll get the idea.” Taking his own advice, he drove back one of the beasts with a vicious two-handed attack. Then he added, “Eventually.”
Suddenly, someone cried out and fell in a heap. Glancing to his left, the captain saw that it was Greyhorse who had gone down, his leg caught in a thick, leafy vine.
Nor was Picard the only one who had noticed. A couple of sanjarra appeared to have taken note of the doctor’s fall as well. Their tiny eyes glittered with a fierce, undeniable hunger.
As the captain looked on, the beasts coiled to spring. Not good, he thought. Not good at all. Once they pounced on Greyhorse, he was as good as dead.
Someone would have to stop them before they could spring. Determined that he would be the one to do that, Picard started to move in the doctor’s direction.
But Joseph beat him to the punch. Leaping forward and swinging his tellek in big, savage arcs, the security officer made the beasts think twice about claiming their prey.
Then help came in the form of Simenon and Ben Zoma. Overmatched now, the sanjarra who had been eyeing Greyhorse grudgingly gave ground. But at the same time, it gave some of the other beasts an opening.
And when Picard and Vigo went after those bat-faces, it created an opportunity for the sanjarra to attack from still another quarter. It was as if the bat-faced predators were a deadly flood and Picard’s people were trying to maintain a leaky seawall in which they could only plug one hole at a time.
“Watch out!” someone cried, his voice thick with urgency.
“Behind you!” shouted someone else.
They whirled, swung their telleks, whirled again to face a new threat. None of them ever quite managed to hit anything, but neither did they let the sanjarra gain the advantage.
Picard blinked away sweat that had fallen into his eyes and tried desperately to hold up his end of the bargain. They all did—Greyhorse too, now that he was on his feet again.
Finally, after what seemed like a very long time, the beasts’ frustration seemed to overcome their hunger. They didn’t growl any less loudly or viciously when they were beaten back, but they also weren’t as quick to come forward again.
Then the breakthrough came. One of the bat-faces, perhaps the largest of them, appeared to lose interest in his prey. He turned around and began to pad away through the forest, not even bothering to give Simenon’s party a second look.
A moment later, a second beast admitted defeat as well. And as if by tacit agreement, the rest of the sanjarra followed suit.
In a matter of moments, they were gone. It was only then that Picard realized how much his arms hurt. Taking a deep breath, he looked around at his comrades. They were breathing hard but no one seemed to have sustained any damage.
Not even Greyhorse.
“Everyone all right?” Ben Zoma asked.
His question was met with tired murmurs of assent.
Vigo slipped his tellek back into its sheath. “Well,” he said, grpping Joseph’s shoulder, “that could have turned out worse.”
Joseph nodded. “Much worse.”
Ben Zoma swiped perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand. “I’d call it a good omen.”
Simenon cast a skeptical look at him. “That is,” he amended, “if you believe in such things.”
“Come on,”