Quest for the Well of Souls - Jack L. Chalker [60]
There was a lot of sound and movement inside the PGU, and within a minute the squad was on the third tier, ready. He nodded to them and gestured in the direction of the two strange objects.
"Two of them, some kind of animal, not anything I know," he shouted to the squad leader. "Try and take them alive if you can. I want to see just what the devil we've got there."
They strained but could see nothing. Finally Ti-gan shouted, "Get up on the jump platform. I'll give 'em a panic flare that'll start 'em running!"
They climbed to the second tier to a flat area of metal flush with the armored sides. They waited, more excited than tense. They rather welcomed this little break in the tedium of the slow roast below.
Ti-gan loaded a pinpoint flare, attached a high-compression gas cylinder, and, using the rail as a brace, fired where he knew the two mystery creatures to be hiding. He didn't care if he hit them, but he hardly expected to; at this range a flash and bang within ten or fifteen meters would be sheer luck.
The flare struck the gully wall and exploded with a roar that rolled across the flats. And it did the trick. Two creatures suddenly darted from the shadows at a pretty good clip.
The squad saw them. "Jump and run!" yelled the leader, and they were off, their small bodies showing incredible speed. The Mucrolians could sprint to almost sixty kilometers per hour.
The PGU slowed to a crawl and a number of people came out on deck to watch the chase. This was against procedure, but Ti-gan didn't have the heart to shove them back into those conditions, not for the length of time he anticipated the hunt would last. It would be time for a break soon, anyway.
The squad fanned out, forcing the fugitive animals first this way, then that. Although the quarry were fast, the squad was faster, and they also seemed able almost to change direction in midleap. They toyed with the animals for a bit, then two suddenly rushed them. As if from nowhere a spring-loaded net expanded over the animals and into the hands of a squad member, who grabbed it and did a back flip, bringing the net down with a twist that caught the animals perfectly. They were struggling, but the net was designed to hold tougher beasts than they.
The squad closed in, taking up the slack in the net as they did, and were now standing around the no longer struggling captives.
"They're pigs!" one exclaimed. "Giant pigs!" There were pigs of a sort in Mucrol, but they were much smaller and had no hair at all.
The squad leader was puzzled. "They are and they aren't. Some kind of relatives, I'd guess. Not from Mucrol, that's for sure. Wonder how they wound up here?"
"Wonder if they taste like our pigs?" another mused hungrily.
"Maybe we'll find out," the squad leader replied. "You know the squad gets the first share of a catch. Looks like a male and a female, though. Might pay to breed 'em if they're that big and if they do taste like ours." He shrugged and sighed. "Not ours to say. Pack 'em up and take 'em into the Springs."
Still in the netting, they were professionally trussed and loaded on a small round platform. Guide bars were erected, and the squad squirmed into small harnesses, then wheeled the cart across the desert toward some distant trees.
The Springs proved to be a settlement of multi-tiered buildings like red adobe variations of the PGU spaced around a marketplace with a small pool of muddy-looking water in the center, flanked by a palisade of palm trees.
The two captives were taken to the livestock pens in the marketplace and penned in a large wire cage. When removing the net, two of the Mucrolians discovered that to touch the creatures' long coat was to be stuck deeply and painfully. One had to be restrained by his fellows from killing the pigs on the spot. Finally, a small padlock secured the cage, and the squad members left; two went to the first-aid station, the others back to the PGU. They were in no hurry, and stopped for a drink before returning to duty in what was generally referred to as the "hothouse."