Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [52]
Now they were all dead—her father, the caged crickets, and the other girls.
Striding ahead through the grasses, Steinman used his long staff to probe ahead of him. With a cry of surprise, he jerked the staff back as a large, flat monster scuttled toward them. Steinman whacked down with his staff, hitting the body core of the crablike predator, which let out a fluting squeal, then dashed away through the grass. Startled furry crickets bounded out of its way.
“Blasted lowriders! They’ll take a bite out of your leg if you’re not careful.”
Orli had only a glimpse of the stalking creature’s spherical body suspended low to the ground on long jointed legs that looked like bent tent poles. She counted five glittering eyes around what she thought of as its face, set above jaws that moved like clockwork gears ready to grasp and tear fresh meat. It was like a nightmarish version of a daddy longlegs.
Steinman continued across the prairie. “A good swift kick’ll convince them you’re not worth the effort.”
“But what if one comes up on you while you’re sleeping?” Here on the open plains, she didn’t see any place other than the ground for shelter.
“Oh, I wouldn’t suggest letting them do that, kid.” His answer didn’t reassure her. “They have to get tired of eating those furry crickets sometime.”
Intermittently, across the endless sea of grass, Orli heard the rustling movement of long legs, then unsettling squeals as lowriders seized the plump rodent-bugs for a meal and ate them on the spot, while other furry crickets bounded away through the concealing grasses.
“My camp’s not too far from here.” He pointed vaguely toward the horizon. With the featureless prairie all around, dotted by tall poletrees like antennas growing straight up toward the sky, Orli didn’t know how he could tell where he was going, but she supposed it didn’t matter.
“Why did you have to go so far away from everybody else?”
He looked at her as if the answer should have been obvious. “Elbow room.”
“Now you’ve got plenty of it.” She could not keep the bitterness out of her voice. Maybe this was what the man had wanted all along, a whole planet to himself. Except now he was saddled with her, too.
As they pushed through a thicket of woven grasses and rodent nests, two fat furry crickets sprang away from them in a panic. Only a meter or two to Orli’s side, the rodent-bugs triggered an explosion of movement and a flurry of long limbs. A lowrider scuttled toward the creatures, catching one in its long bent legs. The furry cricket squealed pitifully as the predator stuffed its catch into the clockwork jaws.
Without thinking, Orli ran toward the lowrider, yelling, “You leave them alone!” She stomped down on the soft, spherical body core, and the lowrider withdrew swiftly. A tangle of long legs, it reeled and hissed, then bolted through the grass after dropping the mangled furry cricket.
“I hope I cracked your head open!” she yelled after it, then bent over the plump rodent.
“Looks to me like you’ve got more than one little girl’s share of spunk,” Steinman said, clearly amused.
The furry cricket was already dead, though still twitching; the lowrider’s mandibles had ripped open its prey’s hide. “Too late,” she said. Then the rush of adrenaline faded away, and she realized what she’d done. A glimpse of the savagely ripped flesh demonstrated just how much damage the lowrider could have done to her. She felt faint.
Steinman picked up the carcass, inspected it, then secured it to his belt, where it dangled against him. He looked like a pioneer or a trapper.
Orli blinked, shook away her reaction, then stood up, looking at the blood on her hands. “What are you going to do with it?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Not much else to eat out here, kid. You have to be awfully