The Mystery of Ireta_ Dinosaur Planet & Dinosaur Planet Survivors - Anne McCaffrey [115]
If the mutineers were obviously in residence, she was loathe to announce their reemergence.
As she neared the location, she switched on the telltagger which had become an irritant with its constant buzz and its distressing inability to purr the presence of tagged specimens.
She saw the dusty cloud, subdued quickly the surge of remembered fear and reinforced the support of Discipline which would prevent the distraction of unnecessary emotional responses.
She also saw, but dispassionately now, the bobbing black line at the base of the dust which meant stampeding animals. She pulled her sled upward, gaining altitude to see beyond the dust, and activated the forward-screen magnification. As they passed over the cloud, the telltagger spat furiously, vibrating in its brackets. Suddenly its activity ceased and Varian could see beyond the obscuring dust the monumental hulk of the predator, fang-face, once termed Tyrannosaurus rex, thunder lizard. Thunderous it was, but not chasing the stupidly fleeing herbivores. Instead, a small insignificant creature was running before fang-face with a speed that startled Varian. She increased magnification, and, despite Discipline, gasped in astonishment.
A man, a young man with a superb physique, his long, heavily thewed legs pumping in an incredible stride, was outdistancing the awkward but tenacious fang-face. The man appeared to be heading toward one of the upthrust bluffs, but he had a long way to go to reach its safety. From the exertion evident in straining cords of his neck, the sweat pouring from his face, and the visible laboring of his chest and ribs, he did not have the distance in him.
Varian took a second, longer look at fang-face, wondering why the creature had eschewed the more succulent herbivores for a mere mouthful of man—and saw why. A thick lance was lodged under the beast’s right eye. Just short of a fatal thrust, it wobbled up and down, providing the wounded pursuer with a smarting reminder of revenge. Occasionally, snarling in pain, it batted at the lance but failed to move it. Varian wondered what sort of point the hunter had used, and marveled at the strength which must have been back of a thrust to have placed the point so deeply in the beast’s eye socket.
The runner had to be a descendant of the mutineers: he’d the build, if not the overdeveloped musculature of someone raised on a heavy-gravity planet. He’d made a very clever throw. Varian might object, as a xenob, about causing injury to any creature, but clearly she had to rescue the young hunter. He was quite the most superb young man she had ever seen.
Unfortunately she had no equipment on the sled to effect an air rescue. Not even a vine. She could hover just above the surface and coax him into the craft, but the speed of the thunder lizard was daunting. If he demurred . . . Why should he? Surely his parents—grandparents? great-grandparents?—must have passed on some version of their origins. Airborne vehicles would not frighten him out of his wits. On the other hand, any man who would take on a fang-face single-handed would not easily be frightened, even of something of which he had no previous experience.
She wheeled the sled to come up behind him, matching its speed to his phenomenal running stride.
“Climb aboard. Quickly!” she shouted as she hit the canopy release.
His powerful stride faltered, and he nearly fell. But, instead of altering his course to come alongside, he spurted off at a tangent.
“Do you want to be eaten by that monster?” She didn’t know if he failed to understand her or thought her some new menace. Surely the language couldn’t have mutated in a few generations. Or was it more than a “few?” She tried again to bridge the distance and again he swerved.
“Leave me!” he managed to shout, the effort to speak and keep up his pace visibly slowing him.
Varian raised the sled above him and reduced speed, trying to understand