Chapter 3

As pleasant as it was visiting the Arlo, it was time for us to move on. We discussed possible directions of travel with Ooru, and he suggested that we travel to the east (spinward) because there were several sections there where the gravity had seemed to have gone awry. We were curious as to what changes had taken place in the flora and fauna because of this, so we were anxious to take a look. We planned to travel by scooter and to have AI move the fighters as necessary for logistical support.

Since it was daylight all of the time, it made no difference to us as to when we left. Therefore, we decided to leave when the majority of the Arlo decided that it was bed time. That way, we were less likely to have a bunch of children trying to follow us.

It looked like it would take us about 60 hours of travel time to get to the nearest area of screwed up gravity. Well, that was too long to sit in one place, so we scheduled several stops so that we could walk around and keep our muscles from cramping. Also, we were going to stop whenever we came to something interesting.

We lucked out and came to something interesting after about 12 hours of travel. Sharon was working point, and she suddenly screamed out a mental command, "HALT!" We all hit the brakes hard and waited for Sharon to fill us in on the reason for the stop. Her next mental contact was, "Oops! Sorry for that. This is not a panic situation, but I was so surprised that I thought this thing was worth investigating. Everybody can come on up safely—it's just a big hole in the ground."

We gathered around the large hole that Sharon had found and began to speculate about what it could be. The hole was about five meters deep, which left only about two more meters before one ran into the inside surface of the outer shell of Dyson. The hole was about four meters in diameter, and the bottom of the hole was filled with pointed stakes. To me, this was obviously a trap, but I had no idea what animal would be appropriate for that hole.

We were still speculating about that when we heard a lot of shouting and banging on drums off to our left. Whatever that was, it was headed our way. We certainly had to move or we would probably get pushed into the hole, something we sure wanted to avoid.

We were hardly clear of the hole when a small herd of animals about the size of small deer came running in our direction. The animals were in such a panic that they did not appear to be aware of the hole, and nine of them tumbled in to die as they were impaled on the stakes at the bottom of the hole. Only moments later, a gang of men showed up. They had been running hard as they chased the animals toward the hole.

The men stopped and drew clubs and knives as they noticed us on our scooters off to one side of their trap. One of the men dropped his noise maker and approached us while holding his club in his hand as if he were prepared to fight. "What are you doing here? This is our meat, and we are not going to share it with anybody!"

I happened to be close to him. I dismounted and walked toward him with both hands up and open so that he could see that I held no weapon. I had forgotten my camouflage fibers, so I did not realize that he could hardly see me as I approached. I guess I looked like a spirit from some horror tale because he raised his club as if to take a swing at me. That was all that was needed to prompt my people to point their assault rifles at him and the rest of the hunters. That was when it dawned on me what I must look like.

I hoped to put a cap on things before violence erupted, so I said, "Please do not be frightened by our appearance. We are merely passing through and had stopped to marvel at your trap. We cannot eat any of that meat, so we have no reason to fight over it. Do you have time to talk with us? If not, we will leave you to harvest your meat."

This was our first chance to test the communication ability with someone not a part of the Arlo group, and it was working like a charm. I said, "My name is Andy. What is your name?"

"My name is Jindar. Are you one of the Ancients?"

"No, I am one of a group of explorers from far away." I waved my arm to include everybody in the party from Wolf. "We only want to talk and to learn about the wonderful place that we see here. Jindar, will you talk with me for a few minutes?"

"Yes, Andy, I will talk with you, but first let me get the crew started on gathering the meat. Predators will be attracted by the smell of blood, and we need to hurry before they can get here." Jindar left me to talk to the rest of the men with him, and I told everyone in my group that they could park the scooters and wander around if they wanted to.

Jindar was back in a few minutes, and he squatted down and invited me to join him. I did, and we started out with me explaining why he had so much trouble seeing me. "My body is covered with very tiny hair-like fibers that can change to almost any color. It is a natural thing for which I have no conscious control. The color change serves to confuse predators when they try to look at me. The effect is purely for self-defense and does no harm to anyone. I hope that it does not make you suspicious of me."

"No, now that I understand what is going on, I must admire the effect. It must be great protection for you. I wish that all of my people had the same kind of protection. Let me warn you that there are people who would try to kill you for your skin just so that they could have the protection."

"Thank you for the warning, but anybody who tried that would be in for a great surprise. This thing I hold in my hand is a weapon that can kill at a great distance, so I have more than just my skin for protection. Besides, if my skin were removed from my body, the color change would no longer work. Stealing my skin would not do the thief any good, and my friends would surely kill him before he could remove my skin."

"By the Ancients, we are already in trouble. Here comes a predator that we have no defense against." Jindar pointed behind me, and I saw an animal that was the spitting image of a T. Rex, complete to the saliva dripping from its jaws.

I yelled to my people, forgetting that yelling mentally was totally unnecessary, "KILL THAT BEAST BEHIND ME! IT IS A PREDATOR THAT WILL TRY TO KILL US ALL!" Immediately, the pseudo T. Rex was shot with so many bullets that it could be melted down. The animal lasted for only a few seconds as it was hit with so many bullets. It fell where it was, and the natives were astonished at how easily we killed it.

Jindar said, "Now I don't know which I had rather have, a skin like yours or a weapon like yours. I can see why you are not easily frightened by things that might attack you."

I said, "My friends and I will guard you while you recover the meat that you can use. Now that we know what we are facing, we can keep them away from you. How do you plan to carry the meat from here to your homes?"

"Normally, we don't catch as much of the dwinders as we did this time. Usually, we cut away the parts that we want to keep and leave the rest to the scavengers."

"As you can see, we have trailers for our scooters. If you wish, you may cut as much meat as you can pile on the trailers, and we will transport it for you. It is my guess that you could double the amount of meat that you could harvest if you allowed us to help you."

"Andy, your generosity is beyond belief! Yes, we would be grateful for your help by taking the meat home for us. I'll tell the men of your offer, and I will get to work helping them butcher the dwinders or they will accuse me of being a slacker. He smiled as he said that, and I could see that he was not worried.

We had the capacity for hauling so much meat that it took three hours to finish the preliminary butchering. During that time, we had the opportunity to show off our rifles against three more predators. Besides the T. Rex-like creature, a comlix, we killed two flying creatures, the flickby, that resembled a pterodactyl. The flickby certainly deserved its name because of its speed in the air, but the opposite was true when it was on the ground.