Day of the Predator

CHAPTER 60

65 million years BC, jungle

Broken Claw looked at the others in his family pack, predator eyes meeting predator eyes. In his claws he was still holding the bamboo spear, the bloodied end of it embedded in what was left of the new creature.

His mind worked hard trying to understand what he’d done. Trying to comprehend the fact that it wasn’t his claws that had ended this pale creature’s life, but the long device that he was holding, something other than him. Something he controlled. Something he had… used.

He turned to the others, clicked and growled and mewled softly.

Do you see? We killed the new creature with this.

Their minds, all younger, less developed. His children stared, yellow eyes burning with hatred, but not quite understanding, not just yet.

But he did. And his older, wiser mind stretched a little further. This long stick he held, he understood now what it was and where it came from. They grew along the river in thick clusters. But now it was no longer simply a plant — the new creatures had fashioned it into something else entirely: a deadly weapon.

Something deep in his reptilian mind shifted. Concepts, very simple concepts, looking for each other amid a busy crowd of instinct-driven brain signals, finally finding each other and embracing.

His pack had no communicable sound for the concept. His mind had no word for the idea. But if he’d had a wider range of words to construct his thoughts from then his mind would have been full of words like use, make, build…

His small mind suddenly produced an image, an image of a fast-flowing river and a tree trunk lying across it — a device the new creatures had built to cross the river.

He turned to the others, clicked his teeth and beckoned them to follow.

What he had growing in his mind is what any human being would have called… a plan.