Fossil Hunter

*19*

During the 460 million Crucible years it took for the Jijaki to evolve sentience on their world, a lot happened on the Crucible itself. Of those body plans that had originally appeared in that great, explosive diversification, one became predominant—the tube with a head at one end, a spinal cord, and, eventually, paired limbs. Soon the spinal cord was encased in a backbone—an interesting solution, so unlike that of my own ancestors. An age of fishes gave way to an age of amphibians, then one of reptiles.

Brain-body ratios increased as time went by. It seemed clear that eventually, joyously, intelligence would arise on the Crucible as well.

Before it did, though, a new form appeared, living in the shadows of the reptiles, tiny furred creatures that nursed their young.

It was wonderfully, terribly clear what was happening. Both the reptiles and the mammals were on their way to intelligence, and at about the same rate, too—the ratio of brain size to body size was increasing on a simple curve through time, and the scale-clad and fur-bearing creatures were both at the same point on that curve. The brightest of the reptiles and the brightest of the mammals soon had brains of equal, if as yet insignificant, power.

It would still take a long time for real intelligence to develop on this world—some 60 or 70 million Crucible years, I judged. But the mammals had already come up against a dead end. Intelligence, at least in the way these beings were trying to express it, required physical bulk—large, centralized, convoluted brains. The reptiles had long dominated every ecological niche for big animals; the rise of mammalian intelligence had ground to a halt.

Not one, but two potential paths to sentience. Yet only one of them, it seemed, could make it on this world.

I summoned the Jijaki.

Toroca, Babnol, and Keenir headed toward the ice in a shore boat. It took Keenir a while to find a suitable place to land. Even so, he wasn’t able to anchor the boat properly, so he had to stay with it to keep it from drifting away and stranding them. Toroca and Babnol, clad from muzzle to tail in their strange, bulky garments, headed out onto the ice pack. The surface was covered with hard snow that cracked or squeaked when they stepped on it. Toroca was amazed at its texture, like frozen waves.

And the brightness! Glaring white, everywhere he looked. He found himself shielding his face with his arm. Even with his eyes narrowed to slits, it was still difficult to see.

As his eyes adjusted to the glare, Toroca was surprised to see that there were insects here: little black things that hopped across the snow. But it wasn’t those that had caught his attention from the deck of the Dasheter, but, rather, the strange creatures visible just ahead.

“Why don’t they run?” Babnol’s words were all but stolen away on the shrieking wind.

“What?” called Toroca.

“Why don’t they run from us?” she said again. “Aren’t they afraid?”

There were thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of the creatures covering the ice, each one like a drop of quicksilver in the low Antarctic sun.

“They don’t seem to be.”

“How can they not be afraid of animals bigger than they are? Certainly, they have no way to defend themselves.”

Toroca and Babnol stepped closer, the snow so hard that they left no footprints in it. “And look at the way they crowd together!” said Babnol. “They could touch each other without moving, if they wanted to. Have they no notion of territoriality?”

“Lots of herbivores herd.”

“Excuse me, Toroca, you are the scholar, but, umm, there are no plants around, in case you hadn’t noticed. These creatures must be fish-eaters.”

The creatures had little round bodies and strange heads that were drawn out into long points both off the front of the face and at the back of the head. There was no doubt that they had seen the approaching Quintaglios. Many had swiveled these heads toward Toroca and Babnol. But they seemed not in the least alarmed by the intruders. Toroca saw one slide lazily off the ice into the water. Others were preening themselves with their long prows.

For want of a better name, Toroca thought of these creatures as divers. They seemed to have no qualms about slipping into the freezing water, and when they went beneath the surface, Toroca lost all track of them. They were presumably diving deep.

There were only about twenty paces between Toroca and the closest of the divers now. Most of the divers were flopped on their bellies, but some stood fully erect, with thick flippers hanging at their sides. There was something red about halfway down the leading edge of each flipper, but Toroca couldn’t yet make out what it was.

As if the complacency of the divers wasn’t baffling enough, one of the larger divers began waddling toward Toroca and Babnol. The thing’s gait was awkward, its short legs not allowing very fast movement. As it approached, Toroca saw that its prow—more of a beak, really—had interlocking pointed sides, but whether these were protruding teeth or simply a saw-toothed edge to the horny sheath, he couldn’t say. Still, although the sharp edges were doubtless effective against fish, they didn’t look like they could do much to a Quintaglio. Pointing in exactly the opposite direction of the beak was a similarly tapered crest off the back of the head.

Low on the far horizon, almost lost in the glare from the ice, Toroca could see two crescent moons. Given the position of the sun, Toroca and Babnol should have been casting long shadows in front of themselves, but the ice and snow were so reflective that ambient light bounced in to banish them.

The big diver continued to come closer, it seeming to take five or six left-right waddles to cover the distance Toroca traveled in a single step. Toroca could see the animal’s flippers better now. The red growths in the middle of the flippers’ front edges were claws—three small, curved claws. Toroca couldn’t imagine what use they were to the animal there, although perhaps they could act as brakes should the diver’s waddling gait fail and it found itself facedown sliding across the ice.

There was now just a semi-ten of paces between him and the vanguard diver. Other divers were watching with perhaps growing interest, but no real sign of concern. Suddenly Toroca got the feeling that perhaps he was being set up. The long forward-facing tunnel of his snow jacket kept his muzzle warm at the expense of eliminating peripheral vision. Toroca swung his head in a wide arc and then turned around, almost slipping on the ice as he did so, to check behind him. Nothing, except Babnol, looking as surprised as Toroca felt.

In some ways, it didn’t seem sporting. Toroca was no fan of the hunt, but he understood that part of the excitement was the pursuit. He’d never had an animal walk up to him before. For one brief moment he thought that perhaps this meant the diver wasn’t an animal. But that was silly. Besides, the diver had a tiny head, and the pointed projection off the top, apparently counterbalancing the beak, seemed to be a rudder-like crest, not an enlarged braincase.

That the animal was completely without fear was puzzling. And yet, it had never seen a Quintaglio before (and really wasn’t seeing one now, Toroca thought, since the thick winter vestments hid all of Toroca’s body except for the tip of his face). Perhaps the beasts had no predators here. Certainly that would explain their vast numbers.

Toroca took another step forward and was now close enough to the diver to touch it. Its little streamlined body was covered with short silver fur that seemed to glisten, as though slicked down with oil. He could see it breathing in and out, its rounded torso expanding and contracting. Although walking seemed to be something of an effort for it, the diver had by no means been really exerting itself. The fast pace of its breathing therefore must mean that it was indeed warm-blooded, something the insulating fur had suggested anyway.

Toroca simply wanted a specimen for study, of course. He reached down with both arms and, using a scalpel, its metal bitterly cold, its surface frosted, he slit the diver’s throat.

As soon as the knife touched its skin, the diver let out a call like wooden boards clacking together. That evidently meant something to the other divers, because they started making the same call.

The tableau held for several beats, the only sound the washboard calls of the divers, the only movement their pointed beaks and the flow of blood onto the ice from the dead diver, the red liquid already thick and sluggish in the cold.

And then, as one, the thousands upon thousands of divers moved.

And Toroca suddenly realized that he hadn’t thought things through as well as he should have…

For the divers, rather than running away from him and Babnol, were waddling as fast as they could toward him, ragged-edged beaks snapping open and closed.

Toroca wheeled around and began to hurry across the ice, his wide shoes slipping and sliding as he did so. He threw his momentum forward, lifting his tail to balance himself, still clutching the dead diver in his left hand. It wouldn’t do to fall down here, for the little silver creatures would be all over him, and although individually they were no match for a grown Quintaglio, thousands of them swarming over his body was probably an ignominious way to die…

But his footing held, as did Babnol’s, and soon it became apparent even to the divers that the Quintaglios were going to easily outdistance them. The silver creatures quit their running, although their wood-on-wood calls persisted for some time.

Keenir was rowing the shore boat toward Toroca and Babnol, trying to hasten their rendezvous. The two surveyors made it aboard…

…and realized that the divers were doing just what their name implied: diving into the icy water and paddling like silver meteors beneath the surface toward the little wooden boat. Keenir was already rowing like a demon, and Toroca and Babnol found their oars as well, but the boat was not nearly as maneuverable or fast as the divers. Looking over the gunwales, Toroca could see hundreds of them swarming beneath the gray, chilled surface.

The boat buffeted as beaks beat against the underside of its hull. The clattering of the impacts was deafening. Toroca pulled his oar from the water and smashed it against the surface with a great splashing sound. That startled the divers, and their assault of beaks stopped—but only briefly. Soon it renewed in earnest. The boat was rocking enough that Toroca feared it would capsize. He thought for an instant of throwing back the dead diver, in hopes that that might appease its avengers.

Toroca and Babnol smashed their paddles into the surface again, and this time, against his intentions, Toroca felt his oar connect with something hard and pointed. He imagined he had just brained a diver.

Chilled water was splashing everywhere. Toroca could feel the arm of his jacket stiffening as it began to freeze up, presumably soaked on the outside.

Fortunately, though, the divers didn’t have the energy or attention span to keep at it. After a short period of time, they stopped their attack and swam off beneath the cold surface. Looking back, Toroca could see them clambering up onto the ice, shaking their little bodies violently to fling off water droplets.

The three of them continued to row out toward the Dasheter. Toroca glanced down at the corpse of the diver, with its pointed head and funny little claws along its flippers. It was an odd anatomical mix, and yet, somehow, it was strangely familiar.

He looked forward to getting back aboard ship and studying the body in detail.