The Galactic Gourmet

experience. It weighs twice as much as any two of you, scrawny and half-starved as you are, and I cannot imagine what it might do to you.”

Gurronsevas could not imagine what he could do to them, either, so he allowed Remrath to do the talking.

“You do not need a hostage because you already have one,” it continued quickly. “Gurronsevas spends all of our waking time in the mine, where it helps with the cooking, instructs and advises the kitchen staff and young trainees in the off-world methods of selecting and preparing edible vegetation, and is helpful in many other ways. We would not want it to be killed, or hurt, or even insulted in any way.

“Besides,” Remrath ended, “in my professional opinion as your first cook and preserver, Gurronsevas would be totally inedible.”

Surprise and pleasure at the complimentary things Remrath had just said about him kept Gurronsevas silent for a moment. The people in the mine, both young and old, had been talkative but undemonstrative, and he had thought that his presence among them was being tolerated and nothing more. He wanted to say a word of appreciation to the elderly Wem, but he was not out of trouble yet and there were other words he must speak first.

“Remrath is correct,” he said loudly. “I am inedible. And Creethar, too, is inedible so far as the off-worlders on our vessel are concerned, because we do not eat meat. Remrath knows this and has given its offspring into our charge because of our greater knowledge and experience in this area. It, and all of you, have our promise that Creethar will be returned to you at the mine as soon as possible.”

I am telling the truth, Gurronsevas told himself, but not all of it. Rhabwar’s crew and half the medical team were meat eaters, but the meals they consumed on board ship and at Sector General were a product of the food synthesizers, perfect in color, texture, and taste though they were, rather than parts from some hapless food animal — and they would certainly not eat any portion of an intelligent being. Neither did he say whether Creethar would be alive or dead when he was returned to them. He thought he knew which it would be, but the communication of that kind of bad news was better left to medics.

It suddenly occurred to him that the medical team did not know anything about their patient other than what they could see with their scanners, and information on how its injuries had been sustained might be helpful as well as allowing him to change to a less sensitive subject. The Wem were talking rapidly but quietly among themselves, and from the few words the translator picked up they seemed to be less hostile towards him now. He would risk a question.

“If it will not cause distress to you,” he said, “can you tell me how Creethar received its injuries?”

Plainly the question did not cause distress because one of them, a hunter called Druuth who had replaced the injured Wem as leader, began describing the event. In complete and often harrowing detail that included the incidents and conversations leading up to and following the event as well as Creethar’s own report and instructions before the First Hunter had lost consciousness, the story unfolded.

Gurronsevas formed the impression that the Wem might be talking to excuse or perhaps justify something the hunting party had or had not done.

CHAPTER 28

Soon after dawn on the thirty-third day of the worst hunt that any of them could remember, they discovered the tracks left by an adult twasach and several cubs leading from the muddy edge of a river towards a nearby hillside cave. The larger prints were not deeply impressed into the soft ground, indicating that the adult was either not fully grown or badly undernourished. But it was unlikely to be as close to starvation as its hunters, Druuth thought bleakly, which meant greater danger for the one who had to trap and kill it. Inevitably that one would be First Hunter Creethar, her mate.

In the far past, the ancient, disintegrating books at the mine told of a time when the twasachs had been tree-climbers and eaters of vegetation as well as smaller animals, but since then they had learned to attack and eat anything they could find regardless of its size, which included unwary Wem hunters. This twasach would be particularly dangerous because it was both hungry and naturally protective of its young. But the glorious prospect of trapping an entire twasach family had, in spite of Creethar’s repeated warnings, made them both overeager and undercautious.

Druuth understood them well. For too long had they been catching and sharing the tiny and unsatisfying carcasses of rodents and burrowing insects, and then, to hide their shame and try to fill the noisy emptiness of their stomachs, they had left camp one by one to eat secretly the fruit and berries and roots that they had pretended not to see each other gather along the way. But suddenly they were feeling like true Hunters again, brave and proud and about to eat their fill of meat as was their right under the law.

The hillside was steep and rocky, with more sharp-edged stones carpeting the dried-up river bed at its base. There were only a few clumps of vegetation, not very securely rooted, to give a steadying grip for their hands, and the crumbling, uneven ledge leading up to the cave would bear a twasach’s weight but was barely wide enough to support one Wem at a time. She followed Creethar along the narrow ledge to the cave mouth and there, clinging precariously to the slope, and with their heavy tails hanging over the ledge and threatening to overbalance them, they deployed the weighted net.

So confident of success were the other hunters that they had begun to erect a smoke-tent to dry and preserve any uneaten meat that remained, and to gather fuel for its slow-burning fires.

Working as quietly as possible, Creethar and Druuth hung the heavy net across the cave mouth, holding it in position by pushing the open mesh over convenient vegetation or wedging it loosely into rocky outcroppings. Then they took up positions on each side of the cave entrance and began shouting loudly and continuously into the dark interior.

They waited, spears ready, for a furious twasach to come charging out and into their net, but it did not come.

Between periods of shouting they tossed loose stones through the mesh and heard them clattering against the floor of the cave. But still there was no reaction except for the frightened bleating of the cubs and a low, moaning sound from the adult. The waiting hunters were growing impatient in their hunger and the words that were being shouted up to their First and Second Hunters were becoming openly disrespectful.

“Nothing is happening here,” said Creethar angrily, “and I am beginning to look ridiculous. Help me lift the bottom edge of the net so that I can get under it. Be careful, or it will pull loose.”

“Be careful yourself,” said Druuth sharply, but too quietly for those below to hear her. “It is easy for them to criticize when their feet and tails are on solid ground. Creethar, hunger is no stranger to us on this hunt and the others we have shared. We can starve for a few more hours until the twasachs have to drink again.”

Just as softly Creethar replied, “We cannot wait in this position for long. Already my legs are cramping and if I stretch or move them as I soon must, the ledge will crumble.” And in the sure voice of a First Hunter he went on, “Below there! Throw some dried wood up to the ledge, and a lighted torch. If noise does not drive them out then smoke will.”

Druuth lifted the net carefully and Creethar moved under it until only his tail remained outside the cave. The adult twasach was still moaning steadily and the cubs were making the soft, excited barking sound which indicated that they might be playing together. By the time the fire was set and kindled, Creethar said that his eyes were ready for a night hunt. He could see that the cave was deeper than expected and that the floor sloped upwards and angled sharply to the left so that the exact position of the animals was hidden from him, but the barking of the cubs was sounding frightened rather than playful. The billowing smoke was affecting his eyes so badly that he could see nothing, he said, and he began backing carefully out onto the ledge.

Druuth realized later that there had been a moment’s warning when the moaning sounds ceased, but the beast came silently and so fast out of the smoke that its claws were tearing at Creethar’s chest before he could bring up his spear.

In the open the twasach could have been swept loose and knocked unconscious with a disabling tail-blow, but in the confined space of the cave mouth Creethar could only fend it off desperately with arms that were deeply torn and bleeding while he backed carefully onto the ledge where Druuth could use her spear. But not carefully