though? Or would feeding them make them lose their fear of humans? She couldn't quite make up her mind about that, but the few glimpses she'd had of the pack before sunset had put her in mind of certain Russian folktales, troikas in the snow, horses foaming with panic, and wolves snapping at the runners. Meanwhile, the pack got a little closer each night before they faded into the darkness.
At least it was just about time for the team to break off for the night Once they were in their domes, they'd be safe.
As if in answer to her thought, the huge lights pivoted up and away from the site, as they were programmed to do, lighting a clear path for the team from the site to the camp. When everyone was safely in the domes, Les would turn them off remotely. So far, the lights alone had kept the jackal-dogs at bay. They lurked just outside the path carved by the lights, but would not venture inside.
As if to answer that thought, the pack howled just as the First of the team members emerged from the covered excavation area. It sounded awfully close. Tia ran a quick infrared scan. The pack was awfully close, right on the top of the hill to the right of the site!
The beasts stared down at the team, and the leader howled again. There was no mistaking that how], not when all the rest answered it. It was the hunt-call. Quarry sighted; time to begin the chase.
And the leader was staring right at the archeologists. The team stared back, sensing that there was something different tonight. No one stirred; not archeologists, nor jackal-dogs. The beasts' eyes glared red in the darkness, reflection from the work lights, but no less disturbing for having a known scientific explanation.
'Alex,' she said tightly. 'Front and center. We have a situation.' He emerged from his cabin as if shot from a gun, took one look at the screen, and pelted for the hold where they kept the HA grav-sled.
Then the pack poured down the hillside in a furry avalanche.
Haakon-Fritz took off like a world-class sprinter, leaving the rest behind. For all the attention that he paid them, the rest of his team might just as well have not existed.
Shell crack! Aspen can't run.
But Les and Treel were not about to leave Aspen to become the a la carte special; as if they had rehearsed the move, they each grabbed one arm and literally picked him up off his feet between them and started running. Fred and Aldon grabbed shovels to act as some kind of flank-guard. With the jackal-dogs closing on them with every passing moment, the entire group pelted off for the shelters.
They were barely a quarter of the way there, with the jackals halfway down the hill and gaining momentum, when Haakon-Fritz reached the nearest shelter. He hit the side of the dome with a crash and pawed the door open. He flung himself inside.
And slammed it shut; the red light coming on over the frame indicating that he had locked it.
'Alex!' Tia cried in anguish, as the jackal-dogs bore down upon their prey. 'Alex, do something!' She had never felt so horribly helpless.
Grav-sleds made no noise, but they had hedraplayers and powerful speakers, meant both to entertain their drivers and to broadcast prerecorded messages on the fly. A blast of raucous hard-wire shatter-rock blared out from beneath her, she got her underbelly cameras on just as Alex peeled out in the sled at top speed, music screaming at top volume.
The unfamiliar shrieks and howls behind them startled the pack for a moment, and they hesitated, then came to a dead halt, peering over their shoulders.
The rock music was so unlike anything they had ever heard before that they didn't know how to react; Alex plowed straight through the middle of them and they shied away to either side.
He was never going to be able to make a pickup on the five still running for their lives without the pack being on all of them, but while he was on the move with music caterwauling, the jackal-dogs hesitated to attack him. And while he was harassing them, their attention was on him, not on their quarry.
That must have been what he had figured in the first place, that he would startle them enough to give the rest of the team a chance to get to safety inside that second dome. While the archeologists ignored what was going on behind them and kept right on to the second shelter, Alex kept making dives at the pack, scattering them when he could, keeping the sled between them and the team. It was tricky flying, stunt-flying with a grav-sled, pulling crazy maneuvers less than a meter from the ground. Not a lot of margin for error.
He cornered wildly; rocking the sled up on one side, skewing it over in flat spins, feinting at the pack leader and gunning away before the beast had a chance to jump into the sled. Over the sound of the wild music, the warning signals and overrides screamed objection for what Alex was doing. Alex challenged the jackal-dogs with the only weapon he had; the sled. Tia longed for her ethological pack; still not approved for the Institute ships. With a stun-needler, they could have at least knocked some of the pack out.
The animals assumed that the attack was meant to drive them off or kill them. They must have been hungrier than any of them had guessed, for when nothing happened to hurt or kill any of the pack, they began making attempts to mob the sled, and they seemed to be trying to think of ways to pull it down.
