The hours passed and as he flexed his fists and felt the blood flowing in his veins, he could feel the human side of him returning. It was a wonderful feeling! Perhaps, beyond hope of hope, the process of retrociniation would reverse itself. At all costs he must not let it disappear.
The survivor in him dared to think there was hope. It was all too fantastic to believe, this freakish odyssey that he had survived thus far.
A grim determination stirred Miko. It crested his soul like a wave on a stormy ocean. Under the alien glare of Rogos’s sun, he felt a transformation, a resolve welling deep within his breast, of hope and courage, from the very spirit of the cave dweller to the time of modern humankind, tapping instincts of ancient forebears who had struggled against all odds to survive against the primordial mastodons, the fierce saber-toothed tigers and the other horrors that had prowled the worlds since the dawn of time.
He would find a way to return to his human form.
He would survive...
THE TIMELOST
BOOK IV
I
Miko halted at the edge of the clearing, his legs burning with exhaustion. His breath came out in ragged gasps, warm steam forming in the sticky wetness that was home to the tall tropical trees.
The pilot’s dark hair had grown long and matted and trailed down his shoulders. His cheeks were hollowed-out pits; his once-strong body was bruised and lacerated, thinned by privation. But he had not lost the will to live. Grey eyes kindling with determination, he clutched the metal pipe he had used as a club to smash the skulls of the predators of this alien world. Nothing more than a piece of twisted wreckage from the ruined spacecraft he’d piloted, but it had helped to stave off the monsters so he could work his way through the dense forest.
Through bloodshot eyes, he caught a glimpse of something glinting ahead. Across the clearing, perhaps fifty yards away, plates of metal peeked out from an obtrusive mound running the length of the glade. Long and high-curved like a bow, it was hung with a heavy covering of overgrowth. If he could climb the structure and get beyond it, he might be able to elude the hyena-size warks that pursued him. In his weakened state, a pack like this could take him down and rip him to shreds. Not an hour ago he’d seen them turn on one of their own in a vicious horn and fang-rending clash.
He had to move. Shaking the haze out of his head, he staggered into the clearing, breath rasping like a wounded wolf. Only the reduced gravity, two-thirds of his home world near Tau Ceti, helped him keep ahead of the predators. Daylight was fast fading; another reason for urgency since his night vision was poor. Closing in on the mound, he saw it was a bunker of some sort with patches of silver metal gleaming under the sprawl of foliage.
At least he thought it was a bunker. A drainage ditch circled it, heavily overgrown with weeds. There seemed also to be metal spikes protruding from its surface, at the base and near its summit. Antennae? An ancient warship, crash-landed like his? A communications station? No, not likely. He was about to speculate further, but snorts and growls echoed from the bush, followed by the thudding of a dozen cloven feet.
Miko swung around in terror as a fleet shape, a thick-scaled forerunner burst from the pack, charging him. At the last second, he stepped aside and smashed his club down, caving in the thing’s rhino-like skull. Its body thudded to the turf like a stone, shuddering out its last breath.
He spun the blood-stained weapon with desperation, menacing others which loped closer, slavering, snarling. They sprang back from his thrusts, a mixture of yelps and gutturals in their wattled throats. Instinctively, they were driven to kill.
Akin to some abominable jackal and armadillo mix, these creatures had reddish spotted hides, small upturned snouts and coyote-like jowls. Their hind legs were shorter than their forelegs, investing them with a primeval look, with backs down-sloped on an angle. Curled fangs dripped saliva.
In one quick motion he tucked the steel club in his waist belt and clawed his way up the bunker, snatching at the encroaching fronds. The purple and green foliage clung to the surface and ripped under his fingers as he clawed his way up. Digging heels into vine and stalk, he lost his grip and began to slide back down toward the warks. The creatures jumped at him. He felt a hooked tooth sink into his ankle and he screeched in anguish.
With a vicious jerk he snatched his club. Using his greater strength in the lower gravity, he cracked the thing’s head open, freeing himself from its grip. He forced himself to scrabble higher, fingernails bloodied, and he burst over the mound, heart hammering. He lay on his back, gasping for air, the sulphur-tinged atmosphere of Rogos far too thin for such exertion. He withdrew the twisted bar at his waist, ready to use it as a mallet if any of the beasts got up this far.
He rolled onto his stomach and peered down through the fronds. A pack of warks barked and whined and jumped while others sank teeth into the corpse. He saw vines and plants had crawled more thickly over the bunker’s summit. Evidently their birth and death cycle had created a rank humus for new growths. Dragging his heel across the soil, he saw underneath a hard, resilient material.
Three of the hyena-like creatures set their opalescent eyes glaring up at him. Miko recalled the past two weeks had given him much experience with these brutes. The days had passed like a bad
