B-beam said, “No, it didn’t evolve alongside the Folk. Different planet. Gligstith(click)tcharf, maybe. We call them stilts.”
It was faster than hell and could jump too, but the Folk were spread out and they were always in front of it. They kept it running in a circle until it stepped wrong and lost its balance.
One Folk zipped toward it. The stilt tumbled with its legs folded and stood up immediately, but it still took too long. The designated killer wrapped itself around one leg; its jaws closed on the ankle. The stilt kicked at its assailant, a dozen kicks in a dozen seconds. Then the bone snapped and the rest of the Folk moved in.
“Do you suppose they’ll wear translators when they hunt with us?”
“I’d guess they won’t. I know some Folk words and I’ve been boning up. And I’ve got a horde of students looking for anything on Folk eating habits. I’ve got a suspicion…Rick, why are we doing this?”
“We ought to get to know them.”
“Why? What have we seen that makes them worth knowing?”
I was hungry and I ached everywhere. I had to think before I answered. “Oh…enough. Eating habits aside, the Folk aren’t totally asocial. They’re here, and they aren’t xenophobes.…B-beam, suppose they don’t have anything to teach us? They’re still part of a galactic civilization, and we want to be out there with them. I just want humanity to look good.”
“Look good…yeah. I did wonder why you didn’t even hesitate. Have you ever been hunting?”
“No. You?”
“Yeah, my uncles used to take me deer hunting. Have you ever killed anything? Hired out as a butcher, for instance?”
“…No.”
And I waited to say, Sure, I can kill an animal, no sweat. Hell, I promised! But he didn’t ask; he only looked.
I never did mention my other fear. For all I know, it never occurred to anyone else that B-beam and I might be the prey.
Intelligent beings, if gullible. Armed, but with inadequate weapons. Betrayed, and thus enraged, likely to fight back. The Folk eat Earthborn meat. Surely we would make more interesting prey than the boar-pigs!
But it was plain crazy. The chirpsithra enforced laws against murder. If humans were to disappear within the Mojave hunting park, the Folk might be barred from the chirp liners! They wouldn’t dare.
The Folk came for us at dawn. We rode in the Xenobiology lifter. We left the air ducts wide open. The smell of five Folk behind us was rich and strange: not quite an animal smell, but something else, and not entirely pleasant. If the Folk noticed our scent, they didn’t seem to mind.
B-beam seemed amazingly relaxed. At one point he told me, casually, “We’re in danger of missing a point. We’re here to have fun. The Folk don’t know we’ve been sweating and moaning, and they won’t. You’re being honored, Rick. Have fun.”
At midmorning we landed and walked toward a fence.
It was human-built, posted with signs in half a dozen languages. NO ENTRY. DANGER! B-beam took us through the gate. Then the Folk waited. B-beam exchanged yelps with them, then told me. “You’re expected to lead.”
“Me? Why?”
“Surprise. You’re the designated killer.”
“Me?” It seemed silly…but it was their hunt. I led off. “What are we hunting?”
“You make that decision too.”
Well inside the fence, we crossed what seemed a meandering dune, varying from five to eight meters high, curving out of sight to left and right. Outside the dune was desert. Inside, meadow.
A stream poured out of the dune. Further away and much lower, its returning loop flowed back into the dune. The dune hid pumps. It might hide defenses.
The green-black grass wasn’t thin like grass; it was a succulent, like three-foot-tall fingers of spineless cactus, nice to the touch. Fat grass. Sawgrass would have been a real problem. We wore nothing but swim suits (we’d argued about even that) and the items strung on a line across my shoulders.
Any of the Folk, or B-beam himself, would have made a better killer than one middle-aged bartender.
Of course I had the beamer, and it would kill; but it wouldn’t kill fast. Anything large would be hurt and angry long before it fell over.
All five Folk dropped silently to their bellies. I hadn’t seen anything, so I stayed upright, but I was walking carefully. Naked humans might not spook the prey anyway. They’d be alert for Folk.
B-beam’s eyes tried to see everywhere at once. He whispered, “I got my report on Folk eating habits.”
“Well?”
“They drink water and milk. They’ve never been seen eating. They don’t buy food—”
“Pets?”
“—Or pets, or livestock. I thought of that—”
“Missing Persons reports?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Rick! No, this is the only way they eat. It’s not a hunt so much as a formal dinner party. The rules of etiquette are likely to be rigid.”
Rigid, hell. I’d watched them tearing live animals apart.
Water gurgled ahead. The artificial stream ran everywhere. “I never wondered about the canteen,” I said. “Why a canteen?”
B-beam yelped softly. A Folk squeaked back. Yelp, and squeak, and B-beam tried to suppress a laugh. “You must have talked about drinking wine with meals.”
“I did. Is there supposed to be wine in this thing?”
B-beam grinned. Then lost the grin. “The canteen isn’t for the hunt, it’s for afterward. What about the knife and beamer?”
“Oh, come on, the Folk gave me…uh.” Butterflies began breeding in my stomach. Humans cook their food. Sushi and Sashimi and Beef Tartar are exceptions. I’d said so, that night. “The beamer’s for cooking. If I use it to kill the prey…we’ll be disgraced?”
“I’m not sure I want to come right out and ask. Let’s see…”
The high-pitched squeaking went on for some time. B-beam was trying to skirt the edges of the subject. The butterflies in my belly were turning carnivorous. Presently he whispered, “Yup. Knife too. Your teeth and nails are visibly inadequate for carving.”
“Oh, Lord.”
“The later you back out, the worse it’ll be. Do it now if—”
Two melks were grazing beyond a rise of ground. I touched B-beam’s shoulder and
