As It Was

by Paul L. Payne

Crawling, creeping things, reptilian and crustacean and multi-legged, undulating and gliding, disappearing into the grass to emerge at the last deadly moment. Scurrying, spiny things were there in force—scuttling over the mashed-flat grass in beady-eyed haste to be in at the kill. Above them flew skull-headed, mandible-snapping horrors, with membranous wings.

There were no tactics other than individual duel and the wearing down by sheer weight of numbers. Aloft, the winged ones met, clashed and fell, buzzing and flapping. Below, tusk and fang and claw and beak and hoof mandible rent and tore and worried and stung. The long, vicious lizards and the sudden-striking snakes kept coming through only to go down under churning, stamping hooves or be shredded by horns and claws and fangs.

Yet the battle was unequal. Slowly and wearily, the defenders gave before the superior numbers, the more skillful killing. The bodies they left dotting the meadow began to outnumber the crushed remains of the things they fought.

Deep in a cleft in the base of the mountain crouched a young Terran female. Every inch of her brown body shaking in helpless terror.

Cornelia Boyce's left hand gripped the handle of her long knife, still in its sheath. She would need it any time now.

For The One was coming for her at last. Why it had ordered Its people against hers, calling them with Its vicious mind from the far corners of this world, instead of coming for her directly, she didn't know. Perhaps It regarded her as the lesser objective and relegated the task of smashing her and her converts to this horde, while It moved against the ship. Perhaps It regarded the ship of the hunters with the same contempt It had had for the Survey ship and was moving against her first—and was using this battle to toy with her, show her death, as it were. Perhaps there was some other reason. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered any more, for this was the end.

It had tolerated her. For four of Thisbe II's years—not quite three Terran years—The One had left her alone, almost, it would seem, keeping out of her way. It was as if It realized that she, the only one of her kind to survive the debacle at the Survey camp, was essentially harmless. It had not minded her attempts to win over and tame and domesticate some of the people. After all, she had converted only the weaker and gentler of them with her synthetabs; she had gained control over only a small percentage of the killers, the lesser carnivores. No, she had never really threatened The One's dominance.

Pritchard was right. Now that her carefully woven veil of illusion was torn away, she knew that there were killers. Everywhere. Always had been. Killers, killers, killers....

The One proved that. It killed a hundred times a day. This world was Its preserve and It roamed and fed and slew as It chose, only occasionally for food. Perhaps this was the only reason for existence, in the last analysis—in a cruel Cosmos one lived only to be killer or killed.

It mattered not. This was the end. Angered by the advent of more of her kind, It had no doubt decided to wipe out both her and them, recognizing in them all a degree of intelligence which, in force, could threaten Its control. It would move against the ship, if indeed It had not already done so.