This year, though, Archimedes had introduced a new test of skill: spear-chucking. And you couldn’t refuse a challenge. But that wasn’t working out entirely in Archimedes’ favor. The other young males had figured out that they should avoid that particular contest with him, so they were challenging Archimedes first, based on contests of strength. Unfortunately, Archimedes was rather bookish, as Deltans went. I wondered if nerd-dom was a universal thing.
After Archimedes got dropped on his head in a couple of encounters, I decided to teach him some basic jujitsu. It turned out to be harder than expected, because the Deltan skeletal system didn’t always bend the same way as a human’s would. We had to improvise a few locks and throws based on their different physiology.
But the principles were still applicable, and Archimedes was motivated. We narrowed it down to the five or so most useful moves. He spent a day going through the steps in pantomime, establishing the muscle-memory, before he rejoined the circus.
Almost immediately, a couple of young toughs tried to push him around to establish dominance. His response was slow and tentative, but it was a completely new concept and his opponents didn’t even recognize the danger until they were on their butts looking up at him. After that, Archimedes strutted around the village like he owned the place.
Marvin laughed, watching all the antics. “I’m sure there’s some element of vengeance in there. Getting back at all the childhood bullies by proxy, perchance?”
“Y’know, Marvin, this habit of yours of analyzing my motives is a real pain in the ass. Especially since they were your childhood tormenters, too.”
Marvin grinned and waggled his eyebrows. Sadly, he was probably right about my motivation. I was doing what I could to make sure Archimedes did better at the metaphorical mating dance than I had as a teenager. And the more descendants Archimedes created, the sooner the entire tribe would be at or near his level of intelligence. Win-win, as far as I was concerned.
“Now if you could only change Archimedes’ mind,” Marvin observed.
“Yeah, I know.” Having kicked butt yet again, Archimedes was making the moves on Diana. She had to be a knock-out in Deltan terms, because I couldn’t figure out what else he could see in her. She intensely disliked the drones and wouldn’t hang around anywhere near us when I was with Archimedes. An obvious symptom of low intelligence, in my books.
*
Marvin popped in without warning. “Things just got creepier.”
I looked up from the observation window. The mating season was almost done. Most pairings had been decided by this point, but some Deltans hadn’t gotten the memo. You could tell when that happened, because the miscreant would find himself (and sometimes herself) being beaten on by both members of the pairing on which he or she was trying to intrude. That was usually enough to make the point, but there were three or four individuals left who couldn’t seem to take get lost for an answer. Archimedes and Diana had formalized their mating without further challenge, so it was purely scientific interest on my part.
I glared at Marvin, ready with a sarcastic comment about the interruption, but I changed my mind when I saw his face. He looked distinctly freaked out, and Marvin tended to be level-headed. I set the video window to record and minimized it. “Okay, Marv, what’s up?”
With a flick of a finger, Marvin popped up an image in midair, showing an ancient set of bones. By this point, we were both experienced enough with all things Deltan to recognize parts of a Deltan skeleton. And this one had the bite and claw marks that I’d seen on some of Marvin’s other specimens.
“Looks like another victim of the mystery predator. What’s special about this one?”
“I found it less than a mile from Camelot.”
“Oh, son of a bitch.” If the range of this thing included the immediate area, and it was still around, I may have brought the Deltans back to be the main course. I remembered some comments that had been made when the Deltans first arrived at Camelot. In particular, one of the elders hadn’t been happy with the explanation that it was the gorilloids that had driven the Deltans out. Unfortunately, he’d only had vague memories to support his feeling.
I grabbed a drone and went looking for Moses or Archimedes. I found Archimedes first, fortunately not with Diana, and explained the situation to him.
“That’s not good,” he said. “If we were safer at the old site, and you brought us back here…”
“Yeah, I know, Archimedes. Don’t rub it in. On the plus side, we may have some lead time to prepare. But I need to find the elder who was making those comments.”
“Moses would know, I think.”
We found Moses with very little effort. He’d found and laid claim to a favorite lounging spot on the south side of the bluff, where he spent his afternoons sitting in the sun, relieving the pain of his stiff joints. I allowed myself a moment of sadness. Moses seemed to have entered that long slide into failing health that was all too common in the elderly. I went through the story again.
“It does sound familiar,” he said, thoughtfully. “That was Axler, I think.” The translation routine was programmed to render Deltan names in human-pronounceable sounds. It would tag that particular translation for permanent association with the name. “Sadly, he died three or four hands ago. I don’t think anyone else is even close to that old.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “Archimedes, Moses, don’t say anything to anyone else about this. I don’t want to start a panic without more information. Marvin and I will do some more investigations. I will also set some drones to a wide perimeter guard. If anyone sees them and asks, just tell them I’m doing a gorilloid count.”
The two nodded, both looking worried.
*
“But where have they gone?” Marvin scratched his head, staring at the globe.
“Look, maybe Deltans weren’t their primary prey. Maybe they discovered that Deltans were delicious and started hunting them preferentially. After the Deltans left, they would have just gone back to whatever they normally hunted.”
“Right, which is why I’ve expanded the search. But let’s face it, we’re talking about millions of square miles. A predator can have quite a range.” As he talked, Marvin was dividing the land area on the continent into segments. I could see from the metadata that he was assigning drones to each segment.
He sat back and stared at the results. After a few moments of consideration, he handed it off to Guppy for implementation and turned to face me.
“How are we for busters?”
I raised my eyebrows in alarm. “Damn. Good point. I haven’t been keeping up with production. Between the gorilloids all growing a collective brain, and us taking the printers off-schedule to build the extra exploration drones, we’re down to less than a dozen.”
Marvin grinned. “Welp. There goes the schedule again, I guess.”
12. Bob Calling
Bill
May 2171
Epsilon Eridani