With great reluctance he decided that there could be no more exploration until the Bree had reached the waters of the eastern ocean. Barlennan, when this conclusion was offered for his consideration, agreed, though he made some reservations in his own mind. Certainly while the Flyer slept his own crew was going to keep working.
With the expedition once more under way and the tangible results of the interruption rapidly being transferred from tank roof to ship by leaping Mesklinites, Lackland made a call to Toorey, listened humbly to the expected blast when Rosten learned what he had been doing, and silenced him ass before with the report that much plant tissue was now available if Rosten would send down containers for it.
By the time the rocket had landed far enough ahead of them to preserve the Mesklinite nervous systems, had waited for their arrival, picked up the new specimens, and waited once more until the”tank had traveled safely out of range of its takeoff blast, many more days had passed. These, except for the rocket’s visit, were relatively uneventful. Every few miles a boulder-rimmed hilltop was sighted, but they carefully avoided these, and none of the giant natives were seen outside their cities. This fact rather worried Lackland, who could not imagine where or how they obtained food. With nothing but the relatively boring job of driving to occupy his mind, he naturally formed many hypotheses about the strange creatures. These he occasionally outlined to Barlennan, but that worthy was not much help in deciding among them, and Lackland got little of value from their conversations.
One of his own ideas, however, bothered him. He had been wondering just why the giants built their cities in such a fashion. They could hardly have been expecting either the tank or the Bree. It seemed a rather impractical way to repel invasion by others of their own kind, who evidently, from the commonness of the custom, could hardly be taken by surprise.
Still, there was a possible reason. It was just a hypothesis; but it would account for the city design, and for the lack of natives in the country outside, and for the absence of anything resembling farm lands in the neighborhood of the cities. It involved a lot of „iffing” on Lackland’s part even to think of such an idea in the first place, and he did not mention it to Barlennan. For one thing, it left unexplained the fact that they had come this far unmolested — if the idea were sound, they should by now have used up a great deal more of the quick-firer’s ammunition. He said nothing, therefore, and merely kept his own eyes open; but he was not too surprised, one sunrise when they had come perhaps two hundred miles from the city where Hars received his injuries, to see a small hillock ahead of the cavalcade suddenly rear up on a score of stubby, elephantine legs, lift as far as possible a head mounted on a twenty-foot neck, stare for a long moment out of a battery of eyes, and then come lumbering to meet the oncoming tank.
Barlennan for once was not riding in his usual station on the roof, but he responded at once to Lackland’s call. The Earthman had stopped the tank, and there were several minutes to decide on a course of action before the beast would reach them at its present rate of speed.
„Barl, I’m willing to bet you’ve never seen anything like that. Even with tissue as tough as your planet produces, it could never carry its own weight very far from the equator.”
„You are quite right; I haven’t. I have never heard of it, either, and don’t know whether or not it’s likely to be dangerous. I’m not sure I want to find out, either. Still, it’s meat; maybe. ”
„If you mean you don’t know whether it eats meat or vegetables, I’ll bet on the former,” replied Lackland. „It would be a very unusual plant-eater that would come toward something even larger than itself immediately upon sighting it — unless it’s stupid enough to think the tank is a female of its own species, which I very much doubt. Also, I was thinking that a large flesh-eater was the easiest way to explain why the giants never seem to come out of their cities, and have them built into such efficient traps. They probably lure any of these things that come to their hilltop by showing themselves at the bottom, as they did with us, and then kill them with rocks as they tried on the tank. It’s one way of having meat delivered to your front door.”
„All that may be true, but is not of present concern,” Barlennan replied with some impatience. „Just what should we do with this one? That weapon of yours that broke up the rock would probably kill it, but might not leave enough meat worth collecting; while if we go out with the nets well be too close for you to use it safely should we get in trouble.”
„You mean you’d consider using your nets on a thing that size?”
„Certainly. They would hold it, I’m sure, if only we could get it into them. The trouble is that its feet are too big to go through the meshes, and our usual method of maneuvering them into its path wouldn’t do much good. We’d have to get the nets around its body and limbs somehow, and then pull them tight.”
„Have you a method in mind?”
„No — and we wouldn’t have time to do much of the sort anyway; he’ll be here in a moment.”
„Jump down and unhitch the sled. I’ll take the tank forward and keep him occupied for a while, if you want. If you decide to take him on, and get in trouble later, you all should be able to jump clear before I use the gun.”
Barlennan followed the first part of the suggestion without hesitation or argument, slipping off the rear of the deck and undoing with a single deft motion the hitch which held the tow cable to the tank. Giving a hoot to let Lackland know the job was done, he sprang aboard the Bree and quickly gave his crew the details of the new situation. They could see for themselves by the time he had finished, for the Flyer had moved the tank forward and to one side, clearing their line of sight to the great animal. For a short time they watched with much interest, some astonishment, but no fear to speak of as the tank maneuvered with its living counterpart.
The creature stopped as the machine resumed its forward motion. Its head dropped down to a yard or so from the ground, and the long neck swung as far as possible first to one side and then the other, while the multiple eyes took in the situation from all possible angles. It paid no attention to the Bree; either it failed to notice the small movements,of the crew, or regarded the tank as a more pressing problem. As Lackland moved toward one flank, it slewed its gigantic body around to keep facing it squarely. For a moment the Earthman thought of driving it into a full hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, so that it would be facing directly away from the ship; then he remembered that this would put the Bree in his line of fire should he have to use the gun, and stopped the circling maneuver when the stranded sled was at the monster’s right. With that eye arrangement, it would be as likely to see the sailors moving behind it as in front, anyway, he reflected.
Once more he moved toward the animal. It had settled down, belly to the ground, when he stopped circling; now it rose once more to its many legs and drew its head back almost into its great trunk, in what was apparently a protective gesture. Lackland stopped once more, seized a camera, and took several photographs of the creature; then, since it seemed in no mood to press an attack, he simply looked it over for a minute or two.
Its body was a trifle larger than that of an Earthly elephant; on Earth, it might have weighed eight or ten tons. The weight was distributed about evenly among the ten pairs of legs, which were short and enormously thick. Lackland doubted that the creature could move much faster than it had already.
After a minute or two of waiting, the creature began to grow restless; its head protruded a little and began to swing back and forth as though looking for other enemies. Lackland, fearing that its attention would become focused on the now helpless Bree and her crew, moved the tank forward another couple of feet; his adversary promptly resumed its defensive attitude. This was repeated several times, at intervals which grew progressively shorter. The feinting lasted until the sun sank behind the hill to the west; as the sky grew dark Lackland, not knowing whether the beast would be willing or able to carry on a battle at night, modified the situation by turning on all the tank’s lights. This, at least, would presumably prevent the creature from seeing anything in the darkness beyond, even if it were willing to face what to it must be a new and strange situation.