The job was, as Severance had said, not neat and tidy like a holotape of a dissection. Twice Cidra had to stop long enough to let the racking heaves pass. Both times she recovered and went back to the task. She knew the theory of what needed to be done. She’d had a very thorough education. When she was finished, she pushed the entrails and the head outside the circle.
She washed the hopper’s blood from her hands and let her stomach have its way one more time. Then she switched on the flamer and spitted a hindquarter on the point of the knife. Ignoring the hissing of crackling fat, she roasted her kill. She stilled her mind and her body before she took the first bite by repeating the familiar words that preceded a Harmonic meal.
This time the food stayed down. It took an effort of will, and there were a few seconds when Cidra wasn’t sure she was going to win the contest with her stomach, but in the end she did. Slowly and methodically she ate the entire hindquarter. Then she roasted the second hindquarter and carried it over to Severance.
“Try to eat,” she coaxed, letting him have a whiff of the meat. He didn’t respond. When she tried to insert a bite between his lips, he spit it out. With a sigh Cidra sat back on her heels and wondered what to do next.
An hour later she happened to glance across the circle and saw that the remains of the hopper were gone. Another Renaissance meal was concluded, bones and all. Nothing went to waste on this planet.
The day progressed with painful slowness. Twice Cidra dozed, snapping uneasily awake each time. Perhaps it would be better if she slept during the daylight. If she didn’t, she was bound to drift off to sleep tonight. The circle seemed so safe. The third time her eyes closed, Cidra allowed herself to drift into sleep.
A faint cracking sound woke her some time later. She opened her eyes slowly and realized that dusk was settling on the jungle. She and Severance had spent another whole day here. The thought of her companion made her glance automatically in his direction. He was still sleeping soundly, curled around the stone.
She heard the cracking noise again and roused herself fully, reaching for the pulser in her lap. She climbed to her feet and peered around the circle. Nothing stirred near the edge as far as she could see. When the sound came a third time, she suddenly realized where it was coming from and whirled around toward Severance. She saw the rock he was holding shiver in his grasp.
“Sweet Harmony!” Cidra edged closer, trying to see what was happening. Severance was still huddled around his possession, but the stone seemed to be quivering in his arms. Even as she watched, a distinct crack appeared in the black surface. Unaware of what she was doing, Cidra brought up the nose of the pulser and stepped forward. This time she would take the stone away from Severance by force. Surely, after all these hours of fever, he was no longer strong enough to stop her.
There was a sharp splintering sound from the rock just as Cidra reached for it. Severance groaned and hugged it closer. She succeeded in pushing one of his hands out of the way and had just gotten a grip on the sphere when it cracked completely open.
She heard the savage hissing before she saw the damp reptilian head emerge from the broken stone. Frantically Cidra struggled to pull the rock away from Severance before whatever was inside escaped. Fragments of the shell came free in her hand. The head whipped out, snapping at her hand with a mouthful of tiny sharp teeth.
Cidra yelped and yanked her fingers out of the way. The creature turned immediately toward Severance’s midsection, its blue, leathery body uncurling from the remains on the shell. With a sudden shock of logic Cidra realized what was going to happen. Severance was intended as the hatchling’s first meal.
She didn’t dare fire the pulser at this range. She would surely kill Severance as well as whatever was trying to eat him. Furiously she banged the nose of her weapon against the creature’s snout. The blow managed to get its attention away from Severance. The creature hissed again and struck at the offending pulser. Its teeth closed around the metal and then released it as it apparently realized that the pulser couldn’t be eaten.
Frantically Cidra slammed the weapon against the leathery blue head once more. Again she got the creature to snap at the muzzle of the pulser. This time she jerked upward and out. With its mouth still locked around the metal mouth of the pulser, the blue reptile was carried with it. The creature released its hold in midair and fell to the ground in a hissing coil. It struck at Cidra as if realizing that she was the source of the problem.
Cidra raised the pulser and fired with the same unthinking sureness she had used to bring down the hopper. The reptile jerked twice. It writhed horribly on the ground, attempting even in its death throes to get back to its intended meal. Cidra fired again, and at last it went still.
Behind Cidra Severance groaned sharply, still not waking. He moved restlessly and spoke in a slurred, hot tone. “Cidra. Cidra.”
She ignored him, her attention still on the dead stone creature. She wanted it out of the circle. It was wrong here. Dead or alive, it had no business in this place. She kicked at the body with the toe of her boot. It flipped over, revealing four appendages on the iridescent light blue belly. The front pair terminated in projections that looked too much like human fingers for Cidra’s peace of mind. She kicked at the dead body again, intent on getting it out of the circle. The sense of wrong-ness was almost overpowering now. She knew for certain that she didn’t want to touch it with her hands.
Three more kicks brought the stone creature’s body to the edge of the circle. Cidra swung the toe of her boot one more time and pitched the remains into the thick greenery on the other side of the magic perimeter. There was a stir of activity almost at once. She got a glimpse of a furred tail as something pounced and then heard the crunch of jaws on a blue, leathery body. Renaissance would take care of the problem. Cidra hurried back to Severance.
He was more restless than ever. The front of his shirt was ripped where the creature had taken a bite out of it, but there were no marks on his skin. Cidra breathed a sigh of relief and knelt beside him. His stirred under her hand.
“So hot. It’s so reeling hot. I can’t stand it.” He tore at his shirt with his hands.
“Stop it, Severance.” Firmly she pulled his fingers free of the shirt. “I’ll cool you down. I promise.” She reached for the bag and poured water over his head, throat, and chest, dampening the shirt. He shivered and quieted. Lapsing back into an unintelligible mumble, he curled up again and appeared to be about to go back to sleep. Cidra wetted him again and waited. The delirious mumbling halted finally, and Cidra decided that he was asleep. She sat back and tried to think.