Away Games: Science Fiction Sports Stories Read online

  “He wrote Jabberwocky and The Hunting of the Snark, along with the Alice books.” She stared at me. “Surely you’re read them.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “No matter,” she said with a shrug. “It was just a joke. Not a very funny one.”

  In retrospect, I wish we’d found a Jabberwock.

  • • •

  “Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,

  As he landed his crew with care;

  Supporting each man on the top of the tide

  By a finger entwined in his hair.

  • • •

  Dodgson IV was lush and green, with huge rolling savannahs, thick forests with trees growing hundreds of feet high, lots of large inland lakes, a trio of freshwater oceans, an atmosphere slightly richer than Galactic Standard, and a gravity that was actually a shade lighter than Standard.

  While the Dabihs were setting up camp and erecting the self-contained safari Bubbles near the ship, I sent Chajinka off to collect possible foodstuffs, then took them to the ship’s lab for analysis. It was even better than I’d hoped.

  “I’ve got good news,” I announced when I clambered back out of the ship. “There are at least seventeen edible plant species. The bark of those trees with the golden blossoms is also edible. The water’s not totally safe, but it’s close enough so that if we irradiate it it’ll be just fine.”

  “I didn’t come here to eat fruits and berries or whatever the hell Blue Boy found out there,” said Marx gruffly. “Let’s go hunting.”

  “I think it would be better for you and your friends to stay in camp for a day while Chajinka and I scout out the territory and see what’s out there. Just unwind from the trip and get used to the atmosphere and the gravity.”

  “Why?” asked Desmond. “What’s the difference if we go out today or tomorrow?”

  “Once I see what we’re up against, I’ll be able to tell you which weapons to take. And while we know there are carnivores, we have no idea whether they’re diurnal or nocturnal or both. No sense spending all day looking for a trophy that only comes out at night.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” Desmond shrugged. “You’re the boss.”

  “It looks pretty normal to me,” said Mbele. “A typical primitive world.”

  “The sensors say there’s a huge biomass about two miles west of here,” I replied. “With that much meat on the hoof, there should be a lot of predators. I want to see what they can do before I take four novices into the bush.”

  “Marx brags about all the safaris he’s been on,” complained Mbele. “Why not take the Great White Hunter with you?”

  “Nice try,” I said. “But I make the decisions once we’re on the ground. You’re stuck with him.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Maybe he’s been on other safaris, but he’s a novice on Dodgson IV, and as far as I’m concerned that’s all that counts.”

  “Well, if it comes to that, so are you.”

  “I’m getting paid to risk my life. He’s paying for me to make sure he gets his trophies and doesn’t risk his.” I looked around. “Where the hell did Chajinka sneak off to?”

  “I think he’s helping the cook.”

  “He’s got his own food,” I said irritably. “He doesn’t need ours.” I turned in the direction of the cooking Bubble and shouted: “Chajinka, get your blue ass over here!”

  The Dabih looked up at the sound of my voice, smiled, and pointed to his ears.

  “Then get your goddamned t-pack!” I said. “We’ve got work to do.”

  He smiled again, wandered off, and returned a moment later with his spear and his t-pack, the translating mechanism that allowed Man and Dabih (actually, Man and just about anything, with the proper programming) to converse with one another in Terran.

  “Ugly little creature,” remarked Mbele, indicating Chajinka.

  “I didn’t pick him for his looks.”

  “Is he really that good?”

  “The little bastard could track a billiard ball down a crowded highway,” I replied. “And he’s got more guts than most Men I know.”

  “You don’t say,” said Mbele in tones that indicated he still considered Dabihs one step up—if that—from the animals we had come to hunt.

  • • •

  “His form is ungainly—his intellect small”

  (So the Bellman would often remark)

  “But his courage is perfect! And that, after all,

  Is the thing that one needs with a Snark.”

  • • •

  I’m not much for foot-slogging when transportation is available, but it was going to take the Dabihs at least a day to assemble the safari vehicle and there was no sense hanging around camp waiting for it. So off we went, Chajinka and me, heading due west toward a water hole the computer had mapped. We weren’t out to shoot anything, just to see what there was and what kind of weaponry our clients would need when we went out hunting the next morning.

  It took us a little more than an hour to reach the water hole, and once there we hid behind some heavy bush about fifty yards away from it. There was a small herd of brown-and-white herbivores slaking their thirst, and as they left, a pair of huge red animals, four or five tons apiece, came down to drink. Then there were four or five more small herds of various types of grass-eaters. I had just managed to get comfortable when I heard a slight scrabbling noise. I turned and saw Chajinka pick up a slimy five-inch green worm, study its writhing body for a moment, then pop it into his mouth and swallow it. He appeared thoughtful for a moment, as if savoring the taste, then nodded his head in approval, and began looking for more.

  Once upon a time that would have disgusted me, but I’d been with Chajinka for more than a decade and I was used to his eating habits. I kept looking for predators, and finally asked if he’d spotted any.

  He waited for the t-pack to translate, then shook his head. “Night eaters, maybe,” he whispered back.

  “I never saw a world where all the carnivores were nocturnal,” I answered. “There have to be some diurnal hunters, and this is the spot they should be concentrating on.”

  “Then where are they?”

  “You’re the tracker,” I said. “You tell me.”

  He sighed deeply—a frightening sound if you’re not used to Dabihs. A few of the animals at the water hole spooked and ran off thirty or forty yards, raising an enormous cloud of reddish dust. When they couldn’t spot where the noise had come from, they warily returned to finish drinking.

  “You wait here,” he whispered. “I will find the predators.”

  I nodded my agreement. I’d watched Chajinka stalk animals on a hundred worlds, and I knew that I’d just be a hindrance. He could travel as silently as any predator, and he could find cover where I would swear none existed. If he had to freeze, he could stand or squat motionless for up to fifteen minutes. If an insect was crawling across his face, he wouldn’t even shut an eye if it was in the insect’s path. So maybe he regarded worms and insects as delicacies, and maybe he had only the vaguest notion of personal hygiene, but in his element—and we were in it now—there was no one of any species better suited for the job.

  I sat down, adjusted my contact lenses to Telescopic, and scanned the horizon for the better part of ten minutes, going through a couple of smokeless cigarettes in the process. Lots of animals, all herbivores, came by to drink. Almost too many, I decided, because at this rate the water hole would be nothing but a bed of mud in a few days.

  I was just about to start on a third cigarette when Chajinka was beside me again, tapping me on the shoulder.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  “You found something?”

  He didn’t answer, but straightened up and walked out into the open, making no attempt to hide his presence. The animals at the water hole began bleating and bellowing in panic and raced off, some low to the ground, some zig-zagging with every stride, and some with enormous leaps. Soon all of them vanished in the
thick cloud of dust they had raised.

  I followed him for about half a mile, and then we came to it: a dead catlike animal, obviously a predator. It had a tan pelt, and I estimated its weight at 300 pounds. It had the teeth of a killer, and its front and back claws were clearly made for rending the flesh of its prey. Its broad tail was covered with bony spikes. It was too muscular to be built for sustained speed, but its powerful shoulders and haunches looked deadly efficient for short charges of up to one hundred yards.

  “Dead maybe seven hours,” said Chajinka. “Maybe eight.”

  I didn’t mind that it was dead. I minded that its skull and body were crushed. And I especially minded that there’d been no attempt to eat it.

  “Read the signs,” I said. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Brown cat,” said Chajinka, indicating the dead animal, “made a kill this morning. His stomach is still full. He was looking for a place to lie up, out of the sun. Something killed him.”

  “What killed him?”

  He pointed to some oblong tracks, not much larger than a human’s. “This one is the killer.”

  “Where did he go after he killed the brown cat?”

  He examined the ground once more, then pointed to the northeast. “That way.”

  “Can we find him before dark?”

  Chajinka shook his head. “He left a long time ago. Four, five, six hours.”

  “Let’s go back to the water hole,” I said. “I want you to see if he left any tracks there.”

  Our presence frightened yet another herd of herbivores away, and Chajinka examined the ground.

  Finally he straightened up. “Too many animals have come and gone.”

  “Make a big circle around the water hole,” I said. “Maybe a quarter mile. See if there are any tracks there.”

  He did as I ordered, and I fell into step behind him. We’d walked perhaps half the circumference when he stopped.

  “Interesting,” he said.

  “What is?”

  “There were brown cats here early this morning,” he said, pointing to the ground. “Then the killer of the brown cat came along—you see, here, his print overlays that of a cat—and they fled.” He paused. “An entire family of brown cats—at least four, perhaps five—fled from a single animal that hunts alone.”

  “You’re sure he’s a solitary hunter?”

  He studied the ground again. “Yes. He walks alone. Very interesting.”

  It was more than interesting.

  There was a lone animal out there that was higher on the food chain than the 300-pound brown cats. It had frightened away an entire pod of large predators, and—this was the part I didn’t like—it didn’t kill just for food.

  Hunters read signs, and they listen to their trackers, but mostly they tend to trust their instincts. We’d been on Dodgson IV less than five hours, and I was already getting a bad feeling.

  • • •

  “I kind of expected you’d be bringing back a little something exotic for dinner,” remarked Jaxon Pollard when we returned to camp.

  “Or perhaps a trophy,” chimed in Ramona Desmond.

  “I’ve got enough trophies, and you’ll want to shoot your own.”

  “You don’t sound like a very enthusiastic hunter,” she said.

  “You’re paying to do the hunting,” I replied. “My job is to back you up and step in if things get out of hand. As far as I’m concerned, the ideal safari is one on which I don’t fire a single shot.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Marx. “What are we going after tomorrow?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You’re not sure?” he repeated. “What the hell were you doing all afternoon?”

  “Scouting the area.”

  “This is like pulling teeth,” complained Marx. “What did you find?”

  “I think we may have found signs of Mrs. Desmond’s Snark, for lack of a better name.”

  Suddenly everyone was interested.

  “A Snark?” said Ramona Desmond delightedly. “What did it look like?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “It’s bipedal, but I’ve no idea how many limbs it has—probably four. More than that is pretty rare in large animals anywhere in the galaxy. Based on the depth of the tracks, Chajinka thinks it may go anywhere from 250 to 400 pounds.”

  “That’s not so much,” said Marx. “I’ve hunted bigger.”

  “I’m not through,” I said. “In a land filled with game, it seems to have scared the other predators out of the area.” I paused. “Well, actually, that could be a misstatement.”

  “You mean it hasn’t scared them off?” asked Ramona, now thoroughly confused.

  “No, they’re gone. But I called them other predators, and I don’t know for a fact that our Snark is a predator. He killed a huge, catlike creature, but he didn’t eat it.”

  “What does that imply?” asked Ramona.

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure. It could be that he was defending his territory. Or …” I let the sentence hang while I considered its implications.

  “Or what?”

  “Or he could simply enjoy killing things.”

  “That makes two of us,” said Marx with a smile. “We’ll go out and kill ourselves a Snark tomorrow morning.”

  “Not tomorrow,” I said firmly.

  “Why the hell not?” he asked pugnaciously.

  “I make it a rule never to go after dangerous game until I know more about it than it knows about me,” I answered. “Tomorrow we’ll go out shooting meat for the pot and see if we can learn a little more about the Snark.”

  “I’m not paying millions of credits to shoot a bunch of cud-chewing alien cattle!” snapped Marx. “You’ve found something that practically screams ‘Superb Hunting!’ I vote that we go after it in the morning.”

  “I admire your enthusiasm and your courage, Mr. Marx,” I said. “But this isn’t a democracy. I’ve got the only vote that counts, and since it’s my job to return you all safe and sound at the end of this safari, we’re not going after the Snark until we know more about it.”

  He didn’t say another word, but I could tell that at that moment he’d have been just as happy to shoot me as the Snark.

  • • •

  Before we set out the next morning, I inspected the party’s weapons.

  “Nice laser rifle,” I said, examining Desmond’s brand new pride and joy.

  “It ought to be,” he said. “It cost fourteen thousand credits. It’s got night sights, a vision enhancer, an anti-shake stock …”

  “Bring out your projectile rifle and your shotgun, too,” I said. “We have to test all the weapons.”

  “But I’m only going to use this rifle,” he insisted.

  I almost hated to break the news to him.

  “In my professional opinion, Dodgson IV has a B3 biosystem,” I said. “I already registered my findings via subspace transmission from the ship last night.” He looked confused. “For sport hunting purposes, that means you have to use a non-explosive-projectile weapon with a maximum of a .450 grain bullet until the classification is changed.”

  “But—”

  “Look,” I interrupted. “We have fusion grenades that can literally blow this planet apart. We have intelligent bullets that will find an animal at a distance of ten miles, respond to evasive maneuvering, and not contact the target until an instant kill is guaranteed. We’ve got molecular imploders that can turn an enemy brigade into jelly. Given the game we’re after, none of them would qualify as sport hunting. I know, we’re only talking about a laser rifle in your case, but you don’t want to start off the safari by breaking the law, and I’m sure as a sportsman you want to give the animal an even break.”

  He looked dubious, especially about the even break part, but finally he went back to his Bubble and brought out the rest of his arsenal.

  I gathered the four of them around me.

  “Your weapons have been packed away for a week,” I said. “Their settings may
have been affected by the ship’s acceleration, and this world’s gravity is different, however minimally, from your own. So before we start, I want to give everyone a chance to adjust their sights.” And, I added to myself, let’s see if any of you can hit a non-threatening target at 40 yards, just so I’ll know what I’m up against.

  “I’ll set up targets in the hollow down by the river,” I continued, “and I’ll ask you to come down one at a time.” No sense letting the poorer shots get humiliated in front of the better ones—always assuming there are any better ones.

  I took a set of the most basic targets out of the cargo hold. Once I reached the hollow, I placed four of them where I wanted them, activated the anti-grav devices, and when they were gently bobbing and weaving about six feet above the ground, I called for Marx, who showed up a moment later.

  “Okay, Mr. Marx,” I said. “Have you adjusted your sights?”

  “I always take care of my weapons,” he said as if the question had been an insult.

  “Then let’s see what you can do.”

  He smiled confidently, raised his rifle, looked along the sights, pulled the trigger, and blew two targets to pieces, then repeated the procedure with his shotgun.

  “Nice shooting,” I said.

  “Thanks,” he replied with a look that said: of course I’m a crack shot. I told you so, didn’t I?

  Desmond was next. He raised his rifle to his shoulder, took careful aim, and missed, then missed three more times.

  I took the rifle, lined up the sights, and fired. The bullet went high and to the right, burying itself in a tree trunk. I adjusted the sights and took another shot. This time I hit a target dead center.

  “Okay, try it now,” I said, handing the rifle back to Desmond.

  He missed four more times. He missed sitting. He missed prone. He missed using a rest for the barrel. Then he tried the shotgun, and missed twice more before he finally nailed a target. Then, for good measure, he totally misused his laser rifle, trying to pinpoint the beam rather than sweep the area, and missed yet again. We were both relieved when his session ended.

  His wife was a little better; she hit the target on her third try with the rifle and her second with the shotgun. She swept the area with her laser rifle, wiping out all the remaining targets.