Donald Moffitt - Genesis 02

separately, bridging the hinges on opposite sides.”
    The skeletal apparitions gave everybody cause to remember their childhood ghost stories in Chin-pin-yin; the word for a foreigner was, literally, a “bones-outside,” and now Bram heard people around him starting to call the Earthlings that.
    Jorv could hardly contain himself. “You see the pulsating of the abdomen? I think they breathe through their anus. I wonder what evolution gave them in place of lungs.”
    “What are they?” Ame asked.
    “I don’t know,” Jorv said. “They may have been aquatic. In that case—”
    He was interrupted by a chattering Cuddly that skidded to a stop in front of the group and climbed up the nearest person to reach the shelter of human arms. The person happened to be Ame, who petted the fluffy little beast and cooed, “There, there, nothing’s going to hurt you.” The Cuddly had ventured too close to a prowling insect-thing and had had second thoughts about approaching it.
    The insect-beings, in fact, had quite an audience of Cuddlies by this time. When the strange creatures had arrived and shucked their space suits, the couple of dozen Cuddlies that normally mooched around the chamber looking for handouts had immediately disappeared. After a while, when nothing much happened and the human beings seemed unconcerned, a few cautious little furry heads had popped up.
    Now the Cuddlies were getting bolder. One fat little creature sat up on its haunches and scolded an insect-being that had paused for a moment to survey the arena floor.
    “Isn’t that cute?” Ame said. “It wants the bones-outside to pay some attention to it.”
    “If we can’t get their attention with computer displays and polarized light, there’s not much hope for a Cuddly,” Shira said. The little beast hopped closer and chittered more loudly.
    “It’s getting awfully close to the avoidance zone.” Heln frowned. “I wonder …”
    “I think the thing’s showing some reaction,” Jao said.
    The face-legs, liberated from their box, swung idly to and fro. There was something about the stick-creature’s stance. It seemed to lower itself a few inches and become utterly still.
    Encouraged, the Cuddly made another little hop forward.
    There was a blur of motion so fast that Bram saw it only as an afterimage. The masklike face of the alien split vertically, and a long scooplike lip tipped with teeth flicked out and captured the little furry beast.
    The hinged lip, longer than a man’s arm, snapped back, bearing the ensnared Cuddly to a barbed mouth. There was a single high-pitched squeal, and then with two crunches, the Cuddly was gone. The lobes of the toothed structure folded over to become a mask again.
    The hum of human conversation in the chamber stopped abruptly. People stood frozen. Every Cuddly in sight streaked for a hiding place and disappeared. The insect-being stood preening itself with its hooked facial limbs. Its fellows paused in their rambles and turned their jelly-domed heads in its direction.
    In the stunned silence, Jorv stood with dropped jaw, breathing hard. Suddenly he exclaimed, “Odonata!” and before Bram could stop him, he stepped up to the immobilized creature for a close look at its face.
    There was another blurred movement as the creature seized Jorv with its facial limbs and bit his head off.
    A woman screamed. People came out of their trances. The creature calmly continued crunching its way through Jorv’s neck and shoulder. Jao grabbed one of the picks that the archaeologists had left lying around. Bram found a steel pry bar. Several others joined them, and they ran to recover what was left of Jorv’s body from the leggy horror that was chomping its way through it.
    It wouldn’t let go. A couple of men had Jorv’s body by the feet and were trying to pull it away. Bram grabbed the creature by one of its facial palps and tried to lever its jaws open with the pry bar. A hooked leg came up and raked him across the ribs. There was a sound of ripped cloth and a searing pain, but he held on. Jao swung his pick handle and smashed one of the bulging green eyes.
    Even then it wouldn’t let go. It rotated in injured circles, still munching, lashing out at the struggling men with its barbed legs. The long abdomen whipped around and a man screamed as its horned pincers tore at his flesh.
    Bram went berserk. He beat at the armored hide with his steel bar while Jao, grunting, labored with his pickax at the ruined jelly of