West of Eden

through the eye and deep into the brain behind. It shuddered once, a spasm that shook its entire body, then fell heavily. Dead before it hit the ground. Amahast had the spear pulled free even before that, had spun about and raked his gaze across the slope and the beach beyond. There were no more of the creatures nearby.
    Kerrick joined his father, standing beside him in silence as they looked down upon the corpse.
    It was a crude and disgusting parody of human form. Red blood was still seeping from the socket of the destroyed eye, while the other stared blankly up at them, its pupil a black, vertical slit. There was no nose; just flapped openings where a nose should have been. Its massive jaw had dropped open in the agony of sudden death to reveal white rows of sharp and pointed teeth.
    "What is it?" Kerrick asked, almost choking on the words.
    "I don't know. A marag of some kind. A small one, I have never seen its like before."
    "It stood, it walked, like it was human, Tanu. A marag, father, but it has hands like ours."
    "Not like ours. Count. One, two, three fingers and a thumb. No, it has only two fingers—and two thumbs."
    Amahast's lips were drawn back from his teeth as he stared down at the thing. Its legs were short and bowed, the feet flat, the toes claw-tipped. It had a stumpy tail. Now it lay curled in death, one arm beneath its body. Amahast dug at it with his toe, turned it over. More mystery, for clutched in its hand he could now see what appeared to be a length of knobbed black wood.
    "Father—the beach!" Kerrick called out.
    West of Eden - Harry Harrison
    They sought shelter under the trees and watched from concealment as the creatures emerged from the sea just below the spot where they stood.
    There were three of the murgu. Two of them very much like the one that had been killed. The third was bigger, fat and slow-moving. It lay half in and half out of the water, lolling on its back, eyes closed and limbs motionless. The other two pushed at if, rolling it further up on the sand. The large creature bubbled through its breathing flaps, then scratched its stomach with the claws on one foot, slowly and lazily. One of the smaller murgu thrashed its paws about in the air and made a sharp clacking sound.
    Anger rose up in Amahast's throat, choking him so that he gasped aloud. Hatred almost blinded him as, with no conscious volition, he hurled himself down the slope with his spear thrust out before him.
    He was upon the creatures in a moment, stabbing at the nearest one. But it had moved aside as it turned and the stone point only tore through its side, glancing off its ribs. The beast's mouth gaped and it hissed loudly as it tried to flee. Amahast's next blow struck true.
    Amahast pulled the spear free, and turned to see the other one splashing into the water, escaping.
    It threw its arms wide and fell as the small spear hurtled through the air and caught it in the back.
    "A good throw," Amahast said, making sure the thing was dead before wrenching the spear free and handing it back to Kerrick.
    Only the large marag remained. Its eyes were closed and it seemed oblivious to what was happening around it.
    Amahast's spear plunged deep into its side and it emitted an almost human groan. The creature was larded with fat and he had to stab again and again before it was still. When he was done Amahast leaned on his spear, panting heavily, looking with disgust at the slaughtered creatures, hatred still possessing him.
    "Things like these, they must be destroyed. The murgu are not like us, see their skin, scales. None of them has fur, they fear the cold, they are poison to eat. When we find them we must destroy them." He snarled out the words and Kerrick could only nod agreement, feeling the same deep and unthinking repulsion.
    "Go, get the others," Amahast said. "Quickly. See, there, on the other side of the bay, there are more of these. We must kill them all."
    A movement caught his eye and he drew back his spear thinking the creature not yet dead. It was moving its tail.
    No! The tail itself was not moving, but something was writhing obscenely beneath the skin at its base.
    There was a slit there, an opening of some kind. A pouch in the base of the beast's thick tail. With the West of Eden - Harry Harrison
    point of his spear Amahast tore it open, then struggled against the desire to retch at the sight of the pallid creatures that tumbled out onto the sand.
    Wrinkled, blind, tiny imitations of the adults. Their