The Mantooth

ey divided the cooked meat between them. Sylviana had protested slightly, but given in when i

ntain did not mean certain death, it did mean a much harder and more treacherous life. Both Kalus a

knowledge to himself. His friend needed the companionship of her own kind, and he had made a pact

ard nothing of the mantis. Exhausted by his seasonal battle with the mating spiders, he lay unmovin

ions that had been forming in their minds. Kalus had finished with the carcass by mid-day--cutting and shaping the skin, sharpening the ribs against the rock to make bone needles--but showed no sign of inte

ath one of these as he crouched could be seen a tanned and soft-beaten loincloth, tied off with a knot at the crest of the splayed and sinewy leg closest to her. His boots were made of some furrier hide, silver-black in color, and tightly bound to his calves by crisscrossing leather thongs. He also wore thongs about his neck and wrists, a sharpened clamshell hanging from the former, the strands dangling loose in the case of the la

nd functional strength than any she had ever seen. More than once she felt her eyes trail acro

rpower her at any time was obvious, that he had not yet tried to do so of little comfort. She wondered if perhaps the presence of the wolf alone protected her. And the har

ntended first to feed and protect her, to establish his claim and earn her trust, and only then to take her, willingly, as his mate. And in his own mind at least, he had begun t

yed all preconception. His face was worried and drawn, full of very human emotion. Again she felt the presentiment

nicate. Indeed, his eyes almost pleaded for some reassuran

ople like?' He shifted positions, dr

. For what they are like, I don't know how to te

' Finally she

s. I think they are closer t

o you

k how to say it.'

Carnivore, or Great Hu

ch a name would give m

t, I think, in t

o

y do. But to me it is often ugly, and I kill only to live. Also. . there are times when I do not want to be aggressive. Like now. If th

f from going to him then and there. Why did his anguish move her so?

sy for me to speak with you and say I do not love the hunt. But he must feed and protect many others. Please believe

felt the need to know something more of his companion. Largest in his mind was the question of

garments.' The girl looked down, and realized for the first time how odd her own clothes must seem to him: the gauze top, the worn and fading denim jeans. And her hair, somewhere between blond and br

myself.' She looked across at him. 'Pleas

right. I a

as no other way but to tell him straight out.

earth. Our civilization had advance so far, that we could build or do almost anything.

that they were to protect ourselves. But really, they had no other purpose than to kill. Some of the mo

wanted it. But it happened all the same. We launched weapons that could kill millions of people from thousands of miles away, and go on killing yea

ice in the mirror wa

you had f

ings more than you know. I am not one of the

Again she h

have your sorrows and I have mine. Do not think of

t is

And living, how have you not grown old

rful, but also a strange determination to see it through. A

Maybe I should have known it, too, but try to understand. My friends and I had live

ogenic research: a way of putting people into a deep sleep, like hibernation. 'Just before the missiles starting falling..... My father took me up in his plane. We listened, horrified, to radio broa

said it was the only way. When we landed, he said that he was sorry. He had to drug me, I guess, because the next

, the alternative to which was death, would have gone to her and comforted her as best he could. As it was he felt more stir

back at him, and seeing the confus

nths. But for the Voice, and later, for Akar..... I nearly lost my mind with fear and loneliness.' She sudden

self back any longer. 'Y

y visible, he looked like some phantom sage of the darkness, at once frightening and reassuring. 'But you must no

though she tossed and turned for what seemed an et

back toward him. 'You wouldn't hurt me, w

' He added after a time, sounding cold and irritable. 'Go

er, she swallowed hard and turned away. She lay down again, a

e edge of the shaft, listening. He studied the slow, deliberate breathing of the giant insect, trying t

ng to be short with the girl, and once more felt bitterly abandoned and betrayed, though by whom he could not have said. And then came the voic

ad completely overtaken him. But still he went on. He HAD to have a weapon. The Mantis might banish them that very morning, and without it the

the emotion, he went to the girl. Touching her face with the back of his trembling hand

beside him, Sylviana took his face in her hands and tried to understand. Then she took his head tentatively to her shoulde

nxious and afraid, but infinitely close