Hyena Eyes

Cayten shivered. The doorways seemed hot with some unseen light, a black bloody radiance. She fixed her mind on Genoara, calling up sweetmemories to push away the fear. She remembered his face, smiling. His voice, before it harshened. The touch of his hands on her body, before his hands grew too strong to be gentle.

Thendard looked at her, shaking his great head. "You can change your mind, Cayten. No shame in finding a bit of sense, even at this late date."

She shook her head. She tried to smile, and patted Thendard's arm. "I'm a constant sort of fool, Thendard."

He smiled back, but there was a resignation in his eyes that she found more unsettling than the doorways.

"All right, then. Crank down your skein, dear — you'll suffer less disorientation when we come out. About 70 percent of max; that'll be about right." Thendard adjusted his own skein. He seemed to melt into a new form, one with eroded gray skin and tiny, knowing eyes.

Cayten was sure he was cranked down more than 70 percent, but she was not so daring.

She took a deep breath, and tried to look on the shape of her own mind, to preserve it in perfect memory. It was a strange effort; it made her feel suddenly adrift on a sea more mysterious than she had ever guessed existed. She shook her head. Useless. "Here goes."

When her hand dropped away, she was deeper into her hindbrain than she had ever gone. Her mind contained nothing but purpose. She trotted toward the nearest tunnel, which no longer seemed so threatening. Instead, it called to her irresistibly; it sang to her of freedom from human concerns. She felt Thendard at her heels, however, and she could still take comfort from his huge, friendly presence.

That was the last wholly human thought she had before she passed into the Dark.

The lioness ran along the corridor, under the dim red lights, living the Serengeti that was not there. The unnatural tang of corroding metal stifled her. Ozone tingled her nose, and none of the smells was quite right. But some sort of prey were here, she knew, and even though she was not hungry, she took comfort and reassurance from that.

An old bull elephant staggered along at her heels, and she darted aside, wary of his huge feet. But then she remembered dimly that he was some sort of ally, as unlikely as that seemed. As she resumed her hunt, a picture formed in her mind's eyes: a human, a man with a long, narrow face and gentle eyes, whom she hated and desired. The memory was associated with a scent tag, the sly carrion stink of hyenas, which she despised. She snarled and ran faster, so that the elephant began to fall behind. The bull called to her, making meaningless sounds; she ignored him. His thin trumpeting took on an edge of desperation.

By the time she reached the first big nexus, she could barely hear him, and the thud of his feet against the steel had slowed. She put him from her mind, and concentrated on that face, the one that filled her with so many conflicting emotions. Was she hunting the thin-faced man? She could not decide. She lay down in the deep shadow beneath a dead cargo ramp, twitching with indecision and frustration.

At the exact moment when the old elephant emerged behind her, puffing and clutching at his chest, hunting dogs burst from a nearby tunnel.

The hunting dogs were smaller, more agile, and better-organized cousins of the hyenas. Even the lions feared them, when the dogs hunted in large numbers. This was a small pack, half a dozen scrawny creatures. Their ribs stood out, their skins were patchy with disease, and the alpha dog limped. The lioness relaxed. If they attacked her, she would kill as many of them as pleased her. For the moment she would do nothing; the ventilators blew their scent toward her, and they were unaware of her presence.

They saw the old elephant and barked with excitement. When they saw that he was alone, they raced across the nexus toward him, baying and snapping, bouncing with excitement.

In ordinary circumstances, in a herd of his own kind, the old elephant would have been safe. But he was alone, he was old, and he wasn't as big as a real elephant — nor were the dogs as small as real dogs. Some stripped-down version of these realities passed through the consciousness of the lioness, and she saw that the old elephant would die. If she waited a bit, she could cuff the dogs away from the carcass and dine at leisure.

As she processed this thought, an uneasiness came over the lioness, and her mind filled with the buzzing of competing impulses. Something was wrong; something bad was happening. She made a small sound of distress, as the dogs sprang on the old bull.

He put up a spirited defense, whirling, stamping, swatting at the dogs, but he was too slow. Streams of blood began to trickle down his torn legs. The lioness saw that it was only a matter of time before one of the dogs would bite deep enough to hamstring the bull, and then it would be over.