‘Anything intelligent here?’ Idris asked faintly.
‘Official answer?’ Robellin queried. ‘Fuck knows, mate.’
There were six others in the car besides Solace, Idris and Kris – their guide Yon Robellin, four new dig staff and an academic. They’d started out around midday and had driven through the night, then all the following day, before they set up a camp. The day after that, back on the trail, a thing like a tree had hoisted a junior archaeologist out of the car. Kris and a couple of others hung on to the victim’s legs in a grim tug of war, while Robellin went for the attacker with a chainsaw. Eventually, Solace scythed down seven entire trees with Mr Punch. Presumably one of these had been the perpetrator. It felt like an identity parade gone horribly wrong, but at least their archaeologist was recovered intact.
‘That,’ Robellin reflected later, ‘is just bloody typical of this place. Whole new way of fucking you over since I was last out here.’
‘They learn?’ Solace asked. ‘The creatures here? From the human presence on the planet?’
‘Sure wish they didn’t but yes – learn and evolve,’ was his response. ‘Give ’em another ten years, they’ll be turning up wearing clothes and speaking Colvul. And then eating people because they’ll still be the same nasty fuckers.’
The next time they stopped to sleep, Solace got to see a groppler – not a specific species, Robellin said, but a predatory shape the locals took on. It came right into camp and, though it wasn’t dressed or making conversation, its apparent arrogance seemed to fit with the biologist’s gloomy predictions. One moment they were bedding down and setting out the proximity alarms. The next moment, this thing, half the size of the vehicle itself, had just sauntered into their midst. It was three metres tall and walked on two columnar legs, ending in thorned pads with jagged clutches of talons. Most of the front of it was mouth, easily big enough to slurp up any one of them, and it had a dozen tentacles like a beard reaching to the ground, all of them lined with vicious hooks. Its hide was a mottled blue-white that interacted weirdly with the yellow and azure foliage around it, making it leap out one moment, blend in the next. On either side of the mouth there were big circular organs, probably not actually eyes.
‘Fuck,’ said Robellin. He had his beanbag gun to hand, but the thing was right there in the middle of them, an invitation for friendly-fire accidents.
A gurgling rumble came from the creature’s innards. Its body language now spoke of someone who’d stepped into a neighbour’s hotel room by mistake, almost abashed. Then Idris shifted and something about his furtive, prey-like movement caught the groppler’s attention.
‘Idris,’ Solace cautioned. ‘You stay very still now.’
Idris was staring into that cavernous mouth. The tentacles swayed on a non-existent breeze, tasting the air.
‘Any hot takes from the biology department?’ Kris hissed.
Robellin’s eyes were narrowed. ‘Fuckers’ve never done this before, far as I know.’ He had his weapon levelled but seemed reluctant to shoot. ‘If I sting it and it goes on a rampage, that’ll go bloody badly for us, I can tell you.’
Solace brought her accelerator to her shoulder. ‘I am going to cut this creature in half now.’
‘Hold,’ said Idris hoarsely. He was staring at the groppler, and although it didn’t seem to have anything to stare back at him with, its attention was increasingly fixed on him.
‘Mate, I’d move back now if I were you,’ Robellin advised Idris lightly.
‘Hold,’ he said again. His narrow face had lost all expression and Solace had a sudden chilling flashback. Seen this before. She almost pulled the trigger then and there, out of sheer reflex. Berlenhof, the Ints trying to reach the Architects with their minds. Idris with his face utterly slack, nobody home because his mind was out there flying across the face of a moon-sized alien intelligence.
Everyone was very silent now, watching the Intermediary face the monster. The groppler stamped again, and its tentacles knotted and twitched as though it was wringing its hands in embarrassment. Solace half expected Idris to reach out a hand and touch the monster’s sagging skin, tame the thing, arrive at the dig riding a groppler in fulfilment of some bizarre local prophecy.
‘Mate, seriously,’ Robellin whispered. ‘I don’t know what you’re about but that bastard will fucking eat you and crap out the bits it can’t digest.’
‘There’s something . . . Oh. Hell.’ Idris sat down suddenly. It seemed to surprise the groppler as much as anyone, because it took a skittish step away from him. ‘You . . . ever get Ints here, Menheer Robellin?’