The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C Clarke

Author:Arthur C Clarke
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

25. SCORP

He had seen Brant stripped before, when they had gone on that memorable boat-ride, but had never realized how formidably muscled the younger man was. Though Loren had always taken good care of his body, there had been little opportunity for sport or exercise since leaving Earth. Brant, however, was probably involved in some heavy physical exertion every day of his life—and it showed. Loren would have absolutely no chance against him unless he could conjure up one of the reputed martial arts of old Earth—none of which he had ever known.

The whole thing was perfectly ridiculous. There were his fellow officers grinning their stupid heads off. There was Captain Bey holding a stopwatch. And there was Mirissa with an expression that could only be described as smug.

'…two … one … zero … GO!' said the captain. Brant moved like a striking cobra. Loren tried to avoid the onslaught but discovered to his horror that he had no control over his body. Time seemed to have slowed down… His legs were made of lead and refused to obey him… He was about to lose not only Mirissa but his very manhood…

At that point, luckily, he had woken up, but the dream still bothered him. Its sources were obvious, but that did not make it any the less disturbing. He wondered if he should tell it to Mirissa.

Certainly he could never tell it to Brant, who was still perfectly friendly but whose company he now found embarrassing. Today, however, he positively welcomed it; if he was right, they were now confronted with something very much greater than their own private affairs.

He could hardly wait to see the reaction when Brant met the unexpected visitor who had arrived during the night.

The concrete-lined channel that brought seawater into the freezing plant was a hundred metres long and ended in a circular pool holding just enough water for one snowflake. Since pure ice was an indifferent building material, it was necessary to strengthen it, and the long strands of kelp from the Great Eastern Prairie made a cheap and convenient reinforcement. The frozen composite had been nicknamed icecrete and was guaranteed not to flow, glacierlike, during the weeks and months of Magellan's acceleration.

'There it is.'

Loren stood with Brant Falconer at the edge of the pool, looking down through a break in the matted raft of marine vegetation. The creature eating the kelp was built on the same general plan as a terrestrial lobster—but was more than twice the size of a man.

'Have you ever seen anything like that before?'

'No,' Brant answered fervently, 'and I'm not at all sorry. What a monster! How did you catch it?'

'We didn't. It swam—or crawled—in from the sea, along the channel. Then it found the kelp and decided to have a free lunch.'

'No wonder it has pinchers like that; those stems are really tough.'

'Well, at least it's a vegetarian.'

'I'm not sure I'd care to put that to the test.'

'I was hoping you could tell us something about it.'

'We don't know a hundredth of the creatures in the Lassan sea.

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