All These Worlds

The pigoid erupted from its lair with an angry squeal. It displayed startling speed for something with such short legs. The two rock-throwers sprinted to the side, fur erect along their spines and ears sticking straight out in excitement. The rest of us set the butts of our spears into the ground and braced them with a foot. And waited. This time, I wasn't an observer. If I had been nervous before, I was terrified now. I could feel the fur standing up along my spine and all the way up to the top of my head. I kept telling myself that I was actually ten thousand miles away, in orbit. Didn't help. My eyes told me the pigoid was ten meters away, charging at me at what appeared to be about half light speed. Then the animal ran into the spear points. Still not breeding for intelligence, apparently. The spears bowed, but held, and the animal slammed to the ground with a final squawk. Bernie sidled up to it and poked it in the face a few times. Getting no response, he waved his spear in the air and yelled, The rest of us raised a fist and responded, Well, that's how the translation routine handled it. Delton's speech sounded more like pigs, loudly wallowing, but the software converted everything to human equivalents for me, including names and colloquialisms. Donald slapped me on the shoulder. Come on, Robert. Help me string it up. I tied the back legs of the pigoid while Donald tossed the other end of the rope over a tree branch. He looked down to check my work before starting to haul and did a double-take. Whoa, that looks like one of Archimedes's weird knots. Where'd you learn that? Oops. Uh, from Archimedes, of course. He's got hands and hands of different knots. I've picked up a few. Donald nodded, only mildly interested. We hold on the rope until the pigoid was suspended. I made sure to use only normal Delton-level strength and let Donald do most of the work. Then he drew a flint knife and bled the animal. The other hunters started the giving-thanks chant. When it was done, we trussed the carcass onto a couple of spears and started back to Camelot. There would be a feast tonight, and I loved barbecued pigoid. Still no barbecue sauce, though. I wondered idly if I should invent some. We were singing a victory chant, and I guess our guard was down, so the group of Deltons that stepped into the path in front of us took us completely by surprise. We came to a ragged halt as they tilted their spears in our direction. It wasn't quite a threat, more like the promise of one. I heard a rustling behind me and realized that we'd been surrounded. I took a quick look around. The other party outnumbered us by two. Not insurmountable, but definitely a concern. Very likely they were depending on getting the drop on us and us not being able to organize a defense. There had been reports of groups from Caerleon bushwhacking hunting parties and taking all or part of their kills. It appeared we were the target du jour. The spokesman for the group, I recognized him as an unpleasant character from Caerleon whose name translated as Fred, gave us an evil smile. Nice catch, Donald. You've got a lot of pigoid there. I doubt you'd miss a haunch or two. Donald, unintimidated, raised his spear to readiness. There are lots of pigoids out there, Fred. What's the matter, not having any luck? Fred reflexively started to take a step back, then caught himself. Donald wasn't quite as big as his father, but that still left a lot of room for big. People rarely challenged him directly. Unfortunately for me, I was standing up front with Donald, and I had designed my android to be as nondescript as possible. Average height, average build, average looks. Joe forgettable, pretty much. So no surprise that Fred decided to use me as an example. He looked at me. So what about you, cutsy? You think you'd like to share the wealth? He looked at his friends, smiling. They returned the expressions and moved in.