There was nothing in his memory to account for this particular sequence, and he could tell that Ornette was as mystified as he. The quilon just stood with the egg, looking about. There was nothing any of them could do.

  It occurred to him that the reason he had no memory of such an event—a fragmenting, slowly-sinking island—was that no potential ancestor had survived the experience.

  The last of the pines crashed down, tumbling over its fallen neighbors and splashing into the water. Orn thought of using it to float to safety, but realized that the quilon could not do this while carrying the egg. Without that egg, and within it the nascent memory and experience of all his ancestry and Ornette’s, there was no point in escape.

  At last the motion stopped. Their new island was separated from the larger one by the length of a full-grown brach rep, and it was only slightly greater than the length of yesterday’s croc in its diameter. They stood on its highest point: a terrace near the original site of the nest bounded by an escarpment leading into the water where the isthmus had been before; the land had actually risen slightly here. But on the opposite side the surface tilted down more gradually. Had the trees remained standing they would have been at an angle.

  Where would the ptera sleep now? They would perish in the night unless they found new roosting.

  The quilon settled down, supporting the egg on her thighs. She leaned over it, keeping it warm with her body and forelimbs. Ornette looked, but did not challenge; it was safest where it was, and this entire sequence had left her confused. It was hard to accept, this control of the egg by the mam, but it seemed to be necessary.

  How were they going to get away from here? This was no longer a suitable nesting site, yet even the short distance to the larger section of the island was dangerous for the egg. Unless the new bay were shallow . . .

  “We might build another raft. Maybe the one Veg started is around, or pieces of it.” The quilon was beginning to make sounds again, which meant she was returning to normal.

  Orn stepped into the water, testing the depth. The footing was treacherous; he slipped and took a dunking. It was too deep, and far too chancy for the awkward mam. They would have to remain here at least until the chick hatched. They could forage on the island, swimming across individually. It would be an uncomfortable existence, but was feasible.

  He sniffed. Rep, gross. Trouble!

  As he scrambled back on land, he saw it: the towering head of an elas, the great shallow-water paddler. The quilon uttered a cry: “A Plesiosaur!”

  Orn had few direct memories of this creature, because its sphere of operations seldom overlapped that of his own species. He was aware of its gradual evolution from minor landbound forms struggling to come even with the large amphibs, finally returning entirely to the sea—and then a memory-gap broken only by glimpses of the larger sizes, some with lengthening necks and others with shortening necks, until this line attained its present configuration: eight full wingspans from snout to tail, the neck making up half of that. It was primarily a fish eater, but it would consume carrion or land life if available. Orn would not care to swim while an elas was near, but had no particular awe of it while he stood on land.

  The rep came closer, its tiny head carried high. It smelled them, and it was hungry.

  “The quake shook it up. It’s crazed. It’s coming after us!”

  Orn would have preferred that the quilon not choose this moment to make her meaningless noises. Now the elas was pertain there was a meal here. Its neck was more than half the breadth of the island fragment. There was no section it could not reach from one side or the other, if it were determined. It could not leave the water, for that would destroy the mobility it required for balance—but they were vulnerable despite being on land.

  They would have to fight it off, if that were possible. The ground and sea motion must have crazed the rep, so that it was not aware that it was fishing on land instead of in water. It was not particularly bright, but was dangerous.

  The head hovered above the island, twice Orn’s height. The neck curved back from it, then forward, in the manner of a wind-twisted rush. The alert rep eye fized on Orn.

  He leaped aside as the elas struck. Like a plunging coconut the head came down, jaws gaping. The flat-flippered body lunged out of the water with the force of that thrust, and the jaws snapped within a beak-length of Orn’s tailfeathers.

  This much his memory had warned him of: the elas fed by paddling behind a fish and flinging its head forward suddenly, to grasp the prey before it could escape. Had Orn not jumped when the motion began, he would have been lost. Too quick a jump would also have been fatal, for the elas could crook its neck about in a double spiral, and small corrections were routine for it.

  But now the rep was in trouble. Used to dunking its head under the surface in the process of catching fish, it had not considered that land was different. It had bashed its snout hard against the ground. The jaws had actually snapped at the level of Orn’s body, but reflex and follow-through had carried head and neck on down. Now its neck was spread full-length on the dirt and its mouth was bleeding where its teeth had crushed against stone and earth. Yes, it was crazed; it would ordinarily have been more cautious, this near land.

  Orn whirled and struck at the exposed neck near its joining with the torso. The creature was vulnerable now but would be deadly in its rage once it got reoriented. He dug his talons into the glistening, smoothskinned column and probed with his beak for some vital or crippling spot. But the mass of flesh was too great and strange; he did not know where the key tendons were, and claws and beak were lost amidst its layer of blubber.

  Elas emitted a high-pitched squeal and hauled its neck up in a magnificent undulation. The head looped back to come at Orn from the side, and he was unable to break loose immediately because his members were mired. He was lifted helplessly into the air, dangling by both feet.

  Ornette leaped to help him. She aimed her beak at the rep’s eye, but the elas turned on her quickly and met her with wide-open mouth. She squawked once, pitifully, as the pointed teeth closed on her wing and breast; then she was carried upward.

  Orn fought loose and fell into the water a wingspan from the rep’s front flipper. He tried to attack again, but the elas was already paddling away, Ornette dangling.

  Pursuit was useless. Orn could neither catch the elas nor harm it, and Ornette was already dead.

  Orn climbed back on the island, blood-tainted and disconsolate. It was not exactly grief he felt, but a terrible regret. Ornette had died defending him, as he would have died defending her, and both defending their lone egg. Now her companionship had been severed and he was alone again.

  Except for the egg! The most important part had been salvaged.

  The quilon still warmed it. She had not moved during the struggle, and this was right. Ornette would not have attacked the elas had the egg not been secure without her protection. Nothing took precedence over that egg.

  Again the oddness came to him: stranded on an exposed island, he without his mate, the mam without hers, the two of them guarding the egg neither had laid.

  What was there to do but go on?

  Chapter 18: Veg

  VEG RECOVERED consciousness painfully. He was lying on a hard beach, his face against a wet rock, his feet in water, and he was hot. He did not know where he was or how he had come there. His head was aching, his innards soggy, and the rest of him was hardly robust.

  He sat up carefully and waited for the resultant dizziness to pass. The beach was scant, hardly more than a hesitancy between land and sea, and the land itself was brief. In fact, it was no more than a pylon of rock jutting up from the waves, with a single ledge he perched upon. Similar to the jigsaw reefs separating this section from the main ocean, really—not that that improved his position.

  He had lost his quarterstaff, but retained his knife. The quarterstaff idea hadn’t turned out very well; nobody had gotten any good use from the weapons. Well, next time he wouldn’t bother. His clothing was torn, and his neck was welted with insect bites where it had been exposed. He wished he could puke up some of the muddy water he must have swallowed—but then he would probably feel hungry.

  Strength seeped back unwillingly, and with it some spongy memories. He had fought a government agent—no, that was back on Earth, too long ago, and the man had turned out pretty decent in the end. Veg had been arrested and put into orbit with Cal and ‘Quilon and the eight, no seven mantas. Then—here to Paleo, with four mantas, and a trip on the ocean. And a bash with Brach, the arm-leg lizard ten times life-size. And a bird, and—

  He had made love to Aquilon! ‘Quilon!

  After that it became fuzzy. Her soft thighs, and Cal in trouble, and guilt and a swim and a run through the swamp and—

  And here he was, tossed on a rock by himself. No friend, no manta, no woman, no bird. Time had passed; now he had a memory of shivering in the night and fading out again.

  Why had he done it? After all this time, on three worlds—why had he taken her? It had not been a physical thing between them, only a promise. Now that promise was gone.

  Then he remembered the rest of it. Cal—they had broken with Cal! The tyrant lizard was after his friend, while Veg had been mucking about with Aquilon. Too late he had remembered his loyalty and tried to get there. On the way there had been another quake, that threw him into the water, and he had swum blindly, trying to get out of it.

  He had been lucky he had not drowned. The waves had been bad enough, and any of the great sea-animals could have gobbled him en route. Unless those swimmers were as shaken by it all as he.

  He peered over the level water. They would not be shaken now—and the tide was rising. He had perhaps another hour before his island disappeared entirely.

  Well, better get on with it. Maybe Cal was dead, and Aquilon too. But maybe they were just waiting for him to find them. He’d save his regrets for the facts.

  He faced toward land and dived in, the splash a mark of defiance. The impact of the water against his skin invigorated him, and he stroked strongly for the shore. There were scratches on his back, and the salt sting did its part to spur him along.

  Salt? He had thought this area was fresh water, from the stream and swamp. But maybe that was only when the tide was out, or in the river channel itself.

  Something moved in the ocean. A snout broke the surface—a mighty beak. Veg saw it coming toward him.

  A swimming Tricer?

  It was a huge sea-turtle, attracted by the splashing. Veg had little concern for turtles ordinarily, but this was hardly the kind he was accustomed to. It was twice as long as he was, with a heavy leathery skin instead of a true shell, and its beak was horrendous. Its two front flippers were roundly muscled paddles, propelling it rapidly forward. This was the beast that Cal had termed Archelon, when they had observed it from the raft. The only reason Veg remembered the name was its resemblance to Aquilon. Arky, he had dubbed it, and forgotten the matter; but it didn’t seem quaint or funny now. The head alone must weigh as much as Veg did!

  He treaded water, uncertain how to react. He didn’t think turtles ate people . . .

  Arky glided up, sleek and swift in its element. Veg realized that he had been foolish to judge its capabilities by those of its cousins he had observed on land. This was a mighty creature, capable of wiping him out casually. He gripped his tiny-seeming knife. Would it even pierce that skin?

  The turtle sniffed him. Veg wasn’t sure that was possible with its head under water, but it remained the best description. Then it decided he was not edible, and nudged away, its ball-room carapace brushing his legs. He felt giddy with relief—a sensation rather strange to him. Obviously he wasn’t as much recovered as he had thought. The cuts on his back smarted again.

  Arky lifted its head above the water. Veg followed its seeming glance—and spied a ripple coming in from the open sea. It was another creature.

  And—he saw the disk of a manta, also coming toward him. That was immensely reassuring. Hex, probably, on the lookout for the lost party. Now he could get in touch again, and find the others.

  Provided they still lived. That quake had been rough.

  Hex arrived before the sea creature, but not by much. The turtle floated just under the surface, twenty feet away, facing the swimming newcomer. Veg, now assured of his safety, stroked once more for shore.

  He heard the thing come up behind him, splashing softly, and had to look. It was a mosasaur—the most vicious reptile of the sea. Thirty feet long, the torso highly flexible, the tail splayed vertically and quite powerful enough, and four paddle-shaped limbs. The head was narrow, the nose pointed, but the jaws were lined with ample sharp recurved teeth. A kind of crest or ridge commenced at the neck and trailed ail the way back into the tail, and this waved ominously just above the water as the creature swam. It was as though the worst features of crocodile, turtle and shark had been combined and magnified—and Veg was frankly terrified.

  Suddenly Hex’s protection seemed scarcely sufficient. Mosa was too big, too ugly—and most of its body was shielded by water. It could come at him from below, and the manta would be unable to strike.

  Mosa circled both him and the turtle, as though considering which one to attack first. Arky, fully alert to the danger, rotated in place, always facing the predator lizard. Evidently the turtle did not trust its armor to withstand Mosa’s teeth, though possibly it was only the turtle-flippers, that could not be withdrawn into the body, that it was concerned about. If Arky were worried, how should Veg feel?

  The shore was far too far away; he could never make it now. The diminishing rock he had nighted on was still fairly close, thanks to his dawdling—but he couldn’t get there either while Mosa was watching.

  Hex paced above the water, making a tight circle inside that of the mosasaur. The reptile was aware of the manta, but not particularly concerned. Probably it thought Hex was a pterodactyl, waiting for the remnants.

  Veg was pretty sure Mosa would decide on the warm, unarmored appetizer: himself. Then, invigorated by the morsel, it could tackle the tougher turtle at leisure. No particular genius was required to select the easy prey.

  Mosa decided. It angled smoothly in toward Veg.

  Hex struck out the exposed eye.

  The reptile didn’t seem to realize what had happened, immediately. It continued its charge, drifting in the direction favored by the remaining eye, its teeth snapping.

  Veg started to swim for the rock. Mosa spotted the motion and came at him again, jaws wide. By accident or design, its good eye was under the water, safe from Hex’s lash.

  Veg had an inspiration. He launched himself at the big turtle.

  Mosa sheered off, momentarily confused by the combination of objects: two together in the water, a third in the air. Veg remembered something Cal had said once, about animals becoming confused by more than two objects; they could not count. Arky was also confused, unable to concentrate on Veg while the dangerous lizard was so close behind. It was also annoyed by the manta.

  Veg bypassed the beak and touched the smooth hull. It might not look like a turtleshell, but it seemed rock-hard. He got behind it and stayed close. There wasn’t anything much to hang on to. Mosa made a feint, and Arky forgot about Veg as it braced against the greater menace. Hex continued to pace the surface. It was an impasse of a kind.

  Mosa circled, adapting to its limited vision. It had no intention of giving up the chase; in fact, the taste of its own blood might well be stimulating it to some berserker effort. And it seemed to Veg that Mosa did have the physical wherewithal to prevail, for it outmassed man, manta and turtle combined and was fully adapted to combat in the ocean. Even completely blind (Hex might yet get the other eye) it could probably sniff him out and finish him off. Arky was only a temporary cover; once the turtle decided to depart, Mosa would pounce on the mouthful remaining, shrugging off the superficial lacerations Hex might inflict.

  It was death in the making for him. A kind of checkmate demise, as one piece after another was nullified, but inevitable. Somehow the end no longer frightened him the way he thought it should. Had there been an element of chance about it, he might have been eager and nervous. As it was—

  Chance struck. A fleet of sharks converged on the scene, slim sleek missiles of appetite. In a moment Mosa, the wounded one, was the center of attention.

  Suddenly Veg understood what had happened. He had dived off his rock, originally, making a splash that attracted the turtle. But meanwhile his scratched-up back had been bleeding into the water, and Mosa had smelled it. Then the commotion and Mosa’s own injury had alerted the sharks . . .

  Chance? Maybe less than he had supposed.

  But very soon those killer-fish would come after him.

  Mosa was now in a fight for its life. No single shark approached the reptile in size, but there were as many as a score of them, some as long as fifteen feet, all maddened by the blood. Already they had torn great gashes in Mosa’s hide. Several of their own number were dead, for Mosa as an individual was more savage than they—but now the checkmate had been reversed.

  Arky, no dumb bunny, took this opportunity to dive for safer territory. Its mighty flippers clove the water, creating a turbulence that jounced Veg around and towed him under. Then the turtle was gone, moving more rapidly than he could follow.

  Veg struck for the rock. Two sharks detached themselves from the main platoon as though central command had allocated them, and cruised after him. Hex sliced up their projecting fins and set them to fighting one another. This diversion was sufficient. He made it to safety.

  Ankle deep, he stood on his isle and wondered what he would do when the tide made him available to the sharks again. Hex could not divert them indefinitely. Veg could not expect luck to save him again. He was not, in sober analysis, one of those herotypes who won out no matter what the odds against success. He felt empty without Cal, and deep remorse for the split that had overtaken them. It hadn’t really been Aquilon’s fault, either; she hadn’t meant to make trouble like that.