Read Online An Accidental Alliance by Jonathan Edward Feinstein - Free Book Online Page A

to time. I’m bringing the binoculars for that too.”
          “You don’t want to hunt in the dark do you?” Iris asked.
          “It’s not unheard of,” Park replied. “But that wasn’t my intention. Let’s just see how many animals we can spot. We didn’t see any from the chopper at all.”
          From the top of the river bank they were able to see several dozen animals on the grassy plane. “Look over there,” Iris whispered to Park. Do you think that’s a hunting pack or just a family group of things like the one we saw earlier?”
          “Hard to say,” Park whispered back. “My guess is they’re predators, though. They’re just sitting there like a pride of lions… rather small lions… as though waiting for something. I think herbivores, if not diurnal altogether, would be busy eating. These critters are acting like they’re waiting to see or smell out their prey before making a move.”
          “That second creature,” Iris replied, “the one that caught the one we saw. It seemed to be waiting too. Then when the first one came too close it pounced.”
          “That’s how it looked to me,” Park agreed. “I imagine there are a number of different predators and prey out here. This seems like a fairly good environment to me, though I wonder why we haven’t seen any megafauna, or at least something large enough to see over the grass.”
          “Maybe evolution has adapted life for smallness for some reason,” Iris remarked.
          “That most often happens when there’s a scarcity of food,” Park replied. “With three-foot tall grass, I would expect some larger herbivores. Something analogous to bison, perhaps. Well, maybe they’ve gone north for the summer or west for the dry season, although with this river it seem to me life should team near its banks.”
          “Um,” Iris interrupted him. “Funny you should mention that. I see a fair number of things coming slowly toward us. I’m fairly sure it’s just the river they want but…”
          “But we should get back to the boat,” Park finished for her. “We can see the pretty animals from there and we left the camera there anyway. At least we’ll finally get a good look at them.”
          They used the oars to quietly push off from the shore and reset the anchor in the middle of the river’s channel. The river was only a little over fifty feet wide and still somewhat shallow in many places, but it was the best they could do. “Anything could probably swim or walk out here,” Park noted, “and if this world has something equivalent to elephants, we may have visitors, but for now, let’s just watch and wait.”
          “Shouldn’t we be calling back to base?” Iris asked.
          “Let’s get a look at the neighbors first,” Park replied.
          Through the night-vision scope and binoculars they got a good look at the creatures that came down to the river to drink. The first to arrive were a group of round-headed creatures that reminded Park of pigs, but without any snouts. Even with the night-vision on Park and Iris could see the odd, plate-like skin on the animals. Iris found the camera and started snapping pictures. With the time to study them, it was obvious that the plates overlapped slightly, but had more flexible skin holding them together. The result was an incredibly tough skin that afforded the creature that wore it complete flexibility as well as protection. These were obviously grazers to Park’s eye, though, and he wondered what the carnivores looked like. He did not have long to wait.
          After a few minutes, the round-headed grazers looked up from the water nervously and started walking briskly downstream. A moment later a somewhat larger animal with the same hairless, plated skin walked confidently to the edge of the river. Park and Iris estimated this one was somewhat larger than a man although it only stood two feet