Chap. 379 The Carcass

Chap. 379 The Carcass

“Whew,” Raylan said, grateful to be out of the stable and in the cold fresh air.

“Are you okay?” K’ndar asked. Siskin circled over his head, then landed on his shoulder.

“Well, now, with a walk and the fresh air, yes,” the man said, “I’ve never felt so odd. First the Wanderers spoke of dismembering Yvanna and then the healer brings out the knives to do it with! Then talking about sticking needles in the horse’s eye? Ish. My stomach flipped.”

K’ndar bit his tongue to keep from laughing. He is my boss, after all, and he is also being honest rather than blowharding his way out of embarrassment.

“I’ve had to cut up horses and other animals, so I’m fairly used to the gore, but it’s okay, boss. I really didn’t want to stand around watching the healer work. I want you to see the beast I brought in. And hold onto your stomach, because it’s fairly,um, ripe.”

Siskin sent him images of the carcass, but K’ndar didn’t need them to see that the scavengers had found it. A cloud of them swirled over the spot where he’d dropped the carcass.

“Looks like the cleanup crew has found it,” he said.

“Oh, no, let’s hurry, I want to see who I need to delegate deconstructing it, I don’t want it eaten to the bone before then,” Raylan said. “What did you call it?

K’ndar obliged by picking up the pace. “A speartooth. That’s what the Westerners call it. And it fits, wait until you see the spears. Don’t worry about the scavengers, it’s all wrapped up, they can only get to a few spots on the carcass.”

“Wrapped up?”

“The only reason I was able to bring it in one piece it’s because it’s completely wrapped in a fishing net.”

“Did someone wrap it for you?”

He shook his head, a bit saddened. “I wish! No, we found it like this. The poor thing got caught in it, somehow, while swimming, maybe? and drowned.”

“Have you ever seen one before?”

“No. It’s completely new to me, which is why I was delighted to find an entire carcass. I was just hoping to find a skull. Instead I got the whole thing.”

Raylan began to plan aloud. “Let’s see, I’ll get the artists out here to draw it, and the data folks to do all the measuring. Nangela, our anatomist, has been training a group of students, she’ll want to set them to work on it. We”ll want DNA samples, of course, blood if it can be found, Jansen will want photos, drawings and eventually, she’ll want the skeleton, after the insects and crawlers have cleaned it.”

“The last will take a while, if my experience at finding dead things on the steppe is any indication,” K’ndar said.

“Aye, but it’s here, we have lots of time. We…whew, what is that stench? That’s not the speartooth, is it?”

The wind had changed for a few moments, bringing the smell of the speartooth into their faces.

“It IS. And look, there’s more and more scavengers coming in.”

Raylan slowed. “Oh, shaff, if it’s that powerful at this distance, we’ll need masks.”

“And coveralls and gloves. It’s messy, slimy and squishy. I fell atop it when I was trying to disengage Raventh’s talons and I’m going to have to clean my jacket, pants and gloves.”

I just hope I CAN clean it off the jacket, leather doesn’t take kindly to a lot of water, he thought.

The wind changed back to the prevailing direction. “I purposefully dropped it as far downwind of the compost piles as I could. It was COLD at Western, I don’t know how bad the smell will be in our relatively warmer temperatures. If you stay upwind, it shouldn’t be too bad.”

“I hope not,” Raylan said, “I just hope once the teams get to it that I don’t have a revolt on my hands.”

The scavengers rose up in angry clouds as they approached it. When they realized the humans weren’t going to leave, the mass of them flew to a nearby volcanic outcrop to wait.

Siskin cowered on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure if the scavengers would attack him, and he didn’t want to try.

Send him to me. I’ll watch over him Raventh said.

“Siskin, go to Raventh. I’ll make sure the scavengers don’t follow you.”

The blue fire lizard chittered, then launched and immediately went between.

The scavengers got here so quickly, K’ndar thought, I count thirty of the small avian ones, ten of the small wherries and one giant wherry. It’s astonishing that you won’t see a one, then suddenly there’s fifty of them.

Raylan stopped, shocked. “What in the world, what’s that all over it. Feathers? On a sea creature? Or is it not a sea creature?”

“It’s a sea creature. That stuff is the fish net. I was lucky, there was no way on Pern I would have been able to bring the whole thing here with just my cargo straps. It’s too big and too heavy.”

“Raventh had no problems transporting it?”

“He did. He had to lift rather than launch with it, and afterwards said it was heavier than he expected. But he’ll be okay, he’s not hurt.”

“That’s good.”

“Before we transported it, Raventh turned it over to see if the net was all the way around. We had to hurry, the tide was coming in. I knew that once the sea lifted it, it would be taken back out to sea and lost forever. So it’s a triple bit of good luck: finding it, already wrapped so that we could transport it and the netting keeping most of it unreachable by the scavengers.”

“But bad luck for the beast.”

“Yes. Poor thing, that’s not an easy way to die.”

“You weren’t kidding, that thing smells pretty bad,” Raylan said, but his voice held a note of awe. “Just look at that beast. It’s huge.”

“Yes,” K’ndar said, proud of his accomplishment, “The westerner said they can get to be seven hundred kilos. “

Raylan pulled out his datalink and typed on it. “I’m sending this to Nangela. And Data, they’ll want to see this thing, too. Nangela will be wanting to plan. My word, look at those spears. Amazing.”

“From what the Westerner told me, only the males-he called them bulls-have the spears, and they fight for beach space and females. He said they can withstand incredible damage before dying. He said, “the spear holes can be as deep as your forearm and they survive.”

Raylan whistled in appreciation. He wanted to run his hands over the spears, but hesitated. K’ndar saw it. “I think the spears are safe to touch, the sea washed them clean and there’s no netting on them. But I’d be very careful touching anything else with my bare skin. Who knows what sort of bacterial nasties are in it.”

“Any warmer, and I’d bet on it. AS it is, it’s too cold yet for insects. Or crawlers,” Raylan said. Gingerly, he touched the spears. They’re solid bone, he thought. They had a smooth texture that invited a caress. But the spears were also studded with dents, as if someone had taken a hammer to the spear. “Look, you can see dents in the bone,” he said, “Their fights must be stupendous.”

He backed up to take in the whole beast. “This is amazing. Simply amazing. Thank you K’ndar, I think I’ll find a bonus for you if Finance will listen.”

Oooh, K’ndar thought, that would be very nice. A bonus!

His datalink called. “Yes, Jansen, please. Come here below the stables, bring your camera and three masks-one for yourself and two masks, for me and K’ndar.”

_____________________________________________________________

The masks helped. A lot.

“Good grief, K’ndar, must you always be bringing in smelly puzzles?” Jansen said, trying to sound serious. It came out muffled.

K’ndar laughed. “I’ll have you know it’s not easy finding stinky ones. I turned down at least ten of them before I picked this one,”

“My arse,” she said, punching him in the arm. She resumed taking pictures from several angles, taking care to stay upwind. “This will look incredible, the skeleton, I mean. I know just where to site it outside my museum.”

Many more people than Raylan had contacted showed up.

“K’ndar! When I heard you’d brought in a new mystery, I just HAD to come and see it.”

“I ran out of my office to see it. Look at this beast! What IS it?”

“Me, too. I still can’t figure out what the jaw your fisher friends dredged up came from,” said another. *

“Well, Nangela’s crew is going to need some help,” said a man, “I’ve cut up plenty of beasts in my time, let me help.”

“Me, too. I’ll get my coveralls. This beats working with chemicals,” a chemist said. “Still stinky, just a different sort.”

“And it won’t explode,” said his apprentice.

They laughed.

“I’d be glad of any help you can provide, thank you,” Nangela said. “My crew will be here shortly. “

Everyone remarked on the smell, but then wanted to know everything K’ndar could relate about it’s life style, how he’d found it and transported it.

These are true scientists, K’ndar thought. It stinks but, just like me, they’re willing to accept that because of what a find it is. And in six months time, with insects and weather, it will be a lot easier to work with. Once they get all the meat off, that is.

No, maybe not said Raventh.

What do you mean?

When I launched from the dragon lake, I could see several whers, coming from different directions but all heading here. They’re downwind of the speartooth, they can smell from a long way away. They usually avoid Landing, but this is too big a carcass for them to ignore. They’ll probably wait until after sundown to feed on it.

K’ndar slapped his head. Raventh’s right. How could I forget the whers? They’re the sanitation engineers of the planet. When a cow dies on the steppe, she’s a skeleton by the next day.

Nangela, the chief anatomist, began to tick off the process on her fingers.

“We’ll cut off the top layer of muscle, work our way inward. I’ll want to harvest as many of the organs as possible.”

“They’re probably fairly decomposed,” one said.

“Aye. But a decomposed one is better than none,” she said.

“And I’ll want to get pictures of each step,” Jansen said.

“First we need to get the netting off, then the skin,” said another, “and it looks slimy.”

“It IS,” K’ndar said, ruefully, “I fell onto it when I was hooking Raventh’s talons in it.”

The man pulled his dagger and tested a strand of the netting. “Phew, even with the mask, it’s going to be smelly work. But this netting’s almost rotted through. It shouldn’t be too hard to cut off.” He looked at his gloved hand. “My word, but these gloves won’t be usable after this.”

“I’m hoping the netting kept the skin from getting as slimy. Maybe the netting protected it.”

The man dug a finger underneath the netting. “I believe you’re right. There’s decomposition, but no slime. The slime is from the rope itself.”

“The Westerner I spoke to said the skin’s a hand’s length thick,” K’ndar said.

“Whoa,” Raylan said.

“What’ll we do with all the meat? I mean, after we figure out the muscles?”

“Maybe have a steak or two for dinner?” someone snarked.

The entire group all groaned. “You first, mate,” another shouted.

“Ay, mate, the scavengers’ll be more than happy to clean it up.”

“Maybe not. They eat dead meat, not carrion, and in a weeks time that is what this will be.”

“I dunno, there’s a lot of them, just waiting for us to leave. They can clean up a carcass fairly quickly.”

“Well, we do have the rest of winter to work it apart. It’ll stay cool for another month.”

“Um, no we don’t,” K’ndar said. “If we’re lucky and the weather holds, we have today.”

“Today? Like, just today?”

“Um? What? Why?”

None of them grew up on the steppe, he realized.

“Whers. Sure as sunrise, this thing will pull them in like a magnet. They’re down wind and several are headed this way already. My dragon saw them coming. They’ll have this thing down to bones by morning.”

“Shite,” Nangela said. This puts a deadline on it, I hate deadlines. But it can’t be helped. We’ll harvest as much as we can, she thought.

“We have whers here?” someone said, his voice quavering just a little. He had a distinct Northern accent.

“Don’t they have whers up north?”

“They’re almost extinct on Northern. Holders, Weyrs, cotholders, everyone, really, collected their eggs for over two thousand years to use them as watch whers. Wher lay two eggs, seldom more than that. People hatched out their eggs but never let the adult whers out to reproduce. Instead of letting them mate, when a watch wher died, people just went out and got more eggs. And, of course, whers got a reputation for being vicious, but I’d be vicious, too, if I were snatched out of my home, fed rotgut and chained up in a cave for the rest of my life.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard of a watch wher in years. Everyone uses fire lizards now.”

“And good thing, I agree. Whers got a dirty deal done to them. Fire lizards and the Charter may have saved the Northern population, but I don’t think Northern’s Holders want the whers to start recovering their population. The Charter forbids killing them, but I bet my boots plenty of farmers and stock men will kill them on the sly. You know how it is. Shoot, shovel and shut up.”

I need to study them, K’ndar thought. I didn’t know they only laid two eggs.

“They’re fearful of us, but they do come out after we’ve all gone into our quarters for the night,” he said.

“And I’ve been running after dark all this time.”

“They won’t hurt you. I promise,” K’ndar said. “They’re scavengers. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of one killing a human.”

“I forgot about whers. Shards, you’re right, K’ndar. We need to start working on it NOW.” Nangela pulled her datalink. “It’s all hands on deck for my crew of students,” she said. “Raylan, sir, I hope you don’t mind if I pull all my work study kids out of school for the day?”

“Nangela, I’m sure Education’s Chief won’t kick. Knowing him, he might just bring in another class as a field trip. For that matter, I’ll help, too. I’ll have my wife bring my muck boots and a coverall,” Raylan said. He typed on his datalink and hit send.

He restored his datalink to a pocket and was about to say something when his datalink buzzed. The message was short and blunt.

“Absolutely NOT,” was all Francie wrote in Shouting font.

With a little bit of relief, he turned to Nangela. “Okayyyyyy, the boss says no.”

Nangela knew immediately ‘the boss’ wasn’t Landing’s Chief of Operations. She laughed. “I don’t blame her. I don’t need you, Raylan, I really don’t. In fact, I don’t need K’ndar, either. You’ll just get in the way.”

“Thank you,” K’ndar said, relieved. I really didn’t relish spending any more time than I already have on it.

Nangela stepped aside to talk to her second, on her datalink. “We’ll need the pony cart with as many buckets as can be found, for the organs. The size of this thing, I bet that heart’s twice the size of a dragon’s. Have one of the kids drive it down here. I need those big long bladed knives, the ones stuffed way back in the storage building? No one remembers what “flensing” means, but whatever use the Ancients had for them, they should work just fine today. Oh, bring a a come-along, a couple of grappling hooks and bone saws. Don’t forget the bone saws.”

“Don’t cut up the bones!” Raylan protested.

Nangela waved off his protests with her free hand. “Just in case I have to, boss, but this isn’t my first cutting up a beast. Just the biggest one. I know how important it is, I’ll be labeling and indexing every bit of this thing.”

“They must have had some big beasts like this on Terra,” the datalink responded. “These blades are long. Where will we take the buckets once they’re filled?”

“We’ll load as many of the organs as we can, and put them in the specimen freezer for the moment.”

“Oh, my, that’s going to take up a lot of room. It’s almost full now.”

“Will you have it at your desk, then? Your choice, ma’am, in the freezer or at your feet.”

There was a very pregnant pause.

“I choose the freezer,” the datalink said.

K’ndar bit his tongue to keep from laughing.

A dozen students, almost all of them in their late teens, came trotting to the carcass. Just behind them an older woman, Nangela’s second carried a pair of bone saws. They were all wearing coveralls and boots, and carried masks. Several carried long handled knives, the blades at least a forearm long. They all had the air of experience in cutting up animals. But they, to a girl or boy, stopped in utter amazement at the speartooth.

“Oh, PEEYOU,” one cried, and donned her mask immediately.

“Sissy,” another girl teased, but she didn’t waste time putting hers on.

“Where’s the pony cart?”

“Coming. The pony didn’t want to work. The stable girl caught him, they’ll be here in a few minutes. We threw the buckets in it, there’s about eight.”

“Good. Good,” Nangela said. “Now listen. This is a speartooth. K’ndar, our brown dragonriding biologist, brought it in for US to take apart!

The woman who’d answered the datalink looked at K’ndar. “How do I thank you.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Um..”

Her expression softened. “It’s okay, K’ndar. If I hadn’t liked this sort of work, I’d have never signed up for it.”

Nangela called her people to attention. “Now listen. We have this afternoon to do this. I’m going to assign tasks, and let’s get to it.” She began to point. “You, I want you to do measurements. Second, will you please keep track of what comes off when and where from.”

“Yes’m.”

“You, lad, I’ve seen your finesse with a skinning knife, it’s very precise and workmanlike. Will you start skinning as soon as it’s exposed?”

The lad looked at it critically. “I’ll start at the head, I want to see what the skull looks like and it’s probably going to take a while. Everything else will probably go a little faster.”

“You, I don’t think they’ll need more help, but please, help those volunteers remove the netting. It appears fairly rotten, but keep the come-along handy, it may be needed.”

“But,” the girl said, wondering if maybe she’d rather be a weaver than a scientist. The beast looked worse than the smell.

“But? I was going to give you a test this afternoon. Which would you prefer? Doing Anatomy out here on this lovely day and I’ll forget I had a test planned? Or shall we all return to class, where you will have to diagram the entire cycle of cell respiration in a saurian?”

“Don’t you dare,” growled one of her classmates, “I still don’t get that stuff.”

The moaner was silent for a moment, then resignedly put out her hand. “Give me a grappling hook,” she said.

“I’ll help you,” Nangela said. She gasped as the wind pushed a puff of stench pass the filters in her mask.

“Oh, my word, my partner is going to make me sleep outside tonight.”

“If not all week,” Jansen said.

Within half an hour, the creature had been cleared of the netting atop the carcass and was being dismembered far more quickly than he imagined. K’ndar was in awe, watching it all. The students worked as a well trained team, their voices, muffled by their masks, were a mix of curses, laughs, jokes, and exclamations of amazement.

The woman who’d brought the pony cart stopped to take a break from loading the cart with full buckets.

“Sheesh, K’ndar, couldn’t you have brought one a little bit fresher?”

“Sorry, ma’am, but my dragon can only carry one at a time,” K’ndar said, laughing.

K’ndar noticed one man by himself, staying out of the way of the crews working on the carcass. He took samples of the skin, the meat, and cartilage as scraps came off the animal. As he watched, the man pulled what appeared to be a planer to scrape the spears.

“Don’t damage the spears,” Raylan cried, “You can get a sample of bone later.”

The man paused, then nodded without a word. His mask dangled beneath his chin, seemingly unperturbed by the smell.

He looks familiar, K’ndar thought, but I can’t remember his name.

“I feel a little guilty that I’m not in there helping,” he said to Jansen.

“K’ndar, these people are the experts, these students have already cut up dead cows and giant wherries, they even got permission to dissect a dolphin who’d died of old age, and they did that in water up to their chests and a handful of dolphins watching every single move. Don’t worry about not helping out,” Jansen had said. “You did your part just bringing it in.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Did you get enough photos?”

“I’m still shooting, as the layers come off. They’re working fast, too. I bet your whers won’t have too much to eat.”

“There’s plenty of meat left on the lower portions, I’m sure they’ll roll the carcass over to get at it. The skeleton, though, the scavengers will clean the big chunks off tomorrow. By the way, who is that man taking samples, by himself?”

Jansen looked at him in surprise.

“You don’t recognize him?”

“Uh uh. Is he new?”

“No, no,” she said, laughing. “That’s Miklos.”

“WHAT?”

“Let’s back up, so I can take this mask off.”

He followed her to a distance. He was happy to unmask.

“That’s Miklos? Stinky Miklos the DNA expert?” he said, softly.

Jansen laughed. “Aye. Remember the conference, where we all had to show up for a headcount? And Miklos opened the roof to the rain?”

“I do.”

“Right after that, Grafton had a ‘little chat’ with both Howel and Miklos.”

“Yeah, Howel. What a pompous, useless jerk. I’ve not seen him in Ops for a while. But I have been pretty much out in the field the last month. Or is it two?”

“That’s because Raylan sacked him two days later. Not a soul misses him. Risal and her apprentice took the reins and haven’t looked back. Flight Ops runs smooth as glass now.”

“She is good,” K’ndar agreed. “So then what happened?”

“The next day, Grafton came to Main to talk to Miklos.

Now I don’t know what he said, I didn’t eavesdrop, but you know how Grafton gets right to the point. He must have said, Miklos, I have four words for you. Clean up or clear out.”

“That’s five words,” he teased, surprised that he could do the math that fast.

“K’ndar! Don’t be a brat. It hadn’t mattered how politely Raylan tried to get Miklos to bathe. He’d say, Miklos, you have to wash your hair, brush your teeth, they’re green! You’re always late, and you’ve been told to not eat next to your computer, and there’s always your half eaten lunch rotting away next to it!

Miklos would nod acknowledgment but that was as far as he went.

It infuriated Raylan, but he doesn’t have the mean in him necessary to bring someone like Miklos to heel. The only reason he’s been kept on, as you know is that he’s an utter genius with DNA. He’s vitally necessary for our research, and he knew it. He played Raylan, he played all of us. But at the conference? Miklos had, probably unintentionally, but definitely did embarrass Raylan in front of all of Landing. So he decided to sack Miklos, despite how valuable he is to Landing. He’d already cleared it with the Chief, and the Council.

He had me type up the justification, but just before I pushed it up to Council, Grafton came in to have a meeting with Raylan. He IS Landing’s Headman, after all. He agreed that Howel was a lost cause, but he came, mostly, to have a chat with Miklos.

Raylan agreed, and said, if you can’t get him to clean up, no one can, and I’ll send him packing. Grafton smiled-you know what THAT looks like, it says, “here, hold my wineglass and watch this.”

So he went into Miklos’s office, ran everyone else out, for which they were grateful, had the door closed for maybe ten minutes, then came back out with that same smile. He said to us, “I think things will improve now.”

“Ah…”

“Miklos came out a few minutes later, his face all red. He looked around for Grafton to make sure he’d really left, I suppose, and then took the rest of the day off. I was so hoping he’d pack up his stuff and leave, I didn’t really believe he’d change.

“Miklos was such a pig, but he’s smart enough to realize that one, he has nowhere else to go and he’s paid very well and loves his work. Never mind you don’t cross Grafton! Sometime after close of business that night, someone had gone into the DNA lab and cleaned up his work station, even mopped the entire floor.

So the next day this bloke walks in, fifteen minutes early!, smelling of sweet sand, hair clean-and cut! and I’ll be switched if it’s not Miklos.

He’d cleaned up his work station of all his garbage, cleaned himself up-and K’ndar, it’s stayed that way.”

“Wow. It took Grafton, eh? Jansen, there’s a few people on this planet that I’d never, ever dare cross. My mother, because I love her, Oscoral, the night baker at Kahrain Weyr because he’s as big as Mt. Garben, and now, Grafton, because I swear he can read minds.”

She giggled.

Just then a large dog ran past them.

“Oh, there’s that damned dog,” Jansen said, “He’s everywhere. He’s such a nuisance, that arborist came in a month or so ago, she lets him roam and refuses to keep him under control.”

“I know. I’ve heard him barking after dark, but this is the first time I’ve seen it. But Francie’s seen it often, and everyone in the barn is tired of it.”

“Everyone in Landing is tired of it, and that’s saying something. People have complained to her, but she always has a reason as to why she’s never had it neutered, has never done even the basics of training, and just can’t bring herself to put him on a leash. “It’s demeaning,” she says “being on a leash hurts his feelings”.”

“Hurts his feelings!” he repeated, rolling his eyes.

“Did you know the arborist created a hybrid plant that can grow things into shapes?”

“Raylan told me this morning. I want to see that!”

“Yes. Miklos has already discovered the genes that allow the hybrid plant to form shapes. As soon as Agriculture has picked her brains clean on how she grows them, they can be a bit fussy, apparently, soon as that’s clarified, she’s gone. That can’t be too soon, the dog is into everything.”

The dog paused, his head lifted to catch a scent.

She sighed. “I really can’t blame the dog, K’ndar. He’s just being an untrained dog. When I was a kid, even our spit dogs were trained to sit, stay, come, all the obedience things, and when they weren’t turning a spit, they were our pets.”

“Same here,” K’ndar said, “Only our dog was a herder. He’d herd anything that moved: blowing leaves, baby chicks, us kids. All you had to say was “Shep, bring in that roan cow,” and he’d run out to the pasture, cut the cow we wanted out of the herd, and bring her in. We had to retire him when he got so arthritic he couldn’t run any more. He couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t let him chase the cows anymore. He died soon after my father brought in a new herd dog. To this day, I swear it was from a broken heart.”

“That’s so sad, K’ndar, you wish you could explain it to them.”

“I know.”

“But this one? He looks like a nice dog, but he’s not cared for at all well.”

“She also abandoned a horse, did you know that? She refuses to pay for it’s upkeep, and tried to pressure the barn manager into ‘buying’ it from her. He refused, so she ‘donated’ it to Landing. It’s being operated on right now for a diseased eye.”

“I had no idea! She just washed her hands of the horse? Can you do that, just NOT pay?”

“No, of course not, Lorenzo has been paying for it’s feed and upkeep out of his own pouch, and thought he was going to have to pay for the operation, as well. But don’t worry, Raylan said he’ll take care of it. Poor Lorenzo, he was afraid if he complained he’d be fired.”

“NO WAY! We don’t punish people with legitimate complaints!”

“He’s just a barn manager, Jansen, he’s not up in Landing Main every day like us. He didn’t know better. Now he does and he seemed a lot happier.”

The dog raced down hill towards the speartooth.

She shook her head. “Where is that stupid dog going?”

They watched as the dog, it’s long fur streaming, plowed right past the teams working on the speartooth carcass. They shouted, but the dog ignored them.

“I know EXACTLY where he’s going and why, ” K’ndar said, laughing, “Watch this.”

The dog lay down in a pile of discarded rope, meat, rotted skin and remnants of organs too badly decomposed to keep. It flopped onto it’s back, scrubbing the mess into it’s fur. Within minutes, its cream colored fur was covered with the green brown slime, the green ichor, the contents of the intestines. It rolled over and rubbed it’s chin and belly in what could only be termed orgasmic ecstasy.

The people working on the speartooth began to laugh.

Jansen whooped in laughter. “Oh, my stars,” she gasped, “I can just hear that woman when he finally goes home!”

* For a description of the jaw, see Chap. 233 The Skull 11 Jan 21.