Six Blind Men & an Alien by Mike Resnick Page A

you take it back to the ship."
        "Can we walk a little farther?" asked Sallassine.
        "Just a little," said Nibolante.
        They walked another few hundred yards, which put them only sixty feet lower in altitude. They couldn’t see any wildlife, but they could hear the trumpeting of an elephant, the squawks of birds, even the bellow of a buffalo.
        "I am going to like it here," said Sallassine.
        "I’m glad someone does," said Nibolante.
        They remained where they were for almost an hour, then retraced their steps and made it back to the ship by midafternoon.
        Cheenapo played with her lizard while Sallassine found out from the computer that they would find no insects for it to eat on the glacier. She announced that she still wanted a pet, but she would find one that lived on the glacier, one that wouldn’t suffer from a change in environments.
        "She will be disappointed," Sallassine told his father when they were alone. "Nothing lives up here. Except us."
        "Nothing lives up here," agreed Nibolante, "but perhaps I can get something to visit us."
        "I do not understand."
        "Every time I make a kill, I will leave a piece of meat out at the very same spot. It may go unnoticed the first few times, but eventually something will discover the meat, and once it does I think it will come back again and again for a free meal. It will be bigger than a lizard-it may be one of those eagles-so it will not be a pet, but at least she’ll be able to see it."
        "And when it comes, I will identify it," said Sallassine.
        Nibolante went hunting that night, gently placing the lizard under a bush where it would be safe at least until morning. Using a silent weapon he killed a young bush pig at thirteen thousand feet, then spent the rest of the night carrying the carcass back up to the ship.
        "What am I supposed to do with this?" said Marbovi when she awoke and found the pig.
        "We will cut off the portions we want to eat," said Nibolante, "and I will put the rest in the disintegrator."
        "All right," she said. "What parts do you want to eat?"
        He stared at it. "I guess we’ll have to figure it out by trial and error."
        "You chose it. You killed it. You figure it out."
        "What is the matter with you?" he demanded.
        "I hate this place."
        He sighed deeply. "I suppose we can look in South America."
        "‘This place’ is Earth, not the mountain!" she snapped, walking away.
        He found a cutting instrument, sliced off the haunches, cut off the visible fat, and put the rest of it in the disintegrator. He realized that he could freeze it just by putting it outside, but he didn’t want to attract any predators. He knew they rarely came up onto the glacier, but he didn’t know what kind of delicacy a bush pig might be.
        When he was done he was covered with blood, as was the area in which he’d been working, and he made a mental note to bleed his prey in the future before cutting it into pieces.
        That was their routine for the next twenty days. Nibolante went down the mountain at nights whenever they needed more food. He and the children spent the days exploring the glacier and the area just below the tree line. Once they saw a rhino, and another time a buffalo. Marbovi remained in the ship, unhappy and uncommunicative.
        September 14, 1945 began like any other day. Nibolante arose and prepared breakfast for his family, then went outside. Sallassine was already out, and digging a hole at the base of a rocky outcropping.
        "What are you doing?" asked Nibolante.
        "Look!" said Sallassine excitedly. "In the dirt below the snow!"
        Nibolante leaned over to see what his son was pointing at. "Ants!" continued Sallassine. "Ants are insects! Now Cheenapo can have her pet!"
        "Yes," agreed Nibolante. "If you can keep uncovering insects, I suppose