Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Natural Enemies

Deimos lumbered through the scrubby trees at the edge of the forest. Private Erdos and Parker, the handler, followed in Deimos’ wake. The bear shouldered his way through the trees, well over a thousand pounds of ursine flesh, not counting the gleaming metallic implants.

“He’s found something,” said Parker. “Can’t be salmon this far inland.”

“Salmon? He gets distracted when he’s hungry?” Erdos had never wanted the liaison position.

Parker shot Erdos a look. “No. The salmon are the advance scouts for the dolphins. They’re afraid of bears when they go in streams, but the dolphins can find them anywhere.”

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For reference.

Further reference.

2 comments:

Loren Eaton said...

This warms the shrivelled little thing in my chest that serves as my heart, not least of which because it reminds me of Jones the dolphin in "Johnny Mnemonic":

He was more than a dolphin, but from another dolphin's point of view he might have seemed like something less. I watched him swirling sluggishly in his galvanized tank. Water stopped over the side, wetting my shoes. He was surplus from the last war. A cyborg.

He rose out of the water, showing us the crusted plates along his sides, a kind of visual pun, his grace nearly lost under articulated armor, clumsy and prehistoric. Twin deformities on either side of his skull had been engineered to house sensor units. Silver lesions gleamed on exposed sections of his gray-white hide.

Scattercat said...

Dolphins are assholes. This is science fact.