Rite of Passage

I located a little hollow with a spring and set up my bubble tent there. I finished eating by the time dark fell and went into the tent, but I didn’t turn on the light. Even in the shelter I felt unaccountably cold, something like the way I had felt in the week after I got my general protection shot. I ached all over. If it weren’t the wrong time of the month, I would have thought I was having my period. If it weren’t so unlikely, I would have thought I was sick. But I wasn’t having my period and I wasn’t sick — I was just miserable.

I huddled and I cried, curled up in my bedroll. I hated this wretched planet, I was mad at Jimmy for letting me be alone like this, and I wasn’t any too happy with myself. I hadn’t expected Trial to be like this. So lonely, so strange. As I’d been riding during the afternoon, I had scared up some large animals. They were ungainly things with knobby knees and square, lumpy heads. When they noticed Ninc and me, they threw up their heads and stared at us. They had the kind of horns that sprout — antlers. After a moment, they bolted in a wobble-legged gallop that carried them crashing into the brush and then out of sight. They knew an outsider when they saw one, and I knew I didn’t belong. I didn’t get to sleep easily.

The sun was up in the morning. The morning was cold, but the day was brighter. As I moved around and as the sun rose higher, it became almost warm, the heat of the sun and the cold of the breeze balancing each other.

I wasn’t feeling much better, but I did keep busy and that took my mind off my troubles. I was recognizing a disadvantage to being a turtle that I hadn’t previously reckoned on. It gave me far too much time to appreciate the awfulness of planets in general and the specific failings of this particular place, not to mention the misery of being alone and deserted. I couldn’t stand that. I had to be a tiger to occupy my mind, if for no other reason.

So I packed up early in the morning, and I started Ninc in a great widening circle, the most efficient sort of search pattern. The country continued to be rough. If I had been following the line of the land, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but trying to go in a spiral was difficult. There were any number of times that I had to get off Ninc and lead him.

At one of these times, a small animal came bounding across my path. I’d seen other small ground animals and gliders in the trees once or twice, but never this close. I pulled my gun the instant I saw it. My first shot with the sonic pistol missed, the sighting beam slapping left, because Ninc chose that moment to toss his silly brown head. I shot again and dropped it this time. A sonic pistol is a nice short range weapon.

I led Ninc over and as I bent topick it up, there was a loud noise of something moving in the bushes. I turned to look. The thing that stood poised there was nothing short of startling. It stood on two legs and was covered with gray-green hair. It had a square, flat animal mask for a face. I had a feeling that I had just killed its intended dinner.

We looked at each other. Ninc snorted and started backing away. I dropped the reins and hoped Ninc wouldn’t run. I took a deep breath to quiet my pounding heart, and then I walked straight at it with my pistol in hand. I yelled, “Shoo. Get out of here,” and waved my arms. I yelled again, and after an uncertain moment, the thing shook its head and plunged away.

I turned back and grabbed Ninc, feeling surprisingly good. I’d been thinking about my general misery, my feeling I’d just had a shot. It struck me that if I had a choice, I’d be better off without a gun than without immunization. I’ll bet more explorers on old Earth died from the galloping whatdoyoucallits than were killed by animals, accidents and aborigines put together.

I kept going until the light began to fade. The animal I shot turned out to be edible. It’s all a matter of luck. In the course of Survival Training I’d had occasion to eat things that were so gruey that I wonder how anybody could choke them down (the point under demonstration, of course, being that the most astounding guck will keep you alive). I’d done better than just find something that would keep me alive, so I hadn’t done badly at all. By the time I had eaten, I was thoroughly tired, and I had no trouble at all in falling asleep.

It was the next day that I found the road. I was riding along and singing. I don’t like the idea of people who don’t sing to themselves when they’re all alone. They’re too sober for me. At least hum — anybody can do that. So I was riding and singing as I came to the crest of a hill. I looked down and through the trees I saw the road.