“What’d I say? Is he coming back?”

UNKNOWN.

Unknown? You were reading its damn thought energy! Can’t you … Ah, never mind. ABE, based on our shared observations, summarize Oscar.

OSCAR REPRESENTS A SPECIES OF CEPHALOPOD THAT HAS EVOLVED FROM AN AQUATIC ANIMAL INTO A SEMI-AMPHIBIOUS AIR-BREATHING LAND ANIMAL. OSCAR DEMONSTRATES GENEALOGICAL TRAITS LINKED WITH HIGHER FORMS OF INTELLIGENCE. OSCAR RESCUED ROBERT EISENBRAUN BECAUSE IT WAS CURIOUS ABOUT ROBERT EISENBRAUN. OSCAR’S THOUGHT ENERGY RELATIVE TO ROBERT EISENBRAUN’S PRESENCE SUGGESTS CONFLICTING CONCERNS THAT EQUATE TO EMOTIONS OF FEAR, TOLERANCE, CURIOSITY, EMPATHY, DISTRUST, AND FRIENDSHIP. OSCAR REPRESENTS A SPECIES THAT IS BEING HUNTED BY A SUPERIOR PREDATOR DISPLAYING AN ADVANCED KNOWLEDGE OF REMOTE SENSING, PLASTICS, AND RELATED SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGIES.

“Stop. Formulate best response: Why is Oscar’s species being hunted?”

IMPOSSIBLE TO DETERMINE, BASED ON LIMITED DATA. POSSIBLE RESPONSES INCLUDE FOOD, HARVESTING OF BODY PARTS, POPULATION CONTROL, EXTERMINATION, SPORT, OR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. BASED ON THE SIZE OF THE TRAP, OSCAR’S SPECIES IS INTENDED TO BE CAPTURED ALIVE.

“Then the hunters will be back to claim their prize.” I stared up into the canopy, its treetops swaying two hundred feet overhead. ABE, design a means to rig the fire cave’s perimeter with a trap of our own.

“The hunter is about to become the hunted.”

*   *   *

ABE must have accessed every wilderness article ever written, but in the end I knew the trap’s chances of success had more to do with whether the element of surprise outweighed the technology of the unknown hunter we were facing. Or hunters. There was simply no telling how many its would show up, or for that matter when they would return.

The trap was rigged to the bottom of the pod—any attempt to remove the device would trigger the release of a log that was teetering on the edge of the redwood’s limb. Vines attached to the log ended in snares positioned in and around the cave floor. The vines were green and thin, but possessed the tensile strength of steel wire. Most important, they were easily concealed within the spongy walls and floor of the fire cave.

Luring an unknown quarry into the fire cave was central to the trap. Creating a dummy to replace Oscar inside the plastic pod proved the more difficult task. In the end I settled on segments of thick roots and mud, which offered the appearance and feel of mass, and smeared cephaloped blood on the interior glass to prevent a clear inspection.

Hopefully, the hunter would spring the trap before the ruse was discovered.

The sun had nearly set by the time I had finished camouflaging the last snare. Climbing into the upper branches of another redwood, I concealed myself behind a blanket of leaves, set the binoculars on night vision, then waited.