THE centaur trembled. It crouched all the way to the ground in the tiny shrub cluster, back legs splayed out behind, front the same way, arms hugging the ground but forward to part the foliage just enough so it could see through. It hadn't wanted to come this close to where the Things lived, but it was such a long way around to the trees, and the Things didn't usually come out in the afternoon.
But they had come out, four of them, and ten of the furrykillers with them. The centaur snarled in contempt. The furries couldn't catch him! And he'd run and run and when the fastest of the furries ran ahead of the others he'd turn suddenly and snap its neck and there'd be meat tonight!
But more than the furries he wanted a Thing. He'd eaten Thing once. It was good, very good. But you couldn't just run up and grab a Thing. They had knives and axes like People, and they had those other weapons that could reach out to kill much farther than People could throw an ax. The centaur didn't understand these weapons. The People had only recently learned about bows, and they couldn't use them very well. He knew that Things could kill far away, though, and he knew what the weapon looked like.
And then he saw a very strange thing. He had never seen anything like it before. He had neither the intelligence nor the language to understand or to tell the other People. His language was extremely concrete, and was mostly used to express such concepts as "Food out there" or "give me Food" or "good Eating." He struggled to understand what was happening.
The Things fought with each other. The centaur had seen that before, but never this close to where the Things lived. Usually, there would be one Thing alone in the lands, and other Things chased it or came from the skies, and killed it, and left it, sometimes, and when they left it there was Food. That was how he knew Thing tasted good.
But almost in sight of the Thing grove the four Things fought, and the furries fought against one of the Things, and the weapons of the Thing were thrown about.
And now three of the Things walked toward his hiding place. The centaur looked at them very closely, but he didn't see any weapons at all. The only weapon was with the Thing that stayed at the water. The others went by themselves, and these were small Things, smaller than he was, and they didn't have any furrykillers with them!
Food! He bared his fangs and his claws dug into the tundra at the thought. If he grabbed one and ran, the furries could never catch him. They weren't close enough. The other Thing had a weapon, but he was far away, and Things couldn't run even as well as furries, and furrykillers couldn't run as fast as People. Nothing in the world could run as fast as the People. The Things had fliers, noisy and big, and those were fast, and sometimes they rode strange devices that were fast, but these Things were alone and didn't have any of their devices. They'd never catch him. Or be able to run away from him. And no weapons! He looked again, and he was sure.
He gathered his legs under himself, carefully, carefully, no rustle of the shrubs, no movement to give himself away. Now they were almost where he wanted them, in the bottom of a shallow bowl. He waited at the rim, on the opposite side from the Thing with a weapon. Would it see him? But what could it do?
Food! Food! No weapons! Small Things! He tasted Thing, his tongue hung out and drooled. Food! He no longer cared about the other Thing and the furrykillers or anything but Food! He sprang from his cover and raced down the bowl.