All that second day, Kate explored the wooded area around the bar. The richness of the wildlife was astonishing. Attached to a giant tree not far from the bar she encountered a ten-meter-across web. A ladder-like pattern of extra-heavyweight webbing ran vertically through the center of the web. Testing it, she found that the plastic-like strands were strong enough to hold twenty kilograms of mass, at least.
Suddenly a strikingly colored black and yellow monster spider scrambled towards her from the top of the web, stopped abruptly only a meter from her, and then retreated another meter further away. Its legs spanned over a meter and it must have massed at least ten kilograms.
“Argiope spider, correct?” asked John Weltman, who had approached while she was focused on the spider.
Kate slowly backed away from the creature, despite an almost overwhelming impulse to run, and mumbled praise for whoever had invented the chemicals in her body that had stopped this monster in its tracks. “You know your spiders. Poisonous too, of course?”
“Certainly, Kate. Any spider and most everything else that crawls, to some degree.”
“Including ants."
"Sure."
"Why couldn't it be ants that account for your missing people? I imagine that it would take a few dozen ants the size of Earth rats only a short time to kill and dismember a human."
Weltman shook his head. "Unfortunately, exactly that sort of thing did happen with several people before we perfected the repellent, so I can tell you from first-hand experience that what you describe takes a couple hours, at least, and all we old-timers know what to look for when it happens, unfortunately. Besides, the people that disappeared used repellent all the time."
"Insects have a way of adapting to poisons and repellents."
"Over time, yes. The Corporation has a team of folks that are constantly testing for that. Repellent-proof insects would have been noticed. Besides, for ants the size we have, ant trails aren't invisible. There would be chemical evidence also. Formic acid and such, left on soil and bones. No Kate, it doesn't seem to be insects, though I suppose that we can't dismiss that possibility totally.”
“Oh!” he exclaimed suddenly, his eyes widening. “I don’t suppose that you noticed that big lizard behind you.”
Kate turned to look but saw nothing.
“On the tree trunk,” Weltman added, pointing.
“Oh my God!” Kate exclaimed, when she finally distinguished motionless, brown bodied, blue tailed lizard from tree trunk. It had to be at least two meters long and thirty kilograms in mass. It was only ten meters from her but at least it was facing up the tree rather than towards her.
“Relax, it’s only a juvenile skink,” John said calmly. “They can give a really nasty bite but our repellents work with them, frogs and pretty much everything else except mammals and birds.”
Kate moved further away from the big lizard anyway. As a fifty kilogram, human, she wasn't anxious to tangle with a thirty kilogram lizard. "Which again suggests birds."
"Right. They are number one on my suspect list, by far. Birds could strike fast and carry the victims out of sight without a trace. One or more big raptors could do it. Either that or the jays have gotten even trickier."
"Any other evidence pointing to raptors?"
"Disappearances always happen in or near areas cleared for farming,” explained John. “Just the sort of area where a hawk or eagle might stalk their prey."
"And be seen."
"That’s right. That's where that theory falls apart. We have automated radar detection for raptors, even two years after any known bird attack. The radar automatically tracks and targets large high flying birds. But that's only one possibility. Maybe it’s a low-flying hawk or owl. That's actually a good guess. An owl could fly in fast from the trees, strike, and be gone quickly. Of course, this one attacks in the daytime. I don’t know, maybe it has eye problems and has to hunt in the daytime. Maybe it has simply become fond of the taste of humans, like one of those Earth tigers in India in the old days."
"Owls aren’t always nocturnal. But whatever the species, no doubt you've looked for such an animal."
"Unsuccessfully, so far,” John admitted. “But these are smart animals, not dumb Earth birds. Individual rogue tigers used to kill dozens of folks on Earth and get away with it. These creatures are at least as smart as tigers, and more powerful and swift than tigers as well. But it wouldn't have to even be a raptor or group of raptors. Maybe the jays are back. Jays look like they also might be big enough to carry off a human for a short distance, and we already know that they attack in groups. How else could eight humans be so quickly overcome that they didn’t even report being attacked? Jays act in groups, so they have to be as high on the suspect list as owls. Higher, since my single rogue raptor theory doesn’t explain the eight victims at once scenario we had late last summer, and we’ve never seen raptors flock and fight in a coordinated manner. A group of jays fits the bill perfectly."
"So might the grackles. Grackles flock."
"True. I never trusted the blackbirds. It could be them as well, picking us off a little at a time. There are too damn many suspects, when it comes to birds. I was hoping for a whole team of bird experts to help me sort things out."
"And you got only me. I can understand your disappointment."
Weltman smiled. "Oh, I don't know. You haven't disappointed me yet."