Fragment 6

He paid more attention to the habitations he passed and the roads that he crossed on his way down the mountain. The lower he went the more of both appeared in his path, until they reached the density he associated with their largest cities of the past, and he had yet to reach the edge of that sprawling community that he'd seen from above.

He quickly realized that glass was common for them. It was everywhere, in their dwellings and even in the carts that traveled their roads at speeds that rivaled those of storm winds. The carts themselves were powered by fires, except for a few of the smaller ones that seemed to be able to hold a ball of lightning in their cores.

He was tempted to catch one and dismantle it to see how that trick was done, but hunger still had priority. He was puzzled by the way most of them were hiding in their dwellings. If they had harnessed fire to this degree, they would probably have very little fear of himself. Perhaps the one living beside the garden had not been one of the wise, he had not spoken to it, but its scent had touched everything.

He was also puzzled by the lack of herd animals around their habitations. There were a few, and he seriously considered eating from the large barrel of grain that stood beside the long metal tracks that carried the heavier metal carts that would probably ruin the soft roads with only a few passages. Their ancestors would have scoffed at these roads that pretended to mimic the work of stone with sticky pebbles over beds of gravel.

Eating grain was like trying to drink from the heart of a living creature. It would sustain life, but it used nearly as much effort as the sustenance it provided replenished. He was no longer expecting to find wagon loads of fruit in their city markets, but he had smelled small amounts of fruit in nearly every dwelling that he'd passed, so there had to be a distribution point somewhere.

He found what he was looking for before reaching the foot of the mountain at what seemed to be a… well, it must be the equivalent of an inn, as it appeared to distribute food to the mankind, and something flammable to their carts. Nearly all of the largest carts pulled into its vast but poorly paved square. He was puzzled by the new rituals of the mankind, as each of them warily moved around in such a way as to maintain a distance approximately equal to their own body length from the others.

He couldn't spare too much interest in them, since his nose told him that the large cart with enormous pictures of apples on the side indeed held a large enough quantity of the fruit to take the edge off of his hunger. Unfortunately, he currently lacked the power to compress himself enough to fit through the small vents. He also didn't want to have to deal with their attacks while he ate, so just ripping the doors off the back and chowing down didn't seem to be an option.

His stomach growled at him. It had absorbed the rest of the heart's offering as he'd traveled, and was unhappy about its emptiness, as that hadn't been enough to put it back to sleep. His claws sliced through the soft paving as he flexed them. If he couldn't get what he needed with power, he would have to use skill.

He compressed himself as far as he could, and then began to alter his shape. He wasn't as skilled at getting all of the details as some, but he was good enough to fool most animals, partially because he was very good at scents. He would still be much larger than most of them, but hopefully it would be enough.

--

George eyed the huge man who walked out of the bushes at the edge of the lot warily.

He was a big man himself, as his doctor was quick to point out, and his wives had all nagged him to exercise more and reduce his bulk. The most recent had divorced him more in a much more kindly fashion than the others, requesting no compensation at all. He really wished that he'd realized just how sweet she was in time to keep her, although maybe that was an impossible dream for a man who lived in his truck.

A man couldn't help being wary of others with this deadly virus going around, especially others who acted oddly. George was relieved to note that despite his strange clothes and his enormous size, the man seemed to show no signs of sinus troubles. Not that that was any guarantee that a person wasn't carrying, but you couldn't help being more afraid of those who were actively sniffling and coughing.

The huge man also stalked straight toward the back of the truck parked across from George with no hesitation. Who knew what he'd been doing in the bushes, but George wasn't going to get close enough to ask. He turned away, but couldn't help jumping in fright and spinning back to look, as the door of the truck the man had been approaching screamed like it was being torn open.

The huge man looked… embarrassed, and George wanted to rub his eyes as the guy seemed to straighten the bent cargo door with his bare hands. He turned away from the scene and did not run to his truck. He was just walking very quickly. Very quickly.

George peeked in his mirror after he was safely in his own seat. Somebody was going to be really mad at that guy later. He had pulled out a crate of apples, popped one of the cardboard trays out of it, and was eating apples out of the tray like they were bon bons. A whole crate. Without a forklift.

None of his business. He had a delivery to make.

--

The apples weren't piled in the flimsy wooden crates. They were packed in fairly sturdy paper boxes. Apparently paper was as common as glass, to use it in this manner. It was a little strange how the paper had been wrinkled up and glued into place to form stiff pieces. Wood was obviously widely available, so why go to so much work to mimic its function with paper?

Inside the boxes, the apples were cradled in individual depressions in shaped paper trays. That was actually quite clever, he granted the mankind graciously. It meant that this cart only held a fraction of the fruit that he'd hoped for, but it looked like none of it would be rotten.

He bit into the first apple with his currently small and blunted teeth, and wrinkled his blunted little nose. Not rotten, just not quite ripe. He chewed and swallowed it greedily into the folded space where his stomach waited. A starving person had to take what they could get.