In the Lowest Deep

With the utmost care, Walter Farborough tiptoed through the pitch blackness of the Alterworld. The ether-rip apparatus on his back emitted an occasional spark or crackle, but his thermal goggles shone only into his eyes: they had a good rubber seal on them, and that was important. The creatures of this place hovered or crawled, blinking an occasional love song to a mate or flashing a warning to an enemy. This was a world utterly different to the real. A world where the sun never shone and strange things had grown in the darkness. Needless to say, the fauna of this place were extremely valuable. One could make a sizeable fortune by trapping them, if one were willing to creep by later and risk claiming one's catch.

Even with the small heating coil as a marker, it was hard to spot the first snare. Something had trodden it into the mossy silt of the Alterworld floor, but had not become snagged. Walter was glad: feeling around the edge of the print with his hand, he could tell that this creature had been vast. There was money to be found in this place if you were willing to go to a little trouble, but danger, he knew, would find you all too easily.

In the second snare, he found a small balloonish creature, something like a cross between a bluejay and a pufferfish. With its bulbous tail trapped securely in the loop of wire, it tried in vain to waft itself up and out of harm's way. None too ceremoniously, Walter stuffed it into his canvas sack. These things had been caught before, and were not terribly valuable. His employer already had one but there was always a rich collector with a spare cage. There was nothing wrong with picking it up while he was here. What little it would go for at auction was still worth suffering a few nips from its fanged suckers.

The third trap was a large mesh cage, and it had been fitted with a flashing lure. This was Walter's masterpiece: a small electrical timer mimicked the mating lights of some of the smaller species, and they flocked into it. By the time he got there, the body heat of those inside already outshone the heating coil, glaring in his goggles. It was too big to lug around with him: he would visit it last and then activate the apparatus that would take him home.

There was just one more trap, and Walter stumbled across it sooner than he expected. In fact...he was sure that this was not where he had planted it. Nevertheless, there it was: in his goggles, the heating element was bright and clear. As he drew closer, he could make out the metal jaws of the trap...a bear trap? Prone to damaging what they caught, he never used them. Had he stumbled across some other trapper's set? Given the size of the Alterworld, it seemed unlikely. Just then, he felt a faint breeze move his hair. It swept across the goggle strap most distinctly.

He looked up, and thought he could just make out something moving against the Alterworld sky. It wasn't putting off any heat, though...he took off the goggles. Looming above him was a great wormlike creature, vast and imposing and blinding to behold. Its tail curled across the floor, tapering off into something that was the spitting image of an Earth-made bear trap. But it was not a trap. As the creature's tooth-ringed jaws descended upon him, Walter realised that it was not a trap at all.

...it was a lure.