Every bioluminescent patch on the forest floor below them was deep red, and the specific quality of that red — total, simultaneous, covering every patch in every direction — told Max something more precise than simply: there is a predator below.
It told him the predator was already there. It had been there before they started descending. It was not responding to their arrival. It had positioned itself in anticipation of it.
Vorga's wildlife, he had concluded some time ago, was unreasonably intelligent.
They stopped moving.
Max looked at the red patches and read them the way a month in the forest had taught him to read them — not just the color but the intensity, the pulse rhythm, the directional concentration. The patches to the northeast were brighter than those to the south. Which meant the source was oriented northeast. Which meant it was facing the direction they needed to travel.
It had heard them descending through the root-system and positioned itself accordingly.
