Hunting Problem by Robert Sheckley (Galaxy, September 1955) opens with Drog arriving late at a meeting of Soaring Falcon Patrol (Drog “hurtles down from the ten thousand foot level”). Drog is chastised by his Patrol Leader, who then recites the Scouter Creed to the assembled scouts:
“We, the Young Scouters of the planet Elbonai, pledge to perpetuate the skills and virtues of our pioneering ancestors. For that purpose, we Scouters adopt the shape our forebears were born to when they conquered the virgin wilderness of Elbonai. We hereby resolve—”
Scouter Drog adjusted his hearing receptors to amplify the Leader’s soft voice. The Creed always thrilled him. It was hard to believe that his ancestors had once been earthbound. Today the Elbonai were aerial beings, maintaining only the minimum of body, fueling by cosmic radiation at the twenty thousand-foot level, sensing by direct perception, coming down only for sentimental or sacramental purposes. They had come a long way since the Age of Pioneering. The modern world had begun with the Age of Submolecular Control, which was followed by the present age of Direct Control.
“. . . honesty and fair play,” the Leader was saying. “And we further resolve to drink liquids, as they did, and to eat solid food, and to increase our skill in their tools and methods.” p. 36
Drog is then told by his Patrol Leader that, if he wants to get his first-class scouter award before a forthcoming Jamboree (Drog is the only second-class scout in the patrol), he needs to bring back the pelt of a Mirash, a “large and ferocious animal”. The Patrol Leader states that three of these previously thought extinct animals have been spotted to the north. The story point of view then switches to three human prospectors who have recently landed on the planet—they are the Mirash that are going to be hunted by Drog.
The next part of the story sees Drog stalking the humans, a task which does not begin well when one of the prospectors tells his colleague that he saw a tree move—and one of them subsequently blasts it:
Slowly Drog returned to consciousness. The Mirash’s flaming weapon had caught him in camouflage, almost completely unshielded. He still couldn’t understand how it had happened. There had been no premonitory fear-scent, no snorting, no snarling, no warning whatsoever. The Mirash had attacked with blind suddenness, without waiting to see whether he was friend or foe.
At last Drog understood the nature of the beast he was up against.1 p. 40
There are a couple more conventional efforts by Drog to trap the humans (these include a steak dinner waiting when they arrive back at camp—they avoid the tangle-grass and rising disc of earth—and then the sounds of a damsel in distress—which they ignore). Drog (spoiler) finally catches one of the humans by using “ilitorcy” (the use of a thick mist, essentially). The story then closes with both first-class scout Drog flying the pelt of a Mirash at the Jamboree and all three humans escaping alive in their spaceship. The pelt turns out to be an environmental suit that one of the men was wearing.
I suppose this is a moderately enjoyable, if slight, YA piece. The ending may provide more of an uplift to others than it did for me.
** (Average). 3,950 words. Story link.
1. Robert Sheckley’s stories often have mordant asides about the nature of humanity, e.g. his description of humans as “pushers” in the superior Specialist (Galaxy, May 1953)—if you want a piece that has a YA feel but which also works for adults (and has a great sense of wonder ending), I’d read that instead.