Tel: Profile Of The Lone Hunter Of 76re-O

Name: Tel
Species: Yautja
Gender: Male
Hunting ground: 76re-O
Kills: Seventy-four villagers of 76re-O
First appearance: Predator: Eyes of the Demon, "The Distance In Their Eyes" (2022)
Status: Dead, suffocated in open space

Tel was a male Yautja who hunted alone in Stephen Graham Jones's story "The Distance In Their Eyes," published in the 2022 anthology Predator: Eyes of the Demon. On a world tagged 76re-O he found prey that would not run or hide, and he lined seventy-four of their heads on a wall. The one skull he kept and then threw away grew a new body aboard his ship, consumed his other trophies, and broke the vessel apart. Tel died in open space, face to face with a giant moth whose eyes he recognized from the village dead.

Biography

Hunting The Villagers Of 76re-O

Tel dropped alone onto the world tagged 76re-O and found a village of creatures that did not run or hide when he came. He gutted the smallest of them as a test, and the rest only stood and waited for him. He killed them anyway and lined seventy-four heads along a low wall. The hunt gave him none of the fight he wanted, and the calm way the prey met him stayed with him long after the killing was done.

From the row of heads Tel kept a single skull, the most even of the lot, and took it back to his ship. Before leaving he placed an orbital marker that warned other Yautja to stay away from the world. Large moths drifted up toward that marker in low orbit as he departed. He logged the genetics of the dead villagers, then threw the chosen skull into a waste bin in a corridor instead of hanging it with the rest of his trophies.

The Skull That Grew

Days later the skull was gone from the bin, and the ship's sensors could find nothing aboard. Security playback showed it growing a thick new body with a tail. Tel judged that the villagers of 76re-O had been a larval stage, able to share thought and fog his readings. He began hunting through his own ship with his visor delayed a tenth of a second, watching for trails where the thing had scraped mass from the walls and added it to itself.

The hunt aboard the ship went badly for Tel. The other trophy skulls vanished in the same way as the first, and a wall crumbled into something like ash. Piece by piece the creature fed on the vessel, and the hull began to come apart around him. Whatever had stood waiting in the village on 76re-O was now taking his ship from the inside, and none of his sensors could show him where it was.

Death Facing The Moth

The ship broke up in open space, and Tel was left floating in the pilot seat with little air. A cocoon on the outer hull opened, and wings pulled the slug-form out as a giant moth. It did not sting him. Instead it locked eyes with him, and he recognized those eyes from the village dead on 76re-O. He started the suicide sequence on his wrist pad, then stopped with his fingers on the control.

Tel did not finish the self-destruct. He chose to keep looking instead, his fingers still on the control. He died that way, his visor open and his air gone. The moth-form then flew off into space and left his body behind. The seventy-four heads he had taken were not the end of the villagers but a stage in their life, and the last thing the lone Yautja saw was the creature he had believed he killed.

Conclusion

Tel was a lone hunter who took seventy-four heads on 76re-O from prey that would not flee. The skull he discarded grew aboard his ship, consumed his trophies and broke his vessel apart in space. He died face to face with a giant moth that carried the eyes of the village dead, his suicide charge unfinished. His story has no human characters at all and is told entirely from the side of the Yautja and his strange prey.