Screech rhino
January 24, 2113
Octavio Briswald’s field notes
The screech rhino must be the most overwhelmingly majestic animal we have yet encountered. Weighing 3,000 Earth tons, the creature’s epic proportions are almost literally inconceivable; the mind, faced with understanding how massive it truly is, buckles under the strain and eventually gives up. Only by thinking of more reasonable comparators (“As heavy as 375 Lacumban stink mammoths!”) can one even begin to approximate comprehension.
Despite its bulk, the creature is perfectly adapted to the unique gravity field of its native surroundings, and wanders through the fungi forests with a stately grace. The length of its legs means it moves at an astonishing pace, and Fitzmurdle and I spent a few taxing hours just trying to keep up with the beast, a task that was difficult even with the aid of our booster boots.
Eventually we devised a more sensible strategy. After wrapping a length of chain around the base of a particularly tall fungi tree, we attached one end to Fitzmurdle and the other to myself. Then, by leaping into the air in two carefully-calculated arcs, we crashed head-first into each other and landed on the lowest fleshy mushroom cap. By re-anchoring and repeating this method again and again, we were able to climb all the way to the top.
The tall and spindly natives, watching from a nearby outcrop, responded to this process with far more jocundity than I thought strictly necessary; however, our efforts paid off, and we spent the entire afternoon perched far from the ground with a splendid view of the screech rhino we’d been tracking.
Leonard Fitzmurdle’s personal log
My forehead is extremely bruised.
Other mentions: Dax generously offered to Sisko: "I can make your com image look like a 3,000-ton screech rhino, if you want" (DS9).
