Most Dangerous Game with shapeshifting alien

[Vremides]

I have been trying to find a story that was read 20-25 years ago in a science fiction anthology. In the story, a big game hunter has come to a planet to hunt the most dangerous game. He goes to a bar to hire a guide. There is a trophy of the animal over the bar, a small wormlike creature. What makes it so dangerous is the fact that it is normally shape shifted into a large lion like creature that lives in packs. The hunter hires a guide who takes him out and over the course of the hunt tells him stories about the creature and other things. The hunter realizes that the creature he is hunting is actually highly intelligent and telepathic and if rejected by his pride will end up dying of loneliness. Unless it ends up shapeshifting into another form and forming other telepathic bonds. He also realizes that his guide is one of the creatures that has done just this.

 

[Danny McG]

Think I've read this too but very faint memories. Was it like a mountain range they went hunting in? Was the current shape of his guide like a man sized narrow frog?

 

[Toby Frost]

It's not by Harry Harrison, is it? I think there was a story in Prime Number about a hunter looking for the most dangerous creature in the galaxy but I can't remember how it ended.

Also, and I'm pretty sure this isn't it, there was a story in a compilation called Isaac Asimov's Monsters about a creature that could change shape to deal with things that hunted it. In order to deal with some humans, it became a lion-type thing, and when that didn't work, turned into another humanoid.

 

[Vremides]

Think I've read this too but very faint memories. Was it like a mountain range they went hunting in? Was the current shape of his guide like a man sized narrow frog?

Nope, pretty sure the alien had shapeshifted into a human form.

 

[Danny McG]

Fairy Nuff. I've read a different one with a similar theme. Still can't remember the title but that don't matter now. Good luck in your search

 

[geosmithredux]

No answer but It sounds like something Mike Resnick might have written, along the lines of Soul Eater or another of his far future histories stories.

 

[Matteo]

It has elements of The War Against the Rull by A E Van Vogt but only some...

 

[PaulMmn]

Wasn't there a story about a hunter after a dangerous prey-- and the prey was a human?

Another story, by Niven--
Bandersnatch-Human Covenant in Jinx

Approximately in the year 2646, the Bandersnatchi and the humans living in Jinx made a covenant wherein the Bandersnatchi sold hunting rights to the humans in exchange for income which they can use to buy for themselves specialized tools and devices especially made for them like Bandersnatch's Hands. The covenant entails that one can buy a license that enables a hunter to hunt one Bandersnatch in an armored car but, there is rigid limitation on weapons that can be used.

It should be noted that a Bandersnatch can run down and crush an armored car so, it gives the hunter 60% of success and a 40% chance of dying.

Advantages for both species

There are several advantages that this covenant brings for both Bandersnatchi and Humans. For the Bandersnatchi, not only are they able to buy specialized gadgets for them but also, it prevents overpopulation since they reproduce quite easily. It can be assumed that it produces excitement and thrill for the Bandersnatchi whose senses are not as developed. On the other hand, the humans living in Jinx gets advantages from the Bandersnatchi as well, in terms of operating scientific instruments in high pressure environments that the humans cannot stand.

 

[geosmithredux]

Looking for another book I just came across Blood Lines by William Burkett Jr. I have not read it yet but it involves a galactic big game hunter and his cyborg partner hunting "a parasitic life-form with hyper-Newtonian communicative abilities" (though the book's blurb refers to the life-form as "the prize"). It is a sequel to Bloodsport and was published in 1998.

 

[Ravensquawk]

Well, "Hunting the Snark" by Mike Resnick wasn't it, not an accepted answer on other boards, but I'm gonna post my previous answer anyway.

And now I'll check out the other answers more because I'm intrigued with what it actually is.

(1)

> "a big game hunter has come to a planet to hunt the most dangerous game."

He is an employed safari leader:

> At that time I worked for Silinger & Mahr, the oldest and best-known firm in the safari business.

and

> We pros wanted to hunt new worlds every bit as much as the clients did.

(2)

> "He goes to a bar to hire a guide.”

He hires several guides native to the planet, best tracker among them Chajinka.

> The twelfth was my regular tracker, whose name–Chajinka–always sounded like a sneeze. "Ugly little creature," remarked Mbele, indicating Chajinka. "I didn’t pick him for his looks." "Is he really that good?" "The little ******* could track a billiard ball down a crowded highway," I replied. "And he’s got more guts than most Men I know."

(3)

> "...to hunt the most dangerous game..."

It proves itself the planet's most dangerous lifeform when necessary:

> He paused. "An entire family of brown cats–at least four, perhaps five–fled from a single animal that hunts alone." "You’re sure he’s a solitary hunter?" He studied the ground again. "Yes. He walks alone. Very interesting."

(4)

> "The hunter realizes that the creature he is hunting is actually highly intelligent and telepathic...."

He finds out:

> I felt something like an electric surge within my head, and suddenly, though I’d never experienced anything remotely like it before, I knew I was in telepathic communication with the dying Snark. Why did you come to my land to kill me? he asked, more puzzled than angry.

(5)

> “…. and if rejected by his pride will end up dying of loneliness.”

Well, with telepathic contact he finds out -- everything:

> . . . because he wasn’t a he at all; he was an it. The Snark was an asexual animal that reproduced by budding. Its final thought was one of enormous regret, not that it would die, for it understood the cycles of life and death, but that now its offspring would die as well.

As for the mismatches: there is no trophy over the bar; it has been a long time since I read it but I have found no reference to shapeshifting. And although the lifeform was so dangerous it scared off entire prides of lions or big cats, and although Chajinka did pick up a large worm and eat it, these were parts of the story and not aspects of the lifeform.

Obviously there is a story out there that is a better match for the question, and I enjoyed "Hunting the Snark" so much that I would like to read it.

Small wormlike trophy over the bar and all.

 

[Ravensquawk]

No answer but It sounds like something Mike Resnick might have written, along the lines of Soul Eater or another of his far future histories stories.

It is very much like something Mike Resnick would have written and indeed did write: "See Above".
Not a full match for some details of the question, but "Hunting the Snark" matches the theme.
And I enjoyed the story enough to read it several times.

 

[Orcadian]

...There is a trophy of the animal over the bar, a small wormlike creature. What makes it so dangerous is the fact that it is normally shape shifted into a large lion like creature that lives in packs. ... The hunter realizes that the creature he is hunting is actually highly intelligent and telepathic and if rejected by his pride will end up dying of loneliness. Unless it ends up shapeshifting into another form and forming other telepathic bonds. He also realizes that his guide is one of the creatures that has done just this.

This sounds like a fabulous story.

 

[Ravensquawk]

This sounds like a fabulous story.

Seriously!
The OP'd better keep us posted because we both want to read it.