The Mystery of Ireta (11 page)

“We’ve a heavy day tomorrow, Gaber.”

“Did
you
tell her to ration us?” Gaber was quite willing to transfer his irritation from Lunzie to Kai and Varian.

“No. She’s the dietician and the physician, Gaber. This stuff is apparently not up to standard. There could be adverse reactions to it and tomorrow . . .”

“I know, I know,” and Gaber waved his hand irritably to cut off Kai’s sentence. “We’ve a big day tomorrow. Just as well we have something like this to sustain us when we’re . . .” Now he abruptly broke off his sentence, glancing apprehensively at Kai who affected not to notice. “It does have a funny taste to it.” He hurried off.

“Sustain us when . . . what, Kai?” asked Varian, concerned.

“Gaber came up with the ass-headed notion that we’ve been planted.”

“Planted?” Varian suppressed the word behind her hand and then let her laughter loose. “I doubt it. Not on a planet as rich in the transuranics as this one. No way. Those ores are too badly needed. And it isn’t as if they’d landed heavy equipment for us to do any sort of mining. Certainly not transuranic refining. Gaber’s the original gloom guy. He can’t ever look on the bright side of things.”

“I laughed at him, too, Varian, only . . .”

“Co-leader Kai,” Varian glowered at him sternly, “of course you did. It’s stupid, silly, and I only wish that the other reports had been picked up from the satellite so I didn’t have any doubts.” She gave Kai a frantic look, then shook her head. “No, it won’t wash. We’re not planted. But, if we don’t hear from EV, I wouldn’t trust Gaber not to spread that rumor.” She looked at her empty beaker. “Damn Lunzie! Just when I need a drop more.”

“I thought we’d decided not to worry about EV.”

“I’m not. Just grousing. I like that junk! It’s got a certain curious jolt to it.”

“Probably a nutritional additive,” said Kai, remembering Bonnard’s complaint.

Varian burst out laughing. “Trust Lunzie for that. Our health is her first concern.”

Dimenon, his arm possessively about Margit, came strolling over to them. He couldn’t have had more to drink than anyone else, since Lunzie had kept control of the pitcher, but his face was flushed and he was decidedly merry. He insisted to Kai that the pitchblende mine be named after Margit. She was equally insistent that they share the triumph, as was customary, and the two fell to good-natured bickering, each calling for support from special friends in the team until everyone was involved in discussion.

Gaber was not the only one annoyed by Lunzie’s precipitous departure with the drink, and Kai was surprised to hear a good deal of veiled complaints about the heavy-worlders. It caught him unawares as he’d been more sensitive to friction between the geological teams.

The next morning, he had additional cause for thought about the heavy-worlders, for they were not operating in their usual stolid dependable fashion; they moved sluggishly, awkwardly, looked tired and were almost sullenly quiet.

“They couldn’t have got hungover on two half-beakers,” Varian murmured to Kai as she, too, noticed the glum manner of her team. “And their quarters were dark early. They ought to have got enough sleep.”

“If they got to sleep . . .” Kai replied, grinning.

Varian dropped her jaw in surprise and then she giggled. “I tend to forget they must have a sex drive. It’s a weird cycle, compulsive in the rut, so to speak, on their own planet. Generally, they don’t when they’re on a mission.”

“There isn’t a law against it for them, is there?”

“No, it’s just they don’t . . .” She seemed to find it mystifying. “Well, they’ll sweat it out on those slopes this morning,” she added, looking at the foothills that folded higher and higher until the overthrust mountains dominated the skyline. They were standing at the base of the saddle ridge of pitchblende, looking down the fold limb. The brown lustrous vein was visible where dirt had been blown clear. “This is a fantastic deposit, Kai. And so is its location. Why, one of the big mining ships can just squat right down and crunch up all of it without moving again.” She had emphasized her words by rolling her
r
’s and gesturing graphically with her fingers in clawlike attitudes.

“I didn’t realize you’d worked with a geology team before.”

“Galorm was explored for its minerals, not its wildlife, Kai. Admittedly the wildlife made the beamlines, but we xenobs were just along to catalogue another variation of life.”

“Do you ever mind?”

“What? Being second?” She shrugged and smiled to reassure him. “No, Kai. Energy is a lot more important than wildlife.”

“Life,” and he paused to stress the inclusiveness of the word, “is far more important than any inanimate object . . .” he gestured to the pitchblende.

“Which just happens to be essential to sustain
life
—on other planets, and in space. We have to sustain, protect and investigate. I’m here to inspect the life that exists on Ireta, and you’re here to insure that life elsewhere can continue on its grand and glorious scale. Don’t fret on my account, Kai. The experience I gain here may just one day put me where I really want to be . . .”

“Which is . . .” Kai was also trying to see what Paskutti and Tardma were doing with a seismograph.

“Planetary preserver. Now,” she went on, noticing his diverted attention, “I’d better enhance the reputation needed to be one by studying those fliers of yours. I can survey this area first.”

They both caught in their breaths as Tardma faltered, struggled to regain her balance and the backpack of delicate instrumentation which she was bringing up the far slope.

“What the fardles did Lunzie put in that joy juice of hers to queer them up so?”

“It’s Ireta that’s doing it to them! The drink didn’t affect us that way. I’m off now, Kai. I’ve only to gather the youngsters.”

“I’ll need the big sled back here, you know.”

“Yes, by sundown! Shout if you need it sooner,” she said, gesturing to her wrist comunit.

Bonnard was disappointed to be dragged away before the first seismic shot, but when Dimenon told him it would take several hours to set up, he went willingly with Varian.

Terilla had been enchanted by unusual flowering vines and, carefully wearing her thick gloves, had gathered different types, which she had placed in the bags Divisti had given her for the purpose. Cleiti, who tended to be Bonnard’s aide and assistant, regarded the younger girl’s activity with supercilious disdain. Varian shooed them all toward the big sled and told them to settle in and belt up. She was checking the flight board when she was struck by the sled’s elapsed hours of use. Surely she hadn’t put twelve hours flight time on it yesterday? Even subtracting the two hours to reach these foothills, she couldn’t have racked up more than six hours the day before. That left a huge whack unaccounted for—and made the sled due for a recharging and servicing.

She’d ask Kai about it when she returned. Maybe she simply hadn’t recorded accurately, or the sled had been used here when she’d been busy elsewhere.

She showed Bonnard how to operate the tagger, Cleiti how to read the life-form telltale, and Terilla how to be sure the recorder was functioning as they’d be passing over relatively undetailed terrain. The youngsters were delighted to have some responsibility and listened attentively as Varian explained the quartering pattern she would follow as they surveyed the general vicinity for dangerous life forms. Although Varian was skeptical about the duration of their enthusiasm once the tasks had settled into routine, their exuberance made a nice change from the sober company of the heavy-worlders.

The three young people hadn’t had that much occasion to see the raw life of a virgin planet, having had only the one trip since they’d landed on Ireta. They chattered happily as Varian lifted the sled and circled the geological site.

At first there wasn’t much to telltale or tag. Most of the animal life was small and kept hidden from sight. Bonnard was jubilant when he tagged some tree-dwellers which Varian thought must be nocturnal since they didn’t so much as move from their tree boles when the sled passed over them. Terilla periodically reported the recorder functioning but the ground over which they passed would make details of the area difficult to read. In the low foothills, as they quartered back toward the pitchblende saddle, the sled’s noise flushed a group of fleet little animals which Bonnard gleefully tagged and Terilla triumphantly taped. Slightly put out by the success of the others, Cleiti’s turn came when she read telltales of a cave-dwelling life form. They did not show themselves but the readings were low enough on the scale to suggest small creatures, burrowers or timid night beasts that would be unlikely to cause problems for any secondary camp.

In fact, Varian had to conclude that nothing of any potentially dangerous size could be found in the foothills surrounding the pitchblende discovery. Nonetheless, size did not, as she pointed out to the children, relate to the potential danger of a creature. Some of the smallest were the most deadly. The one you could hear coming was the safest: you could take evasive action. Bonnard snorted at the notion of running away.

“I like plants better than animals,” said Terilla.

“Plants can be just as dangerous,” replied Bonnard in a repressive tone.

“Like that sword plant?” asked Terilla with such innocence that Varian, who was suppressing her laughter at the girl’s apt query, could not consider the child guilty of malice.

Bonnard growled at the reminder of his painful encounter with that particular plant and was patently trying to think of a put-down for Terilla.

“Your instruments are transmitting,” said Varian, to forestall a quarrel.

The sled was passing over an area of squat trees and thick undergrowth which triggered the telltale at a large enough scale and sufficient concentration to warrant some investigation. The terrain was rocky and steep, which suggested the inhabitants were not ruminants. However, after circling without flushing the creatures, Varian decided that the area was far enough from the ore deposit to be a negligible danger. She marked the coordinates for later study when a ground expedition could be mounted. Despite the generally high level of violent life and death on Ireta, one could be too cautious. If Kai sited the secondary camp high enough up in the foothills to avoid the worst predatory life, the force-screen would be sufficient to deter poisonous insects and dangerous smaller animals. It wasn’t as if a herd of Mabels was likely to come rampaging up the slopes and stampeding through the force-screen.

She finished her survey, cautioned the youngsters to check the seat belts they had loosened to attend to their instruments, and, tapping in the coordinates for the inland sea, she gave the sled full power.

Even so it took a good hour and a half to reach their destination. She wished that Divisti had had a chance to run an analysis of the grasses which Kai and Bakkun had collected at the Rift Valley. The report might have given Varian some insight into the habits of the fliers, but perhaps it was wiser to observe these fascinating creatures without preconceived notions.

Varian was pleased with the behavior of the youngsters on the flight: they asked more intelligent questions than she’d been led to expect from them, sometimes straying in areas of which she had little knowledge. They seemed annoyed that she was not a portable data retrieval unit.

Cleiti was the first to spot the fliers, and preened herself for that feat later on. The creatures were not, as Varian had unconsciously expected, perched on the cliffs and rocks of their natural habitat, nor singly fishing. A large group—not a flock, for that was a loose collection of a similar species, and the fliers gave the appearance of organization—was gathered above the broad ends of the inland water, at its deepest part, where the cliffs narrowed to form the narrow isthmus through which the parent sea pushed the tide waters to flush the vast inland basin; a tide which seldom had force enough to crawl more than a few inches up the verge on the farthest shore, fifty kilometers away.

“I’ve never seen birds doing that,” Bonnard exclaimed.

“When did you ever see free birds in flight?” asked Varian, a bit chagrined that her tone emerged sharper than she’d intended.

“I have landed, you know,” said Bonnard with mild reproach. “And there are such things as training tapes. I watch a lot of those. So, those aren’t acting like any other species I’ve ever seen.”

“Qualification accepted, Bonnard, I haven’t either.”

The golden fliers were sweeping low in what had to be considered a planned formation. The sled was a bit too far for unaided vision of the observers to perceive exactly what happened to jerk the line of fliers to half their previous forward speed. Some of the fliers were dragged downward briefly, but as they beat their wings violently to compensate, they recovered their positions in the line and slowly, the whole mass began to lift up, away from the water’s surface.

“Hey, they’ve got something in their claws,” said Bonnard who had appropriated the screen from Cleiti and had adjusted it to the distance factor. “I’d swear it’s a net. It is! And they’re dragging fish from the water. Scorch it! And look what’s happening below!”

Varian had had time to adjust her mask’s magnification and the girls had crowded over the small viewer plate with Bonnard. They could all see clearly the roiling water, and the frenzied thrusts and jumps of the aquatic life which unsuccessfully tried to penetrate the nets and the captured prey.

“Nets! How in the raking rates do fliers achieve nets?” Varian’s comment was more for herself than the children.

“I see claws half down their wings, there, where it goes triangular. Can’t see clearly enough but, Varian, if they’ve an opposing digit, they could
make
nets.”

“They could and they must have, because we haven’t seen anything else bright enough on Ireta to make ’em for ’em .”

Cleiti giggled, smothering the sound in her hand. “The Ryxi won’t like this.”

“Why not?” Bonnard demanded, regarding his friend with a frown. “Intelligent avian life is very rare, my xenob says.”

“The Ryxi like being the only smart ones,” said Cleiti. “You know how Vrl used to be . . .” Somehow the child lengthened her neck, hunched her shoulders forward, swept her hands and arms back like folded wings and assumed such a haughty expression by pulling her mouth and chin down that she exactly resembled the arrogant Vrl.