The Mystery of Ireta (12 page)

“Don’t ever let him see that,” Varian said, tears of laughter in her eyes. “But it’s a terrific mime, Cleiti. Terrific.”

Cleiti grinned at her success as Bonnard and Terilla regarded her with expressions akin to awe.

“Who else can you do?” asked Bonnard.

Cleiti shrugged. “Who did you want?”

“Not now, kids. Later. I want tape on this phenomenon.”

The three youngsters immediately took their assigned stations as the sled followed the burdened fliers toward the distant cliffs. Varian had time to dwell on the subtler implications of the fliers’ fishing. The creatures were quite obviously the most intelligent species she had encountered on Ireta. Nor had she come across another cooperative avian race: at least, at this level. Bonnard’s xenob was not accurate in saying that intelligent avian life was rare:
dominant
intelligent avian life was, however. So often winged life was in such desperate competition with ground-based life for the same foods that all their energies had to be directed to the procurement of food, or the preservation of the home nest, and the succor of the young. When a life form specialized, dropping the forearm with manipulative skill for the wing of retreat, they lost a tremendous advantage in the battle of survival.

The golden fliers of Ireta seemed to have managed to retain the vestigial hand without expense to the wing, and thus used their flight advantage beautifully.

Occasionally smaller fish fell from the nets, back into the sea, to cause more frothing as the submarine denizens struggled to secure the prizes. Twice, immense heads rolled avidly up from the depths as the fliers passed with their tempting loads.

Now the four observers saw additional fliers materializing from the cloudy skies, swooping down to take positions along the edges of the nets, supporting the load and relieving the first fishers. Thus assisted, the formation picked up speed.

“How fast are they going now, Varian?” asked Bonnard, for the xenob had been carefully matching the forward motion, staying behind but above the fliers.

“With this tailwind, I make it twenty kph, but I think they’ll gain air speed with all this reinforcement.”

“They’re so beautiful,” said Terilla softly. “Even hard at work they’re graceful, and see how they gleam.”

“They look as if they were traveling in their own personal sunlight,” said Cleiti, “but there’s no sun.”

“Yeah, what’s with this crazy planet?” said Bonnard. “It stinks and there’s never any sun. I did want to see a sun when I got a chance.”

“Well, here’s your moment,” said Terilla, crowing with delight as the unpredictable happened and the clouds parted to a glimpse of the green sky and the white-hot yellow sun.

Varian laughed with the others and almost wished that the face masks didn’t adjust instantly for the change in light. The only way she knew that there was sun at the moment was the shadows on the sea.

“We’re being followed!” Bonnard’s amused tone held a note of awe.

Huge bodies now broke the surface and slammed down on the shadow which the air sled cast on the waters behind it.

“I’m glad we’re ahead of them,” Cleiti said in a small voice.

“There’s the biggest crazy I’ve ever seen!” Bonnard sounded so startled that Varian turned around.

“What was it, Bonnard?”

“I couldn’t tell you. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my born days, Varian.”

“Was the taper on it?”

“Not on
that
,” said Terilla, apologetically. “Forward, on the fliers.”

“Here, let me have it, Ter, I know where to point.” Bonnard assumed control and Terilla moved aside.

“It’s like a flat piece of fabric, Varian,” Bonnard was saying as he sighted across the stern of the sled. “The edges flutter and then . . . it sort of turns over on itself! Here comes another!”

The girls gave small squeals of revulsion and delighted fear. Varian slewed round in the pilot seat and caught a glimpse of something gray-blue which did, as Bonnard said, flutter like a fabric caught in a strong breeze. She caught sight of two points halfway up one side (like claws?), then the creature flipped over, end for end, and entered the water, with more of a swish than a splash, as Cleiti put it.

“How big would you say it was, Bonnard?”

“I’d judge about a meter on each side but it kept switching. I’ve got good tapes of that last leap. I set the speed half again higher so you can play back for more detail.”

“That’s using your head, Bonnard.”

“Here comes another! Rakers! Look at the speed on that thing!”

“I’d rather not,” said Terilla. “How does it know we’re here? I don’t see any sort of eyes or antenna or anything. It can’t see the shadows.”

“The fringes?” asked Bonnard. “Sonar?”

“Not for leaping
out
of water,” replied Varian. “We’ll possibly find out how it perceives us when we can replay. Rather interesting. And were those claws I saw? Two of them?”

“That’s bad?” Bonnard had caught the puzzled note in her voice.

“Not bad, Bonnard, but damned unusual. The fliers, the herbivores and the predators are pentadactyl, which isn’t an unlikely evolution, but two digits on a side flange?”

“I saw flying longies once,” said Cleiti in a bright helpful voice. “They were a meter long and they undulated. No feet at all, but they could ripple along in the air for kilometers.”

“Light-gravity planet?”

“Yes, Varian, and dry!”

The sun had slunk behind the clouds again and the thin noonday drizzle settled in so that the others laughed at her sour comment.

“Digits are important in evolution, aren’t they, Varian?” asked Bonnard.

“Very. You can have intelligent life, like those avians, but until a species becomes a tool-user, they don’t have much chance of rising above their environment.”

“The fliers have, haven’t they?” asked Bonnard with a broad grin for his play on words.

“Yes, Bonnard, they have,” she replied with a laugh.

“I heard about them being in the Rift Valley, with grasses,” Bonnard went on. “Is this why they got that type of grass? To make the nets?”

“There was a lot of thick, tough grass around the place where we saved Dandy, and that was a lot closer for them,” said Cleiti.

“You’re right there, Cleiti. I’ve thought the fliers might need the Rift Valley grass for some dietary requirement.”

“I have some of the vegetation from the grove of fruit trees, Varian,” said Terilla.

“You do? That’s great. We can do some real investigation. How clever of you, Terilla.”

“Not clever, you know me and plants,” said the girl, but her cheeks were flushed with reaction to the praise.

“I take back what I said about your stupid plants,” said Bonnard with unusual magnanimity.

“I’ll be very keen to see how mature their young are,” Varian said, having quietly considered the curious habits of the golden creatures for a few minutes.

“How mature? Their young? Isn’t that a contradiction?” asked Bonnard.

“Not really. You are born very young . . .”

Cleiti giggled. “Everyone is, or you wouldn’t
be
young . . .”

“I don’t mean age, I mean ability, Cleiti. Now, let’s see what comparisons I can draw for you ship-bred . . .”

“I lived my first four years on a planet,” said Terilla.

“Did you? Which one?”

“Arthos in the Aurigae section. I’ve touched down on two more and stayed for months.”

“And what animals did you see on Arthos?” Varian knew but Terilla so seldom volunteered any information, or had a chance to with such aggressive personalities as Cleiti and Bonnard.

“We had milk cows, and four-legged dogs, and horses. Then there were six-legged dogs, offoxes, cantileps and spurges.”

“Seen any tape on cows, dogs, and horses, Cleiti? Bonnard?”

“Sure!”

“All right, cows and horses bear live young who are able to rise to their feet about a half-hour after birth and, if necessary, run with their dams. They are therefore born mature and already programmed for certain instinctive actions and responses. You and I were born quite small and physically immature. We had to be taught by our parents or guardians how to eat, walk, run and talk and take care of ourselves.”

“So?” Bonnard regarded Varian steadily, waiting for the point of her digression.

“So, the horse and cow don’t learn a lot from their parents: not much versatility or adaptability is required of them. Whereas human babies . . .”

“Have to learn too much too soon too well and all the time,” said Cleiti with such an exaggerated sigh of resignation that Varian chuckled.

“And change half of what you learn when the info gets updated,” she added, sympathetically. “The main advantage humans have is that they do learn, are flexible and can adapt. Adapt to some pretty weird conditions . . .”

“Like the stink here,” put in Bonnard.

“So that’s why I’m curious about the maturity of the fliers at birth.”

“They’d be oviparous, wouldn’t they?” asked Bonnard.

“More than likely. I don’t see that they’d be ovoviviparous . . . too much weight for the mother if she had to carry her young for any length of time. No, I’d say they’d have to be oviparous, and then the eggs would hatch fledglings, unable to fly for quite some time. That might account, too, for the fishing. Easier to supply the hungry young if everyone cooperates.”

“Hey, look, Varian,” cried Bonnard who had not left off watching through the screen, “there’s a changeover on the net carriers. Bells! but they’re organized. As neat a changeover as I’ve ever seen. I’ll bet the fliers are the most intelligent species on Ireta.”

“Quite likely, but don’t jump to any conclusion. We’ve barely begun to explore this planet.”

“Are we going to have to go over all of it?” Bonnard was briefly dismayed.

“Oh, as much as we can while we’re here,” she said in a casual tone. What if they had been planted? “Apart from its odor, Ireta isn’t too bad a place. I’ve been in a lot worse.”

“I don’t really mind the smell . . .” Bonnard began, half in apology, half in self-defense.

“I don’t even notice it anymore,” said Terilla.

“I do mind the rain . . .” Bonnard continued, ignoring Terilla’s comment. “And the gloom.”

At which point the sun emerged.

“Can you do that again whenever we feel the need of sunlight?” asked Varian as the girls giggled over the opportuneness.

“I sure wish I could!”

Once again the angle of the sun projected a distorted shadow of the sled on the water and the fish, large and small, shattered the surface in vain attempts to secure the reality of that shadow. Varian had Bonnard tape the attacks for later review. It was an easy way to catalogue the submarine life, she said.

“I sailed once on shore leave at Boston-Betelgeuse,” said Bonnard after the sun and the predatory fish had deserted them.

“You wouldn’t catch me sailing on that!” said Cleiti, pointing to the water.

“I wouldn’t, but something else would, wouldn’t it?”

“Huh?”

“Catch you, silly face!”

“Oh, you’re so funny!”

Additional fliers emerged from the clouds to relieve the net carriers who sped up and away, as if pleased to be free of their chore. The convoy, strengthened by the reinforcements, picked up speed, veering slightly east toward the highest of the prominences. They were not, as Varian had assumed, going to have to cross the entire sea to reach a home base.

“Hey, that’s where they’re heading. I can see other fliers on the cliff top, and the front is all holey, with caves!” cried Bonnard, delighted.

“They live in caves to keep their fur dry and their fledglings safe from the sea creatures,” said Terilla with unusual authority.

“Birds have feathers, stupid.”

“Not always,” Varian replied. “And those fliers appear to have fur, which is, sometimes, a variation of a feather in some beasts.”

“Are we going to land and find out fur sure?” asked Bonnard in a ponderous tone of voice so everyone caught his pun. Cleiti swatted at him and Varian groaned, shaking her head.

“No, we’re not landing now. It’s dangerous to approach animals when they’re feeding. We know where the fliers live now. That’s enough for one day.”

“Couldn’t we just hover? That won’t disturb them.”

“Yes, we could.”

More of the golden creatures emerged from crevices and caves in the cliff and gracefully swooped up to the summit, which Varian could see was relatively flat for about five hundred meters, where it dropped off into very rough and boulder-strewn slopes.

“What’re they going to do now?” asked Bonnard. “That net’s too big to get in any one of those cave entrances . . . Oh . . .” Bonnard’s question was answered as the entire group of fliers now carried the net up over the edge of the cliff and suddenly dropped one side, spilling the fish onto the summit plateau.

From every direction fliers converged on the catch. Some landed, wings slightly spread, to waddle in an ungainly fashion toward the shimmering piles of fish. Others swooped, filled their throat pouches and disappeared into their cliff holes. For all the varied approaches, the dispersal of the catch occasioned no squabbling over choice of fish. As the four watched, there were periods when no fliers were picking over the fish. They did seem to be selective.

“Sharpen the focus on the viewer, Bonnard,” said Varian. “Let’s get some frames of what they didn’t eat . . .”

“Those fringe things, the small ones.”

“Maybe that’s why the fringe fliers were after us. They’d taken their young . . .” said Terilla.

“Nah!” Bonnard was contemptuous. “The fringes hadn’t eyes, much less brains, so how could they be sentimental about their young?”

“I dunno. But we don’t know that they aren’t. Fish could have emotions. I read somewhere that . . .”

“Oh you!” Bonnard gestured her peremptorily to silence.

Varian turned, worrying that his attitude might bother the child since his tone was unwarranted, but she seemed unperturbed. Varian promised herself a few choice words with Bonnard. And then vetoed the notion. The young of every species seemed to work things out among themselves fairly well.

She peered into the viewer herself, to see the rejects. “Some aquatic creatures are capable of loyalties and kindness to their own species, but I’d say that the fringe organism is too primitive yet. They probably spawn millions of eggs in order for a few to survive to adulthood—to spawn again. Our fliers don’t include them in their diet, though. Nor those spiny types. Bonnard, you’ve been helping Trizein and Divisti: take a good look! Seen any of those in the marine samples we’ve given them?”