The Mystery of Ireta (13 page)

“No. New ones on me.”

“ ’Course, we sampled from the main oceans . . .” Most of the fliers had disappeared now and only the rejected specimens were left, to rot on the stone.

“Varian, look!” Bonnard, again at the screen, gestured urgently. “I’ve got it lined up . . . look!”

Varian pushed his hand aside as he was so excited he was obscuring the view. One of the small fringers was moving, in that strange fashion, collapsing on one side and flipping over. Then she saw what had excited Bonnard: unsupported by water, its natural element, the internal skeleton of the creature was outlined through its covering. She could plainly see the joints at each corner. It moved by a deformation of parallelograms. It moved once, twice more, and then lay still, its fringes barely undulating, then not at all. How long had it survived without water, Varian wondered? Was it equipped with a dual set of lungs to have lived so long away from what was apparently its natural element? Was this creature on its way out of its aquatic phase, moving onto land?

“You got all that on tape, didn’t you?” Varian asked Bonnard.

“Sure, the moment it started moving. Can it breath oxygen?”

“I hope it can’t,” said Cleiti. “I wouldn’t want to meet that wet sheet in a dark dripping forest.” She shuddered with her eyes tightly shut.

“Neither would I,” said Varian, and meant it.

“Couldn’t it be friendly? If it wasn’t hungry all the time?” asked Terilla.

“Wet, slimy, wrapping its fringes around you and choking you to death,” said Bonnard, making movements like his horrifying image.

“It couldn’t wrap around me,” Terilla said, unmoved. “It can’t bend in the middle. Only on the edges.”

“It isn’t moving at all now,” Bonnard said, sounding disappointed and sad.

“Speaking of moving,” said Varian, glancing toward the one bright spot in the gray skies, “that sun is going down.”

“How can you tell?” asked Bonnard sarcastically.

“I’m looking at the chrono.”

Cleiti and Terilla giggled.

“Couldn’t we land and see the fliers up close?” asked Bonnard, now wistful.

“Rule number one, never bother animals when feeding. Rule number two, never approach strange animals without first closely observing their habits. Just because the fliers haven’t attempted to take bites out of us doesn’t mean they aren’t as dangerous as those mindless predators.”

“Aren’t we ever going to observe them up close?” Bonnard was persistent.

“Sure, when I’ve applied rule number two, but not today. I’m to bring the sled back to the pitchblende site.”

“Can I come with you when you do come back?”

“That’s possible.”

“Promise?”

“No. I just said it was possible, Bonnard, and that’s what I mean.”

“I’m never going to learn anything on this trip if I don’t get out and do
some
field work, away from screens and . . .”

“If we brought you back to the ship with a part or parts missing, left in the maw of a fringe or a flier, your mother would give us the deep six. So be quiet.” Varian used a sharper tone than she normally employed with Bonnard, but his insistence, his air that he had only to wheedle enough and his wish would be granted, annoyed her. She was sympathetic to his irritation with constant restrictions. To the ship-born, planets gave illusions of safety because one was insulated from ship-learned dangers by an atmosphere miles deep, whereas in space only thin metal shells prevented disaster, and any broaching of that shell was lethal. No shell, no danger, in simplistic terms.

“Would you run through that tape, Bonnard, and see if we have good takes on the fringes,” she asked him after a long pause, mutinous on his part, firm on hers. “There’s something I want to check out with Trizein when we get back to camp. Fardles, but I wish we had access to the EV’s data banks.”

After another long pause during which she heard the slight whir of rapidly spun tape, Bonnard spoke. “You know, those fliers remind me of something I’ve seen before. I can almost see the printed label on the tape sleeve . . .”

“What about this tape?”

“Oh, clear pictures, Varian.”

“They’ve reminded me of something, too, Bonnard, but I can’t drag it out of storage either.”

“My mother always says that if you’re worrying over something, go to sleep thinking about it and you’ll remember in the morning,” said Terilla.

“Good idea, Terilla. I’ll do so and so can you, Bonnard. Meanwhile, we’re over new territory again. Man the telltale.”

They got some good tags on a stumpy-legged ruminant, spotted but couldn’t tag more small mammals like Dandy and surprised several flocks of scavengers at their work. They returned to the mining site just as the “gloom thickened,” as Terilla put it. Kai was waiting with Dimenon and Margit with the equipment which the sled must transport.

“It’s a very rich find, Varian,” said Dimenon. He looked very tired and immensely satisfied. He started to add more but stopped, turning to Kai.

“And the next valley over shows another saddle deposit as large and as rich,” said Kai, a grin creasing his sweat and dirt-smeared face.

“And probably the next one beyond that,” said Margit, sighing wearily. “Only, that can wait until tomorrow.”

“EV should have given us at least one remote scanner, Kai,” said Dimenon, as he helped load the instruments. This sounded to Varian like the continuation of an argument.

“I requisitioned one, standard. Supply said they’d no more in stock. If you’ll remember, we passed quite a few promising systems in the last standard year.”

“When I think of the slogging we’d be saved . . .”

“I dunno,” said Margit, interrupting Dimenon. She placed a coil of wire on the sled deck. “We do so raking much by remote. I know I’ve done something today.” She groaned. “I feel it in every bone and in muscles I didn’t know I had. We’re soft. No wonder the heavy-worlders sneer at us.”

“Them!” A world of scorn was expressed in Dimenon’s single word.

Kai and Varian exchanged quick glances.

“I know they were bloody hungover or something earlier on, but I was glad enough of Paskutti’s muscle this afternoon,” Margit went on, pulling herself into the sled and settling down beside Terilla. “Get in, Di, I’m dying for a wash, and I bloody hope that Portegin’s deodorizer has fixed the water stink. Hydrotelluride does not enhance the body beautiful. So how did you pass the day, scamp?” she asked Terilla.

While the three young people kept a conversation going, Varian wondered, as she set the sled on its baseward course, just what happened to occasion Dimenon’s captious attitude. Perhaps it was no more than irritation with the heavy-worlders’ behavior in the morning, and reaction to the excitement of such a rich find. She must ask Kai later. She didn’t want her team coming into contention with his, and she would be the first to admit the heavy-worlders had been less than efficient. Or was Dimenon still irked over last night’s alcohol rationing?

There were dangers inherent in mixing planet- and ship-bred groups, and EV kept it down to a minimum whenever possible. The Iretan expedition had needed the brawn of the heavy-worlders and Varian and Kai would simply have to work out the problems.

Varian was a bit depressed. A computer could give you a probability index on any situation. This mission had had a good one. But a computer couldn’t adjust its input with such unexpected details as a stink and constant gloom or drizzle, affecting tempers, or a cosmic storm cutting off communications with the mother ship: it certainly hadn’t printed out the fact that a planet listed as unexplored was now giving immutable evidence of previous survey, not to mention anomalies like . . . But
if
, Varian thought, there had been the survey, maybe such things as pentadactyl development and aquatic collapsing parallelograms were entirely possible! Yet which was indigenous? Both couldn’t be!

Fliers having to find grass so far from their natural habitat? Varian’s spirits lifted again with excitement. And if the golden fliers, who were pentadactyl, were
not
indigenous, then the herbivores and predators they’d so far encountered were not indigenous either! Not anomalies: conundrums. And how? By whom? The Others? No, not the ubiquitous Others. They destroyed all life, it there was any substance to the rumor that such sentient beings existed.

The Theks might know about the previous survey . . . if Kai could stimulate them into a serious attempt at recall. By Matter! She’d sit through an interchange herself to find out! Wait till she told Kai that!

6

K
AI
had as much to reflect upon as Varian as he sledded back to the encampment. For one thing, he was minus some irreplaceable equipment that Paskutti and Tardma had dropped down a crevice. EV had allowed him only the minimum of seismic spares, and the last group he’d expect to be careless with equipment was the heavy-worlders. They moved so deliberately they avoided most accidents. He couldn’t restrict the heavy-worlders from drinking the distillation, but he’d have to ask Lunzie to dilute any given them from now on. He couldn’t afford more losses.

An expeditionary force was permitted so many credits in loss of equipment due to unforeseeable accidents, but above that figure, the leaders found their personal accounts docked. The loss of the equipment was bothering Kai more than any possible credit subtraction: it was a loss caused by sheer negligence. That irritated him. And his irritation annoyed him more because this should have been a day of personal and team satisfaction: he had achieved what he had been sent to do. Ruthlessly now, he suppressed negative feelings.

Beside him Gaber was chattering away in the best spirits the cartographer had exhibited since landing. Berru and Triv were discussing the next day’s work in terms of which of the colored lakes would be the richest in ore minerals. Triv was wishing for just one remote sensor, with a decent infrared eye to pierce the everlasting clouds. A week’s filming in a polar orbit and the job would be done.

“We do have the probe’s tapes,” Berru said.

“That only sounded land mass and ocean depth. No definition, no infrared to penetrate that eternal cloud cover.”

“I asked for a proper prelanding remote sensing,” Gaber said, the note of petulance back in his voice.

“So did I,” said Kai, “and was told there wasn’t a suitable satellite in Stores. We have to do it the hard way, in person.”

“That would seem to be the criterion for this expedition,” said Gaber, giving Kai a sly glance. “Everything’s done the hard way.”

“You’ve gone soft, Gaber, that’s all,” said Triv. “Not enough time in the grav gym on shipboard. I enjoy the challenge, frankly. I’ve gone flabby. This trip’s good for all of us. We’re spoiled with a punch-a-button dial-a-comfort system. We need to get back to nature, test our sinews, circulate our blood and . . .”

“Breathe deeply of stinking air?” asked Gaber when Triv, carried away by his own eloquence, briefly faltered.

“What, Gaber? Lost your nose filters again?”

Gaber was easy to tease and Triv continued in a bantering way until Kai turned the sled through the gap in the hills to their encampment. Kai had affected not to acknowledge Gaber’s glance although, tied in with Gaber’s notion of planting, “doing everything the hard way” could well be a prelude to the abandonment that was euphemistically termed “planting.” It could account for quite a number of deletions in Kai’s original requisition list. Remote sensors were expensive equipment to leave behind with a planted colony. But, if the colony were supposed to be self-sufficient, surely some mining equipment would have been included so that they could refine needed metals for building and for replacement of worn-out parts, like sled members. There would have been . . . “Do it the hard way” rang ominously in Kai’s mind. He’d better have a long chat with Varian as soon as he could.

However,
if
this expedition were genuine—the urgent need for the transuranics was a chronic condition in the FPS—then someone, if not their own
ARCT-10
EV, would strip the message from the beamer satellite and take the appropriate action of returning to Ireta to extract the all-important ores and minerals and, incidentally, rescue them. The positive thought encouraged Kai, and he employed the rest of the trip by formulating messages; first to the Thek and then for the long-distance capsule. No, he’d only the one capsule. Two large deposits did not really constitute cause for dispatching it. So, first he could frame a message for his next contact with the Thek about the old cores, and the uranium deposits. He would hold the ldc until he could justify its trip. He’d no genuine cause for alarm, apart from a vague suspicion of an aging cartographer.

To his surprise, the heavy-worlders, who had left the site considerably before him to return by lift-belt, had not arrived at the compound. The other sleds had all returned safely. The youngsters were cosseting Dandy while Lunzie watched. She used her overseeing as an excuse not to answer the importunities of Portegin and Aulia for more joy juice. He saw neither Varian nor Trizein and had decided she must be in the xenochemist’s laboratory in the shuttle when the heavy-worlders, in their neat formation, came swooping in from the north. The north? He started toward the veil lock to ask Paskutti about such a detour when Varian hailed him from the shuttle. She sounded excited so he hurried over, leaving Paskutti till another time.

“Kai, Trizein thinks he knows why the fliers must need the grasses,” she said when he got near enough. “The stuff is full of carotene . . . vitamin A. They must need it for eyesight and pigmentation.”

“Odd that they’d have to go such a distance for a basic requirement.”

“But it substantiates my hunch that the pentadactyls are
not
indigenous to this world.”

Kai was lifting his foot through the iris and stopped, grabbing at the sides to balance himself.

“Not indigenous? What in the name of raking . . . what do you mean? They have to be indigenous. They’re here.”

“They didn’t originate here,” and Varian gestured him to come into the shuttle. “Further, those parallelograms I saw today aren’t even vaguely arthropods, which would fit in with the vertebrates we’ve discovered like the herbivores, predators and even the fliers.”