The Mystery of Ireta (21 page)

“You’re sure it will keep its distance?” asked Trizein, concerned. “That creature
ruled
its millennia on old Earth. Why, he was supreme. Nothing could defeat him.”

Varian recalled all too vividly a tree-branch of a spear inextricably lodged in a tyrant lizard’s rib cage.

“He doesn’t like sleds, Trizein,” said Bonnard, not noticing her silence. “He runs from them.”

The chemist regarded the boy with considerable skepticism.

“He does,” Bonnard repeated. “I’ve seen him. Only today . . .” Then he caught Varian’s repressive glance but Trizein hadn’t noticed.

The man sank slowly to the nearest lab bench.

“Varian might tease me, and so might the boy, but Lunzie . . .”

It was as if Trizein, too, wished to hear a negative that would reassure him, restore matters to a previous comfortable balance. Lunzie, shaking her head, confirmed that the creatures did exist, and others of considerable size and variety.

“Stegosaurus, too? And the thunder lizard, the original dinosaur? And . . .” Trizein was torn between perturbation and eager excitement at the thought of seeing live creatures he had long considered extinct. “Why was I never told about them? I should have been told! It’s my specialty, my hobby, prehistorical life forms.” Now Trizein sounded plaintive and accusatory.

“Believe me, my friend, it was not a conscious omission,” said Lunzie, patting his hand.

“I’m the true xenob, Trizein,” said Varian in apology. “It never occurred to me that these weren’t unique specimens. I’d only started considering that an anomaly must exist when you analyzed the fringe types and found them to be on such a different cellular level. That and the grasses!”

“The grasses? The grasses! And tissue slides and blood plates, and all the time,” now outrage stirred Trizein to his feet, “all the time these fantastic creatures are right . . . right outside the force-screen. It’s too much! Too much, and no one would tell me!”

“You were outside the compound, Trizein, oh, you who look and do not see,” said Lunzie.

“If you hadn’t kept me so busy with work, each of you saying it was vital and important, and had top priority. Never have I had to deal so single-handedly with so many top priorities, animal, vegetable and mineral. How I’ve kept going . . .”

“Truly, we’re sorry, Trizein. More than you know. I wish I had pried you out of the lab much earlier,” said Varian so emphatically that Trizein was mollified. “On more counts than identifying the beasts.”

Nevertheless, would that knowledge and identification have kept the heavy-worlders from their bestial game? Would it matter in the final outcome, Varian wondered.

“Well, well, make up for your omissions now. Surely this isn’t all you have?”

Grateful for any legitimate excuse to delay the unpleasant, Varian gestured Trizein to be seated on something more comfortable than a bench and tapped out a sequence for her survey tapes, compiled when she and Terilla were doing the charts.

“It is patently obvious,” said the chemist, when he had seen all the species she had so far taped and tagged, “that someone has played a joke. Not necessarily on me, or you, or us,” he added, glancing about from under his heavy brows. “Those animals were planted here.”

Bonnard gargled an exclamation, not as controlled in his reaction to that phrase as Lunzie or Varian.

“Planted?” Varian managed a wealth of amused disbelief in that laughed word.

“Well, certainly they didn’t spring up in an independent evolution, my dear Varian. They must have been brought here . . .”

“Fang-face, and herbivores and the golden fliers? Oh, Trizein, it isn’t possible. Besides which, the difference in pigmentation indicates that they
evolved
here . . .”

“Oh yes, but they
started
on Earth. I don’t consider camouflage or pigmentation a real deterrent to my theory. All you’d need is one common ancestor. Climate, food, terrain would all bring about specialization over the millennia and the variety of types would evolve. The big herbivores, for instance, undoubtedly developed from Struthiomimus but so did Tyrannosaurus and quite possibly, your pteranodon. The possibilities are infinite from one mutual ancestor. Look at humans, for instance, in our infinite variations.”

“I’ll grant it’s possible, Trizein, but why? Who would do such a crazy thing? For what purpose? Why perpetrate such monstrosities as fang-face? I could see the golden fliers . . .”

“My dear, variety is essential in an ecological balance. And the dinosaurs were marvelous creatures. They ruled old Earth for more millennia than we poor, badly engineered
Homo sapiens
have existed as a species. Who knows why they faded? What catastrophe occurred . . . More than likely a radical change in temperature following a magnetic shift—that’s my theory at any rate, and I’ll support it with the evidence we’ve found here. Oh, I do think this is a splendid development. A planet that has remained in the Mesozoic condition for untold millions of years, and likely to remain so for unknown millennia longer. That thermal core, of course, is the factor that . . .”

“Who, Trizein, rescued the dinosaurs from Earth and put them here to continue in all their savage splendor?” asked Varian.

“The Others?”

Bonnard gasped.

“Trizein, you’re teasing. The Others destroy life, not save it.” Varian spoke sternly.

Trizein looked unremorseful. “Everyone is entitled to a bit of a joke. The Theks planted them, of course.”

“Have the Theks planted us, too?” asked Bonnard, scared.

“Good heavens!” Trizein stared at Bonnard, his expression turning from surprise at the idea to delight. “Do you really think we might be, Varian? When I consider all the investigatory work I must do . . .” Lunzie and Varian exchanged shocked glances. Trizein would welcome such a development. ” . . . to prove my conclusions of warm-bloodedness. I wonder, Varian, you didn’t show me any true saurians, that is to say, any cold-blooded species, because if they did develop here as well, as a specialization, of course, it would substantially improve my hypothesis. This world appears to remain consistently hotter than old Earth . . . Well, Varian, what’s the matter?”

“We’re not planted, Trizein.”

Daunted and disappointed, he looked next to Lunzie, who also shook her head.

“Oh, what a pity.” He was so dejected that Varian, despite the seriousness of the moment, had difficulty suppressing her amusement. “Well, I serve you all fair warning that I do not intend to keep my nose to the data disk and terminal keyboard any more. I shall take time off to investigate my theory. Why didn’t anyone think to show me a frame of the animals whose flesh I’ve been analyzing so often? The time I’ve wasted . . .”

“Analyzing animal tissues?” Lunzie spoke first, her eyes catching Varian’s in alarm.

“Quite. None of them were toxic, a conclusion now confirmed by our mutual planet of origin. I told Paskutti, so you don’t need to be so particular about personal force-screens when in close contact. Where are you keeping the other specimens? Nearby?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

Trizein frowned. He’d started and abandoned any number of lines of thought, and was now being brought up sharp.

“Why? Because I got the distinct impression from Paskutti that he was worried about actual contact with these creatures. Of course, not much can penetrate a heavy-worlder’s hide, but I could appreciate his worrying that you might get a toxic reaction, Varian. So I assumed that the beasts were nearby, or wounded like that herbivore when we first landed. Did you ever show me a frame of that one?”

“Yes,” Varian replied, absently because her mind was revolving about more pressing identities, like the name of the game the heavy-worlders were playing. “One of the hadrasaurs. I think that’s what you called it.”

“There were, in fact, quite a variety of hadrasaur, the crested, the helmeted, the . . .”

“Mabel had a crest,” said Bonnard.

“You know, Varian, I think that Kai would be interested in Trizein’s identification of Dandy,” said Lunzie.

“You’re quite right, Lunzie,” said Varian, moving woodenly toward the lab’s comunit.

She was relieved when Kai answered instead of Bakkun, though she’d prepared herself to deal with the heavy-worlder, too. She was conscious of Bonnard holding his breath as he wondered what she was going to say, and of Lunzie’s calm encouraging expression.

“Trizein has just identified our wild life, Kai, and explained the anomaly. I think you’d better come back to base right now.”

“Varian . . .” Kai sounded irritated.

“Cores are not the only things planted on this stinking ball of mud, Kai, or likely to be planted!”

There was silence on the other end of the comunit. Then Kai spoke. “Very well then, if Trizein thinks it’s that urgent. Bakkun can carry on here. The strike is twice the size of the first.”

Varian congratulated him but wondered if he oughtn’t to insist that Bakkun return with him. She’d a few questions she’d like to put to that heavy-worlder on the subject of special places and the uses thereof.

10

B
AKKUN
made no comment on Kai’s recall. He was apparently too engrossed in the intricacies of setting the last core for the shot that would determine the actual size of the pitchblende deposit.

“You’ll come back to the base when you finish?” Kai asked as he placed the lift-belt for the heavy-worlder by the seismimic.

“If I don’t, don’t worry. I’ll lift over to the secondary camp.”

There was just the slightest trace of emphasis on the personal pronoun. Bakkun’s behavior had been grating on Kai all day, nothing he could really point to and say Bakkun was being contemptuous or insolent, but the entire work week Kai had sensed a subtle change in the heavy-worlder geologist.

Varian’s ambiguous remark about things planted or likely to be planted dominated his nebulous irritation with Bakkun. The coleader was unlikely to panic over trivia, and the fact that she had bothered him on a field trip indicated the seriousness of the matter. What on earth could she mean by that cryptic remark? And how could Trizein’s identification of the life forms clear up anomalies?

Maybe there’d been a message from the Theks and Varian had not wanted anyone, patching in on his sled’s code, to know. He recalled her exact phrasing. She’d separated Trizein’s achievement from the request for him to return. So, it wasn’t Trizein’s discovery in itself.

Rather than worry needlessly, Kai occupied his mind with estimating the probable wealth of energy materials on this planet, as computed by sites already assessed and the probability of future finds based on the extended orogenic activity in the areas as yet unsurveyed.

By the time he reached the base, he decided that Ireta was undoubtedly one of the richest planets he had ever heard about. It quite cheered him to realize that sooner or later EV would find this out, too. He, Varian and the team members would be rich even by the inflated standards of the Federation. The supportive personnel, and that would have to include the three children if Kai had anything to say about it, should also get bonuses. All three of them had been useful to the expedition. There was Bonnard now, lugging the power pack from one of the parked sleds. In such small ways, the youngsters had helped contribute to the success of the landing party.

Lunzie was operating the veil and greeted Kai with the information that Varian was in the shuttle. Bonnard, excusing himself as he ducked past Kai to deposit the power pack, went out again, heading toward Kai’s sled.

“What is Bonnard doing?”

“Checking all the power packs. Inconsistencies have developed.”

“In the power packs? We have been running through them at a terrific rate. Is that why?”

“Probably. Varian’s waiting.”

It did not occur to Kai until he was stepping into the shuttle that it was very odd for Lunzie to concern herself with mechanical trivialities. Trizein was at the main view screen, so rapt in his contemplation of frames on browsing herbivores that he was unaware of Kai’s entrance.

“Kai?” Varian poked her head around the open access to the pilot’s compartment. She beckoned him urgently.

Kai indicated Trizein, silently gesturing whether he should rouse the man. Varian shook her head and motioned him urgently to come.

“What’s this all about, Varian?” he said when he had waved the lock closed behind him.

“The heavy-worlders
have
reverted. They took their rest day in fun and games with herbivores. And a fang-face. The herbivores they evidently sported with before they killed . . . and ate them.”

Kai’s stomach churned in revulsion to her quick words.

“Gaber’s rumor was well spread before he spoke to you, Kai. And the heavy-worlders believe him. Or they want to. Those supplies we’ve been missing, the hours of use I couldn’t account for on the big sled, the odd power pack, medical supplies. We’re lucky if it isn’t mutiny.”

“Go back to the beginning, Varian,” said Kai, sitting heavily in the pilot’s chair. He didn’t contradict her premise, but he did want to see exactly what facts contributed to her startling conclusions.

Varian told him of the morning’s hideous discovery, of her conversation with Lunzie and then Trizein’s revelation about the planted Earth dinosaurs. She wound up by saying that the heavy-worlders, while not outright uncooperative or insubordinate, had subtly altered in their attitude toward her. Had he noticed anything? Kai nodded as she finished her summation and, leaning across the board, flipped open the communications unit.

“Is that why Bonnard was removing power packs?”

“Yes.”

“Then you think a confrontation is imminent?”

“I think if we don’t hear from EV tomorrow when you contact the Thek, something will happen. I think our grace period ended last rest day.”

Kai regarded her for a long moment. “You’ve worked with them longer than I have. What do you think the heavy-worlders would do?”

“Take over.” She spoke quietly but with calm resignation. “They are basically better equipped to survive here. We couldn’t live off the . . . the land’s bounty.”

“That’s the extreme view. But, if they have believed Gaber and think we’ve been planted, couldn’t their reversion be a way of preparing themselves to be planted?”