The Mystery of Ireta (32 page)

“Varian! That big one . . .” Triv pointed and they looked at the largest of the giffs, who could have been the Middle Giff of the cave inspection, crushing a leaf in its talon and smearing it on its chest.

“What might work on giffs, might not work on us, but I’ve nothing else . . .” Lunzie muttered and tentatively squeezed sap over the oozing punctures on Kai’s shoulder. “Well, what d’you know? It’s a styptic! Quick, both of you, get to work. Even if the leaves only stop the bleeding, it’s
something
!” She tasted the sap then. “Oooo. Bitter, bitter. Alumlike. Good. Now if it could also neutralize—whatever bit Kai is toxic as all . . . Hell!”

As if taking due note of Kai’s condition, Ireta’s unpredictable rain started to fall in drops big enough to hurt.

“Wouldn’t you just know?” Varian cried in disgust, trying to shelter Kai’s legs with her body as Lunzie and Triv leaned across his torso.

In moments Kai’s hair was afloat in a puddle and the sap was being washed from those portions of his body which the concerted efforts of his friends could not shield.

“We’ve got to get him out of this. Are you sure we can’t risk the sled?” Lunzie asked urgently.

Triv splashed to the vehicle and the women could hear him cursing, heard him slamming the plasglas canopy shut.

“Every damned red light is on. Those sleds are supposed to be impervious . . . We got company again. . . .”

“What we don’t need are spectators. C’mon, Varian, Triv. We’ve got to get him down to the cave before he drowns.”

“I’ll just hoist him . . .” Triv said, grabbing Kai by the arm and staggering as he attempted to haul the unconscious man to his shoulder. “What . . .”

Varian grabbed to support the staggering Triv while Lunzie caught Kai.

“You’re both just out of cold sleep,” Varian said with some disgust. “Neither of you has regained any useful strength yet.”

In a joint effort they carried Kai to the edge of the cliff.

“I don’t like this,” Lunzie muttered to herself as Varian located an untethered vine and hauled it up. “None of us is up to this sort of effort.” She bent to protect Kai from the rain.

“Varian,” Triv’s voice was taut with alarm. “The giffs are surrounding us. Are they trying to push us off the cliff?” His voice rose as he planted himself in front of Lunzie and Kai.

Varian turned, rising from her crouch. With a sense of relief she thought she recognized Middle Giff as it took a forward step. Then it inclined its head to her and gestured one wing in as courtly a motion as any she’d ever seen from the mincing Ryxi. The wing tip pointed over the edge of the cliff. It moved to indicate Kai. Then both wings were spread, undulating to suggest flight. The huge raindrops beat against the wing surface, beading as the oil of the fur kept the water from penetrating.

“Does the giff mean what I think it means?” Triv asked Varian.

“If it does, it’s a miracle.”

“Now, wait a minute, Varian,” Lunzie interposed. “I’m not about to surrender Kai to them.”

“What choice have we? Dropping him into the sea because we haven’t the strength to lower him into the cave? They’ve already helped us with the water and the leaves. They are used to flying burdens with the fish nets, working as a team. If they’re smart enough to see we’ve got a problem in getting Kai into shelter, they’ve also got a solution. The rain’s getting heavier and the wind’s picking up.” Varian had to brace herself. “We’ve no other option.”

Lunzie brushed her soaking hair from her face, staring up at Varian. Then a gust of wind buffeted the trio of humans. Lunzie capitulated, throwing up one hand in acceptance of their desperate situation. “You and Triv go on down. Part the vines and guide the giffs in.”

With a final fierce look at the xenobiologist, Lunzie surrendered Kai’s limp body to Varian. She took the vine that Triv indicated and slid out of sight over the cliff edge. Triv followed her. Suddenly the wind ceased its assault on her body and Varian realized that she was surrounded by wet giff legs and water-beaded feathers. Giff claws wrapped gently about Kai’s ankles and picked up his limp arms by the wrists. Varian stepped back, heart in her mouth.

Then Kai was hanging in the air and more giffs found holds on him. For one horrified moment, Varian wondered if they were going to fly him up to one of their caves. But they lifted him well above the cliff, then maneuvered slowly out over the water and slowly began to descend. Could she be hearing the creak of overloaded bones in the storm winds? She could certainly
see
the effort in the straining pinions. Varian shook herself out of her paralysis and, finding the vine which Lunzie had used, began to slide down it. She slipped a bit on the rain-slick vine and was forced to abandon her scrutiny of Kai’s descent to insure her own. Then she saw Lunzie and Triv holding back the thick vines so that the giffs could enter. Before her feet touched the cave’s floor, Kai was safely deposited. Having delivered their burden, the giffs awkwardly backed away. Lunzie and Triv busily anointed the myriad punctures on his body, which were once again oozing droplets of blood.

“He’s all right?” Varian asked Lunzie.

“Took no harm at all. I don’t think they so much as bruised him. And this sap is definitely styptic.”

Reassured, Varian turned to the giffs. The two species regarded each other over the injured man. It wasn’t as if she could flap her hand at them, like a flock of ordinary birds, and shoo them away, nor did Varian wish to treat them so peremptorily for they had saved Kai twice already. In working with alien species, Varian had discovered that the sincerity of her intentions could be communicated by voice, even if the words were unintelligible to the hearer. She spread her arms wide, palms up, and imitated the wing gesture of Middle Giff.

“I don’t know how to express our thanks and appreciation for your assistance, golden fliers,” she said, deepening her voice and imbuing it with the very genuine gratitude she felt. “We could not have borne him so safely nor so quickly to shelter. Thank you, too, for the leaves.” Varian pointed to Lunzie and Triv as they smeared Kai’s wounds. “Thank you for all your assistance. We hope to remain on such good terms with you. Thank you.”

“From all of us to all of you,” murmured Lunzie. Then she smiled up at the giffs nearest her, holding up the leaf she was crushing and smiling more broadly. Varian could almost forgive her her dark humor.

A hum rose from the giffs and their orange eyes blinked rapidly.

“While you’re in rapport with ’em , ask for more leaves. Unless you know where we can find ’em .”

A slightly surprised chirp and the agitation of the vine screen brought their attention to the cave entrance. A group of smaller giffs entered, their wing talons clutching bundles of the leaves.

“Ask and you shall receive, oh skeptic,” Triv muttered as the smaller giffs hovered, venturing inside the cave only far enough to drop their burdens safely to the floor. Then Middle Giff made a peremptory sound, a call more than a chirp, and all the giffs lurched to the mouth of the cave. To Varian, they appeared to fall off the edge. Then she saw them, beating strongly upwards and out of sight.

“Lunzie . . .” she began, turning to deliver a few choice words to the medic but Kai moaned, his voice rising to the feverish mumble. He thrashed about until Triv grabbed him by the arms and held him down.

“Get that thermal blanket, Varian. Whatever Discipline he was exerting has lapsed. Yes,” and Lunzie laid her hand on his forehead and then his cheeks, “fever’s rising. At least fever indicates the body is fighting the toxemia.” She rummaged in her pouch for a moment. “Muhlah! I don’t have so much as an antibiotic. He’s going to have to do it the hard way. Take off the other boot, Triv, will you? And Varian, you pull off what’s left of his clothes while I hold him up. Hmmm . . .” Lunzie paused to inspect Kai’s chest. “The sap is closing the punctures. If only I had
something
. . . That Thek didn’t say anything about
ARCT-10
, did it?”

“Only that the beacon hadn’t been stripped yet.”

“I shouldn’t have asked. Is there any more of that succulent fruit, Varian? I’m still dehydrated and, if we could dilute some juice with fresh water, Kai might take it. He’s going to need all the liquid we can get down him to combat the toxin.”

Triv collected rainwater by holding a pail outside the vines to catch the torrential downpour. Varian squeezed juice until she had exhausted the supply. They all ate the pulp. At regular intervals, the diluted juice was dripped down Kai’s throat. It seemed to ease his restlessness. Often he would lick his lips and frown during the fever dreams, as if searching for soothing moisture.

“Not an uncommon fever pastime,” Lunzie assured them. “It’s when they won’t swallow, you’ve got problems.”

By sunset Kai’s fever had reached a new high and their supply of leaves was almost gone. Thought most of the punctures had closed, the sap seemed to ease his feverishness, and Lunzie hoped they could get more to last through the night. So Varian climbed to the cliff top, hoping there would be a giff she could signal to. She sighed with relief when she found a large pile of leaves neatly anchored to the vines by a stout twist of grass. Fruit was windlocked in an intersection of thick vine tendrils.

“Not so stupid, our fine furry friends,” she said, elated and reassured, as she proudly displayed the leaves and fruit to Lunzie and Triv.

“I’ve been on worlds where there were other interpretations to such overtures,” Lunzie replied sardonically.

“Yes, I appreciate that, Lunzie. Propitiation of unknown gods, fattening for the kill, ceremonial poisonings . . .” Varian dismissed such considerations with a wave of her hand. “To an experienced hand like you, I must seem incredibly naÏve, but then I’ve generally dealt with animals which are pretty straightforward in their reactions. I really feel sorry for you, having to cope with that devious and subtle predator—man.” She spoke in an even tone, but she held Lunzie’s gaze in a steady stare. “My experience tells me to trust the giff, for they’ve shown us no harm—”

“Once we emerged from this cave. Actually, I cannot help comparing your fliers with the Ryxi.”

“There’s no comparison—”

“There is if you are trying to suggest the golden fliers remembered
man—us
,” and Lunzie dug a thumb into her chest bone, “when you don’t even know their life span, and we don’t know how long we were in cold sleep.”

“The giffs did remember: that intruders from the gap were trouble and that those in the cave were to be protected. They do protect the young of their own species. I just count us very lucky indeed that that instinct was passed onto us.”

“I’d hate to think that this was a tradition handed down from elder to hatchling,” Triv remarked. “What sort of a life span would you project for the giffs, Varian?”

As Varian did not wish to argue with Lunzie, she seized on Triv’s calm question gratefully.

“The Ryxi are the only comparable species of a similar size exhibiting the same intelligence,” she ignored Lunzie’s snort of disgust, “and their life span is tied up with their libido. The males tend to kill their opponents off in mating duels. Ryxi females live six or seven decades. Like the giffs they don’t seem to have any predators. Of course, I don’t know what parasites they might be susceptible to. Then, there’s the leech thing. If the giffs knew what topical treatment to supply for those puncture wounds, they
must
be vulnerable to it. However, let’s give the giffs a life span similar to the Ryxi’s . . .”

“They don’t like comparisons—” Lunzie remarked.

“Say, sixty to seventy years Standard.”

“We could have slept sixty to seventy years, or six hundred. You’d have thought Kai would insist on knowing how long he’d slept.”

“You know that Thek don’t reckon time in our measurements. Even if Kai had asked, would he have received a comprehensible answer?”

Triv regarded Lunzie’s sour expression with a bemused smile on his face. “You do dislike the Thek, don’t you?”

“I would dislike any species that set itself up as an infallible authority on anything and everything.” A sharp gesture of Lunzie’s arm dismissed the noble Thek with no courtesy. “I don’t trust ’em . And this,” her hand lowered toward Kai, feverishly twisting his head and trying to free his arms from the restraint of the sheet, “is one immediate reason why.”

“We’ve been taught to respect and revere them,” Triv began.

Lunzie snorted. “Typical xenob training. You can’t help it, but you can learn from mistakes!”

Kai began to thresh in earnest, loosening the cocoon they had wrapped about him.

“Sap time!” Lunzie said, reaching for the leaves. “This medication is effective for an hour and a half. I wish I knew if there were side effects to prolonged application. I wish I had something to work with . . .” Lunzie’s tone was fierce but her hands were gentle in their ministrations.

“What do you need?” Varian asked quietly.

“The small microscope plus the metal medicine container that Tanegli made off with!”

“I know the console was blinking its red head off, but none of the warning lights was steady,” Varian said. “I’ll take a look tomorrow. Portegin had enough tools to make that homing beacon, and I’m a fair mechanic when pushed. A few matrices may just have loosened in that hard landing. I remember the coordinates of all the camps . . . as if it were yesterday. . . .” Varian caught Lunzie’s eyes and laughed. Lunzie’s gaze was cynical. “Well, the last thing the heavyworlders would be expecting is a raid by one of us.”

“Do the bastards good to get shaken out of their sagging skins,” the physician said. “If any of the original ones are still alive.”

“A bit daunting to think they might all be safely in their graves, or whatever they do,” said Triv, “and us alive and kicking.”

“You get used to it,” Lunzie said sourly.

“What?” asked Varian. “The kicking or still being alive when everyone else you know has long since been dead?” With those words Varian faced that possibility for the first time since she had awakened.

“Both,” was Lunzie’s cryptic reply.

“I’ll have a go at fixing the sled first light tomorrow.”