The Mystery of Ireta (34 page)

If the mutineers were obviously in residence, she was loathe to announce their reemergence.

As she neared the location, she switched on the telltagger which had become an irritant with its constant buzz and its distressing inability to
purr
the presence of tagged specimens.

She saw the dusty cloud, subdued quickly the surge of remembered fear and reinforced the support of Discipline which would prevent the distraction of unnecessary emotional responses.

She also saw, but dispassionately now, the bobbing black line at the base of the dust which meant stampeding animals. She pulled her sled upward, gaining altitude to see beyond the dust, and activated the forward-screen magnification. As they passed over the cloud, the telltagger spat furiously, vibrating in its brackets. Suddenly its activity ceased and Varian could see beyond the obscuring dust the monumental hulk of the predator, fang-face, once termed Tyrannosaurus rex, thunder lizard. Thunderous it was, but not chasing the stupidly fleeing herbivores. Instead, a small insignificant creature was running before fang-face with a speed that startled Varian. She increased magnification, and, despite Discipline, gasped in astonishment.

A man, a young man with a superb physique, his long, heavily thewed legs pumping in an incredible stride, was outdistancing the awkward but tenacious fang-face. The man appeared to be heading toward one of the upthrust bluffs, but he had a long way to go to reach its safety. From the exertion evident in straining cords of his neck, the sweat pouring from his face, and the visible laboring of his chest and ribs, he did not have the distance in him.

Varian took a second, longer look at fang-face, wondering why the creature had eschewed the more succulent herbivores for a mere mouthful of man—and saw why. A thick lance was lodged under the beast’s right eye. Just short of a fatal thrust, it wobbled up and down, providing the wounded pursuer with a smarting reminder of revenge. Occasionally, snarling in pain, it batted at the lance but failed to move it. Varian wondered what sort of point the hunter had used, and marveled at the strength which must have been back of a thrust to have placed the point so deeply in the beast’s eye socket.

The runner had to be a descendant of the mutineers: he’d the build, if not the overdeveloped musculature of someone raised on a heavy-gravity planet. He’d made a very clever throw. Varian might object, as a xenob, about causing injury to any creature, but clearly she had to rescue the young hunter. He was quite the most superb young man she had ever seen.

Unfortunately she had no equipment on the sled to effect an air rescue. Not even a vine. She could hover just above the surface and coax him into the craft, but the speed of the thunder lizard was daunting. If he demurred . . . Why should he? Surely his parents—grandparents? great-grandparents?—must have passed on some version of their origins. Airborne vehicles would not frighten him out of his wits. On the other hand, any man who would take on a fang-face single-handed would not easily be frightened, even of something of which he had no previous experience.

She wheeled the sled to come up behind him, matching its speed to his phenomenal running stride.

“Climb aboard. Quickly!” she shouted as she hit the canopy release.

His powerful stride faltered, and he nearly fell. But, instead of altering his course to come alongside, he spurted off at a tangent.

“Do you want to be eaten by that monster?” She didn’t know if he failed to understand her or thought her some new menace. Surely the language couldn’t have mutated in a few generations. Or was it more than a “few?” She tried again to bridge the distance and again he swerved.

“Leave me!” he managed to shout, the effort to speak and keep up his pace visibly slowing him.

Varian raised the sled above him and reduced speed, trying to understand his startling reluctance to be rescued.

The runner appeared mature, surely in his third decade, though the exertion in his face might just make him appear older. He’ll never make it to the bloody bluff, Varian decided with the detachment of her Disciplined state. So, let him pursue his goal or, rather, be pursued to his own purpose. She could make a timely intervention if it was required.

The fang-face had obviously never seen an air sled, or its brain could not register more than one nuisance at a time, for as Varian swung in its direction, it paid her no heed. Passing over it, Varian took note that the lance near its eye was not its only injury. Blood was pumping from several wounds in such quantities that Varian wondered how much more it could lose before collapsing. She circled just as the wounded animal staggered for the first time, roaring loudly. There was no doubt in her mind that the creature was weakening. She set the sled above and slightly behind fang-face, ready to intervene if the man had overestimated his ability to outlast his victim.

She had time to notice details of the runner on the screen. He wore little, mainly what appeared to be scraped hide covering his loins. Stout hide footwear was lashed tightly up to the knee of each leg. He wore a broad belt that Varian would swear had been part of a lift-belt unit once, from which several large knives and a pouch hung, flapping against the runner’s legs. A tube was secured across his back, but she couldn’t guess its function. In one hand he clutched a small crossbow, certainly a good weapon for piercing the hide and bone of most of the monsters that walked Ireta.

Varian reminded herself that she was not there to cater to the foibles of a young man being chased by a well-provoked carnivore. It also struck her forcibly that if he was reduced to crossbow and lance, she might be wasting her time in trying to find the mutineers’ base. The microscope and other items which Lunzie needed had probably perished from neglect if this young man represented the present level of the survivors’ lifestyle.

Three things happened at the same time: she decided to swoop down and pick him up willy-nilly; the thunder lizard let out a gasping roar and fell forward, plowing a furrow with its muzzle and chest, tried to rise and collapsed limply. The young man looked back over his shoulder and began to circle, still at considerable speed as he made sure the creature was lifeless.

Maintaining Discipline for immediate use, Varian landed the sled at a discreet distance from the bulk of the dead predator. She was a sprinter and knew that she could reach her vehicle before the extraordinary young man could catch her.

When she reached him, he was tugging at the deeply lodged spear. Inhaling deeply, Varian casually laid one hand beyond his on the shaft and exerted her Disciplined resource. The spear came away so fast that the young man, unprepared for the quality of assistance, staggered backward, leaving Varian with the spear. She examined its tip, Discipline overriding her natural repugnance for bloody objects. She wiped the point on the beast’s hide, dislodging some of the myriad parasites and examined the spearhead. The metal had been tempered and fashioned with a ring of barbs, one reason the monster had been unable to dislodge it. Varian was amazed that she had. Of course, flesh and bone had come away, too. Already swarms of insects descended on the corpse.

“Can you understand me if I speak slowly?” Varian asked, turning to confront the young giant. He was staring from her to the spear she had removed so effortlessly. He extended his hand to reclaim the spear. “I assume you do not understand me.”

“Yes, I do. I’d like my spear back.” When she relinquished it, he examined the barbed tip carefully. Satisfied, he turned his attention to her. Varian found those proud clear eyes very disconcerting, and she was glad of the shield of Discipline. “These take time to forge, and you might have damaged the barbs. You don’t look as if you had that much strength in you.”

Varian shrugged diffidently. So Bakkun and the others had progressed beyond tree limbs as weapons.

“I’m not considered particularly strong,” she said, knowing that such a first impression might be valuable. “Are you one of the survivors of the
ARCT-10
’s exploratory group? Frankly, after a quick pass over this world, we didn’t expect to find anyone alive. Your appearance . . . and competence . . . are a surprise.”

“So is yours!” There was a faint hint of wry amusement and a reticence in his voice. “I am called Aygar.”

“And I, Rianav,” she said, quickly scrambling her name. “Why didn’t your group remain at the expedition’s site of record?”

His look was definitely quizzical. “Why didn’t you home in on
our
beacon?”

“Your beacon? Oh, you’ve erected one at the northeast camp?” Varian was both disappointed at this intelligence and surprised, though she kept her assumed role and pretended mild criticism.

“Camp?” He was overtly derisive, but his manner turned wary. “You are from a spaceship?”

“Of course. We picked up a distress call from the system’s satellite beacon. Naturally we are obliged to answer and investigate. Are you one of the
ARCT-10
’s original exploratory group?”

“Hardly. They were abandoned without explanation and with insufficient supplies to defend themselves.” Indignation and rancor flickered in his eyes. His body tensed.

So that was the story the mutineers had spread. At least it was partially based on fact.

“You seem to have adapted to this planet with commendable success,” Varian remarked, wondering what else she could get him to reveal, and perhaps estimate how long they’d slept. Would he be the first generation?

“You are too kind,” he replied.

“My benevolence has a limit, young man. I am on my way to the secondary camp mentioned in the final report recorded on the beacon. Are any of the original expedition still living?”

Varian was trying to guess whose son he might be. Or grandson, she added bleakly. She opted for Bakkun and Berru, since they were the only heavy-worlders with light eyes. Aygar’s were a clear, bright, shrewd green. His features were finer than could be expected from either Tardma or Divisti.

“One has survived,” he said in an insolent drawl.

“One of the children from the original landing party?” Could she goad him into revealing more about the mutineers’ interpretation of abandonment?

“Children?” Aygar was surprised. “There were no children on the original expedition!”

“According to the beacon,” she replied, sowing what she hoped would be fertile seeds of doubt, “three children were included; Bonnard was the boy, and the two girls are named as Terilla and Cleiti, all in their second decade.”

“There were no children. Only six adults. Abandoned by the
ARCT-10
.” He spoke with the ring of truth in his voice, a truth which she knew to be false no matter how keenly he believed it.

“Discrepancies are not generally committed to satellite beacons. The message clearly read nineteen in the landing party, not six,” she said, permitting both irritation and surprise to tinge her voice. “What’re your leaders’ names?”

“Now? Or then?” He covered his chagrin with anger.

“Either.”

“Paskutti and Bakkun who was my grandsire.”

“Paskutti? Bakkun? Those are not the leaders of record. This is all very strange. You mentioned one survivor of the original group?”

“Tanegli, but he is failing,” and that frailty was anathema to Aygar’s youthful strength, “so his passing will occur in the near future.”

“Tanegli? What of Kai, Varian? The physician, Lunzie, the chemist Trizein.”

Aygar’s face was closed. “I’ve never heard those names. Six survived the stampede which overran the original camp!”

“Stampede?”

Aygar gestured irritably toward the far distant herbivores. “They panic easily, and panicked on the day my grandsire and the other five nearly died.” He grounded his spear and straightened in pride. “Had they not had the strength of three men, they would not have outrun the herd that day!”

“Stampede?” Varian looked at the peaceful grazers as if assessing their potential. “Yes, well, I can imagine that a mass of them in hysterical flight might short even a large force field. And that certainly explains why only stubs of the plastic supports remain at the original site. Where are you now located? At the secondary camp?”

“No,” he said and took the largest of his two knives with which he proceeded to hack at the softer belly hide of the dead beast. He had to use both hands and great effort to penetrate the thick tissue. “Once the power for the force field was exhausted,” he continued, spacing his words between grunts as he made incisions, “the night creatures attacked. We live in caves, near the iron workings. We live on the flesh of animals that we trap or kill in chase,” he went on with cold vehemence. “We live and we die. This is our world now. You arrive too late to be any use to us. Go!”

“Keep a polite tongue in your head, young man, when speaking to me,” Varian said in a colder voice, summoning Discipline to every fiber of her body.

He rose, tossing down the bloody hunk of meat he had just carved. His eyes narrowed at the tone she had used, but she preferred to precipitate an incident while she was at full Discipline, and when he had just concluded a wearying run.

“We no longer recognize the authority of those who abandoned us to this savage world.”

“This world, Ireta, belongs to the Federated Sentient Planets, young man and you cannot—”

He made his move, goaded, as she had hoped, by her insufferable attitude. As she had expected, he came for her in a frontal attack, secure in his advantage of height and strength; swinging one arm wide, hand open, aimed to connect with the side of her head and knock her senseless. Had she not had the training of Discipline, she would probably have been crushed against fang-face, possibly skewered on a finely sharp claw. As it was, she caught his hand, used his forward momentum against him and threw him heavily to the ground.

Skilled in rough-and-tumble fighting he was up in a moment, but it was clear that his confidence as well as his body had been badly shaken by that fall. She didn’t want to humiliate him for he was an intelligent, extremely attractive man who believed what he said about abandonment. But, unless she could prove herself superior to him, she would jeopardize the scheme she had in mind. And she must remember that her effectiveness now would protect Kai, Lunzie, and the sleepers in the space shuttle.