The Mystery of Ireta (50 page)

“It’s not like you to be cynical, Varian. Restore your faith in mankind by a close study of your giffs. They’re worth the trouble it takes to preserve them. Remember, if this planet is thrown open, the Ryxi are just a short hop away—”

“Why would the planet be thrown open?” Apprehension overwhelmed Varian as she thought of the pompous, intolerant Ryxi.

“It’s rich, that’s why. There is already an established settlement with an immense grid to facilitate the landing of the heaviest ore freighters. Those heavy-worlders in their transport will be given short shrift and tossed back into space. But the tribunal might throw the rest of the planet open to competitive explorations, just to keep Aygar’s group in order—that is, if the Thek are willing to forgo their obvious prior claim to Ireta’s wealth, staked with those old cores Kai has dug up. There is, however, a statute of limitations on how long an unworked claim remains the property of the original discoverers. That herd of Thek might well be the vanguard of Thek exploiters. However, as xenobiologist, you’d do well to investigate the fringes. Two emerging species are better than one, even against a superior claim lodged by the Thek.”

Varian felt a shudder of distaste and revulsion.

“Don’t discount them,” Lunzie said. “Predators can display intelligence, too, you know. Look at
us
! I grant you that the fringes don’t have the intrinsic appeal of your giffs, but the more weight you can pump into your investigations, the more chance you have of protecting the giffs. If only by default.” Lunzie took another sip of the brandy. “By the way, I accepted an invitation to dine with Sassinak tomorrow evening. You and Kai are included.” Lunzie’s expression turned serious again. “I’m hoping that Mayerd’s more sophisticated diagnostic unit can analyze that fringe toxin and come up with a purge to flush the toxin out of Kai’s system.
And
a nerve regenerator. Oh, the toxin will dissipate in time . . . but he’s needed now, in proper working condition.” To that Varian solemnly lifted her glass and drank. “I figure you’ll just about make it to your bed before that brandy immobilizes you.”

Lunzie proved correct, and the sound night’s sleep improved Varian’s outlook. Her mind was clear, and she felt able to combat—well, fang-faces, if necessary. Kai had more color in his face when he and Portegin joined her for breakfast, discussing priorities for Portegin’s skills: the new core screen or completing repairs to the shuttle’s damaged console.

“We’ve communications capability, and I can rig up a remote outside here,” Portegin was saying. “It won’t take me that much longer,” then he turned with an apologetic grin to Varian, “though I do need a few more matrices and more weld-wire, two number-four—”

“Put it on a list!” Varian said with a mock resignation.

“I did,” and there was nothing sheepish about the speed with which Portegin handed over his “few” requirements, “and then we can communicate directly with the
ARCT-10
when, as, and if it makes its long overdue appearance.”

“Dimenon and I want to know if the Thek really are squatting on the sites of the old cores. He remembers some of the coordinates, but what we sank were so near to some of the older ones, we can’t be sure unless we have a screen.”

“Why would they go after theirs? It’s more logical to go after ours, isn’t it?” Portegin asked with some exasperation.

“Thek logic remains obscure to us poor mortals,” Lunzie said, “but I’d prefer to be in communication with as many entities as possible . . . the ones that have the courtesy to answer.”

Kai turned to Lunzie in considerable annoyance. “Can’t you
see
, Lunzie, how important it might be for me to be
here
today? What can the cruiser’s diagnostic unit do for me that Godheir’s can’t discuss with it?”

“Because we now have a sample of fringe to serve into the diagnostic unit, and Mayerd’s a specialist in planetary exotic toxins, and the sooner we get the poison flushed out of your system, the sooner you can get out of that padded suit and operate on normal channels! Do I make myself plain? Besides,” and she tossed her hand up, “Sassinak wants you there this morning at 0900. It won’t take you that much longer to go through a diagnosis again, now will it?”

To that, Kai had to agree.

“Then let’s go. Kai, will you be recorder for me?” Varian asked briskly as she looped the bag containing all the reports over her shoulder. “Then I can make use of the journey time.” A little reminder to Kai that he wasn’t the only one to have his plans altered might help. “If you could get our usual escort on tape,” she said as they settled themselves in the battered two-man sled, “I really must see if the nose can be repaired.”

With cautious and studied movements, Kai got into the sled and strapped himself in. His padded jumpsuit was of a softer than regulation fabric, padded on shin, thigh, calf, elbow and forearm, with skin-gloves to prevent inadvertent injury. Then he pulled the recorder toward him to check its load and sighted for focus and available light. As he completed these preparations, Varian noticed that his eyes were deeply shadowed, a strange contrast to the white flesh about the puncture marks.

“Ready when you are!” he said.

Varian nodded and took the sled out of the cave into the still misty morning. The passage of the sled swirled the yellowish fog about, and she used instruments rather than visual guidance in such a pea soup.

“So much for an outbound record,” she said in disgust. “Nothing will filter that.”

The telltagger sputtered. “Well, life-forms are coming in at seven o’clock,” Kai said with a semblance of a grin. “You’ve got your escort.”

“
How
do they see through this murk?”

“Why don’t you ask them?”

“Funny fellow! When do I have the opportunity?”

“I know the feeling!”

Whatever tension had existed between them dissipated at this exchange. They traveled on in the murk, Kai silent in deference to the concentration Varian required to fly in such conditions. They had been airborne for over an hour when the mist began to disperse.

“Kai, why
wouldn’t
Tor be here?”

“That has puzzled me. Especially since Tor took the trouble to rouse the Ryxi and get Godheir down here to help us.”

“Isn’t it unusual for so many Thek to gather?”

“Highly. I’ve never heard of it before. I wonder if Commander Sassinak would give me a little time on the cruiser’s memory banks.”

Varian grinned to herself. “She seems to wish to cooperate in any way she can. Oh, turn that thing off,” Varian added, for they were having to raise their voices to be heard above the telltagger. Kai flicked it off mid-blip.

Just then they emerged from the mist into a brilliantly clear sunlit band, over tree-dotted plains, not too far from their original site. Varian craned her neck and saw the three escort giffs emerge from the fog, the sun gilding their fur.

“Why would Sassinak want us at a meeting?”

“I could think of half a hundred reasons.”

“Maybe she’s had a report about the
ARCT-10
that she won’t commit to a broadcast?”

Varian shot her companion a quick look, but his face gave away no internal emotions. The fate of the
ARCT-10
would be of primary importance to Kai: his family had been ship-bred for generations. The
ARCT-10
was his home far more than any planet had ever been hers.

“Could be,” she replied noncommittally. To dismiss the idea out of hand would be unkind, no matter how she wished to reassure Kai. “Sassinak’s not the sort to sugar-coat a pill—”

“And she’d be aware of the morale factor for most of us.”

“Kai, how long does an update take to reach a cruiser this far from a sector headquarters?”

Kai’s breath hissed as he inhaled, and then he gave her a slightly sheepish grin. “Not by this morning if the first asking was yesterday.”

“And as Captain Godheir said, he’d’ve heard something if the
ARCT-10
was known to be lost.”

“Hmmmm.”

“Scant reassurances, I know, but this is a time when no news can be good news. Say, I haven’t had a chance to tell you, but Sassinak is Lunzie’s great-great-great-granddaughter!”

“No!”

“That was Sassinak’s parting remark to me yesterday. Took me the entire flight back to get over the shock. To cushion the shock she sent Lunzie a bottle of Sverulan brandy.” Varian gave Kai a very gentle nudge in the ribs. “Now, I know you don’t appreciate planetary brews, but this stuff is gorgeous. Get on Lunzie’s good side and she might just give you a sip—if she hasn’t already finished the bottle on the sly. No, she couldn’t have—no one could drink that much Sverulan brandy and function the next day!”

“I just can’t imagine Lunzie as a mother.”

“I can. She mothers us in her fashion. It’s the ancestor part that stuns me. That original child is probably long since dead, and the next four generations as well, and here is Lunzie, motoring along in fine shape. And younger than Sassinak.”

“Ship-breds like me don’t usually run into this sort of anomaly.”

“Ireta’s full of
them
! All kinds, why not a human paradox! I wonder if Lunzie will ever tell us how long she’s cold slept. One thing, it hasn’t affected her wits at all.”

The patch of clear sky abruptly gave way to a fast-moving heavy squall and managing the sled took all Varian’s attention. They rode it out, and the weather cleared to lowering clouds scudding across the sky just as they reached the plateau, so Kai had a good view of the area. Varian came in above the grid so that Kai got the full effect of the two space vehicles, the smaller one, lean and dangerous, the other gross and brooding. From that vantage, Kai could also see the settlement, the foundry, and the unoccupied length of the grid.

“They meant to have more than one transport land here, didn’t they?”

“It would appear so,” she replied. “Krims! Aygar took Sassinak at her word.” She pointed to the three sleds parked at the edge of the settlement and the people busy loading them. “They aren’t wasting any time. I wonder where they’re going.”

Kai scowled. “They’ve been given transport?”

“They’re just as entitled to replacement equipment as we are—”

“Mutineers may not profit—”

“Only Tanegli qualifies as a mutineer—”

“Those people
are
accessories to a conspiracy against FSP.” Kai pointed agitatedly at the transport vessel.

“Yes,
they
are.
They
are the real criminals, Kai, not Aygar and his group.”

“I don’t understand your reasoning, Varian.” Kai’s face was strained. “How can you possibly take their side?”

“I’m not taking their side, Kai, but I can’t help respecting people who’ve managed to survive Ireta and achieve that grid!” She banked the sled to land it close to the open port of the
Zaid-Dayan
. “If only the
ARCT
had stripped the beacon, or kept its schedule with us.”

“ ‘If,’ ” Kai said contemptuously.

“I’d cheerfully settle for a lousy ‘when,’ when we get you operational again. When we find out what the Thek are doing. When we find out what the tribunal thinks of all this . . .”

They landed, and very cautiously Kai eased himself out of the sled. Varian made a show of checking the records in her shoulder bag. She couldn’t watch the once agile, active young man reduced to the slow motion of the invalid. Then she picked up the container with the fringe samples Lunzie had frozen.

They were met at the portal by a very dark-skinned officer, lean and bouncy. This one wore the rank device of a lieutenant commander and the fourragère of an adjutant. He gave them a white-toothed smile before gesturing urgently over his shoulder for someone to hurry up. “Fordeliton, Leaders Varian, Kai. Very pleased to meet you and at your service. We saw your sled approaching. And here is Mayerd.”

The chief medic came bustling up, her eyes narrowing as she greeted Kai. Then she turned to Varian. “How’s Portegin?”

“Constructing a core screen from that wealth of space matrices and units the commander supplied us with,” Varian said. “I’ve a fringe sample for you.”

“Just what I need.” She took the sample case from Varian. “Kai, you go on with Fordeliton. I’ll collect you when we’ve analyzed this information.” Mayerd hurried off down the corridor.

“If you’ll come with me,” and Fordeliton gestured in the appropriate direction. “Portside at the next corridor junction, Varian. And that second door . . .”

Varian halted at the door which bore Fordeliton’s nameplate. “I thought we were to see Commander Sassinak.”

“In a manner of speaking, you will. I don’t think we will have missed anything. They’d only just been escorted in when I went to collect you,” he said cryptically as he thumbed the catch on his door and motioned for Varian and Kai to precede him.

For a cruiser his quarters were unusually spacious. One wall contained terminal, displays, and auxiliary controls. The main viewscreen was operational and, to Varian’s surprise, tuned to the commander’s office and the meeting that was in progress.

“No, she’s checking their papers. The commander said she would spin that out indefinitely until I had you here. If you’ll be seated—” and he leaned over to touch a button. “There, she knows you’re here. Yesterday we arrested them for landing illegally on an unopened planet. They protested that they had responded to an emergency distress call and merely homed on the beacon. Sassinak suggested this morning’s meeting to discuss the irregularity. She wanted you both here for obvious reasons.”

Eyes on the screen, Varian felt for the offered chair with fumbling hands. “She’s not in there alone with them, is she?” she asked Fordeliton in a hushed voice, reacting unconsciously to the menace presented by the five heavy-worlders perched implacably in front of Sassinak.

“That’s a stun-wand the commander is handling so casually.” Fordeliton wore an amused expression. “And there’s a group of Wefts in marine uniform just beyond our view plus, of course, the usual sort of escort personnel.”

“Wefts?” Kai was surprised. Wefts were enigmatic shape-changing morphs of unusual abilities. No humanoid of any variety had ever emerged victorious from combat against a Weft.