“Come on now, Lunzie!”

“I’m not kidding, Varian. They looked hungry at the sight of all that raw red meat. They weren’t disgusted. They were fascinated. Tardma was all but salivating.” Lunzie felt sick at the memory of the scene.

“There have always been rumours that heavyworlders eat animal flesh on their home planets,” Varian said thoughtfully, giving a little squeamish shudder. “But that group have all served with FSP teams. They know the rules.”

“It’s not a rumour, Varian. They do eat animal protein on their homeworlds,” Lunzie replied, recalling long serious talks she’d had with Zebara. “This is a very primitive environment, predators hunting constantly. There’s something called the ‘desert island syndrome.’ “ She sighed but made eye contact with the young leader. “And ethnic compulsions can cause the most civilised personality to revert, given the stimulus.”

“Is that why you keep experimenting to improve the quality of available foodstuffs?” Lunzie nodded. “Keep up the good work, then. Last night’s meal was rather savoury. I’ll keep an eye out for a hint of reversion.”

A few days later Lunzie entered the shuttle laboratory to find Trizein combining a mass of vegetable protein with an ARCT-grown nut paste. She swiped her finger through the mess and licked thoughtfully.

“We’re getting there, but you know, Tri, we’re not real explorers yet. I’m sort of disappointed.”

Trizein looked up, startled. “I think we’ve accomplished rather a lot in the limited time with so much to analyse and investigate. We’re the first beings on this planet. How much more explorer can we be?” Lunzie let the grin she’d been hiding show. “We’re not considered true explorers until we have made a spiritous beverage from indigenous products.”

Trizein blinked, totally baffled.

“Drink, Trizein. Quickal, spirits, booze, liquor, alcohol. What have you analysed that’s non-toxic with a sufficient sugar content to ferment? I think we should have a chemical relaxant. It’d do everyone good.”

Trizein peered shortsightedly at her, a grin tugging at his lips. “In point of fact, I have got something. They brought it in from that foraging expedition that was attacked. I ran a sample of it. I think it’s very good but I can’t get anyone else to try it. We’ll need a still.”

“Nothing we can’t build.” Lunzie grinned. “I’ve been anticipating your cooperation, Tri, and I’ve got the necessary components out of stores. I rather thought you’d assist in this worthy project for the benefit of team morale.”

“Morale’s so important,” Trizein agreed, exhibiting a droll manner which he’d had little occasion to display. “I do miss wine, both for drinking and cooking. Not that anything is likely to improve the pervasive flavour of Iretan food. A little something after supper is a sure specific against insomnia.”

“I didn’t think anyone suffered that here,” Lunzie remarked, and then they set to work to construct a simple distillation system, complete with several filters. “We’ll have to remove all traces of the hydro- telluride without cooking off the alcohol.”

“A pity acclimatisation is taking so long,” Trizein said, easing a glass pipe into a joint. “We’ll probably get used to the stench the day before the ARCT comes for us.”

They set the still up, out of the way, in a corner of Lunzie’s sleeping dome. With a sense of achievement, they watched the apparatus bubble gently for a time and then left it to do its job. “It’s going to be days before there’s enough for the whole team to drink,” Trizein said in gentle complaint.

“I’ll keep watch on it,” she said, her eyes crinkling merrily, “but feel perfectly free to pop in and sample its progress.”

“Oh, yes, we should periodically sample it,” Trizein replied gravely. “Can’t have an inferior product.”

They shut the seal on Lunzie’s dome just as Kai and Gaber burst excitedly into the camp.

“We’ve got films of the monster who’s been taking bites out of the herbivores,” Kai announced, waving the cassette jubilantly above his head.

The lightweights watched the footage of toothy monsters with horrified interest. Varian dubbed the carnivores “fang-faces” for the prominent fangs and rows of sharp teeth. They were terrifyingly powerful specimens, walking upright on huge haunches with a reptilian tail like a third leg that flew behind them when they ran. The much smaller forepaws might look like a humorous afterthought of genetic inadequacy but they were strong enough to hold a victim still while the animal chewed on the living prey. Fortunately the fang-faces on film were not savaging herbivores in this scene. They were greedily eating clumps of a bright green grass, tearing them up by those very useful forelimbs, stuffing them into toothy maws.

“Quite a predator,” Lunzie murmured to Varian. She ought to have hauled Trizein away from his beloved electro-microscope. He needed to have the contrast of the macrocosm to round out the pathology of his biological profiles.

“Yes, but this is very uncharacteristic behaviour for a carnivore,” Varian remarked, watching intently. “Its teeth are suitable for a carnivorous diet. Why is it eating grass like there’s no tomorrow?”

As the camera panned past the fang-face, it rested on a golden-furred flying creature, eating grass almost alongside the predator. It had a long sharp beak and wing-hands like the Ryxi but there the resemblance ended.

“We’ve seen avian nests but they’re always near water, preferably large lakes or rivers,” Gaber told Lunzie. “That creature is nearly two hundred kilometres from the nearest water. They would have to have deliberately sought out this vegetation.”

“They’re an interesting species, too,” Kai remarked. “They were curious enough to follow our sled and they’re capable of fantastic speed.”

Varian let out a crow. “I want to be there when we tell that to the Ryxi! They want to be the only intelligent avians in the galaxy even if they have to deny the existence of others by main strength of will.”

“Why weren’t these species seen on the initial flyby of Ireta?” Divisti asked in her deep slow voice.

“With the dense jungle vegetation a super cover? Not surprising that the report only registered life-forms. Think of all the trouble we’ve had getting pictures with them scooting into the underbrush.”

“I wish the ARCT wasn’t out of range,” Kai remarked, not for the first time. “I’d like to order a galaxy search on EV files. I keep feeling that this planet has to have been surveyed before.”

Dimenon, as chief geologist, was of the same opinion. He was getting peculiar echoes from signalling cores all over the continental shield. Kai managed to disinter an old core from the site of one of the echoes. Its discovery proved to the geologists that their equipment was functioning properly but the existence of an unsuspected core also caused consternation.

“This core is not only old, it’s ancient,” Kai said. “Millions of years old.”

“Looks just like the ones you’re using,” Lunzie remarked, handling the tube-shaped core. “That’s true enough, but it suggests that the planet has been surveyed before, which is why no deposits of transuranics have been found in an area that should be rich with them.”

“Then why no report in the EV files?” Dimenon asked.

Kai shrugged, taking the core back from Lunzie. “This is slightly more bulky but otherwise identical.”

“Could it be the Others?” Dimenon asked in a hushed voice.

Lunzie shook her head, chuckling at that old childish nightmare.

“Not unless the Others know the Theks,” Kai replied. “They make all the cores we use.”

“What if the Theks are copying the science of the older technology?” Dimenon argued defensively.

While it was hard to imagine anything older than Theks, Lunzie looked at Kai who knew more about them than she did.

“Then the ancient core has to mean that Ireta was previously surveyed? Only who did it? What do the Theks say?”

“I intend to ask them,” Kai replied grimly.

A few days later, Varian sought Lunzie out in her dome. The young leader was shaking and very disturbed. Lunzie made her sit and gave her a mug of pepper.