Chapter Fifteen

With a grim expression, Varian began emergency measures. She ordered Bonnard to remove all the sled power packs and hide them in the bushes around the compound. The packs had been depleted at an amazing rate and now she had the answer. Overuse by the heavyworlders. They'd have to have sledded to reach their "secret place," for the ritual slaughter and consumption of the animals.

Kai met them in the shuttle at the top of the hill, puzzled at the unusual urgent summons. He was horrified when he heard Varian's conclusions. Lunzie confirmed the continued drain of supplies which led her to believe that the heavyworlders had reverted to primitivism.

"We're lucky if it isn't mutiny," Varian finished. "Haven't you noticed in the past few days how their attitude toward us has been altering? Subtly, I admit; but they show less respect for our positions than before."

Kai nodded. "Then you think a confrontation is imminent?"

Varian affirmed it: "Our grace period ended last restday."

The heavyworlders could take over. As Lunzie drily pointed out, the mutated humans were far more able to take care of themselves on wild Ireta than the lightweight humans.

"I realise I'm repeating myself," Lunzie added, "but if Gaber felt he had been planted, the heavyworlders must have come to the same conclusion." She paused, hearing the whine of a lift-belt in the distance and listened harder. Who'd be using a lift-belt now?

"Bonnard and I also saw a Tyrannosaurus rex with a tree-sized spear stuck in his ribs," Varian said, shuddering. "That creature once ruled Old Earth. Nothing could stop him. A heavyworlder did, for fun! Furthermore, by establishing those secondary camps, we have given them additional bases. Where are the heavyworlders right now?"

"I left Bakkun working at the ridge. Presumably when he's finished he'll come back here. He had a lift-belt ..."

Lunzie glanced out of the shuttle door and saw the whole contingent of heavyworlders coming toward them up the hill. The drawn concentration on their heavy-boned faces was terrifying. They looked dangerous, and they harboured no good intentions for the lightweights in the ship. She shouted a warning to Kai and Varian. She saw the door to the piloting compartment iris shut almost on Paskutti's foot.

As she flattened herself against the bulkhead, she noticed the imperceptible blink that told her the main power supply had been deactivated and the shuttle was now on auxiliaries. Was it too much to hope that one of the leaders had managed to get a message out?

"If you do not open that lock instantly, we will blast," said the hard unemotional voice of Paskutti, blaster in hand.

He was fully kitted out with many items that had so recently gone missing from the stores. Of course, Lunzie told herself; she realised too late that most of that purloined equipment had offensive capability.

"Don't!" Varian's voice sounded sufficiently fearful to keep Paskutti from pulling the release but Lunzie knew the girl was no coward. It did no good for either of them to be fried alive in the compartment.

The hatch opened and massive Paskutti reached through it. He seized Varian by the front of her shipsuit and hauled her out, flinging her against the ceramic side of the shuttle with such force that it broke her arm. Grinning sadistically, Tardma treated Kai the same way.

Lunzie caught Kai and kept him upright, forcing her mind into a Discipline state to calm herself. This was far worse than she could have imagined. How could she have been so naive as to think the heavyworlders would just go quietly?

Then Terilla, Cleiti and Gaber were unceremoniously herded into the shuttle, the cartographer babbling something about how this was not the way matters should proceed and how dared they treat him with such disrespect.

"Tanegli? Do you have them?" Paskutti asked into his wrist com-unit.

Whom would the heavyworlder botanist have? Lunzie answered her own question - the other lightweights not yet accounted for.

"None of the sleds have power packs," said Divisti, scowling in the lock. "And that boy is missing."

"How did he elude you?" Paskutti frowned in annoyance.

"Confusion. I thought he'd cling to the others." Divisti shrugged.

Good for you, Bonnard, Lunzie thought, seeking far more encouragement from that minor triumph than it really deserved.

"Start dismantling the lab, Divisti, Tardma."

Trizein came out of his confusion. "Now wait a minute. You can't go in there. I've got experiments and analyses going on. Divisti, don't touch that fractional equipment. Have you taken leave of your senses?"

"You'll take leave of yours." With a cool smile of pleasure, Tardma struck Trizein in the face with a blow that lifted the slight man off his feet and sent him rolling down the hard deck to lie motionless at Lunzie's feet.

"Too hard, Tardma," said Paskutti. "I'd thought to take him. He'd be more useful than any of the other lightweights."

Tardma shrugged. "Why bother with him anyway? Tanegli knows as much as he does." She went toward the lab with an insolent swing other hips.

Lunzie heard the scraping of feet on the rocks outside and Portegin with a bloody head half carried a groggy Dimenon across the threshold. Bakkun shoved a weeping Aulia and a blank-faced Margit inside. Triv was stretched on the floor when Berru tossed him there, grinning ferociously at his gasps of pain. Inaudible to the heavyworlders, Lunzie could hear Triv begin the measured breathing which led to the trance state of Discipline. At least four of them were preparing for whatever opportunities arose.

"All right, Bakkun," Paskutti ordered, "you and Berru go after our allies. We want to make this look right. That com-unit was still warm when I got here. They must have got a message through to the Theks."

Methodically the heavyworlders continued to strip the shuttle. Then Tanegli returned. "The storehouse has been cleared and what's useful in the domes."

"No protests. Leader Kai, Leader Varian?" sneered Paskutti.

"Protests wouldn't do us any good, would they?" Varian's level controlled voice annoyed Paskutti. He shot a look at the obviously broken arm and frowned.

"No, no protests. Leader Varian. We've had enough of you lightweights ordering us about, tolerating us because we're useful. Where would we have fit in your plantation? As beasts of burden? Muscles to be ordered here, there, and everywhere, and subdued by pap?" He made a cutting gesture with one huge hand.

Then, before anyone guessed his intention, he grabbed Terilla by the hair, letting her dangle at the end of his hand. When Cleiti jumped up at her friend's terrified shriek and began to pummel his thick muscular thigh, he raised his fist and landed a casual blow on the top of her head. She sank unconscious to the deck.

Gaber erupted and dashed at Paskutti who merely put a hand out to hold the cartographer off while he dangled the shrieking child.

"Tell me. Leader Varian, Leader Kai, to whom did you send that message? And what did you say?"

"We sent a message to the Theks. Mutiny. Heavyworlders." Kai watched as Terilla was swung, her screams diminishing to mere gasps. "That's all."

"Release the child," Gaber shouted. "You'll kill her. You know what you need to know. You promised there'd be no violence."

Paskutti viciously swatted Gaber into silence. His neck smashed into pulp, Gaber hit the deck with a terrible thud and gasped out his dying breaths as Terilla was dropped in a heap on top of Cleiti.

Horrified, Lunzie forced herself to think. Paskutti had to know if a message had been beamed to the beacon. How would that information alter his plans for them? Triv had now completed the preliminaries of Discipline. Lunzie wished for a smidgeon of telepathy so that the four of them could coordinate their efforts.

"There isn't a power pack anywhere," Tanegli said, storming into the shuttle. He seized hold of Varian by her broken arm. "Where did you hide them, you tight-assed bitch?"

"Watch it, Tanegli," Paskutti warned him, "these lightweights can't take much."

"Where, Varian? Where?" Tanegli emphasized each syllable with a twist of her arm.

"I didn't hide them. Bonnard did." Tanegli threw Varian's suddenly limp body to the deck.

"Go find him, Tanegli. And the packs, or we'll be humping everything out of here on our backs. Bakkun and Berru have started the drive. Nothing can stop it once it starts."

Lunzie wondered what he meant and whether she dared to go over to Varian and examine her. The heavyworlder leader snarled at Kai.

"Get out of here. All of you. March." Paskutti kicked Triv and Portegin to their feet, gesturing curtly for them to pick up the unconscious Gaber and Trizein, for Aulia and Margit to lift the girls. Lunzie bent to Varian, managing to feel the strong steady pulse and knew the girl was dissembling. "Into the main dome, all of you," he ordered.

The camp was a shambles of wanton destruction from Dandy's broken body to scattered tapes, charts, records, clothing. The search for Bonnard continued, punctuated by curses from Tanegli, Divisti and Tardma. Paskutti kept glancing from his wrist chrono and then to the plains beyond the force-screen.

With Discipline-heightened senses, Lunzie caught the distant thunder. She spotted the two dots in the sky: Bakkun and Berru, and the black line beneath, a tossing black line, a moving black line, and suddenly, with a sinking heart, she knew what the heavyworlders had planned.

The Theks might get the message but they wouldn't reach here in time to save them from a fast approaching stampede. Paskutti was shoving them into the main dome now but he caught Lunzie's glance. "Ah, I see you understand your fitting end, medic. Trampled by creatures, stupid, foolish vegetarians like yourselves. The only one of you strong enough to stand up to us is a mere boy."

He closed the iris lock and the thud of his fist against the plaswall told them that he had shattered the controls. Lunzie was already checking Trizein over, briefly wondering if "your fitting end, medic" meant this whole hideous mess had been arranged to destroy her.

"He's at the veil," Varian said, peering over the bottom of the far window, her arm dangling at her side.

Trizein groaned, regaining consciousness. Lunzie moved on to Cleiti and Terilla and administered restorative sprays.

"He's opened it," Varian reported. "We ought to have a few moments when the herd tops the last rise when they won't be able to see anything for the dust."

"Triv!" Kai and the geologist jammed Discipline-taut fingers into the fine seam of the plastic skin and ripped the tough fabric apart.

Lunzie got the two girls to their feet. Gaber was dead. She gave the near hysterical Aulia another jolt of spray,

"There are four on lift-belts in the sky now," Varian kept reporting. "The stampede has reached the narrow part of the approach. Get ready."

"Where can we go?" Aulia shrieked. The thunderous approach was making them all nervous.

"Back to the shuttle, stupid," Margit said. "NOW!" Varian cried.

Stumbling, half crawling, they hurried up the hill. Trizein couldn't walk so Triv slung him over his shoulders. One look at the bobbing heads of crested dinosaurs bearing down on them was sufficient to lend wings to anyone. The shuttle hatch slammed behind the last human as the forerunners flowed into the compound. The noise and vibration was so overwhelming not even the shuttle's sturdy walls could keep it out. The craft was rattled and banged about in the chaos, death and destruction outside.

"They outdid themselves with the stampede," Varian said with an absurd chuckle.

"It'll take more than herbivores to dent shuttle ceramic. Don't worry. But I would sit down," Kai added.

"As soon as the stampede has stopped, we'd better make our move," a voice piped up from behind the last row of seats.

"Bonnard!"

Grinning broadly, the dusty, stained boy appeared from the shuttle's lab. "I thought this was the safest place after I saw Paskutti moving you out. But I wasn't sure who had come back in. Am I glad it's you!"

"They'll never find those power packs, Varian. Never," Bonnard said, almost shouting above the noise outside. "When Paskutti smashed the dome controls I didn't see how I could get out in time. So ... I ... hid!"

"You did exactly as you should, Bonnard. Even to hiding," Varian reassured him with a firm hug.

Another shift of the shuttle sent everyone rocking.

"It's going to fall," Aulia cried.

"But it won't crack," Kai promised. "We'll survive. By all the things that men hold dear, we'll survive!"

When the stampede finally ended, it took the combined strength of all the men to open the door. The carnage was fearful. They were buried under trampled hadrosaurs. It was full night now. Under the cover of darkness, Bonnard and Kai slipped out and, using lift-belts, managed to bring the power packs back to the shuttle. "Bonnard was right. We've got to make a move," Kai told them as the survivors huddled together, still shaken and shocked by their ordeal. "Come dawn, the heavyworlders will return to survey their handiwork. They'll assume the shuttle is still here, buried under the stampede. They won't be in any hurry to get to it. Where could it go?"

"I know where," Varian said.

"That cave we found, near the golden fliers?" Bonnard asked, his tired face lighting.

"It's more than big enough to accommodate the shuttle. And dry, with a screen of falling vines to hide the opening."

"Great idea, Varian," Kai agreed, "because even if they used the infrared scan, our heat would register the same as adult gifts."

"And that's the best idea I've heard today," Lunzie said briskly, handing around peppers which had been overlooked by the heavyworlders in the piloting compartment.

It required a lot of skill to ease the shuttle out from under the mountain of flesh but Lunzie knew it had to be done now while Kai and Varian held on to their Disciplined strength. The two managed, with Bonnard assisting in the directions since he'd been outside.

By dawn they had reached the inland sea and manoeuvred into the enormous cave, every bit as commodious as Varian and Bonnard had said. Not one of the golden fliers paid attention to the strange white craft that had invaded their area.

"The heavyworlders don't even know this place exists," Varian assured them when they were safely concealed.

Triv and Dimenon used enough of the abundant drooping foliage to synthesise padding to comfort the wounded on the bare plastic deck. Lunzie sent them out again to get enough raw materials to synthesize a hypersaturated tonic to reduce the effects of delayed shock. Then everyone was allowed to sleep.

Lunzie was one of the first awake late the next day. Moving quietly so as not to disturb the exhausted survivors, she cooked up another nutritious broth in the synthesiser, loading it with vitamins and minerals.

"Guaranteed to circulate blood through your abused muscles and restore tissue to normal," she said, serving up steaming beakers to Kai and Triv who had awakened. "We've slept around the chrono and half again."

After checking the binding on Kai's arm, she massaged his shoulders to work out some of the stiffness before she ministered in the same way to Triv.

Thanks. How long before the others rouse?" asked Triv, gratefully working his upper arms in eased circles.

"I'd say we have another clear hour or so before the dead arise," Lunzie answered, holding a beaker of soup to Varian. "I'll need some more greenery to fix breakfast for the rest of them."

They filled the synthesiser with vegetation from the hanging vines that curtained the cave's mouth. Weak sunlight, as bright as Ireta ever saw, shone in on the shuttle's tail through the tough creepers. By the time the others awoke, there was food.

"It's not very interesting, but it's nutritious," Lunzie said as she handed around flat brown cakes. "I'd do more with the synthesiser, but how long can we depend upon having the power last? And the heavyworlders might detect its use."

Varian set the children to keep a lockout at the cave opening, warning them not to hang beyond the vines. Bonnard thought that was wasted effort.

"They're not going to look for people they think they've already killed."

"We underestimated them once, Bonnard," Kai remarked. "Let's not make the same mistake twice." Duly thoughtful, the boy took a lookout post.

A very long week went by while the survivors recovered from shock and injury.

"How long do we have to wait for the Theks to come and save us?" Varian asked the three Disciples when all the others had gone to sleep. "They would have had your message within two hours after you sent it. 'Mutiny' ought to stir their triangles if 'heavyworlder' didn't."

Kai upturned his hands, wincing at the stab of pain in his broken wrist. "The Theks don't rush under any circumstances, I guess. I had hoped they might just this once."

"So, what do we do?" Triv asked. "We can't stay here forever. Or avoid the heavyworlders' search once they realise the shuttle's gone. I know Ireta's a big planet but it's only this part on the equator that's barely habitable. Even if we stay here, we've got to use energy to produce food. We could get caught either way. They've got all the tracers and telltaggers. They have everything, even the stun-guns. What do we do?"

Every instinct in Lunzie shouted "NO" at the obvious answer but she voiced it herself. "There is always cold sleep." Even to herself she sounded defeated.

"That's the sensible last resort," Triv agreed. Lunzie wanted to argue the point but she clamped her lips firmly shut while Kai and Varian nodded solemnly.

"EV is coming back for us, isn't she?" Triv asked with an expressionless face.

Kai and Varian assured him that theARCT-10 would not abandon them. The richness of their surveys was on the message beacon to be stripped when theARCT had finished following that storm. The beacon Portegin had rigged outside the cave, camouflaged as a dead branch, would guide the search and rescue team to them.

"With the sort of ion interference a big storm can produce, it's no wonder they haven't been able to make contact with us," Varian said staunchly but none of the others looked as though they quite believed her.

Lunzie kept trying not to think of the word "Jonah."

"Good, then we'll go cold sleep tomorrow once the others have been told," Kai decided briskly.

"Why tell them?" Lunzie asked. She would rather get the whole process over with before she lost her courage.

"They're halfway into cold sleep right now." Varian gestured to the sleeping bodies, startling Kai. "And we'll save ourselves some futile arguments."

"It's a full week now and at the rate carrion eaters work on Ireta, the heavyworlders may have discovered the shuttle is missing," Triv said ominously.

"There's no way the heavyworlders could find a trace of us in cold sleep. And there's a real danger if we remain awake much longer," Varian added.

With the other Disciples in agreement with a course she herself had recommended, Lunzie rose slowly to her feet. Unwilling as she was, she went to the cold-sleep locker and tapped in the code that would open it. She really hated to go into cold sleep again. She had wasted so much of her life living in that state. It was almost as bad as death. In a sense, it was a death - of all that was current and pleasant and hopeful in this segment of her life.

But she gathered up the drug and the spraygun, checked dosages and began to administer the medication to those already asleep. Triv, Kai and Varian moved among them, checking their descent into cold sleep as skins cooled and respirations slowed to the imperceptible.

"You know," Varian began in a hushed but startled tone as she was settling herself, "poor old Gaber was right. We are planted. At least temporarily!"

Lunzie stared at her, then made a grimace. "That's not the comfort I want to take with me into cold sleep."

"Does one dream in cryogenic sleep, Lunzie?" Varian asked as Lunzie handed her a cup of the preservative drug.

"I never have."

Lunzie gave Kai his dose. The young leader smiled as he accepted it.

"Seems a waste of time not to do something," he said.

"The whole concept of cold sleep is to suspend the sense of subjective time," Lunzie pointed out.

"You sleep, you wake. And centuries pass," added Triv, taking his beakerful.

"You're less help than Varian is," Lunzie grumbled.

"It won't be centuries," Kai said emphatically. "Not once EV has those uranium assays. It's too raking rich for them to ignore."

Lunzie arranged the cold-sleep gas tank controls to kick in as soon as its sensors registered the cessation of all life signs. She held her dose in her hand. She wouldn't risk them all if she stayed awake. Her body heat would register as a giff to any heavyworld over-flight of the area. She could stay awake.

But if she slept with these, she would, for once, have someone she knew, people she liked and had worked with. She wouldn't be quite so alone when she woke. That was some consolation. Before she could talk herself into some drastic and fatal delay, she tossed the dose down and lay down along one side of the deck, pillowing her head on a pad and settling her arms by her side.

Who knows when they'll come for us, she thought, unable to censor dismal thoughts. She grabbed at another consolation: the heavyworlders didn't get her, or the others. She'd wake again. And there'd be another settlement due her.

The leaden heaviness began to spread out from her stomach, permeating her tissues. The air on her cooling skin felt uncomfortably hot, and grew hotter. Suddenly Lunzie wanted to get up, run away from this place before she was trapped inside herself again. But it was already too late to stop the process. She felt her consciousness sinking fast into another death of sleep. Muhlah!