“Then let us find a specific, and have Lunzie run a few tests. It might be a mutational allergy. Say, did you send the heavy-worlders on any errands today? In the north?”

 

“North? No. They were at your disposal today. Now, about the pitchblende site? You’ll be working from there again tomorrow? Okay, then I’ll send a team in for a ground check. There seem to be only smaller animals not, as I’ve told the youngsters, that size is any indication of potential danger. What other area do you want us to check out xenobiologically as a possible secondary base?”

 

Kai tapped out of the computer the print of Gaber’s chart, updated now with the pitchblende site and the old cores.

 

“The shield edge is only two hundred kilometres from here in the north-west so we won’t need a secondary camp there yet. But Portegin and Aulia want to examine these lakes and go further into this flatland area. Berru and Triv are scheduled to go due west where there appears to be a wide continental basin. Might have petroleum pools: not as rich an energy source, naturally, but crude oil has uses. We might be able to refine enough to use as an auxiliary fuel for the...”

 

“Kai did anyone use the big sled for any length of time this morning?”

 

“Just to reach the site. Then it was turned over to you. Why?”

 

“Because its elapsed flight time is longer than it should have been. Damned thing’s due now for a power change.”

 

“

 

“I dunno. Just that I don’t usually make errors in my figures.”

 

“We’ve enough worries, Varian, without imagining more.”

 

Varian grimaced. “Like no contact with EV. Your teams’ll be expecting some acknowledgement...”

 

“We’ve got some leeway, and I’ll use every day of it.”

 

“Yes, we do have stall time, don’t we. By the way, those youngsters were very useful to me. I think I’ll opt them again when I don’t need to land,” she hastily added as she saw the objections forming in Kai’s startled face. “You might even consider,” and she grinned slyly, “taking Bonnard with you on a coring expedition.”

 

“Now just a minute, Varian...”

 

“They do say that over-exposure cures a lot of fancies.”

 

“True. How about helping me with that message to the Theks?”

 

“Sorry, Kai, I’ve got to release Mabel, check with Lunzie and get a wash before eating.” Varian quickly opened the iris.” But I’d be happy to look over what you plan to say.”

 

He made as if to throw something at her but she scampered away, laughing.

 

An hour later, he was certain that Varian at her worst could have constructed a better message to the Theks. It covered the main points, and requested the return information required.

 

He beamed the message, confirming a contact hour two days’ later. It didn’t give Theks much time to meditate their answers but he had specified only yes, no or deferred answers.

 

The next day went as scheduled, the heavy-worlders restored to operating efficiency. Tardma and Tanegli did a ground survey of the densely vegetated area where small life forms had been telltagged by Varian and the youngsters. The creatures had maintained their anonymity but skeletal remains not yet disintegrated by insect and carrion eater indicated that while carnivorous, the creatures were probably nocturnal hunters and not large enough to constitute a real danger. Further, they were unlikely to be caught so far from their own territory as the secondary camp. Kai spent the afternoon with Dimenon and Margit choosing a site. It was decided that Portegin and Aulia could also use the camp for their westerly investigations.

 

Lunzie told Kai and Varian confidentially that the heavy-worlders ought to have had a higher tolerance for the fruit drink than the light grav or ship-bred. She couldn’t understand their reactions. However, she did not recommend rationing or watering the potion. She could bring the heavy-worlders in for a routine physical, which, she allowed, was a good idea for every member of the expedition, to check on any allergenic tendencies or subtle infections acquired since planetfall.

 

That evening Lunzie supplied enough of the fruit drink to make the evening extremely convivial. The heavy-worlders drank no more than anyone else, laughed infrequently as was their habit and retired when everyone else did. The following day there was no impairment of their efficiency which increased the mystery of their behaviour that first evening.

 

The contact hour with the Theks was duly kept by Kai. Varian arrived half-way through the ponderous and slowly delivered reply.

 

“No” was the answer to his questions about messages being stripped from the satellite and contact with the EV. He received the expectable deferred answer concerning any knowledge of previous survey and the discovery of the old cores. Excellent was their response to news of the pitchblende deposit, with “continue” added. To his comment that he had heard from the Ryxi he got an acknowledgement. The Theks were reputedly tolerant of all species in a benevolent, impartial way but Kai was left with the feeling that the Theks couldn’t care less if the Ryxi maintained contact.

 

He was of two minds about their deferred answer on a previous survey. On one hand, he’d half-hoped they could find a previous reference, though how they could, out of contact with their own kind and EV’s data banks, he didn’t know. On the other hand, he would have been obscurely relieved if they had proved their fallability. Yet, if this case did shatter their reputation, something stable and secure would be lost forever to him.” So they don’t know,” said Varian, blatantly pleased.

 

“Not actively at any rate,” he replied, quite willing to take the Thek part to offset his mental disloyalty. “Of course, there are only several million planets in the universe on which life of some sort has evolved...”

 

“So we’re constantly informed but our sphere of interest is currently limited to this one stinking ball of earth. By the way, in order to set you up a secondary camp, we’re going to have to formulate a few plans,” said Varian. “According to the old core pattern, the shield runs about two thousand kilometres in a long point to the south-east. That makes commuting back here unfeasible. I want to take Tanegli, Paskutti, Tardma and Lunzie and check out that area.” She unrolled area charts some of the topographical features already marked out in Gaber’s neat draftsmanship. Over these were wash colours, the key at the side. “I’ve keyed it here to territorialities of the beasts we’ve tagged. I think the guide is adequate but there is so much animal life in this area,” and she indicated the plateau and rain forest just beyond the dead parameters of the camp, “that I’ve only bothered with the big and dangerous ones. Here’s a spot frame of each type we’ve observed enough to identify as herbivorous, carnivorous or omnivorous. As you can see, we’ve a way to go before we’ve done even the most superficial cataloguing.” She tapped vast areas of the outlined land mass which were pristine. “Here there be dragons!” she added in a fruity voice.

 

“Dragons?”

 

“Well, That’s what the antique cartographer would say when they didn’t know a binary bit about the indigenous life.”

 

“Any more news on which species is which here?” asked Kai.

 

She shook her head, handing him several copies of the maps. “That’s not as urgent as your geological work, and you needed some sort of a guide.”

 

“This map is terrific, Varian. I thought you’d been out with your teams...”

 

“No, I sent them to get me this information, and fill in some of the nearby gaps in our survey. Terilla and I collaborated on the composite.”

 

“Terilla did these with you?” Impressed, Kai was poring over the charts.

 

“Yes, indeed. I know the youngsters were sort of dumped on us at the last moment but I wish someone had thought to give us their records. Terilla’s been a real find and she could have been apprenticed right off to Gaber and kept him from falling so far behind. He even approves of her work.” Varian grinned saucily at Kai. “You’ll be relieved to hear that Bonnard’s interest has been transferred.”

 

“To Dandy? Or Mabel? In neither case am I flattered.”

 

“Mabels long gone. No, Bonnard is aiming to get on my expedition to the golden fliers.”

 

“At least he picks something demonstrably intelligent.”

 

“I never said he didn’t have good taste.”

 

“Varian!”

 

“When’s the contact with the Ryxi?”

 

“This afernoon at 15.30 hours. If they remember.”

 

“We do have problems with memory this trip, don’t we? The Ryxi remembering to speak to us, the Theks remembering to think and EV remembering to get in touch with us. Well, back to my hot drawing board...” She started out of the pilot cabin. “Oh, hello, Gaber...”

 

“Varian, did you take all my chart copies?”

 

“Except the one Terilla was working on. Why?”

 

“I didn’t know. I just didn’t know and I was...”

 

“I did tell you, Gaber, but I guess you were so deep in the tape, you didn’t hear me. Sorry about that. I’ve given Kai copies, and I’m on my way back to your lair with these right now.”

 

“Oh, very well then. And, if I didn’t hear you, I am sorry.”

 

To Kai, Gaber did not sound the least bit sorry. Kai went back to studying the patterns of animal. The biggest herbivores, like Mabel and three other large types, could be found all through the rain forests, with their probable passages through the mountain ranges neatly designated by tiny drawings of the beasts. The predators, like fang-face, hunted singly: only one pair had been discovered and they had been involved in a ferocious battle, which had deteriorated, in Paskutti’s words, into a mating. The scope of the charts was hampered by the large uncharted areas, over which a transparency had been laid, indicating the general topographical features as seen by the initial cursory probe.

 

They had been concentrating on the relatively cooler portion of the shield mass, since the polar region was much hotter than the equatorial due to the hotter thermal core of the planet. They would soon have to penetrate those steaming jungles, a task Kai did not relish. The proliferation and diversity of life forms would be incredible in such warmth, Varian had warned him during their shipboard briefing sessions. The lush tropical jungles nourished life, provided quantities of food, as well as immense competition for any and all edible substances. In cooler climates, though Ireta could not boast a very temperate zone, there tended to be fewer species since the food supply was limited by the more severe conditions of life.

 

With understandable satisfaction, Kai took his own maps and marked in the two pitchblende finds, and those of the day before when Portegin and Aulia had sited two large copper deposits, and Berru and Triv had marked three mountains of iron ores. Whoever had been here before had denuded the shield areas but plate action in the ensuing milleniums had made the unstable areas doubly rich. This was actually Kai’s first search expedition: his other assignments had been remedial — finding veins which had faulted out, or flooding controls and deep sea manganese dredging: all valuable experience and designed to aid him in a full scale planetary survey like this one.

 

He was so deep in his thoughts that the warning of his chrono jerked him to attention and bewilderment as to why he had had the alarm set.

 

The Ryxi contact! Belatedly he realized that he should have prepared a message for them. It was easier to read a written message fast than gabble spontaneously at the speed required for the Ryxi. He jotted down some notes as the communication unit warmed to its task. Diplomatically he phrased Varian’s comments about the golden fliers.

 

Vrl came on as scheduled, asking for confirmation of contact with EV. Kai replied in the negative but Vrl did not seem too concerned. He said that they had sent their full report by long distance capsule to their home world. He intimated that he didn’t care how long it took to arrive, he and his group were well and pleasantly established. Kai had half a mind not to say anything about the golden fliers if Vrl didn’t ask. But the avian did. Kai told him the little Varian and he had observed. Luckily he had the tape on for Vrl’s excited reply erupted in Kai’s ears at an articulate speed. Kai got the impression that he was a lying discontent, envious of the Ryxi and making the whole species up. Vrl signed off before Kai could vindicate himself or arrange another contact time.

 

He was staring, bemused and somewhat aggravated by Vrl’s over-reaction when he heard the sound of a cleared throat. Gaber was standing in the iris lock.

 

“I’m sorry to intrude, Kai, but we are missing one of the area maps. Do you have two copies of one there?”

 

Kai fingered the tough but thin sheets. They did stick together occasionally when the copying solution dried. “No, I’ve only the one set.”

 

“Well, then a set is missing,” said Gaber in his customary aggrieved tone and left.

 

Kai could see him shaking his head as he made for the shuttle’s lock. Kai set the communicator for a slow replay of the interchange with Vrl, vowing that Varian ought to do an intensive study of those fliers as soon as possible.

 

Chapter SEVEN

 

In the next seven days, the expedition was too busy setting up the secondary camps to indulge in any activity not strictly necessary to these primary aims. Varian found time to return to the fish rock and bring several small dessicated specimens of the fringes for Trizein to study. The man buried himself in his laboratory until Lunzie found him asleep at his work desk. She forced him to take a break, eat and sleep. He did so unwillingly and when he woke, he stumbled about the compound with unseeing eyes, though he did stop once to stare at Dandy with a puzzled expression.

 

The little creature was quite tame and permitted out of its run when Bonnard and Cleiti were on hand. Varian had decided not to release it as, orphaned, it had no natural protector. Kai had to accede to her arguments since it was obvious the little beast would never reach a great size and was therefore no strain on the expedition’s time or resources. Dandy was, by nature, timid and content to follow the youngsters about, its large liquid eyes wistful or startled by turns. Kai would privately have preferred more of an extrovert personality in a tamed beast but Dandy posed no problem of aggressive behaviour. Kai still thought it a very nondescript affair.

 

The golden fliers were continually seen in the skies, almost as if, Varian said one evening, they were as interested in the new occupants of their skies as the expedition was in them. She had been gleefully enchanted by Vrl’s reaction to their existence for, as the slow playback confirmed, the Ryxi had spluttered out a repudiation of Varian’s report, indicating that an intelligent avian species was unlikely to occur again on any planet, under any conditions: the Ryxi were unique and would remain so and any attempt to supplant their preeminent position in the Federation would be met by severe measures. Vrl suggested that this was a hoax which the bipeds had better forget, retract and abandon or he would recommend that all contact between Ryxi and Human be forthwith severed.

 

Once Terilla’s animal maps were circulated, Tanegli and Gaber vyed with each other for her time and skill to the point where Varian and Kai had to intervene. Unconcerned by such competition for her assistance, Terilla made it quite plain that she much preferred plants to charts or animals. Chuckling, Varian showed Kai the map the girl had inscribed for Tanegli indicating the position of flora, grass and shrub on the plains and swamp areas. A work schedule was evolved in which Terilla spent three afternoons with each man while her morning hours were hers. With increased work loads, Kai assigned tasks to Bonnard and Cleiti as he would any other member of the expedition. Tanegli usually opted for Bonnard and Cleiti when Terilla was not available for his botanical excursions. Sometimes Bonnard acted as recorder for Bakkun when administration duties prevented Kai from field-work beside the heavy-world geologist.

 

Lunzie annexed Cleiti on those days to help her test Ireta’s soil and vegetation for any unusual medicinal properties.

 

Two secondary camps were cited and occupied but it was obvious that a third camp to the far east would have to be established to continue exploration of the easterly land mass. Kai projected that over half their expeditionary time would be spent in the eastern hemisphere. He hoped that the fifteen degree axial tilt would mean some cooler weather in the polar regions when the teams had to move to complete the survey in the western hemisphere.

 

On neither of his next two contacts with the Theks did they have any good news for him of the deferred query or of the EV. Kai’s leeway on the matter of response from EV was fast running out. He was prepared and had Varian’s support when Dimenon forced an admission of a contact lapse. Kai cited thc cosmic storm in such an off-handed manner that Dimenon never thought to ask if the ores report was the only message uncollected.

 

“How long a grace period we have now, I wouldn’t estimate,” Kai told Varian afterwards.

 

“Keep “em so busy counting their paydirt bonuses that they’ll forget to as?”

 

“This is a raking rich planet, Varian.”

 

“So? It’s up to EV to stay in touch with us, if they want the energy materials we’ve found. They know where we are.” Varian held Kai’s gaze and she jerked up one eyebrow. “You aren’t considering Gaber’s ludicrous notion, are you?”

 

“It does occur to me now and then,” Kai said, rubbing the side of his nose, feeling silly but actually relieved to hear Varian air the matter.

 

“Hmmm, yes. It occurs to me now and then, too. Have the Ryxi reported in again?”

 

“No.” Kai grinned at her. “Did you expect them to?”

 

“No.” She laughed. “They are so... pompously paranoiac. As if another intelligent avian could possibly threaten them. I mean, the giffs,” which was the nickname she’d given the golden fliers, “are intelligent but so far from the Ryxi position that it’s asinine for them to take umbrage.” Varian sighed. “I’d love to evaluate their intelligence.”

 

“Why don’t you?”

 

“With your lot agitating for that eastern camp?”

 

“What about next rest day? Make a small start. Go observe them, relax for the day.”

 

“Could I?” Varian brightened at the prospect. “Could I take the big sled, sleep out in it? We’ve got their flight habits well documented now, we’ve caught the fishing act often enough to establish that drill, but I don’t know much about their personal life, their matutinal habits. And there’s only the one place for those grasses they eat. They do use swamp grass for net-weaving but I don’t know exactly how they accomplish the feat.” She gave him a sideways frown. “You need a break as much as I do. Let’s both go, next rest day. Paskutti and Lunzie can sub for us.”

 

“What if we arrive on the giff rest day?” asked Kai with a very bland expression.

 

“There’s always that possibility, isn’t there?” she replied, not taking his lure.

 

Kai was astonished at how eagerly he looked forward to the break in routine. That showed how right Varian had been in suggesting it. Lunzie approved wholeheartedly, telling Kai she’d been about to recommend a day off for them both. She wasn’t too sure that observing the giffs at close range constituted a proper holiday but the physician was equally keen to know more about the giffs.

 

“What is there about winged creatures that fascinates us all?” Lunzie asked as they sat about after the evening meal over beakers of distilled fruit juice.

 

“Their independence?” asked Kai.

 

‘ “If we had been meant to fly, we’d’ve been given wings,” ’ quipped Varian in a thin nasal voice, then continued in a normal tone, “I suspect it is the freedom, or perhaps the view, the perspective, the feeling of infinite space about you. You ship-bred types can’t appreciate open spaces the way the planet-bred can, but I do need vistas on which to feast my eyes, and soul.”

 

“Confinement, voluntary or involuntary, can have adverse effects on temperament and psychology, resulting in serious maladjustrnents,” Lunzie said. “One reason why we include the youngsters on planetfall assignments as often as possible.”

 

Kai remained silent, acutely conscious of his own sometimes pressing agoraphobia.

 

“We have surrogate wings,” Lunzie continued, “in the agency of sleds and lift-belts...”

 

“Which do not quite produce the same freedoms,” said Kai slowly, wondering what it would feel like to be independent of all artificial aids: to dip, dive, soar and glide without the unconscious restrictive considerations of fuel, stress, metal fatigue.

 

“Why, Kai,” said Varian, regarding him with delighted astonishment, “you’re the last one I’d expect to understand.”

 

“Perhaps,” he said with a wry smile, “you planet-bred types underestimate the ship-bred.”

 

Dimenon, who’d been in an uproariously good mood that evening, since he and Margit had flown in to report finding not only a stream running with gold nuggets but the parent lode, had brought out his handpiano. He began to render a boisterous ballad with interminable verses and a silly syllabic chorus with such an infectious tune that everyone joined in. To Kai’s surprise, so did the heavy-worlders, thumping the plasfloor with their heavy boots and clapping with unusual enthusiasm.

 

Margit wanted to dance and dragged Kai onto the floor, yelling at Dimenon to leave off the endless verses and play some decent music. Kai was never certain when the heavy-worlders disappeared but the convivial gathering lasted well past the rise of the third moon.

 

He awoke suddenly the next morning. with an urgency that suggested danger. When he scrambled out of the sleeping sack to the window of his dome, the scene was quiet. Dandy was sprawled asleep in his pen. There was no movement. The day had started, the brighter patch of cloud which was the sun was well above the soft slope of the eastern hills. Whatever had alarmed his subconscious was not apparent.

 

He was roused and so keyed up by the abrupt triggering that he decided to remain up. He dragged on a clean ship suit, inserted a fresh lining in his boots and fastened them. He had a small larder in his dome and broke open a wake-up beaker, reminding himself to check with Lunzie today on the state of the stores. He could not shake his sensation that something was amiss so he did a tour of the encampment.

 

There wasn’t a smell of smoke in the main dome. Gaber was fast asleep in his, the windows were opaqued in the other sleeping- quarters so he did not intrude. Remembering Trizein’s tendency to work through a night, he made his way quickly to the shuttle craft, waving open the iris lock. The conditioned air inside gave him pause. Suddenly he realized that he hadn’t put his nose filters in: and he hadn’t smelled Ireta!

 

“Muhlah! I’m getting used to it.” His soft exclamation echoed in the bare main cabin of the shuttle. Kai walked quietly back to Trizein’s lab, opened the iris and peered in. Some experiments were in progress, judging by the activity of dials and gauges in the built-in equipment but Trizein’s form on the ledge-bed was motionless.

 

As Kai turned from the lab, he noticed that the supply hold iris was open. He must caution Trizein about that. Lunzie kept her decanted fruit brew in there. Kai had noticed conspicuous consumption the night before and his aggressiveness when Margit suggested he’d had enough. Kai didn’t quite put it past the man to appropriate a flask for evening use in the secondary camp. Not a habit he’d approve or condone in any of his team members.

 

Although his inspection satisfied him that nothing was demonstrably wrong, his uneasiness remained until, after returning to his dome, he became immersed in the restricted file in the ship’s data bank. By the time the rest of the expedition was stirring, he had rid himself of the backlog of detail. The inadvertently early rising had been rewarding.

 

Dimenon, looking untouched by the previous evening’s carousal, arrived in the main dome with Margit, both suited up and ready to return to their base. They ate quickly, wanting to make an early start back, but as they were leaving, Dimenon asked Kai when he expected to contact the Theks again. He did not seem disturbed when Kai gave a time three days later.

 

“Well, let us know how EV appreciates our labours on this stinking planet. Although — ” Dimenon frowned and felt his nostrils, “Rake it! I forgot to put “em in again!”

 

“Smell anything?” asked Kai, amused.

 

Dimenon’s eyes began to widen and his mouth dropped in exaggerated reaction.

 

“I’ve got used to the stench!” He roared the statement, full of aggrieved incredulity. “Kai, please, when you’ve got through to EV, have them pick us up before schedule? Please, I’ve got used to the stench of hydro-telluride.” He clutched at his throat now, contorting his face as though in terminal agony, “I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it.”

 

Lunzie, who was literal minded, came rushing up, frowning with anxiety while Kai tried to gesture reassurance. Others were grinning at Dimenon’s histrionics but the heavy-worlders, after uninterested glances at the geologist, turned back to their own quiet-toned discussions. Lunzie still hadn’t realized that Dimenon was acting. He grabbed at her shoulders now.

 

“Tell me, Lunzie, tell me I’m not a goner. My sense of smell’ll come back, won’t it. Once I’m in decent air? Oh, don’t tell me I’ll never be able to smell nothing in the air again...”

 

“If the acclimitization should be permanent, you could always get an Iretan air-conditioning for your shipboard quarters,” Lunzie replied, apparently in earnest.

 

Dimenon looked horrified and, for a moment, didn’t catch the brand of the physician’s humour.

 

“C’mon, partner, you’ve been bested,” said Margit, taking him by the arm. “Better to smell the sweet air of another find...”

 

“Could you get so used to Iretan stink you’d never smell normal again?” Bonnard asked Lunzie, a little worried as he watched the two geologists leave.

 

“No,” said Lunzie with a dry chuckle. “The smell is powerful but I doubt There’s any permanent desensitization. The temporary effect is somewhat of a blessing. Do you have it?”

 

Bonnard nodded uncertainly. “But I didn’t know I couldn’t smell it anymore until Dimenon mentioned it.” This worried him.

 

“Since you are now used to the overbearing smell, see if you can now distinguish other, previously unsensed odours, while you’re out and about today.”

 

“Worse ones?” Bonnard regarded Lunzie, appalled.

 

“I can smell a difference in the blossoms I’ve been cataloguing,” said Terilla. “And some of the leaves have an odour if you crush ‘em. Not too bad a smell, really,” she added helpfully.

 

That morning Kai checked with Lunzie about stores. She was not the sort of person to give spot replies and together they went to the store hold.

 

“I’m not missing any of the fruit distillation, if that’s what you’re worried about, Kai,” she said in her direct fashion. “We’ve not made too many inroads in the subsistence supplies, either. I’ve been gradually phasing them out entirely, in favour of local protein.”

 

“You have?” Kai was surprised.

 

“You hadn’t noticed?” There was a slight emphasis on the pronoun. Lunzie smiled briefly with pleasure at the success of her programme. “We are losing hard goods, though, at a rate which worries me.”

 

“Hard goods?”

 

“Knives, film and sheet extruders, spare charges for life-belts...”

 

“What did the secondary camps take?”

 

“Not enough to account for some of these items. Unless, of course, they haven’t reported the losses and have merely helped themselves when I was busy elsewhere.” That solution sounded plausible. “If I may, I’ll appoint Cleiti as requisitions officer and have her on hand when anyone needs to Visit the supply hold. We can keep a check that way without giving offence...”

 

“Or warning,” thought Kai, and then decided that his imagination was working overtime. He did need that day’s respite.

 

Varian returned to the camp from one of her search and identity sweeps early in the afternoon before rest day. She cornered Kai in his dome, scornfully clacking the tape holders that were stacked in front of him, tugging at the seismic print-out on the volcanic action in the north-west which he had been studying. Pressures were mounting on a long transform fault and he was hoping they’d have enough warning to be able to observe the earthquake when the phenomenon occurred.

 

“Leave that, Kai. You can zip through report work a lot faster with a fresh mind.”

 

“It’s early yet...”

 

“Raking right it is. I got back special so I could pry you out of here before the teams come in and dump such glowing reports on you that you feel obliged to listen.” She went back to the iris lock. “Cleiti! Did you organize those supplies for us? And where’s Bonnard?” The reply was inaudible to Kai but satisfactory to Varian who nodded. If he’s sure he’s got what he needs, tell him to pack it into the sled beside my things. Kai, where’s your pack? Ha! Thought so. Okay, what do you need?”

 

Varian moved purposefully to his storage chest so that Kai pushed back his stool and waved her away. She stood, grinning but adamant, while he packed what he needed into his sleep sack, and gathered up his safety gear. With a courteous sweep of his hand, he indicated he was ready.

 

“I knew I’d have to haul you out of here.” Varian sounded grimly smug.

 

“Then what are you dragging your feet for?” asked Kai with a smile and exited before her. As an afterthought, he thumblocked the iris control. He didn’t really want anyone to happen across the message tapes with the Theks.

 

As Varian neatly swung the big sled over the encampment, sparkling with the blue demise of insects, she groaned. “We should have brought a small unit for tonight. We’ll have to sleep in belt screens!”

 

“Not if we sack out on the sled floor,” said Bonnard, eyeing the space. “I think There’s room enough if we stack our supplies on the front seating and remove the side benches. Shall I activate the telltale?”

 

“This once, we’ll leave it silent,” said Varian. “There wouldn’t be anything untagged this close to camp anyway.”

 

A companionable silence enveloped the three and lasted the entire trip to the inland sea which they reached just as the last speck of gloom, as Bonnard phrased it, began to fade from the sullen skies. Varian had marked a good landing site, a shallow terrace beyond and below the main congregation of the giffs but with a fine view of the summit where the netted fish were deposited.

 

The first hour after sunset there was a brief surcease of daytime insect activity before the nocturnal creatures became a menace. During this interim, Varian heated their evening meal on the bare stone terrace. Then, to the amazement of Bonnard and the consternation of Kai, she removed dead branches from the storage section of the sled and lit a small fire.

 

“Campfire is very comforting even if you ship-bred types think it’s atavistic. My father and I used to have one every night on our expeditions.”

 

“It’s very pretty,” said Bonnard in a tentative tone, and looked towards Kai to see his reaction.

 

Kai smiled and told himself to relax. Fire on shipboard was a hazard: his instant reflex had been to grab something to smother the flames, but as he eyed the small fire, which posed no danger to him, the dancing spikes were pleasantly hypnotic. The small warmth it exuded gave them a circle of light and certainly kept the insects away.

 

“The oldest belt-screen in the world,” Varian said, poking the fire to fresh vigour with a stick. “On Protheon, they were particular about their firewoods, choosing those which gave off pleasant aromas. They liked scent with their warmth and light. I wouldn’t dare try that on Ireta.”

 

“Why not?” asked Bonnard, his eyes fixed on a point deep in the flames. “Terilla said There’s some that smell pretty good — by Iretan standards. You know, Varian, I haven’t been able to smell anything but Ireta! D’you suppose Lunzie could be wrong and my nose has gone dead?”

 

Varian and Kai both laughed. “You’ll know soon enough when we get back to the EV,” Varian told him.

 

“Yeah!” Bannard’s reply lacked any enthusiasm for return.

 

“You’d be sorry to leave?”

 

“I sure will, Kai, and it’s not because we’ll have to leave Dandy. There’s so much to do here. I mean, tapes are great, and better than nothing, but this trip I’m learning hundreds of things. Learning’s got a point...”

 

“You have to have had the theoretical study before you can attempt the practical,” Varian said but Bonnard waved that consideration aside.

 

“I’ve studied basics till data comes out my pores but it isn’t the same thing at all as being here and doing it!” Bonnard was emphatically banging his knee. “Like that fire, and all. Rakers, on shipboard you see flames and dash for the foamer!”

 

Varian grinned at Kai and caught his rueful expression.

 

“Your point’s taken, Bonnard,” she said. “And I think it’s safe to say that you’ll be in demand for more expeditions once Kai and I have made our report. Bakkun thinks highly of your performance as his recorder.”

 

“He does?” Bannard’s expression which had soured at the contemplation of return to EV, brightened with such a future.” You’re sure?” His gaze went from Varian to Kai.

 

“As far as you can be sure of a heavy-worlder.”

 

“Are there more expeditions planned, Varian?” asked Bonnard urgently.

 

“More or less,” she replied, catching Kai’s gaze. “I was signed on this tour for three expeditions requiring a xenob over a period of four standard years. You’d be eligible as a junior member in that time. Of course, you might opt for geology rather than xenob.”

 

“I like animals,” said Bonnard, testing the words in his mouth so as not to give offence to either leader, “but I do Like... sort of fancy the more scientific aspects of....”

 

“I’d think you’d be best as an all-round recorder, with as many specialties in that area as possible,” said Varian, helping him.

 

“You do?”

 

His reaction made it obvious to Kai and Varian that it was the mechanics of recording that fascinated the boy, rather than any of the individual disciplines. They talked about specialization as the fire burned down, was replenished, and burned down again. By the time Kai suggested they sack out, the two leaders had assured Bonnard that they would give him as much opportunity at tape and recorders as possible to see if this was really where his interests lay.

 

Safe under the sled’s protective screen, they slept deeply and without a bother from the night creatures of Ireta.

 

Varian was aroused the next morning by something prodding her shoulder. She was still sleepy but again she was prodded, more emphatically this time, and her name was whispered urgently.” Varian. Varian! Wake up. We got company.”

 

That forced her to open eyes which she instantly closed, not believing her first sight.

 

“Varian, you’ve got to wake up!” Bannard’s whisper was anxious.

 

“I am. I’ve seen.”

 

“What do we do?”

 

“Have you moved yet?”

 

“Only to nudge you. Did I hurt?”

 

“No.” They were both speaking in low tones. “Can you prod Kai awake?”

 

“I don’t know how he wakes up.”

 

Bonnard had a point. It wouldn’t do to rouse someone who erupted out of the sack like a torpedo. He’d known how to rouse her since he’d often done so when they’d first acquired Dandy.

 

“Kai’s quiet if you do it as gently as you woke me.”

 

Varian grinned to herself. She wasn’t sorry she’d included Bonnard on this trip: last night’s discussion had proved how much he’d needed the encouragement as well as the opportunity to talk without reservations imposed on him by the presence of older team members or the two girls. It had been obvious last evening that Kai would have preferred to have made this a duet trip, and a complete break from the exigencies of leadership. Now she’d pried him away from his tape decks, she’d do it again, without a third party.

 

They had slept head to foot, so while Bonnard prodded Kai’s shoulder with his foot, Varian whispered the warning to him.

 

“Kai, wake slowly, don’t move. The observers are observed.”

 

She had her eyes half-open now, because the giffs were so closely ringed about the sled that, in her first arousal, she had seen a series of bright black eyes on a level with hers.

 

She almost giggled when a sharp orangey beak point tapped at the plascreen surrounding the sled, tapping gently as if not wishing to startle the sleepers.

 

“Muhlah!” was Kai’s soft curse and there was a ripple of laughter in his tone.

 

“Is it safe for me to have a look?” asked Bonnard in his hushed whisper.

 

“Don’t know why not. They’re looking at us.”

 

“Can they get in?” was Bannard’s anxious question.

 

I doubt it,” said Varian, unperturbed. She wouldn’t guarantee that the plascreen could stand a concerted attack of heavier adult beaks but she didn’t feel that aggression was the giffs’ intent.

 

“I thought you wanted to see their matutinal habits, Varian?” said Kai, slowly raising his hand from the sleep sack to prop it on his hand. He wasn’t looking at her, but beyond her to the golden furred faces peering in.

 

“That was my intention.”

 

“As I recall it, I asked you what if it was their rest day?”

 

Varian couldn’t suppress her laughter and Bonnard joined in, never dropping his eyes from the giffs.

 

“You mean, they’re taking the day off to watch us?”

 

“They’re at least starting the day doing it,” said Varian, raising herself slowly out of the sack.

 

The avians moved restlessly, wings awkwardly held up.

 

“Hey, they can rotate the wings at the wrist...”

 

“Yes, Bonnard, I’d noticed.” Varian had also seen the flexing of the three digits with the yellowed claws at the tips. The function of thumb and little finger had been incorporated into the wing so Varian couldn’t see how they would be able to weave with the three wing digits.

 

“Hey, they’re not all here,” said Bonnard, pointing up in a judiciously controlled gesture.

 

None of the giffs were perched on top of the plascreen so that the sky was clearly visible. Outlined against the clouds was a formation of giffs going in a south-easterly direction.

 

“I think we’ve got the youngsters here,” said Varian.

 

“The babes at that,” said Kai, pointing to the trail of brownish slime that drippled down the outside skirting of the sled.

 

Bonnard muffled a chortle. “So what do we do now? I’m hungry.”

 

“Then we’ll eat,” said Varian and began to pull her legs out of the sack, slowly, to give the giffs no reason for alarm. “Yes, they’re the young ones,” she said as she slowly got to her feet and stared down at the small bodies pressing in about the sled.

 

Seen in proper perspective, she realized none of these giffs were adult sized. The tip of the longest head crest came only to her waist. She’d estimated that a fully grown giff would be as tall as an average human, with a wing span of at least eight to ten metres.

 

“What do we do?” asked Bonnard.

 

“Sit up slowly. I’ll bring you breakfast in the sack,” she said, moving carefully to the supplies.

 

Kai had pulled himself into a sitting position now and gratefully accepted the steaming beaker.

 

“Breakfast with an audience,” he said. sipping.

 

“I wish they’d move or talk or something,” said Bonnard, glancing nervously about him as he blew to cool the liquid in his beaker. He almost dropped it when one of the giffs stretched and flapped wings suddenly. “They’re not even trying to get at us.”

 

“Look but don’t touch?” asked Kai. “Frankly, I’d just as soon they kept to themselves. Those beak points look sharp.” He glanced at Varian who had a small recorder in her hands now, and holding it at waist level was slowly turning a full circle, recording the faces of their audience.

 

With equal care against sudden movement, she placed the recorder on one shoulder and turning again. stood so still for a long moment at one point that Kai asked what was up.

 

“I’ve the recorder directed on the main summit. There’s quite a bit of activity here right now. I can’t see what it’s all about... Oh, yes, I do. It’s the adults. I’d swear... yes... they’re calling this lot.”

 

As reluctantly as any curious young creature, the juvenile giffs began to lumber awkwardly away, disappearing so suddenly that Bonnard cried out in alarm.

 

“They’re okay, Bonnard,” said Varian who had a better view. “We’re right on the cliff edge. They’ve just walked off it and if you’ll glance over your shoulder, you’ll see them soaring away, perfectly safe.”

 

“Muhlah!” exclaimed Kai with utter disgust. “We had ‘em close enough and didn’t telltag ‘em.”

 

“What? And scare them into bringing momma and dad down on us? We don’t really need to telltag giffs anyway, Kai. We know where they live, and how far they range.” She patted the recorder. “And I’ve got their faces all on tape.”

 

“They sure had a good enough look at ours,” said Bonnard.” I wonder if they’ll remember us next time.”

 

“All furless, crestless faces look the same,” said Varian with a laugh.

 

She was moving about the sled now without restraint and handed each a bar of subsistence protein. She perched on the pilot chair to munch hers.

 

When they had finished eating, joking about the manner of their awakening, they made ready to leave the sled. Kai and Bonnard carried the recorders and additional tapes, Varian had her gift of the grasses. Kai also wore a stunner, hoping he wouldn’t have to use it. Not, he thought privately, that he’d have much chance the way those giffs could move.

 

As they emerged, the sun came through the cloud cover, for its morning inspection, Bonnard said. From the caves in the cliffs came hundreds and hundreds of golden fliers, as if called inexorably by the thin thread of sunlight. Bonnard quickly aimed the recorder and caught the spectacle of hundreds of giffs, wings raised, beaks open, carolling a curious warble as they turned in the sparse sunlight.

 

“Ever seen anything like that before, Varian?” asked Kai in amazement.

 

“Not quite like that. Oh, they are beautiful creatures. Quick, Bonnard, on the third terrace to the left, get that lot?”

 

The giffs, one after the other, dropped off the ledge, wings spreading and lifting, soaring, turning over, as if letting each part of their bodies bathe in the sunlight. It was a slow aerial dance that held the observers spellbound.

 

“They’ve got their eyes closed,” Bonnard said, peering through the focusing lens of the recorder. “Hope they know where they’re going.”

 

“They probably have some sort of radar perception,” said Varian. She increased her face-mask’s magnification to observe more closely. “I wonder... are their eyes closed for some mystical reason? Or simply because the sun is strong?”

 

“Carotene is good for your eyes,” said Bonnard

 

Varian tried to recall if she’d ever seen a fang-face or one of the herbivores squint or close their eyes completely during sunshine. She couldn’t remember. Full sunlight was a rare enough occasion so that all human eyes were invariably on the sun. She’d check the tapes out when she got back to the camp.

 

“Now, look Varian, only some of ‘em are doing the flying act,” said Bonnard. He had swung around, recorder still operating, and focused on the juvenile giffs scratching about on the fish summit.

 

One of them let out a squawk, tried to back away from something and, overbalancing, fell back. Its companions regarded it for a long moment as it lay, flapping helplessly.

 

Without thinking, Varian began to climb towards the summit to assist the creature. She had put her hand over the top, when an adult giff, with a cry shrill enough to be a command, landed on the summit, awkwardly turning towards Varian. When she judiciously halted her climbing, the giff deftly flipped the juvenile to its feet with the wing claws. The wing remained a protective envelope above the young giff.

 

“Okay, I get the message, loud and clear,” said Varian.

 

A second grating sound issued from the adult giff whose eyes never left Varian.

 

“Varian!” Kai’s call was warning and command.

 

“I’m all right. I’ve just been told to keep my distance.”

 

“Make it more distance, Varian. I’m covering you.”

 

“It would have attacked me if it was going to, Kai. Don’t show the stunner.”

 

“How would they know what a stunner is?” asked Bonnard.

 

“Point! I’m going to offer the grass.” And slowly Varian took the rift grasses from her leg pouch and with great care held up the sheaf for the giff to see.

 

The creature’s eyes did not leave hers but Varian sensed that the grass had been noticed. She moved her hand slowly, to place the sheaf on the top of the summit. The giff made another grating noise, softer, less aggressive in tone

 

“You’re very welcome,” said Varian, and heard Bannard’s snort of disgust. “Courtesy is never wasted, Bonnard. Tone conveys its own message. So does gesture. This creature understands a certain amount from both what I’m doing and what I’m saying.”

 

She had begun to descend to the sled’s terrace level now, moving deliberately and never taking her eyes from the giff. As soon as she was back, standing with Kai and Bonnard, the adult giff waddled forward, took up the grass and then, returning to the sea-edge, dropped off. Once it had sufficient wing room, it soared up again and out of sight among the other fliers.

 

“That was fascinating,” said Kai on the end of a long held sigh.

 

Bonnard was regarding Varian with open respect.

 

“Wow! One poke of that beak and you’d’ve been sent over the edge.”

 

“There was no menace in the giff’s action.”

 

“Varian,” said Kai, laying a hand on her arm, “do be careful.”

 

“Kai, this isn’t my first contact.” Then she saw the worry in his eyes. “I am always careful. Or I wouldn’t be here now. Making friends with alien creatures is my business. But how I’m ever to find out how mature their young are if they’re this protective...” She stopped, whistled her surprise. I know. The giff was protective because it’s used to protecting the juveniles. So, they’re not equipped to protect themselves at birth, or for some time thereafter. Still,” and she sighed her disappointment, “I would have liked to get inside one of their caves...”

 

“Look, Varian,” said Bonnard in a whisper and indicated the direction with the barest movement of his forefinger.

 

Slowly, Varian turned to see a row of juvenile giffs watching from the summit, wings in a closed position, tilted up beyond their backs, wing claws acting as additional supports to their sitting. Varian began to laugh, shaking her head and muttering about the observer observed.

 

“So we’re fair peek,” said Kai, leaning against the edge of the sled and folding his arms. “Now what do we do in your programme? Be observed in our daily morning habits?”

 

“You can, if you wish. Be interesting to see how long their attention span is, but there’s a great deal going on up there.” She pointed skywards where the giffs were circling, but some groups spun off in various directions, with purposeful sweeps of their wings. “We don’t seem to have hit a day of rest,” she said, flashing a smile at Kai. “Bonnard, if I give you a leg up on the sled’s canopy, I think you can see the summit. Can you tell me what the juveniles were squawking about? Or what overbalanced the one I wanted to rescue?”

 

“Sure.”

 

“Just don’t dance about too much. Your boots’ll scar the plascreen. And no, you can’t take ‘em off,” Kai added as Bonnard began to speak.

 

They hoisted him up and, moving with great care, Bonnard positioned himself where he could see the summit.

 

“There’s dead fringes up here, Varian, and some slimy looking seaweed. Aw, would you look at that?”

 

The juveniles, attracted by his new position, had abandoned that section of the summit and waddled over to stand directly in Bannard’s line of sight. Disgusted, he, propped both hands against his hips and glared, actions which set them all to squawking and shifting away from the edge. Kai and Varian chuckled over the two sets of young.

 

“Hey, recorder man, you missed a dilly of a sequence!”

 

“Don’t I just know it?”

 

“C’mon down,” Varian told him, having learned what she needed to know.

 

She wandered over to the sea edge of the terrace, lay down, peering further over the drop.

 

“I’m not allowed up. Am I allowed down? There appears to be a cave over to the left, about twenty metres, Kai. If I use a bell-harness, you could probably swing me to it.”

 

Kai was not completely in favour of such gymnastics but the belt-harness, winched safely to the sled’s exterior attachments, could hold a heavy-worlder securely. He was glad not to be at the end of the pendulum swing as she was to reach her objective.

 

“Are they watching, Bonnard?” Varian asked over the comunit.

 

“The young ones are, Varian, and yes, one of the airborne fliers is watching.”

 

“Let’s see if they have any prohibitive spots...”

 

“Varian...” Kai grew apprehensive as he, too, saw the adult giff fly in for a close look at Varian’s swinging body.

 

“It’s only looking, Kai. I expect that. One more swing now and... I got it.” She had grabbed and caught a stony protrusion at the cave entrance and agilely scrambled in.

 

“Rakers! It’s abandoned. It’s gigantic. Goes so far back I can’t see the end.” Her voice over the comunit sounded muffled and then hollow.

 

“No, wait. Just what I wanted. An egg. An egg? And they let me in. Oh, it rattles. Dead egg. Small, too. Well, only circumstantial evidence that their young are born immature. Hmmm. There’re grasses here, sort of forming a nest. Too scattered at this point to be sure. They can’t have abandoned a cave because there’s an infertile egg? No fish bones, or scales. They must devour whole. Good digestions then.”

 

Bonnard and Kai exchanged glances over her monologue and the assorted sounds of her investigations, broadcast from the comunit.

 

“The nest grasses are not the rift valley type, more like the tougher fibres of the swamp growths. I wonder... Okay, Kai,” and her broadcast voice was augmented by the clearer tones that indicated she had left the cave, “pull me up.”

 

She had grasses sprouting from her leg pouches as she came over the lip of the ledge, and the egg made an unusual bulge in the front of her ship suit.

 

“Any sign of alarm?” she asked.

 

Kai, securing the winch, shook his head as Bonnard leaped to assist her out of the harness.

 

“Hey, their eggs are small. Can I shake it?”

 

“Go ahead. What’s in it is long dead.”

 

“Why?”

 

Varian shrugged. “We’ll let Trizein have a gawk and see if he can find out. I don’t necessarily wish to fracture it. Let me have that plascovering. Kai,” and she neatly stored the egg, surrounded by the dead grasses and then brushed her gloved hands together to signify a task well completed. “That’s thirsty work,” she said and led the way back to the sled where she broke out more rations.

 

“You know,” she said, half-way through the quick meal, “I think that each of those groups was out on various set tasks...”

 

“So we’re staying around to see what they bring home?” asked Kai.

 

“If you don’t mind?”

 

“No.” He inclined his head towards the juveniles, some of whom had indeed lost interest and were bumbling about the summit at the far side. “I’m enjoying the reversal of roles.”

 

“I wish I could get into a cave currently in use...”

 

“All in one day?”

 

“Yes, you’re right, Kai. That’s asking too much. At least, we’ve experienced no aggressive action from them. The adult construed my action as helpful rather than dangerous. It did accept the grass...”

 

They all glanced upward as an unusual note penetrated the sled’s roof, a high pitched, sharp sustained note. The juveniles on the summit came rigidly to attention. Varian gestured to Bonnard to take the recorder but the boy was already reaching for it, doing a scan of the skies before he steadied the device on the alert young.

 

A mass of fliers fell from the caves, gained wing room and flew with an astonishing show of speed off into the misty south west.

 

“That’s the direction of the sea gap. The net fishers?”

 

“The juveniles are clearing away,” said Bonnard. “Looks like fish for lunch to me.”

 

Out of the mist now appeared wing-weary giffs, barely skimming the water, rising with obvious effort to ledges where they settled, wings unclosed and drooping. Varian was certain she’d seen grass trailing from the rear claws of one. They waited, and so did the juveniles, occasionally poking at each other. Bonnard, fretting with the interval, moved towards the sled exit but Varian stopped him, just as they saw an adult giff land on their terrace.

 

“Don’t move a muscle, Bonnard.”

 

The adult watched, its eyes never moving from the sled.

 

“Now move slowly back from the exit,” Varian told him and when he had completed the manoeuvre, she let out a deep sigh of relief. “What did I tell you the other day? You don’t bother animals with their food. You sure as rakers don’t bother creatures waiting for lunch, if you want to stay in good with them.”

 

“I’m sorry, Varian.”

 

“That’s all right, Bonnard. You have to learn these things. Fortunately no harm’s done — either to you or to our mission.” She smiled at Bannard’s downcast face. “Cheer up. we’ve also learned something else. They haven’t let up surveillance of us for one minute. And they’ve figured out where we enter and leave this sled. Pretty clever creatures, I’d say.”

 

Never taking his eyes off their guard, the boy sank to the floor of the sled.

 

They waited another three-quarters of an hour before Kai, remembering to keep his gesture slow, alerted them to the returning giffs. Cries raised from every quarter and so many giffs were airborne that Bonnard complained that his frames would show more furred bodies and wings than anything informative.

 

Bonnard and Varian saw a repetition of the previous performance as the shimmering piles of fish were spewed from the nets. The juveniles waddled in and one adult, spotting a youngster stocking up his throat pouch, tapped it smartly on the head and made it regurgitate. Kai observed another adult separating fringes from the mass, dextrously flipping them over the edge of the cliff with smart sweeps of his beak. When it had apparently completed that task on its side of the catch, it carefully scrubbed its beak against stone.

 

“I got that on tape, Varian,” Bonnard assured her as Kai pointed out another curiosity, an adult giff whose beak was being stuffed by others. The giff then waddled off the cliff edge, gained wing room and disappeared into one of the larger caves. Another took his place, to be filled up before flying off, this time to another large aperture. The juveniles were allowed to eat one fish at a time. There was a repeat of juvenile terror over a fringe, two fell over and were intertwined until rescued by a watching adult. Bonnard fretted at having to remain inside the sled instead of on it where he could have got much better tapes of the incident.

 

Gradually the supply dwindled, the juveniles losing interest and disappearing from the summit. Soon after, Varian noticed that no giffs were to be seen. They waited patiently until Kai became so restless with inactivity that Varian could not ignore the fact that they were not furthering their study of the giff by remaining either in the sled or on the terrace.

 

It was well past midday now. She’d enough on tapes for hours of study. Her announcement that they’d better get back to the compound met with instant action on the part of the two males. Kai checked the sled’s lock for flight, motioned Bonnard to strap himself in and did so himself. Both were ready while she, laughing, was barely seated.

 

As she took off, she circled once more over the summit, noting that small fringes were left to bake and deteriorate on the summit. She’d answered a few of her questions, but more had been raised by the day’s happenings. She was reasonably pleased with the excursion, if only because it had been something she’d wanted to do.

 

Chapter EIGHT

 

Kai noticed the absence of the sleds as they circled an encampment strangely motionless. Only Dandy was visible, half asleep in his pen, one hind leg cocked at the ankle. For some reason, that reassured Kai. Dandy had shown a marked tendency to react to any tension or excitement in the compound by cowering against the fencing of his pen.

 

“Everyone is indeed resting,” said Varian who was piloting the sled.

 

“My teams must have made an early return to their camps.”

 

“Yes, but where are my heavy-worlders? Not all the sleds should be gone.”

 

“Bakkun said something about going to his place,” said Bonnard.

 

“His place?” Kai and Varian asked in chorus.

 

“Yes. North,” said Bonnard, pointing. “Bakkun’s special place is in the north.”

 

“What sort of special place?” asked Varian, signalling Kai with a quick glance to let her do the questioning. “Have you been there?”

 

“Yes, last week when I was out with Bakkun. It’s not what I’d call special, just a clear circular place among the trees, closed off at one end by a rock fall. There’s a bunch of the big grass-eaters, like Mabel, and some other smaller types. They’ve all got hunks out of their sides, Varian. Bakkun told me Paskutti was interested in them. Didn’t he mention it to you?”

 

“Probably hasn’t had time,” said Varian in such an off-handed manner that Kai knew Paskutti hadn’t mentioned it to her.

 

“Time? That was a week ago.”

 

“We’ve all been busy,” said Varian, frowning as she slipped the sled into hold and landed it lightly on the ground.

 

Lunzie was at the veil lock now, waiting to open it for them.

 

“Successful trip?” she asked.

 

“Yes, indeed. Everyone enjoying a quiet restful day here, too?” asked Varian.

 

Lunzie gave her a long searching look.

 

“As far as I know,” said Lunzie slowly, her eyes never leaving Varian’s as she closed the veil lock. “Terilli’s working on some drawings in Gaber’s dome, and Cleiti’s reading in the main dome.”

 

“Could I show Cleiti the tapes, Varian?”

 

“By all means. Just don’t erase ‘em by mistake!”

 

“Varian! I’ve been handling tapes for weeks with no blanking.”

 

Kai could sense that Varian wanted Bonnard out of earshot. He was also aware that somehow or other the two women had exchanged some tacit information and were impatient to talk uninhibitedly. Kai had a few questions to put to Varian, too, about Bakkun, Paskutti and trapped herbivores.

 

“My teams get off all right?” Kai asked Lunzie to cover the conspicuous silence as Bonnard made his way across the compound. He paused to pat Dandy.

 

“Yes, all except Bakkun, who went off with the heavy-worlders on some jaunt of their own.” Lunzie gestured towards the shuttle and they moved that way. “Remember asking me about the stores, Kai?” she said in a low voice. “Someone raided our hold of a selection of basic medical supplies. Also, the synthesizer has been used enough to drain a power pack. Now the synthesizer may be heavy on power but I hadn’t used it that much on the new pack. So I had Portegin check it out this morning before he went off, and there’s no malfunction. Someone’s been using it. What was synthesized I couldn’t say.”

 

“Where did the heavy-worlders go, Lunzie?” Varian asked.

 

I don’t know. I was in the stores by then, when I heard sled and belts going. Then Portegin came, told me the heavy-worlders had taken off...” Lunzie paused, frowning in concentration “That’s odd. I was in the store hold, and they didn’t come to me for any rations.”

 

“No!” Varian’s low exclamation startled the doctor and Kai.

 

“What’s wrong, Varian?”

 

She had turned very pale, looked suddenly quite sick and leaned against the bulkhead.

 

“No, I must be wrong.”

 

“Wrong?” Lunzie prompted her.

 

“I must be. There’d be no reason for them to revert. Would there, Lunzie?”

 

“Revert?” Lunzie stared intently at Varian who was still leaning weakly against the bulkhead. “You can’t think...”

 

“Why else would Paskutti be interested in flank-wounded, herbivores that I didn’t know anything about? I never thought Bakkun was callous. But, to say such a thing in front of a boy...”

 

Lunzie gave a snort. “The heavy-worlders don’t have a high opinion of adult light gravs, less of the ship-bred, and children on their worlds never speak until they’ve killed...”

 

“What are you two talking about?” asked Kai.

 

“I’m afraid I agree with Varian’s hypothesis.”

 

“Which is?” Kai spoke testily.

 

“That the heavy-worlders have taken to eating animal protein.” Lunzie’s calm detached tone did not lessen the impact of such a revolting statement.

 

Kai thought he would be ill, the sudden nausea was so acute.

 

“They’ve...” He couldn’t repeat the sentence and waived one hand in lieu of the words. “They’re Federation members. They’re civilized...”

 

“They do conform when in Federation company,’ said Varian in a low colourless voice, indicating how deeply shocked she was. “But I’ve worked with them in expeditions before and they will... if they can. I just didn’t think... I didn’t want to think they’d do it here.”

 

“They have been discreet,” said Lunzie. “Not that I’m defending them. If it hadn’t been for Bonnard’s chance remark... No,” and Lunzie frowned at the floor plates, I’ve been skirting the edges of a theory ever since that night...”

 

“The night you served them the fruit distillation.” Varian rounded on Lunzie, pointing at her. “They weren’t drunk! They were high. And you know why?” Neither had time to answer her hypothetical question. “Because of the violence...”

 

“Yes, violence and alcohol would act as stimuli on the heavy-worlders,” said Lunzie, nodding her head judiciously.” They have a naturally slow metabolism,” she told Kai. “And a low sex drive which makes them an admirable mutation for EEC expeditions. Given the proper stimulants and...” Lunzie shrugged.

 

“That’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let them drink that night. I knew. You see,” Varian rushed on in a spate of confession, “that was the day a fang-face savagely attacked a herbivore. I noticed Paskutti and Tardma reacting strongly although I thought at the time I was imagining things...”

 

“That was the violence needed and I compounded the problem by offering the fruit distillation.” Lunzie was willing to share the responsibility. “They must have made quite a night of it.”

 

“And we thought they’d gone to bed early! “Varian clapped her palm on her forehead, admitting stupidity. “With too potent a brew...” She started to laugh and then, drew in her breath sharply, “Oh, no!”

 

“Now what?” demanded Kai sharply.

 

“They went back.”

 

“Went back?” Kai was confused.

 

“Remember my asking you about the big sled’s flight time?” Varian asked Kai.

 

“They went back and slaughtered that herbivore for its flesh?” Lunzie asked Varian.

 

“I wish you didn’t need to be so revoltingly vulgar,” said Kai, angry at the doctor as well as himself and his churning stomach.

 

“Yes,” Lunzie continued, ignoring Kai, “they would definitely need additional animal protein...”

 

“Lunzie!” Now Varian tried to stop her but the physician continued in her detached clinical way.

 

“I do believe they eat, and enjoy, animal protein. On their own planet, they have to eat it, little vegetable matter grows on high grav worlds that is digestible by human stock. Generally they will conform to the universal standards of vegetable and synthetic proteins. I have given them subsistence foods high in...” Lunzie stopped. “Could that be why the synthesizer was overworked?”

 

“Protein?” asked Kai, desperately hoping that members of his expedition had not abrogated all the tenets of acceptable dietary controls.

 

“No, the other daily requirements they couldn’t get from a purely animal diet. One thing that isn’t missing from our stores is our sort of protein.”

 

Varian, looking green, held up a hand to divert Lunzie.

 

“Didn’t think you were the squeamish type, Varian,” Lunzie said. “Still, your sensitivity does credit to your upbringing. The temptation to eat animal flesh is still strong in the planet-bred...”

 

“Kai, what are we going to do?” asked Varian.

 

“Frankly,” said Lunzie, “though you didn’t ask me, I’d say there was nothing you can do. They have been discreet about their vile preference. However,” and her tone altered, “this only supports my contention that you can never successfully condition away a basic urge. It requires generations in a new environment to be positive of your results. Oh!” Lunzie had begun in her usual confident, pedantic tone. Her exclamation was startled. “I say, Kai, Varian,” she looked from one to the other at her most solemn, “EV is returning for us, isn’t it?”

 

“We have every reason to believe so,” said Kai firmly.

 

“Why do you ask, Lunzie?” Again Varian seemed to hear something in the woman’s question that Kai had missed.

 

“Gaber doesn’t believe so.”

 

“As I told Dimenon,” said Kai, feeling the need to show unconcerned authority, “we are out of contact but if the Theks aren’t worried, neither am I.”

 

“The Theks never worry,” said Lunzie. “Worry is for people pressed by time. How long have we been out of contact, Kai?”

 

He hesitated only long enough to catch Varian’s eye and her approval. Lunzie was a good ally.

 

“Since the first reports were stripped from the satellite.”

 

“That long?”

 

“We surmise, and the Theks confirm it, that the cosmic storm EV was going to investigate after leaving us, has caused interference and EV can’t reach the satellite.”

 

Lunzie nodded, stroking the back of her neck as if her muscles were taut.

 

“I gather Gaber has been spouting that asinine theory of his, that we’re planted?” Kai managed a laugh that sounded, to him, genuinely amused.

 

“I laughed at Gaber, too, but I don’t think the heavy-worlders have the same sense of humour.”

 

“That would account for their aggressive behaviour,” said Varian. “They’d be very much at home on this planet, and strong enough to survive.”

 

“This generation would be strong enough,” said Lunzie in her pedantic tone, “but not the next.”

 

“What are you talking like that for?” Kai demanded angrily. “ ‘Next generation’. We aren’t planted!”

 

“No, I don’t think we are,” and Lunzie was calm. “We’re much too small a group for a genetic pool and the wrong ages. But that wouldn’t inhibit the heavy-worlders from striking out...”

 

“Staying on Ireta?” Kai was appalled.

 

“Oh, they’ve everything here they require,” said Lunzie.” Alcohol, animal protein... The heavy-worlders are often laws unto themselves. You’ve heard the tales, Varian,” and the girl nodded slowly. “I’ve heard of several groups just fading into the scenery. If you can imagine the bulk of a heavy-worlder fading...”

 

“They can’t do that,” Kai said, wrestling with dismay, anger and a sense of futility for he hadn’t a notion how to prevent the heavy-worlders from carrying out such a plan. Physically they were superior, and both he and Varian had often felt that the heavy-worlders merely tolerated them as leaders because it suited.

 

“They could, and we had better admit it to ourselves, if to no one else,” said Lunzie. “Unless, of course, you can figure out something so disastrous about this planet that they’d prefer to return with us.” It was obvious she felt that there could be no such circumstance to deter the heavy-worlders.

 

“Now, There’s a constructive thought,” said Varian.

 

“Retro please” said Kai. “We have no indication that that is their intention! We may have just talked ourselves into a crisis without any substantiation. Muhlah! It’s no business of ours to interfere with the sexual requirements of any group. If they have to have stimuli to satisfy their drive, fine. We’ve created the indiscretion by ascribing unsavoury and unacceptable actions to them and we don’t even know if our speculations are valid.”

 

Lunzie looked a little chagrined but Varian was not so easily mollified.

 

“I don’t like it! Something’s out of phase. I’ve felt it since the day we went to Mabel’s assistance.”

 

“Violence is a stimulus for the heavy-worlders,” said Lunzie.” And despite our strides towards true civilized behaviour, it can prove a stimulus for us as well: a primitive, disgusting but valid reaction.” Lunzie shrugged her acceptance of such frailty. “We aren’t that far removed from the slime of creation and instinctive response ourselves. From now on, I shall judiciously dilute the distillation for everyone.” She walked towards the exit. “And no one will be the wiser.”

 

“Look, Varian, we don’t know yet,” said Kai, seeing how dejected Varian was. “We’ve taken isolated facts?”

 

“I’ve taken isolated facts... but Kai, something is wrong.”

 

“ — Too much already. We don’t need more.”

 

“Leaders are supposed to anticipate problems so that they don’t arise.”

 

“Like EV failing to contact us?” Kai gave her a long amused look.

 

“That’s EV’s problem, not ours. Kai, I’ve worked with heavy-worlders before. I even...” she gave a weak laugh, “survived two weeks of gravity on Thormeka to have some understanding of the conditions that bred them. And I did notice that Paskutti and Tardma overreacted to fang-face’s attack on the herbivore. As much as heavy-worlders do react.”

 

“We cannot interfere with the discreet sexual practices of any group, Varian, can we?” He waited until she’d reluctantly agreed. “So, we’ve now anticipated that there might be a problem, right?”

 

“It’s my first big expedition, Kai. It’s got to turn out right.”

 

“My dear co-leader, you’ve been doing a superior job.” Kai pulled her from the bulkhead and into his arms. He didn’t like to see the volatile Varian so dejected and, he sincerely hoped, needlessly worried. “None of my geology teams have been trampled or flank bitten... you’ve sorted out some new life forms, a bonus on your binary bit, my friend. And you know, it’d be nice if we practiced some sex ourselves?”

 

He startled her and laughed at her reaction, took her silence as acquiescence and kissed her. Meeting with no resistance and some co-operation, they retired, discreetly, to his dome for the remainder of the rest day.

 

Chapter NINE

 

A world which stimulated last evening’s occupation couldn’t be all bad, Varian decided the next morning, rising totally refreshed. Perhaps Lunzie had been wrong to think that just because the heavy-worlders hadn’t taken along protein rations, they were going to... Well, there was no proof that their day hadn’t been spent in gratifying their sex drive, and not an atavistic pleasure in dietary habits.

 

Kai was correct, too. As they had no proof of any misdemeanour, it did no good to harbour base suspicions.

 

Easier said than done, thought Varian later as she conferred with the heavy-worlders on the week’s assignments. She could not put her finger on a specific change, but there was a marked difference in the attitude of her team. Varian had always felt relatively at ease with Paskutti and Tardma. Today, she was conscious of a restraint, stumbling for phrases and words, uncomfortable and feeling that Paskutti and Tardma were amused by her. They had an air of smug satisfaction that irritated her, though she’d be hard pressed to say what gave her that idea as the heavy-worlders betrayed no emotion. The xenob team was keeping just ahead of the areas the geologists must probe on the ground. Unknown life forms lurked in the heavy vegetation, small but equally dangerous, and force-screen belts were not absolute protection.

 

As the two heavy-worlders strode beside her towards the sled park, she could have sworn that Paskutti was limping slightly. Varian and Kai had agreed to hold off questioning the heavy-worlders and Varian had no trouble controlling her curiosity that day. That indefinable change in the heavy-worlders’ attitude towards her acted as a crucial check.

 

It was a distinct relief to her to call an end to the day’s scouting when pelting, wind-lashed rain limited visibility and made telltagging impossible. That it was Paskutti who called the actual halt to the exercise gave Varian some measure of satisfaction.

 

When they entered the compound, Lunzie was crossing from the shuttle to her quarters and gave Varian an imperceptible signal to join her.

 

“Something occurred yesterday,” the physician told Varian in the privacy. “Tanegli has a gash across one cheek-bone. He said he got it from a sharp twig when leaning over to collect a specimen.” Lunzies expression discounted that explanation.

 

“And I’m certain that Paskutti is masking a limp.”

 

“Oho, and Bakkun is not making full use of his left arm.”

 

“In some primitive societies, the males fight for the favour of the females,” Varian said.

 

“That doesn’t hold Berru is wearing heal-seal on her left arm. I haven’t seen Divisti or the others today but I’d love to call a medical on all of ‘em. Only I did that too recently for the alcohol reaction.”

 

“Maybe Berru just didn’t like the male who won her?”

 

Lunzie snorted “I’d say the air was blue with response yesterday. Anyway, how come you’re in so early?”

 

“Violent storm, couldn’t see, and certainly couldn’t tell tag what was on the ground. I rather thought though,” she added in a drawl, “that Paskutti and Tardma were quite ready to quit early.”

 

“I’ve put a new power pack in the synthesizer and I’ll keep strict account of any usage Tanegli says he found two more edible fruits, and one plant heart with a high nutritional content. At least he says he found them yesterday...”

 

“We could still be computing from the wrong data,” suggested Varian wistfully.

 

“We could be.” Lunzie was not convinced.

 

“I could ask Bonnard if he remembers the co-ordinates of Bakkun’s so-called special place?”

 

“You could, though I don’t like involving the youngsters in any part of this.”

 

“Nor do I. But they are part of the expedition and this could affect them as well as us adults. However. I could just be in the general vicinity of Bakkun’s run that day, and...”

 

“Yes, that would not be a blatant abuse of the child’s trust.”

 

“I’ll see what Kai says.”

 

Kai had the same general objection to involving the youngster at all. On the other hand, it was important to find out exactly what had occurred, and if the heavy-worlders were reverting, he and Varian would have to know and take steps. He cautioned Varian to be discreet, both with Bonnard and the search.

 

Her opportunity came about quite naturally two mornings later. Kai and Bonnard took off north to do a depth assessment of a pitchblende strike discovered by Berru and Triv. Paskutti and Tardma followed by lift-belt to track and tag some shallow water monsters observed, at a safe distance, by the two geologists. Varian wanted to penetrate and telltag further to the north west so she asked Bonnard to be her team flyer.

 

She did a good deal of work with Bonnard and managed casually to veer to the proper heading. She had checked Bakkun’s flight tapes.

 

“Say, isn’t this near where Bakkun had those herbivores?”

 

Turning from the telltagger, Bonnard glanced around.

 

“A lot of Ireta looks the same, purple-green trees and no sun. No, wait. That line of fold mountains, with the three higher overthrusts...”

 

“You have learned a thing or two,” said Varian, teasingly.

 

Bonnard faltered, embarrassed. “Well, Bakkun’s been giving me instruction, you know. We were headed straight for that central peak, I think. And we landed just above the first fold of those hills.” Then he added, “We found some gold there, you know.”

 

“Gold’s the least of the riches this planet holds.”

 

“Then we’re not likely to be left, are we?”

 

Varian inadvertently swerved, sending Bonnard against his seat straps. She corrected her course, cursing Gaber’s big mouth and her own lack of self-control.

 

“Gaber’s wishful thinking, huh?” she asked, hoping her chuckle sounded amused. “Those old fogeys get like that, wanting to extend their last expeditionary assignment as long as they can.”

 

“Oh.” Bonnard had not considered that possibility. “Terilla told me he sounded awful certain.”

 

“Wishful thinking often does sound like fact. Say, you don’t want to stay on Ireta, too, do you? Thought you didn’t like this stinking planet, Bonnard?”

 

“It’s not so bad, once you get used to the smell.”

 

“Just don’t get too accustomed, pal. We’ve got to go back to the EV. Now, keep your eyes open, I want to check...”

 

They were flying over the first of the hills but Varian didn’t need Bonnard to tell her when they cruised over Bakkun’s special place. It was clearly identifiable: some of the heavier bones and five skulls still remained. Stunned and unwillingly committed now, Varian circled the sled to land and also saw the heavy, blackened stones, witness to a campfire which the intervening days’ rain had not quite washed away.

 

She said nothing. She was grateful that Bonnard couldn’t and wouldn’t comment.

 

She put the sled down between the fire site and the first of the skulls. It was pierced between the eyes with a round hole: too large to have been a stun bolt at close range, but whatever had driven it into the beast’s head had had enough force behind it to send fracture lines along the skull bone. Two more skulls showed these holes, the fourth had been crushed by heavy blows on the thinner base of the neck. The fifth skull was undamaged and it was not apparent how that creature had met its death.

 

The ground in the small rock-girded field was torn up and muddied with tracks, giving silent evidence to struggles.

 

“Varian,” Bannard’s apologetic voice called her from chaotic speculations. He was holding up a thin scrap of fabric, stiff and darker than ship suits should be, a piece of sleeve fabric for the seam ran to a bit of the tighter cuff: a big cuff, a left arm cuff. She winced with revulsion but shoved the offending evidence into her thigh pocket.

 

Resolutely she strode to the makeshift fire-pit, staring at the blackened stones, at the groove chipped out of opposing stones where a Spit must have been placed. She shuddered against rising nausea.

 

“We’ve seen enough, Bonnard,” she said, gesturing him to follow her back to the sled. She had all she could do not to run from the place.

 

When they had belted into their seats, she turned to Bonnard, wondering if her face was as white as his.

 

“You will say nothing of this to anyone, Bonnard. Nothing.”

 

Her fingers trembled as she made a note of the co-ordinates. When she lifted the sled, she shoved in a burst of propulsion, overwhelmingly eager to put as much space between her and that charnel spot as she could!

 

Neither she nor Kai could ignore such an abrogation of basic Federation tenets. For a fleeting moment, she wished she’d made this search alone, then she could have forgotten about it, or tried to. With Bonnard as witness, the matter could not be put aside as a nightmare. The heavy-worlders would have to be officially reprimanded, though she wasn’t sure how efficacious words would be against their physical strength. They were contemptuous enough of their leadership already to have killed and eaten animal flesh.

 

Varian shook her head sharply, trying to clear her mind of the revulsion that inevitably accompanied that hideous thought.

 

“Life form, untagged,” Bonnard said in a subdued tone.

 

Willing for any diversion from her morbid and sickening thoughts, Varian turned the sled, tracking the creature until it crossed a clearing.

 

“Got it,” said Bonnard. “It’s a fang-face, Varian. And Varian, it’s wounded. Rakers ! “

 

The predator whirled in the clearing, reaching up to beat futilely at the air with its short fore-feet. A thick branch had apparently lodged in its ribs, Varian could see fresh blood from its exertions flowing out of the gaping wound. Then she could no longer ignore the fact that the branch was a crude spear, obviously flung with great force into the beast’s side.

 

“Aren’t we going to try and help it, Varian?” asked Bonnard as she sent the sled careering away.” We couldn’t manage it alone, Bonnard.”

 

“But it will die.”

 

“Yes, and there’s nothing we can do now. Not even get close enough to spray a seal on the wound and hope that it could dislodge that...” She didn’t know why she stopped; she wasn’t protecting the heavy-worlders, and Bonnard had seen the horror.

 

Hadn’t the carnivores provided the heavy-worlders with enough violence? How many other wounded creatures would she and Bonnard encounter in this part of the world?

 

“By any chance, had you the taper on, Bonnard?”

 

“Yes, I did, Varian.”

 

“Thank you. I’m turning back. I must speak to Kai as soon as possible.” When she saw Bonnard looking at the communit, she shook her head. “This is an executive matter, Bonnard. Again, I must ask you to say nothing to anyone and...” She wanted to add “stay away from the heavy-worlders” but from the tight, betrayed expression on the boy’s face, she knew such advice would be superfluous.

 

They continued back to the compound in silence for a while.

 

“Varian?”

 

“Yes, Bonnard?” She hoped she had an answer for him.

 

“Why? Why did they do such a terrible thing?”

 

“I wish I knew, Bonnard. No incidence of violence stems from a simple cause, or a single motive. I’ve always been told that violence is generally the result of a series of frustrations and pressures that have no other possible outlet.”

 

“An action has a reaction, Varian. That’s the first thing you learn shipboard.”

 

“Yes, because you’re often in free-fall or outer space, so the first thing you’d have to learn, ship-bred, is to control yourself, your actions.”

 

“On a heavy world, though,” Bonnard was trying to rationalize so hard, Varian could almost hear him casting about for a justification. “On a heavy world, you would have struggle all the time, against the gravity.”

 

“Until you became so used to it, you wouldn’t consider it a struggle. You’d be conditioned to it.”

 

“Can you be conditioned to violence?” Bonnard sounded appalled.

 

Varian gave a bark of bitter laughter. “Yes, Bonnard, you can be conditioned to violence. Millenniums ago, it used to be the general human condition.”

 

“I’m glad I’m alive now.”

 

To that Varian made no reply, wondering if she was in accord. In an earlier time, when people were still struggling to a civilized level that spurned the eating of animal flesh; to a level that had learned not to impose its peculiar standards on any other species; to a level that accepted, as a matter of course, the friendships and associations with beings diverse and wonderful: a woman of only three hundred years ago would have had some occasion to cope with utter barbarianism. It was one matter entirely for beasts to fight and kill each other, following the dictates of an ecology (not that she was prevented from succouring the weaker when she could), but for one species, stronger, more flexible, basically more dangerous because of its versatility, to attack a stupid animal for the sporting pleasure was unspeakably savage.

 

What were she and Kai to do about such behaviour? Again she wished she hadn’t brought Bonnard. She’d been too clever, so she had, involving the boy. Perhaps scarring him with such evidence of wanton cruelty. But she hadn’t expected anything like this when she thought of investigating Bakkun’s special place. How could she? And once discovered, strong measures were indicated. Too late now to say that the heavy-worlders had been discreet in their vile pursuits. Too late to wish she’d never wanted to check into their activities.

 

On the other hand, such aberrant behaviour was better uncovered on a world where no other sentient species was compromised. She also found some measure of relief that the heavy-worlders had picked on the stupid herbivores and predators, rather than the lovely golden giffs. If they’d harmed them... Pure rage, such as she had never experienced before in her life, consumed her with an incredible force.

 

Startled, Varian composed her thoughts. She must discipline herself if she wanted to control others.

 

They were almost to the compound now, sweeping down the broad plain that led to their granite height. Varian found herself hoping that, for some unknown reasons, Kai had returned early. That was the trouble with bad news: it didn’t keep. The intelligence was a sore weight in her mind, festering with speculation, such as what were the heavy-worlders doing right now?

 

She landed, reminding Bonnard to say nothing, even to Cleiti or Terilla, most certainly not to Gaber.

 

“You bet not Gaber,” said Bonnard with a smile. “He talks an awful lot but he says so little... unless he’s talking about maps and beamed shots.”

 

“Wait a minute, Bonnard.” Varian motioned him back, wondering about the wisdom of involving him further. She glanced towards the shimmering force-screen, the dance of dying insects registering blue across the field. She tried to think, calmly, whether there was anyone else in the compound she could trust. Then she glanced back at the boy, standing easily, his head slightly cocked as he awaited her command. “Bonnard, I’m taking the power pack from this sled. When the other sleds come in, I want you to remove the packs — hide them in the underbrush if you can’t bring them inside. If any one questions you, say that your chore is checking them for lead drains. Yes, That’s logical. Do you understand me?” She was unclamping their sled’s pack as she issued her instructions. “You know where the packs are in the smaller sleds? And how to remove them?”

 

“Portegin showed us. Besides, I just saw you do it.” He gave her the hand-lift which she attached to the heavy power pack and heaved it from the sled. I’ll just get another hand-lift.”

 

She could see in his expression that he had more questions he was eager to ask as he followed her to the veil lock where Lunzie now stood to admit them. As they passed her, the woman looked at the power pack Varian was trailing.

 

“One of the leads is clogged,” Varian said.

 

“Is that why you’re back so early? Good thing,” and Lunzie’s usually solemn face broke into a wide grin. She gestured towards Dandy’s pen. Trizein was leaning on the fencing, staring intently at the little creature who was, for a second marvel, peacefully munching at a pile of grasses, oblivious to the scrutiny.

 

“Trizein’s out of his lab? What happened?”

 

“I’ll let him tell you. It’s his surprise, not mine.”

 

“Surprise?”

 

“Here, Bonnard, take the power pack from Varian and put it where it belongs...”

 

Varian indicated the shuttle to Bonnard, a gesture which brought a surprised glance from Lunzie.

 

“Well, then,” she said, “in the shuttle and come straight back. You’ll want to hear about the probable ancestry of your pet, too.”

 

“Huh?” Bonnard was startled.

 

“Quick, to the shuttle with the pack.” Lunzie shooed him off with both hands. “The power pack leads, Varian? That’s a bit lame, isn’t it?”

 

“Varian! Has Lunzie told you?” Trizein had looked away from Dandy and seen her. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? I mean, I can speculate possibilities from disembodied tissues, but this... creature from our prehistoric past...”

 

His words were diversion enough but the ringing tone in which he spoke made Varian move more quickly to him.

 

“Prehistoric past? What do you mean, Trizean?”

 

“Why, this little specimen is an excellent example of a primitive herbivore...”

 

“I know that...”

 

“No, no, my dear Varian, not just a primitive herbivore of this planet, but an Earth-type herbivore, of the group perissodactyl.”

 

“Yes, I know it’s perissodactyl. The axis of the foot is through the middle toe.”

 

“Varian, are you being dense on purpose to tease me? This,” and Trizein gestured dramatically to Dandy, “is the first step in the genotype of the horse. He’s a genuine hyracotherium, Earth type!”

 

The significance of Trizein’s point gradually dawned on Varian.

 

“You’re trying to tell me that this is not similar to an Earth-type horse, it is the lineal ancestor of an Earth-type horse?”

 

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Not trying. Telling?”

 

“It isn’t possible.” Varian said that flatly and her expression accused Trizein of teasing her.

 

Trizein chuckled, preening himself by straightening his shoulders as he beamed at each member of his small audience.

 

“I may seem to be the original absent-minded analytical chemist, but my conclusions are always provable: my experiments conducted efficiently and as expeditiously as equipment and circumstance allow. Lately I’ve been wondering if someone has been trying to fool me, to test my ability or my tendency to digress. I assure you that I do know when two totally different life forms are presented to me as co-existing on this planet. It is too bad of someone. And I inform you right now that I am aware of this subterfuge. All the tissues you and your teams have been giving me suggest a sufficient variety of creatures to populate several planets, not just one. Didn’t the Ryxi bring their own technicians? Is there life on the Thek planet that I’m being given such diverse...”

 

“What about that animal tissue that Bakkun gave you about a week ago?” It was a chance but she wasn’t surprised when Trizein answered her.

 

“Oh, yes, the cellular level is remarkably comparable. A vertebrate, of course, which checks to ten decimal places, mitotic spindle, mitochondria all quite ordinary in a hemoglobin based species. Like that fellow there!” And he jerked his thumb at Dandy. “Ah, Bonnard,” he said as the boy approached them. “I undertsand from Lunzie that you rescued the little fellow?”

 

“Yes, sir, I did. But what is he?”

 

“A hyracotherium, or I miss my guess,” said Trizein with the forced joviality an adult often displayed for the unknown quantity of a youngster.

 

“Does that make Dandy special?” asked Bonnard of Varian.

 

“If he is a genuine hyracotherium, unusually special,” said Varian in a strangled voice.

 

“You doubt me,” Trizein said, aggrieved. “You doubt me! But I can prove it.” He grabbed Varian by the elbow and Lunzie by the shoulder and marched them towards the shuttle. “One is not allowed to bring much of a personal nature on a small short term expedition such as this, but I did bring my own data discs. You’ll see.”

 

As they were propelled into the shuttle, Varian knew what she would see. For all his erratic speech and mental mannerisms, Trizein was invariably accurate. She only wished his data discs would indicate how Dandy’s species got to Ireta. It was no consolation either to realize that Trizein was likely to prove that the hot-blooded pentadactyls were aliens to this planet, and the fringes with their cell construction of filaments were native. It was all part of the total confusion of this expedition: planted or mislaid, exploring a planet already once cored, out of control with the mother ship and in danger of a mutiny.

 

Trizein had shoved them into his lab and was now rummaging in his carry-sack which swung from a bolt in the ceiling, withdrawing a carefully wrapped bundle of data storage discs. He located the one he wanted and, with an air of righteous triumph, inserted it into the terminal’s slot. There was no indecision about the keys he tapped and, as he pressed the print-out tab, he turned towards them with an expectant look.

 

Before their eyes was a replica, except for colouration, of Dandy. Neatly printed, the legend read “Hyracotherium, Terra-Olicogene Age. Extinct.” Where Bannard’s pet had mottled reddish-brown fur, this creature was more dun and stripe: the difference necessitated by camouflage requirements, Varian realized, from one environment to another. An indication, also, that the creature had evolved to some extent here on Ireta. His presence made no sense yet.

 

“I don’t understand about Dandy being like this old Earth beast. He’s extinct,” said Bonnard, turning questioningly to Varian. I thought you couldn’t find duplicate life forms developing independently on spatially distant planets. And Ireta isn’t even the same sort of planet as Earth. The sun’s third generation.”

 

“We have observed inconsistencies about Ireta,” said Lunzie in her dry comforting voice.

 

“Is there any question in your mind about this creature’s similarity now?” asked Trizein, exceedingly pleased with his performance.

 

“None, Trizein. But you were out in the compound before, why didn’t you notice Dandy’s similarity then?”

 

“My dear, I was out in the compound?” Trizein affected dazed surprise.

 

“You were, but your mind was undoubtedly on more important matters,” said Lunzie, a bit sharply.

 

“Quite likely,” said Trizein with dignity “My time has been heavily scheduled with analyses and tests and all kinds of interruptions. I’ve had little time to look around this world, though I have, you might say, examined it intimately.”

 

“Do you have other extinct and ancient Earth-type animals on that disc as well as Dandy?”

 

“Dandy? Oh, the Hyracotherium? Yes. this is my Earth paleontological disc, I have ancient species from...”

 

“We’d better stick to one set of puzzles at a time, Trizein?” said Varian, not certain he could absorb more conundrums today. If the fringes should turn out to be a life form from Beta Camaridae, she’d go twisted. “Bonnard, the tape on the giffs is in the main console, isn’t it?”

 

“I put it on data retrieval hold when I showed it to Cleiti and Terilla. Under the date, and giffs, Varian.”

 

Varian tapped up the proper sequence on the terminal and also transferred Trizein’s disc to the smaller screen and a hold. The terminal screen cleared to a vivid frame of a golden flier, its crested head tilted slightly, enhancing the impression of its intelligence.

 

“Great heavens above ! And furred. Definitely furred,” cried Trizein, bending to peer intently at the giff. “There has always been a great deal of controversy about that among my colleagues. No way to be certain, of course, but this is unquestionably a Pteranodon!”

 

“Pteranodon?” Bonnard squirmed, uncomfortable to hear such a ponderous name attached to a creature he liked.

 

“Yes, a Pteranodon, a form of dinosaur, misnamed, of course since patently this creature is warm-blooded... inhabiting ancient Earth in Mesozoic times. Died out before the Tertiary period began. No one knows why, though there are as many speculations about the cause...” Trizein suddenly warded off the face that flashed on the screen for Varian had tapped in another sequence from the data banks. The heavy jawed head of a fang-face snarled up at them. “Varian! it’s... It’s Tyrannosaurus rex. My dear, what sort of a crude joke are you attempting to play on me?” He was furious.

 

“That is no joke.” said Lunzie, nodding solemnly.

 

Trizein stared at her, his eyes protruding from his skull as his jaw dropped. He glanced back at the predatory countenance of the tyrant 1izard, a name which Varian thought extremely suited to its bearer.

 

“Those creatures are alive on this planet?”

 

“Very much so. Do you have this Tyrannosaurus rex on your data disc?”

 

Almost reluctantly, and with a finger that noticeably trembled, Trizein tapped out a sequence for his own disc. The mild features and small body of Hyracotherium was replaced by the upright haughty and dangerous form of fang-face’s prototype. Again there was a difference in colouration.

 

“The force screen,” said Trizein, “is it strong enough to keep it outside?”

 

Varian nodded. It should be. Furthermore, there aren’t any of this kind within a comfortable ten to fifteen kilometres of us. When we moved in, they moved out. They have other, more docile game than us.” The shudder that rippled down her spine was not for fear of Tyrannosaurus rex.

 

“You’re sure it will keep its distance?” asked Trizein, concerned. “That creature ruled its millenniums on old Earth. Why, he was supreme. Nothing could defeat him.”

 

Varian recalled all too vividly a tree-branch of a spear inextricably lodged in a tyrant lizard’s rib cage.

 

“He doesn’t like sleds, Trizein,” said Bonnard, not noticing her silence. “He runs from them.”

 

The chemist regarded the boy with considerable skepticism.

 

“He does,” Bonnard repeated. “I’ve seen him. Only today...” Then he caught Varian’s repressive glance but Trizein hadn’t noticed.

 

The man sank slowly to the nearest lab bench.

 

“Varian might tease me, and so might the boy, but Lunzie...”

 

It was as if Trizein, too, wished to hear a negative that would reassure him, restore matters to a previous comfortable balance. Lunzie, shaking her head, confirmed that the creatures did exist, and others of considerable size and variety.

 

“Stegosaurus, too? And the thunder lizard, the original dinosaur? And...” Trizein was torn between perturbation and eager excitement at the thought of seeing alive creatures he had long considered extinct. “Why was I never told about them? I should have been told! It’s my specialty, my hobby, prehistorical life forms.” Now Trizein sounded plaintive and accusatory.

 

“Believe me, my friend, it was not a conscious omission?” said Lunzie, patting his hand.

 

“I’m the true xenob, Trizein,” said Varian in apology. “It never occurred to me that these weren’t unique specimens. I’ve only started considering that an anomaly must exist when you analyzed the fringe types and found them to be on such a different cellular level. That and the grasses!”

 

“The grasses? The grasses! And tissue slides and blood plates, and all the time,” now outrage stirred Trizein to his feet, “all the time these fantastic creatures are right... right outside the force screen. It’s too much! Too much, and no one would tell me!”

 

“You were outside the compound, Trizein, oh you who look and do not see,” said Lunzie.

 

“If you hadn’t kept me so busy with work, each of you saying it was vital and important, and had top priority. Never have I had to deal so single-handedly with so many top priorities, animal, vegetable and mineral. How I’ve kept going...”

 

“Truly, we’re sorry, Trizein. More than you know. I wish I had pried you out of the lab much earlier,” said Varian so emphatically that Trizein was mollified. “On more counts than identifying the beasts.”

 

Nevertheless, would that knowledge and identification have kept the heavy-worlders from their bestial game? Would it matter in the final outcome, Varian wondered.

 

“Well, well, make up for your omissions now. Surely this isn’t all you have?”

 

Grateful for any legitimate excuse to delay the unpleasant, Varian gestured Trizein to be seated on something more comfortable than a bench and tapped out a sequence for her survey tapes, compiled when she and Terilla were doing the charts.

 

“It is patently obvious,” said the chemist, when he had seen all the species she had so far taped and tagged, “that someone has played a joke. Not necessarily on me, on you, or us,” he added, glancing about from under his heavy brows. “Those animals were planted here.”

 

Bonnard gargled an exclamation, not as controlled in his reaction to that phrase as Lunzie or Varian.

 

“Planted?” Varian managed a wealth of amused disbelief in that laughed word.

 

“Well, certainly they didn’t spring up in an independent evolution, my dear Varian. They must have been brought here....”

 

“Fang-face, and herbivores and the golden fliers? Oh, Trizein, it isn’t possible. Besides which the difference in pigmentation indicates that they evolved here...”

 

“Oh yes, but they started on Earth. I don’t consider camouflage or pigmentation a real deterrent to my theory. All you’d need is one common ancestor. Climate, food, terrain would all bring about specialization over the millenniums and the variety of types would evolve. (The big herbivores, for instance, undoubtedly developed from Struthiomirnus but so did Tyrannosaurus and, quite possibly, your Pteranodon.) The possibilities are infinite from one mutual ancestor. Look at humans, for instance, in our infinite variations.”

 

“I’ll grant it’s possible, Trizein, but why? Who would do such a crazy thing? For what purpose? Why perpetuate such monstrosities as fang-face? I could see the golden fliers...”

 

“My dear, variety is essential in an ecological balance. And the dinosaurs were marvellous creatures. They ruled old Earth for more millenniums than we poor badly engineered homo sapiens have existed as a species. Who knows why they faded? What catastrophe occurred... More than likely a radical change in temperature following a magnetic shift — That’s my theory at any rate, and I’ll support it with the evidence we’ve found here. Oh, I do think this is a splendid development. A planet that has remained in the Mesozoic condition for untold millions of years, and is likely to remain so for unknown millenniums longer. The thermal core, of course, is the factor that...”

 

“Who, Trizein, rescued the dinosaurs from Earth and put them here to continue in all their savage splendour?” asked Varian.

 

“The Others?”

 

Bonnard gasped.

 

“Trizein, you’re teasing. The Others destroy life, not save it.” Varian spoke sternly.

 

Trizein looked unremorseful. “Everyone is entitled to a bit of a joke. The Theks planted them, of course.”

 

“Have the Theks planted us, too?” asked Bonnard, scared.

 

“Good heavens!” Trizein stared at Bonnard, his expression turning from surprise at the idea to delight. “Do you really think we might be, Varian? When I consider all the investigatory work I must do...”

 

Lunzie and Varian exchanged shocked glances. Trizein would welcome such a development.

 

“To prove my conclusions of warm-bloodedness. I wonder, Varian, you didn’t show me any true saurians, that is to say, any cold-blooded species because if they did develop here as well, as a specialization, of course, it would substantially improve my hypothesis. This world appears to remain consistently hotter than old Earth... Well, Varian, what’s the matter?”

 

“We’re not planted, Trizein.”

 

Daunted and disappointed, he looked next to Lunzie who also shook her head.

 

“Oh, what a pity.” He was so dejected that Varian, despite the seriousness of the moment, had difficulty suppressing her amusement. “Well, I serve you all fair warning that I do not intend to keep my nose to the data disc and terminal keyboard any more. I shall take time off to investigate my theory. Why didn’t anyone think to show me a frame of the animals whose flesh I’ve been analyzing so often? The time I’ve wasted...”

 

“Analyzing animal tissues?” Lunzie spoke first, her eyes catching Varian’s in alarm.

 

“Quite. None of them were toxic, a conclusion now confirmed by our mutual planet of origin. I told Paskutti that so you don’t need to be so particular about personal force-screens when in close contact. Where are you keeping the other specimens? Nearby?”

 

“No. Why do you ask?”

 

Trizein frowned, having started and diverted himself from any number of lines of thought, and was now being brought up sharp.

 

“Why? Because I got the distinct impression from Paskutti that he was worried about actual contact with these creatures. Of course, not much can penetrate a heavy-worlder’s hide but I could appreciate his worrying that you might get a toxic reaction, Varian. So I assumed that the beasts were nearby, or wounded like that herbivore when we first landed. Did you ever show me a frame of that one?”

 

“Yes,” Varian replied, absently because her mind was revolving about more pressing identities, like the name of the game the heavy-worlders were playing. “One of the Hadrasaurs. I think that’s what you called it.”

 

“There were, in fact, quite a variety of Hadrasaur, the crested, the helmeted, the...”

 

“Mabel had a crest,” said Bonnard.

 

“You know, Varian, I think that Kai would be interested in Trizein’s identification of Dandy,” said Lunzie.

 

“You’re quite right, Lunzie,” said Varian, moving woodenly towards the lab’s communit.

 

She was relieved when Kai answered instead of Bakkun, though she’d prepared herself to deal with the heavy-worlder, too. She was conscious of Bonnard holding his breath as he wondered what she was going to say, and of Lunzie’s calm encouraging expression.

 

“Trizein has just identified our wild life, Kai, and explained the anomaly. I think you’d better come back to base right now.”

 

“Varian...” Kai sounded irritated.

 

“Cores are not the only things planted on this stinking ball of mud, Kai, or likely to be planted!”

 

There was silence on the other end of the communit. Then Kai spoke. “Very well then, if Trizein thinks it’s that urgent. Bakkun can carry on here. The strike is twice the size of the first.”

 

Varian congratulated him but wondered if he oughtn’t to insist that Bakkun return with him. She’d a few questions she’d like to put to that heavy-worlder on the subject of special places and the uses thereof.

 

Chapter TEN

 

Bakkun made no comment on Kai’s recall. He was apparently too engrossed in the intricacies of setting the last core for the shot that would determine the actual size of the pitchblende deposit.

 

“You’ll come back to the base when you finish?” Kai asked as he placed the life-belt for the heavy-worlder by the seismimic.

 

“If I don’t, don’t worry. I’ll lift over to the secondary camp.”

 

There was just the slightest trace of emphasis on the personal pronoun. Bakkun’s behaviour had been grating on Kai all day. Nothing he could really point to and say Bakkun was being contemptuous or insolent, but the entire work week Kai had sensed a subtle change in the heavy-worlder geologist.

 

Varian’s ambiguous remark about things planted or likely to be planted dominated his nebulous irritation with Bakkun. The coleader was unlikely to panic over trivia and the fact that she had bothered him on a field trip indicated the seriousness of the matter. What on earth could she mean by that cryptic remark? And how could Trizein’s identification of the life forms clear up anomalies?

 

Maybe there’d been a message from the Theks and Varian had not wanted anyone, patching in on his sled’s code, to know. He recalled her exact phrasing. She’d separated Trizein’s achievement from the request for him to return. So, it wasn’t Trizein’s discovery in itself.

 

Rather than worry needlessly, Kai occupied his mind with estimating the probable wealth of energy materials on this planet, as computed by sites already assessed and the probability of future finds based on the extended orogenic activity in the areas as yet unsurveyed.

 

By the time he reached the base, he decided that Ireta was undoubtedly one of the richest planets he had ever heard about. It quite cheered him to realize that sooner or later EV would find this out too Varian, himself and the team members would be rich even by the inflated standards of the Federation Systems. The supportive personnel, and that would have to include the three children if Kai had anything to say about it, should also get bonuses. All three of them had been useful to the expedition. There was Bonnard, now, lugging the power pack from one of the parked sleds. In such small ways, the youngsters had helped contribute to the success of the landing party.

 

Lunzie was operating the veil and greeted Kai with the information that Varian was in the shuttle. Bonnard, excusing himself as he ducked past Kai to deposit the power pack, went out again, heading towards Kai’s sled.

 

“What is Bonnard doing?”

 

“Checking all the power packs. Inconsistencies have developed.”

 

“In the power packs? We have been running through them at a terrific rate. Is that why?”

 

“Probably. Varian’s waiting.”

 

It did not occur to Kai until he was stepping into the shuttle that it was very odd for Lunzie to concern herself with mechanical trivialities. Trizein was at the main view screen, so rapt in his contemplation of frames on browsing herbivores that he was unaware of Kai’s entrance.

 

“Kai?” Varian poked her head around the open access to the pilot’s compartment. She beckoned him urgently.

 

Kai indicated Trizein, silently gesturing whether he should rouse the man. Varian shook her head and motioned him urgently to come.

 

“What’s this all about, Varian?” he said when he had waved the lock closed behind him.

 

“The heavy-worlders have reverted. They took their rest day in fun and games with herbivores and a fang-face. The herbivores they evidently sported with before they killed... and ate them.”

 

Kai’s stomach churned in revulsion to her quick words.

 

“Gaber’s rumour was well spread before he spoke to you, Kai. And the heavy-worlders believe him. Or they want to. Those supplies we’ve been missing, the hours of use I couldn’t account for on the big sled, the odd power pack, medical supplies. We’re lucky if it isn’t mutiny.”

 

“Go back to the beginning, Varian.” said Kai, sitting heavily in the pilot’s chair. He didn’t contradict her premise but he did want to see exactly what facts contributed to her startling conclusions.

 

Varian told him of the morning’s hideous discovery, of her conversation with Lunzie and then Trizein’s revelation about the planted Earth dinosaurs. She wound up by saying that the heavy-worlders, while not outright uncooperative or insubordinate, had subtly altered in their attitude towards her. Had he noticed anything?

 

Kai nodded as she finished her summation and, leaning across the board, flipped open the communications unit.

 

“Is that why Bonnard was removing power packs?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then you think that a confrontation is imminent?”

 

“I think if we don’t hear from EV tomorrow when you contact the Thek, something will happen. I think our grace period ended last rest day.”

 

Kai regarded her for a long moment. “You’ve worked with them longer than I have. What do you think the heavy-worlders would do?”

 

“Take over.” She spoke quietly but with calm resignation.” They are basically better equipped to survive here. We couldn’t live off the... the land’s bounty.”

 

“That’s the extreme view. But, if they have believed Gaber and think we’ve been planted, couldn’t their reversion be a way of preparing themselves to be planted?”

 

“I’d credit that, Kai, if I hadn’t seen what games they played last rest day. That frightens the life out of me, frankly. They deliberately... no, hear me out. It’s revolting, I know, but it gives you a better idea of what we’d be up against if we can’t stop them. They killed... killed with crude weapons... five herbivores. Bonnard and I saw another wounded beast, a fang-face, Tyrannosaurus rex, with a tree-size spear stuck in his ribs. Now that creature once ruled old Earth. Nothing could stop him. A heavy-worlder did. For fun!” She took a deep breath. “Furthermore, by establishing these secondary camps we have given them additional bases. “Where are the heavy-worlders right now?”

 

“Bakkun’s on his way back here, presumably. He’d a lift belt. Paskutti and Tardma...”

 

They both heard Lunzie shouting Kai’s name. It took them a bare second to realize that Lunzie never shouted unless it was an emergency. They heard the thud and stamp of heavy boots echoing in the outside compartment.

 

Varian pressed the lock mechanism on the iris just as they heard a heavy hand slap against the outside panel. Kai tapped out a quick sentence on the communit, slapped it into send and cut the power. As he was doing this, Varian pulled the thin, almost undetectable switch that deactivated the main power supply of the ship. An imperceptible blink told them that the ship had switched to auxiliary power, a pack that had strength enough to continue the lighting and minor power drains for several hours.

 

“If you do not open that lock instantly, we will blast,” said the hard unemotional voice of Paskutti.

 

“Don’t!” Varian managed to get sufficient fear and anxiety in her voice even as she winked, grimaced and shrugged her impotence to Kai.

 

He nodded acceptance of her decision. It did no one any good for both leaders to be fried alive in the small pilot compartment. He never questioned Paskutti’s intention was real. He only hoped that none of the heavy-worlders had noticed the infinitesimal drop in power as Varian had switched from one supply to the other. He and Varian were the only ones to know the fail-safe device that had rendered the shuttle inoperative. Paskutti didn’t enter the small cabin as the iris opened. After a moment’s contemptuous scrutiny of the two leaders, he reached in, grabbed Varian by the front of her ship suit and lifted her out bodily. He let her go, with a negligent force that sent her staggering to crash against a bulkhead. He gave a bark of laughter at the cry she quickly suppressed. As she slowly stood upright, her eyes were flashing with suppressed anger. Her left arm hung at her side.

 

Kai started to emerge to avoid a similar humiliating display of the heavy-worlders” contempt for other breeds. But Tardma had been waiting her turn. She grabbed his left wrist and twisted it behind his back with such force that he felt the wrist bones splinter. How he managed to keep on his feet and conscious, he didn’t know. His abrupt collision with the wall stunned him slightly. A hand supported him under the right arm. Beyond him a girl was sobbing in hopelessness.

 

Determinedly, Kai shook his head, clearing his mind and initiated the mental discipline that would block the pain. He breathed deeply, from his guts, forcing down the hatred, the impotence, all irrational and emotionally clouding reactions.

 

The hand that had held him up released him. He was aware that it had been Lunzie, beside him. Her face was white and set, staring straight beyond. From the rate of her respiration, he knew she was practicing the same psychic controls. Beyond her, it was Terilla who was weeping in fear and shock.

 

Kai rapidly glanced about the compartment. Varian was on her feet, struggling to contain a defiance and fury that could only exacerbate their situation. Trizein was next to her, blinking and looking about in confusion as he struggled to absorb this occurrence. Cleidi and Gaber were unceremoniously herded into the shuttle, the cartographer babbling incoherently about this not being the way he had expected matters to proceed, and how dared they treat him with such disrespect.

 

“Tanegli? Do you have them?” asked Paskutti into his wrist communit. The answer was evidently affirmative for the man nodded at Tardma

 

Tanegli? Whom would the heavy-world botanist have — Portegin, Aulia, Dimenon and Margit? As his broken wrist became a numb appendage, Kai’s mind became sharper, his perceptions clearer. He felt the beginning of that curious floating sensation that meant mind dominated body. The effect could last up to several hours, depending on how much he drew against the reservoir of strength. He hoped he had enough time. If all the heavy-worlders were assembling here, then Berru would arrive with Triv. When had Bakkun gone then? Or had he assisted Tanegli?

 

“None of the sleds have power packs,” said Divisti, standing in the lock. “And that boy is missing.”

 

Kai and Varian exchanged fleeting glances.

 

“How did he elude you?” Paskutti was surprised.

 

Divisti shrugged. “Confusion. Thought he’d cling to the others.”

 

So they considered the boy, Bonnard, no threat. Kai looked at Cleiti, hoping she didn’t know where Bonnard had gone, hoping the knowledge wasn’t clear in her naive face. But her mouth was closed in a firm, defiant line. Her eyes, too, showed suppressed anger; hatred every time she looked towards the heavy-worlders, and disgust for Gaber blubbering beside her.

 

Terilla had stopped crying but Kai could see the tremors shaking her frail body. A child who preferred plants would find this violence difficult to endure and until Lunzie had achieved her control, she couldn’t spare the girl any assistance.

 

“Start dismantling the lab, Divisti, Tardma.”

 

The two women nodded and moved to the lab. As they crossed the threshold, Trizean came out of his confusion.

 

“Wait a minute. You can’t go in there. I’ve experiments and analyses in progress. Divisti, don’t touch that fractional equipment. Have you taken leave of your senses?”

 

“You’ll take leave of yours,” said Tardma, pausing at the doorway as the chemist strode towards her. With a cool smile of pleasure, she struck him in the face with a blow that lifted the 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 light weights.”

 

Tardma shrugged. “Why bother with him anyway? Tanegli knows as much as he does.” She went into the lab with an insolent swing of her hips and shortly emerged with Divisti, each carrying as much equipment as they could with a total disregard for its fragility. Heavy-worlder contempt for light weights evidently extended to their instrumentation. An acrid odour of spilled preservatives and solvents overlaid the air.

 

With ears now ultra-sensitive, Kai heard the landing whine of a sled. From the west. Tanegli had returned. He heard voices. Bakkun was with Tanegli. Shortly the other light weight geologists were led into the shuttle, Portegin, his head bloody, half-carrying a groggy Dimenon. Aulia and Margit were shoved forward by Bakkun. Triv all but measured his length on the deck, forcefully propelled by Berru who entered behind him, a half-smile of contempt on her face.

 

Triv reeled to Kai’s side, shielding himself from the heavy-worlders by his leader’s body. Berru ought not to have been so derisive for Triv now began the breathing exercises that led to the useful Discipline that Kai, Lunzie and Varian were practicing. That made four Kai didn’t think either Aulia or Margit had qualified in their training. He knew Portegin and Dimenon were not Disciples. Four wasn’t enough to overpower the six heavy-worlders. With luck, though, they might still swing the grim balance back towards hope for the light weights. Kai had no illusions about their situation · the heavy-worlders had mutinied and intended to strip the camp of anything useful, leaving the ship-bred and light weights to fend for themselves, unequipped and unprotected on a hostile, dangerous world.

 

“All right, Bakkun,” said Paskutti, “you and Berru go after our allies. We want to make this look right. That communit was still warm when I got here. They must have got a message through to the Theks.” He turned bland eyes on Kai, raising his eyebrows slightly to see if his guess was accurate.

 

Kai returned the gaze calmly. The heavy-worlder had surprised no telltale expression from him. Paskutti shrugged.

 

“Tanegli, get the rest of the stores!”

 

Tanegli was back a second later. “There aren’t any power packs left, Paskutti. I thought you said there were.”

 

“So there aren’t. We’ve enough in the sleds and the lift-belts for some time. Start loading.”

 

Tanegli went back into the storehold and, after a noisy few moments, emerged, staggering under a plasack full of jumbled supplies.

 

“That clears the storehold, Paskutti.” Tanegli glanced around the staring faces of the captives and, laughing uproariously at some private joke, left.

 

“No protests, Leader Kai? Leader Varian?” Paskutti’s tone and smile were taunting.

 

“Protests wouldn’t do any good, would they?” said Varian. She spoke so calmly that Paskutti frowned as he regarded her. The limp arm had obviously been broken by his mishandling of her, but there was no sign of pain or anger in her voice, merely an amused detachment.

 

“No, protests wouldn’t, Leader Varian. we’ve had enough of you light weights ordering us about, tolerating us because we’re useful.” He used a sneering tone. “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.

 

And then, before any one realized what he intended, he swooped on Terilla, grabbed a handful of the child’s hair and yanked her off her feet, letting her dangle at the end of his hand. At Terilla’s single, terrified scream, Cleiti jumped up, beating her fists against Paskutti’s thick muscular thigh, kicking at his shins. Amused and surprised by such defiance, Paskutti glanced down at Cleiti. Then he raised his fist and landed a casual blow on the top of Cleiti’s head. She sank, unconscious, to the deck.

 

Gaber erupted and dashed at Paskutti who held the cartographer off with his other hand, all the while dangling Terilla by her hair, the girl’s eyes stretched to slits by the tautness of his grasp.

 

“Tell me, Leader Varian, Leader Kai did you send a message to the Theks? One second’s delay and I’ll break her back across my knee.”

 

“We sent a message,” replied Kai promptly. “Mutiny. Heavy-worlders.”

 

“Did you ask for help from our estimable supervisors?” asked Paskutti, giving Terilla a shake when he thought Kai deliberated too long in answering.

 

“Help? From Theks?” asked Varian, her eyes never leaving the helplessly swinging girl. “It would take them several days to ponder the message. By then, your... operation will be all over, won’t it? No, we merely reported a condition.”

 

“Only to the Theks?”

 

Now Kai saw what Paskutti needed to know: whether or not a message had also been beamed up to the satellite. If so, he would have to alter his “operation” in accordance.

 

“Only to the Theks,” said Kai, the mind-dominated part of his emotions wanting to add “now release the girl”.

 

“You know what you need to know,” screamed Gaber, still attempting to reach Paskutti and make him release Terilla.” You’ll kill the child. Release her! Release her! You told me there’d be no violence. No one hurt! You’ve killed Trizein, and if you don’t let go of that child...”

 

Paskutti casually swatted Gaber into silence, the cartographer hit the deck with a terrible thud and rolled to one side. Terilla was dropped in a heap by Cleiti. Kai couldn’t tell if the girl had been killed by the mishandling. He glanced surreptitiously at Lunzie who was staring at the girls. Some relaxation about the woman’s eyes reassured him: the girls were alive.

 

Beside him, Triv had completed the preliminaries to Discipline. Now he, too, would wait until his strength could be of use. The hardest part was the waiting until such time as this controlled inner strength would be channelled into escape. Kai breathed low in the diaphragm, willing himself to the patience required to endure this hideous display of brute strength and cruelty.

 

Dimenon was rousing but, although he moaned in pain, Lunzie did not attend him. Margit, Aulia and Portegin kept their eyes front, trying not to focus on scenes they could neither stop nor change.

 

Tanegli came storming up the ramp to the shuttle, his face contorted with anger, a man controlled by his emotions, no longer the calm rational botanist, interested in growing things.

 

“There isn’t a power pack in any of the sleds,” he told Paskutti but he strode right up to Varian, grabbing her by both arms and shaking her. Kai willed her to feign unconsciousness. Such handling might impair any chance of that broken shoulder healing properly.

 

“Where did you hide them, you tight-assed bitch?” he cried.

 

“Watch your strength, Tanegli. Don’t break her neck yet?” said Paskutti, stepping forward in his urgency to arrest the angry man.

 

Tanegli visibly pulled back some force of the blow he had levelled at Varian. Nevertheless, her head rolled sharply backwards but as she righted herself, her eyes were still open. The marks of Tanegli’s fingers were vivid weals on her cheek.

 

“Where did you hide the power packs?”

 

“She’s broken her left shoulder. Use that as goad,” said Paskutti. “Not too much... just enough. Can’t have her passing out with pain. These light weights can’t take much.”

 

“Where? Varian, where?” Tanegli accompanied each word with a twist to her left arm.

 

Varian cried out. To Kai’s ears, the echo was false since, in the throes of Discipline, Varian wouldn’t feel pain right now.

 

“I didn’t hide them. Bonnard did.”

 

Margit and Aulia gasped at this craven betrayal of the boy.

 

“Go get him, Tanegli. Find out where those power packs are or we’ll be backing the supplies out of here. Bakkun and Berru will have started the drive. Nothing can stop it once it starts.” Paskutti twitched with a sense of urgency now.” She’d know where he is. Tell me, where? Varian?”

 

Varian suddenly hung limp in Tanegli’s grip. He let her drop to the deck with a disgusted oath and strode to the open lock. Kai heard three more steps before the man stopped, shouting for Bonnard to come. Then Tanegli called for Divisti and Tardma to help him search for the boy.

 

Paskutti looked down at Varian’s crumpled figure. Kai hoped that the man didn’t suspect that she was only pretending. An expression close to the snarl of a fang-face crossed the heavy-worlder’s face, but he was expressionless again when he turned to Kai.

 

“March!” Paskutti gestured peremptorily to the lock. He motioned to Lunzie and the others to move; with flicks of his forefinger he indicated that each was to carry one of the unconscious ones. “Into the main dome, all of you!” he ordered.

 

As they crossed the compound, Dandy was lying dead in his pen, back broken. Kai was glad neither Cleiti nor Terilla would see their pet. The ground was littered with scattered tapes, charts, exposed records and splintered discs. Inadvertently he trod on one of Terilla’s careful drawings of a plant. Forcing deep breaths from his diaphragm, he controlled the fury he felt at such wanton destruction.

 

The main dome had been stripped of everything useful. The unconscious were laid on the floor the others motioned to stand by the farthest arc from the iris lock.

 

Outside, the search for Bonnard continued. Paskutti was now glancing first at his wrist chrono and then at the plains beyond the force-screen.

 

Kai’s heightened hearing caught the faint sound of his name. Carefully he turned his head and saw Lunzie staring at him, saw her imperceptibly indicate that he was to look outside. By shifting slightly he could see out, could see two dots in the sky, the black line beneath, a tossing black line, a moving black line and then he knew what the heavy-worlders had planned to do.

 

The force-screen was strong enough to keep out ordinary dangers but not the massed attack of stampeded creatures. The camp’s advantage of height above the plain and forest would be cancelled. The heavy-worlders were herding the animals right up where they wanted them to do their damage.

 

The Theks, receiving Kai’s message, might react to it... in a few days” time. They might, if the thinking spirit moved them, send one of the younger Theks to investigate. But Kai doubted it. The Theks would rightly consider that any intervention of theirs would arrive too late to affect the outcome of the mutiny.

 

The light weights would have to effect their own salvation. The heavy-worlders would have to leave the compound soon, Would it be soon enough? And how would they leave their scorned captives? Could Bonnard stay out of their grasp?

 

Paskutti’s fingers twitched. He glanced, almost apprehensively at the wrist chrono, squinted at the oncoming black line.

 

“Tanegli? Haven’t you found that boy?” Paskutti’s bellow deafened ears made sensitive by the Discipline.

 

“He’s hidden. We can t find him, or the power packs?” Tanegli was raging with frustration.

 

“Come back, then. We’re wasting time.” Paskutti was not at all pleased with this unexpected check to his plans. The look he turned on the limp figure of Varian was ominous. “How did she know?” he asked Kai. “Bakkun thought something was up when she used such a trivial excuse to bring you back early.”

 

“She found the place where you spent rest day. And the wounded fang-face you couldn’t kill.” Kai’s instinct was to continue to protect Bonnard as long as he could from possible retaliation. If they all died, the boy couldn’t last on his own on Ireta. He’d have to seek what refuge the heavy-worlders would offer him.

 

“Bonnard! I told Bakkun he took a risk letting the boy see the arena.” Paskutti’s face reflected many emotions now, contempt, supercilious disdain, satisfaction in past performances. His upper lip drew back from his teeth in a travesty of a smile.” You wouldn’t have appreciated our rest day. No matter,” Paskutti glanced down the valley. “The rehearsal has paid dividends... for us!”

 

The sun in its brief evening appearance, lighting the plain so that Kai discerned the bobbing bodies of the herbivores inexorably moving toward the encampment. The other heavy-worlders now congregated about the lock, their faces for once flushed with exertion and shiny with sweat.

 

“He’s gone to earth,” said Tanegli in a savage tone, glaring at Kai. “And all the power packs.”

 

“We’ve no more time to look. Move the sleds out of the direct line of the stampede. Be quick about it. Do you all have lift-belts? Good. Then keep up and out of trouble until the stampede has passed.”

 

“What about the shuttle?”

 

“It should be all right,” said Paskutti, glancing at the vessel perched above the encampment on its ledge. “Move!”

 

The others did, in great leaping strides towards the sled park.

 

Paskutti stood in the iris opening, hands on his belt, glancing with unconcealed pleasure at the docile captives. Kai knew that the moment of ultimate danger was now! Would Paskutti seal them into the dome, conscious and cruelly aware of their fate? Or would he stun them?

 

His essentially cruel nature won.

 

“I leave you now, to your fitting end. Trampled by creatures, stupid, foolish vegetarians like yourselves. The only one of you strong enough to stand up to us a mere boy.”

 

He closed the iris lock and the thud of his fist against the plaswall told Kai that he had shattered the controls.

 

Varian, suddenly mobile, was peering over the bottom of the far window, her left arm dangling uselessly.

 

“Varian.” said Lunzie, doing something to the still body of Trizein. The man groaned suddenly, shocked back to consciousness. Lunzie moved to Terilla and Cleiti, nodding to herself as she administered restorative sprays.

 

“He’s at the veil,” reported Varian in a low voice. “He’s opened it. He’s left it open. I can see two others sky-borne. Bakkun and Berru probably. We ought to have a few moments when the herd tops the last rise when they won’t be able to see anything.”

 

“Triv!” Kai gestured and the geologist followed him to the rear arc of the dome, motioning the others to one side.

 

Kai’s sensitized fingers felt the fine seam of the plastic skin. Triv placed his fingertips further up the seam. They both took the requisite deep breaths, called out and ripped the tough fabric apart.

 

Lunzie had the two girls on their feet, staggering but conscious enough to stand. She turned to help Trizein.

 

“Where could Bonnard have gone to, Kai?” asked Varian in a tight voice that betrayed an anxiety not even the Discipline could mask.

 

“Well hidden enough to elude the heavy-worlders. Safe enough from what’s coming. Now,” and he turned to his comrades. “We cannot panic, but we must wait until the exact moment when the sky-borne heavy-worlders cannot see us or they will merely stun us down. Margit, Aulia, Portegin, you’re all able to run?” They nodded. “Lunzie, you’ll take Terilla? Is Gaber dead? Well, Aulia, you and Portegin help Cleiti. Triv will carry Trizein. I’ll help Dimenon. Varian, can you manage?”

 

“As well as you. I’ll back us up.”

 

“I will,” said Kai, shaking his head and looking at her hanging arm.

 

“No, you’ve Dimenon. I’ll manage.” She glanced out the window again.

 

It did not take sensitive hearing now to hear the approaching stampede. It did take stern control to remain calm.

 

“There are four in the sky now,” said Varian, “and the beasts have reached the narrow part of the approach. Get ready.”

 

Aulia stifled a cry of fear.

 

“Everyone, breath deeply from the diaphragm,” said Lunzie, “and when we give you the word, to go, yell and run! Keep yelling. It stirs the adrenalin.”

 

“I don’t need any more,” said Margit in a tremulous but defiant voice.

 

The thunder was deafening, the very plastic shook under their feet. Aulia was trembling so noticeably, Kai wondered if she could stand the strain.

 

“NOW!”

 

Their concerted yells would never reach the sky-borne heavy-worlders. Margit was right, there was no need of additional adrenalin. The sight of the bobbing heads of the crested dinosaurs, bearing down on them, was sufficient to have lent wings to anyone. Dimenon, yelling at the top of his lungs, wrestled from Kai’s support and outdistanced others as he made for the shuttle. Kai slowed his pace until Varian was abreast of him. Then the two leaders matched strides in the wake of the others, across a compound shuddering with the vibrations of the stampede. They vaulted the first terrace of the incline, nearly running down Lunzie as she angled Trizein into the lock. Varian steadied the physician as Kai fumbled for the lock control. The first of the herbivores reached the force-screen.

 

A high-pitched scream pierced through the overlying thunder and bellowing as the screen burned, flashed blue fire and broke, with a terrible whining. The bodies of herbivores flowed into the compound, and then the mass behind the forerunners surged up, over the fallen and onward. The iris closed on that scene. Only the noise and vibration did not seem to diminish inside the shuttle, telling of the chaos, death and destruction outside.

 

As one now, Kai and Varian moved through the panting, shocked members of the expedition to the pilot cabin. Varian fumbled for the hidden switch to restore power to the shuttle. Kai started to sit at the console and stopped.

 

“Paskutti took no chances on another message,” he told Varian, looking at the wreckage of the board.

 

“What about maneuvering?”

 

“That’s still intact. He knew what circuits to break all right.”

 

They felt the shuttle move, heard something banging dully against the outer hull.

 

“They outdid themselves with the stampede,” said Varian with an amused chuckle. She heard the startled exclamations from the main compartment and put her head around the frame.

 

“It’ll take more than herbivores to dent the shuttle ceramic. Don’t worry. But I would sit down.” She slid into the other seat, moving her useless arm out of her way when it flopped against the backrest. “As soon as the stampede has stopped, we’d better make our move.”

 

“Bonnard?” asked Kai.

 

“Bonnard!” Portegin echoed the name in a glad cry in the main cabin. “Bonnard! Kai, Varian. He got in!”

 

The leaders saw the boy emerging from the lab, his ship suit dusty and stained, his face drawn with a sudden maturity.

 

“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?”

 

Cleiti was embracing her friend, weeping with relief. Terilla, bedded down by Trizein, called his name over and over, not quite believing his appearance. Bonnard gently put Cleiti’s clinging hands to one side and walked to the leaders.

 

“They’ll never find those power packs, Varian. Never! But I thought you’d be killed when I saw Paskutti lock the dome. He smashed the control so I didn’t see how I could get you out in time. So... I... hid!” The boy burst into tears of shame.

 

“You did exactly as you should, Bonnard. Even to hiding!”

 

Another shift of the shuttle sent everyone rocking.

 

“It’s going to fall,” cried Aulia, hands over her ears.

 

“It could, but it won’t crack,” said Kai, feeling the same post-crisis elation that had made Varian chuckle. “Stay calm. We’ve succeeded so far. We’ll survive!”

 

Chapter ELEVEN

 

Although Kai’s wrist chrono showed that only twenty minutes had elapsed from the moment they had reached the pilot’s cabin, it had seemed an age of repeated shocks and jolts until all external noise ceased.

 

After a moment of silence, Kai opened the iris lock enough to peer out. And saw nothing but mottled coarse furred hide. He stepped back, gesturing for Varian to look out.

 

“Buried alive in Hadrasaurs,” she said, irrepressible. Her eyes were very bright, her face lined with the strain of maintaining Discipline over the agony of her crushed and broken shoulder. “Open wider. They’re too big to fall in.”

 

With a wider view, they achieved only the vision of more bodies, darkness beyond. Kai reluctantly decided that they’d have to send Bonnard, who was agile and small enough, to assess the new position of the shuttle. Bonnard was warned to keep a low profile in case the heavy-worlders were about.

 

“You might remember that it is now full dark,” Lunzie said.” They don’t have good night vision. If they are out there.”

 

“Where else would they be?” demanded Aulia, hysteria in her shaking voice. “Gloating! Delighted with themselves. I’ve never liked working with heavy-worlders. They always think they’re abused and misused and they’re really not good for anything but heavy muscle work.”

 

“Oh, do be quiet, Aulia,” said Lunzie. “Go on with you, Bonnard, see if we have a clear passage for the shuttle. I’ll be as glad to put a lot of distance between myself and the heavy-worlders as anyone else in this shuttle.” She handed him a night-mask and gave him a reassuring and approving grin.

 

“Portegin, would you check the control panel’s circuitry?” asked Kai. “Varian, let Lunzie see to that arm now we’ve a spare moment.”

 

“If, after that, Lunzie gets a crack at your hand, Leader Kai.”

 

“No “ifs” about it. I do you first, him next,” said Lunzie, reaching for her belt pouch. “At least they left me something to work with.”

 

“Why bother patching any of us?” demanded Aulia, sinking to the deck, head in her arms. “We can’t last long on this planet. Paskutti was right about that. And they’ve got everything we need!”

 

“Not everything. They left us the synthesizer,” said Varian with a snort. “couldn’t take that, built into the shuttle as it is.”

 

“There’s no power to run it. You heard Tanegli.”

 

“Bonnard hid the sleds” packs. They’ll do for the synthesizer.”

 

“That’s only delaying the inevitable,” cried Aulia. “We’ll all die once the packs are drained. There’s no way to recharge them.”

 

“Kai got a message out to the Theks,” said Varian, hoping to forestall Aulia’s imminent hysterics.

 

“The Theks!” Aulia burst out laughing, a shrill, mirthless sound. Portegin came striding out of the pilot’s cabin and slapped her smartly across the face.

 

“That’s enough of that, you silly girl. You always do give up too easily.”

 

“She has brought up a few harsh truths,” said Margit in a weary voice. “Once the synthesizer is useless, we’re as good as...”

 

“We can always sleep it,” said Kai.

 

“I didn’t realize that this expedition had cryogenics,” said Margit but hope brightened her expression.

 

“This may be a small expedition, but it has all the basics. Or had,” replied Kai who, finding the proper space between the bulkheads, pressed the release and showed them the hidden recess with the cryogenic supplies.

 

“But if Portegin could fix the communit, we wouldn’t have to cold sleep,” said Aulia, her face also showing relief, “we could just beam EV?”

 

“No, and I might as well tell you right now,” said Portegin, his expression grim, “I can’t fix that panel. Not without the spare parts which they’ve removed.”

 

“I knew it,” said Aulia, beginning to weep in the silence that followed Portegin’s announcement.

 

“You know nothing,” said Portegin sharply, “so shut up.”

 

“Sleep is what we all need, right now. Regular sleep,” said Lunzie, sparing Kai significant glance.

 

Once Discipline had worn off, the four of them would need a full day’s rest before they could recover from the necessary abuse of their systems. With Aulia in such a state, and the others certain to react in one way or another to the shock of their experiences, their escape from the heavy-worlders would be meaningless if Kai and Varian could not maintain control.

 

“Sleep?” demanded Margit. “Under what’s up there?” She pointed to the ceiling of the shuttle and shuddered.

 

“Look at it this way, Margit,” said Dimenon, “we’re beautifully secure. Even heavy-worlders will have to sweat to clean that... how should I phrase it — carrion? debris — away.”

 

“No, Dimenon. We’re not staying here,” said Kai. “Our best escape is best made now, under cover of the dark, so that when the heavy-worlders return, as I’m sure they will, they will presume that the entire shuttle is still here, buried under the stampede.”

 

“The carrion eaters of Ireta work swiftly,” Varian said, perspiration beading her face as Lunzie continued her repairs on the broken shoulder. “But they’ve enough out there for days...”

 

Someone retched.

 

“Which gives us a certain leeway before they discover the shuttle is gone. If we move tonight.”

 

“Where do you suggest we move to?” asked Portegin in a dry tone.

 

“That’s no problem,” said Dimenon with a snort. “We’ve a whole bloody planet.”

 

“Not really,” said Kai. “And they want this shuttle. They need it — if only for the synthesizer and the main power unit. Once they’ve found it’s gone, they’re going to look for it. And look hard. They’ve tracers on the sleds, and while they don’t have the power packs,” here he favoured Bonnard with an admiring grin, “they’re strong enough to dismantle the units and use ‘em while they belt-lift. And find us.”

 

“Not if we’re well hidden,” said Varian, emphasizing the “well” in a voice that held a ripple of amusement. “No heavy-worlder would think of it. And there’d be a lot of other life-form readings to confuse them.”

 

Kai regarded Varian, his mind rushing through the possible locations, unable to guess what she had thought of although Varian looked at him as if he ought to know.

 

“Our rest day was a rehearsal, too, though we couldn’t know it at the time.”

 

“The giffs?”

 

“Yes, that cave where I found the dead egg. It was enormous inside, and dry. Why it was abandoned, I can’t figure. But it should do us.”

 

Kai wanted to grab her in his arms, kiss and hug her for that suggestion but it was neither the time nor place.

 

“That’s exactly the right place, Varian. We’d even register the same as the adult giffs. And the kids as juveniles! Varian, That’s... That’s...”

 

“The best idea we’ve heard all day,” said Lunzie, finishing when words failed Kai. There was as much relief in her voice as in Kai’s. Varian beamed at the reception of her solution.

 

“Fine. We’ll hole up there...” and he ducked as Lunzie swung at him for his pun, “get a good night’s sleep and then do some heavy evaluation. I did, and don’t forget this, my friends, get that message off to the Theks...” He held up his hand as Aulia opened her mouth to renew her arguments to aid from that source, “and as one of them is an old friend of my family’s on the ARCT-10, I think I can promise that the message will not be ignored.”

 

Aulia may not have been convinced but Kai saw that others were willing to rest some confidence in that fact.

 

“Where has Bonnard got to?” asked Varian, shuddering as Lunzie finished her manipulation on her shoulder. “He ought to have been long back.”

 

“I’ll go,” said Triv and was out of the lock before either leader could protest.

 

“Now, Leader Kai,” said Lunzie, indicating it was his turn at her hands.

 

“Margit, would you break out some peppers for us all?” said Kai, surrendering his broken wrist to Lunzie and diverting his thoughts. “I don’t think they got what was in the locker in the pilot’s compartment.”

 

“A pepper?” Margit moved with alacrity to the forward compartment, Aulia right behind her. “That’s the second best idea I’ve heard today. Pray Krim they didn’t get the peppers! Ah, the locker’s untouched! Leave off, Aulia, pass them out to the others, first! “ Her voice had turned hard.

 

“You know, this is the first time I’ve ever seen Leaders required to use Discipline,” said Dimenon, cracking the seal on the can Aulia had handed him. She was drinking hers as she passed others the restoratives. “I’m aware that a Leader has to have the Training to lead, but I’d never seen it working. I couldn’t figure out what had got into you, Varian, when you let them beat admissions out of you.”

 

“I had to play the coward,” said Varian, taking a long swig at her pepper. “Dead Disciples are no use to anyone. I’d guessed that Bonnard would be smart enough to hide. I do wish he’d get back now, though.”

 

They all heard the noises at the lock. Kai slipped his half-sealed wrist from Lunzie’s grasp and moved quickly to the lock, good hand poised in a clenched fist. Portegin and Dimenon joined him, their bare hands cocked back.

 

“I found him,” Triv said, poking his head through the half-opened iris. “He’d been stacking all the power packs at the edge of... the dead beasts. He’s gone for the others now.” He handed three power packs through the lock to Portegin.” He says the heavy-worlders have started a fire on the ridge beyond us. We’ll be able to slide the shuttle to our left, up the hill and they shouldn’t see us. Dead and dying herbivores are hill high in the compound. It’s going to take some time before they realize neither we nor the shuttle are buried here.”

 

“Good,” said Kai and motioned Triv to return to help Bonnard. “We can be gone without a trace left for them to follow or find, bless this ceramic hull.”

 

Once the resourceful boy and Triv had swung the power packs safely into the shuttle, they dosed the lock. Kai and Varian took Bonnard into the pilot’s compartment where he could diagram the shuttle’s position and the clearest way up the hill.

 

Paskutti’s fist had wrecked the outside view screens as well as the communication unit so maneuvers would be blind. Not, Varian pointed out, that they could have seen all that much even with night-masks and they couldn’t, under the circumstances, use the shuttle’s exterior spotbeams. Both Kai and Varian could recall the co-ordinates for the inland sea without the tapes now spread across the compound’s littered floor.

 

Triv and Dimenon synthesized enough padding to cushion the wounded on the bare plastic deck, and had set Margit and Aulia to clear up the worst of the spillage in Trizein’s laboratory. He was unconscious again, the strain having been excessive for a man of his years. Lunzie thought he might have suffered a heart seizure as a result of the brutal treatment.

 

Manoeuvring on the bare minimum of power, Kai and Varian, each with one good hand, eased the shuttle out from under its burden of Hadrasaur corpses, up the hill and onto a course for the inland sea.

 

During the trip, Lunzie synthesized a hyper-saturated tonic to reduce the effects of delayed shock and made certain every single person took their dose, either as a drink or a spray. With Triv and Dimenon’s assistance, Portegin began to raid all unnecessary circuits to see if he could jury rig even an outgoing signal.

 

When they reached the inland sea, Kai hovered the shuttle while Varian, the lock iris partly open, shouted verbal instructions to the terrace they had happily occupied that rest day, it seemed so long ago. When the lock was half a metre above the terrace, Varian and Triv jumped down. They would have to guide the shuttle into the cave, feeding Kai directions over their wrist communits. Since the heavy-worlders were sure of their deaths in the dome, it was unlikely any of them would be listening in on their own units.

 

The mouth of the cave was not large enough to accept the central bulge of the shuttle, but, by steadily pressing in against the rock, they forced a way through, ignoring the score marks on the ceramic skin of the shuttle.

 

Varian, standing in the darkness of the terrace, couldn’t understand why the grating noise and vibrations hadn’t aroused the entire population of the cliff but no crested head emerged to investigate.

 

Triv lowered Varian down to the cave by belt line. Then, having secured one end on a rocky spur on the terrace, he joined her. The shuttle was far enough inside the cave not to be immediately visible. But Triv and Varian gathered up masses of dried vegetation and threw them in camouflage over the stern of the shuttle. Dimenon, Margit and Portegin came out to help, spattering the top and sides with moistened cave dung.

 

It didn’t take long but everyone was relieved to be inside the shuttle, with the iris closed behind them. Then the others settled themselves with what comfort they could find.

 

“You are going to rest, aren’t you, Lunzie,” asked Kai, hunkering down by her side as she tended Trizein.

 

She gave a snort. “I’ll have no option as soon as Discipline releases. But Trizein should be all right. It’s natural for his system to seek repair in rest. And there won’t be anything to disturb him. How’re you?” she asked bluntly, glancing at sealed wrist and then more intently at his eyes.

 

“I’m still under Discipline, but not for much longer.”

 

She filled her spray gun. “I’ll give everyone else slightly more sedation than necessary. That’ll give us a chance for enough rest.”

 

She moved about the cabin then, administering the spray.

 

Varian tapped Kai on the shoulder.

 

“We’ve accommodation forward, Kai.”

 

He glanced round the recumbent forms and then followed her, gratefully lowering himself on the deck on the padding. Thin but thermal lined sheets had been fashioned and ought, he thought, to suffice. The ship would keep the interior temperature at a comfortable level for sleepers. Lunzie and Triv joined them and settled down, too.

 

“It could be worse, Kai,” said the physician, as if she read his thoughts as he stared down the bare cabin at the other sleepers. “We only lost Gaber and that fool asked for it with his tardy heroics.”

 

“Terilla and Cleiti?” asked Varian.

 

“Were mauled about, but no more. Worse for the psyche and the body. One doesn’t wish that sort of treatment for anyone...” Lunzie grimaced.

 

“I’m more concerned about their reaction towards Kai and myself when we seemed not to defend or protect them...”

 

Lunzie smiled. “They understand that! I know Cleiti’s parents are Disciples and I suspect Terilla’s mother is. What they can’t understand is the heavy-worlders” metamorphosis into brutal, cruel temperaments.” Lunzie sighed. “All in all, I think we comported ourselves rather well, considering the odds against us and the unexpectedness of that mutiny.”

 

Suddenly her body sagged and she sighed again, with relief.

 

“I’m off,” she said, fumbling with shaking hands for the sedative gun. “Are you two ready for it?”

 

“Leave it,” said Kai. “We can do ourselves.”

 

Triv offered his arm to the physician. “I’m off it, too, Lunzie.” The release of Discipline was obvious in the grey that seeped into his complexion. He was nearly asleep before Lunzie had fully administered the drug. “I’ll wake first,” he mumbled, and his head dropped to one side.

 

Lunzie snorted as she turned the spray on herself. “Not if I beat you to it, my friend. That’s the marvel of Discipline, or is it the bane, working even when you don’t want it to.” She exhaled raggedly and closed her eyes. “you’ve done well, leaders! You can rest easy on that score. Never met a.. bet... ter...”

 

Varian chuckled. “You might know Lunzie would leave a compliment unspoken.” She kept her voice low though not even a repeat stampede would have wakened the physician or the other sleepers. “Kai? Will Tor respond?”

 

“He’s more likely to than any other Thek.”

 

“When?”

 

Discipline must be leaving her, Kai thought, hearing the anxiety in her roughened voice. He took her good hand in his and carried it to his lips. She smiled, despite her worry, at the caress.

 

“I’d say it will be a week before he could possibly arrive. I think we can hold them together that long, don’t you?”

 

“After today, yes, I think we can. But, Kai, they don’t know we’ve no contact with EV Thek help is grand but pretty poor consolation because it’s debatable.”

 

“I know. It is, however, contact.” He felt Discipline leaving him, felt the massive fatigue, like an intolerable weight, press down on his abused body. Muhlah, but he’d be almighty stiff when he woke.

 

“Are you released, Kai? You look it.”

 

He laughed softly, noting the drain of colour from her face. He lifted the spray gun.

 

“Wait.” She raised herself on her good elbow and kissed him on the lips, a gentle kiss but nonetheless an accolade. I don’t want to fall asleep kissing you.”

 

“I appreciate that consideration,” he said. And gave her a quick, affectionate kiss, pressing the spray against her arm, and then his own. He arranged his limbs and just had time to curl his fingers about hers before sleep overtook him.

 

Chapter TWELVE

 

Kai was not the only stiff one when they finally woke. And Lunzie had roused before Triv, which put her in a good mood. Trizein was improving, she told the leaders as she handed them each beakers of a steaming nutritious broth. Her own special recipe, she said, guaranteed to circulate blood through abused muscles and restore tissue to normal.

 

“You’ll need to be limber. We’ve got to have more for the synthesizer to masticate or I won’t have enough of my brew to revive the others.”

 

Kai sipped carefully of the hot liquid. Lunzie had not misrepresented its effectiveness. As the warmth descended to his stomach, he could almost feel the loosening of his stiff muscles. He did have to apply slight Disciplinary controls to reduce the ache in his wrist.

 

“How long did we sleep?”

 

“I’d say we made it around the chrono and half again?” Lunzie said, glancing at her wrist bracelet. I know we didn’t sleep a mere twelve hours or I’ve lost my knack at pulling sedatives into a sprayer. Which I haven’t.”

 

“How long before the others rouse?” asked Triv, who was now awake.

 

“I’d say we have another clear hour or so before the dead arise.”

 

“A little recon?” Triv asked the two leaders.

 

“Just remember,” said Lunzie at her driest, “you’ve none of your force-belts anymore. Don’t fall.”

 

From reflex action, Kai found himself reaching for the stun locker door and saw its open, empty shelves.

 

“Yes, indeed,” said Varian with a wry laugh, “the cupboard is bare.”

 

“And all we’ve got is bare hands...”

 

“One a piece,” said Varian with a second laugh,

 

“Remember, you won’t be able to use full Discipline today?” Lunzie cautioned. “I trust the need will not arise.”

 

“I doubt it. The giffs aren’t aggressive,” said Varian, settling her hand comfortably against her body before stepping through the iris. “Another reason why this is a perfect hideaway.”

 

A scant few minutes later, as they peered past the mouth of their retreat, she revised her statement.

 

“Well, there are a few drawbacks.” She squinted down at the waves beating against the foot of their twenty metre high cliff. To either side was an expanse of sheer rock. The line Triv had secured from the terrace flapped in the light breeze. Looking up, Varian could see the giffs flying. “At least There’s nothing but giffs airborne,” she added with an exaggerated sigh of relief.

 

“And nothing for the synthesizer either,” said Kai, trying to recall exactly what lay beyond the terrace and the rock-shelf on which the giffs dropped their catch.

 

Triv had gone to the rear of the cavern and came back now, a sheaf of dried grasses in each hand. “There’s lots more of this, dried, but they’ll provide some substance for the synthesizer.”

 

“There’s forest beyond the cliffs,” said Varian, thoughtfully, frowning as she concentrated. “Blast but we rely too much on tapes and not enough on our own recall?”

 

“C’mon, don’t fuss yourself, Varian. We’ll collect grasses at least. Triv, how are you at climbing up ropes?”

 

“I’ll learn but I suspect it’s the sort of thing Bonnard will do extremely well,” he said with a grin, testing the rope and then peering up its length, his expression dubious.

 

Lunzie was not pleased with the grasses. Fresh they’d have been perfect but there was no telling how long they’d been lying about the cavern. Couldn’t they get some fresh green — even tree tops?

 

Tree tops were about all they could reach, Triv informed the leaders when he and the youngsters had returned from their foraging. There was a tantalizing view of fruiting trees beyond a narrow but impassable canyon which separated the main cliffs from the forest beyond. At least from the terrace level which was, at the moment, all they could reach.

 

“The giffs watched us,” Bonnard told Varian and Kai, “just like they did that rest day. Just watched.”

 

“And I watched the skies for anything else,” said Terilla, a curiously bitter note to her soft voice and an unsettling hardness to her face.

 

“Them?” Bonnard dismissed the heavy-worlders with a fine scorn. “They’re still thinking we’ve all been smashed flat in the dome!”

 

There was, the two leaders noted with wry approval, a decided smugness about Bonnard to which he was, in fact, entitled. He, alone, had managed to evade and discommode the heavy-worlders, despite their physical superiority.

 

“Let us devoutly hope that they continue in that delusion for a few more days,” said Kai. “Until Tor has a chance to arrive. Can you manage another trip today?” he asked, eyeing the pile of fresh greens and estimating the finished, synthesized result.

 

Triv’s answer was to turn back to the rope and begin the ascent, the others queuing to follow him.

 

“Morale’s very good,” Kai murmured to Varian.

 

“Now!” Varian’s single bitter word reminded Kai that morale was fickle.

 

To bolster his own spirits he sought Portegin, working in Trizein’s looted laboratory on a pile of matrix slabs and the damaged console panel which he had removed from the piloting compartment.

 

“I don’t know if I can fix the communit, even if I pirate every matrix circuit we’ve got and do field links,” the man said, running his fingers through his short hair. “They didn’t leave us so much as a sealing unit and these connections are too fine to be done by hand.”

 

“Could you rig a locator signal on the Thek?”, or even the ARCT-10’s frequencies?”

 

“Sure,” and Portegin brightened to be able to give a positive response.

 

“Do so, then, preferably one the heavy-worlders can’t tap.”

 

They’ve got to have power first, more power than they’ve got on their wrist units,” said Portegin, grinning with a touch of malice.

 

Kai moved on, checking futilely in the storage compartments in the hopes that something useful had been dropped by the heavy-worlders. He thanked providence for the ceramic hull of the shuttle which would not show up on the detectors the heavy-worlders possessed. The minor amounts of metal in the ship would easily be misread as ore in the cliffs. He tried again to remember if he and Varian had done much talking about the giffs in the hearing of any of the heavy-worlders. And remembered the tapes! Fighting the frantic pulse of fear, he also remembered the tangled, destroyed tape cannisters strewn about the compound and now buried beneath megatons of dead beasts. Supercilious of the light weights as the mutineers were, doubtless they had chucked tapes registered by either himself or Varian as being intrinsically useless. Kai forced himself to believe that possibility.

 

Everyone was busy at something, he noted. Triv and the youngsters were on the foraging party, Aulia was sweeping the main cabin with a broom made of short stiff grasses, Dimenon and Margit were hauling water up the cliff in an all too small improvised bucket.

 

“Try a piece,” said Varian, offering him a brownish slab.” It’s not bad,” she added as he broke off a corner and began to chew it.

 

“Dead grass?”

 

“Hmmm.”

 

“I’ve eaten worse. Very dry, isn’t it.”

 

“Dry grass, but it’s bearable. There’ll be plenty of this junk, so Lunzie is good enough to reassure us.” Then her expression altered to one of distaste. “Trouble is, it uses a lot of power, and water, which uses power, too, to be purified.”

 

Kai shrugged. Food they had to have, and water.

 

“We need at least a week for Tor to reply.”

 

Varian regarded him for a long moment. “Exactly what good will Tor’s appearance do us?”

 

“The heavy-worlders” mutiny, or I should say their success, depends on our silence. That’s why they rigged our “deaths” so carefully, in case we hadn’t been planted. Why they’d believe Gaber is beyond me, but...” Kai shrugged. Then he grinned. “Heavy-worlders are big, but no one is bigger than a Thek. And no one in the galaxy deliberately provokes Thek retaliation. Their concept of Discipline is a trifle... more permanent... than ours. Once we have Thek support, we can resume out interrupted work.”

 

Varian considered this reassurance and, for some reason that irked Kai, did not appear as consoled as she ought.

 

“Well, Lunzie estimates we’ve got four weeks of power at the current rate of use.”

 

“That’s good, but I’m not happy about four weeks stuck in this cavern.”

 

“I know what you mean.”

 

Their refuge was twice as long as the shuttle craft’s twenty-one metres, and half again as wide, but it ended in a rather daunting rock fall which may have been why the cave was abandoned by the giffs. There was not much space for privacy, and they couldn’t risk lighting the innermost section which would have lessened the cramping.

 

By the time the quick tropic night had darkened their refuge, Portegin had succeeded in rigging a locator which he and Triv mounted in a crevice just outside the cliff mouth. After a final look to be sure that the stern of the shuttle was sufficiently camouflaged, Kai and Varian ordered everyone back into the shuttle. By the simple expedient of having Lunzie introduce a sedative into the evening ration of water, everyone was soon too sleepy to worry about confinement or boredom.

 

The next day Kai and Varian sent everyone but the convalescent Trizein out to gather greenery. They estimated that they had this second day secure from any search by the heavy-worlders: possibly a third but they could take no chances.

 

The third day, apart from drawing water at dawn, was spent inside the cave. Portegin and Triv contrived a screen of branches and grass which could be used to secure a sentinel at the cave entrance, to warn of any sign of either search from the heavy-worlders or, hopefully, the arrival of a Thek capsule. The angle of vision from the screen was limited but would have to suffice.

 

The fourth day passed uneventfully but by the fifth, everyone was beginning to show the effects of close quartering. The sixth day Lunzie doctored the morning beverage so that everyone except herself, Triv and the two leaders were kept dozy. That meant that they had to maintain the watch themselves and draw the water at dawn and again at dusk.

 

By the end of the seventh day, Kai had to admit that Tor had not rushed to their assistance.

 

“What is our alternative?” Triv asked calmly at the informal conference the four Disciples held.

 

“There’s cold sleep,” said Lunzie, looking rather relieved when Kai and Varian nodded.

 

“That’s the sensible last resort,” said Triv, fiddling with a square of grasses he’d been idly weaving. “The others’re going to become more and more dissatisfied with seclusion in this cave. Of course, once there aren’t any messages for EV, they’ll be bound to investigate.” Something in their manner, in their very silence alerted Triv and he glanced about him, startled.” EV is coming back for us?”

 

“Despite Gaber’s gossip, There’s no reason to suppose not?” said Kai, slowly. “Once EV strips the messages, they’ll come rattling here. This planet is so rich in all...”

 

“Messages?” Triv caught Kai’s inadvertent slip.

 

“Yes, messages,” said Varian, a sour grimace on her face.

 

“How many?” The geologist couldn’t suppress his anxiety.

 

“The all-safe-down is the only one they’ve stripped.”

 

Triv absorbed that depressing admission with no hint of his inner reactions. “Then we’ll have to sleep.” He frowned and asked, as an afterthought, “Only the all safe? What happened? They wouldn’t have planted us, Kai, there isn’t a large enough gene pool.”

 

“That and the fact that we’ve the youngsters is what reassures us,” said Kai. “I feel that the EV is much too involved in that cosmic storm and the Thek were of the same opinion.”

 

“Ah, yes, I’d forgot about that storm.” Triv’s relief was visible. “Then we sleep. No question of it! Doesn’t matter if we’re roused in a week or a year.”

 

“Good, then we’ll sleep tomorrow, once the others have been told,” said Kai.

 

Lunzie shook her head. “Why tell them? Aulia’ll go into hysterics, Portegin will insist we try to rig an emergency call, you’ll get blasted for with holding information about EV’s silence...”

 

“They’re half-way there now,” said Varian, gesturing towards the sleeping forms. “And we’ll save ourselves some futile arguments.”

 

“And any chance of being found by the heavy-worlders?” said Triv, “until either EV comes back for us, or the Thek arrive as reinforcement. There’s no way the heavy-worlders could find a trace of us in cold-sleep. And there’s a real danger if we remain awake.”

 

Such a major decision should be democratically decided, Kai knew, in spite of the fact that he and Varian as leaders could arbitrarily act in the best interests of the expedition. Lunzie’s assessment of reactions was valid. Kai spread his arms wide accepting the inevitable. He’d given Tor a week which, if the Thek had been going to respond, would have been more than adequate for the creature to make the journey from the other planet. If Tor himself had received the message. It could have been taken by one of the other two, who would not necessarily pass it to Tor or bother about responding.

 

“I’d rather meet those heavy-worlders again with a healed shoulder,” remarked Varian. “I hope they waste all their remaining power trying to find a trace of us.”

 

Triv gave a mirthless laugh and rose, looking expectantly at Lunzie.

 

“I’m not unusually spiteful,” said the physician, getting to her feet, “but I’m of the same mind.”

 

Lunzie prepared a preservative which she then administered to the sleeping. Triv, Varian and Kai checked each one until their skins cooled and their respiration’s slowed to the imperceptible. Kai toyed briefly with the notion of staying awake, of asking Varian to join him in the vigil until either Tor or EV arrived. But that would mean they’d have to stay outside as the sleep vapour would permeate the shuttle. He’d no wish to remain away from his team and inadvertently to disclose their hideaway to the searching heavy-worlders. Soon the others were in the thrall of cold sleep.

 

“You know,” announced Varian in a startled tone of voice as she was settling herself, “poor old Gaber was right. We are planted. At least temporarily!”

 

Lunzie stared at her, then made an unamused grimace.” That’s not the comfort I want to take with me into cold sleep.”

 

“Does one dream in cryogenic sleep, Lunzie?”

 

“I never have.”

 

“Seems a waste of time not to do something.”

 

Lunzie handed round the potion she’d made for them to take in lieu of the spray.

 

“The whole concept of cold sleep is to suspend the sense of subjective time,” she said. “You sleep, you wake.”

 

“And centuries could pass,” added Triv.

 

“You’re less help than Varian is,” muttered Lunzie and drank her potion, arranging herself.

 

“It won’t be centuries,” said Kai emphatically. “Not once EV has the assays on the uranium.”

 

“That is a comfort,” said Triv and drank his dose.

 

Tacitly Kai and Varian waited until the other two had quietened into the thrall of cold sleep.

 

“Kai,” Varian said softly, “it is my fault. I had all the clues that pointed to a possible mutiny...”

 

“Varian,” he said gently and stopped her words of apology with a kiss, “it was no one’s fault, just a concatenation of forces. Content yourself that we are alive, so are they. Gaber brought his own end with an essential stupidity of temperament. And we had best suspend subjective time for a while.”

 

“How long a while?”

 

He kissed her lightly again, smiling a reassurance he tried hard to make genuine. “EV will return for us. No matter how long it takes!” Not the most tactful remark to make. “Drink, Varian!” Raising his cup to her, he waited until she followed suit and they drank together. “Nothing seems quite so bad when you’ve slept on it.”

 

“I hope so. It’s... jussss...”

 

Silence pervaded the shuttle. The mechanism that released a vapour to reinforce the sleep opened the proper valve. All life-signs fell to an undetectable minimum.

 

Outside golden furred flying creatures roused with the advent of another gloomy, sultry Mesozoic morning.

 

The End