Meanwhile, Tia made note of a disturbing development. The sudden cold had sent most of the small game and pest animals into hiding or hibernation. That left the normally solitary jackal-dogs without their usual prey, and in what appeared to be seasonal behavior, they began to pack up for the winter, so that they could take down the larger grazers.
The disturbing part was that a very large pack began lurking around the camp.
Now Tia regretted her choice of landing areas. The site was between her and the camp; that was all very well, especially for observing the team at work, but the dogs were lurking in the hills around the camp. And with no ward-off generator to keep them out of it—
She mentioned her worry to Alex, who pointed out that the beasts always scattered at any sign of aggression on the part of a human. She mentioned it again to Doctor Aspen, who said the animals were probably just looking for something to scavenge and would leave the camp alone once they realized there was nothing to eat there.
She never had a chance to mention it again.
With two moons, both in different phases, the nights were never dark unless it was raining. But the floodlights at the site made certain that the darkness was driven away. And lately, the nights were never silent either; the pack of jackal-dogs wailed from the moment the sun went down to the moment the rains began. Tia quickly became an expert on what those howls meant; the yipping social-howl, the long, drawn-out rally-cry, and most ominous, the deep-chested hunting call. She was able to tell, just by the sounds, where they were, whether they were in pursuit, and when the quarry had won the chase, or lost it.
Tia wasn't too happy about them; the pack numbered about sixty now, and they weren't looking too prosperous. Evidently the activity at the site had driven away the larger grazers they normally preyed on; that had the effect of making all the smaller packs join up into one mega-pack—so there was always some food, but none of them got very much of it. They weren't at the bony stage yet, but there was a certain desperate gauntness about them. The grazers they did chase were escaping five times out of six—and they weren't getting in more than two hunts in a night.
Should I suggest that the team feed them? Perhaps take a grav-sled and go shoot something and drag it in once every couple of days? But would that cause problems later? That would be giving the pack the habit of dependence on humans, and that wouldn't be good. Could they lure the pack into another territory that way, though? Or—would feeding them make them lose their fear of humans? She couldn't quite make up her mind about that, but the few glimpses she'd had of the pack before sunset had put her in mind of certain Russian folktales—troikas in the snow, horses foaming with panic, and wolves snapping at the runners. Meanwhile, the pack got a little closer each night before they faded into the darkness.
At least it was just about time for the team to break off for the night. Once they were in their domes, they'd be safe.
As if in answer to her thought, the huge lights pivoted up and away from the site, as they were programmed to do, lighting a clear path for the team from the site to the camp. When everyone was safely in the domes, Les would turn them off remotely. So far, the lights alone had kept the jackal-dogs at bay. They lurked just outside the path carved by the lights, but would not venture inside.
As if to answer that thought, the pack howled just as the first of the team members emerged from the covered excavation area. It sounded awfully close—
Tia ran a quick infrared scan.
The pack was awfully close—right on the top of the hill to the right of the site!
The beasts stared down at the team—and the leader howled again. There was no mistaking that howl, not when all the rest answered it. It was the hunt-call. Quarry sighted; time to begin the chase.
And the leader was staring right at the archeologists. The team stared back, sensing that there was something different tonight. No one stirred; not archeologists, nor jackal-dogs. The beasts' eyes glared red in the darkness, reflection from the work lights, but no less disturbing for having a known scientific explanation.
"Alex," she said tightly. "Front and center. We have a situation."
He emerged from his cabin as if shot from a gun, took one look at the screen, and pelted for the hold where they kept the HA grav-sled.
Then the pack poured down the hillside in a furry avalanche.
Haakon-Fritz took off like a world-class sprinter, leaving the rest behind. For all the attention that he paid them, the rest of his team might just as well have not existed.
Shellcrack! Aspen can't run—
But Les and Treel were not about to leave Aspen to become the a la carte special; as if they had rehearsed the move, they each grabbed one arm and literally picked him up off his feet between them and started running. Fred and Aldon grabbed shovels to act as some kind of flank-guard. With the jackal-dogs closing on them with every passing moment, the entire group pelted off for the shelters.
They were barely a quarter of the way there, with the jackals halfway down the hill and gaining momentum, when Haakon-Fritz reached the nearest shelter. He hit the side of the dome with a crash and pawed the door open. He flung himself inside—
And slammed it shut; the red light coming on over the frame indicating that he had locked it.
"Alex!" Tia cried in anguish, as the jackal-dogs bore down upon their prey. "Alex, do something!" She had never felt so horribly helpless.
Grav-sleds made no noise—but they had hedra-players and powerful speakers, meant both to entertain their drivers and to broadcast prerecorded messages on the fly. A blast of raucous hard-wire shatter-rock blared out from beneath her—she got her underbelly cameras on just as Alex peeled out in the sled at top speed, music screaming at top volume.
The unfamiliar shrieks and howls behind them startled the pack for a moment, and they hesitated, then came to a dead halt, peering over their shoulders. The rock music was so unlike anything they had ever heard before that they didn't know how to react; Alex plowed straight through the middle of them and they shied away to either side.
He was never going to be able to make a pickup on the five still running for their lives without the pack being on all of them—but while he was on the move with music caterwauling, the jackal-dogs hesitated to attack him. And while he was harassing them, their attention was on him, not on their quarry.
That must have been what he had figured in the first place—that he would startle them enough to give the rest of the team a chance to get to safety inside that second dome. While the archeologists ignored what was going on behind them and kept right on to the second shelter, Alex kept making dives at the pack—scattering them when he could, keeping the sled between them and the team. It was tricky flying—stunt-flying with a grav-sled, pulling crazy maneuvers less than a meter from the ground. Not a lot of margin for error.
He cornered wildly; rocking the sled up on one side, skewing it over in flat spins, feinting at the pack leader and gunning away before the beast had a chance to jump into the sled. Over the sound of the wild music, the warning signals and overrides screamed objection for what Alex was doing. Alex challenged the jackal-dogs with the only weapon he had; the sled. Tia longed for her ethological pack; still not approved for the Institute ships. With a stun-needler, they could have at least knocked some of the pack out.
The animals assumed that the attack was meant to drive them off or kill them. They must have been hungrier than any of them had guessed, for when nothing happened to hurt or kill any of the pack, they began making attempts to mob the sled, and they seemed to be trying to think of ways to pull it down.
Tia knew why, then, in a flash of insight. Alex had just gone from "fellow predator" to "prey"; the jackal-dogs were used to grazer-bulls charging them aggressively to try to drive them away. Alex was imitating the behavior of the bulls, though he did not know it—and in better times, the pack probably would have responded by moving to easier prey. But these were lean times, and any imitation of prey-behavior meant they would try
to catch and kill what was taunting them.
Alex was now in real danger.
But Alex was a better flyer than Tia had ever thought; he kept the sled just out of reach of a strong jump, kept it moving in unpredictable turns and spins.
Then, one of the biggest beasts in the pack leapt—and landed, feet scrabbling on the back bumper of the sled.
"Alex!" Tia shrieked again. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw his danger.
He sent the sled into a spin; the sled's protection overrides objected strenuously, whining as they fought him. The jackal-dog fought, too, hind-claws skidding against the duraloy of the bumper. Alex watched desperately over his shoulder as the beast's claws found a hold, and it began hauling itself over the bumper toward him.
In what was either a burst of inspiration or insanity, he jammed on the braking motors. The sled stopped dead in mid-spin, flinging him sideways against his safety-belts—
And flinging the jackal-dog off the back of the sled entirely, sending it flying into the pack, and tumbling at least a dozen of them nose-over-tail.
At that moment the team reached the second dome.
The flash of light as they opened the door told Alex they were safe, and he no longer had to make a target of himself. Alex burned air back towards Tia; she dropped open a cargo-bay, activated restraint-fields and hoped he'd be able to brake in time to keep from hitting the back wall. At the speed he was coming—the restraint-fields, meant to keep the sled from banging around too much in rough flight, wouldn't do much.
He didn't even slow down as he hit the bay door, which she slammed down behind him. Instead, he killed the power and skidded to a halt on the sled's belly in a shower of sparks. The sled skewed sideways and crashed into the back wall—but between Alex's own maneuver and the restraint-fields, the impact wasn't bad enough to do more than dent her hold-wall. Once again, Alex was hurled sideways against his seat-belts. There were a half-dozen impacts on the cargo door, indicating the leaders of the pack hitting it, unable to stop.
He sat there for a moment, then sagged over the steering wheel, breathing heavily. Nothing on Tia's pickups made her think he was hurt, so she waited for him to catch his breath.
When his breathing slowed, and he looked up, she focused on his face. He was flushed, but showed no shock, and no sign of pain.
"Well," she said, keeping her voice calm and light, "you certainly know how to make an entrance."
He blinked—then leaned back in his seat, and began laughing.
* * *
It was no laughing matter the next day, when Haakon-Fritz emerged from his shelter and was confronted by the remainder of his team. He had no choice; Tia had threatened to hole his dome if he didn't, giving the beasts a way inside. It was an empty threat, but he didn't know that; like any other fanatic Practical Darwinist, he had never bothered to learn the capabilities of brainships.
Les took charge of him before he had a chance to say anything; using some kind of commando-tactics to get a hold on the man that immobilized him, then frog-marching him into the ship.
By common consent, everyone else waited until Les and Tia had secured Haakon-Fritz in one of her cabins, with access to what was going on in the main cabin, but no way of interrupting the proceedings. Any time he started in on one of his speeches, she could cut him off, and he'd be preaching to the bare walls.
As the others gathered in the cabin, Doctor Aspen looking particularly shaken and worn, Tia prepared to give them the news. It wasn't completely bad . . . but they weren't going to like part of it.
"We aren't pulling you out," she said, "although we've got that authority. We understand your concern about leaving this dig and losing essentially two years, and we share it."
As she watched four of the five faces register their mix of relief and anticipation, she wished she could give them unmixed orders.
"That's the good news," Alex said, before anyone could respond. "Here's the bad news. In order to stay here, we're going to order you to stay in your domes until the next courier shows up with your new generator and parts for the old one. We ordered one for you when the old one slagged; the courier should arrive in about a month or two with the new one."
"But—" Doctor Aspen started to object
"Doctor, it's that, or we pull you right this moment," Tia said firmly. "We will not leave you with those canids on the prowl unless you, each of you, pledge us that. You didn't see how those beasts attacked Alex in his sled. They have no fear of humans now, and they're hungry. They'll attack you without hesitation, and I wouldn't bet on them waiting until dark to do it."
"What's better?" Alex asked shrewdly. "Lose two months of work, or two years?"
With a sigh, Doctor Aspen gave his word, as did the rest—although Fred and Aldon did so with visible relief.
"If they'd just supply us with damned guns . . ." Les muttered under his breath.
"There are sophonts on the other continent. I didn't make the rules, Les," Tia replied, and he flushed. "I didn't make them, but I will enforce them. And by the letter of those rules, I should be ordering you to pack right now."
"Speaking of packing—" Alex picked up the cue. "We need you to bundle Haakon-Fritz' things and stow them in the hold. He's coming back with us."
Now Les made no attempt to hide his pleasure, but Doctor Aspen looked troubled. "I don't see any reason—" he began.
"Sorry, Doctor, but we do," Alex interrupted. "Haakon-Fritz finally broke the rules. It's pretty obvious to both of us that he attempted to turn his politics into reality."
In his cabin, the subject of discussion got over his shock and began a shouted tirade. As she had threatened, Tia cut him off—but she kept the recorders going. At the moment, they couldn't prove what had been on the man's mind when he locked his colleagues out. With any luck, his own words might condemn him.
"Doctor, no matter what his motivations were, he abandoned us," Les said firmly. "One more fighter might have made a difference to the pack—and the fact remains that when he reached shelter, instead of doing anything helpful, he ran inside and locked the door. The former might only have been cowardice—but the latter is criminal."
"That's probably the way the Board of Inquiry will see it," Tia agreed. "We'll see to it that he has justice, but he can't be permitted to endanger anyone else's life this way again."
After a bit more argument, Doctor Aspen agreed. The team left the shelter of the ship, gathered what they could from the dig, and returned to the domes. Well before sunset, Les and Fred returned with a grav-sled laden with Haakon-Fritz' belongings stowed in crates—and by the rattling they were making, the goods hadn't been stowed any too carefully.
Tia didn't intend to expend too much effort in stowing the crates either.
"You'll keep everyone in the domes for us, won't you?" Tia asked Les anxiously. "You're the one I'm really counting on. I don't trust Doctor Aspen's common sense to hold his curiosity at bay for too long."
"You read him right there, dear lady," Les replied, tossing the last of the crates off the sled for the servo to pick up. "But the rest of us have already agreed. Treel was the most likely hold-out, but even she agrees with you on your reading of the way those jackal-dogs were acting."
"What will happen to the unfortunate Haakon-Fritz?" Fred asked curiously.
"That's going to depend on the board," she told him. "I've got a recording of him ranting in his cabin about survival and obsolescence, and pretty much spouting the extremist version of the Practical Darwinism party line. That isn't going to help him any, but how much of it is admissible, I don't know."
"Probably none of it to a court," Les admitted after thought. "But the board won't like it."
"All of it's been sent on ahead," she told him. "He'll probably be met by police, even if, ultimately, there's nothing he can be charged with."
"At the very least, after this little debacle, he'll be dropped from the list of possible workers for anything less than a Class Three dig," Fred observed chee
rfully. "They'll take away his seniority, if they have any sense, and demote him back to general worker. He'll spend the rest of his life with us undergrads, sorting pot-shards."
"Assuming he can find anyone who is willing to take a chance on him," Alex responded. "Which I would make no bets on."
He patted Tia's side. "Just be grateful you're not having to go back with us," he concluded. "If you thought the trip out was bad with Haakon-Fritz sulking, imagine what it's going to be like returning."
CHAPTER SEVEN
There was a message waiting for Tia when they returned to the main base at Central, with Doctor Haakon-Fritz still confined to quarters. A completely mysterious message. Just the words, "Call this number," a voice-line number for somewhere in the L-5 colonies, and an ID-code she recognized as being from Lars.
Now what was Lars up to?
Puzzled, she left the message in storage until Alex completed the complicated transfer of their not-quite-prisoner, and accompanied him and duplicate copies of the records involving him down to the surface. Only then, when she was alone, did she make the call.
"Friesner, Sherman, Stirling and Huff," said a secretary on the first ring. There was no delay, so Tia assumed that the office was somewhere in one of the half-dozen stations or L-5 colonies nearby. "Investment brokers."
"I was told to call this number," Tia said cautiously. "I—my name is Hypatia Cade—" She hesitated as she almost gave her ship-numbers instead of her name.
"Ah, Miz Cade, of course," the secretary said, sounding pleased. "We've been waiting for you to call. Let me explain the mystery; Friesner, Sherman, Stirling and Huff specialize in investments for shellpersons like yourself. A Mister Lars Mendoza at Pride of Albion opened an account for you here to manage the investments you had already made. If you'll hold, I'll see if one of the partners is free—"
Tia hated to be put on hold, but it wasn't for more than a microsecond. "Miz Cade," said a hearty-sounding male voice, "I'm Lee Stirling; I'm your broker if you want to keep me on, and I have good news for you. Your investments at Largo Draconis have done very well. Probably much better than you expected."
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