“Yes, Mother.”
“It’s pronounced ‘captain’. Now, go find Ulrika and Roger so we can plan this out.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” Tyrell said and, before Sawyer could say anything else, turned and jogged off in search of the two biologists.
He’s getting almost as bad as George, she thought, then reconsidered. No, nobody’s that bad. So why did she miss him?
∞ ∞ ∞
Three hours later, Sawyer and Finley cruised in the little electroplane northwest, away from the camp. They set off an hour after Dejois, Klaar and Tyrell had begun their hike but had outdistanced them a while back. “So show me where you found the spear points, and the volcanic dike.” Sawyer told Finley.
“Sure. That way, on a north-westerly heading. Look for trees marking the ravine.”
They had already passed a small herd of girannos, as well as a larger herd of much smaller grazing animals. It was hard to tell from the altitude they were cruising at, but they could have been antelope or some kind of slender cattle. “We should bring Klaar back to look at those,” Sawyer had said, “they could be something we can domesticate.”
“I’d settle for hunting, it’s been ages since I had a decent steak. Do antelope make good steak?”
“I have no idea, and we’re not even sure local meat would be edible by humans, but if they’re mammals, it’s a good bet.”
∞ ∞ ∞
Aboard the electroplane, some kilometers west
“There’s the dike. Follow it toward the rise and we should see the ravine.”
“You think it’s volcanic? The rise, not the ravine.”
“It would make sense. The alternating shale and sand beds we saw at the ravine, beneath a layer of volcanic ash, would fit. Probably long extinct, or at least very dormant. We didn’t see any signs of recent activity.”
“Not here, anyway. Let’s continue toward the bulge and set up a seismic station there, then another on the way back.”
“You don’t want them in a line.” The third station would be back near the camp, but if they were all in more or less a straight line it would reduce their ability to triangulate signals.
“Of course not. I’m hoping we see something interesting to follow on the way back, make a big triangle out of it.”
“Ah, sure.”
As they flew on, the ground below grew a little rougher, with more rocky outcrops and rolling hills.
“If this keeps up there won’t be anywhere to land,” Finley said.
“Yeah.” Sawyer checked the time. There was still plenty of daylight left, it wasn’t even local noon. “Let’s get to that rock dome and circle around. If we can’t find a landing spot there we’ll head back and land at the first reasonable place we come to.”
“Fair enough.”
∞ ∞ ∞
North of the landing site
SCROAWRK! The shrill cry came from a large two-legged creature they’d almost literally stumbled over when they rounded a rocky outcrop. Now Dejois, Klaar and Tyrell were trying to put as much space between it than them as they could.
“What in the world is that?” yelled Tyrell as they scrambled for cover.
“I think it’s a bird,” Dejois yelled back as he dashed for the rocks ahead.
“Bird? More like a dinosaur!” Tyrell said. “Maybe a velociraptor.”
The creature chasing them was well over two meters tall at the shoulder, or rather at the thigh as it didn’t have any noticeable forelimbs, and the thick neck supported a head big enough to swallow a cat in one gulp. It ran on two legs, huge things with scaly feet and three nastily-clawed toes.
“Feathers. And a beak.” Klaar said. That was true. The gaping mouth was hardened into a pointed black beak, and it lacked teeth. The stringy feathers were a dull grayish brown, perfect for blending into the dry and dusty low vegetation in the clearing.
“Dinosaurs had feathers.”
“Some did,” Klaar said between deep panting breaths. “But they also had heavy tails, this has none.” Indeed, the creature lacked the long tail a dinosaur might be expected to have, and ran with a more upright posture for balance.
Tyrell, Klaar and Dejois clambered up the rocks, part of a basaltic dike protruding from the surrounding level ground in a southeast-northwest direction. Tyrell reached the top of the ridge, about six meters above the ground, just behind Klaar. Dejois was ahead of them both.
“I just hope it can’t fly!” He panted, catching his breath.
Klaar stood beside him. “Probably not.” She looked at the huge bird squawking below them. “Look, tiny wings.”
Between the thighs and neck there were small things like hand fans, flapping awkwardly.
“Looks a bit like an ostrich,” said Tyrell, “but the legs, neck and head are too big.”
“Oui,” Dejois agreed.
“There used to be things like this on Earth,” Klaar said.
“No shit?”
Squawk! The bird had circled the rock and was below them again. It ran and leaped, legs scrabbling at the rock face, beak snapped a scant yard beneath their feet.
“Not at all,” she said. “Terror-birds, they were called. Something like the moa in New Zealand, but unrelated. Also bigger and carnivorous.”
“‘Terror-birds’. Aptly named. I could see it might scare the crap out of someone.” Such as himself, but Tyrell wasn’t about to admit that in front of Ulrika.
“Vraiment. I don’t know what is worse, that beak or those claws. I would not want to be on the receiving end of either one.” Below them the huge bird paced back and forth, head bobbing to keep balance with its pace. “Aside from that, it looks a bit like a chicken.”
“Yeah, some chicken,” Tyrell agreed, then added “Some neck.”
“The head-bobbing is common to many birds, it has to do with their vision,” Klaar said. “Their eyes don’t move as readily as mammals’ do, it helps compensate for body movement while walking. It may also help depth perception.”
“Oh.” Tyrell watched it strut back and forth for a while. It didn’t seem in any hurry to leave. “So, how do we drive it off so we can get down?”
“What, you didn’t have a plan when you climbed up here?” Klaar grinned at him.
“I just wanted to get away from that beak. We may get paid chicken feed but I don’t want to be chicken feed.”
“You get paid?” asked Dejois, also grinning.
“Only metaphorically. With my luck when we get back instead of them owing us back pay, we will owe them rent for the use of the Anderson.”
“Hah. C’est vrais. Government bureaucracies are the same everywhere.”
They watched the bird as it continued pacing, apparently looking for something.
“What is it doing now?” Dejois asked. The terror bird scratched at a patch of low brush, then gripped it in its beak and began tugging.
“Beats me. Maybe it’s forgotten us and is scratching for some burrowing prey?”
“Possibly,” said Klaar, “but I do not think so. Birds can be pretty intelligent.”
At that point, the bird pulled a bush free and swung its head and neck, releasing the plant to swing through the air. It hit the rock about a meter below them. The bird pulled up another, larger bush and tossed it.
“What, it’s chased us up a rock and now it’s throwing trees at us?” Tyrell said. “Crazy damn bird!”
“Interesting. This creature shows more sideways head and neck flexibility than I would have expected, given what I know of Earth terror birds. Of course that’s only from skeletons.”
Tyrell put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in to kiss the side of her head. “Nothing phases you when there’s interesting zoology going on, does it? That’s one of the things I love about you.”
She turned her head to face him, then kissed him.
“You’re sweet.”
Dejois coughed politely. “Look, I know we French are supposed to be romantic, but should we not be thinking about getting out of here?”
Chapter 13: Westward
The Western Hills
Sawyer brought the plane to a stop on a flat scrubby area near the top of the broad rock dome. “Okay, let’s get the gear unloaded.” She looked around the area, correlating it with what they’d seen from the air. “Over there,” she said, pointing to another clear area about a hundred meters away. “Let’s put the seismometers there. We can mount the weather station on the radio mast, that’s a good spot.”
Finley had climbed out of the little aircraft and begun pulling gear from where it was stowed behind the seats. “Fair enough. You couldn’t have parked closer? This drill is heavy.”
“Oh, stop whining. At least it’s not raining.” She didn’t bother reminding him that she had been the one carrying the drill when they’d had to clear the landslide debris that had blocked the river back on Kakuloa, threatening to flood their landing site.
Finley had no reply to that, and carried the gear up to where she had indicated. “Not a bad view from here,” he called back to her. She was still pulling other gear out of the plane.
“Good. That will help radio transmission.” The radio, which would transmit both seismic and weather data back to the Anderson, didn’t need line of sight but that didn’t hurt, either. They’d have more bandwidth. “Let’s put a camera on the mast too,” she added as she pulled one from its case.
She pulled the rest of the gear up to where Finley had assembled the drill and was laying out the drill tubes. He looked up at her, picked up his geologist’s pick from the ground beside him and tapped the rocky ground with it.
“Granite,” he said. “This is going to be a treat to drill. I just hope we don’t break a bit.”
“That just means we won’t have to go in very deep, at least for the seismometers.” She scanned the area. While mostly flat, there were a few scattered stones and boulders, several of them small enough they could be moved. “I think for the radio mast we’ll drill a shallow hole and then make a cairn around it. That should hold.”
Finley looked around to where she had pointed, near a bigger boulder that could serve as one side of the cairn. “Yep, that should work.”
∞ ∞ ∞
The drilling, as Finley had predicted, was tough going. The drill had worked much better in the relatively soft sandstone back on Kakuloa, but eventually they had three holes about thirty centimeters deep each for the seismometers, and another somewhat deeper hole for the base of the radio mast.
“All right, let’s get the mast up first, then do a radio check.”
“Let’s attach the gear first. With the shallower hole the mast will stick up further.”
“Good point.” Sawyer uncased the small weather station and the clamps that would hold it to the mast. It was nothing elaborate, similar gadgets were used widely on Earth by professional and amateur meteorologists alike. It would report back wind speed and direction, temperature, air pressure, humidity and the like. Since they were to the west of the landing site, and prevailing winds blew toward the east, the station, while intended for scientific data gathering, would give their camp an advance warning of changes in the weather. She attached the clamp to the mast, affixed the station to the support clamps, and ran the data cable down the length of it.
“Here’s the camera,” Finley said, handing it to her.
“You know what? Run back to the plane and get a second one. We’ll put one looking east toward our camp, the other looking west at the area around the seismometers and our airstrip.”
Sawyer busied herself attaching the first camera while Finley went back for another. It wasn’t necessary, but it didn’t hurt to have plenty of different views of the area, and they had the cameras. What they didn’t have was enough ports on the data concentrator to plug two cameras, the weather station, and the seismometers into and still have a couple of spares. Since the cables also supplied power to the instruments, wireless wasn’t an option here.
They finished assembling the cameras and antenna to the top of the mast and hoisted it into position, lowering the base of the mast into the hole they’d drilled for it.
“Looks good,” said Finley, and gave it a shake. “Pretty solid.”
“I’d still feel better with a few more boulders around the base.”
“Okay, I’ll take care of that if you want to get the seismo’s set up.”
Setting them up was straightforward. She would take the sensor out of its protective case, align it with her compass for the appropriate direction, one north-south, one east-west. The third she aligned up-and-down, checking the bubble level on top to make sure it was level in the bottom of the hole drilled for it.
She slid them in turn into their holes. They were snug with the sides, which was what she wanted. She filled in the rest of each hole with dust and gravel that they’d drilled out, squirted in a glue to lock it in place, then ran the cabling back to where Finley had finished heaping boulders around the base of the radio mast.
“Very nice. Here, let’s get everything plugged in.” The cabling from the various instruments plugged into a box that Finley had already mounted to the mast. A small solar panel, mounted far enough below the weather instruments to not interfere with them, would provide power.
With that set up, Sawyer told Finley, “I’ll go back to the plane and tell Maclaren to do a radio check. Stay here in case you need to tweak the mast direction a bit.” She had to use the aircraft radio, their omnis didn’t have the range needed.
Back at the plane, she raised Maclaren, who’d been expecting to hear from them. Monitoring the signal strength, she helped them to align the antenna.
“Right, got your signal. It’s a bit weak. Try turning the mast a smidge.”
“Finley, Maclaren says the signal is weak. Turn the mast!”
“Lost it. Try the other way.”
“No that’s worse. Turn it the other way!” Sawyer called to Finley.
“Got it. Oops, you overshot.”
“Finley, stop. Back a bit.”
“Yeah, that’s good. Keep it there.”
Sawyer relayed that to Finley. “Perfect. Lock it in.” Then, back to Maclaren: “Thanks, Naomi.”
“No worries, boss. Later then.”
She started walking back up to where Pete had secured the base of the antenna mast. “Pete, remind me to tell you how much I hate being a modem.”
“Ah, okay.” He finished securing the gear. “Done.”
“Good. Let’s head back.”
Finley closed the cover on the radio gear and extended the stone cairn over it to shield it from the elements and any animals that might be curious. Together he and Sawyer gathered up the spare cables, drill and other loose equipment and stowed it back in the plane.
“Okay,” he said, climbing into the cockpit. “Where to next?”
Chapter 14: A Bird in the Bush
Terror Bird
The terror bird pulled up another bush and heaved it at the trio trapped above it. This one made it to the top of the rocky outcrop they were standing on, and they had to dodge out of its way.
“That is more intelligent behavior than I would have given it credit for,” said Dejois.
“We can’t stay up here all day,” Klaar said. “I hope it loses interest and wanders off soon.”
Tyrell had an idea. Maybe he could make it lose interest. “Okay, I’m going to try something.” He fished in his jacket pockets, then brought out a small orange sphere. He held it up to show Dejois and Klaar. “Bird seed.”
“Why do you have a smoke bomb in your pocket?” Klaar asked, then lowered her voice and said, close to his ear, “And I thought you were just happy to see me.”
Another branch hit the rock with a crash, closer this time.
“Always,” he said to her. “I went flying with Finley yesterday, remember? I didn’t empty my pockets. Okay, here goes.” He pulled the safety pin from the small grenade. “Here, birdie birdie!”
At his call, the terror bird looked up from the bush it was tugging on and looked up at the rock.
“Go fetch, bird!” Tyrell threw the bomb as far as he could, and the bird tracked its motion, running to intercept it just as it landed.
“Vite. Fast.”
“Yeah, get ready to run. I hope this distracts it.”
“I hope it doesn’t swallow it,” Klaar said.
The bird lowered its head to the orange sphere, sniffing at it or just getting a closer look. There was a loud POP! and a billow of thick orange smoke puffed out around the bird’s face. The bird jerked its head back so quickly it almost lost its balance. SQUARK! The bird took a step back and then forward, pecking at the column of smoke pouring from the orange sphere.
“Run!”
The three of them scrabbled down the rock. A pain ripped along Tyrell’s arm as he slipped, scraping it against a jagged rock face. Ignoring the pain, he slid to the ground and ran, Dejois and Klaar already ahead of him, heading toward the trees.
He glanced back as they rounded the rock outcrop. The bird was still pecking at the smoke and squawking. Just as he had almost put the rocks between him and the bird, the bird looked up and saw him. Damn!
Squawk! The bird screamed as it realized its prey was escaping.
“Run, run!” Tyrell called to the other two as they charged across the field to the tree line.
Dejois looked back at Tyrell, then behind Tyrell, his eyes widening. “It’s gaining!” He turned forward and ran faster. Klaar was right beside him. “That thicket there!” he shouted, gesturing to a clump where the trees were close together, about twenty meters away now. The three turned toward it.
Alpha Centauri: Sawyer's World (T-Space: Alpha Centauri Book 2) Page 6