by neetha Napew
“No,” Varian and Kai chorused. “What’s missing?” Kai asked.
“I did an inventory today and we’re missing tools, mineral supplements, some light equipment, and a lot of oddments that were there yesterday.”
“I’ll ask my teams,” Kai said and looked at Varian.
She was reviewing the problem. “You know, there have been a few funny things happening with supplies. The power pack in my sled was run down and I recharged it only yesterday morning. I know I haven’t used up twelve hours’ worth of power already.”
“Well, I’ll just institute a job for the girls,” Lunzie said. “They can do their studies at the stores dome and check supplies and equipment in and out. All part of their education in planetary management.”
“Nice thought,” Varian said, grinning.
Dimenon and his crew returned from their explorations with evidence of another notable strike. Gold nuggets glittering in a streambed had led them to a rich vein of ore. The heavy hunks were passed from hand to hand that evening at another celebration. Morale lifted as Ireta once again proved to be a virgin source of mineral wealth.
A lot of the evening was spent in good-natured speculation as to the disposition of yet another hefty bonus. Lunzie dispensed copious draughts of fruit ale, keeping a careful eye on the heavyworlders although she was careful not to stint their portions.
In the morning, everyone seemed normal. In contrast to the drunken incompetence they had displayed the last time, the heavyworlders were in excellent spirits.
A different kind of emergency faced Lunzie as she emerged from her dome.
“I can’t take it! I can’t take it!” Dimenon cried, clutching first his head and then falling on his knees in front of her.
“What’s the matter?” she demanded, alarmed by the distortion of his features. What on Earth sort of disease had he contracted? She fumbled for her bod bird.
“That won’t help,” Kai said, shaking his head sadly.
“Why not?” she said, her hand closing on the bod bird.
“Nothing can cure him.”
“Tell me I’m not a goner, Lunzie, Tell me.” He waved his hands so wildly that she couldn’t get the bod bird into position.
“He doesn’t smell Ireta any more,” Kai said, still shaking his head but smiling wryly at his friend’s histrionics.
“He what?” Lunzie stopped trying to scope Dimenon and then realised that she hadn’t had time to put in her own nose filters. And she didn’t smell Ireta either. “Krims!” She closed her eyes and gave a long sigh. “It has to come to this, huh?”
Dimenon wrapped his arms about her knees. “Oh, Lunzie, I’m so sorry for both of us. Please, my smeller will come back, won’t it? Once I’m back in real air again. Oh, don’t tell me I’ll never be able to smell nothing in the air again ...”
“An Ambrosian shadow crab by another name will still get you wet,” Lunzie muttered under her breath. Nothing for it but to play out the scene. She picked up Dimenon’s wrist and took his pulse, shone the bod bird in first one eye, then the other. “If the acclimatisation should just happen to be permanent, you could install an Iretan air-conditioner for your shipboard quarters. The ARCT-10 engineers are very solicitous about special atmospheres for the odd human mutation.”
Dimenon looked as if he believed her for a long, woeful moment but the others were laughing so hard that he took it in good part.
Despite the installation of Cleiti and Terilla as requisitions clerks, the depletion of supplies did not cease. More items than those checked out by the girls continued to go missing: some were vital and irreplaceable pieces of equipment.
Coupling that with the increasingly aberrant behaviour of the heavyworlders, Lunzie pegged them as the pilferers. At the rate supplies were being raided, they must be getting ready to strike off on their own. They were physically well adapted for the dangers inherent on Ireta. This wasn’t, she admitted to herself, the usual way in which heavyworlders usurped a full planet. Perhaps her imagination was going wild. There were only six heavyworlders, not enough to colonise a planet.
But the Theks were still in the system, and the Ryxi. So the system was already opened up in the conventional way. The ARCT-10 would soon be back to collect them, and if the heavyworlders wished to indulge in their baser instincts until that time, they were no real loss. There were still five qualified geologists and she, Trizein, Portegin and the kids could help Varian complete her part of the survey.
With Bonnard as Varian’s record taper and with the possible alteration of the camp in mind, Lunzie assisted Trizein in his studies of the now-obsessive anomalies of Iretan life-forms.
Today’s first task was to lure Dandy into the biologist’s lab so he could take measurements of its head and limbs, and samples of hair and skin from the shy little animal. The beast kicked and whistled when Trizein scraped cells from inside its furry ears. Lunzie took it back to its pen and rewarded it with a sweet vegetable. She stayed a moment calming and caressing it before returning to Trizein, who was peering into the eyepiece of a scanner. He gestured her over in excitement.
“There is something very irregular about this planet,” he said. “You just compare these two slides: one from the marine fringes and the other fresh from the little herbivore.” Obediently Lunzie looked and he was right; the structures represented radically differing biologies. “Judging by the eating and ingesting habits, I have no doubt that the square marine fringes are native to this planet but Dandy and his friends don’t belong here.
“I have a theory about the primitive yeasts we’ve been documenting,” Trizein went on in a semi-lecturing mode. “It’s been plaguing me all along that there was something familiar about the configuration.”
“How can that be?” Lunzie asked, racking her brains. “I’ll grant you that the Ssli are a tad like the fringes but I’ve never seen anything like Dandy before.”
“That’s because Dandy is the primitive form of an animal you’re used to in its evolved state: the horse. The Earth horse. The species is not only pentadactyl, it is perissodactyl.”
“That’s impossible!”
“I’m afraid there’s no other explanation though it doesn’t explain how the creatures got here - he couldn’t have evolved on this planet, but here he is.”
“Someone had to have conveyed the stock here,” Lunzie mused.
“Precisely,” the biologist said. “If I were to ignore the context and study only the data I’ve been given, first by Bakkun, and now from this little fellow’s living tissue, I would have to say that he is a hyracotherium, a life-form which became extinct on old Earth millions of years ago!”
The sound of the sled interrupted them. Lunzie hurried to the shield controls to admit Varian and Bonnard. She informed them that Trizein had news that he wanted to share with them. It was his triumph and he should be allowed to enjoy it by himself. The absentminded biologist was seldom outside his laboratory except to eat or to visit with Lunzie or Kai and had been largely unaware of the other facets of the team.
To the amazement of his small audience, he displayed the disk showing an archival drawing of a hyracotherium from his collection of paleontological files. There was no doubt about it: Dandy was unquestionably a replica of an ancient Earth breed from the Oligocene era.
“Let’s see if there’s more alike than just the furred beasts,” Varian said, leading Trizein to the viewscreen. Varian promptly sat the bemused biologist down to watch her tapes of the golden fliers. Trizein launched into raptures as the graceful creatures performed their aerial acrobatics.
“No way to be certain, of course, without complete analysis, but this unquestionably resembles a pteranodon!”
“Pteranodon?” Bonnard made a face.
“Yes, a pteranodon, a form of dinosaur, misnamed, of course, since patently this creature is warm-blooded. ...” One by one, he identified the genotypes of the beasts Varian and the others had recorded. Each of the Iretan samples could be matched to a holo and descr
iption from Trizein’s paleontological files. He did point to some minor evolutionary details but they were negligible alterations.
Fang-face was a Tyrannosaurus rex; Mabel and her breed were crested hadrosaurs; the weed-eating swamp dwellers were stegosauri and brontosauri. The biologist became more and more disturbed. He could not believe that they existed just on the other side of the veil which he himself never crossed. When Varian gave him the survey tapes she’d compiled, he shook an accusatory finger at the screen.
“Those animals were planted here.”
“By who?” gasped Bonnard, wide-eyed. “The Others?”
“The Theks planted them, of course,” Trizein assured the boy.
“Gaber says we’re planted,” Bonnard added.
Trizein, in his mild way, was more saddened than disturbed by the suggestion. He looked to Varian.
“We’re not planted, Trizein,” the young co-leader assured him and gave Bonnard a very intense and disapproving glare.
Kai was urgently summoned back from the edge of the continental shield to hear Trizein’s conclusions, leaving Bakkun alone on the ridge. Varian particularly wanted Kai separated from the heavyworlders, for by the time he returned, Trizein had given her even more disturbing news.
Paskutti had asked Trizein to test the toxicity of the fang-face flesh and hide, a question which was not mere idle curiosity. Varian now had films of a startling atrocity. That day, Bonnard had led her to Bakkun’s “special place.” It proved to be a rough campground where five skulls and blackened bones of some of the fang-faces lay among the stones.
Lunzie knew how quickly the parasites of Ireta disposed of carrion. That meant these were very recent. There could be little doubt that the heavyworlders had killed and eaten animal flesh. The situation narrowed down to how well Kai, and Varian, could control the heavyworlders until the ARCT-10 retrieved them.
Chapter Fifteen
With a grim expression, Varian began emergency measures. She ordered Bonnard to remove all the sled power packs and hide them in the bushes around the compound. The packs had been depleted at an amazing rate and now she had the answer. Overuse by the heavyworlders. They’d have to have sledded to reach their “secret place,” for the ritual slaughter and consumption of the animals.
Kai met them in the shuttle at the top of the hill, puzzled at the unusual urgent summons. He was horrified when he heard Varian’s conclusions. Lunzie confirmed the continued drain of supplies which led her to believe that the heavyworlders had reverted to primitivism.
“We’re lucky if it isn’t mutiny,” Varian finished. “Haven’t you noticed in the past few days how their attitude toward us has been altering? Subtly, I admit; but they show less respect for our positions than before.”
Kai nodded. “Then you think a confrontation is imminent?”
Varian affirmed it: “Our grace period ended last restday.”
The heavyworlders could take over. As Lunzie drily pointed out, the mutated humans were far more able to take care of themselves on wild Ireta than the lightweight humans.
“I realise I’m repeating myself,” Lunzie added, “but if Gaber felt he had been planted, the heavyworlders must have come to the same conclusion.” She paused, hearing the whine of a lift-belt in the distance and listened harder. Who’d be using a lift-belt now?
“Bonnard and I also saw a Tyrannosaurus rex with a tree-sized spear stuck in his ribs,” Varian said, shuddering. “That creature once ruled Old Earth. Nothing could stop him. A heavyworlder did, for fun! Furthermore, by establishing those secondary camps, we have given them additional bases. Where are the heavyworlders right now?”
“I left Bakkun working at the ridge. Presumably when he’s finished he’ll come back here. He had a lift-belt ...”
Lunzie glanced out of the shuttle door and saw the whole contingent of heavyworlders coming toward them up the hill. The drawn concentration on their heavy-boned faces was terrifying. They looked dangerous, and they harboured no good intentions for the lightweights in the ship. She shouted a warning to Kai and Varian. She saw the door to the piloting compartment iris shut almost on Paskutti’s foot.
As she flattened herself against the bulkhead, she noticed the imperceptible blink that told her the main power supply had been deactivated and the shuttle was now on auxiliaries. Was it too much to hope that one of the leaders had managed to get a message out?
“If you do not open that lock instantly, we will blast,” said the hard unemotional voice of Paskutti, blaster in hand.
He was fully kitted out with many items that had so recently gone missing from the stores. Of course, Lunzie told herself; she realised too late that most of that purloined equipment had offensive capability.
“Don’t!” Varian’s voice sounded sufficiently fearful to keep Paskutti from pulling the release but Lunzie knew the girl was no coward. It did no good for either of them to be fried alive in the compartment.
The hatch opened and massive Paskutti reached through it. He seized Varian by the front of her shipsuit and hauled her out, flinging her against the ceramic side of the shuttle with such force that it broke her arm. Grinning sadistically, Tardma treated Kai the same way.
Lunzie caught Kai and kept him upright, forcing her mind into a Discipline state to calm herself. This was far worse than she could have imagined. How could she have been so naive as to think the heavyworlders would just go quietly?
Then Terilla, Cleiti and Gaber were unceremoniously herded into the shuttle, the cartographer babbling something about how this was not the way matters should proceed and how dared they treat him with such disrespect.
“Tanegli? Do you have them?” Paskutti asked into his wrist com-unit.
Whom would the heavyworlder botanist have? Lunzie answered her own question - the other lightweights not yet accounted for.
“None of the sleds have power packs,” said Divisti, scowling in the lock. “And that boy is missing.”
“How did he elude you?” Paskutti frowned in annoyance.
“Confusion. I thought he’d cling to the others.” Divisti shrugged.
Good for you, Bonnard, Lunzie thought, seeking far more encouragement from that minor triumph than it really deserved.
“Start dismantling the lab, Divisti, Tardma.”
Trizein came out of his confusion. “Now wait a minute. You can’t go in there. I’ve got experiments and analyses going on. Divisti, don’t touch that fractional equipment. Have you taken leave of your senses?”
“You’ll take leave of yours.” With a cool smile of pleasure, Tardma struck Trizein in the face with a blow that lifted the slight man off his feet and sent him rolling down the hard deck to lie motionless at Lunzie’s feet.
“Too hard, Tardma,” said Paskutti. “I’d thought to take him. He’d be more useful than any of the other lightweights.”
Tardma shrugged. “Why bother with him anyway? Tanegli knows as much as he does.” She went toward the lab with an insolent swing other hips.
Lunzie heard the scraping of feet on the rocks outside and Portegin with a bloody head half carried a groggy Dimenon across the threshold. Bakkun shoved a weeping Aulia and a blank-faced Margit inside. Triv was stretched on the floor when Berru tossed him there, grinning ferociously at his gasps of pain. Inaudible to the heavyworlders, Lunzie could hear Triv begin the measured breathing which led to the trance state of Discipline. At least four of them were preparing for whatever opportunities arose.
“All right, Bakkun,” Paskutti ordered, “you and Berru go after our allies. We want to make this look right. That com-unit was still warm when I got here. They must have got a message through to the Theks.”
Methodically the heavyworlders continued to strip the shuttle. Then Tanegli returned. “The storehouse has been cleared and what’s useful in the domes.”
“No protests. Leader Kai, Leader Varian?” sneered Paskutti.
“Protests wouldn’t do us any good, would they?” Varian’s level controlled voice annoyed Pask
utti. He shot a look at the obviously broken arm and frowned.
“No, no protests. Leader Varian. We’ve had enough of you lightweights ordering us about, tolerating us because we’re useful. Where would we have fit in your plantation? As beasts of burden? Muscles to be ordered here, there, and everywhere, and subdued by pap?” He made a cutting gesture with one huge hand.
Then, before anyone guessed his intention, he grabbed Terilla by the hair, letting her dangle at the end of his hand. When Cleiti jumped up at her friend’s terrified shriek and began to pummel his thick muscular thigh, he raised his fist and landed a casual blow on the top of her head. She sank unconscious to the deck.
Gaber erupted and dashed at Paskutti who merely put a hand out to hold the cartographer off while he dangled the shrieking child.
“Tell me. Leader Varian, Leader Kai, to whom did you send that message? And what did you say?”
“We sent a message to the Theks. Mutiny. Heavyworlders.” Kai watched as Terilla was swung, her screams diminishing to mere gasps. “That’s all.”
“Release the child,” Gaber shouted. “You’ll kill her. You know what you need to know. You promised there’d be no violence.”
Paskutti viciously swatted Gaber into silence. His neck smashed into pulp, Gaber hit the deck with a terrible thud and gasped out his dying breaths as Terilla was dropped in a heap on top of Cleiti.
Horrified, Lunzie forced herself to think. Paskutti had to know if a message had been beamed to the beacon. How would that information alter his plans for them? Triv had now completed the preliminaries of Discipline. Lunzie wished for a smidgeon of telepathy so that the four of them could coordinate their efforts.
“There isn’t a power pack anywhere,” Tanegli said, storming into the shuttle. He seized hold of Varian by her broken arm. “Where did you hide them, you tight-assed bitch?”
“Watch it, Tanegli,” Paskutti warned him, “these lightweights can’t take much.”