The Mystery of Ireta Omnibus

by neetha Napew

  “I’d consider it a privilege to help you in any research, Governor.”

  Varian smiled up at him, for the man was considerably taller. “Well, then, time’s a’wasting. And Ireta’s giving us a relatively squall-free day. Grab your gear and I’ll meet you at my sled.” She turned to Kai. “Shall I drop you off back at the camp or are you staying on here, in case”—her grin became mischievous—“the Thek come to a quick decision.

  Kai rose. “No, I’d better get back.” He turned to Sassinak to thank her.

  “If there’s no objections, Commander, I’ll just retrieve the men I left guarding the camp. Quicker in the pinnace, anyway.” Fordeliton got to his feet.

  “And I’ll follow protocol and inform Sector Headquarters of the Thek arrival,” Sassinak said.

  They left the mess hall, separating in the corridor. Fordeliton walked with Kai and Varian to the access air lock. Fordeliton peered with exaggerated caution toward the transport and the triangular tops visible above the looming carcass.

  “Still there?” Varian asked.

  “In residence!”

  “They’re impressive, aren’t they? Oh ho, and I wonder what he

  thinks about them?” Varian pointed.

  The two men followed her finger and watched as a sled approached the Medium-Size Thek.

  “That would be one of the Iretans, I think,” Fordeliton said. “We gave them a sled with that registration.”

  “Aygar,” Varian said. “What have they been doing, d’you know?”

  “I haven’t had time to catch up on their activities, so much has

  been going on in your camps. I believe they have already smashed one sled.

  Takes a while to get used to modern conveniences.”

  However, Aygar landed his sled deftly, emerged, and walked around the Thek. It made rather an interesting contrast, Varian thought, a fine specimen of a man, wearing little in the way of modern clothes or weapons, striding arrogantly about one of the oldest living creatures in the galaxy: each entity very certain of its position in that galaxy, even if Aygar was willing to limit himself to one planet. Having finished his circuit, Aygar noticed the observers and paced stolidly toward them.

  “What are those things?”

  “Thek,” Varian replied, grinning.

  “What are they doing here?”

  “Verifying.”

  Aygar swiveled his upper body to look at the silent and rigid Thek.

  “Verifying what?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  “Do they always mess up landing grids like that? Must make them

  unpopular visitors.”

  “When you get that big, no one has the nerve to complain.”

  “That commander woman said they’re allies?” When Varian nodded, he

  went on. “Allies of whom? Your lot,” and his gesture included the cruiser, “or them?” And he indicated the transport.

  “Who are you allied with?” Fordeliton asked in a suspiciously bland tone. “Them or us?”

  Aygar grinned back, the first time Varian had seen genuine amusement on the young Iretan’s face. “You’ll know when I have decided. If I do.”

  With that he swung about on one heel and marched back to his sled, moving with an unexpectedly graceful economy of motion. In a single fluid movement, he climbed into the sled, closed its canopy, and took off.

  “Varian?” Anstel’s call was breathless. “Oh, I was afraid that you’d taken off. I just needed a few things.”

  Varian choked on her laughter. Anstel had festooned himself with a variety of equipment, some of which she could not identify.

  “Well, I’m ready when you are,” Varian said. “Keep me informed, will you, Ford? Kai? It’s as well to let the giffs settle down to normal this afternoon so, Anstel, this quest of yours is most welcome. Shall we go?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The two men left at the campsite were still goggle-eyed about the appearance of so many Thek.

  “More than I’ve ever seen, thassa fact,” said the older steward, “and I been around this galaxy, so I have. Seen a lot of them, you know, only sort of one here and then another there, but so many at once?” He scrubbed at his stubbly pate, dragging his hand down his face, and then mimed the wiping off of an expression. “Quite a sight, really! Something to swap for drinks.”

  “Did any address you?”

  The steward’s mouth dropped in amazement. “Address me?” he cocked

  his thumb and jabbed it against his chest. “Me? I told “em to locate the cruiser,” and he paused to wink broadly, “cause I know they can find anything anywhere.”

  Kai and Fordeliton exchanged amused glances.

  “They found you.” He exhaled a hissing breath. “Never seen anything

  like it, though, all those Thek,” and he planed their angle of arrival with his left hand, “just flowing in—if silicon triangles can flow—just sort of gliding in and never losing their formation, just all of a sudden down on the ground.”

  “Thek can be impressive,” Fordeliton agreed urbanely and then gestured for the men to board the pinnace.

  “Governor, we left some dinner on the hob like. Had some time to kill,” the older steward said, and the younger one began to grin, well pleased with himself. “I like messing with real food stuffs. Only this time, someone else gets the kp.”

  Kai nodded, grinning. “That’s fair enough. Believe me, your efforts will be much appreciated by everyone.”

  “Least we could do, you guys having had such a rough time and all.”

  As the pinnace took off with a high-speed whush, the globe’s glow

  caught his eye, brightening momentarily before regaining its regular coloration. Then the silence in the amphitheater was broken only by the faint hiss of the forcescreen as it disintegrated insects, a comforting noise. Kai took in a deep breath, inordinately relieved to be alone, to have a few hours before the others trooped back in. He strolled over to the mess hall, sniffing at the odor of simmering stew.

  He realized suddenly that he had never had the chance to delve into the Zaid-Dayan’s memory banks, to check whether there had been any similar mass movements of Thek. Not that his original question held any pertinence in view of the day’s development. Surely the presence of—and Kai grinned -- the Great-Big Bears was exceptional. He’d swap a few drinks on that account himself when he got back to the ARCT-10. Kai inhaled sharply. “When,” he’d said. Another matter he’d forgotten to ascertain, though surely Sassinak would have mentioned any communication about the ARCT-10! Better to assimilate the day’s startling events than deal with . . . with unknowns.

  So, the Thek had been here and no living Thek had retained a record of the event, despite the much praised memory of the species. Kai knew that when each new Thek was created—and some wits insisted that propagation occurred when two Thek bumped into each other with sufficient force to chip off fragments—it immediately acquired the race memory as well as the working memories of every Thek in its direct line. No reliable figures about the exact numbers of Thek were available. Once again, the humorists’ theories filled a vacuum. They maintained that old Thek never died, they became planets.

  A sudden thought, more fanciful than Fordeliton’s, erupted into Kai’s mind: could Ireta, itself, be a Thek? The notion had a certain appeal, if no plausible scientific basis. But was it possible that somewhere in the areas his team had not yet penetrated, there was a Thek mountain? Kai ran from the mess hall, and then, because his curiosity was intense, he increased speed, pelting up the slope, mindful though, not to catch his shoulder on the iris as he entered the shuttle. He did bang his hip against the narrower door into the pilot’s compartment. Then he tapped out the file designation of the probe survey maps, hoping that time or some unforeseen wipe had not yanked those records from the shuttle’s memory banks.

  To his relief, his request was implemented and the screen showed the probe’s journey as the vehicle zoomed in on the planet. As usual, clo
uds covered most of Ireta’s face but the probe’s filters very quickly produced a clear view of the nearing planet. All right, now, what does an ancient Thek resemble? A pyramidal form might be the most common, but was it the most enduring, the most effective long-term configuration? Surely a silicon mountain would be unusual enough for a probe to register? Catching his underlip on his upper teeth, Kai watched as the probe changed orbit to over fly a new portion of the planet’s main continent. Unless—Kai tapped for a magnification of the island chains but the shattered formations were almost uniformly, and easily identified as, volcanic atolls. Theks had great patience and never “blew their stacks.”

  If there had been a Thek, where was the most logical place for it to have positioned itself on Ireta? Basement rock! Kai called back the map of the main continent and peered over the area, sighing as he realized that the teams had traversed most of the shield rock and had not sighted any unusual mountains. But then, had they been looking for a Thek mountain? No, but wouldn’t Tor have noticed, or been contacted by such an elderly Thek? When did a Thek stop emitting conscious thought to its peers? And would it not have propagated to continue its existence? To perpetuate its memories? Or had that search been the one conducted near Dimenon’s site, when forty Thek had landed? Were the old cores merely incidental to that vastly more important search?

  “Verifying,” Tor had said. Verifying not that the old cores had been Thek manufacture or that the planet had been claimed by the Thek, but verifying the whereabouts of that incredibly ancient Thek which had not been linked with any current generation of its kind.

  And, if the Thek did claim Ireta for their own, how would that effect Kai and his team? A long sad sigh escaped his lips. Just when they thought they had a chance to snatch some profit from the debacle, a prior claim appears. All they’d end up with after forty-three lost years would be their base pay and a kindly handshake from the Exploration and Evaluation Corps. At least, he thought to cheer himself from the depression that now engulfed him, Varian might be able to rescue something positive.

  He heard the bleep of the globe, a friendly warning of arrivals. Wearily and with considerable effort, Kai rose from the pilot’s seat. He dismissed the data he had retrieved and went to see who was returning. It was with a sense of reprieve that he recognized the big sled with Trizein’s group coming in to land in the vehicle park. But he realized that he must warn his team of his reflections, if only to cushion a subsequent shock. And if he had put the facts in the wrong configuration, one of the others might refute his conclusion or suggest an alternative operation so that they could rescue some gains.

  “Oh, I am glad you’re here, Kai,” Trizein said, his face suffused with excitement as he jogged up to the veil opening in the forcescreen. Behind him Bonnard was laden with record disks, his face wreathed with a smug smile. Terilla and Cleiti followed, chatting animatedly.

  “We have had the most incredible encounter with the Thek. They are here in the most incredible numbers.”

  “A horde, Kai, a real horde of them!” Bonnard confirmed.

  “What were they doing?” Kai tried to keep his voice even but his

  level of depression increased in direct proportion to their enthusiasm.

  “Looking!” Bonnard said triumphantly.

  “No, my dear boy, they must have been surveying.”

  “No, they were looking because they were keeping an awfully close

  line to what I think is the shield rock area.” Bonnard looked to Kai to support him. “We can use the shuttle’s data banks again, can’t we? I’ll show you what I mean because I took coordinates of the positions and angles of flight of the Thek to back up my observations.” He gave a decisive nod of his head in Kai’s direction, again seeking reassurance.

  “Let’s check then,” Kai said with a heartiness he did not feel. He did manage to keep his voice calm and maintain a composed expression, despite a sensation bordering nausea for this crushing disappointment. Thus does Muhlah reward the doubter! he thought as he retraced his steps back to the shuttle.

  Once Kai had called up the required maps, he had little to do for Bonnard, cheerfully but firmly arguing with Trizein, proved his coordinates, and his theory, that the Thek were searching the edge of the shield rock.

  “And it was a search pattern, Kai,” Bonnard said firmly. “I mean, they were hovering ground level,” and Bonnard showed the distance with his hands, “and scouring, back and forth and back and forth. I thought they’d been sitting on old cores, or something. What could they be looking for now?”

  “An ancient Thek,” Kai said.

  “An ancient Thek?” Trizein turned to frown at Kai, concern and

  surprise on his seamed face. “Our telltagger has never registered that sort of heat mass, now has it, Bonnard?”

  “Nope,” replied the boy cheerfully.

  The globe’s cheerful bleep penetrated to the shuttle’s interior and

  Kai gratefully used it as an excuse to escape Trizein’s saurian enthusiasms and Bonnard’s innocent confidence in Thek infallibility.

  “Kai!” Bonnard came after him. “Kai.”

  Reluctantly Kai paused, turned, saw the boy removing an antiseptic

  wipe from his first-aid pouch. Bonnard extended it to him with a bashful grin.

  “You’ve got a trickle of blood on your chin. I don’t think it would do to let Varian or Lunzie see that.” Bonnard turned on his heel and ran back into the shuttle.

  Dabbing at his lower lip, Kai felt a warmth suffuse the tight knot of despair that had taken up residence in his chest. Then he continued to the veil.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  If Varian had come back to the main camp that evening; If Triv, Aulia, and Portegin had arrived back for the evening meal; If Dimenon and Margit had, for any reason, visited the camp, Kai might have felt obligated to air his pessimistic speculations about Thek and Ireta. Instead the dinosaur buffs from the Zaid-Dayan and the Mazer Star convened an informal enthusiasm session, matching unusual specimens with Trizein and the three children. Kai was torn between the social obligations of raising his spirits to the level of the others and the need to worry privately about his new anxieties. He was apparently dissembling well enough so that not even Lunzie noticed. The medic was examining Terilla’s detailed sketches, pinning the more colorful ones on the walls of the dome, “to brighten things.”

  More out of a wish to distract himself, Kai approached Perens, the Mazer Star’s navigator. “Why do dinosaurs fascinate you and these others so much? They are smelly animals, crawling with vermin, not very intelligent, and I can’t give them any marks for beauty. To me they are nothing but mammoth walking appetites. If Ireta wasn’t also blessed with a vegetation explosion, they’d ‘ve died out long ago of starvation.”

  Perens, a dapper little man with a pencil-thin mustache, which he stroked lovingly, grinned at Kai. “Didn’t you get the capsule history of Old Terra in your tutorials?” when Kai nodded, Perens continued. “Well, the only thing I remember about it in any detail was the chapter on prehistory. The rest was sort of wars and power struggles, no different from what we have today in the Federated Planets, only more intense because it was limited to the one small planet and, generally, to one or two continents. But I remembered the dinosaurs and the Mesozoic age. I remembered because they had lasted, as a viable life-form, for more millions of years than we have!” Perens smoothed his mustache absently. “I’ve always wondered what kept the dinosaurs going for so long on Old Terra, when Homo Sapiens, operating in a much shorter time scale, came so close to pulling the plug on itself “ Then he shrugged and grinned ingenuously at Kai. “Dinosaurs are big, they’re ugly, and they’re fascinating. Raw power, a force of nature, majestic!”

  Just then, Lunzie appeared beside them, in her hand a tray filled with glasses with her special Iretan brew. Nothing could have been more welcome. “Muhlah! You’ve been well occupied, Lunzie.” He turned to grin encouragingly at Perens. “Hope you’re a drinking man becaus
e this stuff may be a local brew but it’s good!”

  Lunzie raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. “But it’s planet-brewed, Kai, not processed.”

  “I’m learning chapter and verse like a good Disciple,” he said, toasting her with his glass. He had the touch of the liqueur on his lips when he stayed his hand. “It won’t react with Mayerd’s medicine, will it?”

  “If it might, I wouldn’t have served you.”

  “In that case—“ and Kai knocked back the entire glass, holding

  it out for a refill.

  “Hmm. My, how the pure have been corrupted!” But she complied before she moved on.”

  Perens was cautious. He merely wet his lips then judiciously ran his tongue over them. Then he took a tiny sip, washing the liquid about his mouth. Kai watched him with a certain respect, for the spirituous beverage had a bite to it. Finally Perens condescended to drink.

  “Not bad at all. I wonder what she uses. If you’ll excuse me,” and Perens slipped away in pursuit of the medic.

  Kai wandered over to Trizein, who was lecturing Maxnil and Crilsoff on the evolution of the families of hadrosaur, noting that one had traded a keen sense of smell for improved vision. The two officers were listening with every outward show of interest, but Kai noticed that they were sipping the liquor in hefty swallows. Maxnil caught Lunzie’s attention, miming the need for a refill. As Lunzie apparently had few qualms about serving her beverage to the group, the evening shortly assumed a rosier aspect for Kai, and by the end of the evening the cruiser contingent had to be issued bedding for none of them could have been trusted to pilot the others back to the Zaid-Dayan.

  A variety of klaxons eventually roused them all. Recalls became shriller summons as the polite first request was ignored by sound sleepers. The comunit became equally insistent in Kai’s dome. With groggy fingers he opened the toggle and grunted acknowledgment.