“It is not dangerous,” J’merlia interpreted, listening to the series of clicks and whistles. “With great respect, Kallik says that it is the opposite of dangerous. She is aware that someone as ignorant as she can know little about anything so difficult as the Bose Drive, but she is quite sure that this one’s power unit is exhausted. It cannot be used again. It is debatable that this ship could even make it from here to low orbit. She already suspected this, from the weak signal that her master’s ship received in its survey of the surface.”
“Which explains why the twins never left Quake.” Perry had turned on the display and was examining the computer log. “It makes sense of their peculiar itinerary, too. This shows a continued Bose Network sequence that brings them to Dobelle and then takes them right into Zardalu territory in two more transitions; but they couldn’t do that without a new Bose power source. They could have picked one up at Midway Station, but naturally they didn’t know it. So the only other place they could have gone in this system would have been Opal, and we’d have tracked their arrival there at once.”
“Which is unfortunately not the case here. So how will we find them?” Graves walked across to the door and peered out, snapping his finger joints. “I deserve censure, you know. I assumed that once we found the ship they came in, the hard task was over. It never occurred to me that they might be foolhardy enough to leave the ship and roam the planet’s surface.”
“I can help with that. But even if you find them, how will you handle the twins themselves?”
“Leave that to me. It is the area of my experience. We are creatures of conditioning, Commander. We assume that what we know is easy, and we find mysterious whatever we do not.” Graves waved a skinny, black-clad arm out toward the Pentacline. “All that to me is mysterious. They are hidden somewhere out there. But why would they leave this ship, and relative safety, to go to that?”
What could be seen from the ship was a green mass of vines, lush and intertwined. They trembled continuously to ground tremors, giving an illusion of self-awareness and nervous movement.
“They went there because they thought it was safe, and so they wouldn’t be found. But I can find them.” Perry glanced at his watch. “We have to be quick. It’s already hours since we left the beacon. J’merlia.” He turned to the apprehensive Lo’tfian. “We promised we’d have you back where we came from in four hours. And we will. Come on, Councilor. I know where they’ll be — alive or dead.”
Outside the ship the atmosphere of the depression felt thicker and more oppressive, ten degrees hotter than the plain. Black basalt quivered underfoot, hot and pulsing like the scaly hide of a vast beast. Perry walked along the edge of the rock, carefully examining it.
Graves followed, mopping at his perspiring brow. “If you are hoping to see footprints I hate to be discouraging, but—”
“No. Water prints.” Perry knelt down. “Runoff patterns. Quake has a lot of small lakes and ponds. The native animals manage fine, but they make do with water that you or I couldn’t drink. And once the Carmel twins left their ship, they’d need a supply of fresh water.”
“They might have had a purifier.”
“They would have, and they’d need it — fresh water on Quake is a relative term. You and I couldn’t drink it, nor could Geni and Elena Carmel.” Perry ran his hand over a smooth indented wedge in the rock. “If they’re alive, they’ll be within reach of water. And it doesn’t matter where they headed first, if they started out from this rock — and they must have, because the Summer Dreamboat is here — they’ll finish up along one of the runoff lines. Here’s one of them, a good strong one. There’s another over there, just about as well defined. But this rock slab is tilted and we’re on the lower side. We’ll try this one first.”
He lowered himself carefully over the edge. Graves followed, wincing as his hand met the basalt. The bare rock was beyond blood heat, almost hot enough to blister. Perry was moving away fast, scrambling along on his backside down a thirty-degree slope that plunged through a trailing curtain of purple-veined creepers.
“Wait for me!” Graves raised one arm to protect his eyes. Saw-edged leaves cut into the back of his hand and left their scratch marks along the top of his unprotected skull. Then he was through, under the tree-floor of vegetation that marked the first level of the Pentacline.
The light of Mandel and Amaranth was muted here to a blue-green shadow. Small creatures flew at them. Julius Graves thought at first that they were insects or birds, but a query to Steven brought the information that they were pseudocoelenterates, more like flying jellyfish than any other Earth or Miranda form. The creatures chittered in panic and flew away from Graves into the gloom. He hurried on after Max Perry. Within a few meters the air temperature beneath the canopy had jumped another few degrees.
Perry was following the rocky watercourse, squeezing his way past sticky yellow trunks and upthrusting mushroom structures two meters high. Clouds of minute winged creatures burst from the overhead leaves and flew for his unprotected face and hands.
“They don’t bite,” Perry said over his shoulder. “Just keep going.”
Graves swatted at them anyway, trying to keep them out of his eyes. He wondered why Perry had not brought masks and respirators with them. In his concentration he was not looking where he was going, and he walked into the other man’s back.
“Found something?”
Perry shook his head and pointed down. Two steps ahead the streambed dropped into a vertical hole. Graves leaned recklessly forward and could see no sign of the bottom.
“Let’s hope they’re not down there.” Perry was already turning back. “Come on.”
“What if the other one dead-ends, too?” Graves was snapping his finger joints again.
“Bad news. We’ll need a new idea, but we won’t have time for one even if we think of it. We’ll have to worry about ourselves.”
Rather than climbing back up the rock face, he led the way to one side, working his way slowly around the foot of the outcropping to where a second runoff flowed. Away from the watercourse the lower-level vegetation grew more strongly. Tough bamboo spears jutted up to knee level, scoring their boots and cutting through the cloth of their trousers. Irritant sap from broken leaves created lines of stinging cuts along their calves. Perry swore, but did not lessen his pace.
In another twenty meters he stopped and pointed. “There’s the other runoff. And something has been this way quite a few times.” The gray-green sedges at the side of the streambed had been flattened and broken. Their crushed stems were coated with a brown layer of dried sap.
“Animals?” Graves leaned down to rub at his scraped shins and calves, which had begun to itch maddeningly.
“Maybe.” Perry lifted his foot and pressed down on an unbroken stem, gauging its strength. “But I doubt it. Whatever flattened these wasn’t far from human body weight. I’ve never heard of anything in the Pentacline that massed more than a quarter as much. At least this makes it easy to track.”
He began to walk down the stream side, following the line of broken vegetation. The verdurous gloom had deepened, but the path was easy to follow. It ran parallel to the dry watercourse and then inched over into it. Thirty meters farther on, the bottom of the path became veiled by a thicket of tough ferns.
Graves put his hand on Perry’s shoulder and moved on past him.
“If you’re right,” he said quietly, “then from this point on it’s my show. Let me go in front, and alone. I’ll call you when I want you.”
Perry stared for a moment, then allowed Graves to step ahead of him. In the past five minutes the other had changed. Every sign of instability had vanished from his face, leaving in its place strength, warmth, and compassion. It was the countenance of a different man — of a councilor.
Graves stepped cautiously along the streambed until he was no more than a couple of paces from the veil of ferns. He paused, listening, then after a few seconds nodded and turned to Perry. He winked grotesq
uely, parted the ferns, and stepped through into the dark interior of the thicket.
It was the Carmel twins, it had to be; they had been located, although Perry would have given high odds against it when he, Graves, and Rebka had left Opal. But what was Graves saying to them, hidden away in the darkness?
A few minutes in the Pentacline so close to Summertide felt like hours. The heat and humidity was horrible. Perry looked again and again at his watch, hardly able to believe that time was passing so slowly. Though it was full day, and Mandel must still be rising, his surroundings grew less and less visible. Was there a dust storm brewing far overhead in the atmosphere? Perry stared straight up, but he could see nothing through the thick multiple layers of vegetation. Underfoot, however, there was plenty of evidence of Quake’s activity. The root-tangled forest floor was in continuous, steady vibration.
Thirty-five hours to Summertide Maximum.
The clock kept running in Perry’s head, along with a question. They had promised to return J’merlia and Kallik to where they had found them. That promise had been made in good faith and without reservations. But could they allow such a thing to be done, knowing that Quake would soon be a death trap to everything except its own uniquely selected organisms?
Perry was startled by a sudden bright light in front of him. The curtain of ferns had been pulled aside, and Graves stood behind it gesturing him forward.
“Come on in. I want you to hear this and serve as an additional witness.”
Max Perry eased his way in through the bristly fronds of the ferns. Lit from the interior, the dark thicket was revealed to be less than it seemed. The ferns formed only an outer framing web, a convenient natural fence within which stood a flexible tent supported by pneumatic ribbing. Graves was holding a door panel open, and when Perry stepped through he was astonished by the size of the interior. The floor area was at least ten meters square. Even with the inward-sloping walls the living area was substantial. And the furnishings were amazingly complete, everything that was needed for normal pleasant living. Some form of cooling and humidity-control unit was operating, to hold the internal conditions at a comfortable level. And it was well hidden from any normal searcher. No wonder the twins preferred to stay here, rather than in the cramped quarters of the Summer Dreamboat.
The tent must also have been totally lightproof, or else the lights had only just been turned on. But Perry had time for only one look at the line of glowing cylinders around the walls, before his attention was drawn to the tent’s occupants.
Elena and Geni Carmel were sitting over by the far wall, side by side, their hands on their knees. They were dressed in russet jumpsuits and wore their auburn hair hanging low over their foreheads. Perry’s first impression — an overwhelming one — was of two identical people, with the same resemblance to Amy that had left him unable to breath when he had first seen their pictures back on Opal.
But in the flesh, under the bright lights of the tent, reason quickly asserted itself. If the twins looked like Amy, it was through their dress and hairstyle. Elena and Geni Carmel seemed weary and crushed, as far as one could be from Amy’s perky and invincible self-confidence. The tan that he had seen in the image cubes was long gone, replaced by a tired pallor.
And the twins were different, one from the other. Although their features might be structurally identical, their expressions were not. One was clearly the dominant twin — born a few minutes earlier, maybe, or a fraction bigger and heavier?
She was the one meeting Max Perry’s eyes. The other kept her gaze downcast, shooting only one shy and lightning glance at the new arrival from large, heavy-lidded eyes. Yet she seemed at ease with Graves, turning her face to him as he closed the tent’s panel and moved to sit opposite them.
He waved Perry to a seat by his side. “Elena” — he indicated the more self-confident twin — “and Geni have been through a very difficult time.” His voice was gentle, almost subdued. “My dears, I know it is a painful memory, but I want you to repeat to the commander what you just told me… and this time we will make a recording of it.”
Geni Carmel gave Perry another hooded glance and looked to her sister for direction.
Elena gripped her knees more tightly with her hands. “From the beginning?” Her voice was deep for her slender frame.
“Not from the beginning. You don’t need to tell how you won the trip on Shasta — we have all that on record. I’d like you to begin with your arrival on Pavonis Four.” Graves held forward a small recording unit. “Whenever you are ready, we can begin.”
Elena Carmel nodded uncertainly and cleared her throat several times. “It was going to be the last planet,” she began at last. “The last one that we visited before we went back to Shasta. Before we went home.” Her voice cracked on the final word. “So we decided we would like to stay out on the surface, away from people. We bought special equipment” — she gestured around her — “this equipment, so we could live comfortably away from everything. And we took the Summer Dreamboat out to one of the dryland turf hummocks in the middle of the marshes — Pavonis Four is mostly marshes. We wanted to get right away from civilization, and we wanted to camp away from the ship.”
She paused.
“That was my fault,” Geni Carmel said, in a beaten voice a tone higher than her sister’s. “We’d seen so many people, on so many worlds, and the ship was smaller than we realized before we started. I was tired of living cramped up in it.”
“We were both tired.” Elena was defending her little sister. “We camped maybe thirty meters from the ship, close to the edge of the hummock. When twilight came we thought it would be a great idea to go really primitive, just as if we were back on Earth ten thousand years ago, and light a fire. We did that, and it was nice and warm, with no threat of rain. So we decided that we would even sleep outside. When it was completely dark, we put out sleeping bags next to each other, and lay looking up at the stars.” She frowned. “I don’t know what we talked about.”
“I do,” Geni said. “We talked about that being our last stop, and how dull it would be to go back to school on Shasta. We tried to see our own sun, but the constellations looked too different, and we weren’t sure where home was…” Her voice trailed off, and she glanced again at her sister.
“So we fell asleep.” Elena was speaking less easily. “And while we were asleep, they came. They — the—”
“The Bercia?” Julius Graves prompted. Both twins nodded.
“Wait a moment, Elena,” he went on. “I want to note for the record here a number of facts about the Bercia. These facts are well established and easily verified. The Bercia were large, slow vertebrates. As nocturnal amphibians, native to and unique to Pavonis Four, they were highly photophobic. In life-style they resembled Earth’s extinct beavers. Like beavers, they were communal and largely aquatic, and they built lodges. The main reason they were credited with possible intelligence is because of the complex structure of those lodges. And to make them, they employed mud and the trunks of the only treelike structures of Pavonis Four. Those grow only close to the dryland turf hummocks. It was therefore almost inevitable that the Bercia would appear at night by the hummock where the Carmel camp stood.”
He turned to Elena. “Did anyone ever tell you about the Bercia before you set out to camp? Who they were, what they looked like?”
“No.”
“Or you?” he asked, switching his attention to Geni Carmel.
She shook her head, then added, “No,” in an almost inaudible voice.
“So I would like to add the physical description of the Bercia to this record. All human experience with these beings suggests that they were gentle and totally herbivorous. However, to chew through the xylem of the tree trunks, the Bercia were equipped with heavy jaws and big, strong teeth.” He nodded to Elena Carmel. “Please continue. Describe the rest of your night on Pavonis Four.”
“I’m not sure when we went to sleep, or how long we slept.” Elena Carmel glanced at her sister
. “I only woke up when I heard Geni cry out. She told me—”
“I want to hear it directly from Geni.” Graves pointed his finger at the other sister. “I know this is painful, but tell us what you saw.”
Geni Carmel looked terrified. Graves leaned forward and took her hands in his. He waited.
“Pavonis Four has one big moon,” Geni said at last. “I don’t sleep as soundly as Elena, and the full moonlight woke me up. At first I didn’t look around me — I just lay in my sleeping bag and stared up at the moon. I remember that it had a dark pattern on it, like a curved cross on top of a pyramid. Then something big moved in front of the moon. I thought it must be a cloud or something, and I didn’t realize how close it was until I heard it breathing. It leaning over me. I saw a flat, dark head, and a mouth full of pointed teeth. And I screamed for Elena.”
“Before we continue,” Graves said, “I would like to make another easily verified addition to this record. The planet Shasta, homeworld of Elena and Geni Carmel, has no dangerous carnivores. But at one time it did. The largest and most dangerous of those animals was a four-legged invertebrate known as a Skrayal. Although anatomically it in no way resembles a Bercia, it possessed the same superficial appearance and was roughly the same size and weight. Elena Carmel, what did you think when you realized that a Bercia was leaning over your sister, with a ring of them surrounding both your beds?”
“I thought — I thought that they were Skrayal. Just at first.” She hesitated, then words came in a rush. “Of course, when I got a good look at them and thought about it, I knew they couldn’t be, and anyway we had never seen Skrayal — they were gone before we were born. But all our stories and pictures were filled with them, and when I first woke up I didn’t even know where I was — all I saw were big animals, and the teeth of the one next to Geni.”
“What did you do?”
“I screamed, and picked up the light, and turned it on all the way.”
“Did you know that the Bercia were strongly photophobic and would go into terminal shock at high illumination levels?”
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