Meanwhile, the little creature now named Dandy and the wounded female adult herbivore called Mabel had to be tended and fed: the children assumed the first chore. Lunzie had synthesized a lactose formula for the orphan and put the energetic Bonnard in charge of its feeding, with Cleiti and Terilla to assist.
"Now you kids can't neglect Dandy," Lunzie told them. "I don't mind if you treat it as a pet but once you take responsibility for it, you'd better not forget that obligation. Understand me? Especially you, Bonnard. If you're interested in becoming a planetary surveyor, you must prove to be trustworthy. All this goes down on your file, remember!"
"I will, Lunzie, I will!" And Bonnard began issuing orders to the two girls.
Varian chuckled as she watched him grooming Dandy and fussing over the security of his pen while the girls refilled its water bucket. "He's making progress, isn't he?"
"Considerable. If we could only stop him bellowing like a bosun."
"You should hear his mother," Varian replied, grinning broadly. "I don't blame her for dumping him with us. I wouldn't want him underfoot if I was charting an ion storm."
"How's your Mabel?" Lunzie asked casually although she had another motive for asking.
"Oh, I think we can release her soon. Good clean tissue around the scar once we got rid of all the parasites. I wouldn't want to keep her in a pen much longer or she'll become tame, used to being given food instead of doing her own foraging."
"Mabel? Tame?" Lunzie rolled her eyes, remembering that it had taken all the heavyworlders to rope and secure the beast for the initial surgery.
"Odd, that injury," Varian went on, frowning. "All the adults of her herd had similar bite marks on their haunches. That would suggest that their predator doesn't kill!" Her frown deepened. "And that's rather odd behavior, too."
"You didn't by any chance notice the heavyworlders' reaction?"
Varian regarded Lunzie for a long moment. "I don't think I did but then I was far too busy keeping away from Mabel's tail, legs and teeth. Why? What did you notice?"
"They had looked . . ."—Lunzie paused, trying to find exactly the right adjective—"hungry!"
"Come on now, Lunzie!"
"I'm not kidding, Varian. They looked hungry at the sight of all that raw red meat. They weren't disgusted. They were fascinated. Tardma was all but salivating." Lunzie felt sick at the memory of the scene.
"There have always been rumors that heavyworlders eat animal flesh on their home planets," Varian said thoughtfully, giving a little squeamish shudder. "But that group have all served with FSP teams. They know the rules."
"It's not a rumor, Varian. They do eat animal protein on their homeworlds," Lunzie replied, recalling long serious talks she'd had with Zebara. "This is a very primitive environment, predators hunting constantly. There's something called the 'desert island syndrome.'" She sighed but made eye contact with the young leader. "And ethnic compulsions can cause the most civilized personality to revert, given the stimulus."
"Is that why you keep experimenting to improve the quality of available foodstuffs?" Lunzie nodded. "Keep up the good work, then. Last night's meal was rather savory. I'll keep an eye out for a hint of reversion."
A few days later Lunzie entered the shuttle laboratory to find Trizein combining a mass of vegetable protein with an ARCT-grown nut paste. She swiped her finger through the mess and licked thoughtfully.
"We're getting there, but you know, Tri, we're not real explorers yet. I'm sort of disappointed."
Trizein looked up, startled. "I think we've accomplished rather a lot in the limited time with so much to analyze and investigate. We're the first beings on this planet. How much more explorer can we be?"
Lunzie let the grin she'd been hiding show. "We're not considered true explorers until we have made a spiritous beverage from indigenous products."
Trizein blinked, totally baffled.
"Drink, Trizein. Quickal, spirits, booze, liquor, alcohol. What have you analyzed that's non-toxic with a sufficient sugar content to ferment? I think we should have a chemical relaxant. It'd do everyone good."
Trizein peered shortsightedly at her, a grin tugging at his lips. "In point of fact, I have got something. They brought it in from that foraging expedition that was attacked. I ran a sample of it. I think it's very good but I can't get anyone else to try it. We'll need a still."
"Nothing we can't build." Lunzie grinned. "I've been anticipating your cooperation, Tri, and I've got the necessary components out of stores. I rather thought you'd assist in this worthy project for the benefit of team morale."
"Morale's so important," Trizein agreed, exhibiting a droll manner which he'd had little occasion to display. "I do miss wine, both for drinking and cooking. Not that anything is likely to improve the pervasive flavor of Iretan food. A little something after supper is a sure specific against insomnia."
"I didn't think anyone suffered that here," Lunzie remarked, and then they set to work to construct a simple distillation system, complete with several filters. "We'll have to remove all traces of the hydro-telluride without cooking off the alcohol."
"A pity acclimatization is taking so long," Trizein said, easing a glass pipe into a joint. "We'll probably get used to the stench the day before the ARCT comes for us."
They set the still up, out of the way, in a corner of Lunzie's sleeping dome. With a sense of achievement, they watched the apparatus bubble gently for a time and then left it to do its job.
"It's going to be days before there's enough for the whole team to drink," Trizein said in gentle complaint.
"I'll keep watch on it," she said, her eyes crinkling merrily, "but feel perfectly free to pop in and sample its progress."
"Oh, yes, we should periodically sample it," Trizein replied gravely. "Can't have an inferior product."
They shut the seal on Lunzie's dome just as Kai and Gaber burst excitedly into the camp.
"We've got films of the monster who's been taking bites out of the herbivores," Kai announced, waving the cassette jubilantly above his head.
The lightweights watched the footage of toothy monsters with horrified interest. Varian dubbed the carnivores "fang-faces" for the prominent fangs and rows of sharp teeth. They were terrifyingly powerful specimens, walking upright on huge haunches with a reptilian tail like a third leg that flew behind them when they ran. The much smaller forepaws might look like a humorous afterthought of genetic inadequacy but they were strong enough to hold a victim still while the animal chewed on the living prey. Fortunately the fang-faces on film were not savaging herbivores in this scene. They were greedily eating clumps of a bright green grass, tearing them up by those very useful forelimbs, stuffing them into toothy maws.
"Quite a predator," Lunzie murmured to Varian. She ought to have hauled Trizein away from his beloved electro-microscope. He needed to have the contrast of the macrocosm to round out the pathology of his biological profiles.
"Yes, but this is very uncharacteristic behavior for a carnivore," Varian remarked, watching intently. "Its teeth are suitable for a carnivorous diet. Why is it eating grass like there's no tomorrow?"
As the camera panned past the fang-face, it rested on a golden-furred flying creature, eating grass almost alongside the predator. It had a long sharp beak and wing-hands like the Ryxi but there the resemblance ended.
"We've seen avian nests but they're always near water, preferably large lakes or rivers," Gaber told Lunzie. "That creature is nearly two hundred kilometers from the nearest water. They would have to have deliberately sought out this vegetation."
"They're an interesting species, too," Kai remarked. "They were curious enough to follow our sled and they're capable of fantastic speed."
Varian let out a crow. "I want to be there when we tell that to the Ryxi! They want to be the only intelligent avians in the galaxy even if they have to deny the existence of others by main strength of will."
"Why weren't these species seen on the initial flyby of Ireta?" Divisti a
sked in her deep slow voice.
"With the dense jungle vegetation a super cover? Not surprising that the report only registered life-forms. Think of all the trouble we've had getting pictures with them scooting into the underbrush."
"I wish the ARCT wasn't out of range," Kai remarked, not for the first time. "I'd like to order a galaxy search on EV files. I keep feeling that this planet has to have been surveyed before."
Dimenon, as chief geologist, was of the same opinion. He was getting peculiar echoes from signalling cores all over the continental shield. Kai managed to disinter an old core from the site of one of the echoes. Its discovery proved to the geologists that their equipment was functioning properly but the existence of an unsuspected core also caused consternation.
"This core is not only old, it's ancient," Kai said. "Millions of years old."
"Looks just like the ones you're using," Lunzie remarked, handling the tube-shaped core.
"That's true enough, but it suggests that the planet has been surveyed before, which is why no deposits of transuranics have been found in an area that should be rich with them."
"Then why no report in the EV files?" Dimenon asked.
Kai shrugged, taking the core back from Lunzie. "This is slightly more bulky but otherwise identical."
"Could it be the Others?" Dimenon asked in a hushed voice.
Lunzie shook her head, chuckling at that old childish nightmare.
"Not unless the Others know the Theks," Kai replied. "They make all the cores we use."
"What if the Theks are copying the science of the older technology?" Dimenon argued defensively.
While it was hard to imagine anything older than Theks, Lunzie looked at Kai who knew more about them than she did.
"Then the ancient core has to mean that Ireta was previously surveyed? Only who did it? What do the Theks say?"
"I intend to ask them," Kai replied grimly.
A few days later, Varian sought Lunzie out in her dome. The young leader was shaking and very disturbed. Lunzie made her sit and gave her a mug of pepper.
"What's wrong?"
The girl took a deep sip of the restorative drink before she spoke.
"You were right," Varian said. "The heavyworlders are reverting to savagery. I had two of them out on a survey. Paskutti was flying the sled as we tracked a fang-face. It chased down one of the herbivores and gouged bites out of its flank. It made me sick, but Paskutti and Tardma exhibited a grotesque fascination at the sight. I insisted that we save the poor herbivore before it was killed. Paskutti promptly blasted the fang-face with the sled exhaust, showing his superiority like an alpha animal. He did drive it off but not before wounding it cruelly. Its hide was a mass of char."
Lunzie swallowed her disgust. As surrogate mother-confessor and psychologist for the team, she knew that a confrontation with the heavyworlders was required to discover exactly what was going on in their minds, but she didn't look forward to the experience. Right now she needed to refocus Varian on her mission, to take her mind off the horror.
"The predator just took the animal's flesh," she asked, "leaving a wound like Mabel's? That's interesting. A fang-face has a tremendous appetite. One little chunk of herbivore oughtn't to satisfy it."
"They certainly couldn't sustain themselves just by eating grass. Even though they do eat tons of it in the truce-patch."
Lunzie stroked the back of her neck thoughtfully. "That grass is more likely to provide a nutrient they're missing. We'll analyze anything you bring us."
Varian managed a laugh. "That's a request for samples?"
"Yes, indeed. Trizein is right. There are anomalies here, puzzles left from eons past. I'd like to solve the mystery before we leave Ireta."
"If we leave," Gaber said irritably later that day when Lunzie invited him to share a pot of her brew of synthesized coffee. "I don't intend ever signing up for a planetary mission again. It's my opinion that we've been planted. We're here to provide the core of a planetary population. We'll never get off."
"Nonsense," Lunzie returned sharply, ignoring his basic self-contradiction to concentrate on reducing a new rumor. "The transuranics of this planet alone are enough to supply ten star systems for a century. The FSP is far more desperate for mineral wealth than starting colonies. Now that Dimenon is prospecting beyond the continental shield, he's finding significant deposits of transuranics every day."
"Significant?" Gaber was skeptical.
"Triv is doing assays. We'll have evaluations shortly," Lunzie said in a no-nonsense tone. Gaber responded to firmness. "Add to that, look at all the equipment we have with us. The EEC can't afford to plant such expensive machinery. They need it too badly for ongoing exploration."
"They'd have to make it look like a normal drop, or we all would have opted out." Gaber could be obstinate in his whimsies.
Lunzie was exasperated by the cartographer's paranoia. "But why plant us? We're the wrong age mix and too few in number to provide any viable generations beyond grandchildren."
Gaber sat gloomily over his mug of coffee. "Perhaps they're trying to get rid of us and this was the surest way."
Lunzie was momentarily stunned into silence. Gaber had to be grousing. If there was the least byte of truth to his appalling notion, she was a prime candidate for the tactic. If eighteen people had been put in jeopardy just to remove her, she would never forgive herself. Common sense took hold. Zebara had checked the files on the entire mission personnel; she had been a late addition to the team and, by the time she was included, it would have been far too late for even a highly organized pirate network to have maneuvered a planting!
"Sometimes, Gaber," she said with as light a tone as she could manage, "you can be totally absurd! The mission planted? Highly unlikely."
However, when Dimenon returned from the northeast edge of the shield with his news of a major strike, Lunzie decided that tonight was a very good occasion to break out the quickal. There was enough to provide two decent tots for each adult to celebrate the discovery of the saddle of pitchblende. The up-thrust strike would provide all the geologists with such assay bonuses they might never have to work again. A percentage was customarily shared out to other members of an exploratory team. Even the children.
They had to be content with riches in their majority, and fruit juice now in their glasses. However, they were soon merry enough, for Dimenon brought out the thumb piano he never travelled without and played while everyone danced.
If the heavyworlders had to be summoned from their quarters by Kai to join in, they did so with more enthusiasm than Lunzie would have believed of the dour race. They also appeared to get drunker on the two servings than anyone else did.
The next day they were surly and clumsy, more of a distraction to the survey teams than a functioning part. There was physical evidence that the alcohol had stimulated a mating frenzy. Some of the males sported bruises, Tardma cradled one arm and Divisti walked in a measured way that suggested to Lunzie that she was covering a limp.
Lunzie spent hours over comparative chemical analysis and called the heavyworlders in one at a time that evening for physical examinations, trying to determine if their mutation was adversely affected by the native quickal. To be on the safe side, she added one more filter to the still. Nothing else which could be construed as harmful was left in the mixture. She took a taste of the new distillate and made a face. It was potent, but not potent enough to account for the heavyworlder behavior.
Lunzie lay in bed late that night staring up at the top of the dome and listening to the bubbling of the still.
If, she mused, aware that the quickal had loosened a few inhibitions, Gaber should be correct, I might be planted but I haven't lost anything. I've nothing left of my past except that hologram of Fiona in the bottom of my bag. I started my travels with that: it is proper for it to be with me now.
I wonder how Fiona is, on that remote colony of hers. What would she say if she could see me now, in an equally remote location, escaping
yet another life-threatening situation, complete with fanged predators? Lunzie sighed. Why would Fiona care? She knew that when she had escaped from Ireta back to the ARCT-10, she'd join Zebara's team, stop running away, and have an interesting life. No big nasty pervert has dumped nineteen people on a substandard planet just to dispose of one time-lagged ex-Jonah medic.
Which brought her right back to the underlying motivation. The planet pirates. They were to blame for everything that had happened to her since her first cold sleep. They had unsettled her life time and again: first by robbing her of her daughter, trying to kill her and making her live in fear of her life. Somehow, even if it meant turning down a place on Zebara's team, she was going to turn matters around, and start interfering with the pirates, instead of them messing up her life all the time. She'd managed to do a little along those lines already: she just had to improve her efficiency. She grinned to herself. That could be fun now that she had learned to be vigilant. The Ireta mission had a few more weeks to run.
With a sigh, she started the Discipline for putting herself to sleep. In the morning, she kept her mind busy with inventorying the supply dome. As she checked through, small discrepancies began to show up in a variety of items, including some she had had occasion to draw from only the day before. She turned over piles of dome covers, and restacked boxes, but there was no doubt about it. Force-belts, chargers, portable disk reader/writers were missing. Stock had also been moved around, partly to conceal withdrawals. Quickly, she went over the foodstuffs. None of the all-important protein stores were gone, but quantities of the mineral supplements had vanished as well as a lot of vegetable carbohydrates.
The Death of Sleep Page 32