The Mystery of Ireta

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Do you ever mind?”

  “What? Being second?” She shrugged and smiled to reassure him. “No, Kai. Energy is a lot more important than wildlife.”

  “Life,” and he paused to stress the inclusiveness of the word, “is far more important than any inanimate object . . .” he gestured to the pitchblende.

  “Which just happens to be essential to sustain life—on other planets, and in space. We have to sustain, protect and investigate. I’m here to inspect the life that exists on Ireta, and you’re here to insure that life elsewhere can continue on its grand and glorious scale. Don’t fret on my account, Kai. The experience I gain here may just one day put me where I really want to be . . .”

  “Which is . . .” Kai was also trying to see what Paskutti and Tardma were doing with a seismograph.

  “Planetary preserver. Now,” she went on, noticing his diverted attention, “I’d better enhance the reputation needed to be one by studying those fliers of yours. I can survey this area first.”

  They both caught in their breaths as Tardma faltered, struggled to regain her balance and the backpack of delicate instrumentation which she was bringing up the far slope.

  “What the fardles did Lunzie put in that joy juice of hers to queer them up so?”

  “It’s Ireta that’s doing it to them! The drink didn’t affect us that way. I’m off now, Kai. I’ve only to gather the youngsters.”

  “I’ll need the big sled back here, you know.”

  “Yes, by sundown! Shout if you need it sooner,” she said, gesturing to her wrist comunit.

  Bonnard was disappointed to be dragged away before the first seismic shot, but when Dimenon told him it would take several hours to set up, he went willingly with Varian.

  Terilla had been enchanted by unusual flowering vines and, carefully wearing her thick gloves, had gathered different types, which she had placed in the bags Divisti had given her for the purpose. Cleiti, who tended to be Bonnard’s aide and assistant, regarded the younger girl’s activity with supercilious disdain. Varian shooed them all toward the big sled and told them to settle in and belt up. She was checking the flight board when she was struck by the sled’s elapsed hours of use. Surely she hadn’t put twelve hours flight time on it yesterday? Even subtracting the two hours to reach these foothills, she couldn’t have racked up more than six hours the day before. That left a huge whack unaccounted for—and made the sled due for a recharging and servicing.

  She’d ask Kai about it when she returned. Maybe she simply hadn’t recorded accurately, or the sled had been used here when she’d been busy elsewhere.

  She showed Bonnard how to operate the tagger, Cleiti how to read the life-form telltale, and Terilla how to be sure the recorder was functioning as they’d be passing over relatively undetailed terrain. The youngsters were delighted to have some responsibility and listened attentively as Varian explained the quartering pattern she would follow as they surveyed the general vicinity for dangerous life forms. Although Varian was skeptical about the duration of their enthusiasm once the tasks had settled into routine, their exuberance made a nice change from the sober company of the heavy-worlders.

  The three young people hadn’t had that much occasion to see the raw life of a virgin planet, having had only the one trip since they’d landed on Ireta. They chattered happily as Varian lifted the sled and circled the geological site.

  At first there wasn’t much to telltale or tag. Most of the animal life was small and kept hidden from sight. Bonnard was jubilant when he tagged some tree-dwellers which Varian thought must be nocturnal since they didn’t so much as move from their tree boles when the sled passed over them. Terilla periodically reported the recorder functioning but the ground over which they passed would make details of the area difficult to read. In the low foothills, as they quartered back toward the pitchblende saddle, the sled’s noise flushed a group of fleet little animals which Bonnard gleefully tagged and Terilla triumphantly taped. Slightly put out by the success of the others, Cleiti’s turn came when she read telltales of a cave-dwelling life form. They did not show themselves but the readings were low enough on the scale to suggest small creatures, burrowers or timid night beasts that would be unlikely to cause problems for any secondary camp.

  In fact, Varian had to conclude that nothing of any potentially dangerous size could be found in the foothills surrounding the pitchblende discovery. Nonetheless, size did not, as she pointed out to the children, relate to the potential danger of a creature. Some of the smallest were the most deadly. The one you could hear coming was the safest: you could take evasive action. Bonnard snorted at the notion of running away.

  “I like plants better than animals,” said Terilla.

  “Plants can be just as dangerous,” replied Bonnard in a repressive tone.

  “Like that sword plant?” asked Terilla with such innocence that Varian, who was suppressing her laughter at the girl’s apt query, could not consider the child guilty of malice.

  Bonnard growled at the reminder of his painful encounter with that particular plant and was patently trying to think of a put-down for Terilla.

  “Your instruments are transmitting,” said Varian, to forestall a quarrel.

  The sled was passing over an area of squat trees and thick undergrowth which triggered the telltale at a large enough scale and sufficient concentration to warrant some investigation. The terrain was rocky and steep, which suggested the inhabitants were not ruminants. However, after circling without flushing the creatures, Varian decided that the area was far enough from the ore deposit to be a negligible danger. She marked the coordinates for later study when a ground expedition could be mounted. Despite the generally high level of violent life and death on Ireta, one could be too cautious. If Kai sited the secondary camp high enough up in the foothills to avoid the worst predatory life, the force-screen would be sufficient to deter poisonous insects and dangerous smaller animals. It wasn’t as if a herd of Mabels was likely to come rampaging up the slopes and stampeding through the force-screen.

  She finished her survey, cautioned the youngsters to check the seat belts they had loosened to attend to their instruments, and, tapping in the coordinates for the inland sea, she gave the sled full power.

  Even so it took a good hour and a half to reach their destination. She wished that Divisti had had a chance to run an analysis of the grasses which Kai and Bakkun had collected at the Rift Valley. The report might have given Varian some insight into the habits of the fliers, but perhaps it was wiser to observe these fascinating creatures without preconceived notions.

  Varian was pleased with the behavior of the youngsters on the flight: they asked more intelligent questions than she’d been led to expect from them, sometimes straying in areas of which she had little knowledge. They seemed annoyed that she was not a portable data retrieval unit.

  Cleiti was the first to spot the fliers, and preened herself for that feat later on. The creatures were not, as Varian had unconsciously expected, perched on the cliffs and rocks of their natural habitat, nor singly fishing. A large group—not a flock, for that was a loose collection of a similar species, and the fliers gave the appearance of organization—was gathered above the broad ends of the inland water, at its deepest part, where the cliffs narrowed to form the narrow isthmus through which the parent sea pushed the tide waters to flush the vast inland basin; a tide which seldom had force enough to crawl more than a few inches up the verge on the farthest shore, fifty kilometers away.

  “I’ve never seen birds doing that,” Bonnard exclaimed.

  “When did you ever see free birds in flight?” asked Varian, a bit chagrined that her tone emerged sharper than she’d intended.

  “I have landed, you know,” said Bonnard with mild reproach. “And there are such things as training tapes. I watch a lot of those. So, those aren’t acting like any other species I’ve ever seen.”

  “Qualification accepted, Bonnard, I haven’t either.”

  The golden
fliers were sweeping low in what had to be considered a planned formation. The sled was a bit too far for unaided vision of the observers to perceive exactly what happened to jerk the line of fliers to half their previous forward speed. Some of the fliers were dragged downward briefly, but as they beat their wings violently to compensate, they recovered their positions in the line and slowly, the whole mass began to lift up, away from the water’s surface.

  “Hey, they’ve got something in their claws,” said Bonnard who had appropriated the screen from Cleiti and had adjusted it to the distance factor. “I’d swear it’s a net. It is! And they’re dragging fish from the water. Scorch it! And look what’s happening below!”

  Varian had had time to adjust her mask’s magnification and the girls had crowded over the small viewer plate with Bonnard. They could all see clearly the roiling water, and the frenzied thrusts and jumps of the aquatic life which unsuccessfully tried to penetrate the nets and the captured prey.

  “Nets! How in the raking rates do fliers achieve nets?” Varian’s comment was more for herself than the children.

  “I see claws half down their wings, there, where it goes triangular. Can’t see clearly enough but, Varian, if they’ve an opposing digit, they could make nets.”

  “They could and they must have, because we haven’t seen anything else bright enough on Ireta to make ’em for ’em .”

  Cleiti giggled, smothering the sound in her hand. “The Ryxi won’t like this.”

  “Why not?” Bonnard demanded, regarding his friend with a frown. “Intelligent avian life is very rare, my xenob says.”

  “The Ryxi like being the only smart ones,” said Cleiti. “You know how Vrl used to be . . .” Somehow the child lengthened her neck, hunched her shoulders forward, swept her hands and arms back like folded wings and assumed such a haughty expression by pulling her mouth and chin down that she exactly resembled the arrogant Vrl.

  “Don’t ever let him see that,” Varian said, tears of laughter in her eyes. “But it’s a terrific mime, Cleiti. Terrific.”

  Cleiti grinned at her success as Bonnard and Terilla regarded her with expressions akin to awe.

  “Who else can you do?” asked Bonnard.

  Cleiti shrugged. “Who did you want?”

  “Not now, kids. Later. I want tape on this phenomenon.”

  The three youngsters immediately took their assigned stations as the sled followed the burdened fliers toward the distant cliffs. Varian had time to dwell on the subtler implications of the fliers’ fishing. The creatures were quite obviously the most intelligent species she had encountered on Ireta. Nor had she come across another cooperative avian race: at least, at this level. Bonnard’s xenob was not accurate in saying that intelligent avian life was rare: dominant intelligent avian life was, however. So often winged life was in such desperate competition with ground-based life for the same foods that all their energies had to be directed to the procurement of food, or the preservation of the home nest, and the succor of the young. When a life form specialized, dropping the forearm with manipulative skill for the wing of retreat, they lost a tremendous advantage in the battle of survival.

  The golden fliers of Ireta seemed to have managed to retain the vestigial hand without expense to the wing, and thus used their flight advantage beautifully.

  Occasionally smaller fish fell from the nets, back into the sea, to cause more frothing as the submarine denizens struggled to secure the prizes. Twice, immense heads rolled avidly up from the depths as the fliers passed with their tempting loads.

  Now the four observers saw additional fliers materializing from the cloudy skies, swooping down to take positions along the edges of the nets, supporting the load and relieving the first fishers. Thus assisted, the formation picked up speed.

  “How fast are they going now, Varian?” asked Bonnard, for the xenob had been carefully matching the forward motion, staying behind but above the fliers.

  “With this tailwind, I make it twenty kph, but I think they’ll gain air speed with all this reinforcement.”

  “They’re so beautiful,” said Terilla softly. “Even hard at work they’re graceful, and see how they gleam.”

  “They look as if they were traveling in their own personal sunlight,” said Cleiti, “but there’s no sun.”

  “Yeah, what’s with this crazy planet?” said Bonnard. “It stinks and there’s never any sun. I did want to see a sun when I got a chance.”

  “Well, here’s your moment,” said Terilla, crowing with delight as the unpredictable happened and the clouds parted to a glimpse of the green sky and the white-hot yellow sun.

  Varian laughed with the others and almost wished that the face masks didn’t adjust instantly for the change in light. The only way she knew that there was sun at the moment was the shadows on the sea.

  “We’re being followed!” Bonnard’s amused tone held a note of awe.

  Huge bodies now broke the surface and slammed down on the shadow which the air sled cast on the waters behind it.

  “I’m glad we’re ahead of them,” Cleiti said in a small voice.

  “There’s the biggest crazy I’ve ever seen!” Bonnard sounded so startled that Varian turned around.

  “What was it, Bonnard?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my born days, Varian.”

  “Was the taper on it?”

  “Not on that,” said Terilla, apologetically. “Forward, on the fliers.”

  “Here, let me have it, Ter, I know where to point.” Bonnard assumed control and Terilla moved aside.

  “It’s like a flat piece of fabric, Varian,” Bonnard was saying as he sighted across the stern of the sled. “The edges flutter and then . . . it sort of turns over on itself! Here comes another!”

  The girls gave small squeals of revulsion and delighted fear. Varian slewed round in the pilot seat and caught a glimpse of something gray-blue which did, as Bonnard said, flutter like a fabric caught in a strong breeze. She caught sight of two points halfway up one side (like claws?), then the creature flipped over, end for end, and entered the water, with more of a swish than a splash, as Cleiti put it.

  “How big would you say it was, Bonnard?”

  “I’d judge about a meter on each side but it kept switching. I’ve got good tapes of that last leap. I set the speed half again higher so you can play back for more detail.”

  “That’s using your head, Bonnard.”

  “Here comes another! Rakers! Look at the speed on that thing!”

  “I’d rather not,” said Terilla. “How does it know we’re here? I don’t see any sort of eyes or antenna or anything. It can’t see the shadows.”

  “The fringes?” asked Bonnard. “Sonar?”

  “Not for leaping out of water,” replied Varian. “We’ll possibly find out how it perceives us when we can replay. Rather interesting. And were those claws I saw? Two of them?”

  “That’s bad?” Bonnard had caught the puzzled note in her voice.

  “Not bad, Bonnard, but damned unusual. The fliers, the herbivores and the predators are pentadactyl, which isn’t an unlikely evolution, but two digits on a side flange?”

  “I saw flying longies once,” said Cleiti in a bright helpful voice. “They were a meter long and they undulated. No feet at all, but they could ripple along in the air for kilometers.”

  “Light-gravity planet?”

  “Yes, Varian, and dry!”

  The sun had slunk behind the clouds again and the thin noonday drizzle settled in so that the others laughed at her sour comment.

  “Digits are important in evolution, aren’t they, Varian?” asked Bonnard.

  “Very. You can have intelligent life, like those avians, but until a species becomes a tool-user, they don’t have much chance of rising above their environment.”

  “The fliers have, haven’t they?” asked Bonnard with a broad grin for his play on words.

  “Yes, Bonnard, they have,” she replied wi
th a laugh.

  “I heard about them being in the Rift Valley, with grasses,” Bonnard went on. “Is this why they got that type of grass? To make the nets?”

  “There was a lot of thick, tough grass around the place where we saved Dandy, and that was a lot closer for them,” said Cleiti.

  “You’re right there, Cleiti. I’ve thought the fliers might need the Rift Valley grass for some dietary requirement.”

  “I have some of the vegetation from the grove of fruit trees, Varian,” said Terilla.

  “You do? That’s great. We can do some real investigation. How clever of you, Terilla.”

  “Not clever, you know me and plants,” said the girl, but her cheeks were flushed with reaction to the praise.

  “I take back what I said about your stupid plants,” said Bonnard with unusual magnanimity.

  “I’ll be very keen to see how mature their young are,” Varian said, having quietly considered the curious habits of the golden creatures for a few minutes.

  “How mature? Their young? Isn’t that a contradiction?” asked Bonnard.

  “Not really. You are born very young . . .”

  Cleiti giggled. “Everyone is, or you wouldn’t be young . . .”

  “I don’t mean age, I mean ability, Cleiti. Now, let’s see what comparisons I can draw for you ship-bred . . .”

  “I lived my first four years on a planet,” said Terilla.

  “Did you? Which one?”

  “Arthos in the Aurigae section. I’ve touched down on two more and stayed for months.”

  “And what animals did you see on Arthos?” Varian knew but Terilla so seldom volunteered any information, or had a chance to with such aggressive personalities as Cleiti and Bonnard.

  “We had milk cows, and four-legged dogs, and horses. Then there were six-legged dogs, offoxes, cantileps and spurges.”

  “Seen any tape on cows, dogs, and horses, Cleiti? Bonnard?”

  “Sure!”

  “All right, cows and horses bear live young who are able to rise to their feet about a half-hour after birth and, if necessary, run with their dams. They are therefore born mature and already programmed for certain instinctive actions and responses. You and I were born quite small and physically immature. We had to be taught by our parents or guardians how to eat, walk, run and talk and take care of ourselves.”