Kai complied, but the order was irksome. Granted, he had to assume that Tor knew more about the cold-sleep routine, but he felt clearheaded. Too clearheaded because he could remember in embarrassing detail everything that had led up to the necessity of cold sleep.
How long had that sleep been? He opened his mouth to ask, but he hadn’t quite the brashness to inquire of a Thek how much time had elapsed between the sending of the emergency signal and Tor’s response. One rarely asked Theks a question involving time since the long-lived silicon life-form counted in sidereal years of their planet of origin, which generally amounted to the centuries of more ephemeral species—such as Kai’s.
His wrist! Tardma had taken such delight in breaking it when she and Paskutti burst into the pilot’s compartment. Once they’d escaped from the mutineers, Lunzie had set the bones. Kai wriggled the fingers of his left hand experimentally. Wrist bones could take about six weeks to heal. He rotated his wrist. It was stiff but no more so than his right. Six weeks? Or more?
However long, it gave him some satisfaction to realize that the mutineers had not found the space shuttle. He smiled as he thought of the frustration that the loss would have caused Paskutti! The mutineers would have searched as long as they had one operative lift-belt. The mutineers—Paskutti, Tardma, Tanegli, Divisti . . . Kai paused before adding Berru and Bakkun to that infamous roster. He couldn’t understand their reason for participating in a mutiny; particularly one generated on the flimsiest of pretexts.
He rolled his head cautiously to the left, toward the row of sleeping figures: the remnants of his team of geologists and of Varian’s xenobiologists. Varian had a lovely profile. Beyond his coleader was Lunzie, the medic, and Kai could just make out in the gloom the long sturdy figure of Triv. The four Disciples had been the last to go into cold sleep.
A series of curious deep mumbles made Kai turn his head to the right, toward the small pilot compartment of the space shuttle. Kai had seen one or two Thek extremities in evidence before, but Tor seemed to have lengths of itself draped in, under, behind, over, and through places in the shuttle’s structure that Kai could not himself see. He blinked to relax his eyes. When he looked again, most of Tor was again within the creature.
That show of quick motion from a member of a species notorious for its imponderable silences, decades-long contemplations, and brevity of speech stunned Kai.
“Daaammaagggggedddd.”
In that one word the Thek managed to convey to Kai that not only was the damage extensive but also Tor could not effect repairs, a condition which annoyed the creature. Kai marveled then that Portegin’s contrived beacon had managed to lead Tor to the shuttle.
“Exploration Vessel returned?” Kai asked after long consideration. It was a rather vain hope that the Exploration Vessel, which had deposited the three separate units in-system, was on its way to collect them.
“Nnnnoooo.” Tor’s response was neutral. Certainly the nonreappearance caused it no concern.
Kai sighed with resignation and found himself wondering if, out of all impossibilities, Gaber had been right: their little group had been planted. Gaber certainly was, since he’d been killed at the outset of mutiny. But the third group, the avian Ryxi who planned to colonize their planet, surely they must have wondered at the silence from the Iretan group? Immediately Kai was reminded that in his last contact with the Ryxi’s temperamental leader, the creature had flown into a rage at Kai’s innocent disclosure that Ireta had an intelligent winged species. But the Ryxi colony ship would have been piloted by another species, probably humanoid. Surely . . .
“Ryxi?” asked Kai hopefully.
A long silence ensued while Tor sent a single tentacle into the control console. Such a long silence that Kai was nerving himself to repeat the question, thinking Tor had not heard him.
“Nnnooo connntaaaact.”
The inference was plain to Kai: the Thek did not care to keep in touch with the highly excitable, and by Thek standards, irresponsible winged sentients.
Kai was relieved. It was embarrassing enough to call the Thek for aid, but to have to apply to the Ryxi would result in considerably more humiliation. The Ryxi would thoroughly enjoy spreading such a grand joke throughout the universe at the expense of all wingless species.
Kai could move his head and neck easily now, and he checked the line of his sleeping companions. Varian’s hand lay where it had fallen from his in the relaxation of sleep. Tor had placed a dim light somewhere in the shuttle, probably for Kai’s reassurance since the Thek did not require light to see. Kai touched Varian’s hand, still cold and rigid in the thrall of cryogenic sleep. He watched, holding his own breath, until he saw the slight rise and fall of her diaphragm in its much reduced life-rhythm. Then he relaxed, exhaling.
He turned back to Tor but sensed its complete withdrawal: it had become a large smooth rock, flattened on the bottom to conform to the deck, extruding not so much as a lump, bump, or pseudopod. This was the Thek contemplative state, and Kai knew better than to interrupt it.
He lay there until his nose began to itch. He stifled a sneeze with a finger under his nose, and then felt foolish. A sneeze couldn’t rouse a Thek. Much less the sleepers. That desire to sneeze was the prelude to a growing twitchy restlessness in Kai which he recognized as the result of the stimulants Tor had injected. The Thek had not said that he couldn’t move: it had only said to rest. Surely he had done enough of that.
Kai began the muscle-toning Discipline and, although he worked up a fine sweat, he soon realized that cold sleep had done him no discernible harm. Even the healed wrist responded perfectly. The plaskin Lunzie had used to set the break had long since flaked away. That meant they’d been asleep at least four or five months.
He looked at his wrist chronometer, but the device was blank. Even long-life battery tabs wear out. How long ago?
Exercise produced another effect and Kai, rising carefully, found his way through the cold-sleep mist that shrouded the shuttle to the toilet. Returning, he checked each of the sleepers, observing the curious transformation sleep worked on faces. Bonnard, for instance, in the middle of his second decade, looked more adult than Dimenon, twice the boy’s age. Portegin looked as if he still worried about the effectiveness of the beacon he had contrived. Lunzie, the pragmatic medic, was smiling, a rare sight while she was awake, and her face had assumed a gentleness at odds with her ascerbic temperament. She’d admitted to having undergone sleep suspension before: her records had listed her chronological age but there had always been that detachment about Lunzie that struck Kai as bemused tolerance: as if she’d already seen most of what the universe had to offer and wouldn’t spare the energy to be excited by anything anymore.
Triv, the other team member trained in Discipline, had a forbidding expression in sleep, a surprising strength in mouth, jawline and brow that had not been so apparent as the man went quietly about his normal duties.
Since Tor was still motionless, Kai sat down by Varian, feeling companionship even with her sleeping self. She was beautiful. Then he noticed that one side of her face slanted down, the other more or less up, leaving one eyebrow higher than the other, as if the cold sleep had surprised her. Suddenly he wanted very much to have the cheerfulness of her conscious company. Who knew how long Tor would remain an uncommunicative lump? He needed someone he could talk to, before his perspective was warped by self-accusative reflection in the gloomy silence. Varian was coleader: she should have been revived as a matter of course. Kai then realized that he ought to be relieved that Tor had been able to single him out. If the Thek had revived, say, Aulia, she would have gone into hysterics just being close to a Thek—and then she’d have convulsions when she realized that she’d been put in cryogenic suspension without being consulted! As a geologist, Aulia was very good, but she failed in areas of personal adjustments.
Kai looked about the dimly lit area for the revival kit and saw it in the dust just beyond the clean outline where he had slept. Dust? The shutt
le had not, of course, been sealed completely—cold sleepers still need air—but for dust of any depth to have settled . . .
The sprays in the box were clearly marked for precedence, color-coded as well. Calibrations on the cylinders listed dosages according to body weight. Instructions on the first cylinder advised Kai to wait until the sleeper had shown definite signs of revival before stimulants were injected.
Kai carefully released the appropriate dose into Varian’s arm and waited, trying to remember his own progress from cold sleep to consciousness. Her sleeping face exhibited no reassuring change. Maybe he hadn’t administered enough. He checked the dose and wondered if he’d been mistaken about her body weight. He was hesitating over a second small spray when he saw her eyelids flutter. Only then did he realize that she was respiring at a normal rate.
“Varian?” He leaned over, touching her shoulder and smiling at the effort she made to unglue her eyes. An old tale popped into his head and, so prompted, he kissed her cool lips gently.
“Kkkkaaaaaiiiiii?” Her eyes opened fully and then the lids drooped back but the left corner of her mouth lifted in appreciation.
“Just relax, Varian. You’ll be in working order shortly.”
“Hhhhooooowww?” The word trembled out as an aspirated whisper.
“Tor came. Don’t ask more questions, dear heart. Give the reviver a chance to penetrate. I’m right here. Everything is unchanged!”
“Nnughhh!” The groan came from her belly and made Kai laugh at the disgust vibrant in her protest.
“Well, a Thek bestirred itself on our behalf. It’s got a full report. I taped it,” he explained quickly as he saw Varian’s astonishment. “It is apparently thinking my words over.” Kai gestured to the silent rock. “Don’t move yet,” he cautioned Varian as he saw her neck tendons strain against the long immobility. “I guess I can give you the stimulants now, but don’t bounce. Oh, and your shoulder’s healed,” he added as he gave her the second set of shots. Paskutti had shattered Varian’s left shoulder just before Tardma had snapped his wrist.
Varian’s fully functional eyebrows registered pleased amazement, immediately followed by a frown of thoughtful concern.
“No, I don’t know how long we’ve slept, Varian. Paskutti damaged the shuttle’s chronometer. It’s just above the comunit, remember.”
Varian rolled her eyes in frustration and began to clear her throat.
“Make haste slowly,” he cautioned her, hand on her shoulder. “Or should I revive Lunzie? . . .”
Varian shook her head, working her tongue around her mouth as the tissues began to moisten. “Leaders first . . . and last . . .” Her voice sounded as disused as his had, and he repressed a smile.
“If your fingers and toes are beginning to tingle, try the small-muscle exercises of Discipline. They’ll help circulation and toning.”
Varian took a deep breath and closed her eyes to concentrate.
“I don’t know what Tor’s contemplating, Varian,” Kai went on, “but it can’t repair the comunit. It doesn’t indicate whether it received our message or realized we weren’t communicating on schedule. The ARCT-10 hasn’t been in touch, but Tor doesn’t appear concerned. I can’t tell whether that’s due to normal Thek indifference or not.” Then Kai laughed. “There’s been no contact with the Ryxi.”
Varian’s chuckle sounded completely normal, and he grinned down at her. Her eyes were twinkling with laughter.
“In old tapes,” she said, chewing her words out of her mouth slowly, “on my planet, Sleeping Beauty is wakened by a noble’s kiss after a hundred years. Sweet way to wake up.”
She raised her hand and touched his mouth with her fingers.
“And I’d give anything to know if it was a hundred years!” Kai replied, taking her fingers in his hand and kissing them in what he considered an appropriate fashion. He continued to hold onto her hand as a thought came to him. “We might have one quick way of finding out. Step out of this cave and let the golden fliers have a good look at us. If the giffs react, we can’t have slept that long.”
“Don’t know the life span of giffs.”
Kai shot a glance at the quiescent Thek. “I experience an earnest desire to be recognized by something that remembers me,” and he prodded his chest with a fist, “besides that rock!”
“Hundred years’d mean no mutineers on watch.”
“Point well taken. Even the freshest of their power packs wouldn’t last more than two years. I’d also guess they’d stay at that secondary camp since they’d already stocked it last rest day . . .”
“Last rest day?” Varian regarded him with an amusement tinged with disbelief. “How long ago was last rest day?”
“Subjective or objective time elapsed?” he asked in reply and grinned to take the sting out of the notion.
“Good question.” Varian could enunciate more clearly now. She began to flex her arms and knees. “Hey, my shoulder knit perfectly!” She rose, muttering under her breath as her rebelling muscles made the effort graceless. “Things seem to be all in working order,” she added as she headed for the toilet.
While she was gone, Kai stared at Tor. Then he walked around the Thek, looking for the recorder. Irreverently he wondered if the Thek was sitting on it, had ingested it, or perhaps created a heat-resistant pouch in which it could keep bits and pieces of fragile alien manufacture.
“It’s going to stay like that for days,” Varian said in disgust as she joined Kai. “C’mon. I want to see what’s been happening outside. And I want something to drink to take the dust out of my mouth—and to put some unprocessed food in my poor shrunken stomach.”
She gave him a malicious wink, knowing that the ship-bred Kai never noticed the aftertaste of processed food as she invariably did.
They opened the exit iris of the shuttle just enough to squeeze through without diluting the cold-sleep gas significantly. But the atmosphere outside the space shuttle was like a hot smack in the face with a moist stinking cloth.
Varian let out a surprised grunt, then began to inhale deeply to adjust to the shocking change of temperature. At first Kai thought they must have emerged during the planet’s night but, as his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, he realized that the opening of the cave was covered with thick green foliage. There was a break where the Thek had pushed its vehicle through. The cone-shaped carrier was resting a few meters from the shuttle’s entrance.
“Where are the power units?” Varian called as the two were drawn to examine the strange craft. “It’s the same shape Tor is, only larger.” She gestured with her hands in surprise, then reached out to touch the dull metal of the rounded stern. She pulled her hand back. “Wow, heat’s radiating from it.”
Kai was at the bow of the Thek vehicle, inspecting the scored heavy plasshield which was half-open on its pivots. He looked inside, trying to deduce the purpose of various odd protuberances and cavities on the metallic rim of the nose section.
“Only a Thek could pilot the damned thing with a nearly blind shield!” She turned away, indifferent to the mysteries of Thek navigation. “Now these,” she said, catching a vine and testing its strength by hanging her weight from it, feet off the floor, “are enough to feed us for weeks if that’s all we want.”
Before Kai could stop her, Varian took a running start and, holding tightly to the vine, swung out beyond the cave mouth.
“Wheeeee!”
“Varian!” Kai rushed forward, catching her on the swing back, holding tightly to her hips. He’d a moment’s horrific vision of the vine’s parting, dropping her into the sea, meters below, to certain death.
“Sorry, Kai,” she said in a tone that wasn’t apologetic. “I couldn’t resist the urge. Used to do a lot of vine-swinging as a kid on Fomalhaut.” Then she relented as she realized her exuberance had scared him. “Irresponsible behavior when I’m not quite fit but—” and she grinned at him mischievously “—there’s something about contact with a Thek which makes me behave . . .”
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br /> “Childish?” Kai’s panic had subsided, and he realized that he, too, had overreacted.
“Yes, childish. Say, have you ever seen a Thek child, young, cub, pup, fledgling . . . or maybe you’d call it a pebble?”
Varian’s laughter was contagious at any time and, despite his frustrations and worries, Kai laughed too, hugging her to him in wordless appreciation of her ability to find any amusement in their circumstances.
“There! That’s better, Kai,” she said, rubbing her nose against his. “I equate Thek with gloom and doom.” Abruptly she released herself and grabbed a vine. “You know, there’s something odd about such vines’ growing on a giff’s cliff. You don’t suppose our presence here . . .”
In another abrupt movement, Varian held onto the vine and leaned out of the cave mouth, peering up at the sky and to her right.
“No, there’s still giffs above us,” she said, swinging in again. She allowed the momentum of the vine to carry her back out, looking to the left this time. “But this is the only cliff covered in vines. I’m sure it was barren rock when we wedged the shuttle in here.” She made a third excursion, grinning as she released the vine on its inward sway, and landed back at his side. “A fruit-bearing vine, too.” She reached down to her boot and whistled in shrill triumph, removing the slim blade lodged there. “Too frail, like us, to pierce a heavyworlder’s hide, but, praise Krim, they left ’em for us. I’m going to cut us juicy, fresh fruit for breakfast. Or whatever meal it is.”
Before Kai could protest, she had put the knife between her teeth and was pulling herself up a vine, out of sight. He was testing the strength of another thick tendril when her cheerful voice advised him to look up. Instinctively he caught the object launched at him.
“Here comes another. And it’s dead ripe so don’t squeeze hard.”
“Varian—” His fingers did exert too much pressure on the melon and the succulent sweet odor made his mouth water.
“I could eat these all by myself, Kai, so here’s another one for you.” Varian dropped to the cave floor.
The Mystery of Ireta Page 21