The Mystery of Ireta

by Anne McCaffrey

  “I’m sorry, Kai, that’s recall. We’ve been on yellow alert since we landed. It’s now red.” He rose to his feet, making a broad sweeping gesture with his arm. “All right now, crew. Recall.”

  Disappointed mutters and groans could be heard but the crew members moved quickly toward the door.

  “Don’t like to eat and run. Me mammy said it was bad manners,” the older steward said, grinning apologetically at the disarray in the catering area.

  “We’ll save ’em for you to come back to,” Margit called in a good-natured taunt as she followed the crew out.

  “If I can, I’ll let you know what’s up,” Fordeliton said as Kai jogged with him to the pinnace. “I don’t think you need worry about anything with the globe up there.”

  “Good luck,” was all Kai could think to say.

  Triv opened the veil of the force-screen to permit the sleds and pinnace to exit, then closed it and walked purposefully back to Kai.

  “Does their emergency mean we’re stuck in here?”

  “Ford didn’t mention any restrictions on us.”

  “Then shall we indeed pick up where we left off?”

  “Portegin, is the new core screen working?”

  Portegin raised his eyebrows, a knowing expression on his face. “It is indeed, and it has a very interesting tale to tell us.”

  “How so?” Kai asked as they all climbed the rise to the shuttle.

  “You’ll see,” Portegin replied confidently.

  His meaning was as plain as the blips lighting the screen in the shuttle’s main cabin. Where once the duality of core lights had confused the geologists, only single clear lights formed a network.

  “The Thek have recovered all the old cores?”

  “That’s what it looks like. Did they eat ’em , d’you think, Kai?” Portegin asked. “Dimenon thinks they do.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past them,” Triv said.

  “How long have the faint cores been gone from the screen?”

  “There were still fifty or more yesterday when I was setting the screen up and testing it,” Portegin replied. “I didn’t have it on today until we’d finished setting the domes up. I had a look at it just before they rang the chow gong. There were only a few left,” Portegin indicated the edges of the screen, “and now, not an unblessed one of ’em . They must eat ’em . Cores will register through anything.”

  “Except a Thek,” Margit said.

  Triv smiled. “Cores should register even through the silicon of a Thek.”

  “Then they did eat ’em .” Portegin would not be dissuaded from that opinion. “And digested every last morsel.”

  Kai looked at the screen for a long moment, not seeing its display. “We’re here. We have equipment again. We still haven’t finished our original mission. It’s better to be busy than sit around idly speculating on what we can’t change and better not interfere with. Margit and Dimenon, you two get back to your camp and continue the survey. At least we don’t have outside interference to upset Portegin’s screen. Triv, what’s your option?”

  “I’d like to strike north, past the last point we surveyed. There’s quite a volcanic chain north and east that might be very interesting geologically.”

  “Good. Will you take Bonnard along as your partner?”

  “Be delighted.”

  “Lunzie,” Kai turned to the medic, “have you plans for the rest of the day?”

  She shook her head.

  “Would you pilot Trizein?”

  “You’ll be base manager? That’s perhaps a good idea.”

  “I rather thought you’d approve.” He grinned at her.

  “Well, you look a shade better, but I wouldn’t like to see you overextend yourself without a damned good reason.” She strode out of the shuttle.

  16

  WITH a great deal of good-natured bustle and confusion, the teams departed on their diverse errands.

  “In case you’ve wondered, Kai,” Lunzie found time to tell him quietly, “Dupaynil and I had a few interesting words with Cruss by com.” A mirthless smile crossed her lips. “Dupaynil has assumed a Paskutti-Tardma grandson identity, and I opted for Bakkun-Berru. Cruss’s present objective is to smuggle a few of his people off the transport and onto this world. He hints at great connections and substantial rewards for cooperation. Dupaynil is playing coy, and I’m plainly suspicious. I’ll keep you informed.”

  The prospect of heavy-worlders’ enjoying even the most tenuous occupancy on Ireta was unsettling to Kai. He had never been a vindictive person, being basically fair-minded and tolerant, but he found himself contemplating Cruss’s subversive tactics with an emotion bordering on fury. He wished he had gone with Dupaynil to bait the trap, but his anger would have betrayed him. He also took a profound pleasure in the knowledge that Cruss was incriminating himself further.

  Kai tried to tell himself that such negative emotions were unDisciplined, and he should purge them from his system. Then he realized, and laughed at the realization, that, however unsocial hatred was, it stirred the blood as well as the imagination. He was certain that he had felt his fingertips that morning when he had applied the salve. More likely the progress was due to the efficacy of the new medication, rather than regeneration due to indignant wrath. He flexed his fingers inside the skin-gloves, which he could not yet feel against his skin. In one sense that was to the good, for he could use his hands in normal fashion.

  As Kai made his way across the amphitheater to the shuttle, he found the unpopulated campsite eerie. On the other hand, he would have few distractions while he organized the information on the finds Dimenon and Margit had made the previous day—a rich source of metals as well as transuranics the heavy-worlders would have acquired had their takeover not been challenged!

  No sooner had he reached the shuttle’s iris air lock than he heard the frantic buzz of the comunit. He raced to the pilot’s compartment and slammed on the transmit toggle so hard he could feel it jar his hand.

  “Zaid-Dayan to EV Base!” the signal flashed. Then the screen displayed the control deck of the Zaid-Dayan, and Commander Sassinak. “I was beginning to think that you’d all left the compound. Kai, have you transport? We have a large Thek convoy approaching and requesting landing permission. Their message was first directed toward the giff cave beacon.”

  “Ah,” Kai said, recalling a significant oversight, “we forgot to dismantle Portegin’s beacon from the giff cave.”

  “No real harm done.” But Sassinak’s grin suggested that Varian had been quite surprised to have had to communicate with laconic Thek.

  “Is Tor among the incoming?”

  “They have not identified themselves.”

  “I’ve no transport here.”

  “The pinnace is on its way.”

  Kai had recorded messages on the comunit for anyone calling in to base and checked the perimeter of the encampment for gaps in the screen before he heard the supersonic bang of the pinnace’s arrival. The globe brightened momentarily, then resumed its normal color. Ford was the pilot.

  “I’ve brought our stewards back. They really hated to leave the mess hall in such a state,” Ford said. Kai grinned farewell as the first man reinstalled the force-screen veil. Then Kai entered the pinnace.

  Ford gestured for him to take a seat and belt up.

  “I’ve never seen such a concentration of our friendly allies before. Our science officer has been monitoring the ones on Dimenon’s site and he swears they’ve enlarged considerably.”

  “Dimenon thinks they’ve been gorging themselves. And they have apparently consumed every trace of the ancient cores which were ghosting our core screen.”

  Fordeliton swung the pinnace about, almost on its tail fins, and before Kai had a chance to grab a breath, had jammed on the power. Even with the advanced design of the pinnace, the g-forces of supersonic speed were uncomfortable.

  “How many have been sighted?” Kai managed to ask through lips pressed against his face bones. Ab
ruptly the pressure eased.

  “Nine, three of them nearly as big as the transport. Or so they appear on our sensors.”

  Kai was surprised at the magnitude of the visitors. “Any small units?” If only Tor was among them. . . .

  “There are three Great-Big Bears, three Medium-Size Bears, and three Teeny-Tiny Bears.” Fordeliton gave Kai a totally unrepentant grin. “Don’t worry. One of Sassinak’s specialities is Thek conversation.” Then he grinned with a definite hint of malice. “Though I wonder if the good commander will be able to cope with such a concentration of our noble allies.”

  The speedy pinnace accomplished the journey in ten minutes. Ford was deftly dropping their forward speed when an urgent signal was beamed from the Zaid-Dayan, giving alternative landing coordinates.

  “They want us down by the settlement,” Ford said, glancing at the area map, and veered in the appropriate direction as he flipped on the forward screen for a visual check of their arrival. “And I can see why!”

  Leaning forward against the seat belts, unwilling to lose a single detail of the extraordinary sight before them, Kai gasped in astonishment.

  Fordeliton’s whimsical reference to the awesome Thek caused Kai to grin with a wayward appreciation of that irreverence. His grin broadened as he watched three Teeny-Tiny Bears, which were likely to be taller than his nearly two meters, settling down by the main air lock of the Zaid-Dayan, where sailors were quick-marching into the ceremonial formation. One of the Medium-Size Bears was slowly descending behind the three. The other two Medium-Size Bears could be seen positioning themselves to either side of the massive prow of the heavy-worlder transport. In one quick glance Kai took in that deployment and then turned his incredulous gaze toward the three immense Great-Big Bears which were sedately lowering themselves onto the grid beyond the transport.

  “It is extremely lucky, isn’t it,” Fordeliton remarked, “that the Iretans made such a big landing grid. Otherwise those big brutes wouldn’t have risked a landing here. Whooops! Spoke too soon.”

  Fordeliton was hovering above the appointed landing site, maintaining the pinnace at an altitude which gave them a superb view of the event. With great dignity and no visible means of propulsion, the three Great-Big Bears lowered their bulks onto the grid. And continued their downward movement while the grid began to smoke, melt, and bubble. Molten iron began to ooze out around the three Great-Big Theks. Fordeliton roared with such infectious laughter that Kai joined in. Suddenly the continued decline of the Theks ceased, the molten metal about their bases went from red to dull cold metal in an instant, solidifying.

  “That was close, wasn’t it?” Fordeliton flung out his arms, giving Kai a buffet on the chest for which he instantly apologized. “I just hope someone got it on tape. That’s one to save for posterity. What if they had just kept on melting down, down, down?”

  “No chance of that, I’m afraid. The grid was built here because there’s a rock shelf under that plateau that would stop even the Thek.” Kai grinned at Fordeliton. “But I doubt the heavy-worlders meant to accommodate Thek. Have you ever seen any that big before?”

  “I thought that they stayed put at that size. Kai, what have you got on this forsaken planet to wrench them out of their comfortable niches? Do Thek inhabit niches? Or mountaintops? Never mind.”

  Fordeliton landed the pinnace. He and Kai quickly made their way toward the Zaid-Dayan, where Sassinak and a contingent of her officers were advancing to where the Theks were squatting. Fordeliton and Kai joined the group. Sassinak noted their arrival with a nod of her head.

  Suddenly a sound stopped everyone, and one of the not so Teeny-Tiny Bears moved forward.

  “Kaaaaaiiiieeee!” The sound was both command and recognition.

  Kai looked inquiringly at Sassinak.

  “That does sound like your name, Kai. It’s all yours.” The commander gestured him forward. To his astonishment, she winked as he passed.

  “Tor?” he asked, coming to a halt in front of the Thek, for surely it had to be his acquaintance from the ARCT-10. No other Thek could have recognized one human among so many. “Tor?” It was awesome enough to be faced by four Thek, overheard by five more; it would be slightly less daunting if he spoke through a Thek he knew.

  “Tor responds.”

  Kai breathed a sigh of relief, and then realized that Tor was answering an unasked question. Or rather the question Kai had fruitlessly posed of the Thek removal squad.

  With a speed that blurred movement, a Thek pseudopod extended a core to Kai. When he reached out to take it, the core was withdrawn beyond his grasp, and he thrust his hands behind him, feeling more like a small miscreant than ever in this Thek presence.

  “Toooo hotttt. Eggsamine.”

  Hands still behind him, Kai leaned forward and peered obediently at the core. It looked like the same type of ancient device which Tor had recovered from their abandoned campsite.

  “Is it Thek design?”

  Thunder rumbled underfoot. Although the cruiser contingent glanced warily skyward where Ireta’s clouds rolled across a silent sky, Kai reckoned that the thunder was a Thek exchange of conversation and that it emanated from one of the immense Thek whose crowns were just visible over the bulk of the transport.

  “Where found?”

  Kai was startled by such a mundane question, but the coordinates of that find came quickly to mind and he recited them.

  Then thunder rumbled again and was answered by a lesser noise which Kai decided was Tor’s rejoinder for the Thek’s upper third rippled slightly, as if courteously turning in the direction of the questioner.

  “Kai, ask it if this planet is claimed by the Thek?” Sassinak requested, leaning forward to murmur in Kai’s ear.

  “Verifying!” To everyone’s astonishment, the Thek answered her, and then compounded the surprise by a second gratuitous command. “Dismiss. Will contact.” Tor’s outline assumed a rigidity which Kai knew meant it would answer no further question or summonses.

  He turned around to Sassinak.

  “Dismissed, are we?” She was more amused than offended by Thek abruptness. “They’ll get back to us when they’ve had a good old think about all this?”

  “I’d say that’s a fair analysis of the exchange,” Kai said, and he was once again put in mind of Fordeliton’s impudent analogy of the old children’s tale and the categories of the Thek. The Thek so rarely generated anything approaching amusement, yet Kai now found it difficult to control his laughter. He glanced quickly at Fordeliton who turned an expression of bland and utter innocence on him.

  “Ford, the men can stand down. Secure from red alert. Just the sort of thing that Thek complain about. Lack of proper attention to detail. Shall we adjourn to my quarters, gentlemen? Can you spare us a few moments, Kai?”

  He nodded and Sassinak swiftly led the way back into the cruiser and to her quarters. Fordeliton and a tall gaunt man with a lean aesthetic face and exceedingly sharp eyes entered the commander’s cabin along with Kai.

  “I don’t believe you’ve met our science officer before, Kai. Governor, this is Captain Anstel.”

  “My pleasure, Governor,” Anstel said in an unusually deep bass. “I have read your reports. Fascinating! Completely engrossing. Not only the dinosaurs—and that is indisputably what they are—but also the fringes. I did a complete analysis of their chemistry. Totally new, although there are two points of resemblance between these fringes and the plastic Wahks of Lesser Delibes planet . . . Ah, yes, sorry about that, Commander.” Anstel subsided, his gaunt face losing its animation as he folded his long body into a chair.

  “If your duties permit, Captain Anstel, I’m sure that Trizein would enjoy exchanging information with you,” Kai said.

  “I should like nothing better. It has always amazed me how much fascination those prehistoric creatures have for us, who are such insubstantial creatures in the scale of time.”

  Deciding that business must be done, Sassinak took charge of the conversat
ion. “Kai, what do you make of this latest development?”

  “Can Thek be worried?” Kai asked, glancing around.

  “Is that your interpretation of thunder rumbling underfoot?” Sassinak grinned. “As is only proper for an ephermeral, I have great respect and admiration for our silicon allies. But such a—” she paused to find the appropriate word “—convocation on an otherwise undistinguished world must surely be unique. That must suggest interest of a high degree. Mountainous, I might say.”

  “And who is cast as Mohammed?” the irrepressible Fordeliton asked quietly.

  Kai suppressed another laugh and noticed Sassinak’s brief acknowledgment of her adjutant’s wit.

  “I don’t really see our pirates cast in such an auspicious role, Ford. Nor have I yet seen anything that spectacular about this noxious planet of yours, Kai. Was that the same core which brought Tor to your rescue, Kai?” When he nodded, she continued, “And all those little Thek concentrated on gobbling up the remaining old cores—when they weren’t frying fringes. Kai, it appears to me that your revival and the providential arrival of the Zaid-Dayan in pursuit of the heavyworlder transport are incidental to a vastly more important problem. Therefore, since the records of both your EV and my Sector Headquarters list Ireta as unexplored, though Thek artifacts have unquestionably been discovered here, I will venture the perhaps bizarre opinion that there may have been a missing link in the famous Thek chain of information. And it broke here on Ireta. Do you agree?”

  A grin might not be the diplomatic response to Sassinak’s astute opinion, but with Fordeliton’s irreverent analogy still tingeing his once dutiful respect, Kai found it possible to entertain the possibility of Thek fallibility. If the Thek were the Bear entities of the old folktale, who was the parallel for . . . ah, yes, Goldilocks? Surely not the pirates who were finding the planet far too hot for them. Suddenly the analogy lost its appeal. Kai was not at all certain that he wanted the Thek to lose their reputation for infallibility.