“There,” said Arkady. “You said you wanted charismatic fauna.” He pointed at one of the virtual windows.
A flock of bipeds moved along the fence, illuminated by the spotlights. They were slender and covered with bright blue down, except for their chests, which were orange-red.
“The Americans call them robins,” Arkady said. “Notice that they are following the fence, but not touching it. They know it’s dangerous, if we are here, and the spotlights tell them we are here. If this were Earth in the Triassic, those little fellows would be the ancestors of the dinosaurs. But this isn’t Earth. We don’t know what they will become. They’re bright, and they have hands capable of some manipulation. Maybe they will become us in time.”
A second kind of animal joined the bipeds at the fence. Ten meters long or more, its body was hairless and black. It had a gait like a crocodile’s high walk, and its lifted head was long and reptilian, the mouth full of ragged teeth. The bipeds ran off. The animal nosed the fence once and drew back with a roar.
“You see,” Arkady said. “Not so bright. It doesn’t have to be. It’s big and nasty. If this were Earth in the Triassic, it would represent the past, a species that will vanish, unable to compete. But this is not Earth.”
Something pale flew into the spotlights. Baby, Ash realized. The pterosaur flapped low above the pseudosuchus, taunting it. The animal roared and reared up on its hind legs, snapping at Baby and almost getting him. The pterosaur flapped up and over the fence, landing on one of the Urals. The pseudosuchus dropped down on all fours. Most likely Ash was reading in, but it looked frustrated. Baby looked frightened. The little fool. She’d have a talk with him.
“They are descended from bipeds,” Arkady said. “As a result, their hind legs are longer and stronger than their front legs, and they can—as you see—rear up. They also move more quickly than you would suspect.”
“I got it,” Maggie said. “But the image won’t be as good as I could have gotten outside.”
“Go out,” Boris said. “This fence is strong enough to hold.”
Ash went out with the Nat Geo people. Of course, the pseudosuchus saw—or maybe smelled—them as soon as they went outside. It slammed into the fence and roared, then reared up, grasping the fence with its forepaws and shaking it. That must hurt. More roaring, while Maggie recorded, using a light so brilliant that Ash could see the glitter of the animal’s scales. Ash got a lovely image of the robot and the monster. Light hit from different angles, cast by the lodge’s spots and Maggie, creating areas of glare and shadow. Even in color, the image looked black-and-white.
Baby flapped to her, settling on her shoulder.
“Idiot,” she said.
“Poop on you,” Baby replied.
The fence bowed under the animal’s weight. Behind them, Arkady said, “I’m not going to turn the current up. That is a protected species.”
“Come in,” Ash told Jason.
“The fence is supposed to hold.”
“Most likely it will,” Arkady said in a comfortable tone. “But if it doesn’t—”
They piled back inside, and Arkady barred the door. Baby flew to his cage, opened the door and climbed in, pulling the door shut. Ash heard the lock click. The pterosaur huddled, looking thoroughly frightened.
“You shouldn’t tease the monsters,” Ash said.
“Poop! Poop!” Baby replied, and pooped on the floor of his cage.
She would have to clean that up, but not now. Let Baby get over being afraid.
She glanced at one of the virtual windows. The pseudosuchus was back on all fours, looking thoroughly pissed off. After a moment or two, it moved off. It was clear from the way it moved that its forefeet were injured.
“Not bright,” Arkady said. “But a top predator. They do not need to be bright, as the history of America has shown.”
“I’d like help in the kitchen,” Alexandra put in.
Ash gathered glasses and followed Alexandra out of the room. The kitchen had a dishwasher from Venusport. Everything went in. Alexandra set the controls and turned the machine on.
“What is Venusport like?” Irina asked.
“Unjust,” Ash replied. “Run from Earth for the benefit of mining companies and tourists and the rich.”
“That sounds like a manifesto, not a report,” Alexandra said. “What is life like for you? Do you have enough to eat? Can you buy glittery toys?”
Ash hesitated, then answered. “I have enough to eat. I can buy some toys. Hell, I make most of my living producing images of glittery toys.”
“We see broadcasts from Ishtar Terra,” Irina said. “Life there looks more attractive than life in Petrograd.”
“Are you thinking of bailing out?” Ash asked.
“Maybe,” Alexandra said. “I would like glittery toys.”
Irina shook her head. “I don’t think so. I have family and a lover, who is like Arkady. She believes in Petrograd.”
Once the counters were wiped down, Ash went back into the living room. Jason and Arkady were lounging in chairs by the fire. Maggie had retracted her legs and neck and head, becoming a large, featureless, silver ball in front of the hologram flames. Red light played over her surface.
Baby was sitting on top of his cage, eating a stick of chow.
“You found nothing to eat?” Ash asked.
“Caught small pterosaur. Ate it. Still hungry.”
She settled in a chair. There was a new bottle on the table, surrounded by fresh glasses. One of Petrograd’s scary brandies. Ash poured and tasted. This one was raspberry. It burned in her mouth and down her throat, ending as a warm glow in her gut. “Where’s Boris?” she asked.
“Looking around the lodge. He’s still worried about his canned goods.”
“He really arranged them alphabetically?”
Arkady nodded. “He is both compulsive and paranoid. But an excellent safari driver and a good drinking companion. A man as obsessed as he is needs ways to relax. He never drinks while driving, in case you are wondering.”
Ash eased back in her chair, feeling content. Brandy, a fire, Baby chewing on chow, the prospect of charismatic megafauna and gigantic flowers. Life was good.
Jason had his tablet out, his fingers dancing over the screen. She still didn’t know what he was reporting on. Venusian wildlife? Petrograd? The American colony? Whichever it was, the pay was good, and she got a break from the glittery toys that Irina and Alexandra envied.
She should not judge them. She had the toys, or at least the toy makers, as clients. It was easy for her to feel indifferent to them.
Boris came into the room, holding a land scorpion, one hand behind the animal’s head, the other on its tail. It was alive and twisting in his grip, trying to find a way to bite him or pinch him with its large front claws.
“Shit,” said Arkady. “How did that get in?”
“I told you someone had been here.” Boris stopped and displayed the creature to them. Jason looked horrified. Maggie, who must have been listening, extruded her head and neck. In a smooth motion, she rose on her legs, and the cluster of lenses she had instead of a face turned toward Boris.
The scorpion was about half a meter long, wide, flat, shiny, dark purple, and still twisting in Boris’s grip. The mouth, with mandibles and fangs, was in continuous motion. Ash felt a little queasy. Damn! The things were ugly! She was pretty certain this species was poisonous. Arkady would know.
“Get me a pair of shears,” Boris said.
Ash went to the kitchen, where Irina and Alexandra were still talking. “We have a problem. I need shears.”
Alexandra found them. Ash took them to Boris.
He knelt carefully and placed the animal on the floor, holding it with one hand. With the other hand, he took the shears and cut the scorpion’s head off, then stood quickly. The many-legged body thrashed around, and the head jittered on the floor, its mandibles still opening and closing.
“It was under the bed in the room that Jason pic
ked as his bedroom,” Boris said.
“What is it?” Jason asked in a tone of terror.
“One of the many species of land scorpion,” Arkady said. “Many have poisonous bites. This species would not kill you, but it would make you sick.”
Boris took one of the glasses on the table and used it to scoop the head up. “The body is not toxic. The fangs and the venom glands are in the head. Keep the rest as a souvenir, if you want.”
“I have dramatic images,” Maggie said. “That is sufficient. Our viewers will be horrified and disgusted.”
“How did it get in?” Arkady asked again.
“I want to take a closer look at the head,” Boris said, and went into the kitchen.
Alexandra and Irina were in the living room by now, watching the twisting, scrabbling, headless body with interest.
“Edible?” Baby asked.
“Wait,” said Ash.
“Hungry,” Baby complained.
“Have another stick of chow.”
“Not tasty.”
“Life is hard,” Ash told him.
“Do not understand.”
“Eat your chow.”
The scorpion’s body was slowing down though it still thrashed.
“I hate drama,” Alexandra said.
“That is why you are a chef now, rather than a cop,” Arkady told her.
“Yes, but it doesn’t explain why I work for you.”
“Money,” Arkady said.
Boris came back, carrying the scorpion’s head on a cutting board. He set the board on the table and Maggie leaned down to record it. He’d cut the head open. Some kind of dark matter, the brain most likely, was inside. In the middle of it was a tiny silver bead. Barely visible silver wires radiated out from it.
“Most likely it is a nano machine,” Boris said. “It was injected into the circulatory system and migrated to the brain, then built itself. The animal has become an organic robot. It was planted on us as a spy.”
Ash felt queasy. She had no trouble with ordinary robots, such as Maggie, who was recording the split-open head. But the idea of taking a living being and turning it into a robot bothered her. Even cockroaches, which had come to Venus with humans, deserved their own lives. The technology used to enslave bugs could be modified for other animals or humans, though that was illegal, of course.
“How did you know to look for it?” Arkady asked Boris.
“I looked at the security recordings. It was there though only in glimpses. I don’t think there are any more.”
“My images are excellent,” Maggie said. “This will add drama to our story.”
“Is it the CIA?” asked Jason.
“I believe so,” Boris answered. “We live in their shadow.”
“Well, if Boris thinks there are no more, we can enjoy the rest of the evening,” Arkady put in.
“Can Baby eat the body?” Ash asked.
“No,” said Boris. “We don’t know what else might be in it. I’ll toss it in the garbage.”
“Sorry,” Baby said.
Boris carried the head and body out. Ash drank more raspberry brandy.
“We grow the raspberries in greenhouses, along with other fruit,” Arkady said. “Our crops may fail but we always have brandy.”
Nothing more happened that evening or night. Ash slept badly, waking from time to time to listen for the rustling sound of a scorpion. She turned on the lights once but saw nothing except Baby sleeping in his cage.
The next morning, they drove on. The rain stopped, and rays of sunlight broke through the cloud cover, lighting patches of the forest. There were lots of cone-shaped flowers. A group of large herbivores fed on one. Similar animals on Ishtar Terra were called forest cattle though they didn’t seem especially cowlike to her, being larger than any cow she had ever seen, even in images from Earth, and green. A crest of hair went along their backs, and their large mouths had four big tusks. There were half a dozen of them around the bright red flower, ripping into it. Petals coated their muzzles and dripped from their mouths like blood.
Boris braked.
“Look to the right,” Arkady said to the radio. “More megafauna.”
“I would not call them charismatic,” Jason replied over the radio.
“They are two meters high at the shoulder, and they can be dangerous,” Arkady said. “If you don’t believe so, I can let you off here.”
“No,” said Maggie. “I need Jason.”
The trucks moved on. Ash had been on this route before, a loop that went from fortified lodge to fortified lodge, till it returned to Petrograd and dinner at one of several luxury hotels. A hospitality firm based in Venusport had built them and ran them, making sure that the tourists had a reliably luxurious experience.
“This is National Geographic,” she said to Arkady. “Can’t you show them something different?”
“We are thinking about that. But not today.”
She set down her camera and drank tea. As usual, it was strong and sweet. She felt tired because of a bad night’s sleep but mostly good. Baby was next to her in his cage, hunched up, his eyes closed. Was there anything cuter than a sleeping pterosaur?
There were more pterosaurs flapping in the trees, and bipeds scurrying through the undergrowth. Early in the afternoon, the clouds broke apart, and rays of sunlight slanted into the forest. A herd of forest cattle—twenty or more—crossed the track in front of them, forcing them to stop and wait till the loutish herbivores finally moved on. But they saw no large predators.
“Apex predators are always rare,” Arkady said when Jason complained. “And this is not Earth in the Jurassic.”
They reached the next lodge late in the afternoon. It was a concrete pillbox, surrounded by a high fence. Alexandra and Irina did the check this time, stepping on several small land scorpions. There was something lonely about the two women, stalking through knee-high vegetation. They both carried rifles but used them only for poking among the leaves. Beyond the fence was the forest, darkening as daylight faded and denser clouds moved in. Ash took photos, as did Maggie.
They went inside finally and Boris did another search. “My cans are in order,” he announced. “And I have found no scorpions.”
They unloaded the trucks and Alexandra made dinner. This time it was a pilaf and a mixture of spinach and chickpeas.
“Home food,” said Arkady happily.
Heavy rain began to fall outside. Ash watched it through one of the virtual windows. It shone like a silver curtain in the lodge’s spotlights. The low plants around the lodge bent under the weight of water, and a gusty wind made them flutter. Arkady got out plum brandy this time.
Jason looked unhappy. Maggie recorded the lodge’s interior, and Ash took shots of the Leica, head tilted and lenses shining in the false firelight. She had the impression that Maggie was perfectly content, in spite of the lack of drama.
“Want outside,” Baby said.
“The weather is bad,” Ash replied.
The pterosaur hunched down, looking as unhappy as Jason.
Of course, the journalist wanted something exciting to happen. Ash was content to sit by the false fire and drink fruit brandy. What she liked about the outback was its strangeness, its inhumanity. Was that the right word? Being in a place without imported plants and animals, where people didn’t fit in though they had made roads—a few, at least—and built lodges. Maybe what she liked about Arkady was his line of work. This was his turf. As much as anyone, he knew Aphrodite Terra.
In some ways, Venus was lucky. Earth did not have the resources to really settle the planet. The USSR had destroyed itself trying to win the Venus Race. The US had largely given up, in part because it no longer had a rival and in part because the problems on Earth kept getting worse. Venus provided some raw materials—not many; the shipping costs were ridiculous—and it was a tourist destination. Some people retired to the gated communities near Venusport. Others bought beachside condos against the time that Earth was no longer habitabl
e. But most of the planet remained empty of humanity.
The next day, they moved on. The ground was rising and getting stonier, and the trees were all short, with big, drooping leaves. Small animals moved in the branches and the undergrowth. Midway through the afternoon, their truck turned off the rutted track into forest, mashing low plants and avoiding trees. The second truck followed.
“What?” asked Ash.
“We are going to show National Geographic a good time,” Arkady said. “As you asked us to.”
“And make a point,” Boris added.
“Do you mind telling me what?” Ash asked.
“In good time,” Arkady replied. “I’m tired of Jason’s complaining about our fauna. It reminds me of other safaris I have led, full of rich tourists who want dinosaurs. I tell them that Venusian fauna is similar to fauna on Earth, but not identical, and we are not in the Jurassic. I’ve had the bastards ask for money back because we couldn’t show them an allosaurus. I wanted to feed them to a pseudosuchus, which might not impress them but could certainly eat them.”
Arkady was usually even-tempered, but he sounded angry now. Well, she got angry at some of her work. The fashion shoots could be fairly awful.
They crunched through more undergrowth. There were rocks here, making the driving chancy: outcroppings of a creamy yellow stone.
“Limestone,” Arkady said. “This used to be underwater. There ought to be good fossils, though Jason does not strike me as a fossil man.”
“I’m not one,” Boris said, guiding the truck between two good-sized chunks of stone. A pair of pterosaurs rested on top of one. They were big, with impressive crests.
“Stop!” said Ash.
Boris did. She photographed the animals, which looked damn fine, their crests like orange sails.
“Don’t like,” Baby muttered. Of course not. These guys were big enough to eat him. They would if given the chance. The pterosaurs were not cannibals, but they happily ate related species, as humans once ate monkeys when there were monkeys in the wild.
They went on, coming finally to another track, this one much less used than the one they had been following. Boris turned onto it.
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