Exiled to the Stars (35 page)

But they had decided, and the computer agreed, that attacks were likely to be more frequent from land-based predators on one of the river's banks. So, while the scan now included the sonar screen, Ron's eyes moved ceaselessly, scanning for threats from the front and sides as they moved down the center of the river. Elaine's were equally busy covering the rear and sides of their craft.

The constant watchfulness was wearing, as was the lack of the ability to communicate. They had quickly learned that communication from each end of a four-meter vessel meant shouting, and shouting might attract the attention of predators. They could have used their tablets, of course, but neither of them was willing to risk the precious instruments, so mostly they drifted in watchful silence.

After several hours, Ron spotted a bare rock outcropping, and they decided to stop for lunch. While Elaine held the canoe in position, Ron unlimbered the sprayer.

The sprayer contained a solution that included blood from Earth-descended livestock. Earth proteins were a deadly poison to Crashlanding life, and Elaine's mother was confident that spraying with the solution would kill or repel any nasties that might be hiding in cracks or under the ground.

Ron carefully sprayed every inch of the rock. There was no visible reaction until the spray approached the edge of the outcropping. Plant life encroaching on the outcropping shriveled and died almost instantly, and Ron gave a satisfied grunt.

Still, he remained in the canoe, laser in hand, while Elaine clambered up the bare rock, rope in hand. Once she had bonded a piton onto the rock, tethered the canoe, and drawn her own laser, Ron holstered his weapon and climbed up, their lunch in hand.

They ate quickly and in near-silence, sitting back-to-back, lasers at hand.

Finally, they stood and gave a simultaneous sigh. Elaine giggled and Ron chuckled. Precarious as it was, the rock was a sanctuary of sorts, and they were reluctant to abandon it for the uncertainty of the canoe.

Elaine shook her head. "Y'know, the last thing I expected planetary exploration to be was
boring
."

Ron nodded, grinning. "Yeah. But don't forget, the alternative is 'exciting', and exciting could get us dead!"

She answered his grin with one of her own. "True. But I could stand a
little
excitement." She held up a thumb and forefinger to show how much.

"The problem is," Ron replied, "that you can't just go somewhere and order a few grams of excitement. When it comes, it comes in a flood." He shrugged. "I think I'll settle for boring."

She shook her head. "Ronald Creding, Junior," she said with an impish grin. "Twenty-two years old and already an old woman!" She dodged as he grabbed for her. Both broke into laughter before they remembered where they were and muffled themselves.

Elaine looked at the underbrush surrounding their boulder. "Maybe we
had
better get underway," she said nervously.

"Yeah," he agreed. "There's no telling what kind of nasties we've called." They hastily gathered up the remains of their lunch and reboarded the canoe.

At first, the banks of the river had been the same as those near the colony, with thorn trees lining both sides. As the day progressed, though, the thorn trees thinned, and the banks lowered, revealing a line of mountains in the distance. The trees were now replaced by thick underbrush the humans found much more threatening than the thorn trees. The thorn trees were not only a known threat, but they were very efficient at keeping the ground beneath their branches clear except for the colorful flowers they themselves produced as bait. In a thorn tree forest, there would be no underbrush to conceal other predators.

Of course, the colony's only botanist was sure there was no such thing as a thorn tree forest. They would quickly exhaust the food supply. Predators, plant or animal, do not form herds, on Earth nor, the botanist was convinced, on Crashlanding.

As the sun approached the horizon, they pulled into the shore carefully, Ron scanning the bank for possible threats. The bank here was relatively open; the nearest thorn tree was at least ten meters away. Still, the trees weren't the only threat; his laser tracked back and forth as he examined the ground before placing his feet. Several meters from the river, a five-meter circle of sand unsullied by vegetation marked a sandworm burrow. He nodded to himself in satisfaction. The presence of a sandworm guaranteed there would be no
other
threats beneath the sand.

The "worms" more closely resembled Earthly millipedes, with several hundred stubby legs, adapted for digging. They could tunnel nearly as fast as a man could walk, they grew to as much as ten meters in length, and they were definitely predators. The clear sand was a trap, the Crashlanding equivalent of a spider's web. The colonists theorized that vibration told the sand worm of its prey's struggling progress across the soft sand. When the prey got bogged down or reached the center of the circle, the worm would suddenly erupt from below, coiling about the prey and paralyzing it with a bite from its venom-laden jaws. It would then drag the helpless prey to its den beneath the sand for a leisurely meal.

Though only paralyzing the native life, the venom sent earth-descended creatures into convulsions and death within seconds. Of course, any sandworm that tried to eat an Earth animal died in minutes. Still, the colonists had to guard their livestock carefully.

But like every other land-bound Crashlanding life form, the sandworm needed air to breathe. To ventilate its burrow, the sandworm opened small tunnels to the surface beyond the sand trap. It took Ron only moments to locate the nearest one. He cracked a thumb-sized fire grenade and dropped it down the hole. Once cracked, the outer casing of the grenade dissolved into a highly incendiary, heavier-than-air gas. After six seconds, the grenade's explosive ignited, and a wall of fire turned the worm's maze of tunnels and dens into an underground inferno.

There was a deep
whoof
sound, and spears of flame erupted from a dozen tunnel entrances surrounding the sand trap.

Except for the fact that the sand was so loose and porous, a sandworm trap was an ideal campsite. The sandworm would have eaten any other burrowing predators, and few native predators were stupid enough to try stepping into a sand trap that, even without the worm, would bog them down like Earthly quicksand.

So, Ron returned to the boat and got a can of stabilizer. Sprayed onto the sand, it would give it the consistency of plascrete, and would support several hundred pounds per square inch. It would degrade after a few days, and the sand would return to its normal consistency. Ron sprayed a narrow zigzag trail into the circle of sand, and then a three-meter circle in its center. He dug a small fire pit in the very center before spraying it to complete the solid camp site. They brought their inflatable tent, sleeping bags, and food from the boat. They had not wanted to pause in their journey to hunt, so the ship had provided them with tasty and nutritious food in vacuum packaging. In only a few minutes, they had a safe, comfortable haven for the night.

Since talking was risky and impractical in the canoe, this was their first opportunity to compare notes. They sat up far into the night, discussing their observations and just chatting.

"Daddy says that Messer Montero is talking about retiring again," Elaine said.

Ron laughed. "Cesar Montero has been talking about retiring since before we were born."

Elaine nodded, but she wasn't smiling. "I know, but Daddy says this time he really means it. Daddy says he's been hanging on in hopes that someone better than Doug Ryles would take over leadership of the Council, but he has decided that isn't going to happen."

Ron grimaced. "I don't like Ryles, and I don't trust him. All you have to do is look at the collection of bullies and dimwits he's collected. Vic Tablana has been a bully since we started school."

Elaine nodded. "I know. He asked me out a few times. It sounded more like a threat than an invitation. He looked surprised when I turned him down; like he thought he was entitled to date me if he wanted." She shuddered. "He scares me. All of Ryles' men do."

Ron nodded, frowning. "Me, too. All of Ryles's speeches about needing a 'strong' leader. And somehow all the leaders of the militia are his bully boys, now."

Elaine's frown was as deep as Ron's. "Yeah, I know. Awhile back, Daddy made me write a paper on governments from 1930 to 2030. He wanted me to see how bad people could take over."

Ron shook his head. "That was a bad time. I only had the regular history classes, but it seemed that a lot of bad guys got power at that time. Then the UN got turned into EarthGov, and stopped that problem, at least. It created a whole bunch of new ones, of course, but it
did
solve that one!"

Elaine looked doubtful. "I don't know. There were a lot of people around the world that opposed EarthGov. I had to do a lot of research, and I got interested. In the early years, it seemed EarthGov wasn't much better than the people it wanted to replace. They had to
invade
America!"

Ron snorted. "Now you sound like my mom. She got real mad when I was studying that in History. She said her dad's grandfather was in it, and there was no civil war, just resistance when the Blue helmets came. But the comp's curriculum program says it wasn't an invasion. It was an
intervention
to stop a civil war."

Elaine shrugged. "Maybe, but if EarthGov was so popular, how come they had to send troops to all the NorAm and West Euro countries? No," she continued, "I had to dig past the general curriculum for my paper, and it looked to me like some kind of conspiracy by a bunch of the smaller countries. Did you know the UN Security Council didn't even get a chance to vote on the Amalgamation?" She shrugged again. "Anyway, it doesn't matter now. We're out of EarthGov, and I don't think I want to see what life was like under Hitler, or Stalin, or the Jongs, or the Al-Sabahs. And a lot of what I'm seeing Messer Ryles doing looks like a familiar pattern. So far, Messer Montero has managed to outsmart Messer Ryles. But if he retires…" Her voice trailed off and she looked glum.

Ron sought desperately for a comforting reply, but he found the prospect of life under Douglas Ryles as depressing as she did.

They resumed their trek shortly after dawn the next morning.

By the end of the third day, Ron was beginning to wonder if they would have
anything
to report besides a three mile-per-hour current and underbrush-covered banks, relieved only by the occasional thorn tree. Oh, occasionally Ron would catch a glimpse of a stinger waiting for a passing fish as they drifted silently on the current, and once he was certain he'd seen a wolf lizard. He'd also caught glimpses of some creatures he'd thought were new, but he knew they would be gone before the canoe could reach the shore.

For the most part, though, there was only the boring sameness of thick underbrush in dull shades of brown, green and red. There were few of the brightly-colored growths his mother called "flowers." The colonists had decided that most Crashlanding plant life depended on means other than insects for their equivalent of pollination. Many grew disgusting-looking and foul-smelling fruit that, while repelling humans, apparently attracted the local animals. The colonists theorized that the animals and birds ate the seed-filled fruit, and spread the seeds with their feces.

Whatever the method, it appeared that little of Crashlanding's plant life produced brightly-colored blooms. The few blossoms that existed appeared to human eyes to be far less than beautiful. Bilious yellows mixed with dull reds and vomitous shades of green and blue. The local wildlife seemed to like it, though.

By the the fifth day, both of them were very bored, and heartily sick of the whole project. While Ron steered, Elaine threw a line over the side to try her hand at fishing. She used the body of a small creature that seemed a combination lizard and crustacean that had dropped into the boat from an overhanging branch that morning as bait. Within minutes, she made a catch.

The 'fish' resembled no such creature on Earth. It was about 20 cems long, slightly larger than her hand. Instead of scales, it had a slimy brown skin, studded with spikes. Its tail spread horizontally rather than vertically. Its eyes were huge, as were its wide jaws, lined with vicious, knife-like teeth. The jaws were opening and snapping shut in a relentless search for a victim, even as the things that resembled gills struggled to breathe. The ventral fins were apparently in the process of evolving into clumsy feet. Elaine threw it to the bottom of the canoe, holding it down with a moccasined foot while its struggles slowly weakened and ceased.

Once she was certain it was dead, Elaine picked it up and examined it closely. Planetborns could actually eat
some
of the local life, and fresh meat would be a welcome relief from the packaged rations the ship had provided, if they could eat it without poisoning themselves. She smelled it, frowned, and dropped it back into the canoe. By the time they stopped for the night, she had caught three more of the ugly creatures.

She debated trying for another, but a sudden roiling of the river's surface and a glimpse of what seemed to be a
very
large dorsal fin convinced her that four would be enough for dinner.
If
they could eat them.

It was near sunset before they found a cut in the riverbank that would permit easy grounding. By the time Ron steered for the cut, Elaine was already unlimbering the sprayer. She began spraying even before the canoe's prow touched bottom. She watched, fascinated, as the riotous vegetation wilted and died. Some vines actually seemed to draw back from the poisonous spray.

While Ron used the motor to hold the canoe against the bank, Elaine sprayed an ever-increasing semicircle of death. Finally the semicircle extended two meters, and, carrying the sprayer and its tank, she stepped ashore. She extended the bow line, and stood on it to anchor it while Ron struggled to hurry over the baggage occupying the center of the canoe.

But Elaine wasn't watching Ron. Her eyes constantly patrolled the underbrush surrounding their landing spot, the shoulder laser braced for instant use if necessary.