The Mystery of Ireta (7 page)

“Generally, yes. Intelligent fliers? Raking ramjets, this’ll throw the Ryxi into loops.” Varian crowed with delight. “Where’d you encounter them?”

“I went to see those colored lakes of Berru’s and startled them out of the cliffs. By the way, the lakes harbor monsters every bit as big and dangerous as those swamp dwellers we saw this morning.”

“This planet goes in for big things . . .”

“Big puzzles, too.” They had entered the cartography dome now and Kai picked up the old core and handed it to her. “Here’s my latest.”

Varian hefted it in the palm of one hand. She saw another core on the table. “Is this one of yours?”

Kai looked up from the tape canisters he was sorting through and nodded.

Side by side, she could see the slight differences in circumference, length and weight.

“Does this previous coring explain why you’ve had so little luck in finding any ores?”

“Yes. The shield land has been stripped. My gang was relieved to know there was a good reason—this planet ought to be full of pay dirt. Now, however, we’ll have to set up secondary camps in the new fold mountains . . .”

“Secondary camps? Kai, that isn’t safe. Even if the worst you’d have to content with is fang-face . . .”

“Fang-face?”

“Well, that’s what I call whatever chewed a piece off Mabel’s flank.”

“Mabel?”

“Must you keep repeating me? I find it a lot easier to name ’em than to keep calling ’em ‘herbivore number one’ or ‘predator with teeth A.’ ”

“I didn’t know you’d seen the predator?”

“I haven’t. I can postulate from his tooth marks . . .”

“Would this be fang-face?” asked Kai as the tapes he and Gaber had made that afternoon began to appear on the viewing screen. He punched a hold on the one shot they’d had of the predator’s head.

Varian let out a squeak as she got a good look at the toothy, snarling head, the angry little eyes upturned to the sled as the creature had flashed across the small clearing.

“Yes, that could be the villain. Six meters in the shoulder, too. You couldn’t set up secondary camps that would keep him out. He could flatten you even with a couple of force-screen belts on you. No, I wouldn’t advise secondary camps until we find out how far these sweethearts range.”

“We could move the shuttle . . .”

“Not until Trizein has completed his current run of experiments. And why move? Are we low on power for travel?”

“No, but I was considering the commutation time. Cuts down effective time in the field.”

“True. Frankly, Kai, I’d prefer to scout an area before you set up a secondary camp. Even those herbivores like Mabel, useless as they are, could be dangerous stampeding from a fang-face. However,” she added, seeing he was adamant, “every animal in creation is afraid of something. I’ll figure out what animals you’d have to contend with in an area and we can set up some safeguards around, say, one larger, suitably situated secondary camp and your field teams would be relatively safe . . .”

“You don’t sound certain.”

“I’m not certain about anything on this crazy planet, Kai. And your discovery today only makes my uncertainty more . . .” she grinned, “certain!”

He laughed.

She took one more long appraising look at the predator’s rows of needle-sharp teeth and then asked Kai to roll the tape. “Sure glad you were aloft when you met that fellow. Gaber managed to tag him? That’ll help estimate his territorial sway. Oh, I say, aren’t they lovely!”

The golden fliers were on the screen, and while it might have been the juxtaposition to the preceding predator, they seemed so benign and graceful.

“Oh, hold that frame, Kai, please!” Varian gestured for him to go back on the tape until she had the frame of the creature, suspended in its flight, its crested head slightly turned toward the camera so that both golden-colored eyes were visible.

“Yes, I’d agree that it’s intelligent. Is that a pouch under its beak for storing fish? And it’s a glider, I think. Roll it, Kai, I want to see if that wing can rotate. Yes, see, there! As it veers away. Yes, yes. Much more advanced than that carrion-eater this morning. Why is so much of our reaction dependent on the eye of a creature?” She looked up at Kai, whose brown eyes widened with surprise.

“Eye?”

“Yes. The eyes of that little mammal today . . . I couldn’t have left it behind, Kai, short of mutiny, once I’d seen the frightened lost confusion in its eyes. Much less the entreaty in Bonnard’s and Cleiti’s. Those swamp horrors, they had tiny eyes, in comparison to their skull shape . . . wicked, beady, hungry eyes.” Varian shuddered in recall. “And that new predator’s eyes . . . fang-face has a wicked appetite. Of course, it isn’t a hard and fast rule—the Galormis were a hideous example of camouflaged intent. . . .”

“You were on that expedition?”

Varian made a face. “Yes, I was a very junior member on the team at Aldebaran 4 when those monsters were encountered. My first assignment out of xenoveterinary college. They had soft eyes, mind you,”—eyes which occasionally still haunted her sleep—“mild-looking creatures, too, softish, perfectly amenable until full dark—then—whammie!”

“Nocturnal feeders—”

“Bleeders! Sucked the blood and then chewed the flesh . . . like what’s been feeding on Mabel . . . no, it couldn’t be Galormis. Teeth are too big.”

“Why on earth call it Mabel?”

“Knew someone like her once, a walking appetite, hating the world around her, suspicious and constantly confused. Not much intelligence.”

“What would you name the avian?”

“I don’t know,” she said after regarding the furry face. “It isn’t easy until you’ve actually met the creature. But this species has intelligence and personality. I want to see more of them!”

“Thought you would. Although we couldn’t tag them. They moved too fast. Kept up with the sled at cruising speed.”

“Very good.” A yawn caught her unawares. “All this fresh air, chasing wounded animals to doctor them what don’t wish to be helped.” She stroked his cheek and gave him a regretful smile of apology. “I’m going to bed. And you ought to, too, co-leader. Sleep on our puzzles. Maybe sleep’ll solve ’em .”

Kai could have wished it had, but he woke the next morning feeling refreshed, and the teams, when assembled, were in such good spirits that his rose, too.

“I’ve discussed secondary camps with Varian. Until she has catalogued the habits of the predators, she can’t guarantee our safety,” said Kai, “but she’s going to set and search areas into which we can move, if we adhere to the safeguards she devises. Okay? Sorry, but you’ll understand better if you see the marks on the herbivore’s flank.” He noticed by the grim expressions that everyone had looked at the creature.

“Boss, what about the gaps in the old cores, here, here and here?” Triv asked, pointing out the areas southwest and due south.

“Faults,” said Gaber, slipping a scale transparency over the seismic map. “I read a massive overthrust here. Good area to search now but any seismimic would have been crushed. Or subsided too far below the surface to transmit.”

“Triv, you and Aulia explore that overthrust today. Margit and Dimenon, your sector is here,” and he gave them the coordinates in the southwest, and to Berru and Portegin, explaining that he and Bakkun would try to explore the Rift Valley since there were old cores leading up to it. He stressed that they maintain safety procedures, tag or telltale animals when possible, and note and report any scavengers circling over what could be injured livestock specimens for Varian.

As Kai and Bakkun lifted in their sled, Kai saw Varian on her way down to the corral. He saw the herbivore, Mabel, busily eating her way through what trees remained in the enclosure.

Bakkun, who preferred to pilot, brought the sled on its southeast heading.

“Why didn’t our Theks know this planet’d been cored?” the heavy-worlder asked.

“I haven’t asked our Theks if they know. But Ireta was not marked as surveyed.”

“Theks have their reasons.”

“Such as?”

“I do not presume to guess,” replied Bakkun, “but they always have good reasons.”

Kai liked Bakkun as a teammate; he was inexhaustible, cool-headed like all his race, thorough and dependable. But he had no imagination, no flexibility and once convinced of anything, refused to change his opinion in the face of the most telling facts. Theks were, to him as to many of the short-spanned species, infallible and godlike. Kai did not wish, however, to enter into any argument with Bakkun, particularly on such a heresy as Thek fallibility proven in the existence of seismic cores on this planet.

Fortunately the telltale bleeped. Bakkun automatically corrected course and Kai watched the remote-distance screen attentively. This time they found more herbivores running away from the sled’s whine through the thick rain forest, occasionally caroming off trees so hard the top branches shuddered wildly.

“Come round again, Bakkun,” Kai asked and flipped up the tape switch, hanging in against his seat strap as Bakkun acted promptly to his order. He swore under his breath because none of the creatures crossed any of the clearings, al- most as if they expected an aerial attack and were crowding under whatever cover they could find.

“Never mind, Bakkun. Continue on course. I thought I saw another flank-damaged beast.”

“We see them daily, Kai.”

“Why didn’t you mention that in your reports?”

“Didn’t know it was important, Kai. Too much else to mention bearing on
our
job . . .”

“This is a joint effort . . .”

“Agreed, but I must know how to contribute. I didn’t know the mere ecological balances were essential knowledge, too.”

“My omission. But you would do well to report any unusual occurrence.”

“It is my impression, Kai, that there is nothing usual about Ireta. I have been a geologist for many standard years now and I have never encountered a planet constantly in a Mesozoic age and unlikely to evolve beyond that stage.” Bakkun gave Kai a sideways glance, sly and mysterious. “Who would expect to find old cores registering on such a planet?”

“Expect the unexpected! That’s the unofficial motto of our profession, isn’t it?”

The sun, having briefly appeared in the early morning to oversee the beginnings of day, now retired behind clouds. A local ground fog made flying momentarily difficult as conversation was discontinued. Kai busied himself with the seismic overlay, checking the old cores, which faintly glowed on the screen in response to his signal.

The cores advanced beyond the line of flight, right down into the Rift Valley, subsiding with the floor which composed the wide plateau. They were entering the valley now and Bakkun needed all his attention on his flying as the thermals caught the light sled and bounced it around. Once past the line of ancient volcanoes, their plugged peaks gaunt fingers to the now lowering rainclouds, their slopes supporting marginal vegetation, Bakkun guided the sled toward the central Rift Valley. The face of the fault block exposed the various strata of the uplift that had formed the valley. As the little sled zipped past, saucily irreverent to the frozen geohistory, Kai was filled with a mixture of awe and amusement—in awe of the great forces still working which had formed the rift and might very well reform it many times imaginable in the existence of this planet; and amusement that Man dared to pinpoint one tiny moment of those inexorable courses and attempt to put his mark upon it.

“Scavengers, Kai,” said Bakkun, breaking in on his thoughts. Bakkun gestured slightly starboard by the bow. Kai sighted the display on the scope.

“Must be the golden fliers, not scavengers.”

“There is a difference?”

“Indeed there is, but what are they doing a couple of hundred kilometers from the nearest large body of water?”

“Are they dangerous?” Bakkun asked, with a show of interest.

“I don’t think so. They are intelligent, showed curiosity in us yesterday, but what are they doing so far inland?”

“We shall soon know. We’re closing fast.”

Kai slanted the scope to take in the groups on the ground. The fliers were now alerted to the presence of an unfamiliar aerial object, and all the heads were turned upward. Kai saw threads of coarse grass hanging from several beaks. And, sure enough, as the sled circled, their elongated heads curiously followed its course. Some of the smaller fliers pecked again at the grass.

“Why would they have to come so far? For a grass?”

“I am not xenobiologically trained,” said Bakkun in his stolid fashion. Then his voice took on a note of such unusual urgency that Kai swung round, scope and all, and instinctively recoiled against the seatback. “Look!”

“What the . . .”

The Rift Valley narrowed slightly where a horst protruded. Then, from the narrow defile one of the largest creatures that Kai had ever seen emerged, its stalky, awkward gait frightening in its inexorable progress. Sharpening the scope for the increased distance, Kai watched as the colossus strutted on its huge hind legs into the peaceful valley.

“Krim! That’s one of those fang-faced predators.”

“Observe the fliers, Kai!”

Loath to withdraw his wary observation of the menace, Kai glanced up toward the golden fliers. They had assumed a curiously defensive formation in the sky. Those still grounded now grazed, if that could be considered a proper description for the quick scooping jabs. Varian must be right about the bill pouches, Kai realized, for the fliers’ beaks had an elongated appearance. They must be stuffing the grasses into the pouches.

“The predator has seen them! Those still on the ground cannot get airborne in time if he should charge.” Bakkun’s hand closed on the grip of the laser unit.

“Wait! Look at him!”

The heavy predatory head was now pointed in the direction of the fliers, as if the beast had just noticed their presence. The head tilted up, evidently registering the formation of the golden fliers. The creature’s front legs, ludicrously small in comparison to the huge thighs and the length of the long leg bone, twitched. The thick, counterbalancing tail also lashed in reaction to the presence of the fliers. Almost greedily, Kai thought. The biped remained stationary for another long moment, then dropped awkwardly forward and began scooping up the grasses with its ridiculous forepaws, cramming great wads, roots, earth and all into its huge maw.