The Unscheduled Mission (8 page)

“And there I thought you might want to visit the pyramids of
Egypt,” Iris laughed.

“I seriously doubt they’re still there. Most of them were in pretty bad shape in our day,” Park replied. “Impressive enough, given they were thousands of years old but by now they’ve crumbled to sand or less and we might be flying over them this very minute.”

“Pyramids?” Marisea asked interestedly, so Park went on to explain the basic highlights of really ancient
Egypt.

They were still in the desert when the sun set behind the Atlantics, so Iris found a bare stretch of rock to park on for the night. “Deserts are rarely lifeless,” she remarked, “and what does live here may well be nocturnal.”

“Odds are whatever lives here is even smaller than what we saw in the mountains,” Sartena pointed out.

“You never really know,” Park commented, “and we didn’t really do a detailed study of the animals of the Atlantic Mountains. We were mostly in conifer woods and there wasn’t much there that could eat the needles of those trees, but to the north and south I know there are different sorts of vegetation, so the animals will be different there too. There may be animals who burrow under the sand and rocks here who come out at night and they might be big enough to give us trouble.”

“So we look for them with the night scopes?” Marisea suggested.

“If you want to stay up, sure,” Park nodded. “I could use the sleep.”

Marisea and Sartena did stay awake another three hours during which they caught sight of
 
several dozen scurrying animals of some sort or other, but through the night scopes, everything was a fuzzy green and the details were difficult to make out. They decided, however, that the quadrupeds among them must be a fossil species of true mammal because they seemed to have hair and that the small bipedal creatures were miniature postavians.

The next few days brought a bunch of surprises as they discovered hosts of new species. The animals of southern
Africa were more curious than cautious about the people and their buggy and they often walked directly up to the parked vehicle.

“Aww,” Marisea crooned as she bent down to pet one of the very rare true mammals left on Pangaea. It was about the size of a housecat with light brown fur that shaded somewhat darker on its head and down its back all the way to his short, striped tail. “This little guy is adorable! Look! He wants to shake hands.”

“Hands?” Dannet
 
laughed. “You mean paws.”

“No, he has hands with opposable thumbs, just like we do,” Marisea observed. “It’s so cute!”

“Let me see,” Park requested. “Hi, little fella. Let’s take a look at those hands, hmm?” he spoke in a softer than normal voice. The creature’s hands were proportionately longer than a humans with much thicker nails, but they were most definitely hands. “Marisea, say hello to your cousin,” he chuckled at last.

“What?” Marisea asked.

“This little guy is a primate,” Park explained. “Just like the rest of us. I’m not sure just what branch of the tree this one fell off of, but he’s probably descended from a monkey or a lemur, although by now it’s a wonder he exists at all. We should take some pictures of him, so the biologists can take their best guesses about him.”

“Why can’t we bring him back with us” Marisea asked, picking the small primate up in her arms. The creature made a soft, happy-sounding noise.

“I don’t think we would be doing him any favors,” Park told her. “We don’t know how he lives, or what he likes to eat. Best to let him go.”

“Aww,” Marisea sighed. “I’m sorry, Cousin. You’ll have to stay here.” She put him back down on the ground and he rubbed up against her tail in a cat-like manner. “That tickles!” she laughed.

Just then Iris and Sartena came back from a short expedition. “We got some pictures of the oddest wading animals in the marsh nearby,” Iris remarked. “Postmammals, I’m sure, but they
 
looked a bit like wildebeests. What’s this?”

“This is Cousin!” Marisea introduced the small primate. “Park won’t let me keep him.”

“Are you sure that’s a him?” Iris asked, taking a closer look. “I don’t think so. Maybe you should call her ‘Sister.’”

“Maybe she shouldn’t call her anything,” Park cut in. “This isn’t a pet, it’s an undomesticated animal even if it is vaguely related to us.”

“Related?” Sartena asked. “Oh, look. Hands! I’ve never heard of an animal with real hands.”

“It sort of argues that Earth really is the one and only birthplace of Man, doesn’t it?” Dannet commented.

“I never really accepted the multiple origins hypothesis,” Sartena admitted, “but Cousin here is not really strong evidence against it, although she is proof that humans must have originated here. It just doesn’t mean this is the only place.”

“Oh, come on!” Dannet protested. “Have any animals with hands been found on any other worlds? Park, we have to take this little lady back with us.”

“Look, I understand this could be an important discovery,” Park told him, “but would it be the best thing for Cousin here? I don’t think so. Take pictures, measure her hands and skull if you must, but she’s going to be best off here in her natural environment.”

“Doing what?” Marisea asked, poking her hand out for Cousin to shake again.

“Living,” Park argued. “She deserves to have a mate and children and live whatever constitutes a long and happy life for her kind.”

“I think she might be a burrower,” Iris remarked. “The nails on her fingers are thick and broad. Good for digging but not adapted for tree-climbing.”

“There aren’t any real trees around here,” Park pointed out, “just a bit of scrub, but I imagine those nails might also be good for opening nuts or peeling fruit.”

“Let me see your teeth, Cousin,” Iris crooned at the primate, reaching toward her mouth carefully. If the critter was nervous about the much larger people it did not show it and allowed Iris to open her mouth. “Her dentition looks omnivorous, although maybe with a tendency toward meat eating. She’s definitely not an herbivore. Her front teeth are too sharp for that and her molars are a bit small. She can eat seeds and fruit, but she can eat meat if she finds it.”

“Maybe insects?” Sartena suggested.

“Possibly,” Park considered. “Chimps ate termites when they could. They were a valuable source of protein. I haven’t seen many termites, but there are quite a few land-dwelling crustaceans around here and they’re a bit larger than the ant-type we saw in the mountains. I think our little lady here dines on crab salad on a regular basis.”

“Raw and without dressing,” Iris remarked. “Hopefully she won’t invite us over to her place. But, you’re right, Park. She belongs here. Too bad though, she’s really cute.”

They stayed in that area for several days, during which Cousin was a regular visitor, often running up to greet them when they exited the buggy. “Has anyone been feeding her?” Park asked suspiciously, but no one confessed.

They were surprised to discover several other mammalian species in the area and no postavians at all, but there were several neo-reptiles that had Park happy he had thought to bring along firearms.

Park and Dannet had been hiking several miles north of the buggy with
 
cameras when they saw a herd of post mammalian herbivores that looked somewhat like an antelope with plate armor running frantically across the low grassland. Behind them were several low, golden brown-colored creatures that were fanning out as they chased the herd.

“Are you getting this?” Park asked quietly.

“Whatever this is,” Dannet replied, following the action with the camera.

“Reminds me of some old television shows,” Park commented, “except for one thing.”

“What’s that?” Dannet asked.

“Two of whatever those are,” Park replied, raising his combat rifle to his shoulder,” are coming right at us.” He squeezed off a burst of gunfire and then another. The deer-like herbivores scattered and so too did most of their pursuers. One of the two tawny-colored things was still running at Park and Dannet, however and Park shot again and finally downed it.

“Be careful,” Park warned Dannet. “These critters are pretty tough and I don’t think I killed either of them yet.” He was right. When they approached the closer one it was hissing and twitching on the ground, so Park quickly put it out of its misery. That was when they finally got a good look at the predators. “Huh! Looks sort of like a turtle. It’s low slung and sort of oval in shape. The legs are longer, though and its skin is tough enough to call a shell.”

“I still don’t know what a turtle is,” Dannet reminded him. “And what about the one you shot first?”

“Oh yeah,” Park agreed. “This darned racing turtle just distracted me.”

He approached the other racing turtle cautiously, but when he got to within fifteen feet of it, it suddenly got to its feet, spun around and ran away. It was obviously limping and not running in a very straight line, but Park decided it wasn’t mortally wounded and turned back to examine the dead one.

“I’ll bet these things are the lions of Pangaean Africa,” Park commented. “They hunt in packs and are fairly fast at least on the short sprint. Wait until we show these pictures to Iris. Racing Turtles of the Kalahari!” he laughed.

“They aren’t exactly like turtles,” Iris commented later. “Their heads have a snout, not a beak and their legs are partially under their bodies, not to the sides in a reptilian manner. Are you sure these are neoreptiles?”

“The feet are reptilian,” Park pointed out, “and some neos have had vaguely mammalian attributes.”

“Patty’s going to wish you brought one back,” Iris commented.

“Another trip,” Park replied. “We didn’t come equipped to bring back that sort of sample without stinking up the buggy, and those neos start stinking an hour after they die. You should have seen those things running, though. Better than thirty kilometers per hour. I wouldn’t have believed anything built like that could run that way. Racing turtles. Who would have thought?”

“Hardly strange when compared to that flying octopus we saw last year,”
 
Iris reminded him, “or the land squid.”

“But I’m used to those by now,” Park told her.

“You get acclimated to strange things all too easily sometimes,” she laughed.

They left the area the next day and continued flying southward. From the air, they got another surprise. Below they saw a large flock of what appeared to be turkey-sized descendants of emus. “True birds,” Park marveled, “at least I think they are. They’re the first we’ve found.”

“We’ve been calling the postavians birds,” Iris reminded him.

“For want of a better word,” Park replied. “Well I guess Africa, at least this part of it is definitely a home to fossil species.”

“What do you mean fossil species, Park?” Marisea asked.

“Well, I’m playing fast and loose with the definition,” Park admitted. “Strictly speaking, a fossil species is one that appears to be the same as one for which fossils have been found. Those emu-like birds might truly be fossil species, but Cousin is not like anything I’ve seen before. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to find fossils of her somewhere. I guess I’m using the term to cover those true mammals and birds we’ve seen here in Africa. They certainly don’t seem to appear anywhere else.”

“Maybe Australis,” Iris interjected. “We don’t have the faintest clue what life is like there and it’s been isolated a very long time.”

“We’ll have to go look sometime,” Park replied.

An hour later they saw more birds and, unlike any of those they had yet seen in Pangaea, these could fly. They were flying over a shallow lake when suddenly a flock of bright pink birds took off. They were long-legged and looked like flamingos until Park noticed they had long sharp beaks, rather than hooked ones like flamingos did.

“Flying birds!” Park exclaimed. “The first I’ve seen here. Marisea, did you know these existed?”

“No,” Marisea admitted. “The only flyers I’ve ever seen were insects,
Tawatirs
– the things you call flying octopi and
Haweeta
or neobats. These are so strange looking, it’s hard to imagine how they fly.”

“Strange to you, perhaps,” Park retorted. “Not to me. We used to see the relatives of these in the sky all the time. Well, if they are new to you, they must not have a very large range.”

They saw several more sorts of birds over the rest of the day and listened to the chirping an twittering in the brush around them for most of that night. By the time the sun rose, Park was ready to start shooting the “feathered blighters” as he called them. “And to think I missed bird song. Well, I guess that cures me for a while.”

They had been roughly following one of the seasonal streams toward the Sink which by now had become a small river, unlikely to dry up in any season even though they were still nearly three hundred miles from the gap in the mountains that lead to the Sink.

“Is that a boat down there?” Sartena asked from up front where she was sitting next to Iris.

“Looks like it,” Iris agreed. “Park, should we go on down and say, ‘Hello?’”

“Sure,” Park shrugged. “Anyone this far from home ought to have some interesting stories to swap. It looks a bit like the boat that Taodore gave to Tack.”

“They are fairly common for explorers,” Marisea remarked, but a few minutes later she changed her mind. “That is the boat Dad gave Otackack and I’m fairly sure that’s him at the wheel.”

They were much closer to the ground now and Park took a look for himself. “I think you’re right. A giant ant in a brown striped robe tends to look like any other giant ant in a brown striped robe, but I don’t imagine many Atackack mystics have Mer power boats at their command. I see he has a couple friends along with him. Snappier dressers, too.”

Marisea laughed. “The one in the rainbow robes would be a teller,” she explained as Iris brought the buggy down for a landing within sight of Tack’s craft.

“A teller?” Dannet asked.