Part 43 (2/2)
The last-minute inclusion of the children was curiously comforting to Lunzie: she'd missed so much of Fiona's childhood that she looked forward to their company. Lunzie preferred making new acquaintances, for strangers wouldn't know any details of her life. The team leaders, of course, knew that she had experienced cold sleep lags, for those were on her file. Varian considered her somewhat mysterious.
Gaber was the team cartographer and endlessly complained about the primitive facilities and noxious conditions. Lunzie usually greeted these outpourings with raised eyebrows. After the scout s.h.i.+p on Ambrosia, their quarters, not to mention the privacy of a separate small dwelling, seemed positively elaborate. However, Lunzie was willing to tolerate Gaber because he had been able to achieve long-term (for an ephemeral) friends.h.i.+ps with the oldest Theks on the ARCT-10 and she would divert his complaints to the relations.h.i.+ps which fascinated her. She a.s.sisted Kai in making certain that the cartographer remembered to wear his force-belt and other safety equipment. That much was out of pure selfishness on Lunzie's part, for Gaber had to be constantly treated for insect bites and minor lacerations.
Trizein was a xen.o.biologist whose infectious enthusiasm made him popular with everyone, especially the youngsters, as he would patiently answer their many questions. Trizein applied the same amazing energy to his work though he was absentminded about safety precautions. Lunzie would be a.s.sisting him from time to time and had no problem with that duty.
Dimenon and Margit were Kai's senior geologists who would locate Ireta's deposits of useful minerals. They were specifically hoping for transuranics like plutonium which paid the biggest bonuses. Ireta's preliminary scan clearly displayed large deposits of radioactivity. Dimenon's crew was eager to get to work laying detective cores. Triv and Aulia and three of the heavyworlders, Bakkun, Berru and Tanegli, completed the geologists, while Portegin would set up the core-receiver screen and computer a.n.a.lysis.
Lunzie made no immediate efforts to approach the six heavyworlders. They didn't seem to mix with the lightweighters as easily as Zebara, Dondara and Pollili, The captain had instilled his team with his own democratic, bootstrapping ideals and, while on the ARCT-10 ARCT-10, they had not limited their acquaintances to heavyworlders.
Paskutti, the security officer, was of the sullen, chip-on-the-shoulder type who would prefer a ghetto in the midst of an otherwise tolerant society. Lunzie wasn't sure if he was just sullen or stupid, but he ruled the female Tardma's every action. Lunzie refused to let him worry her. Her time with Zebara had shown that the att.i.tude problem was theirs, not hers. Fortunately, as time pa.s.sed Tanegli and another heavyworlder named Divisti became more sociable though they remained more distant with lightweights than Lunzie's comrades on Zebara's team had been. Bakkun and Berru were a recent pairing and it was understandable if they were much engrossed in each other.
Lunzie could not quite dismiss her lingering anxieties: Orlig's death still haunted her. Chacal, who had proved to be a spy, could never have strangled the heavyworlder. Knoradel and Birra, the Ryxi, when questioned, had both adamantly insisted that Lunzie had insulted Birra and then attacked Knoradel, who had gone to her a.s.sistance. Birra had left with the Ryxi settlers and Knoradel transferred off the ARCT-10 ARCT-10.
Far from being a wonderland, Ireta's landscape became downright depressing after the novelty of it wore off. The purple-green and blue-green growth overhung the camp on every side. What looked like a flat, gra.s.sy meadow beckoning to the explorer usually turned out to be a miry swamp. The fauna was far more dangerous than any Lunzie had seen on Ambrosia or on any of the planets she had so far visited. Some of the lifeforms were monstrous.
The first sled reconnaissance flights sighted large bodies cras.h.i.+ng through the thick green jungle growth but, at first, no images were recorded, just vast shadowy forms. When at last Varian's team saw examples of Ireta's native life, they got quite a shock. The creatures were huge, ranging from a mere four meters to over thirty meters in length. One long-necked, slow-moving swamp herbivore was probably longer, but it hardly ever emerged from the marsh where it fed, so that the length of its tail was still in dispute.
Lunzie watched the xen.o.b films with disbelief. Nothing real could be that big. It could squash a human being in pa.s.sing, even a heavyworlder, and never notice. Small life there was in plenty, too. Lunzie held morning and evening surgeries to treat insect bites. The worst of them was a stinging insect which left huge welts but the most insidious was a leechlike bloodsucker. Everyone activated their personal force-screens outside the camp compound.
Instead of a second balmy paradise like Ambrosia, Ireta had more nasty surprises and anomalies than Purgatory. Stunners were issued to the geology and xeno teams although Varian made far more use of telltale taggers, marking the native life-forms with paint guns trying to ama.s.s population figures. Anyone out on foot wore his lift-belt, to remove himself quickly from the scene of trouble.
Lunzie found it curious that there were so many parasites with a taste for red, iron-based blood, when the first specimens of the marine life forms which Varian or Divisti brought in to be examined proved to have a much thinner, watery fluid in their systems. To test the planet for viability, foragers were sent out for specimens of fruits and plants to test and catalogue. More than curiosity prompted that for it was always wise to supplement food stocks from indigenous sources in case the EV s.h.i.+p didn't get back on time. In this task, the children were useful, though they were always accompanied by an adult, often Lunzie, frequently Divisti who was a horticulturist. Whenever she thought about the ion storm which the ARCT-10 ARCT-10 was chasing, Lunzie pressed herself to find safe sources of indigenous foodstuffs. Then she chided herself for half believing her ”Jonah” reputation. That had been broken by the fortuitous outcome of the Ambrosia incident. was chasing, Lunzie pressed herself to find safe sources of indigenous foodstuffs. Then she chided herself for half believing her ”Jonah” reputation. That had been broken by the fortuitous outcome of the Ambrosia incident.
Because her skills did not include mapping or prospecting, Lunzie took up the duties of camp quartermaster. She spent hours experimenting with the local foods when she wasn't overseeing the children's lessons or doing her Discipline exercises. She didn't mind being the camp cook for it was her first opportunity to prepare food by hand since she had left Tee. Making tempting meals out of synth-swill and the malodorous native plants provided her with quite a challenge.
Lunzie and Trizein also combined their skills to create a nutritious green pulp from local vines that filled all the basic daily requirements. On the one hand, the pulp was an extremely healthful meal. On the other, it tasted horrible. Since she had concocted it, Lunzie bravely ate her share but after the first sampling no one else would eat it except the heavyworlders.
”They,” Varian declared, ”would eat anything.”
Lunzie managed a chagrined smile. ”My future efforts will be better, I promise. Just getting the hang of it.”
”If you could just neutralise the hydro-telluride,” Varian said. ”Of course, we can always eat gra.s.s like the herbivores. D'you know, it doesn't stink?”
”Humans can't digest that much gra.s.s fibre.” On one of their supervised ”foragings,” the children had spotted a shy, hip-high, brown-furred beast in the ferny peat bogs. All their efforts to capture one of the ”cute” animals before an adult could follow the active children, were circ.u.mvented by the quadrupeds' native caution. Varian found that odd since there was no reason for the little animals to fear bipeds. Then a wounded herbivore too slow to escape with the others was captured. A pen was constructed outside the camp for Varian to tend and observe the creature. On the next trip, Varian brought back one very small specimen of a furry quadruped breed. It had been orphaned and would have fallen prey to the larger carnivores.
The two creatures proved to compound Ireta's anomalies. Trizein had been dissecting clear-ich.o.r.ed marine creatures, styled fringes because of their shape. The large herbivore, savagely gouged in the flank, was red-blooded. Trizein was amazed that two such diverse species would have evolved on the same planet. Trizein could find no precedents to explain red-blooded, pentadactyl animals and ichor-circulating marine creatures cohabiting. The anomaly didn't fit the genetic blueprint for the planet. He spent hours trying to reconcile the diversities. He requested tissue samples from any big creature Varian's team could catch, both carnivore and herbivore, and he wanted specimens of marine and insect life. He seemed to be constantly in the shuttle lab, except when Lunzie hauled him out to eat his meals. He'd have forgotten that minor human requirement if she'd let him.
Meanwhile, the little creature now named Dandy and the wounded female adult herbivore called Mabel had to be tended and fed: the children a.s.sumed the first ch.o.r.e. Lunzie had synthesised a lactose formula for the orphan and put the energetic Bonnard in charge of its feeding, with Cleiti and Terilla to a.s.sist. ”Now you kids can't neglect Dandy,” Lunzie told them. ”I don't mind if you treat it as a pet but once you take responsibility for it, you'd better not forget that obligation. Understand me? Especially you, Bonnard. If you're interested in becoming a planetary surveyor, you must prove to be trustworthy. All this goes down on your file, remember!”
”I will, Lunzie, I will!” And Bonnard began issuing orders to the two girls.
Varian chuckled as she watched him grooming Dandy and fussing over the security of his pen while the girls refilled its water bucket. ”He's making progress, isn't he?”
”Considerable. If we could only stop him bellowing like a bosun.”
”You should hear his mother,” Varian replied, grinning broadly. ”I don't blame her for dumping him with us. I wouldn't want him underfoot if I was charting an ion storm.”
”How's your Mabel?” Lunzie asked casually although she had another motive for asking.
”Oh, I think we can release her soon. Good clean tissue around the scar once we got rid of all the parasites. I wouldn't want to keep her in a pen much longer or she'll become tame, used to being given food instead of doing her own foraging.”
”Mabel? Tame?” Lunzie rolled her eyes, remembering that it had taken all the heavyworlders to rope and secure the beast for the initial surgery.
”Odd, that injury,” Varian went on, frowning. ”All the adults of her herd had similar bite marks on their haunches. That would suggest that their predator doesn't kill!” Her frown deepened. ”And that's rather odd behaviour, too.”
”You didn't by any chance notice the heavyworlders' reaction?”
Varian regarded Lunzie for a long moment. ”I don't think I did but then I was far too busy keeping away from Mabel's tail, legs and teeth. Why? What did you notice?”
”They had looked . . .”-Lunzie paused, trying to find exactly the right adjective - ”hungry!”
”Come on now, Lunzie!”
”I'm not kidding, Varian. They looked hungry at the sight of all that raw red meat. They weren't disgusted. They were fascinated. Tardma was all but salivating.” Lunzie felt sick at the memory of the scene.
”There have always been rumours that heavyworlders eat animal flesh on their home planets,” Varian said thoughtfully, giving a little squeamish shudder. ”But that group have all served with FSP teams. They know the rules.”
”It's not a rumour, Varian. They do do eat animal protein on their homeworlds,” Lunzie replied, recalling long serious talks she'd had with Zebara. ”This is a very primitive environment, predators hunting constantly. There's something called the 'desert island syndrome.' ” She sighed but made eye contact with the young leader. ”And ethnic compulsions can cause the most civilised personality to revert, given the stimulus.” eat animal protein on their homeworlds,” Lunzie replied, recalling long serious talks she'd had with Zebara. ”This is a very primitive environment, predators hunting constantly. There's something called the 'desert island syndrome.' ” She sighed but made eye contact with the young leader. ”And ethnic compulsions can cause the most civilised personality to revert, given the stimulus.”
”Is that why you keep experimenting to improve the quality of available foodstuffs?” Lunzie nodded. ”Keep up the good work, then. Last night's meal was rather savoury. I'll keep an eye out for a hint of reversion.”
A few days later Lunzie entered the shuttle laboratory to find Trizein combining a ma.s.s of vegetable protein with an ARCT ARCT-grown nut paste. She swiped her finger through the mess and licked thoughtfully.
”We're getting there, but you know, Tri, we're not real explorers yet. I'm sort of disappointed.”
Trizein looked up, startled. ”I think we've accomplished rather a lot in the limited time with so much to a.n.a.lyse and investigate. We're the first beings on this planet. How much more explorer can we be?” Lunzie let the grin she'd been hiding show. ”We're not considered true explorers until we have made a spiritous beverage from indigenous products.”
Trizein blinked, totally baffled.
”Drink, Trizein. Quickal, spirits, booze, liquor, alcohol. What have you a.n.a.lysed that's non-toxic with a sufficient sugar content to ferment? I think we should have a chemical relaxant. It'd do everyone good.”
Trizein peered shortsightedly at her, a grin tugging at his lips. ”In point of fact, I have got something. They brought it in from that foraging expedition that was attacked. I ran a sample of it. I think it's very good but I can't get anyone else to try it. We'll need a still.”
”Nothing we can't build.” Lunzie grinned. ”I've been antic.i.p.ating your cooperation, Tri, and I've got the necessary components out of stores. I rather thought you'd a.s.sist in this worthy project for the benefit of team morale.”
”Morale's so important,” Trizein agreed, exhibiting a droll manner which he'd had little occasion to display. ”I do miss wine, both for drinking and cooking. Not that anything is likely to improve the pervasive flavour of Iretan food. A little something after supper is a sure specific against insomnia.”
”I didn't think anyone suffered that here,” Lunzie remarked, and then they set to work to construct a simple distillation system, complete with several filters. ”We'll have to remove all traces of the hydro- telluride without cooking off the alcohol.”
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