Part 45 (1/2)
”An Ambrosian shadow crab by another name will still get you wet,” Lunzie muttered under her breath. Nothing for it but to play out the scene. She picked up Dimenon's wrist and took his pulse, shone the bod bird in first one eye, then the other. ”If the acclimatisation should just happen to be permanent, you could install an Iretan air-conditioner for your s.h.i.+pboard quarters. The ARCT-10 ARCT-10 engineers are very solicitous about special atmospheres for the odd human mutation.” engineers are very solicitous about special atmospheres for the odd human mutation.”
Dimenon looked as if he believed her for a long, woeful moment but the others were laughing so hard that he took it in good part.
Despite the installation of Cleiti and Terilla as requisitions clerks, the depletion of supplies did not cease. More items than those checked out by the girls continued to go missing: some were vital and irreplaceable pieces of equipment.
Coupling that with the increasingly aberrant behaviour of the heavyworlders, Lunzie pegged them as the pilferers. At the rate supplies were being raided, they must be getting ready to strike off on their own. They were physically well adapted for the dangers inherent on Ireta. This wasn't, she admitted to herself, the usual way in which heavyworlders usurped a full planet. Perhaps her imagination was going wild. There were only six heavyworlders, not enough to colonise a planet.
But the Theks were still in the system, and the Ryxi. So the system was already opened up in the conventional way. The ARCT-10 ARCT-10 would soon be back to collect them, and if the heavyworlders wished to indulge in their baser instincts until that time, they were no real loss. There were still five qualified geologists and she, Trizein, Portegin and the kids could help Varian complete her part of the survey. would soon be back to collect them, and if the heavyworlders wished to indulge in their baser instincts until that time, they were no real loss. There were still five qualified geologists and she, Trizein, Portegin and the kids could help Varian complete her part of the survey.
With Bonnard as Varian's record taper and with the possible alteration of the camp in mind, Lunzie a.s.sisted Trizein in his studies of the now-obsessive anomalies of Iretan life-forms.
Today's first task was to lure Dandy into the biologist's lab so he could take measurements of its head and limbs, and samples of hair and skin from the shy little animal. The beast kicked and whistled when Trizein sc.r.a.ped cells from inside its furry ears. Lunzie took it back to its pen and rewarded it with a sweet vegetable. She stayed a moment calming and caressing it before returning to Trizein, who was peering into the eyepiece of a scanner. He gestured her over in excitement.
”There is something very irregular about this planet,” he said. ”You just compare these two slides: one from the marine fringes and the other fresh from the little herbivore.” Obediently Lunzie looked and he was right; the structures represented radically differing biologies. ”Judging by the eating and ingesting habits, I have no doubt that the square marine fringes are native to this planet but Dandy and his friends don't belong here.
”I have a theory about the primitive yeasts we've been doc.u.menting,” Trizein went on in a semi-lecturing mode. ”It's been plaguing me all along that there was something familiar about the configuration.”
”How can that be?” Lunzie asked, racking her brains. ”I'll grant you that the Ssli are a tad like the fringes but I've never seen anything like Dandy before.”
”That's because Dandy is the primitive form of an animal you're used to in its evolved state: the horse. The Earth horse. The species is not only pentadactyl, it is perissodactyl.”
”That's impossible!”
”I'm afraid there's no other explanation though it doesn't explain how the creatures got here - he couldn't have evolved on this planet, but here he is.”
”Someone had to have conveyed the stock here,” Lunzie mused.
”Precisely,” the biologist said. ”If I were to ignore the context and study only the data I've been given, first by Bakkun, and now from this little fellow's living tissue, I would have to say that he is a hyracotherium, a life-form which became extinct on old Earth millions of years ago!”
The sound of the sled interrupted them. Lunzie hurried to the s.h.i.+eld controls to admit Varian and Bonnard. She informed them that Trizein had news that he wanted to share with them. It was his triumph and he should be allowed to enjoy it by himself. The absentminded biologist was seldom outside his laboratory except to eat or to visit with Lunzie or Kai and had been largely unaware of the other facets of the team.
To the amazement of his small audience, he displayed the disk showing an archival drawing of a hyracotherium from his collection of paleontological files. There was no doubt about it: Dandy was unquestionably a replica of an ancient Earth breed from the Oligocene era.
”Let's see if there's more alike than just the furred beasts,” Varian said, leading Trizein to the viewscreen. Varian promptly sat the bemused biologist down to watch her tapes of the golden fliers. Trizein launched into raptures as the graceful creatures performed their aerial acrobatics.
”No way to be certain, of course, without complete a.n.a.lysis, but this unquestionably resembles a pteranodon!”
”Pteranodon?” Bonnard made a face.
”Yes, a pteranodon, a form of dinosaur, misnamed, of course, since patently this creature is warm-blooded. ...” One by one, he identified the genotypes of the beasts Varian and the others had recorded. Each of the Iretan samples could be matched to a holo and description from Trizein's paleontological files. He did point to some minor evolutionary details but they were negligible alterations.
Fang-face was a Tyrannosaurus rex; Mabel and her breed were crested hadrosaurs; the weed-eating swamp dwellers were stegosauri and brontosauri. The biologist became more and more disturbed. He could not believe that they existed just on the other side of the veil which he himself never crossed. When Varian gave him the survey tapes she'd compiled, he shook an accusatory finger at the screen.
”Those animals were planted here.”
”By who?” gasped Bonnard, wide-eyed. ”The Others?”
”The Theks planted them, of course,” Trizein a.s.sured the boy.
”Gaber says we're planted,” Bonnard added.
Trizein, in his mild way, was more saddened than disturbed by the suggestion. He looked to Varian.
”We're not planted, Trizein,” the young co-leader a.s.sured him and gave Bonnard a very intense and disapproving glare.
Kai was urgently summoned back from the edge of the continental s.h.i.+eld to hear Trizein's conclusions, leaving Bakkun alone on the ridge. Varian particularly wanted Kai separated from the heavyworlders, for by the time he returned, Trizein had given her even more disturbing news.
Paskutti had asked Trizein to test the toxicity of the fang-face flesh and hide, a question which was not mere idle curiosity. Varian now had films of a startling atrocity. That day, Bonnard had led her to Bakkun's ”special place.” It proved to be a rough campground where five skulls and blackened bones of some of the fang-faces lay among the stones.
Lunzie knew how quickly the parasites of Ireta disposed of carrion. That meant these were very recent. There could be little doubt that the heavyworlders had killed and eaten animal flesh. The situation narrowed down to how well Kai, and Varian, could control the heavyworlders until the ARCT-10 ARCT-10 retrieved them. retrieved them.
Chapter Fifteen.
With a grim expression, Varian began emergency measures. She ordered Bonnard to remove all the sled power packs and hide them in the bushes around the compound. The packs had been depleted at an amazing rate and now she had the answer. Overuse by the heavyworlders. They'd have to have sledded to reach their ”secret place,” for the ritual slaughter and consumption of the animals.
Kai met them in the shuttle at the top of the hill, puzzled at the unusual urgent summons. He was horrified when he heard Varian's conclusions. Lunzie confirmed the continued drain of supplies which led her to believe that the heavyworlders had reverted to primitivism.
”We're lucky if it isn't mutiny,” Varian finished. ”Haven't you noticed in the past few days how their att.i.tude toward us has been altering? Subtly, I admit; but they show less respect for our positions than before.”
Kai nodded. ”Then you think a confrontation is imminent?”
Varian affirmed it: ”Our grace period ended last restday.”
The heavyworlders could take over. As Lunzie drily pointed out, the mutated humans were far more able to take care of themselves on wild Ireta than the lightweight humans.
”I realise I'm repeating myself,” Lunzie added, ”but if Gaber felt he had been planted, the heavyworlders must have come to the same conclusion.” She paused, hearing the whine of a lift-belt in the distance and listened harder. Who'd be using a lift-belt now?
”Bonnard and I also saw a Tyrannosaurus rex with a tree-sized spear stuck in his ribs,” Varian said, shuddering. ”That creature once ruled Old Earth. Nothing could stop him. A heavyworlder did, for fun! Furthermore, by establis.h.i.+ng those secondary camps, we have given them additional bases. Where are the heavyworlders right now?”
”I left Bakkun working at the ridge. Presumably when he's finished he'll come back here. He had a lift-belt ...”
Lunzie glanced out of the shuttle door and saw the whole contingent of heavyworlders coming toward them up the hill. The drawn concentration on their heavy-boned faces was terrifying. They looked dangerous, and they harboured no good intentions for the lightweights in the s.h.i.+p. She shouted a warning to Kai and Varian. She saw the door to the piloting compartment iris shut almost on Paskutti's foot.
As she flattened herself against the bulkhead, she noticed the imperceptible blink that told her the main power supply had been deactivated and the shuttle was now on auxiliaries. Was it too much to hope that one of the leaders had managed to get a message out?
”If you do not open that lock instantly, we will blast,” said the hard unemotional voice of Paskutti, blaster in hand.
He was fully kitted out with many items that had so recently gone missing from the stores. Of course, Lunzie told herself; she realised too late that most of that purloined equipment had offensive capability.
”Don't!” Varian's voice sounded sufficiently fearful to keep Paskutti from pulling the release but Lunzie knew the girl was no coward. It did no good for either of them to be fried alive in the compartment.
The hatch opened and ma.s.sive Paskutti reached through it. He seized Varian by the front of her s.h.i.+psuit and hauled her out, flinging her against the ceramic side of the shuttle with such force that it broke her arm. Grinning s.a.d.i.s.tically, Tardma treated Kai the same way.