Part 46 (1/2)
”It'll take more than herbivores to dent shuttle ceramic. Don't worry. But I would sit down,” Kai added.
”As soon as the stampede has stopped, we'd better make our move,” a voice piped up from behind the last row of seats.
”Bonnard!”
Grinning broadly, the dusty, stained boy appeared from the shuttle's lab. ”I thought this was the safest place after I saw Paskutti moving you out. But I wasn't sure who had come back in. Am I glad it's you!”
”They'll never find those power packs, Varian. Never,” Bonnard said, almost shouting above the noise outside. ”When Paskutti smashed the dome controls I didn't see how I could get out in time. So ... I ... hid!”
”You did exactly as you should, Bonnard. Even to hiding,” Varian rea.s.sured him with a firm hug.
Another s.h.i.+ft of the shuttle sent everyone rocking.
”It's going to fall,” Aulia cried.
”But it won't crack,” Kai promised. ”We'll survive. By all the things that men hold dear, we'll survive!”
When the stampede finally ended, it took the combined strength of all the men to open the door. The carnage was fearful. They were buried under trampled hadrosaurs. It was full night now. Under the cover of darkness, Bonnard and Kai slipped out and, using lift-belts, managed to bring the power packs back to the shuttle. ”Bonnard was right. We've got to make a move,” Kai told them as the survivors huddled together, still shaken and shocked by their ordeal. ”Come dawn, the heavyworlders will return to survey their handiwork. They'll a.s.sume the shuttle is still here, buried under the stampede. They won't be in any hurry to get to it. Where could it go?”
”I know where,” Varian said.
”That cave we found, near the golden fliers?” Bonnard asked, his tired face lighting.
”It's more than big enough to accommodate the shuttle. And dry, with a screen of falling vines to hide the opening.”
”Great idea, Varian,” Kai agreed, ”because even if they used the infrared scan, our heat would register the same as adult gifts.”
”And that's the best idea I've heard today,” Lunzie said briskly, handing around peppers which had been overlooked by the heavyworlders in the piloting compartment.
It required a lot of skill to ease the shuttle out from under the mountain of flesh but Lunzie knew it had to be done now while Kai and Varian held on to their Disciplined strength. The two managed, with Bonnard a.s.sisting in the directions since he'd been outside.
By dawn they had reached the inland sea and manoeuvred into the enormous cave, every bit as commodious as Varian and Bonnard had said. Not one of the golden fliers paid attention to the strange white craft that had invaded their area.
”The heavyworlders don't even know this place exists,” Varian a.s.sured them when they were safely concealed.
Triv and Dimenon used enough of the abundant drooping foliage to synthesise padding to comfort the wounded on the bare plastic deck. Lunzie sent them out again to get enough raw materials to synthesize a hypersaturated tonic to reduce the effects of delayed shock. Then everyone was allowed to sleep.
Lunzie was one of the first awake late the next day. Moving quietly so as not to disturb the exhausted survivors, she cooked up another nutritious broth in the synthesiser, loading it with vitamins and minerals.
”Guaranteed to circulate blood through your abused muscles and restore tissue to normal,” she said, serving up steaming beakers to Kai and Triv who had awakened. ”We've slept around the chrono and half again.”
After checking the binding on Kai's arm, she ma.s.saged his shoulders to work out some of the stiffness before she ministered in the same way to Triv.
Thanks. How long before the others rouse?” asked Triv, gratefully working his upper arms in eased circles.
”I'd say we have another clear hour or so before the dead arise,” Lunzie answered, holding a beaker of soup to Varian. ”I'll need some more greenery to fix breakfast for the rest of them.”
They filled the synthesiser with vegetation from the hanging vines that curtained the cave's mouth. Weak sunlight, as bright as Ireta ever saw, shone in on the shuttle's tail through the tough creepers. By the time the others awoke, there was food.
”It's not very interesting, but it's nutritious,” Lunzie said as she handed around flat brown cakes. ”I'd do more with the synthesiser, but how long can we depend upon having the power last? And the heavyworlders might detect its use.”
Varian set the children to keep a lockout at the cave opening, warning them not to hang beyond the vines. Bonnard thought that was wasted effort.
”They're not going to look for people they think they've already killed.”
”We underestimated them once, Bonnard,” Kai remarked. ”Let's not make the same mistake twice.” Duly thoughtful, the boy took a lookout post.
A very long week went by while the survivors recovered from shock and injury.
”How long do we have to wait for the Theks to come and save us?” Varian asked the three Disciples when all the others had gone to sleep. ”They would have had your message within two hours after you sent it. 'Mutiny' ought to stir their triangles if 'heavyworlder' didn't.”
Kai upturned his hands, wincing at the stab of pain in his broken wrist. ”The Theks don't rush under any circ.u.mstances, I guess. I had hoped they might just this once.”
”So, what do we do?” Triv asked. ”We can't stay here forever. Or avoid the heavyworlders' search once they realise the shuttle's gone. I know Ireta's a big planet but it's only this part on the equator that's barely habitable. Even if we stay here, we've got to use energy to produce food. We could get caught either way. They've got all the tracers and telltaggers. They have everything, even the stun-guns. What do we do?”
Every instinct in Lunzie shouted ”NO” at the obvious answer but she voiced it herself. ”There is always cold sleep.” Even to herself she sounded defeated.
”That's the sensible last resort,” Triv agreed. Lunzie wanted to argue the point but she clamped her lips firmly shut while Kai and Varian nodded solemnly.
”EV is coming back for us, isn't she?” Triv asked with an expressionless face.
Kai and Varian a.s.sured him that the ARCT-10 ARCT-10 would not abandon them. The richness of their surveys was on the message beacon to be stripped when the would not abandon them. The richness of their surveys was on the message beacon to be stripped when the ARCT ARCT had finished following that storm. The beacon Portegin had rigged outside the cave, camouflaged as a dead branch, would guide the search and rescue team to them. had finished following that storm. The beacon Portegin had rigged outside the cave, camouflaged as a dead branch, would guide the search and rescue team to them.
”With the sort of ion interference a big storm can produce, it's no wonder they haven't been able to make contact with us,” Varian said staunchly but none of the others looked as though they quite believed her.
Lunzie kept trying not to think of the word ”Jonah.”
”Good, then we'll go cold sleep tomorrow once the others have been told,” Kai decided briskly.
”Why tell them?” Lunzie asked. She would rather get the whole process over with before she lost her courage.
”They're halfway into cold sleep right now.” Varian gestured to the sleeping bodies, startling Kai. ”And we'll save ourselves some futile arguments.”
”It's a full week now and at the rate carrion eaters work on Ireta, the heavyworlders may have discovered the shuttle is missing,” Triv said ominously.
”There's no way the heavyworlders could find a trace of us in cold sleep. And there's a real danger if we remain awake much longer,” Varian added.
With the other Disciples in agreement with a course she herself had recommended, Lunzie rose slowly to her feet. Unwilling as she was, she went to the cold-sleep locker and tapped in the code that would open it. She really hated to go into cold sleep again. She had wasted so much of her life living in that state. It was almost as bad as death. In a sense, it was a death - of all that was current and pleasant and hopeful in this segment of her life.
But she gathered up the drug and the spraygun, checked dosages and began to administer the medication to those already asleep. Triv, Kai and Varian moved among them, checking their descent into cold sleep as skins cooled and respirations slowed to the imperceptible.