Dinosaur Planet

CHAPTER FOUR

With the help of Paskutti and Tardma, Varian managed to dress Mabels flank wound. The beast had somehow managed to loosen the edges of the filmseal and, despite the force-screen over her corral, blood-suckers had attached themselves to the suppuration. She had opened the wound further in her frenzy to free herself from the ropes the heavy-worlders used to restrain her. They had to lash her head to her uninjured hind leg before Varian could approach her.

Fortunately, once she dislodged the blood-suckers, Varian thought the flesh looked healthy enough.

“I'm going to wash down and seal the entire leg,” she told Paskutti who was heaving with his exertions. “Just as well I'm vetting the bitten instead of the biter. Hate to run into him.” She thought of the wicked head and the rows of vicious teeth glaring out of the frame Kai had taken.

“This creature couldn't put up much of a fight,” said Paskutti.

The edge to his tone surprised Varian into looking at him. She didn't expect to see any emotion registered on the heavy-worlder's blank features but there was an intensity in his pale eyes that gave her a momentary stab of fear. She got the distinct impression that the man was excited in some bizarre and revolting fashion, by the wound, by the concept of one animal eating another, alive. She turned back quickly to her task, loathe to let Paskutti know she'd observed him.

They completed the veterinary on Mabel without further struggle but her tail, when she was released from the ropes, lashed out so viciously that they all retreated hastily beyond range. Without the proximity of her well-wishers, Mabel seemed unable to continue her aggressive behaviour. She stopped mid-bellow and peered about her, as if puzzled by this unexpected respite. Her near-sighted eyes scanned so consistently above their heads that once they stood still, Varian realized that Mabel would never see them. Mabel's worst enemy then, Varian decided, was much larger than the herbivore's considerable self, and generally perceived by smell to judge by the rapid dilation of Mabel's nostrils, and from a distance." What now, Varian?" asked Paskutti as they left the corral.

In his very lack of tone colour, Paskutti seemed to be impatient for her answer.

“Now, we check out what creatures inhabit the unknown land beyond the shield so that Kai and his teams can make secondary camps. We've the sled today, Paskutti, so if you'd get tapes, we can do some prospecting.”

“Weaponry?”

"The usual personnel defense. We're not hunting. We're observing.

She spoke more harshly than she intended because there was an avid intensity about Paskutti's innocent question that was off-putting. Tardma was as blank as ever but then she never did anything, including smile, without glancing for permission from Paskutti.

As they re-entered the encampment for their equipment, Varian saw the children grouped about Dandy's enclosure, watching Lunzie feed it. Its thick little tail whisked this way and that either in greed or in enjoyment.

“Is Dandy eating well?”

“Second bottle,” said Bonnard with possessive pride.

“Lunzie says we can feed him when he gets to know us a bit better,” Cleiti added and Terilla nodded, her bright eyes big with such an incredible experience to anticipate.

Poor ship-bound wench, thought Varian whose childhood had been spent among the animals of many worlds with her veterinarian parents. She couldn't remember the time when she hadn't had animals to cuddle and care for. Small creatures brought to her parents for healing or observation had always been her particular charges once her parents had decided she was a responsible youngster. The only creatures she had never liked were the Galormis. Her instinct for animals had warned her the moment those soft devils had been discovered on Aldebaran 4, but as a very junior xenob, she had had to keep her own counsel on her suspicions. At that she'd been lucky: she only had teeth marks on her arm where the Galormis which had attacked those in her dome had begun its nocturnal feeding. The creature had already killed its handler: its hollow incisors had proved to contain a paralytic with which it controlled its victims. Fortunately the night guard, alerted to trouble by the non-appearance of his relief, had roused the expedition, and the Galormis had been caught, contained and later exterminated. The planet was interdicted.

“We'll see how Dandy behaves himself first, Terilla,” said Varian, firmly believing in an old adage, “once bitten, twice shy”. The originator had not had the Galormis in mind, but the application was apt.

“How's Mabel?” asked Lunzie, sparing Varian a glance.

Varian told her. “We're scouting north today. Kai's teams will have to set up secondary camps soon but we don't want them encountering fang-faces, like the ones that ate Mabel. Also, the geology teams are supposed to report in if they sight any wounded beasts, so give us a toot right away, will you, Lunzie?”

The physician nodded again.

“Couldn't we come with you, Varian?” asked Bonnard. “If you've the big sled? Please, Varian?”

“Not today.”

“You're on compound duty, and you know it, Bonnard?” said Lunzie. “And lessons.”

Bonnard looked so rebellious that Varian gave him a poke in the arm, and told him to shape up. Cleiti, more sensitive to adult disapproval, nudged him in the ribs.

“We got out yesterday, Bon. We'll go again when it's proper.” Cleiti smiled up at Varian, though her expression was wistful.

A nice child, Cleiti, Varian thought as she and the heavy-worlders continued on to the storage shed for their equipment. Varian checked the big sled, despite the fact that Portegin had serviced it that morning.

They were airborne in good time, just after the morning's first downpour. As seemed to be the rule on Ireta, the clouds then reluctantly parted, allowing the yellow-white sunlight to beat down. Varian's face-mask darkened in response to the change of light and she stopped squinting. Sometimes she found the curious yellow light of cloudy daytime more piercing than the full sun's rays.

They had to fly ten kilometres beyond the radius of the encampment before the telltale began to register life forms, most of them already tagged. The “dead” perimeter had been expanding ever since they landed as if knowledge of the intruders had been slowly disseminating among the indigenous animals. This was a slow-cop world, Varian thought, for on more . . . civilized, was that the word she needed? Advanced, yes, that was more accurate. On more advanced worlds, the news of strangers seemed to waft on the outgoing wind of their descent, and inhabitants made themselves scarce . . . Unless, of course, it was an intelligent, non-violent world where everyone gathered around to see the new arrivals. Sometimes the welcome would be discreet, not defensive nor offensive, but distant. Varian thought of the defensive screen around the domes and snorted to herself. The thing wasn't needed – except to keep insects out. At least not under present circumstances, when the animals stayed far away. Maybe the solution to Kai's problem was simply to establish the physical secondary camp, complete with small force-screen, give the local wild-life a chance to drift away from the area, and then let his teams move in.

Yet there was fang-face! The size of him! She recalled tree tops shivering at his passage in the tape Kai had made. The main force-screen would burn him, probably dissuade him . . . there hadn't been much animal-life around those active volcanoes so creatures great and small on Ireta knew about fire and burn. The problem was the smaller screens weren't powerful enough to stop a determined attempt by fang-face if he were hungry, or scared, and that was what she had to allow for: the appetite of such predators as fang-face.

Varian had taped a course for the north-east, the vast high plateau, ringed by the tremendous mountains of the moon as Gaber had called them. Two subcontinents had ground into each other, Gaber had told her pedantically, to force high those great stone peaks. The plateau beneath them had once been ocean bed. Anyone returning to that area had been enjoined by Gaber and Trizein to look for fossils on the rock faces. It was here, at the foot of the new fold mountains, that Kai hoped to start finding pay dirt. This was well beyond the ancient corings. For some reason, the discoverey of the old cores reassured Varian. Kai appeared worried about them and she couldn't imagine why. EEC wasn't likely to lose a planet they'd already twice explored. Besides, the Theks lived long enough to correct any mistakes they made – if they ever made any. Or maybe it was because they had time enough to correct any that it only appeared they were infallible.

Between the plateau they were heading for, with its coarse ground cover, not quite grass and not really shrub or thicket, was a wide band of rain forest through which Mabel's ilk passed, and where a fang-face was liable to lurk. Far to the east were clouds of volcanic activity, and occasional thunders, not meteorological in origin, rumbled to the sensors of the sled.

They spotted one set of circling scavengers and landed to investigate, but the creature had long since been reduced to a bony structure, any evidence of beast-gouging long gone. The dead weren't carrion long on Ireta. Tenacious insects were riddling the skeleton with industrious pinchers so that the bones would be gone in the next day. The tougher skull was intact and Varian, first spraying with antiseptic, examined it.

“One like Mabel?” asked Paskutti as Varian turned the skull from side to side with her boot.

“Crested at any rate. See, the nasal passage extends . . . I'd say Mabel and her kind smell a lot better than they see. Remember her performance this morning?”

“Everything smells on this planet,” replied Paskutti with enough vehemence to cause Varian to look up. She thought he was being humourous: he was deadly serious.

“Yes, the place stinks but if she's used it, she'd catch the overlying odours and take appropriate action. Yes, it's her nose that's her first line of defence.”

She took some three dimension close-ups, and broke off, with some effort, a piece of the nasal cartilage and a sliver of bone, for later study. The skull was too cumbersome to transport.

The scavengers stayed aloft, but as soon as Varian lifted the sled they descended as if they hoped the intruders had discovered something they'd missed in the well-picked carcass.

“Waste not, want not,” Varian muttered under his breath. Life and death on Ireta moved swiftly. Small wonder that Mabel, grievously wounded though she was, had struggled to stay on her feet. Once down, the wounded seldom rose. Had she done Mabel any favours, succouring her so? Or had they merely postponed her early death? No, the wound was healing: the gouging teeth had not incapacitated muscle or broken bone. She'd live and, in time, be completely whole again.

The sled now approached the general grazing area where they'd found Mabel. Varian cut out the main engine, setting it to hover. The herd was there, all right. Varian caught sight of the mottled hides under broad and dripping tree leaves, down-wind of the creatures. They'd been too precipitous before and scared the herd off, with the exception of Mabel who hadn't been able to run fast enough.

Varian wondered at the intelligence level of the herbivores. You'd think this species would have learned to set out sentinels, the way animals on other inimicable worlds did, to forewarn the main herd of the arrival of dangerous predators. No, the size of the brain in that bare skull had been small, too small, Varian realized, to guide that great beast. A tail brain, perhaps? Long ago, far away, she'd heard of that combination. Not uncommon to have a secondary motor control unit in so large a beast. And then the nasal passages had pushed the brain case back. More smell than sense, that was Mabel!

“I see one, flank damaged,” said Tardma, peering over the port side. “Recent attack!”

Varian sighted in on Tardma's beast and suppressed a shudder. She saw the bloodied mess of flank and wondered at the stoicism of the injured beast, chomping away at tree leaves. Hunger transcending pain, she thought. That's the dominant quest on this planet, the ease of hunger.

“There is another one. An older wound,” Paskutti said, touching Varian's shoulder to direct her attention.

The wound on the second beast was scabbed over, but when she intensified the magnification she could see the squirming life that was parasitic to the wound. Occasionally the herbivore interrupted its feeding to gnaw at its flank, and masses of the parasites were dropping of, their hold on the raw flesh loosened.

Slowly moving and staying down-wind of the herd, they made their survey. With few exceptions. the herbivores all displayed the gruesome flank gouges. And the exceptions were the young, the smaller specimens.

“They can run faster?” asked Tardma.

“Not juicy enough, more likely,” replied Varian.

“Protected by the adults?” asked Paskutti. “You remember that the smallest ones ran in the centre of the herd when we first encountered this species.”

“I'd still like to know why . . .”

“We may find out now.” said Paskutti, pointing below.

At the furthest edge of the rain forest, one of the herbivores had stopped eating and had stretched itself up on its hindlegs, its crested head pointing steadily north. It dropped suddenly, wheeling, emitting a snorting kind of whistle as it began to run due south. Another beast, not alarmed by the departure of the first, seemed to catch the same scent. It too, whistled, dropped to all fours and began to trundle south. One by one, independently, the herbivores moved away, the smaller ones following the elders, and gradually overtaking them. The whistles grew more noisy, frightened.

“We wait?” asked Tardma, her blunt fingers twitching on the controls.

“Yes, we wait,” said Varian, uncomfortably aware of the suppressed eagerness in Tardma's manner.

They didn't have long to wait. They heard the crashing approach some seconds before seeing it, a pacing creature, head low, short forepaws extended as it ran, its thick heavy tail counterbalancing the heavy body. The big jawed mouth was open, saliva foaming through but not obscuring the rows of spikey teeth. As it ran past the hovering sled, Varian saw its eyes, the hungry little eyes, the vicious eyes of the predator.

“Are we following?” asked Tardma, her voice curiously breathy.

“Yes.”

“To stop the ecological balance?” asked Puskutti.

“Balance? What that creature does is not balance, That's not killing for need: that's maiming for pleasure.”

Varian felt herself inwardly shaking with the force of her words. She ought not to get so upset.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” said Paskutti and started the drive, to follow the predator.

Though it was not always in the scope, its course was easily followed by the broken or shaking trees, the sudden flurries of avian life forms or the startled scampering of small ground creatures. Its speed was considerably more than the lumbering herbivores and it was only a matter of time before it overcame the distance between them. If Varian found herself responding to the chase stimulus with quickened breath, dry throat and internal quivering, she was astounded by the metamorphosic of the heavy-worlders. For the first time since she had worked with them, they were displaying emotion: their faces contorted with an excitement, a lust, an avidity that had nothing to do with civilized reactions.

Varian was appalled and had she been at the controls instead of Paskutti, she would have veered away from the finale of this chase. That, in itself, would have been an act to undermine her authority over the heavy-worlders. They were tolerant of light gravity physical limitations, but they would have been contemptuous of moral cowardice. She had, after all, Varian realized, organized this expedition to discover how dangerous the predator was to the herbivores and to secondary camps. She couldn't turn aside because of squeamishness. And she didn't understand her own reactions. She'd seen more hideous forms of death, worse battles of animal against animal.

The predator had caught up with the main herd. It singled out one beast, pursuing the terrified animal into a culde-sac caused by fallen trees. Frantic, the herbivore tried to climb the trunks but it had ineffectual forefeet for such exercise and too much bulk for the logs to sustain. Bleating and whistling, it slid into its predator's grasp. With one mighty blow of a hindleg, the carnivore downed the fright-paralyzed herbivore. The predator measured a distance on the quivering flank; its front paws, far smaller than the massive hindlegs, were almost obscene in this gesture. The herbivore screamed as the predator's teeth sank into the flank and ripped off a hideous mouthful. Varian wanted to retch.

“Frighten that horror away, Paskutti. Kill it!”

“You can't rescue all the herbivores on this world by killing one predator,” said Paskutti, his eyes on the scene below, shining with what Varian recognized as a blood lust.

“I'm not rescuing all of them, just this one,” she cried, reaching for the controls.

Paskutti, his face once more settling into the more farniliar, emotionless lines, switched the sled to full power and dove at the carnivore which was settling itself for a second rending bite. As the sled's exhaust singed it head skin, it roared. Rearing up, counterbalanced by the huge tail, it tried to grab at the sled.

“Again, Paskutti.”

“I know what I'm doing,” said Paskutti in a flat, dangerous voice.

Varian looked at Tardma, but she, too, had eyes for nothing but this curious battle. Why, thought Varian, appalled, he's playing with the predator!

This time Paskutti caught the predator off-balance. To keep upright, it had to release the herbivore.

“Get up, you silly creature. Get up and run,” cried Varian as the whistling, bleating grass-eater remained where it had fallen, blood oozing from the bitten flank.

“It hasn't wit enough to know it's free,” replied Tardma, her tone even but scornful.

“Drive the carnivore back, Paskutti.”

Varian needn't have spoken for that was what the heavy-worlder was doing. The predator, now recognizing an enemy above it, attempted to bat the menace from the sky with its forelegs and massive head. Instead, it was driven, back, back, away from the herbivore.

Paskutti played with the creature who impotently tried to, defend itself. Before Varian realized what Paskutti intended, the man swung the sled and let a full blast of its jets into the predator's head. A bellow of pain assailed their ears as the sled accelerated violently forward, throwing Tardma and Varian against their straps. They were thrust in the other direction as Paskutti veered back to survey the effect of his chastisement.

The carnivore was trying to get its forepaws to its face, now blackened and bleeding from the jet blast. It rolled its head in agony as it lurched blindly about.

“Now let us see if it has learned a lesson,” Paskutti said and drove the sled back towards the beast.

It heard the sled, roared and stumbled wildly in the opposite direction.

“There, Varian. It has learned that a sled means pain. That one won't bother any area where it hears sleds.”

“That wasn't what I was trying to do, Paskutti.”

“You xenobs get soft-hearted. It's tough, that killer. It'll recover. You will want to tend the wounded herbivore?”

Controlling her sudden revulsion of Paskutti with a tremendous effort, Varian nodded and busied herself with her veterinary supplies. The herbivore was still on its side, too terrified to right itself and run. Its injured limb twitched and the exposed muscles rippled, each time causing the herbivore to whistle and bleat in pain. Varian ordered Paskutti to hover the sled directly over the creature which was oblivious to anything except its terror and pain. It was simpler to sprinkle over an antibiotic and spray the seal on from above. They continued to hover, at a higher altitude, until the beast realized that it was no longer in any danger and struggled to its feet. Then it sniffed about and, reassured, shook, bellowing as the reflex action caused discomfort in the leg. Abruptly it snatched at a hanging frond and munched. It looked for more food, turning about and then finally began to wander away from the trap, sniffing occasionally at the wind, bleating and whistling when it remembered it was wounded.

Varian felt Paskutti watching her. She didn't want to meet his eyes for fear he would see her revulsion of him.

“All right, let's extend our search in this area. We'll want to know what other life forms live in these foothills before the geologists can safely work here.”

Paskutti nodded and swung the sled towards the north-east again. They encountered and tagged three more herding types. Varian, still numbed by the earlier incident, gradually woke up to the fact that each of the new species must have had some common ancestor before evolutionary differences developed to put them into a sub-grouping.

When they returned to the base camp as the evening drenching began, Varian noticed that Tardma and Paskutti

were as glad to be released from the close quarters of the sled as she was. She told Paskutti to check the sled over, Tardma to give Gaber the tape files and she went down to check on Mabel. The herbivore had reduced the trees of its enclosure to mere stumps. The full leg seal had held and Mabel did not appear to favour the injured leg. Varian was both eager and reluctant to release her patient but the logistics of supplying Mabel with sufficient fodder made her independence necessary. She decided to let Mabel go in the morning and follow it, at a discreet distance, in the sled. She would like to establish if it had any instinctive direction, if it had any communication with other members of its herd of species. Today the herbivores had responded to the dangerous approach of the predator on an individual basis. Too bad the silly fools couldn't gang up on their killer. By mass they could over-power it if they'd any courage at all. Or any leadership.

Could she stimulate Mabel's intelligence in any way, she wondered. And as quickly decided such a programme would be impossible. It would take too long and the chances of success with Mabel's brain space were unlikely. Mabel needed some physical modifications to achieve any measure of intelligence. There wasn't room enough in its skull for more than essential locomotion. Unless it had spare brains in its tail! And there'd be more motor control, too. Of course, she had encountered species with auxiliary nerve centres for controlling extremities while their intelligence, or main brain, was centrally located in the most protected part of their form. Man was, Varian reminded herself, not for the first time, rather badly designed. She understood the Theks held that opinion.

She was strolling thoughtfully back to the compound when she heard the whush of a returning sled and her name called. She caught sight of Kai's face. He looked happy about something. He was gesturing her to hurry up and join him. When she did, his usually composed face was brimming with excitement. Even Bakkun had an air of satisfaction about him.

“We've got some tapes you've got to see, Varian. We found one of your fang-faces . . .”

“Don't talk to me about it!”

“Huh? Had a rough day? Well, this will cheer you. I need your expert opinion.”

“I will take our finding up to Gaber,” said Bakkun, leaving the co-leaders together as he strode towards the cartographer's dome.

“You had a good day, then?” Varian put aside her negative mood. She had no right to depress Kai, or spoil his achievement.

“Very good. Just wait till you see,” he was guiding her towards the shuttle. “Oh, how was yours? Could you clear that north-east section of foothills for a secondary camp?”

“Let's see your tapes first,” she said, and hurried him along to the pilot cabin.

“Admittedly, I don't know that much about animal behaviour,” he said as he slid the tape into the viewer and activated the playback, “but this just doesn't seem logical. You see, we found the golden fliers a good hundred and sixty kilometres from the sea . . .”

“What? Doesn't make sense . . .”

The tape was playing now and she watched as the fliers came on the screen, the threads of grass visible in their beaks.

“You didn't think to . . .”

“I got samples of all the greens, grass and bush . . .”

"And they are green, instead of half-purple or blue . . ." Now watch . . ."

“Fardles! What's that thing doing there?” The predator had entered the valley, a dwarf figure until the close-up lens magnified it to a comparative life-size, “That's the beast that ate Mabel and . . .”

“Can't be the same one . . .”

I realize that, but they are double-dangerous. We had one today, took a hunk out of another herbivore until we intervened. Why, scorch the raker, he's eating grass!" Astonishment silenced Varian. "I wonder what's so essential in that grass. Damned curious. You'd think they'd have everything they need in their own environment. Now, he might be local. But the fliers couldn't be . . ."

“My thinking, too. Now this is the part that really baffles . . .”

The viewer now came to the scene in which fliers were aware of predator and it of them, the defensive line of the golden creatures and their orderly evacuation.

“Kai! Kai! Where are you, man?” They heard the voice of Dimenon, Kai's senior geologist. “Kai!”

“Ho, Dimenon, we're up front,” Kai replied, pressing the hold on the viewer.

“We're here for the transuranics, aren't we?” asked Dimenon at his most dramatic as he burst into the small cabin, an equally excited Aulia beside him.

“You bet. . .”

“We found the mother's own end of a great whopping saddle of pitchblende . . . rich or I'll give you every credit in my account!”

“Where?”

“You know we were to follow the south-eastern track of the old cores, pick it up where it faltered? Well, where it faltered was at the edge of a geosyncline, the orogenesis is much later than this area. It was Aulia who noticed the vein, the brown lustre in the one sunny interval we had. We planted seismimics on a rough triangulation and this is the reading we got.” Dimenon brandished the print-out as one proferred a treasure. “Rich – high up on the scale. Why, this one find alone justifies the entire expedition. And with all those new fold mountains, I'll bet this is the first of many. We struck it, Kai. We struck it!”

Kai was pummelling Dimenon and Varian was hugging Aulia with complete lack of inhibition while the rest of the geological team began to crowd into the compartment to add their congratulations.

“I was beginning to wonder about this planet. There were traces, yes, but there ought to have been more ore deposits . . .” Triv was saying.

“You forget, Triv,” Gaber said, inking smears on his face which was for once wreathed with genuine good humour, “we're on old continental shield, not likely to have been much anyway.”

“All we had to do was get beyond the shield, and look what we've got already . . .” Dimenon again did his triumphant dance, waving the print-out tape like a streamer until it caught on Portegin's shoulder and began to tear. He ended his physical gyrations and carefully began to roll up the all-important tape which he stowed in his chest pocket. “Over my heart forever!”

I thought I was there," Aulia teased him.

“This would seem to call for a celebration,” Lunzie said, putting her head round the door.

“Don't tell me you've got some joy juice hidden away somewhere?” cried Dimenon, waggling an accusatory finger at her.

“There's no end of ways to serve that fruit, you know,” she replied, her manner so blandly innocent that Varian whooped.

“Wouldn't you know Lunzie would come through?”

“Three cheers for Lunzie! The distilling dietician!”

“And how would you know it was distilled?” asked Lunzie suspiciously.

“Why else was Trizein rigging up a fractional distillation column?”

That warranted more laughter and congratulations which was why Varian noticed the solemn heavy-worlders were absent. She said nothing about it, though she wondered. Surely Dimenon had made no secret of the find on his way up from the sled park. Where were the heavy-worlders that they wouldn't join in the expedition's first real triumph?

Lunzie was saying that she wasn't certain how good the brew would be. The product had had no time to settle or age but surely, Dimenon said in a wheedling tone, there'd be something to take the edge off the taste of it. The group began to file out of the shuttle, moving towards the general purpose dome. Varian saw no sign of the heavy-worlders but there was a light in the quarters they shared. Passing the central standard, she rang the alarm bell in alert sequence. The iris opening of the heavy-worlders" quarters widened slightly and massive shoulders and a head appeared, outlined by the light.

“Yes?” It was Paskutti.

“Didn't you hear, Paskutti? A massive find of pitchblende. Lunzie's distilled a beverage from the fruit. We're going to sample it by way of celebration.”

A huge hand waved and the iris closed.

“They being aloof again?” asked Kai, pausing in his progress to the large dome.

“They do have different enthusiams, it's true . . .” And abruptly Varian remembered the glimpse she'd had of Paskutti's intense reaction to the predator's attack on the herbivore.

“All work, no play . . . c'mon, Paskutti,” roared Kai. “Tardma, Tanegli, Bakkun . . . you lot . . .”

The iris opened again and the heavy-worlders sedately crossed the compound to join the celebrants.