Dinosaurus Planet Survivors

CHAPTER TWO

They did not wish to dilute the sleep mist by unnecessary trips into the shuttle or to disturb the Thek until it was ready to communicate. So they settled themselves near the entrance to the cave. One of the short hard showers which dominated Ireta’s tropical weather sent the vines rattling and twisting into the cave.

“You know something, Kai?” said Varian after a long companionable silence. “I can smell that wind.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, I don’t smell Ireta any longer. I smell other things, like rotting fish and decaying fruit and something else that smells worse than Ireta used to when we first landed.”

Kai inhaled tentatively. “You’re right!”

Neither of them was enthusiastic since the basic odor of Ireta was hydrotelluride. They had once had nose filters to neutralize the smell.

“I suppose,” Varian said resignedly, “that it’s better to get accustomed to the overriding stench of a place so you can smell other things, but somehow…”

“I know. Anything but hydrotelluride. On the positive side, Lunzie did say that one’s olfactory sense can be…” Kai hunted for the appropriate word.

“Reconditioned.” Absent mindedly Varian suggested a word but she was already bent forward, toward the cave opening, sniffing deeply. Then she turned, sniffed again toward the interior. “Part of the new stink comes from the Thek’s craft. What does it use for power?”

“My father told me that for short distances the Thek uses its own energy.”

“Short distances? Like intersystem travel?”

Kai chuckled. “All things are relative. Thek, so they tell us, are a form of granite with a nuclear core for energy. That’s how they make pseudopods. They keep a reservoir of liquid silicon which they move hydraulically to form extremities. Thek can move with extraordinary speed if they’re charged up. The astrophysics officer on the ARCT told me that he’d heard from a reliable source that Thek like to sit on radioactive granite-which we’ll probably find on Ireta if we ever get equipment again-Thek absorb energy that way.”

“Whatever they use, it leaves a stink in a class all by itself. Way above Iretan normal.” Varian grimaced expressively. “How do you know more about Thek than I do? I’m the xenobiologist. Come to think of it, we never do study the Thek, do we?”

“Wouldn’t do, would it?” Kai said with a laugh. “Considering their position in the Federated Sentient Planets.”

“Hmmm yes. Got us all properly awed and respectful, don’t they? With their long silences and infallibility.” She’d got to her feet, restlessly wandering about the Thek vehicle, carefully rapping the metallic base with her knuckles. “No one’s ever been able to analyze Thek metal, have they?”

“No.”

She turned abruptly from the cone-shaped ship and walked briskly to the vine screen. “Not all the stench comes from the Thek. Some of it’s from up there! It’s not only nauseating, it makes me feel… it unnerves me.”

“It’s inactivity that unnerves you, Varian.” Kai was comfortable enough on the cave floor.

“How long does it take a Thek to come to a conclusion?” She glared irritably at the space shuttle.

“Depends on the conclusion, I suppose. Varian…”

She had launched herself at him in a side assault which nearly caught him, but he managed to parry her attack. Laughing, she came at him again and he grappled her wrists. Neither managed to toss the other for their skill, despite lack of practice, was equal. They stopped feinting after a few more passes and worked into the series of isometric exercises that had always been part of Disciples’ physical fitness programs.

Both were sweaty as well as dusty when they had finished. They stood near the cave entrance for the fresher air that was breeze born.

“Nice to know that neither our reflexes nor our muscles suffered much deterioration from the cold sleep.” Kai wiped off his brow and face with his sleeve.

“You’ve only smeared the dirt, Kai. I’m hoping it means we’ve not been asleep very long.” She grabbed a vine and swung herself out into the lashing rain.

“And that only cleaned your face.”

“Well, it’s better than nothing. What I wouldn’t give for a real wash!” She looked at the vine in her hands. “Hey, we can! C’mon, Kai, we can climb to the top of the cliff and let the rains wash us clean. It’s coming down hard enough!”

“Wash in rain?” Kai was appalled. How could anyone get clean in rainwater? Especially Ireta’s rain, which smelled nearly as bad as its air.

“Yes, wash in rainwater. It’s not as antiseptic as those dust showers you use on the ARCT-10 but it’s a lot better than standing around in dead body cells and dust. Besides, one of us has got to get more fruit. I’m hungry again from all that physical exercise.”

Kai’s back was itching from sweat and there were grits under his shipsuit. “I am hungry.”

“Hungry enough to eat raw food?” She grinned. “I’ll convert you yet.”

“Necessity is doing that. We’d better make this a proper foraging trip,” he added. “You check out the vines.”

Kai opened the shuttle iris just wide enough to squeeze through, closing it promptly behind him so that only a puff of the sleep gas escaped. Tor was still immobile. Kai removed the knives from Dimenon’s and Portegin’s boots, unclipped a hammer from Portegin’s belt, riffled Lunzie’s supplies for antiseptic splashes and a couple of pain sprays, rolled up two of the thin thermal blankets to transport any fruit they found, and left without another glance at Tor.

Varian had been busy, too, looping long thick vines tightly about the shuttle’s stern docking bars.

“If we’re anchored here, we’re not apt to get blown about in that wind. Wish the rain would let up but it looks about middayish. There’re only two giffs and I can’t always make them out in this rain. Any movement from Tor?” She took the items Kai handed her and disposed of them in her pockets. She knotted the blanket about her shoulders. “Here’s your vine. Remember, Kai, don’t look down!”

She leaped for her first hand hold, wrapping her legs about the thick stem of the vine and began to shinny up.

Kai discovered that he had an almost irresistible need to look down, especially when his vine started rolling along the upper edge of the cliff. Despite Varian’s efforts to anchor the vines the wind smacked him against the stone. Nevertheless he reached the top just as Varian did. Thunder crashed and cracked across the sea behind them.

Varian pointed to the sheets of rain slanting across the open water. “We could get swept off if that squall’s as heavy as it looks.”

Kai needed no urging and followed her across the cliff top to the doubtful shelter of the vegetation.

Suddenly Varian began to strip, throwing her boots, pouch, and blanket under the thick leathery leaves.

“Wow! That rain’s shower force!” she cried. Shedding her coverall, face upturned, she stepped into the pelting rain. Discarding his clothing, Kai ventured more warily into the heavy rain. Then Varian was scrubbing his back, using her coverall as a towel. She guided the fabric to just that point between the shoulder blades where sweat made his skin itch.

“Wow!” she cried again in triumph. “Sand we can use as an abrasive just don’t rub too hard,” she shouted at him through torrent and thunder.

They scrubbed themselves and each other, occasionally half-choked by the water as it streamed out of the heavens and bathed them. Except for his lingering feeling that it was ridiculous to be jumping about in a rain storm on a cliff to get clean, Kai would have thoroughly enjoyed the improvisation. There was some truth in Varian’s accusation that he had been sheltered in ship life. Before the mutiny, he had not been so exposed to elemental Ireta. There’d always been the sled or the compound and the safety of the force screen. Today he was naked before the onslaught of a violent phenomenon on a primitive planet.

“Unless we’ve slept through a magnetic field slip,” Varian yelled at him, the sun ought to be out soon. Our overalls will dry in zero elapsed! I hope before we fry in our bare skins.”

She was giving her suit one last rinsing when the shower passed, and the sun streamed through the cloud cover. Wringing their suits, they flapped them out as they splashed back toward the thick forest verge. They laid the suits out on the vines, just beyond the shade.

“Oh, I feel much better, Kai, much better,” Varian said. She squeezed water from her hair and stroked it from her body with her hands. Then she reached up to her hair again. “You know, I think it’s longer. If we only knew the rate of growth of hair during cryogenic sleep,” she said, examining a lock carefully. “Well…” She shook her head again, droplets falling on him as she turned, head back and eyes closed against the brilliant sunlight.

“We can’t tolerate that sun long, girl,” he said as he guided her into the shade.

She caught at his hand, her fingers moving to his wrist, prodding the site of the break.

“Even that fracture isn’t telling any tales. If you’d been an animal patient, I’d say the break was old enough for the extra calcium to have been reabsorbed.” Suddenly her face looked bleak in the filtered light of the sun Arretan. “Kai, haven’t we got something to gauge time against?”

He put both arms about her and held her tightly against him, kissing her cheek and stroking the wet spikes of her hair.

“We’re alive, Varian, and we survived a mutiny. Help, however uncommunicative, has arrived. Meanwhile…”

He gathered her against him positioning his hips against her pelvic bones, making his hands gentle in caress. She responded with soft movements of encouragement. Her kisses were sweet and Kai began to wonder why nothing was happening to certain reflexes. He wasn’t surprised, or offended, when he felt her shoulders begin to shake with amusement.

“Bones have healed,” Varian said in what was almost a wail against his cheek, “muscles are great, but why aren’t we in complete working order? We’re only ancient objectively, not subjectively!”

Her utter dismay announced in laughter made Kai hug her more tightly, half in apology, half to steady himself because he, too, had to laugh at their situation.

“If you only knew how often I’ve wanted you all alone to myself, young woman…”

“Oh, Kai, I do know. I’ve felt the same way. It’s bloody frustrating… Ooooh, that wind is mean!” She reached hurriedly for her blanket to wrap around them. The vegetation had sharp edges which the wind lashed against their bare skins. “And we’d better turn our clothes over. I think they’re done on that side.”

She darted out but instead of just turning the clothing, she gave each a quick snap and returned with them, handing Kai his.

“If we don’t wear ’em, something else’ll crawl inside,” she said, giving a little shudder at the tiny insects she had just shaken out of their suits.

As Kai inserted a leg into a damp trouser, he muttered about the durability of the wrong things.

“Let’s start foraging, Kai. And I’d like to secure our vines to the cliff top some way. Ah, what do I spy here?”

“That’s not fruit,” her co-leader replied, frowning at the cluster of brownish oval objects growing just above their heads.

“True, but the hadrosaurs used to make for such clusters, and poor Dandy loved ’em. Ah, and right beyond are fruit trees.”

It didn’t take long to collect enough fruit and nuts to fill their blanket rolls so they secured their burdens across their backs, out of the way for climbing, and started across the open vine-covered cliff top.

“Giffs are out for a wing stretch,” Varian said, waving her hand. “I know it’s silly to suppose… Hey, they see us. They’ve changed flight angle.” She stopped, admiring the sight. “You know, if they actually remember us, we can’t have slept that long!”

“Varian…” Kai felt his mouth drying as he reached for her hand and began to pull her backwards toward shelter. “That doesn’t look like a welcoming party!”

“Kai, don’t be afraid. We never did them any harm. They couldn’t…” Then she was backing right beside him, no longer able to deny the menace in the attitude of the golden fliers who dove straight at them, necks extended, beaks slightly parted.

Kai and Varian reached the safety of the thick foliage just as the giffs veered off.

“They sure can maneuver,” Varian exclaimed, though her admiration was couched in a voice made shaky at the narrowness of their escape. “But why, Kai? Why? Oh, Krims! What would have made them aggressive at the sight of humans?” She slumped down against a convenient tree trunk.

“The answer to that has to be ‘other humans,’ doesn’t it?” He spoke gently because he knew how much Varian had admired the beautiful, inquisitive golden fliers. It was plain that the attack distressed her.

“So we can take it as printed that Paskutti and his friends penetrated this far… and didn’t find us!”

“And were aggressive enough toward the giffs that the memory hasn’t faded.”

“So it could be recent memory? Okay, but if the mutineers hurt the giffs, getting this far, why has the cave been hidden? And how long did it take these to grow?” She thumped the thick vine cable beside her. “After all, we had to go cryogenic because the impassable chasm at this edge of the cliff stood between us and the vegetable matter we needed for the processor.” She scrambled to her feet and began following the vine growth away from the cliff. “Whoops!”

Varian had gone no more than a few feet before she struggled to maintain her balance. Kai reached out to steady her.

“The chasm hasn’t gone anywhere.” She knelt down, her hand and arm disappearing as she sought the gap. “The vines have bridged it. And that doesn’t follow because the giffs have kept their own palisades clear of vine.” She resumed her seat, elbows on her knees, slapping one fist into the other. “Attack one, protect one. Makes no sense at all.”

“Just how intelligent are the giffs, Varian?”

“I can’t gauge it but the two attitudes are incompatible. Except that… the giffs are protective. Remember the one that got back-stranded? Instant adult assistance. But…” and she held her forefinger up as she paused dramatically, “no aggressive move toward us that day and we were only a few meters from them. Today-swap!” Abruptly she sat up and stared at Kai so intently he was startled. “But there were only two giffs…” she pointed her finger at him, high up when we climbed out of the cave. Then it rained. And we were under cover when the sun came out. So… we were not seen leaving the cave. They think we don’t belong there!”

Kai peered at the cliffs through the screening leaves. The giffs were settling in to watch.

“So we wait until dark, when they’ve all gone to roost or whatever giffs do at night. Here, have another hadrosaur nut!”

“My, aren’t we brave! Natural food!”

They had to break the tough shell of the nut between two stones before they got to an irregular pale brown kernel. Varian looked at it curiously, sniffed and broke off a fragment. She grimaced at its taste and chewed it thoughtfully before swallowing.

“Maybe you have to acquire a taste for ’em,” she said, inspecting the remainder of the kernel. Then she slipped it over her shoulder and smiled reassuringly at Kai’s anxious expression. “I’ll opt for the melon. You can taste that.”

They had finished the sweet and juicy melon when they heard a whistling, bugling commotion. Varian sprang to the break in the vegetation, Kai just behind her.

The fishers had returned and all the adult giffs were assisting the net carriers. Varian remarked that either the community hadn’t expanded much or fishing and carrying were limited to certain giffs. The two humans watched as the heavy woven grass nets were lowered and emptied on the flat surface that served the giffs as central food dump. There was a great coming and going as giffs filled their food pouches and delivered the day’s catch to the cave-or nest-bound. The greed of the younger giffs was supervised by their elders.

“If only…” Varian began through gritted teeth and, sighing with frustration, she sat back against the tree trunk. Resignedly, Kai joined her. Despite the confusion of feeding, they could not have returned to the cave unnoticed. Then she grinned at Kai with a resurgence of her usual wry humor. “I wonder what they’d make of the Thek if it appeared?”

As they waited, rain fell in torrents again. The sun shone to make the jungle a steaming bath which they had to endure. Eventually they dozed.

It was the silence that roused them, for the wind had briefly abated at sunset. Disoriented, they struggled to their feet, staring uncertainly at each other in the fading light.

“The watchers are still watching!” Varian commented after peering through the leaves.

Nine golden fliers perched at various levels of the adjoining cliffs, all heads turned in one direction.

“Can they see us here?” Kai asked in a muted voice. “Or smell us?”

“Not when we’re downwind of them. I can’t believe they’d be aware of us.” Varian did not sound certain. “That’s not within the capability of their species. Smell-that’s debatable. I think they rely heavily on sight. And I don’t think that extra sensory gifts are a likely development on this planet.”

“Comparing them to the Ryxi?”

“No, to what Trizein said about the primeval Terran life-forms they resemble.” She slapped her hand against her knee. “If only we hadn’t kept that man walled up in his lab, we might have resolved at least one of this planet’s anomalies. How could creatures that lived in Mesozoic Terra come to be here on Ireta? Every xenobiologist in the FSP knows identical life-forms cannot spontaneously develop on distant planets-no matter how similar the worlds and their primaries!”

“Does that observation offer any clue as to how we can get back to our cave and Tor? I don’t fancy rappelling down a vine in the darkness.”

“Nor do I.” Varian straightened suddenly. “Wait a sec! Before we slept, Triv and the others were back and forth to the ravine collecting for the synthesizer. The giffs were only interested: they watched, as I remember, and were certainly not aggressive. But-”and she shook her forefinger, emphasizing the condition-“they are protective of their young. Extend that and it’s just possible that they’re protecting the cave because it’s within their territory.”

“You mean they got protective over us after a single meeting and few furtive vegetable raids?”

“It’s possible. If only we knew how long we had slept! However,” and Varian pointed at him, “if the heavyworlders got here and were their usual aggressive selves while trying to find the space shuttle, the giffs would resent such an intrusion. Well, let’s say they did. So it is the heavyworlders who changed the giffs’ passive curiosity into active aggression. Only… that doesn’t really explain the vine screen! Protectiveness can be conditioned, learned. Giffs are the smartest creatures we’ve met on Ireta, but could they be that intelligent. I don’t think they’ve progressed that far.”

Kai could only shrug as her voice trailed off: he knew little xenopsychology.

“Isn’t that a mist rising?” Varian asked, straining to see in the gathering gloom of Ireta’s swift twilight. “That might give us cover.”

They watched eagerly as mist swirled up from the sea and over the cliff edge, but they hadn’t taken more than ten paces from cover before four winged objects hurtled toward them, beaks ajar, wing talons extended. Varian and Kai reached shelter as giff claws tore strips from the leaves over their heads.

“How did they know? They couldn’t bloody see!” Kai demanded when he recovered his breath.

“Sound!” Varian regarded her boots in disgust. She stamped a boot contemptuously. “These broadcast our movements. To demonstrate…”

She located a handful of loose chippings and threw them out onto the cliff. Though they knew they were safe, they both ducked at the whir of wings as the giffs responded to the sounds.

“So?” asked Kai.

“So, while we’re waiting…”

“How long is that likely to be now?”

“Giffs are not nocturnal. Sooner or later, habit is going to be too strong for them and they’ll want to get back to their nests. Particularly,” she added at his skeptical expression, “if we give them reason to doubt our continued presence here. Like a small avalanche down the ravine…”

“Ah…”

“Then, with our boots off, we tip toe quietly home…”

“Sounds simple enough.”

“I know.” Her tone admitted that simple plans can suddenly develop serious flaws.

Nevertheless, they began quietly searching the ravine edge for a suitable natural slide. They then dammed it with a fallen branch to which they attached a vine. It was difficult to find enough stones and rubble to place behind the branch. Once a small shower cascaded into the ravine and they suspended all movement until the whir of wings disappeared. They worked quickly for Ireta’s night would soon complicate things. As it was, they finished the last of their arrangements in the dark. Removing their boots, they secured them to the blanket packs across their shoulders.

“I have a sudden negative thought,” said Varian, her lips against Kai’s ears. “I can’t remember how far it is to the edge of the cliff. We won’t be able to see until we’re there-or over it.”

Kai contemplated that hazard. “Well, it’s not going to make any difference when we try to cross in the dark, is it? So, if they’re diurnal, they might just fall asleep if we give ’em enough time. Then…” he paused as a sudden notion occurred to him, “why not lengthen this release vine and go as far as we can, and make our avalanche when and if we need a diversion?”

Varian gave his hand a quick squeeze and then turned to cut more vine. In whispered consultation, they estimated that the edge of the cliff was about 30 meters away, so Varian knotted sufficient vine to approximate that length.

Waiting in darkness punctuated by the noises of night creatures which nibbled, squeaked, and scrabbled was most tedious. Kai practiced the Discipline breathing that calmed nerves, and exerted the strength of patience on an over active imagination. Tiny noises in infinite variety assumed a menacing quality despite the slightness of sound. He could feel Varian, beside him, practicing the same exercises and was subtly comforted.

Varian’s sudden disappearance from his side startled him.

“No mist, and only three sleepy bird watchers,” was her quiet murmur in his ear a moment later.

“We go?”

Her answer was a hand on his, then she stepped in front of him, slowly parting the vegetation as he followed, playing out the release line as she cleared the way.

Although the vines lay in thick profusion along the cliff top, there was sufficient space between tendrils to allow their bare feet a reassuring contact with the cooling stone. Bent in a semicrouch, Kai watched Varian’s white feet as they moved forward, always angled back in the direction of the ravine. He kept the line as taut as he dared. Varian, one hand lightly touching his shoulder, kept her eyes on the curiously luminous forms of the giffs, whose crested heads were turned toward the ravine. Their wings were folded. Kai wondered if they kept from falling over by clutching the rock with their wing joint talons. They were so motionless, they had to be asleep.

There are many aspects of time, Kai thought grimly as he and Varian continued their stealthy, seemingly infinite journey. There is the objective time lost in cold sleep, which might have been centuries or only a few years. But the variety of time he was now experiencing was definitely hard to endure subjectively. His leg muscles began to twitch with the cramp of controlled motion. His hands were starting to sweat with a fear that an inadvertent tug would break the vine or that he wouldn’t be able to release the key log to provide the crucial diversion.

Abruptly Varian stopped, twisted her torso to put her mouth to his ear.

“Kai, we’ve got to find the vines we used this morning. They’ll be to our right. I can’t see but I feel we should move that way.”

Kai glanced nervously at the sleeping giffs, now slightly to the right and behind them. Varian plucked at his sleeve and he followed her light guidance, sliding his feet carefully over vines to the stone interstices. He almost fell over Varian when she crouched suddenly, and it took all his control not to jerk on the release line. He was also startled by the realization that only two more loops remained in his hand. As he turned to warn her, they bumped noses. “I’m almost out of vine.”

“I’ve found ours. I think.” Varian took his left hand and placed it on the thick stem. She moved beyond his reach, but he could see her nod that she’d found her vine and he should move on down.

Kai forced Discipline on himself, willing the tension out of his blood and tissue. Then there was only a short piece of vine left in his hand, the final edge tickling as it curled into his palm.

“Varian!”

The white blur of face turned to him. He knew she’d seen his upraised hand, she made a thumbs-up gesture and crouched to run, her hand along the vine that would take her over the cliff and into sanctuary.

He pulled as firm and hard as he could, felt something vibrate along the length of the line. Then he began to run, hands before him on the rough vine trunk, counting his steps. Wouldn’t do to hurtle over the cliff.

The rumble of the stones cascading into the ravine startled him so much that he nearly lost count of his strides. The giffs roused with a squawk. He looked back at them. To his relief, their heads were turned away and their motion was upward.

“I’m at the edge, Kai!” Varian’s voice was low but intense.

He found it, too, just as his leading foot slipped into a crevice.

Then he closed his hands about the fat vine and, in blind faith that it was the right one, began to scramble down it. He scraped his knuckles against the cliff wall and then swung into free air, as the vine curved inward, still secured to the shuttle docking brace.

“Krims! I grabbed the wrong one.” Varian suddenly exclaimed.

“Swing near me, Varian. I’ll catch you!”

“No!”

He heard that defiant negative above the screams of the giffs. Only the Discipline that had been instilled in them both, that one leader must survive, forced him to continue down his vine until he was inside the cave and knew it was safe to let go. He staggered to his feet, able to distinguish the cave mouth by the slightly brighter darkness.

“Varian!”

“I’m to your right. I got the wrong vine. It’s too short. Can you see me?”

He couldn’t. The curtain of vines hid her. “Can you grab the next vine? Shake it!”

Tracing the sound, he found the agitated vine and hauled it back into the cave, bracing it.

“Okay, switch and slide!”

When her feet touched him, he guided her legs to the ground. They clung together, trembling with a reaction neither bothered to Discipline.

Then, hand in hand, they moved to the curved bow of the shuttle, unslung their improvised packs, carefully removing the fruit and nuts. Then they curled up together in the blankets and were almost instantly asleep.