Josh had never thought that he would be happy to have a personal conversation with Topaz interrupted by one of the Lasker twins. But he was.
Chapter Eight
IT COULDN'T be just another spangle. If Rick and his brothers had found one, they would be carrying it with them. Josh and Topaz ran side by side across the clearing. She was first through the open gate. Josh knew what to expect, but it was Topaz's first time beyond the fence. She slowed at the sight of the thicket of umbrella plants, until Josh pushed her from behind. "Go on. You can look at them later."
They could still see Rick, bobbing his way through the stems but turning now and again to make sure that they were following. He waved to them, ducked his head, and disappeared.
Following him, Topaz and Josh found themselves on a set of steps cut into a steep incline. The lush stalks had been removed, to reveal bare red soil. At the bottom, on a lower level, was an area cleared of the tall plants. Sig Lasker was on his knees there, while Hag and Rick stood by his side.
"What is it?" Josh called. But before anyone answered, he could see what had them so excited.
A rough lean-to had been made in the middle of the clearing, using the stalks and huge leaves of umbrella plants. One plant had been left standing like a tent pole, and a rope was tied around its thick stem. The other end of the rope stretched to the edge of the clearing where Sig was kneeling. It was attached to a harness around the chest and back of a huge gray animal. Sig was struggling to undo the rope. The creature lay as though it were dead.
Josh realized that there were no ground-cover plants here, either. Every one had been nibbled down to the roots. He stared at the animal sprawled on the ground. It was like a massive cousin of the spangle, with the same eyeless head and a beaded skin that was gray rather than silver. The iridescent winglike ears were unfurled, but they sagged limp along the sides of the head.
Sig was cursing and making no progress untying the thick knot. The animal had pulled it tight in its efforts to reach plants outside the circle that the rope allowed it to reach.
"Here," Topaz said. "Let me."
She pulled a wicked-looking knife out of a hidden sheath under her armpit. As she bent beside the animal she flashed a glance at Josh and the others. "Sapphire's idea, not mine. Self-protection, she says. But for once it might come in useful."
She sawed steadily, not at the twisted knot but at the rope a few inches away from it. Strand by strand gave way, until she could lift the knife and sever the last thread with a single vicious slash. The animal stirred feebly as the rope slackened. The great ears lifted a few inches and turned toward Topaz.
She looked up at Sig. "Now what?"
It was clear from the expression on his face that he had not gone any further in his thinking. Nor had anyone else. Josh realized that the freed animal must weigh several hundred pounds. There was no way that they could carry that great bulk anywhere, even though it was alive and needed attention.
"Food!" Sig said suddenly. "I bet it's starving. Come on."
His two brothers were ahead of him. The first word had been enough to stir them to action. They left the clearing. When they returned they carried handfuls of wormlike yellow stalks. They dropped them in front of the immobile animal.
Nothing happened.
"No good," Sig said at last. "Let's find something else."
"No, wait." Josh had seen a ripple of movement in the flaccid trunk. While they watched it slowly extended, wrapped around a bunch of stalks, and lifted them to a wide slit that opened where the eyes should have been in the blind head. They all cheered. The delicate ears turned toward them and spread all the way.
"Not sick," Sig said triumphantly. "Hungry. Get some more—a lot more. I bet a superspangle needs a ton of food."
They scattered to forage. Josh found a patch where the ground was wet and the plants seemed thicker and juicier than usual. He gathered a great armload. When he came back, the superspangle was balanced on four thick legs and a heavy tail. It ignored the stalks that were being dropped in front of it, turned, and headed ponderously across the clearing and down the slope on the far side. It managed about one pace every two seconds.
"Don't let it go," Hag cried. "We found it, it's ours. Stop it!"
"Yeah, sure." Sig put down the plants that he was holding. "Just tell us how."
The superspangle was continuing in a leisurely but determined straight line, its tail making a furrow in the ground plants.
"It's all right," Josh had seen a gleam of water ahead. "It needs a drink. There's juice in the plants, but I bet it's even thirstier than it is hungry."
It seemed at first sight that he was wrong. When the animal came to the little stagnant pool it did not stop, but went on walking. Only when the water was halfway up its legs did it halt, dip its head, and stick the trunk far below the surface. After a few seconds there was a sound like an enormous belch. Bubbles appeared alongside the spread ears. As they burst an awful rotting smell filled the air and the dark surface of the pool rippled.
"Needs a breath mint," Hag said. "Big time."
"It's only swamp gas, you idiot," said Rick. "And it doesn't smell any worse than you." The insult came from pure force of habit. Rick's attention, like everyone else's, was all on the half-submerged animal.
After another minute the superspangle came up for air. It lifted its head, snorted, and blew a trunkfull of spray high over everything. Rather than turning, it trundled backward out of the water. Then it did swing around, desperately slowly, and wandered toward the nearest clump of plants. It ate for a while, wheezed, and finally lay down.
"I think it's gone as far as it intends to go," Topaz said. "At least until it gets its strength back."
"But we wanted to take it with us," Rick objected. He went around behind the superspangle to push it, then changed his mind. It was too enormous to dream of moving it without a forklift.
"I think it's earned a rest." Sig stared back toward the clearing and the lean-to shelter. "What I want to know is, who tied it up and left it there? If we hadn't found it, it would have died."
"One of the people who went off to the medical center, I guess." Josh started back on the path that led to the gate. "I wonder if Brewster knows about it."
"You're not going to leave it here, are you?" Hag asked.
"No, dummy." Sig was following Josh and Topaz. "We're going to let you bring it with you. It can sleep in your bed."
"I'm staying with it."
"Fine. Have fun outside when it gets dark."
That was enough to bring Hag after the rest of them, but he grumbled all the way to the main building.
They wanted Brewster. Usually there was too much of him around, but this time he was nowhere to be seen. The only person in the main building was Winnie Carlson, and the only part of her that was visible was her ample rear end. The front of her was deep inside an autochef. She was sneezing when she came out.
"He went over to check the message center in the other building," she said. "I'll show you, I need a break anyway. You've been cooking with this thing? I'm giving it a first look and it's disgusting. You're not supposed to get allergies when you are on a different planet, but with anything this filthy, all bets are off."
Her nose was red, and she had transferred great smudges of grease to both cheeks. Josh saw Topaz's expression. It said, Are we supposed to learn equipment maintenance so we can all look like that?
Brewster wasn't working at the message center itself when they entered the building. He was prowling around the room, which in addition to the communications equipment was filled with computers and peripherals. He was peering inside and underneath everything. Half a dozen of the computers had been turned on and were showing a variety of data-bank displays.
"I haven't got 'round to the equipment in this room yet," Winnie said. She sounded nervous and uncertain. "There's so much to do. I'll take a look at it later today."
"No!" Brewster glared at her. "I don't want any place even touched unt
il I tell you to do it. There's no messages for you."
"Very well, sir. I'll stay out of here."
"And why have you dragged the trainees in with you?"
Winnie gaped at him. It was left to Sig, oldest of the others, to say reluctantly, "We found an animal tied up outside the fence, sir. It seemed to be starving. We let it go, but we wonder how it got there and if we did the right thing."
Not, Josh decided, if Brewster's reaction was anything to go by. He glowered and muttered "Damnation" under his breath. Then, louder, "Where is this beast?"
"We'll show you." Rick and Hag jumped forward like dogs let off a leash. The rest followed more slowly, picking up Dawn on the way, who emerged from between two buildings and drifted after them.
By the time they reached the clearing Brewster had calmed down. He took one look at the animal, lying where they had left it and now snoring, and nodded.
"What you have there is a Bode-Jarman chimera, usually known as a bodger. It doesn't eat anything except leaves and roots, and the only way that it will do you any harm is if you let it sit on you."
"But who tied it up?" Topaz asked.
"I can't tell you that, not specifically." Brewster paused for a moment. "Of course, when I told the group that we were going to the medical center for a more thorough check on everyone's condition, matters became hurried and confused." He paused again. "Somebody must have overlooked the bodger in all the excitement. That was regrettable, but fortunately it is not a tragedy. The animal can fend for itself very well, as you see. It will be fine here." He managed to smile at Topaz. "All right?"
"Yes, sir."
All right perhaps with Topaz, but not with Josh. He waited, until Brewster gave a final nod and headed back up the slope toward the gate with Winnie Carlson trailing obediently at his heels. The Lasker brothers began to fuss over the bodger, arguing about how they might lure it to the compound with water and suitable plants. While they were doing that, Dawn went across and sat down right in front of the big animal. She grabbed the beaded trunk, placed it on her lap, and began to stroke it. Josh was ready to run over and pull her away when the animal gave a great sigh, stretched forward, and rubbed its head along her side.
Topaz nodded, as though something had just been confirmed. "The bodger loves that. But he wasn't telling the truth."
"Brewster? I know."
"How can you?" Topaz frowned at him, as though Josh wasn't telling the truth, either.
"My mother. She's an actress."
"She is? That must be really neat for you."
"Yeah." Josh wasn't so sure. "I guess so. Anyway, she showed me how she acted different things. If a person is saying something they already know or really believe, they talk and they look at you a certain way. If they're improvising—making it up as they go along—the pauses and the look are different. Brewster was improvising."
"And he was lying." Topaz seemed very sure of herself.
"But how do you know?"
"You said you never had a pet, Josh. I did. That bodger was somebody's pet—you only have to look at how it's basking in the attention it's getting from Dawn. There's no way in a million years that anyone who had a pet like that would 'overlook' it and leave it to starve if they had to go away. At the very least, they would release it. If they didn't have time to do that before they had to leave, the Solferino message center would be flooded right now with urgent requests for somebody to go out and let the animal go. Brewster said he had checked the message center. Obviously, no one sent anything about the bodger from the medical facility."
Josh and Topaz stood and stared at each other. "So we agree," Josh said. "He was definitely lying. But why?"
"I have no idea."
Any other comments were lost in new excited cries from Rick and Hag Lasker. Dawn was on her feet. So was the bodger. When she started to walk, very slowly, back up the slope, the beast lumbered after her.
"Hey. He's ours, not yours," Hag complained. "We found him."
Dawn took no notice. Nor did the animal. It just followed her, slowly and single-mindedly.
"I think bodgers must be like cats," Topaz said. "You don't decide who they belong to. They do."
They started uphill after the Lasker twins. Sig was left standing alone, staring first at the bodger's vanishing rear end, then at the uneaten heap of vegetation. When he finally followed the rest, he stayed at the back and spoke to no one.
At the gate to the compound the bodger halted, turned around twice, and settled on the ground. Dawn paused and made a mewing sound. The animal snorted, but did not move.
"I think you'll have to leave it here, Dawn," Topaz said. "It's pretty smart. It knows it's not welcome inside. And in any case, there's nothing for it to eat there."
Dawn did not look at Topaz, or register in any way that she had heard. But she went on through the gate.
The others, following her, found Winnie Carlson on the way to meet them. She appeared more flustered than ever.
"You have to come, right now," she said. "Mr. Brewster told me to get everybody in the dining room for a meeting."
"What does he want now?" Sig asked.
"I have no idea. But if I were you I would say as little as possible when you get there."
Josh could see why as soon as he entered the dining room. Ruby, Sapphire, and Amethyst were already seated. Brewster was pacing up and down in front of them, his big hands clenched behind his back.
"At last," he said, as Josh and the others filed in with Winnie Carlson bringing up the rear. Brewster looked them over, checking that everyone was present, and nodded.
"Listen closely. The medical results indicate that you are now adapted well enough to local conditions to go anywhere on Solferino. So it's time you learned more about the planet. Reading isn't the best way—even though some of you seem to think that it's sufficient." He favored Winnie Carlson with a glare of disapproval. "You need to experience things firsthand. We are all going to make a field trip to the Barbican Hills. Those are the three peaks that you see to the south of here. That is where, according to our surveys, the most advanced life forms on this planet are probably located. The site for this settlement was chosen with that in mind. You can expect to be gone for two or three days. Any questions?"
Josh felt that he had about a hundred. But it was Amethyst Karpov who was first off the mark.
"When will we be going, sir?"
Brewster glanced at his watch. "Shall we say, we will leave one hour from now? That will give you ample time to pack whatever you feel you need, and provide us enough daylight when we get there to establish our camp. I will, of course, review what each of you proposes to take. Carlson and I will decide on the general equipment and food supplies."
"Me?" Winnie Carlson stared at Brewster as though she had heard him wrong. "I won't be going, will I?"
"You certainly will. I will need your help."
"But I was sent to service the equipment, and most of that is right here in these buildings." Winnie ignored her own advice to say as little as possible. She went on, "I haven't so much as looked in three of the buildings yet, and I've done no service work at all in the others. I suppose I could check the vehicles that we use, and the field trip equipment, but if I were away that would be all I could do and I know from what I've seen already that much of what's installed here is badly overdue for inspection and maintenance and really cries out for my attention."
She paused for breath, while Brewster glared at her. He had been listening with icy attention.
"Have you finished, Ms. Carlson? Are you quite, quite sure? Good. Now let me make myself perfectly clear, since you do not appear to have understood what I said the first time. We are all going to make the field trip. Did you hear that, Ms. Carlson? All.
As for your other concerns, I thought that we had agreed on something earlier today: You work for me, and you do exactly what I tell you to do. Agreed?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then I want you ready to leave with the rest of us i
n one hour. And before that you and I need to assemble adequate supplies of food for eleven people, plus such equipment as we will need. We will do that in my quarters."
"Very good, sir."
"Right now."
Winnie swallowed audibly. "Yes sir."
Sol Brewster headed for the door, with Winnie Carlson trailing submissively after him. No one spoke until the two were safely out of the building. Then Sapphire said, "What an absolute wimp."
"Winnie?" Sig Lasker nodded. "Dead right. A total wimp, working for a total jerk. What did we do to deserve them?"
"They deserve each other," Topaz said. "They ought to get married."
"Maybe they will." Amethyst was lolling back in her chair, a faraway look in her innocent blue eyes. "But don't you think we are missing a basic point?"
Putting Up Roots Page 9
