"So look at this." Sig touched the place where the leaf had once been attached to its stem. "I noticed the same thing with the plants when we were up on the ridge. That leaf wasn't broken off, and the stems on the ridge weren't chewed through, either. Everything has been cut, with something like a sharp metal knife.
That's one hell of a dog or chimp, if it can make and use a knife." He handed the leaf back to Ruby and turned again to Josh. "I want to have a talk with her, when the storm ends and things calm down a bit. And you might want to see if you can get anything out of Dawn."
Within an hour the thunder and lightning had ended. The rain stopped, the clouds cleared. It seemed not like a true ending, but a brief respite. Wind still muttered menacingly along the line of the ridge. More bad weather was on the way from the west.
While the storm raged, no one could think about eating. Now they could think about little else.
People clustered about the oven of the little kitchen, sniffing and drooling and doing everything but steal raw food. Topaz and Rick weren't really cooking, they were just heating whatever would be ready fastest.
Dawn had to be as hungry as anyone, but she didn't stay in the camp. She walked barefoot down to the stream, swollen by the rains, and stood on its bank. Josh wasn't worried much about her safety, because Dawn had grown up with Burnt Willow Creek and must have learned how to respect it in all seasons and conditions. He followed her for a different reason: he had an idea.
Sig was an insane optimist if he thought Josh might get something out of Dawn by talking to her. Dawn did talk a little, in her own fashion and with her own unknown agenda. What she did far more, though, when the time and means were at hand, was draw. In the past weeks Josh had seen beautiful sketches of everything from Burnt Willow farmhouse to the Messina Dust Cloud. Dawn's drawing wasn't just fast, it was easy and fluent and uncannily accurate. And she would sometimes draw on demand.
He didn't have a sketch pad—anything like that was back at the main compound—but he did have colored pens in his pocket. For the rest, he had to improvise. He took the big flat leaf that Ruby had carried with her from the middle of the jungle.
"Dawn." She turned as he spoke her name, and he held out pens and the broad leaf. "Will you draw for me what you saw when you were with Ruby and Sapphire, in the forest? The animal, the one that ran away."
She took the materials from him without a word. She smiled, and went on smiling for the next few minutes. What she did not do was draw. Josh waited impatiently, glancing up at Solferino's moon. Clouds were racing across its face, and they thickened as he watched. He could count on a few more minutes, no more, before the storm hit again.
And then suddenly, surprisingly, swiftly, Dawn was drawing. She had turned the leaf away from Josh, and the urge for him to tilt it and see what she was doing was almost overwhelming. He forced himself to watch and wait in silence. In a few minutes, she was done. She handed him the leaf, smiled again, and strolled away toward the camp.
He stared down in the wan light of Solferino's moon, and felt huge disappointment. What Dawn had sketched was not the sleek animal that they had caught a glimpse of as it ran away. Her drawing was of a series of leaves, each similar in shape to the one that he was holding but far smaller in size. Each drawn leaf held its own drawing within it. Sometimes it was meaningless sharp-edged marks, darts and kites that sprawled up and down and anywhere. Four of the drawings were more structured, even if they were no more informative. Two showed a sort of hut built of umbrella-plant stems and leaves, rather like the lean-to where they had found the captive bodger. The other two little leaves contained within their frames what were, without a doubt, miniature sketches of spangles. The point was made extra clear by an umbrella plant on each picture, offering a sense of scale.
Well, it had been worth a try. Josh was tempted to drop the leaf into the swollen stream. Instead he hung on to it and lugged it with him back to the camp. By the time that he had taken those forty uphill paces it was raining again. He went into the kitchen-living area, resigned to a disappointing end to a turbulent day.
"What's that you've got?" Topaz was sitting cross-legged near the door. She had been talking to Dawn, heads close together, when Josh entered.
"Not much." Josh held out the big leaf. "I was hoping she'd draw the animal for me that Ruby found in the forest, but no luck."
He eased his way past them toward the far side of the kitchen, where a big tray of food had been set out on a table folded from the wall. From the look of it, everyone else had already eaten. No knives, forks, or plates tonight—it was fingers or nothing.
Josh dug in and gobbled down mouthfuls of something like a greasy and half-cold omelets. He decided it wasn't a good idea to ask what had been used to make it.
As he ate, he surveyed the crowded room. Winnie was in earnest conversation with Sapphire, who looked like she was still on either snap withdrawal or a bad guilt trip. Probably both. Near to them Ruby, egged on by Hag and Rick, was holding a knife and under Amethyst's direction was cutting one of the big purple grapes carefully through the middle.
Ruby finally held one half out in triumph. The inside was a firm, pale-orange fruit with a brown center.
"I told you Winnie Carlson was kidding about the bugs," Amethyst said. "She's a lot more laid back when Brewster isn't here. I bet that's just fine to eat." The Lasker twins glared at her for a moment, but soon turned their attention to the fruit.
Rick cut a thin slice and nibbled it. "Pretty good."
Josh decided he might try a piece—once a few others had done the same, and they hadn't rolled around in agony. Rick didn't count, he would eat anything.
Josh looked toward the door. Topaz still held the leaf, and she and Dawn were crouched over it together. He noticed how similar they were in appearance—the same height, the same hair color. The other Karpov sisters were fair-haired and blue-eyed, but Topaz and Dawn looked like sisters. Odder yet, Sig Lasker, watching Dawn and Topaz but pretending not to, could have been the older brother of either of them.
While Josh was still comparing, Topaz glanced up and gestured to him to come over.
"I've asked Dawn about this," she said as he approached, "but I want to check with you."
"She spoke to you? Did you, Dawn?"
"We're getting there." But it was still Topaz speaking. "What I want to know is this. Dawn draws things she has seen, you told me that. Does she also sometimes draw things from her imagination—things that she couldn't possibly have seen?"
"She could, if she wanted to." Josh felt an irrational need to defend Dawn. "She's not stupid."
"I know she's not." Topaz bristled back at him. "But you are." She calmed down almost at once, as Dawn laid a hand on her arm. "I'm sorry, Josh. But that's not what I asked you. I didn't say could she draw what she hasn't seen. I want to know if Dawn ever does."
"She draws—" But then Josh had to stop and think. Every one of Dawn's drawings was something that he knew Dawn had looked at; or else, like the views of Burnt Willow Farm, it was something that he had every reason to believe she had seen. "I don't think she invents. If she draws it, I think she has actually seen it. There may be little details she leaves out, but she doesn't make things up."
"Good. Now take a look at this." Topaz held out the leaf with the drawings that Dawn had done. She pointed to two of the little sketches. "What would you say these are?"
Josh needed only one glance. "They're spangles. But Topaz, Dawn has seen spangles."
"I know. But look at these. Look closely." Topaz lifted the leaf so that it was no more than a few inches from his face. "See them?"
She was pointing at a faint series of lines that crisscrossed Dawn's drawing of the spangles.
"I see them. But I don't know what they are."
"Well, I do. Those are bars. That's a cage, Josh. Can't you see it? That's a spangle, sure, but it's a spangle sitting in a cage."
"It can't be. If there had been a spangle sitting in a cage where Dawn went
, Sapphire might have been too zonked to see it—but Ruby would surely have noticed."
"That's what's bugging me." Topaz sat back on her heels in frustration. "Dawn draws what she sees, and she saw an invisible spangle in an invisible cage. Did you, Dawn?"
"No. "Josh's inspiration came in an overwhelming sweep, so fast and complete that he could not guess what led to it. "She didn't see a spangle in a cage. Did you, Dawn? You saw a drawing of a spangle in a cage. Each of these"—he pointed to the set of little drawings of leaves, neatly sketched on the big leaf—"every one of them is a drawing of a drawing. The original drawings were much bigger, one to a leaf. Right, Dawn?"
She was smiling benignly, nodding her head very slowly.
"But that can't be right." Topaz looked from one to the other. "You were there when Dawn found Ruby. You saw that animal, whatever it was, running away. You didn't say it was carrying a big stack of leaves."
"It wasn't. It left a stack of leaves behind." In frustration, Josh crumpled the edge of the leaf that he was holding. "Don't you see, Topaz? When we found Ruby, she was sitting on them. We never gave the leaves another glance, and I bet Ruby didn't, either—she was interested in the rupert, not in some bunch of drawings."
"We can check easily enough." Topaz stood up. "The leaves should still be there. We'll go out tomorrow morning, and we can—unless—"
She paused and stared outside, to the rain that was falling harder than ever.
"Unless." Josh finished her thought. "Unless the ruperts do their painting with something that washes off in water."
Chapter Twelve
THE storm continued for half the night. The animals outside were subdued by the elements, or perhaps they had gone far off to seek shelter. At any rate, they were quiet. Josh slept deeply, and awoke determined to do a more thorough exploration of the forest. Last night's discussions had taken them nowhere. Ruby had hardly noticed the piled umbrella leaves, and he hadn't been able to get a useful word out of Dawn. As for Sapphire, all she did was shake her head and look wretched.
He came outside to a drenched but sunlit world and learned that he was not the first one up. Topaz was in the kitchen with Dawn, drawing on a pad resting on the tabletop. Sig was by her side, watching. When he saw Josh he scowled and turned away, as though embarrassed by his own interest in what mere girls might be doing.
"Did you go already?" Josh came to Topaz's side and stared down at the pad. It was the letters of the alphabet, upper- and lowercase.
"Go where?" Topaz carefully added another, the letter K. Dawn copied it, easily and accurately.
"Did you go and look for the pile of umbrella leaves that Ruby was sitting on?"
Topaz raised her dark eyebrows. "Give me a chance. It's only been light for half an hour. We didn't even eat yet. If you're so keen, why don't you go?"
"I think I will."
Josh was irritated as he headed out of the kitchen. Topaz probably thought she could make Dawn less autistic, but based on the evidence it was working the other way round—Topaz was becoming as inscrutable and impenetrable as Dawn.
He had gone only a couple of paces when he halted. He was facing away from the rising sun, and something had flashed bright silver in the corner of his eye. He turned to stare. It was moving fast across the sky, a stubby little dart that left behind a thin plume of white.
It could not be Sol Brewster and the cargo aircar. The shape was wrong, and the path that the ship was taking would bring it nowhere near the camp.
"Sig! Topaz! Come see this." He turned to make sure they were on the way.
They weren't—they were still staring at Dawn and that stupid pad. "Did you hear me? Hurry!"
Already the speeding ship was halfway to the horizon and shrinking in apparent size every second. Sig had finally begun to move, but with no great haste. Topaz was behind him, staring down at the pad she was holding. Dawn did not move an inch.
"Look at this, Josh." Topaz began to speak before she was fully outside. "I didn't spell it out or anything. She just did it for herself!" She lifted the pad and turned it.
Josh glanced at the pad impatiently. The drawing was unmistakable—it was of Topaz, smiling and in half-profile. At the bottom, in the right-hand corner, the word "Dawn" was neatly printed.
"She can write her name!" Topaz wasn't looking at Josh or where he was pointing; she was too busy grinning at the signed picture. "I bet if I keep working with her, she'll be able to read and write anything."
Normally Josh would have been as excited as Topaz, but the speeding ship was on the far horizon and the sun glint from its body was already lost.
"Never mind the picture." He pointed. "Look over there."
It was almost too late. Josh could see the dark dot of the ship, but that was because he knew exactly where to look. The plume of the exhaust was no more than a tiny white feather in the sky.
Sig and Topaz were squinting up into the bright morning glare, but he could tell from their puzzled expressions that they were missing it.
"Look at what?" Sig said. "I don't see anything except clouds."
"It was a ship. A space-rated vehicle, like the one that took us up from Earth. You can still see its exhaust."
But it was obvious that they couldn't. Sig turned from scanning the sky to stare skeptically at Josh.
Topaz seemed even more dubious. "There are no ships around Solferino at the moment," she said. "It's supposed to be another week before the medical center service ship comes back here. Brewster said so. You just imagined you saw something."
It wasn't an argument that you could win. How could you prove that something now vanished had ever been there? Josh was ready to try anyway, with the indignant statement that he had seen a ship, definitely, certainly, undeniably; but a new sound from behind stopped him before he could start. Even before he turned, Josh recognized the familiar whine.
"Oh, that's what it was," Topaz said. "A cargo aircar."
"No, it wasn't!" Josh began, and gave up. No matter what he said, he wouldn't get their attention now.
The aircar feathered down beside the camp. As it touched, blowing a ripple of dew across the wet ground, Ruby, Amethyst, and the Lasker twins came hurrying from the camp dormitories. They had heard the arriving car.
The whole group froze, waiting. When the door of the vehicle opened and Brewster stepped down the three-rung ladder, the tension increased. Yesterday might have been hectic and scary, but at least Brewster had not been there to push people around.
"Where are Winnie Carlson and Sapphire Karpov?" Brewster didn't waste any time on greetings.
No one answered, until Topaz provided a reluctant, "I guess they're in bed."
"Indeed?" From the tone in Brewster's voice, it might have been after midday. "If they are in bed, go and rouse them. The rest of you, get to work. We'll be breaking camp as soon as possible. I don't want to waste another minute here."
Brewster did not wait to see that his order was obeyed. He was striding back toward the aircar when Josh raised his hand and said, "Sir!"
He was surprised by his own boldness, especially when he saw the impatient glare that Brewster gave him.
"Yes? Kerrigan, isn't it? Didn't you understand what I told you? Or do you have a hearing problem?"
"I did understand, sir."
"So what are you standing about for?"
It occurred to Josh that everyone was standing about, wondering what Brewster was going to do to him. But he was committed.
"I think something very important happened yesterday, while you were gone."
At least that got Brewster's full attention. The pale eyebrows raised above the dark eyes. "Important in what way?"
"We found a new animal."
"That is hardly a surprise. Humans came to Solferino only three years ago. The planet must have a million species that have not yet been cataloged. What did it look like?"
"It was a rupert."
"Then it is not a new animal at all."
"But this one w
as different, sir. I mean, it was a different sort of rupert. I mean . . ."
Josh knew what he wanted to say, but his tongue was tripping over itself. He started to explain what had happened, then realized he could not tell Brewster that Ruby got lost because her sister was drugged out of her mind. He tried to edit what he was saying as he spoke, and heard things coming out choppy and illogical. No one else helped him out, and it was a real relief to see Topaz returning with Sapphire and Winnie Carlson in tow. Winnie looked awful, pale-faced but dark under the eyes, and yawning as though she had been awake all night.
Brewster turned on them. "Ah. It is nice of you to favor us with your presence. I hope you are enjoying your Solferino vacation." But then it was at once back to Josh.
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