The Mystery of Ireta

by Anne McCaffrey

  “So we’re fair peek,” said Kai, leaning against the edge of the sled and folding his arms. “Now what do we do in your program? Be observed in our daily morning habits?”

  “You can, if you wish. Be interesting to see how long their attention span is, but there’s a great deal going on up there.” She pointed skyward where the giffs were circling, but some groups spun off in various directions, with purposeful sweeps of their wings. “We don’t seem to have hit a rest day,” she said, flashing a smile at Kai. “Bonnard, if I give you a leg up on the sled’s canopy, I think you can see the summit. Can you tell me what the juveniles were squawking about? Or what overbalanced the one I wanted to rescue?”

  “Sure.”

  “Just don’t dance about too much. Your boots’ll scar the plascreen. And no, you can’t take ’em off,” Kai added as Bonnard began to speak.

  They hoisted him up and, moving with great care, Bonnard positioned himself where he could see the summit.

  “There’s dead fringes up here, Varian, and some slimy looking seaweed. Aw, would you look at that?”

  The juveniles, attracted by his new position, had abandoned that section of the summit and waddled over to stand directly in Bonnard’s line of sight. Disgusted, he propped both hands against his hips and glared, actions which set them all to squawking and shifting away from the edge. Kai and Varian chuckled over the two sets of young.

  “Hey, recorder man, you missed a dilly of a sequence!”

  “Don’t I just know it!”

  “C’mon down,” Varian told him, having learned what she needed to know.

  She wandered over to the sea edge of the terrace, lay down, peering farther over the drop.

  “I’m not allowed up. Am I allowed down? There appears to be a cave over to the left, about twenty meters, Kai. If I use a belt-harness, you could probably swing me to it.”

  Kai was not completely in favor of such gymnastics, but the belt-harness, winched safely to the sled’s exterior attachments, could hold a heavy-worlder securely. He was glad not to be at the end of the pendulum swing as she was to reach her objective.

  “Are they watching, Bonnard?” Varian asked over the comunit.

  “The young ones are, Varian, and yes, one of the airborne fliers is watching.”

  “Let’s see if they have any prohibitive spots . . .”

  “Varian . . .” Kai grew apprehensive as he, too, saw the adult giff fly in for a close look at Varian’s swinging body.

  “It’s only looking, Kai. I expect that. One more swing now and . . . I got it.” She had grabbed and caught a stony protrusion at the cave entrance and agilely scrambled in.

  “Rakers! It’s abandoned. It’s gigantic. Goes so far back I can’t see the end.” Her voice over the comunit sounded rumbled and then hollow. “No, wait. Just what I wanted. An egg. An egg? And they let me in. Oh, it rattles. Dead egg. Small, too. Well, only circumstantial evidence that their young are born immature. Hmmm. There’re grasses here, sort of forming a nest. Too scattered at this point to be sure. They can’t have abandoned a cave because there’s been an infertile egg? No fish bones, or scales. They must devour whole. Good digestions then.”

  Bonnard and Kai exchanged glances over her monologue and the assorted sounds of her investigations, broadcast from the comunit.

  “The nest grasses are not the Rift Valley type, more like the tougher fibers of the swamp growths. I wonder . . . okay, Kai,” and her broadcast voice was augmented by the clearer tones that indicated she had left the cave, “pull me up.”

  She had grasses sprouting from her leg pouches as she came over the lip of the ledge, and the egg made an unusual bulge in the front of her ship suit.

  “Any sign of alarm?” she asked.

  Kai, securing the winch, shook his head as Bonnard leaped to assist her out of the harness.

  “Hey, their eggs are small. Can I shake it?”

  “Go ahead. What’s in it is long dead.”

  “Why?”

  Varian shrugged. “We’ll let Trizein have a gawk and see if he can find out. I don’t necessarily wish to fracture it. Let me have that plascovering, Kai,” and she neatly stored the egg, surrounded by the dead grasses, and then brushed her gloved hands together to signify a task well completed. “That’s thirsty work,” she said and led the way back to the sled where she broke out more rations.

  “You know,” she said, halfway through the quick meal, “I think that each of those groups was out on various set tasks . . .”

  “So we’re staying around to see what they bring home?” asked Kai.

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “No.” He inclined his head toward the juveniles, some of whom had indeed lost interest and were bumbling about the summit at the far side. “I’m enjoying the reversal of roles.”

  “I wish I could get into a cave currently in use . . .”

  “All in one day?”

  “Yes, you’re right, Kai. That’s asking too much. At least, we’ve experienced no aggressive action from them. The adult construed my action as helpful rather than dangerous. It did accept the grass . . .”

  They all glanced upward as an unusual note penetrated the sled’s roof, a high-pitched, sharp sustained note. The juveniles on the summit came rigidly to attention. Varian gestured to Bonnard to take the recorder but the boy was already reaching for it, doing a scan of the skies before he steadied the device on the alert young.

  A mass of fliers fell from the caves, gained wing room and flew with an astonishing show of speed off into the misty southwest.

  “That’s the direction of the sea gap. The net fishers?”

  “The juveniles are clearing away,” said Bonnard. “Looks like fish for lunch to me.”

  Out of the mist now appeared wing-weary giffs, barely skimming the water, rising with obvious effort to ledges where they settled, wings unclosed and drooping. Varian was certain she’d seen grass trailing from the rear claws of one. They waited, and so did the juveniles, occasionally poking at each other. Bonnard, fretting with the interval, moved toward the sled exit but Varian stopped him, just as they saw an adult giff land on their terrace.

  “Don’t move a muscle, Bonnard.”

  The adult watched, its eyes never moving from the sled.

  “Now move slowly back from the exit,” Varian told him and when he had completed the maneuver, she let out a deep sigh of relief. “What did I tell you the other day? You don’t bother animals with food. You sure as rakers don’t bother creatures waiting for lunch, if you want to stay in good with them.”

  “I’m sorry, Varian.”

  “That’s all right, Bonnard. You have to learn these things. Fortunately no harm’s done—either to you or to our mission.” She smiled at Bonnard’s downcast face. “Cheer up. We’ve also learned something else. They haven’t let up surveillance of us for one minute. And they’ve figured out where we enter and leave this sled. Pretty clever creatures, I’d say.”

  Never taking his eyes off their guard, the boy sank to the floor of the sled.

  They waited another three-quarters of an hour before Kai, remembering to keep his gestures slow, alerted them to the returning giffs. Cries raised from every quarter, and so many giffs were airborne that Bonnard complained bitterly that his frames would show more furried bodies and wings than anything informative.

  Bonnard and Varian saw a repetition of the previous performance as the shimmering piles of fish were spewed from the nets. The juveniles waddled in and one adult, spotting a youngster stocking up his throat pouch, tapped it smartly on the head and made it regurgitate. Kai observed another adult separating fringes from the mass, dexterously flipping them over the edge of the cliff with quick sweeps of his beak. When it had apparently completed that task on its side of the catch, it carefully scrubbed its beak against stone.

  “I got that on tape, Varian,” Bonnard assured her as Kai pointed out another curiosity, an adult giff whose beak was being stuffed by others. The giff then waddled off
the cliff edge, gained wing room and disappeared into one of the larger caves. Another took his place, to be filled up before flying off, this time to another large aperture. The juveniles were allowed to eat one fish at a time. There was a repeat of juvenile terror over a fringe, two fell over and were intertwined until rescued by a watching adult. Bonnard fretted at having to remain inside the sled instead of on it where he could have got much better tapes of the incident.

  Gradually the supply dwindled, the juveniles losing interest and disappearing from the summit. Soon after, Varian noticed that no giffs were to be seen. They waited patiently until Kai became so restless with inactivity that Varian could not ignore the fact that they were not furthering their study of the giff by remaining either in the sled or on the terrace.

  It was well past midday now. She’d enough on tapes for hours of study. Her announcement that they’d better get back to the compound met with instant action on the part of the two males. Kai checked the sled’s lock for flight, motioned Bonnard to strap himself in and did so himself. Both were ready while she, laughing, was barely seated.

  As she took off, she circled once over the summit, noting that small fringes were left to bake and deteriorate on the summit. She’d answered a few of her questions, but more had been raised by the day’s happenings. She was reasonably pleased with the excursion, if only because it had been something she’d wanted to do.

  8

  KAI noticed the absence of the sleds as they circled an encampment strangely motionless. Only Dandy was visible, half-asleep in his pen, one hind leg cocked at the ankle. For some reason, that reassured Kai. Dandy had shown a marked tendency to react to any tension or excitement in the compound by cowering against the fencing of his pen.

  “Everyone is indeed resting,” said Varian who was piloting the sled.

  “My teams must have made an early return to their camps.”

  “Yes, but where are my heavy-worlders? Not all the sleds should be gone.”

  “Bakkun said something about going to his place,” said Bonnard.

  “His place?” Kai and Varian asked in chorus.

  “Yes. North,” said Bonnard, pointing. “Bakkun’s special place is in the north.”

  “What sort of special place?” asked Varian, signalling Kai with a quick glance to let her do the questioning. “Have you been there?”

  “Yes, last week when I was out with Bakkun. It’s not what I’d call special, just a clear circular place among the trees, closed off at one end by a rock fall. There’s a bunch of the big grass-eaters, like Mabel, and some other smaller types. They’ve all got hunks out of their sides, Varian. Bakkun told me Paskutti was interested in them. Didn’t he mention it to you?”

  “Probably hasn’t had time,” said Varian in such an offhanded manner that Kai knew Paskutti hadn’t mentioned it to her.

  “Time? That was a week ago.”

  “We’ve all been busy,” said Varian, frowning as she slipped the sled into hold and landed it lightly on the ground.

  Lunzie was at the veil lock now, waiting to open it for them.

  “Successful trip?” she asked.

  “Yes, indeed. Everyone enjoying a quiet restful day here, too?” asked Varian.

  Lunzie gave her a long searching look.

  “As far as I know,” said Lunzie slowly, her eyes never leaving Varian’s as she closed the veil lock. “Terilla’s working on some drawings in Gaber’s dome, and Cleiti’s reading in the main dome.”

  “Could I show Cleiti the tapes, Varian?”

  “By all means. Just don’t erase ’em by mistake!”

  “Varian! I’ve been handling tapes for weeks with no blanking.”

  Kai could sense that Varian wanted Bonnard out of earshot. He was also aware that somehow or other the two women had exchanged some tacit information and were impatient to talk uninhibitedly. Kai had a few questions to put to Varian, too, about Bakkun, Paskutti and trapped herbivores.

  “My teams get off all right?” Kai asked Lunzie to cover the conspicuous silence as Bonnard made his way across the compound. He paused to pat Dandy.

  “Yes, all except Bakkun, who went off with the heavy-worlders on some jaunt of their own.” Lunzie gestured toward the shuttle and they moved that way. “Remember asking me about stores, Kai?” she said in a low voice. “Someone raided our hold of a selection of basic medical supplies. Also, the synthesizer has been used enough to drain a power pack. Now, the synthesizer may be heavy on power, but I hadn’t used it that much on the new pack. So I had Portegin check it out this morning before he went off, and there’s no malfunction. Someone’s been using it. What was synthesized I couldn’t say.”

  “Where did the heavy-worlders go, Lunzie?” Varian asked.

  “I don’t know. I was in the stores by then, when I heard sled and belts going. Then Portegin came, told me the heavy-worlders had taken off . . .” Lunzie paused, frowning in concentration. “That’s odd. I was in the store hold, and they didn’t come to me for any rations.”

  “No!” Varian’s low exclamation startled the doctor and Kai.

  “What’s wrong, Varian?”

  She had turned very pale, looked suddenly quite sick and leaned against the bulkhead.

  “No, I must be wrong.”

  “Wrong?” Lunzie prompted her.

  “I must be. There’d be no reason for them to revert. Would there, Lunzie?”

  “Revert?” Lunzie stared intently at Varian, who was still leaning weakly against the bulkhead. “You can’t think . . .”

  “Why else would Paskutti be interested in flank-wounded herbivores that I didn’t know anything about? I never thought Bakkun was callous. But, to say such a thing in front of a boy . . .”

  Lunzie gave a snort. “The heavy-worlders don’t have a high opinion of adult light-gravs, less of the shipbred, and children on their worlds never speak until they’ve killed . . .”

  “What are you two talking about?” asked Kai.

  “I’m afraid I agree with Varian’s hypothesis.”

  “Which is?” Kai spoke testily.

  “That the heavy-worlders have taken to eating animal protein.” Lunzie’s calm, detached tone did not lessen the impact of such a revolting statement.

  Kai thought he would be ill, the sudden nausea was so acute.

  “They’ve . . .” He couldn’t repeat the sentence and waved one hand in lieu of the words. “They’re Federation members. They’re civilized . . .”

  “They do conform when in Federation company,” said Varian in a low, colorless voice, indicating how deeply shocked she was. “But I’ve worked with them in expeditions before and they will . . . if they can. I just didn’t think . . . I didn’t want to think they’d do it here.”

  “They have been discreet,” said Lunzie. “Not that I’m defending them. If it hadn’t been for Bonnard’s chance remark . . . No,” and Lunzie frowned at the floor plates, “I’ve been skirting the edges of a theory ever since that night . . .”

  “The night you served them the fruit distillation.” Varian rounded on Lunzie, pointing at her. “They weren’t drunk! They were high. And you know why?” Neither had time to answer her hypothetical question. “Because of the violence . . .”

  “Yes, violence and alcohol would act as stimuli on the heavy-worlders,” said Lunzie, nodding her head judiciously. “They have a naturally slow metabolism,” she told Kai. “And a low sex drive which makes them an admirable mutation for EEC expeditions. Given the proper stimulants and . . .” Lunzie shrugged.

  “That’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let them drink that night. I knew. You see,” Varian rushed on in a spate of confession, “that was the day a fang-face savagely attacked a herbivore. I noticed Paskutti and Tardma reacting strongly although I thought at the time I was imagining things . . .”

  “That was the violence needed, and I compounded the problem by offering the fruit distillation.” Lunzie was willing to share the responsibility. “They must have made quite a night of it.�
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  “And we thought they’d gone to bed early!” Varian clapped her palm on her forehead, admitting stupidity. “With too potent a brew . . .” She started to laugh and then drew in her breath sharply. “Oh, no. No!”

  “Now what?” demanded Kai sharply.

  “They went back.”

  “Went back?” Kai was confused.

  “Remember my asking you about the big sled’s flight time?” Varian asked Kai.

  “They went back and slaughtered that herbivore for its flesh?” Lunzie asked Varian.

  “I wish you didn’t need to be so revoltingly vulgar,” said Kai, angry at the doctor as well as himself and his churning stomach.

  “Yes,” Lunzie continued, ignoring Kai, “they would definitely need additional animal protein . . .”

  “Lunzie!” Now Varian tried to stop her, but the physician continued in her detached clinical way.

  “I do believe they eat, and enjoy, animal protein. On their own planet, they have to eat it, little vegetable matter grows on high-grav worlds that is digestible by human stock. Generally they will conform to the universal standards of vegetable and synthetic proteins. I have given them subsistence foods high in . . .” Lunzie stopped. “Could that be why the synthesizer was overworked?”

  “Protein?” asked Kai, desperately hoping that members of his expedition had not abrogated all the tenets of acceptable dietary controls.

  “No, the other daily requirements they couldn’t get from a purely animal diet. One thing that isn’t missing from our stores is our sort of protein.”

  Varian, looking green, held up a hand to divert Lunzie.

  “Didn’t think you were the squeamish type, Varian,” Lunzie said. “Still, your sensitivity does credit to your upbringing. The temptation to eat animal flesh is still strong in the planet-bred . . .”

  “Kai, what are we going to do?” asked Varian.

  “Frankly,” said Lunzie, “though you didn’t ask me, I’d say there was nothing you can do. They have been discreet about their vile preference. However,” and her tone altered, “this only supports my contention that you can never successfully condition away a basic urge. It requires generations in a new environment to be positive of your results. Oh!” Lunzie had begun in her usual confident, pedantic tone. Her exclamation was startled. “I say, Kai, Varian,” she looked from one to the other at her most solemn, “EV is returning for us, isn’t it?”