The Mystery of Ireta

by Anne McCaffrey

  “We shouldn’t eat too much at first,” Kai said. He sank down beside her as she sliced a segment off and offered it to him on her knife point.

  “Quite likely,” she said, slicing a second piece, for herself. She murmured with delight as she bit the soft green fruit. “Go ahead. Eat!” she urged, juice dribbling from the corners of her mouth.

  “The things I do for the EEC,” Kai said, pretending horror at having to eat unprocessed food. As the first sweetness dissolved in his dry mouth, Kai was willing to admit, privately, that natural food was undeniably juicier than processed.

  They both ate slowly, chewing thoroughly.

  “I suspect root vegetables would have been wiser in terms of protein content, but fruit sugar raises blood levels,” Varian remarked thoughtfully. “Oh, but this is good. What I don’t understand,” she went on gesturing with her half-eaten slice, “is how those vines grew here. Granted,” and she raised the slice to forestall Kai, “we don’t know how long we’ve slept, and growth on Ireta is explosive. But the other cliffs are still clear. The giffs’ main diet is fish and Rift grass. These vines aren’t from the Rift, and this section of cliff looks more like forest than palisade. The vines grow right down to the water.”

  “Strangely selective, I agree. Did you see much of the giffs on your swings?”

  “Some, circling high. I don’t think they saw me if that’s what you’re wondering. It’s early morningish—hazy, overcast. Couldn’t see their food place from this angle, but I’d guess that the morning fishers are about their labors.”

  “We will wait,” said Kai with careful authority, “until they have fed before we put in an appearance.”

  “Ah, you remember my lecture about disturbing feeding animals!”

  “Not that much subjective time has passed, Varian!”

  He grinned as she automatically twisted her wrist to glance at her unregistering chronometer.

  “Lifetime batteries, huh?” she said in disgust.

  Varian’s eyes flicked toward the dim bulk of the shuttle. “Should we wake Lunzie or Triv?”

  “I see no reason to until Tor has come to some conclusions.”

  “Or favors us with an accurate reading of elapsed time. That’s what I’d like to know!” Varian was almost angry. “Why, if it weren’t for the vines over the cave and the dead batteries we could just have overslept.” A shudder seized her shoulders and shook her slender frame.

  “The notion is leveling, isn’t it,” Kai said, understanding her mood perfectly. “The universe has gone by without noticing that we have faltered.”

  Even to himself he sounded as pompous as Gaber, and he quickly took a bit of melon to hide his embarrassment.

  “Yes, that grits at me,” she said. “We have such a brief time”—she gestured to the shuttle, and the brooding Thek inside—“in which to make a mark of any sort, to achieve some merit. I know I want to leave some sign that I tried! Krim erase those misguided, misbegotten, mutineers.”

  “I’d hate to think we were the sign of their achievement!”

  Varian jumped to her feet and launched the rind of melon past the vine screen. They heard a faint plop as it hit the water below. “No, by Krim! We’ll have something of our own to report out of this mess, and I don’t care how long we have to sleep to do it. Some EEC vessel is going to strip that beacon. And when it does, it’ll come streaming into orbit to tap Ireta’s wealth! And I’ll be here!”

  2

  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.” Absentmindedly 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 borne.

  “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.

&
nbsp; “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 ship suit. “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 on 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, rifled 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 handhold, 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 shoulderblades 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 rainstorm 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 coleader replied, frowning at the cluster of brownish oval objects growing just above their heads.

  “True, but the hadrasaurs 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 of 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 and admired 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 backward, 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 sig
ht 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.