The Mystery of Ireta

by Anne McCaffrey

  He realized suddenly that he had never had the chance to delve into the Zaid-Dayan’s memory banks, to check whether there had been any similar mass movements of Thek. Not that his original question held any pertinence in view of the day’s development. Surely the presence of—and Kai grinned—the Great-Big Bears was exceptional. He’d swap a few drinks on that account himself when he got back to the ARCT-10. Kai inhaled sharply. “When,” he’d said. Another matter he’d forgotten to ascertain, though surely Sassinak would have mentioned any communication about the ARCT-10! Better to assimilate the day’s startling events than deal with . . . with unknowns.

  So, the Thek had been here and no living Thek had retained a record of the event, despite the much praised memory of the species. Kai knew that when each new Thek was created—and some wits insisted that propagation occurred when two Thek bumped into each other with sufficient force to chip off fragments—it immediately acquired the race memory as well as the working memories of every Thek in its direct line. No reliable figures about the exact numbers of Thek were available. Once again, the humorists’ theories filled a vacuum. They maintained that old Thek never died, they became planets.

  A sudden thought, more fanciful than Fordeliton’s, erupted into Kai’s mind: could Ireta, itself, be a Thek? The notion had a certain appeal, if no plausible scientific basis. But was it possible that somewhere in the areas his team had not yet penetrated, there was a Thek mountain? Kai ran from the mess hall, and then, because his curiosity was intense, he increased speed, pelting up the slope, mindful though not to catch his shoulder on the iris as he entered the shuttle. He did bang his hip against the narrower door into the pilot’s compartment. Then he tapped out the file designation of the probe survey maps, hoping that time or some unforeseen wipe had not yanked those records from the shuttle’s memory banks.

  To his relief, his request was implemented and the screen showed the probe’s journey as the vehicle zoomed in on the planet. As usual, clouds covered most of Ireta’s face but the probe’s filters very quickly produced a clear view of the nearing planet. All right, now, what does an ancient Thek resemble? A pyramidal form might be the most common, but was it the most enduring, the most effective long-term configuration? Surely a silicon mountain would be unusual enough for a probe to register? Catching his underlip on his upper teeth, Kai watched as the probe changed orbit to overfly a new portion of the planet’s main continent. Unless—Kai tapped for a magnification of the island chains, but the shattered formations were almost uniformly, and easily identified as, volcanic atolls. Theks had great patience and never “blew their stacks.”

  If there had been a Thek, where was the most logical place for it to have positioned itself on Ireta? Basement rock! Kai called back the map of the main continent and peered over the area, sighing as he realized that the teams had traversed most of the shield rock and had not sighted any unusual mountains. But then, had they been looking for a Thek mountain? No, but wouldn’t Tor have noticed, or been contacted by such an elderly Thek? When did a Thek stop emitting conscious thought to its peers? And would it not have propagated to continue its existence? To perpetuate its memories? Or had that search been the one conducted near Dimenon’s site, when forty Thek had landed? Were the old cores merely incidental to that vastly more important search?

  “Verifying,” Tor had said. Verifying not that the old cores had been Thek manufacture or that the planet had been claimed by the Thek, but verifying the whereabouts of that incredibly ancient Thek which had not been linked with any current generation of its kind.

  And, if the Thek did claim Ireta for their own, how would that effect Kai and his team? A long sad sigh escaped his lips. Just when they thought they had a chance to snatch some profit from the debacle, a prior claim appears. All they’d end up with after forty-three lost years would be their base pay and a kindly handshake from the Exploration and Evaluation Corps. At least, he thought to cheer himself from the depression that now engulfed him, Varian might be able to rescue something positive.

  He heard the bleep of the globe, a friendly warning of arrivals. Wearily and with considerable effort, Kai rose from the pilot’s seat. He dismissed the data he had retrieved and went to see who was returning. It was with a sense of reprieve that he recognized the big sled with Trizein’s group coming in to land in the vehicle park. But he realized that he must warn his team of his reflections, if only to cushion a subsequent shock. And if he had put the facts in the wrong configuration, one of the others might refute his conclusion or suggest an alternative operation so that they could rescue some gains.

  “Oh, I am glad you’re here, Kai,” Trizein said, his face suffused with excitement as he jogged up to the veil opening in the force-screen. Behind him Bonnard was laden with record disks, his face wreathed with a smug smile. Terilla and Cleiti followed, chatting animatedly. “We have had the most incredible encounter with the Thek. They are here in the most incredible numbers.”

  “A horde, Kai, a real horde of them!” Bonnard confirmed.

  “What were they doing?” Kai tried to keep his voice even but his level of depression increased in direct proportion to their enthusiasm.

  “Looking!” Bonnard said triumphantly.

  “No, my dear boy, they must have been surveying.”

  “No, they were looking because they were keeping an awfully close line to what I think is the shield rock area.” Bonnard looked to Kai to support him. “We can use the shuttle’s data banks again, can’t we? I’ll show you what I mean because I took coordinates of the positions and angles of flight of the Thek to back up my observations.” He gave a decisive nod of his head in Kai’s direction, again seeking reassurance.

  “Let’s check then,” Kai said with a heartiness he did not feel. He did manage to keep his voice calm and maintain a composed expression, despite a sensation bordering nausea for this crushing disappointment. Thus does Muhlah reward the doubter! he thought as he retraced his steps back to the shuttle.

  Once Kai had called up the required maps, he had little to do, for Bonnard, cheerfully but firmly arguing with Trizein, proved his coordinates, and his theory, that the Thek were searching the edge of the shield rock.

  “And it was a search pattern, Kai,” Bonnard said firmly. “I mean, they were hovering ground level,” and Bonnard showed the distance with his hands, “and scouring, back and forth and back and forth. I thought they’d been sitting on old cores, or something. What could they be looking for now?”

  “An ancient Thek,” Kai said.

  “An ancient Thek?” Trizein turned to frown at Kai, concern and surprise on his seamed face. “Our telltagger has never registered that sort of heat mass, now has it, Bonnard?”

  “Nope,” replied the boy cheerfully.

  The globe’s cheerful bleep penetrated to the shuttle’s interior and Kai gratefully used it as an excuse to escape Trizein’s saurian enthusiasms and Bonnard’s innocent confidence in Thek infallibility.

  “Kai!” Bonnard came after him. “Kai.”

  Reluctantly Kai paused, turned, saw the boy removing an antiseptic wipe from his first-aid pouch. Bonnard extended it to him with a bashful grin.

  “You’ve got a trickle of blood on your chin. I don’t think it would do to let Varian or Lunzie see that.” Bonnard turned on his heel and ran back into the shuttle.

  Dabbing at his lower lip, Kai felt a warmth suffuse the tight knot of despair that had taken up residence in his chest. Then he continued to the veil.

  19

  IF Varian had come back to the main camp that evening; if Triv, Aulia, and Portegin had arrived back for the evening meal; if Dimenon and Margit had, for any reason, visited the camp, Kai might have felt obligated to air his pessimistic speculations about Thek and Ireta. Instead the dinosaur buffs from the Zaid-Dayan and the Mazer Star convened an informal enthusiasm session, matching unusual specimens with Trizein and the three children. Kai was torn between the social obligations of raising his spirits to the level of the other
s and the need to worry privately about his new anxieties. He was apparently dissembling well enough so that not even Lunzie noticed. The medic was examining Terilla’s detailed sketches, pinning the more colorful ones on the walls of the dome, “to brighten things.”

  More out of a wish to distract himself, Kai approached Perens, the Mazer Star’s navigator. “Why do dinosaurs fascinate you and these others so much? They are smelly animals, crawling with vermin, not very intelligent, and I can’t give them any marks for beauty. To me they are nothing but mammoth walking appetites. If Ireta wasn’t also blessed with a vegetation explosion, they’d’ve died out long ago of starvation.”

  Perens, a dapper little man with a pencil-thin moustache, which he stroked lovingly, grinned at Kai. “Didn’t you get the capsule history of Old Terra in your tutorials?” When Kai nodded, Perens continued. “Well, the only thing I remember about it in any detail was the chapter on prehistory. The rest was sort of wars and power struggles, no different from what we have today in the Federated Planets, only more intense because it was limited to the one small planet and, generally, to one or two continents. But I remembered the dinosaurs and the Mesozoic age. I remembered because they had lasted, as a viable life-form, for more millions of years than we have!” Perens smoothed his moustache absently. “I’ve always wondered what kept the dinosaurs going for so long on Old Terra, when Homo sapiens, operating in a much shorter time scale, came so close to pulling the plug on itself.” Then he shrugged and grinned ingenuously at Kai. “Dinosaurs are big, they’re ugly, and they’re fascinating. Raw power, a force of nature, majestic!”

  Just then, Lunzie appeared beside them, in her hand a tray with glasses filled with her special Iretan brew. Nothing could have been more welcome. “Muhlah! You’ve been well occupied, Lunzie.” He turned to grin encouragingly at Perens. “Hope you’re a drinking man because this stuff may be a local brew but it’s good!”

  Lunzie raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. “But it’s planet-brewed, Kai, not processed.”

  “I’m learning chapter and verse like a good Disciple,” he said, toasting her with his glass. He had the touch of the liqueur on his lips when he stayed his hand. “It won’t react with Mayerd’s medicine, will it?”

  “If it might, I wouldn’t have served you.”

  “In that case—” and Kai knocked back the entire glass, holding it out for a refill.

  “Hmm. My, how the pure have been corrupted!” But she complied before she moved on.

  Perens was cautious. He merely wet his lips, then judiciously ran his tongue over them. Then he took a tiny sip, washing the liquid about his mouth. Kai watched him with a certain respect, for the spiritous beverage had a bite to it. Finally Perens condescended to drink.

  “Not bad at all. I wonder what she uses. If you’ll excuse me,” and Perens slipped away in pursuit of the medic.

  Kai wandered over to Trizein, who was lecturing Maxnil and Crilsoff on the evolution of the families of hadrasaur, noting that one had traded a keen sense of smell for improved vision. The two officers were listening with every outward show of interest, but Kai noticed that they were sipping the liquor in hefty swallows. Maxnil caught Lunzie’s attention, miming the need for a refill. As Lunzie apparently had few qualms about serving her beverage to the group, the evening shortly assumed a rosier aspect for Kai, and by the end of the evening the cruiser contingent had to be issued bedding for none of them could have been trusted to pilot the others back to the Zaid-Dayan.

  A variety of claxons eventually roused them all. Recalls became shriller summonses as the polite first request was ignored by sound sleepers. The comunit became equally insistent in Kai’s dome. With groggy fingers he opened the toggle and grunted acknowledgment.

  “Governor Kai, Commander Sassinak’s compliments, and she is sending the pinnace to collect you for an important meeting here. And, sir,” the polite voice of the communications duty officer added, “would there be any chance that Lieutenant Pendelman, Chief Petty Officer Maxnil, and . . .”

  “They’re in the main dome. I’ll kick ’em out. For that matter I can hitch a ride with them.”

  “No, sir, their boat isn’t fast enough. ’Scuse me, Governor, they just came on line.”

  Important meeting? Kai felt conflicting emotions of relief and fearful anticipation. He really should have spoken to his team last night, if only to prepare them. Then he berated himself for borrowing trouble where it might not exist. Any number of things could account for Sassinak’s meeting: the arrival of the tribunal, a report from Sector Headquarters that she didn’t care to broadcast, even a report from Dupaynil.

  Kai was outside his dome now and aware that, by way of a special blessing, Ireta had produced a glowing sunrise of spectacular brilliance. Mouth agape, he admired the eastern sky, clear blue in a band above the distant mountains. Above that, clouds were a blood red, tinged with orange and yellow, vivid primaries to startle the eye. The vaster bowl of deeper-gray night clouds began to spread with a deep purple, rolling back from the clear morning sky. Thunder rumbled in the distance and a cool sweet-scented breeze wafted gently through a force-screen which would have rebuked stiffer winds. Such a spectacular dawn could only be the harbinger of great things, Kai thought. But he was not prone to believe in presentiments and frowned at the whimsy.

  “For once, this blighted planet is pretty,” Lunzie said as she quietly joined him.

  Kai smiled at her, pleased to share the dawn’s magnificence with someone else.

  “What’s the commotion? Every signal in the camp’s sounding.” Lunzie rubbed her eyes, sleepily.

  “Sassinak’s sent for me.”

  “My presence has been requested as well. Varian, too?”

  “I’d expect so. And I’m just on my way to rouse the officers.”

  “I’ll help.” Lunzie’s smile had a touch of malice for the men of the Zaid-Dayan had imbibed mass quantities of her brew. Lunzie could take an unkindly delight in the discomforts caused others by overindulgence.

  They had roused the deep sleepers when the globe bleeped cheerfully. As Lunzie and Kai emerged from the dome, dawn light reflected from the side of the pinnace. Kai was opening the veil when the vessel’s sonic boom cracked.

  “They wasted no time, did they?” Lunzie said.

  Fordeliton was the pilot. “We’re to collect Varian as well,” he said, gesturing for them to belt up in their seats. “Sector HQ sent an update, and Kai,” he turned to give the geologist a broad grin, “the ARCT-10 is okay. In fact their message only just reached Sector.”

  “What happened to it? Have you any details?” Kai strained against his seat belt, leaning toward the pilot in his excitement.

  “If you’ll shut up,” Fordeliton replied good-naturedly. “That cosmic storm they went off to investigate was considerably more powerful than even the wildest estimates. Sector has sent down The Word that that sort of space hazard is to be ‘avoided, repeat, avoided’ in the future. Your ship lost one whole drive pod and the main communications frames, with severe damage to the other three drive units. Some of the living compounds were riddled by debris, but there was no great loss of life. The names of casualties were not included in the message. At any rate, your EV had to limp to the nearest system on auxiliary power. Which took forty-three years. Sector sent them a signal about your safety and well-being. So you should soon have a status report.” Ford grinned over his shoulder at Kai, delighted to be the bearer of good tidings.

  “That sunrise was a good augury,” Lunzie remarked with an air of pleased surprise.

  Kai squirmed against the restraint of the seat belts, sensible of a relief so intense that it left an ache at the base of his skull.

  “I never have understood why the EVs consider themselves invulnerable to the hazards of space,” Lunzie said. “One reason I opted for your mission when it came up, Kai. I figured I’d be a lot safer on a planet than tagging a cosmic storm.” She gave him a wry grin. “Of course, I have been safer.”

/>   “What? With mutineers, cold sleep, fringes, and now pirates?” Fordeliton demanded, astonished.

  “At least my feet were on solid ground and there’s plenty of oxygen in Ireta’s air.”

  Fordeliton made a deprecating sound and pinched his nostrils. Then leaned forward over his console as the pinnace began its descent to collect Varian. She was standing on the cliff top as the pinnace slid to a landing.

  “The ARCT’s okay, Varian,” Kai cried as soon as she entered. Her jubilation had to be cut short as Ford ordered her belted up for the run to the plateau. Kai repeated as much as he knew about the status of the ARCT-10, reliving his own immense relief in Varian’s expressions of joy.

  “But if the ARCT isn’t even on its way to us, why this early morning call from Sassinak?” Varian asked.

  “Thek,” Ford replied succinctly.

  “They’ve verified?” Lunzie asked.

  “That’s Sassinak’s assumption, but the word arrived in typical Thek language. No details.”

  “Very interesting,” Lunzie said. A note in her voice made both Kai and Varian stare at her. “Were Thek in evidence?”

  “No change in the Bears,” Ford said. “I take that back,” he went on, suddenly alert. “They’ve moved!”

  He flipped on the main screen in the pinnace, and they could all see the plateau. The cruiser and the transport had not moved, but Medium-Size Thek was gone from its sentry position near the cruiser’s gangway, and the three Great-Big Thek were no longer just beyond the squat hulk of the transport. They were at the far end of the landing grid. The comunit buzzed.

  “Fordeliton here. Yes, Commander. We just noticed the redisposition. Yes? Aye, aye, ma’am.” He made a slight deviation in approach path. “I’m to deliver you there. Muhlah!” he cried as all the proximity alarms went off.