“A little before daybreak, a pack of silent-running large carnivores entered the camp. As dark as the night was and as fast as they moved, the lookout doesn’t seem to have been aware of anything till they were almost on her, and then probably only through her emotional sense. We don’t know; she barely had time to cry out before being torn apart. The creatures ran wild, blood-frenzied. Uldor and a couple of others had kept loaded firearms handy, and shot several, two fatally, but fangs slashed them nevertheless. After a horrible battle in the dark, the beasts retreated [190] and our people called the base. We evacuated them. You know the rest.”
“No, I don’t,” Hebo said. “What sort of beasts? You say dead ones were there to look at.”
“Lycosauroids. I asked Forholt for data, and they identified them from my transmission, and were astounded. None had ever been seen this far north. Why should Uldor provide against them? Getting struck by lightning seemed more probable.”
“Hm.” Hebo rubbed his chin. “Did some weird set of chances take a single pack hundreds of klicks from its hunting grounds? Or is this an early sign of an ecological fluctuation? The ceratodon herds do seem to be declining in the southern range, and that’s the principal lyco prey. ...”
His almost scientific language bemused Lissa. It was she who must say: “Such problems can wait. No, I take that back. It can well be a very practical question. Another deadly stunt pulled by a world never really meant for us.”
But just homelike enough to draw us into its snares, she thought. If Susaian and Freydisan and Terran life didn’t happen to be biochemically similar, able to provide nourishment of sorts for each other, none of us would have dreamed of any such ventures here as ours.
“Or for anybody,” Hebo said sardonically. “Not that I object, understand. I’m in business because of it. But I have wondered what’s eating the settlers, to take all this risk and hardship.”
“An ideal.”
“Yeah, an ideology.” He sounded contemptuous.
She shook her head. “Nothing so simple. Susaians aren’t completely alien to us. Look back at human history. You’ll find any number of parallels to this. You know”—whether or not you understand—“how the Old Truth people have needed a place of their own. Discriminated against on the Susaian worlds, even persecuted, for centuries—though their standards of honesty, industry, all-around decency put most of our race to shame—”
He laughed. “Quite the little idealist yourself, aren’t you?”
[191] She wouldn’t let the gibe sting. She wouldn’t. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to preach. When I got home, my father told me how he’d had to explain things over and over to Asborgans who knew practically nothing and cared less about the subject till suddenly they heard they were getting nonhuman next-door neighbors. I guess that affected me.”
He turned his eyes back to the ruggedness rising ahead. “Okay. What’s become of this Orichalc?”
“The Susaians remove their transceivers when safely on the base or in camp,” she told him. “You can well imagine a collar around the neck is uncomfortable in this climate, not like a bracelet, their wrists are too thin and flexible for that. Most are unarmed, and when the beasts attacked, naturally they fled every which way. Trees in the immediate vicinity aren’t climbable, mingled thornbark and flexy. When the attack was repulsed and first light came, those who could made their way back. Searchers quickly found the injured, and three more dead, and brought them in. Except for Orichalc. He was gone. Some comrades beat the bush—within a narrow radius, as difficult as that was—and when we arrived in our flyer, we scanned from above before returning. Not a trace.
“I wanted to stay and commence hunting on the ground, but that would have been crazy to do by myself. Also, Uldor and a couple of the Susaians urgently needed further attention, which I was best able to give. So I called Forholt, and ... you were good enough to come.”
“Could the reason that Orichalc didn’t show up be that he’s dead?” the man asked bluntly.
She swallowed. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”
“Can we?”
“We can give it a damn good try.” Lissa arranged her words with care before she uttered them: “I do need a partner, someone who knows that kind of region. I’ve gained a certain familiarity with both lowlands and highlands from my past visits, though not these particular hills. Uldor had some, which is why he led that [192] expedition, but Uldor’s disabled. So I called for such a helper, and you came.”
“If you’re a stranger to the area, what can you hope to do?”
“I have my ideas. You’ll see.”
He was silent a while before he said, “Look, I’ve never been in just these parts myself. The lycos would have caught me off balance too. I can’t guarantee nothing else will.”
Blast, she thought, he infuriates me, and then turns right around and charms. I wish he’d make up his mind. “Nor I. Another reason not to hare off alone. Uh, I was going to check your gear.”
“I thought you meant to heed the voice of experience.”
I’ve flicked him again. To chaos with it. “This mission is special. You’ve never had anybody lost, have you? Not with their bracelets.”
“Did you ever, on your expeditions elsewhere?”
Is he implying incompetence? “Natives, a couple of times. And it baffles me how your outfit imagines it can learn much about wildlife without old-fashioned tracking and stalking.”
She unharnessed and wriggled into the rear of the flyer. Cramped, she carried out her inspection slowly, unconscious at first of thinking aloud: “—clothes serviceable, but one change is ample, we won’t be gone long. ... Rifle, by all means. I’ll leave my pistol but keep my machete. If those creatures are still loping around, I’d as soon we didn’t become part of the ecology. ... Rations, yes, we can’t take time to live off the country. ... Cookware, no, unnecessary weight, we’ll eat cold food. ... Tent? M-m, more weight and bulk, but goes up faster than making a shelter. We’ll give it a try. ...”
She returned to her seat. The aircraft slanted downward. “Kind of high-handed, aren’t you?” Hebo said. As if he never was. “Be warned, in case I have doubts about your judgment, we’ll follow mine.”
“Oh.” Beneath the frostiness, she felt shaken. There had to be a boss. It was a bad oversight of hers, not to have made clear [193] at the outset who that would be. Haste and anxiety were a poor excuse. “I reserve my right to disagree. But we can’t squabble now. I trust you’ll listen to reason.”
“The same for you!”
XXXVI
THE landscape on which they descended reached enormous, heights and depths forested except where steeps were eroded to the bare rock. Rivers foamed down gorges. Mists eddied in hollows and along the intricately folded flanks of hills that in many lands would have been called mountains. Clouds drifted low and murky above. From the west, where lightning danced, Lissa heard thunder come rolling. Wind hissed. The aircraft quivered within it.
On a horizontal shoulder halfway up a hillside, woods ringed a glade where a spring bubbled, Uldor’s campsite. Perforce Lissa admired Hebo’s skill as he landed. Nothing grew underneath except a rough, low ground cover and some shrubs, but air ramped wildly in the narrow space, while around it the big trees bristled with thorns and the lesser ones lashed about like whips. When Lissa climbed out, the wind struck at her, almost cold. The smells on it recalled musk, vinegar, cloves, and things for which she lacked names. Through them wove storm’s ozone.
Hebo followed and stared about. He ignored strewn supplies and equipment left behind at the hasty evacuation. What caught his attention was the camp itself, thatch tipis and a rough stone fireplace grill. “Not even tents?” he blurted.
“I told you, a large part of our project is to find out what can be done with local resources,” she flung back. “This is an experimental design. Perfectly adequate. Now go unload our packs and batten down the vehicle. We’ll set off as soon as I’ve found the trail.”
“Have you brought a chemosensor, or what?”
[195] “I wish I had, but we’ve got nothing adapted for this kind of work, and I doubt they do at Forholt either. I did bring my eyes and my wits.”
He grimaced but yielded. She walked to and fro, peering downward. Presently she went on hands and knees to examine leaves, twigs, soil. Altogether engaged, she forgot time and him.
Emerging at last, she saw him considering a stone in his hand, and joined him. “Well, have you found anything?” he asked. His intonation said that he didn’t believe so and that the lengthy wait had annoyed him.
She nodded. “It took a while because those amateur searchers ruined a lot of spoor, but I’ve figured out what must have happened and which way he set off. Let’s saddle up and go.”
“Really? I’m afraid you’ll have to convince me. This is dangerous terrain, not for heading into blind.”
“What? You expect me to teach you right now what it took me years to learn?”
“No, if it is in fact an art, not a hunch. But you’ll show me you know what you’re doing, or we’ll flit straight back.”
“We will? Listen, you—” Lissa gulped acridness. Just when he’s begun to seem fairly decent, up comes the arrogance again. “Very well. Kindly pay close attention. That’s what tracking is mainly about.”
She led him to a chosen spot, hunkered down, and pointed. “Traces often last a considerable spell. Years, under certain conditions.” Or geological eras if they happen to fossilize. “But they generally weather fast, at a rate that also depends on the type of ground, the depth of the impression, et cetera, et cetera. So I took care to retrieve area weather records from the radar satellites for the past several days, before we left base. Observe. The wind has strewn leaves and dust and other debris, but uncovered a trail—four feet, three-toed, about one hundred and seventy-five centimeters apart front to rear, stride indicating short legs, occasional traces of a tail. I can’t identify many Freydisan animals this easily, not yet, but no mistaking a Susaian.
[196] “Now, these other pockmarks over it were made by rain—a shower, not a downpour—and the last time any fell was four days ago, about one hundred and twenty hours. Therefore the Susaian track is older, and of no use to us. Except that at this point and a later moment, as I can tell by the sharpness of the impressions, another four-legged creature crossed it, bounding. The pattern of the prints indicates the gait. A big beast, clearly a lyco. The claw marks are faint, but if you lie prone and squint your eye just over the surface, you can identify them, and they’re pointed downhill. So that’s the direction the pack fled in. Which is obvious from the mangled brush and dried flecks of blood farther on, but I’ve illustrated the principle. Finding where Orichalc went was a process of elimination.”
“I get the idea.” Did she hear respect? “You needn’t go on. I’ll follow your lead.”
Gladly, she bounced to her feet and made for the packs. “With due caution,” he added.
“Sure. You said something about the terrain.”
“M-hm. I’ve conducted my own look-see. I’ve had to learn some Freydisan geology and such. The rocks lying around are friable. The reddish dirt is another clue. Iron in the region, and a particular microbe’s been at work. It gets its energy by oxidizing iron. The result is crumbly formations, quickly leached. Be extra careful on steep grades. And even on a level surface, you might fall into a sinkhole hidden by deadfall or whatever.”
“I see. Uldor never mentioned that bug. Is it confined to a few areas, so he hadn’t encountered it? Yes, I definitely need you with me.” We need one another.
They donned their packs. “It’s pretty clear about Orichalc,” Lissa said. “He fled into the woods, uphill as it chanced. One lyco pursued, but only a short ways, because the growth hindered it more than a Susaian, and the killing was better back in the glade. The noise behind Orichalc and, yes, the ravenousness that he sensed, those made him move as fast as possible for his race, which is quite fast, and keep going for some distance. [197] Philosophers can panic too. Finally he—after calming down and resting, I assume—must have tried to return. Where else was there to go? But in dense woods, an inexperienced person can get completely lost within less than a kilometer, and wander farther and farther astray. It’s especially easy on Freydis, where you have no definite shadows or heavenly bodies or anything to steer by. I only hope he soon realized the sensible thing was to settle down and wait to be found. And hope he survives the wait.”
They entered the forest. For some meters the going wasn’t bad. Lissa wove among hooklike thorns; arms before her face, she parted withes, passed through, released them slowly enough for Hebo to intercept before they slapped him. Then the trail, hitherto clear to a practiced eye, went into the thicket that had baffled the lycosauroid. No, not a coppice, more like a wall, too wide to go around and have any likelihood of finding the track again on the other side. It was a duckwalk or all fours, machete, long pauses to search for the next broken twig, bruised sapling, disarrayed tuft marking where fear had gone. Gloom and rank odors closed in. Sweat runneled over skin, hung in clothes and reeked, grew sticky under the gathering chill. Cries, croaks, whistles jeered from unseen mouths.
Hebo cursed. Lissa marveled at his vocabulary. She’d have to remember some of those phrases. Glancing back, she saw how he struggled. “I was afraid of that,” she sighed. “Your tent pack’s catching on everything. Get rid of it. It could cost us hours we can’t afford.”
“After lugging it this far? Bringing it was your idea,” he grumbled.
“I don’t claim omniscience,” she snapped. “And you didn’t object.”
Lips twisted upward in the wetly gleaming face. “Well, my sleeping bag’s waterproof. I hope yours is.” He lessened his burden.
When they won free of the brake, progress wasn’t much faster. Though this was only slightly more altitude, trees grew farther [198] apart and underbrush became sparse. That, though, meant stretches of bare dirt or exposed rock where it could take minutes to make sure of the traces. Wind moaned louder, leaves soughed, clouds raced low and swart overhead.
“You’d think the lizard would backtrack himself,” Hebo growled once.
Lissa told herself not to resent the word he used. She’d been guilty of it too, now and then in the past. “It’s all I can do to find out how he went,” she reminded him. “Do you expect that a stranger to wilderness could?”
“N-no. You’re right. Stupid question. I’m tired, brain going numb. How do you keep fresh?”
She must laugh. “And fragrant? After enough running around in woods, you learn ways to save your strength. No, you don’t; your body does.”
“I wouldn’t’ve thought experience on one planet’s useful on another.”
“Oh, there are countless differences, of course, but the principles are pretty broad and the techniques pretty adaptable. When I mentioned that to Orichalc, it gave him the idea of persuading me to join the explorers for some years.”
“He didn’t do you any favor.”
She resisted a sharp answer.
The traces angled off. Orichalc had evidently noticed that he had gone above the camp, and sought to turn downhill. Unfortunately, on this irregular ground that was not a simple either-or proposition. A check against the flyer’s radio beacon showed that the general direction of the lurching path was almost at right angles to what might have helped. After a while, the descent sharpened. Here creep and erosion had thinned soil, so that trees stood three or four meters apart and gnarly knorrig was commoner than thornbark. In between gray trident bushes, dirt littered with windblown detritus, boulders, and bedrock.
“He must have known by now this was the wrong way.” Hebo’s voice came hoarse.
[199] “Certainly,” Lissa agreed. “I suspect he was fire-thirsty, in random search of a streamlet or a puddle or anything.” They had drained their canteens along the way, and refilled them at a pool she had found and the Susaian had not.
The man glan
ced aloft into roiling, hooting gloom. “No dearth of water by nightfall.”
“Which isn’t long off. Damn, oh, damn.”
“We have lights. I can keep going if you can.”
She did not so much reach decision as feel it thrust upon her. “No. In rain and the Freydisan dark, they’d be useless. We’d better hole up, get some rest, proceed after dawn.”
Once more, as often during the past hours, they shouted their throats sore. No response. No response. Lissa’s vision strained straight ahead through gathering dusk. Beyond the nearest trees, woodland merged into a single blackness. She could still perceive how rapidly the slope rose yonder, and recalled from her aerial view that on its other side the ridge gave on a canyon which Orichalc would surely not enter.
He can’t be far. We arrived late, and had to find the signs and read them, but I swear they show him slowing down, closer and closer to exhaustion. Maybe we’ve less than a klick to go. But in exactly what direction? The cursed wind blows our cries back onto us. Oh, dear kind Orichalc, thirsting, hungering, shivering, alone, alone.
“Too bad we had to leave the tent behind,” Hebo said. “No matter how sturdy our bags, if I know hill weather, we’d be glad of a roof.”
At least he doesn’t blame me, he admits it was necessary. “We can arrange that,” Lissa told him, “provided we hurry. Will you hop to my orders?”
He sketched a salute. In the haggard, grimy, stubbly countenance, how boyish his grin flashed.
With her machete she chopped down a slim flexy and lopped off its boughs. Propping an end in a forked knorrig, she leaned the larger branches against the pole and wove the lesser ones [200] between to make a framework. He had gathered withes, leaves, deadfall, whatever small stuff he could find. Together, she directing, they plaited and heaped it over the lattice. “Got to pitch the roof carefully,” she explained, “but this will keep us snug.”
For Love and Glory Page 18
