Staré: Shikari Book Two

by Alma T. C. Boykin

  As she waited, Rigi made a rapid, rough sketch of the scene, noting the date and time, and the little lizard. It had come back and seemed quite interested in making the acquaintance of her boot toe. She scooted backward. It reared up on its hind legs and she made a quick drawing of the pattern on its belly. That was most unusual—most creatures had pale, unpatterned undersides. The lizard seemed to be backwards, uniform sandy tan on top that matched some of the grasses, and dark brown mottled underneath. She alternated glances at the lizard and the archaeologists, making a more detailed drawing of the reptile. It seemed to have a side-mounted grasping thumb, a bit like a carnifex leaper, and black eyes instead of the more common brown-yellow. Rigi didn’t know what kind it was, and she made another note beside the drawing. She also kept dodging the curious lizard. She was not a climbing tree. At last the little beast gave up and went about its business, and Rigi returned her full attention to things a bit farther from her toes.

  Mr. De Groet, Lukka, and Thad clustered around Mr. De Groet’s m-mule, pointing at something on the ground and then at the back of the m-mule. Well, none of them seemed to be trying to avoid a large animal, so Rigi assumed the interesting thing was not a new species. Unless they’d finally found the burrow maker and it was harmless, or as harmless as something that left partially exposed tunnels a meter in diameter could be. Perhaps they had found something of non-biologic, non-geologic origin. No, she scolded herself, that was asking too much. And she needed to be looking around more.

  The m-mule behind her beeped again. Rigi returned to the screen and a frowning Dr. Sanchez. “Are they done yet?”

  “No, sir, and they seem rather excited. Academic excited, sir, not danger excited,” she clarified before he could worry too much.

  He muted the audio and leaned over. Rigi saw someone’s hands waving and guessed that Dr. Xian was making a point or being enthusiastic, or Mistress Borloug, the camp supervisor, wanted the four of them back as soon as possible. Dr. Sanchez turned the sound back on. “You need to come back, find or no find. The wombeast herd will pass between your position and the camp, and it may be a seasonal migration, if they do such things here. They seem to be spotted wombeast.”

  Oh, that changed things. “I’ll tell them immediately and we’ll start back, sir.”

  “Do that. Sanchez out.” The screen disappeared, and Rigi started to reach of the m-mule’s lead. The machine shifted out of her way. She stopped. Lukka had said that she would reset the m-mule to allow Rigi to move it, but apparently she’d forgotten again.

  “Blast and burrow,” Rigi snarled under her breath, as close to swearing as she let herself go. Instead she left the m-mule and stowed her things again, tightened the straps on her back pack and trotted down the slope, mindful of loose dirt and some clumps of tangler grass. Once on the level she walked at a rapid pace, long strides covering the ground without being unseemly. One thing about her clothes, they let her move quickly without fear of ripping a seam. “Mr. De Groet, Mr. Martinez, Miss Raleigh, we need to go back to camp. Spotted wombeast herd coming.”

  “Who said?”

  “Dr. Sanchez, ma’am.”

  Lukka shook her head a little but didn’t argue. “Did you bring the mule?”

  “No, ma’am, it wouldn’t allow me to lead it.”

  Thad said something Rigi couldn’t hear, but Lukka snarled at him and gave him a half-rude gesture. Mr. De Groet frowned but didn’t scold the younger archaeologists. Lukka took off at a trot, heading for the hill, and Mr. De Groet nodded. “Mule, record and file.” A minute or so later he said, “terminate scans, travel mode.” The sensor package retracted, as did some other things, and the m-mule came to attention, sort of.

  “Is it supposed to do that, sir?”

  “Ebenezer programmed it.” He sounded resigned and annoyed both, and Rigi stopped a giggle just in time. “Did you see anything interesting?”

  “No, sir, just a little lizard that someone assembled upside-down.”

  Thad stopped what he was doing and leaned back a touch, then rubbed under his nose. “Upside-down?”

  “Yes, sir. The back is pale and solid colored, and the belly has a dark pattern.”

  The men shrugged. Lukka and her m-mule marched up to where they stood and all four began walking west by north. They had several kilometers to cover to reach camp, and Rigi was just as pleased to be moving, even though she wanted to know what the adults had found. And even though the others would scold her if she said it, she hoped the wombeasts stopped near camp. That way they wouldn’t go out the next day, and she wouldn’t seem so odd. Tomorrow was a Day of Rest, and Rigi had not gotten a dispensation this time. She’d not asked for one. By Tradition she’d reached the age of maturity when she turned fifteen, and she was responsible for seeing to her own faith praxis. If the camp moved, then she moved, of course, but otherwise she would take the Day as the Tradition required.

  And a day of not going places and walking tens of kilometers sound quite good indeed.

  “Miss Auriga, the lizard is not in any of our lists or catalogues,” Dr. Troomp said via the remote data link. “I have your drawings, and if you see another one, please take holos for us. Especially if it is eating something.”

  “Yes, sir.” She felt a tap on her shoulder and stepped out of video range, allowing Dr. Sanchez to resume his discussion with the biologist. Rigi eased away from the gathered scientists and students, until she stood beside the door of the main tent. They’d moved to a site within walking distance of the ruins that the first planetary scouts had reported, and Rigi wanted to get some sleep before the next day’s work. Mistress Borloug saw her and shook her head, standing in the doorway with her arms folded. “I’m not needed,” Rigi whispered.

  “You will stay until Dr. Xian releases everyone. No exceptions.” The tall woman glared at Rigi. Rigi wondered what the consequences of trying to push past her would be, then decided it was not worth finding her things on the bottom of the pile, crushed. She’d already been served less at supper twice because she offended Mistress Borloug by taking the Rest Day. If Rigi had not been sharing a tent with Lukka and Margit, two of the senior students, Mistress Borloug would have insisted that her tent be moved so it sat outside the dissuader field. As it was she’d scolded Rigi for not doing her share of the work, and had complained to the two senior xenoarchaeologists. They’d defended Rigi and had excused her, but Mistress Borloug still took it as a personal insult as well as an offense against Dr. Xian.

  The next time they shifted camp, Rigi had found her things packed first, under several heavy pieces of equipment. She’d taken all her art supplies and tools with her in the transport or they would have been ruined. As it was her clothing and other things suffered, and the armored case holding her scents bore a large dent. The scents remained intact, thanks be. Rigi scooted to the side, in the corner and out of the way but near the doorway. Mistress Borloug glared again but didn’t order her back into the group.

  The scientists finished up and Dr. Xian logged out of the satellite net. Once a week they checked in with the authorities and uploaded all their data, all preliminary reports and other things. It seemed odd to communicate so little but the power requirement limited them. They could run all the cooking gear, the water heaters in the necessary tents, the lights, and the dissuader field, but just barely. If they started to charge the m-mules, or send large data bursts and so on, or if people hooked up personal gear, it overloaded the system and upset the cooking process. Mistress Borloug had put a stop to that, and so now they rotated load, and people could only charge gear during the day. Which was the exact time that they needed it, naturally, and Rigi wondered who this had not been taken into account. But generators weighed a great deal and could be tricky to move, and moving things cost money, of which the expedition had precious little.

  Dr. Xian climbed onto a chair and clapped her hands. “So. Tomorrow we are going to the ruins. There are reports of Staré in the area, so please keep that in mind. They have not been
contacted by the Company or Crown, at least as of four days ago, so do not be surprised if they are not as approachable as those who live near the main settlements or who work for the Company. Be polite but don’t invite them into camp, please.

  “On the good news side, it is confirmed that we have documented eight species thus far unknown, including all four placental mammals, and probably three more that are being investigate farther. Three of the placentals may also belong to unknown genuses, so we get type-find credit. And we have found four more pre-Staré sites, two of which may be larger than even Riverside was, assuming the projections for Riverside were correct.

  “On the not so good news, the original scout of this area reported hunter-lizards, striped-lions, and a still unnamed predatory monotreme that may be related to the night-fang. Stay aware of your surroundings, and don’t stick your hands into holes unless you dug it yourself. Thad, you have one rifle, Lukka, the second for tomorrow, and if you have personal shooters, you may carry them but plan on running first, then shooting to discourage unless your permit includes unrestricted self defense. The expedition can’t afford fines for hunting in a reserve.”

  Her words puzzled Rigi. After the dismissal, Rigi went to her tent. She’d already washed, so she had the place to herself for a moment, and she called up the map of the area on her data pad. Tomás had given her military-grade map files of the area, and she studied the section, then called up any restrictions and prohibited areas. Aside from the locations of what might be Staré villages, Rigi did not see any preserves. Granted, the entire continent had been set aside as a no-settlement and no-development zone, but that did not preclude hunting. She dug around in another dataset until she found the use rules for the area, and a quick skim of the main list did not show any hunting restrictions, other than those that applied planet wide. “How curious. Was there once a reserve here that no longer exists? Or does the military map just not show it?” Or was Dr. Xian mistaken about the nature of the set-aside in the region? Rigi did not intend to go hunting, but Dr. Xian’s comment puzzled her.

  She returned to the map. They had camped in an open area surrounded by light forest. The lack of underbrush suggested to Dr. Sanchez that the Staré in the area used fire management in order to encourage desirable plants and animals. A stream passed near by but not flooding close, at least not at the moment, and the stream led to the ruins, on the other side of a kilometer of forest east of the camp. Ten or so kilometers past the ruins, the stream fed into a river and an area of marsh and wetlands, where the hunter-lizard had attacked the initial survey party. Several possible Staré villages sat near the river, and another north of the ruins, on the other side of a low, hilly area. The land seemed pleasant even after the second month of the local dry season, and Rigi understood why someone would put a settlement here. The ones in the middle of the plateau didn’t make sense to her, but maybe there’d been more trees and water when they were built.

  She closed the files and was getting ready for bed when Lukka and Margit returned. Lukka still had not reset her m-mule, and after the third request had snapped at Rigi, so she stopped reminding her. Margit worshipped the ground Dr. Sanchez walked on and as far as she was concerned, he could do nothing wrong, and no one should say otherwise. Both of them considered Rigi somewhere between a pet and a nuisance, although she was not certain why. Of the two Rigi got along better with Margit.

  Rigi was putting her scent case away when they walked in. “Auriga, what is in that, anyway?” Lukka pointed.

  “Scents, ma’am. I learned how to mimic some of the Staré communication scents, and I carry the most common and useful ones with me.”

  Margit unpinned her long black hair and started brushing it out. “Do you do perfumes for humans as well?”

  “No, ma’am. What I like to smell doesn’t seem to make good perfume, and after a few attempts I gave up. The combinations turned out badly.”

  “As badly as what was it, that one that was supposed to smell like flowers after rain and cost so much.” Margit made a loose braid and put the brush away. “Oh, pfiffle, my memory is failing. It smelled very good on a few people, but reacted strongly with most.”

  Lukka looked up from re-packing her clothes. “You don’t mean Fleur de l’eau from the House of Ishfahan, do you?”

  “That’s it.”

  Rigi nodded, “I think I heard of that, ma’am. My instructor said that part of the problem, if it is the same one, was the carrying base needed to hold the flower essence in suspension had not been tried in commercial production and something about the large batches caused a secondary reaction in the blend.” Rigi couldn’t recall the details. “But that may be something else I’m thinking of.”

  “I don’t care, so long as you don’t stink like a tenth Stamm male, Auriga.” Lukka lay down on her cot and draped her arm over her eyes. Rigi wished her hair were as easy to care for as Lukka’s short red-brown clip, but she wasn’t certain about the green streaks. Not only were they growing out, but the shade reminded Rigi of a brown-crested leaper and how algae grew on their backs during the warm season. Pointing that out probably would not be kind. And Staré males didn’t stink, but this wasn’t the place to argue.

  The next day Rigi dabbed a little //polite/harmless// on before she went out. On a whim, she added a vial to her belt-bag. The others couldn’t smell it as far as she could tell, or didn’t recognize it. Although, she observed during breakfast, they might not even notice. Plans for mapping and test excavating the ruins soaked up everyone’s attention, and diagrams and grid plans covered the rear wall, projected by Dr. Xian’s data can. Rigi looked for her name, didn’t see it, and went back to eating. She’d gotten a nice portion that morning, and Thad happily took the blood berry preserves in exchange for his wombow liver paste. Rigi didn’t eat blood-colored things aside from properly slaughtered and cooked meat. Thad detested wombow liver, even in spiced paste form. “It tastes heavy,” he said, slathering his toasted water-rice bread with the crimson jelly.

  That was true, but Rigi liked the flavor, nice and round and clear in her mouth. It tasted like liver, good liver, not the strange bitter stuff they had served in school. Rigi suspected the school meat had been cooked over a plasma torch, then delivered to the school kitchen for further work, but couldn’t prove her suspicion.

  Thad swallowed and observed, “So, I see you are on float.”

  “Float, sir?”

  Thad gestured with his bread. “You don’t have a set position, so you can walk around, look at things, and draw anything that catches your eye. Once we find things, especially if they are either spectacularly dramatic, or artifacts in situ, someone will call you over, first call first serve. Don’t let people try to drag out away from something you have not finished documenting, Auriga. Sometimes our excitement overwhelms our manners.”

  “Ah. Thank you, sir. I thought you meant I was going to work the seed float.”

  He shook his head, still chewing. “No. First we have to find something to dig, then we’ll start sifting dirt and looking for seeds. Alas, some things robots don’t do well, or at all.”

  “Making a mess is what they did well,” Dr. Xian stated from behind Thad. “You have never seen dust fly until you watched a robo-shaker in an archaeological dig. I could have… Well, never again until the designer and programmer both come to the site, load the thing, and stand next to it on the downwind side while it works. Then I might consider trying one again. It made a dust-bathing kitfeng look tidy and organized.” She frowned. “Thad, I need you to switch with Greene, please. He’s having equipment problems, not sure what’s wrong yet.”

  “Switch with Greene, will do, ma’am.”

  Dr. Xian left, murmuring something about liver and innards. Thad winked at Rigi, who smiled back.

  Rigi found a small rise that overlooked most of the site and did her first sketch from there, catching the general lay out and pattern and enjoying the cool breeze. As before, this one seemed circular, with a number of grass cov
ered green-brown lumps in orderly rows that suggested they might be the remains of buildings or something else arranged by sapient beings. Several large pits and depressions needed to be checked for inhabitants as well as for depth, and a scatter of grey, weathered standing stones stood at seemingly-random intervals around the site. According to the maps, it was twice as large as Stela Site, and had been named Scout Site, after the people who found it.

  The archaeologists started in the southeast quadrant of the site, marking grids and doing a surface survey through the knee-high grass. Rigi watched them, then looked around as she flexed her wrists and fingers. Dark green woods bordered the western side of the site, and something moved, catching her eye. It seemed pale, and eased back into the tree shadows before she could get a good sense of what it was. A forest leaper, perhaps? One of the Staré? A pale leaved plant blown by the wind? All possible and none especially probable, so she didn’t worry too much. Instead Rigi left her hill and started walking between the lumps, looking at the plants and grass growing on them, noting some attractive blue flowers, and tangler grass.

  That evening the two leaders announced the plan for the next day. They’d decided on the smallest of the lumps, one that appeared to be in the center of the row, and they would do a test dig here. A student-towed radar and sensor sweep suggested that indeed, the remains of a building or something else hollow hid below the dirt. Dr. Sanchez said, “Since everything we’ve found today has been animal, plant, or Staré made, we will do a test dig. I’m surprised that animals have not turned up more with burrowing and digging, but none of the sites thus far have shown much animal activity outside of the building remains. Nothing likes to dig through pavement, it seems.”