The Mystery of Ireta (28 page)

“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.

“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 sight 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.

“So we wait until dark, when they’ve all gone to roost or whatever giffs do at night. Here, have another hadrasaur nut!”

“My, aren’t we brave! Natural food!”

They had to break the tough shell of the nut between two stones before they got to an irregular pale brown kernel. Varian looked at it curiously, sniffed and broke off a fragment. She grimaced at its taste and chewed it thoughtfully before swallowing.

“Maybe you have to acquire a taste for ’em ,” she said, inspecting the remainder of the kernel. Then she flipped it over her shoulder and smiled reassuringly at Kai’s anxious expression. “I’ll opt for the melon. You can taste that.”

They had finished the sweet and juicy melon when they heard a whistling, bugling commotion. Varian sprang to the break in the vegetation, Kai just behind her.

The fishers had returned and all the adult giffs were assisting the net carriers. Varian remarked that either the community hadn’t expanded much or fishing and carrying were limited to certain giffs. The two humans watched as the heavy woven grass nets were lowered and emptied on the flat surface that served the giffs as central food dump. There was a great coming and going as giffs filled their food pouches and delivered the day’s catch to the cave- or nest-bound. The greed of the younger giffs was supervised by their elders.

“If only . . .” Varian began through gritted teeth and, sighing with frustration, she sat back against the tree trunk. Resignedly, Kai joined her. Despite the confusion of feeding, they could not have returned to the cave unnoticed. Then she grinned at Kai with a resurgence of her usual wry humor. “I wonder what they’d make of the Thek if it appeared?”