The others gathered around. "Where did you find this?" Cadmann asked.
"Where were you sitting?"
They looked at a patch of ground near Aaron's feet, and found no more of the little creatures.
From a few feet away Carlos called, "Over here!"
He poked under a bush dotted with light purple, somewhat fleshy flowers that reminded him of orchids. Several of the insect-like creatures hovered around the blossoms like hummingbirds.
"Nectar?" Katya asked.
"Nope. Something stinks."
They brushed blossoms aside, and uncovered the decomposed body of a creature the size of a woodchuck. It seethed with little crabs.
"Jesus," Cadmann grunted. "Are these the local substitute for flies?"
"Bite like a bitch," Aaron said.
Sylvia took out her first-aid kit. "Let me see."
"It's just—"
"Let me see," she said.
"Yes, ma'am." Aaron unfastened his shirt.
Sylvia swabbed the wounds clean, then poured on peroxide. It foamed as if it would eat him alive. "There. It looks clean enough but—Dr. Mubutu, may I borrow your portable unit?"
Little Chaka was carrying for both Chakas. He shrugged off his backpack and unzipped it, pulling out a metallic boxy contraption as big as both his hands: a portable analyzer. Sylvia took the twig from Cadmann, teased the dead bug off the end, and dropped it into the box. She touched an oblong button on the side, and it began to hum. In a moment the bug would be flash burned, and the results relayed to the main camp and uplinked to Cassandra. With luck she would then report that there were no toxic substances—
Blam.
The miniature unit jarred in her hand. Seams popped.
They all jumped. Then Big Chaka quickly leaned forward and sniffed.
Black smoke rose from the ruined analyzer.
"Dear God," Sylvia said shakily. "What was that all about?"
The device's shattered components barely clung together. Carlos said, "Pranksters?"
For a moment, the glade crackled with tension.
"Pranksters?" Sylvia demanded, still shaken. "What idiot would sabotage your analyzer?"
"Calm," Carlos said. "I'm sorry. I thought it was obvious. I see that Dr. Mubutu understands."
Big Chaka nodded. He turned to Cadmann and said, "Tell me... if you put a chunk... say a chunk the size of your fingernail... of speed into an analyzer, what would it do?"
"Bang?"
"We need to find another of these things. Don't disturb those on the corpses. We may not want to irritate them."
They had the crushed bug on the end of a stick. Justin and Katya had built a small, busy fire of sticks and bits of moss. Chaka Mubutu held the bug out over the fire. Its legs curled, its shell peeled up and—
Blam.
The sharp sound was as loud as a firecracker, and about as powerful.
The tip of the stick flew into bits, and they jumped back a foot or two.
"Freeze me blind," Cadmann said.
Dr. Mubutu spoke gravely. "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but I think that we can state, officially and for the record, that we have discovered a second life-form on this planet that uses speed."
"What exactly does that mean?" Sylvia asked.
"I want to think on it before I say." Big Chaka looked thoughtful. "We have a lot to talk about tonight when I give my report," he said. "But now I want to see the beavers."
Carlos looked thoughtfully eastward. "I think I will follow those bees," he said. "Katya can show me the beavers another time."
Chapter 32
THE BEAVERS
Bees accomplish nothing save as they work together, and neither do men.
ELBERT HUBBARD
"So," Carlos said, climbing steadily. Dios mio—he was glad for the regular fitness sessions with Cadmann. It felt as if his muscles would burst free of the bones. Torture! "How are things with young Weyland?"
Katya laughed, and held a branch aside for her father. She paused, stopping to search for the trace of a trail. She held her hand up, and whispered, "Stop. Listen."
He did, and heard the sounds of wind in the trees, and a far-off animal burr. And something else.
An insect sound. A slight buzzing.
"Look," she said. Another dead animal lay before them, this one picked to the bone. A couple of the weird bee-crabs picked over the bones. She whispered into her collar. "Cassandra, We have a visual bee sighting. Small carcass. Six or seven bugs."
"Acknowledged."
She wiped her forehead with her bandanna, and leaned back against a tree. "Well. I guess you were asking about my love life?"
"Prying," Carlos said distinctly. "I was prying."
"Yes. Well, I think that we're getting along fine. We've had some genuine moments here. I like what's happening." She smiled at her father shrewdly. "Why? Why are you so concerned about me? You've done quite well all these years, and you've never had a real relationship."
"None permanent, but some were very intense."
"But none permanent. Bobbie?" she asked.
He shrugged. "I just never got that close again. Parlor psychoanalysis might say that I don't think I'm worthy."
"And you think that I should? Isn't that a bit of a double standard?"
"You're worthy."
"Well, hey," Katya said, and blushed. She'd been watching the bees come and go from the carcass. Now she pointed. "The nest must be over there, beyond that ridge. Shall we go look?"
Cadmann felt most comfortable after he began to perspire. It felt as if the rust were working out of his muscles.
They had climbed high enough above the forest that he could see over it and down into Shangri-La, see and feel the pulse of life within. It reminded him of a time long before, when he had looked down on Avalon Town. That was in the colony's early days. He was a younger man. A stronger man. A man with far fewer doubts and aches. He was with his best friends, Ernst Cohen and Sylvia Faulkner.
She was pregnant then, pregnant with Justin. She had struggled to keep up. Not admitting her weakness, the...
Very real differences between men and women.
He and Ernst. How much he had loved Ernst. And how much of that love was the sort of love you feel for a faithful animal? One who never questions, never rebels, who follows you without question? Dr. Ernst with ice on his mind. Dr. Ernst, once one of the most brilliant humans alive, and now with the mind of a twelve-year-old. If that.
How much is our humanity measured in terms of our relationships? Every man feels more... human in the presence of a faithful animal. Or slave?
God. He hated these thoughts. And here was Aaron, so much like Ernst had been. Strong. And tall. And brilliant. But Aaron had his mind. All of his mind.
What he had never really had was a family.
If there were problems in that young head, well, for God's sake! The kid was only nineteen years old. What would he be doing if he were on Earth? In his second year of college? Perhaps a grad student. Or maybe he would have taken a year or two off and backpacked through Europe. Or spent a year on an engineering scholarship on one of the energy satellites?
Maybe he would have lucked out. The lunar colony. Or maybe he would have done what Cadmann himself did, and take a commission. At nineteen Cadmann was at West Point, preparing for his first command.
But no Terrestrial option would have placed Aaron in the kind of situation he faced on Avalon. He was making decisions that might well influence the whole future of humanity, here, a thousand billion miles from the cradle of mankind. Too much stress. Too much isolation. Too little support.