Palatine still uninhabited. Especially-" She broke off abruptly.
"Especially when this whole group is only ten to fifteen light-years from
Qasama?" Jonny finished for her.
She got to her feet with a sigh, brushing bits of greenery off her fingers as she did so. "I've heard all the arguments about buffer zones and two-front wars," she said, "but I don't have to like it. And I keep coming back to the fact that the only reason we consider Qasama a threat is because the Trofts say we should."
The beep of his phone preempted Jonny's reply. "Moreau," he said, lifting the device to his lips.
"Banyon, Governor," the Cobra team leader's voice came. "Got something off our satellite I think you should look at."
Chrys's presence beside him was a silent reminder of his promise to play passenger on this trip. "Can't you and Captain Shepherd handle it?" he said.
"Well... I suppose so, yes. I just thought that your advice would be helpful on this."
"Unless you're talking emergency-" Jonny broke off as a fluttering hand waved between him and the phone.
"What are you doing?" Chrys stage-whispered fiercely. "Let's go see what they've got."
If I live to be a thousand, the old line flashed through Jonny's head. "Never mind," he told Banyon. "I'll be right there."
They found Banyon and Shepherd on the Menssana's bridge, their attention on a set of three displays. "It wasn't something that registered right off the blocks," Banyon began without preamble, indicating a dark mass now centered in the largest display. "Then we found out it was moving."
Jonny leaned close to the screen. The mass seemed to consist of hundreds or thousands of individual dots. "Enhancement all the way up on this?"
Shepherd nodded. "There's a lot of upper atmosphere turbulence over us at the moment, and that's limiting drastically what the computer has to work with."
"I'd say it's a herd or flock of some sort," Jonny said. "I gather it's headed this way?"
"Hard to tell-they're still a hundred kilometers away-but it looks right now like the flank will sweep across us," Shepherd said. He touched a switch and the infrared picture on one of the other screens was replaced by a schematic. The various extrapolation regions were done in different colors; and, sure enough, the edge of the red "90% probable" wedge just touched the Menssana's indicated position. The mass's average distance and speed were also given: 106 km, 8.1 km/hr.
"So we've got thirteen hours till they get here," Jonny murmured. "Well... we can break camp in one if necessary, but the scientists won't like all their in situ stuff being moved. I suppose the logical thing would be to send a squad of
Cobras to check out this herd and see if they can be stopped or deflected."
"Yes, sir, that's what we thought." Banyon hesitated, and Jonny saw on his face the same expression that, on his sons, had usually signaled a favor request was coming. "Uh, Governor... would you be willing to fly out with the team? We'd all feel better with someone of your experience along."
Jonny looked back at Chrys, raised his eyebrows. She was still studying the displays, though, and when she finally met his gaze she seemed surprised he was even asking. "Of course," she said. "Just be careful."
If I live to be ten thousand.... Turning back to Banyon, he nodded. "All right, then. Let's get cracking."
It was indeed a herd-a big herd-and to Jonny, who'd seen such things only on tape, the sight of so many wild animals together at once was both awesome and a little bit frightening. Even just jogging along, the mass of brown-furred quadrupeds made a thunder audible inside a sealed aircar two hundred meters overhead, and their wide hooves raised a dust cloud despite the damping effect of the webgrass underfoot.
"I think," Banyon commented as they all took in the sight, "we're going to have to rethink our basic plan."
One of the other Cobras snorted, and someone else let loose with a rather strained chuckle. Jonny let the tension-easing noises ripple around the crowded aircar and then gestured out the window. "Let's get a few kilometers ahead of them and see if we can come up with a way to shift them off their course."
Banyon nodded and turned the vehicle around, but as the roar faded behind them
Jonny studied the landscape below with decreasing hope. The Cobras had already established that there weren't any natural obstacles between the herd and the
Menssana, and now that he knew what they were up against it seemed very unlikely they could do anything to the terrain that would make any difference whatsoever.
Something more drastic was likely to be necessary. Drastic and dangerous.
Banyon had apparently reached the same conclusion. "We're going to have to scare them, I'm afraid," he murmured, just loudly enough for Jonny to hear.
"There used to be herds this size all over parts of Earth and Blue Haven," Jonny said. "I wish I knew how they'd been hunted. Well. We don't have anything like real explosives aboard, and we don't yet know what this species' predators even look like. I suppose that leaves close-in work with lasers and sonics."
"Laser range isn't that short-oh. Right. If they don't see us, there's no guarantee they'll figure out which way to run."
"Or even notice they're being killed off." Jonny thought for a minute, but nothing else obvious came to mind. "Well... let's try buzzing them with the car first. Maybe that'll do the trick."
But the animals apparently had no enemies that were airborne. Completely oblivious to the darting craft above them, they continued stolidly on their way.
"We do it the hard way now?" one of the others asked.
Banyon nodded. "Afraid so. But hopefully not too hard. Saving the biologists some work isn't worth anyone getting killed over."
"Or even hurt," Jonny put in. "We'll just-"
A ping from the car's phone interrupted him. "Governor, we've got something here that may or may not mean anything," Captain Shepherd said, his attention somewhere off-camera. "The satellite's been completing its large-scale geosurvey... and it looks very much like that herd is running along one of the planet's magnetic field lines."
Banyon looked at Jonny, eyebrows raised. "I thought the only things that used geomagnetic navigation were birds, insects, and tweenies."
"So did all the Menssana's biologists," Shepherd returned dryly. "But they admit there's no reason something larger couldn't make use of the mechanism."
"If we assume they're indeed paralleling the field lines, is the camp still in danger?" Jonny asked.
"Yes. The probability actually goes up a couple of points."
Jonny looked questioningly at Banyon. "Worth a try," the other grunted.
"Captain, is there anything aboard the ship that can generate a strong magnetic field?"
"Sure-the drive modulators. All we'll need to do is pull off some of the shielding and we'll get enough field leakage to overwhelm their direction finders. If that's what's really happening."
"It's worth trying," Banyon repeated. "How fast can you get that shielding off?"
"It's already being done. Say another hour at the most."
The gently rolling terrain could not by any stretch of the imagination be called hilly; but even so the flatfoot herd was audible long before it could be seen.
Standing a few meters back from the main line of Cobras, Jonny wiped the perspiration off his palms as the thunder steadily grew, hoping this was going to work. In theory, the Cobra's antiarmor lasers should be able to make fungus feed out of the herd if something went wrong... but Jonny couldn't help remembering how hard the equally herbivorous gantuas of Aventine were to kill.
"Get ready," his phone said. He glanced up to see the car as it hovered above and ahead of the Cobras. "You'll see them any minute now. Wait for the captain's signal...."