It was moving across the plain as if it had nothing whatever to fear. "King of the hill," whispered Chiang, setting his cutter up a couple of notches.
The creature was considerably taller than a human male and maybe twice the mass. It was a model of muscles and grace.
"What do we do, boss?" asked Chiang.
Right, thought Hutch. Remind me I'm in charge.
It continued striding toward them, throwing a quick and unconcerned glance at the lander.
Effective laser range was about five meters. They'd be able to smell its breath. "Randy," she said, "you know anything about this critter?"
"Nothing whatever." Nightingale was standing well away from the entrance. "I'll tell you this, though. It's a cat. And cats are pretty much the same wherever you find them."
"Which means what?" asked Chiang.
"Anything smaller than they are, they eat."
Marcel broke in: "Shoot it, Hutch. As soon as it gets close."
She didn't have the option of firing a warning shot, because the cutter didn't produce a bang, or anything akin to it. Not that this thing looked as if it would be scared off by a loud noise.
She was suddenly getting advice from everyone: "Be careful." "Look out." "Don't let it get too close."
She picked up some profanity from Nightingale.
There came a moment when it paused perceptibly, when its muscles tightened, when its weight shifted slightly. It had seen her.
"Hutch." Marcel again. "What's happening?"
No point hiding. "Stay out of sight," she told the others. And she stepped out in full view of the creature.
The lips curled back, revealing more teeth. It came forward again. Hutch raised the weapon and leveled it.
"Shoot, for God's sake!" said Nightingale.
Hutch told him to be quiet. The cat's eyes brushed hers. She broke the connection, looked off to one side.
She wanted to see a sign that it was in fact hostile. She wished it would drop down on all fours and charge. Or simply pick up its pace. Or raise its claws.
It did none of these things. It just kept coming. And Hutch suspected it had no experience with weapons. It saw nothing she could do to harm it.
She turned the cutter on the stone side of the building, activated the beam, scorched the rock, and brought the weapon level again.
The creature stopped.
Chiang stepped out beside her.
It stood for several moments, uncertain.
Hutch took a step forward,
It began to back away.
"It's no dummy," said Chiang.
It angled off behind the lander, and it kept the vehicle between itself and the tower while it retreated back into the patch of woods from which it had come.
It was a short day, of course, less than ten hours from dawn to dusk. Nobody was hungry when the sun went down, and, other than Nightingale, they wanted to stay with the job. Hutch brought them out of the tower anyhow.
It had grown dark when they logged in their most recent finds.
These consisted mostly of vases and utensils and a few tiny hunting knives. There was also an armchair and a pack that seemed to be full of fabric.
They took the pack out to the lander cabin and secured everything else in the cargo bay. Then they called it a day and climbed inside.
Hutch opened the bag and took out a small faded blue cloak. It was ribbed, with a ring and chain at the top to fasten the collar. In its own time, it might have been a deep purple. Now it was too washed-out to be sure. The cloth was brittle, and a small piece of it broke off in her hands. She passed the garment to Kellie, who bagged it.
Next was a shirt.
And a robe.
Both were cut down the sides, presumably to accommodate limbs, but what those limbs might have looked like, or even how many there might have been, was impossible to know.
They found leggings.
And a pair of boots.
The boots were disproportionately wide. "Duckfeet," said Kellie.
Many of the garments sported decorations, sunbursts and diamond-shapes, representations apparently of flowers and trees, and various arcane symbols.
They were delighted. Even Nightingale seemed to loosen up and find occasional reason to smile. They inventoried and packed everything, including the bag itself.
"Not a bad day's work," said Toni, with a satisfied smirk.
Hutch agreed. First day down, they'd done pretty well.
The lander had a washroom about the size of a closet. It wasn't convenient, but it would be adequate to their needs.
One by one, they retreated into its cozy confines to wash up and change clothes. There was a fair amount of grumbling during the process, especially from Chiang and Kellie, neither of whom could move easily inside it. Both eventually gave up and got dressed in the rear of the cabin.
Hutch broke out the reddimeals. They had a choice among pork, chicken, fish cakes, hamburger steak, sauerbraten. The meals came with salads and snacks.
She produced two candles, lit them, and killed the lights. Then she set out five glasses and a bottle of Avignon Blue. She uncorked it and filled the glasses. "To us," she said.
They drank the second round to the owner of the bag who'd been thoughtful enough to leave it behind for them.
When they'd finished and were sitting quietly in the candlelight, Hutch congratulated them for what they'd accomplished. "It'll be a short night," she said. "Dawn comes early here. But we can sleep a bit late if we need to.
"Tomorrow, I want to change the emphasis of the search. The Academy will like what we've gotten so far. But time's limited. What we really need is to find something that'll shed some light on who these people were. On their history."
"How do we do that?" asked Toni.
"Look for engravings. Something with pictures on it. Writing. Symbols. Pictographs.
"We probably won't find much in the way of documents on paper, or paperlike materials. We have the scrolls that somebody might be able to do something with, but what we really want is stuff that's clearly legible. Check pottery for symbols or pictures. Anything like that, we-" A queasy sensation blossomed in her stomach, something she couldn't quite get hold of. The candles flickered.
"What was that?" asked Toni.
They looked at one another.
Tremor.
She switched to Marcel's private channel. "I think," she told him, "we just experienced a minor quake."
"Everybody okay?" he asked.
"Yeah. It wasn't much. But it's not a good sign."
"We have sensors on the ground. I'll check them, see what they say."
"You were right," Marcel told her a few minutes later. "It was a 2.1."
"How strong is that?"
"Barely perceptible."
"Scares birds," she said.
"Yeah. I suppose."
"I thought we weren't supposed to feel anything until the last day or so."
"I don't think I ever said that, Hutch. But I did warn you that the tower area is not stable. You're sitting right on top of a fissure. The experts up here are telling me that it's not a good place to be with Morgan coming."
"Morgan's still pretty far."
"Not far enough. It's massive. Think Jupiter."
"All right. We'll be careful."
"Maybe you should leave. Get out of Dodge."
"If it gets serious, we'll do that."
"I think it is serious. How about going to one of the other sites?"
"Where do you suggest?"
"Any of the cities."
"Which one's accessible?"
He paused. "Well, what do you mean by accessible?"
"That we don't have to cut through ten or twenty meters of ice to get to it."