In his very lack of tone colour, Paskutti seemed to be impatient for her answer.
“Now, we check out what creatures inhabit the unknown land beyond the shield so that Kai and his teams can make secondary camps. We've the sled today, Paskutti, so if you'd get tapes, we can do some prospecting.”
“Weaponry?”
"The usual personnel defense. We're not hunting. We're observing.
She spoke more harshly than she intended because there was an avid intensity about Paskutti's innocent question that was off-putting. Tardma was as blank as ever but then she never did anything, including smile, without glancing for permission from Paskutti.
As they re-entered the encampment for their equipment, Varian saw the children grouped about Dandy's enclosure, watching Lunzie feed it. Its thick little tail whisked this way and that either in greed or in enjoyment.
“Is Dandy eating well?”
“Second bottle,” said Bonnard with possessive pride.
“Lunzie says we can feed him when he gets to know us a bit better,” Cleiti added and Terilla nodded, her bright eyes big with such an incredible experience to anticipate.
Poor ship-bound wench, thought Varian whose childhood had been spent among the animals of many worlds with her veterinarian parents. She couldn't remember the time when she hadn't had animals to cuddle and care for. Small creatures brought to her parents for healing or observation had always been her particular charges once her parents had decided she was a responsible youngster. The only creatures she had never liked were the Galormis. Her instinct for animals had warned her the moment those soft devils had been discovered on Aldebaran 4, but as a very junior xenob, she had had to keep her own counsel on her suspicions. At that she'd been lucky: she only had teeth marks on her arm where the Galormis which had attacked those in her dome had begun its nocturnal feeding. The creature had already killed its handler: its hollow incisors had proved to contain a paralytic with which it controlled its victims. Fortunately the night guard, alerted to trouble by the non-appearance of his relief, had roused the expedition, and the Galormis had been caught, contained and later exterminated. The planet was interdicted.
“We'll see how Dandy behaves himself first, Terilla,” said Varian, firmly believing in an old adage, “once bitten, twice shy”. The originator had not had the Galormis in mind, but the application was apt.
“How's Mabel?” asked Lunzie, sparing Varian a glance.
Varian told her. “We're scouting north today. Kai's teams will have to set up secondary camps soon but we don't want them encountering fang-faces, like the ones that ate Mabel. Also, the geology teams are supposed to report in if they sight any wounded beasts, so give us a toot right away, will you, Lunzie?”
The physician nodded again.
“Couldn't we come with you, Varian?” asked Bonnard. “If you've the big sled? Please, Varian?”
“Not today.”
“You're on compound duty, and you know it, Bonnard?” said Lunzie. “And lessons.”
Bonnard looked so rebellious that Varian gave him a poke in the arm, and told him to shape up. Cleiti, more sensitive to adult disapproval, nudged him in the ribs.
“We got out yesterday, Bon. We'll go again when it's proper.” Cleiti smiled up at Varian, though her expression was wistful.
A nice child, Cleiti, Varian thought as she and the heavy-worlders continued on to the storage shed for their equipment. Varian checked the big sled, despite the fact that Portegin had serviced it that morning.
They were airborne in good time, just after the morning's first downpour. As seemed to be the rule on Ireta, the clouds then reluctantly parted, allowing the yellow-white sunlight to beat down. Varian's face-mask darkened in response to the change of light and she stopped squinting. Sometimes she found the curious yellow light of cloudy daytime more piercing than the full sun's rays.
They had to fly ten kilometres beyond the radius of the encampment before the telltale began to register life forms, most of them already tagged. The “dead” perimeter had been expanding ever since they landed as if knowledge of the intruders had been slowly disseminating among the indigenous animals. This was a slow-cop world, Varian thought, for on more . . . civilized, was that the word she needed? Advanced, yes, that was more accurate. On more advanced worlds, the news of strangers seemed to waft on the outgoing wind of their descent, and inhabitants made themselves scarce . . . Unless, of course, it was an intelligent, non-violent world where everyone gathered around to see the new arrivals. Sometimes the welcome would be discreet, not defensive nor offensive, but distant. Varian thought of the defensive screen around the domes and snorted to herself. The thing wasn't needed – except to keep insects out. At least not under present circumstances, when the animals stayed far away. Maybe the solution to Kai's problem was simply to establish the physical secondary camp, complete with small force-screen, give the local wild-life a chance to drift away from the area, and then let his teams move in.
Yet there was fang-face! The size of him! She recalled tree tops shivering at his passage in the tape Kai had made. The main force-screen would burn him, probably dissuade him . . . there hadn't been much animal-life around those active volcanoes so creatures great and small on Ireta knew about fire and burn. The problem was the smaller screens weren't powerful enough to stop a determined attempt by fang-face if he were hungry, or scared, and that was what she had to allow for: the appetite of such predators as fang-face.
Varian had taped a course for the north-east, the vast high plateau, ringed by the tremendous mountains of the moon as Gaber had called them. Two subcontinents had ground into each other, Gaber had told her pedantically, to force high those great stone peaks. The plateau beneath them had once been ocean bed. Anyone returning to that area had been enjoined by Gaber and Trizein to look for fossils on the rock faces. It was here, at the foot of the new fold mountains, that Kai hoped to start finding pay dirt. This was well beyond the ancient corings. For some reason, the discoverey of the old cores reassured Varian. Kai appeared worried about them and she couldn't imagine why. EEC wasn't likely to lose a planet they'd already twice explored. Besides, the Theks lived long enough to correct any mistakes they made – if they ever made any. Or maybe it was because they had time enough to correct any that it only appeared they were infallible.
Between the plateau they were heading for, with its coarse ground cover, not quite grass and not really shrub or thicket, was a wide band of rain forest through which Mabel's ilk passed, and where a fang-face was liable to lurk. Far to the east were clouds of volcanic activity, and occasional thunders, not meteorological in origin, rumbled to the sensors of the sled.
They spotted one set of circling scavengers and landed to investigate, but the creature had long since been reduced to a bony structure, any evidence of beast-gouging long gone. The dead weren't carrion long on Ireta. Tenacious insects were riddling the skeleton with industrious pinchers so that the bones would be gone in the next day. The tougher skull was intact and Varian, first spraying with antiseptic, examined it.
“One like Mabel?” asked Paskutti as Varian turned the skull from side to side with her boot.
“Crested at any rate. See, the nasal passage extends . . . I'd say Mabel and her kind smell a lot better than they see. Remember her performance this morning?”
“Everything smells on this planet,” replied Paskutti with enough vehemence to cause Varian to look up. She thought he was being humourous: he was deadly serious.
“Yes, the place stinks but if she's used it, she'd catch the overlying odours and take appropriate action. Yes, it's her nose that's her first line of defence.”