“That's good, but I'm not happy about four weeks stuck in this cavern.”
“I know what you mean.”
Their refuge was twice as long as the shuttle craft's twenty-one metres, and half again as wide, but it ended in a rather daunting rock fall which may have been why the cave was abandoned by the giffs. There was not much space for privacy, and they couldn't risk lighting the innermost section which would have lessened the cramping.
By the time the quick tropic night had darkened their refuge, Portegin had succeeded in rigging a locator which he and Triv mounted in a crevice just outside the cliff mouth. After a final look to be sure that the stern of the shuttle was sufficiently camouflaged, Kai and Varian ordered everyone back into the shuttle. By the simple expedient of having Lunzie introduce a sedative into the evening ration of water, everyone was soon too sleepy to worry about confinement or boredom.
The next day Kai and Varian sent everyone but the convalescent Trizein out to gather greenery. They estimated that they had this second day secure from any search by the heavy-worlders: possibly a third but they could take no chances.
The third day, apart from drawing water at dawn, was spent inside the cave. Portegin and Triv contrived a screen of branches and grass which could be used to secure a sentinel at the cave entrance, to warn of any sign of either search from the heavy-worlders or, hopefully, the arrival of a Thek capsule. The angle of vision from the screen was limited but would have to suffice.
The fourth day passed uneventfully but by the fifth, everyone was beginning to show the effects of close quartering. The sixth day Lunzie doctored the morning beverage so that everyone except herself, Triv and the two leaders were kept dozy. That meant that they had to maintain the watch themselves and draw the water at dawn and again at dusk.
By the end of the seventh day, Kai had to admit that Tor had not rushed to their assistance.
“What is our alternative?” Triv asked calmly at the informal conference the four Disciples held.
“There's cold sleep,” said Lunzie, looking rather relieved when Kai and Varian nodded.
"That's the sensible last resort," said Triv, fiddling with a square of grasses he'd been idly weaving. "The others're going to become more and more dissatisfied with seclusion in this cave. Of course, once there aren't any messages for EV, they'll be bound to investigate." Something in their manner, in their very silence alerted Triv and he glanced about him, startled." EV is coming back for us?"
“Despite Gaber's gossip, There's no reason to suppose not?” said Kai, slowly. “Once EV strips the messages, they'll come rattling here. This planet is so rich in all . . .”
“Messages?” Triv caught Kai's inadvertent slip.
“Yes, messages,” said Varian, a sour grimace on her face.
“How many?” The geologist couldn't suppress his anxiety.
“The all-safe-down is the only one they've stripped.”
Triv absorbed that depressing admission with no hint of his inner reactions. “Then we'll have to sleep.” He frowned and asked, as an afterthought, “Only the all safe? What happened? They wouldn't have planted us, Kai, there isn't a large enough gene pool.”
“That and the fact that we've the youngsters is what reassures us,” said Kai. “I feel that the EV is much too involved in that cosmic storm and the Thek were of the same opinion.”
“Ah, yes, I'd forgot about that storm.” Triv's relief was visible. “Then we sleep. No question of it! Doesn't matter if we're roused in a week or a year.”
“Good, then we'll sleep tomorrow, once the others have been told,” said Kai.
Lunzie shook her head. “Why tell them? Aulia'll go into hysterics, Portegin will insist we try to rig an emergency call, you'll get blasted for with holding information about EV's silence . . .”
“They're half-way there now,” said Varian, gesturing towards the sleeping forms. “And we'll save ourselves some futile arguments.”
“And any chance of being found by the heavy-worlders?” said Triv, “until either EV comes back for us, or the Thek arrive as reinforcement. There's no way the heavy-worlders could find a trace of us in cold-sleep. And there's a real danger if we remain awake.”
Such a major decision should be democratically decided, Kai knew, in spite of the fact that he and Varian as leaders could arbitrarily act in the best interests of the expedition. Lunzie's assessment of reactions was valid. Kai spread his arms wide accepting the inevitable. He'd given Tor a week which, if the Thek had been going to respond, would have been more than adequate for the creature to make the journey from the other planet. If Tor himself had received the message. It could have been taken by one of the other two, who would not necessarily pass it to Tor or bother about responding.
“I'd rather meet those heavy-worlders again with a healed shoulder,” remarked Varian. “I hope they waste all their remaining power trying to find a trace of us.”
Triv gave a mirthless laugh and rose, looking expectantly at Lunzie.
“I'm not unusually spiteful,” said the physician, getting to her feet, “but I'm of the same mind.”
Lunzie prepared a preservative which she then administered to the sleeping. Triv, Varian and Kai checked each one until their skins cooled and their respiration's slowed to the imperceptible. Kai toyed briefly with the notion of staying awake, of asking Varian to join him in the vigil until either Tor or EV arrived. But that would mean they'd have to stay outside as the sleep vapour would permeate the shuttle. He'd no wish to remain away from his team and inadvertently to disclose their hideaway to the searching heavy-worlders. Soon the others were in the thrall of cold sleep.
“You know,” announced Varian in a startled tone of voice as she was settling herself, “poor old Gaber was right. We are planted. At least temporarily!”
Lunzie stared at her, then made an unamused grimace." That's not the comfort I want to take with me into cold sleep."
“Does one dream in cryogenic sleep, Lunzie?”
“I never have.”
“Seems a waste of time not to do something.”
Lunzie handed round the potion she'd made for them to take in lieu of the spray.
“The whole concept of cold sleep is to suspend the sense of subjective time,” she said. “You sleep, you wake.”
“And centuries could pass,” added Triv.
“You're less help than Varian is,” muttered Lunzie and drank her potion, arranging herself.
“It won't be centuries,” said Kai emphatically. “Not once EV has the assays on the uranium.”
“That is a comfort,” said Triv and drank his dose.
Tacitly Kai and Varian waited until the other two had quietened into the thrall of cold sleep.
“Kai,” Varian said softly, “it is my fault. I had all the clues that pointed to a possible mutiny . . .”
“Varian,” he said gently and stopped her words of apology with a kiss, “it was no one's fault, just a concatenation of forces. Content yourself that we are alive, so are they. Gaber brought his own end with an essential stupidity of temperament. And we had best suspend subjective time for a while.”
“How long a while?”
He kissed her lightly again, smiling a reassurance he tried hard to make genuine. “EV will return for us. No matter how long it takes!” Not the most tactful remark to make. “Drink, Varian!” Raising his cup to her, he waited until she followed suit and they drank together. “Nothing seems quite so bad when you've slept on it.”
“I hope so. It's . . . jussss . . .”
Silence pervaded the shuttle. The mechanism that released a vapour to reinforce the sleep opened the proper valve. All life-signs fell to an undetectable minimum.
Outside golden furred flying creatures roused with the advent of another gloomy, sultry Mesozoic morning.