“Chats? How long a lag between sentences?”
“Oh, not long. We'd scheduled replies on a once a ship week basis. I found it extremely stimulating to formulate the most information in the fewest phrases.”
“Oh, I'll grant the Theks are past masters at the telling phrase.”
“Why, even a single word can have unusual significance when uttered by a Thek,” Gaber went on with unexpected volubility. “When you can appreciate fully that each Thek holds within its brain the total knowledge of its own forebears, and can distill this infinite wisdom in single succinct words or phrases . . .”
“No perspective . . .” Kai was concentrating on lifting the sled out of the compounds.
“I beg your pardon?” Gaber's apology was more of a reprimand.
“Their wisdom is Thek wisdom and is not readily applicable to our human conditions.”
“I never implied that it was. Or should be.” Gaber was distinctly annoyed with Kai.
“No, but wisdom should be relevant. Knowledge is something else, but not necessarily distilled from wisdom.”
“My dear Kai, they understand reality, not just the illusion of a very brief and transitory lifespan such as ours.”
The telltale, as sensitive to thermal readings as to movement of any object larger than a man's fist, rattled, informing the two men that they were passing over living creatures, at that moment hidden from their eyes by the thick vegetation. The rattle turned into a purr as the sensitive recorder indicated that the life form had already been tagged with the telltale indelible paint with which the various scouting teams marked any beasts they observed.
“Life form . . . no telltale,” exclaimed Gaber as the rattle occurred after a short internal of silence.
Kai altered his course in the direction of the cartographer's finger. “And moving from us at a fast rate.” Gaber leaned across to the windboard to check the telltagger, nodding to Kai to indicate it was ready and set.
“Maybe it's one of those predators Varian's been trying to catch,” Kai said. “Herbivores go about in groups. Hang on, there's a break in the jungle ahead of us. It can't possibly swerve.”
“You're directly over it,” Gaber said, his voice rough with excitement.
Both beast and airborne sled reached the small clearing simultaneously. But, as if it recognized the danger of an open space with an unknown enemy above it, the beast was a bare flash, a stretched and running mottled body, ending in a stiffly held long taiclass="underline" all the retinal after-image Kai retained.
“Got it!” Gaber's triumphant yell meant the creature had been telltagged. “I've film on it, too. The speed of the thing.”
“I think it's one of Varian's predators.”
"I don't believe herbivores are capable of such bursts of speed. Why, it outdistanced this sled." Gaber sounded amazed." Are we following it?"
“Not today. But it's tagged. Enter the grid co-ordinates, will you, Gaber? Varian's sure to want to come look-see. That's one of the first predators we've been able to telltag. Luck, sheer luck, coming over that clearing.”
Kai veered back to his original course, slightly north, towards the first body of water that Berru had sighted. It ought to be near the inland sea which was shown on the satellite pictures.
Really, thought Kai, echoing Gaber. Now the satellite photos had been theoretical, in one sense, since they'd had to be shot through the ever-present cloud cover, while Kai, by flying over the depicted terrain, was the reality, the direct experience. Kai could appreciate the essence of Gaber's comment: what an incredible experience it would be to watch this planet evolve, to see the land masses tortured and rent by quake, shift, fault, deformation and fold. He sighed. In his mind, he speeded up the process like the quickly flipped frames of single exposure prints. It was hard for short-lived man to comprehend the millions of years, the billions of days that it took to form continents, mountains, rivers, valleys. And clever as a geophysicist might be in predicting change, such realities as geophysics had been able to observe in its not so lengthy history always exceeded projections.
Gaber's life-instrument beeped constantly now, and with no counter burr from the telltale they diverted again, this time to tag a large herd of tree-eaters.
“Don't recall pics of monsters like that before,” Kai told Gaber as they circled round the creatures, now partially visible through the sparse forest cover. “I want to get a good look. Set the camera and the telltale, Gaber. I'm coming around. Hang on.”
Kai turned the air sled, braking speed as he matched the forward motion of the lumbering beasts. “Scorch it, but they're the biggest things I've seen yet!”
“Keep up,” Gaber cried in nervous excitement for Kai was skimming very low. “Those necks are powerful.” The beasts had very long necks, mounted on massive shoulders which were supported by legs the size of tree stumps.
"Necks may be powerful but the brains aren't," said Kai." And their reaction time is double slow." The beasts were looking back towards the direction in which Kai had first approached them. Several had not even registered the alien's appearance at all but continued to strip trees as they passed." Gigantic herbivores, foraging even as they move. They must account for half a forest a day."
One of the long-necked creatures neatly bit off the crown of a cycad and continued its lumbering progress with huge fronds dripping from its not too capacious mouth. A smaller member of the herd obligingly took up one trailing frond and munched on that.
“Heading towards the water?” Kai asked, impressed as well as appalled by the dimensions of the animals. He heard the tagger spit.
“There does seem to be a well-travelled lane through the vegetation. I tagged most of them.” Gaber patted the muzzle of the tag gun.
Kai tilted the sled so he could observe the beasts. Ahead, and down a long incline, lay the shimmering waters of one of Berru's lakes. Kai took the transparency of the probe print and laid it over the replica of scale map which Gaber had been patiently drawing from the data of Kai's teams.
“We should have the precipice on our right, Gaber. Adjust your face-mask to distance vision and see if you can spot it.”
Gaber peered steadily across the distance. “Cloudy, but you ought to change course by about five degrees.”
They flew over terrain that gradually became more and more swamp-like until water replaced land entirely. At this point a definite shoreline appeared, rising first into small bluffs of well-weathered grey stone which gave way to sheer cliffs rising several hundred metres in an ancient transform fault. Kai ascended and the passage of the sled alarmed cliff dwellers into flight, bringing an exclamation of surprised delight from Gaber.
“Why, they're golden! And furred!”
Kai, remembering the vicious heads of the scavengers, veered hastily from their flight path.
“They're following us,” cried Gaber, unperturbed.
Kai glanced over his shoulder. As far as he knew, scavengers only attacked the dying or dead. Judiciously he applied more air speed. The sled could easily outdistance them.
“They're still following us.”
Kai shot a glance over his shoulder. No question of it, the golden avians were following but maintaining a discreet distance, and different levels. Even as Kai watched, the fliers changed positions, as if each wanted to see various aspects of the intruder. Again Kai loaded on more speed. So did the fliers, without apparently expending much effort.
“I wonder how fast they do fly?”
“Are they dangerous, do you suppose?” asked Gaber.
“Possibly, but I'd say that this sled is too big for them to attack, singly or with the numbers they have behind us now. I must bring Varian to see them. And tell the Ryxi.”
“Why ever tell them? They couldn't fly in this heavy atmosphere.”
“No, but Vrl asked me about Ireta's aerial life. I'd hate to tell him there were only scavengers.”