“Only the best survive,” Sean said. “our three are safe. They were smart enough to come to us!” Then he turned, cocking his head and peering at her through narrowed eyes. “Will yours be safe at Landing? They’ve been after us to bring ’em specimens, you know. ’Cause my dad’s special at trapping and snaring.”
Sorka hugged her sleeping charge closer to her body. “My father wouldn’t let anything happen to this lad. I know he wouldn’t.”
Sean was cynical. “Yeah, but he’s not head of his group, is he? He has to obey orders, doesn’t he?”
“They just want to look at life-forms. They don’t want to cut ’em up or anything.”
Sean was unconvinced, but he followed Sorka as she moved away from the sea and made her way through the undergrowth to the edge of the plateau.
“See ya tomorra?” Sean asked, suddenly loath to give up their meetings now that their mutual vigil had come to an end.
“Well, tomorrow’s a workday, but I’ll see you in the evening?” Sorka didn’t even pause a moment to think about her reply. She was no longer hampered by the stern tenets of Earth restrictions on her comings and goings. She was beginning to accept her safety on Pern as easily as she accepted her responsibility to work for her future there. Sean was also part of that sense of personal safety, despite his innate distrust of all but his own people. Even if Sean was unaware of it, a special link had been forged between Sean and her after their momentous experience on the rock head.
“Are you sure these creatures will hunt the snake?” Porrig Connell asked as he examined one of Sean’s sleeping acquisitions. It remained motionless when he extended one of the limp wings.
“If they’re hungry,” Sean replied, holding his breath lest his father inadvertently hurt his little lizard.
Porrig snorted. “We’ll see. At least it’s a creature of this place. Anything’s better than being eaten alive. One of the blue mottled ones took a huge chunk out of Sinead’s babee last night.”
“Sorka says the snakes can’t get in their house. Plastic keeps ’em out.”
Porrig gave another of his skeptical grunts, then nodded toward the sleeping hatchling. “Watch ’em now. They’re your problem.”
At Residence Fourteen in Asian Square, there was considerably more enthusiasm about Sorka’s creature. Mairi dispatched Brian to bring his father from the veterinary shed. Then she made a little nest in one of the baskets she had been weaving from the tough Pernese reeds, lining it with dried plant fiber. Tenderly she transferred the creature from Sorka’s arm to its new bed, where it immediately curled itself into a ball and, with a tremendous sigh that inflated its torso to the size of its engorged belly, fell deeper into sleep.
“It’s not really a lizard, is it?” she said, softly striking the warm skin. “It feels like good suede. Lizards are dry and hard to the touch. And it’s smiling. See?”
Obediently Sorka peered down and smiled in response. “You should have seen it wolf down the sandwiches.”
“You mean, you’ve had no lunch?” Aghast, Mairi immediately bustled about to remedy that situation.
Though the communal kitchens catered for most of the six thousand regular inhabitants of Landing, more and more of the family units were beginning to cook for themselves for all but the evening meal. The Hanrahan’s home was a typical accommodation for a family: one medium-sized bedroom, two small, a larger room for general purposes, and a sanitary unit; all the furnishings but the treasured rosewood dower chest were salvaged from the colony ships or made by Red in his infrequent spare time. At one end of the largest room was a food preparation unit, compact but adequate. Mairi prided herself on her culinary skills and was enjoying a chance to experiment with new foods.
Sorka was halfway through her third sandwich when Red Hanrahan arrived with zoologist Pol Nietro and microbiologist Bay Harkenon.
“Don’t wake the little thing,” Mairi instantly cautioned them.
Almost reverently the three peered at the sleeping lizard. Red Hanrahan let the specialists monopolize it while he gave his daughter a hug and a kiss, ruffling her hair with affectionate pride. “Who’s the clever girl!” he exclaimed.
He sat down at the table, stretching his long legs underneath, and slid his hands into his pockets as he watched the two tut-tutting over a genuine Pernese native.
“A most amazing specimen,” Pol remarked to Bay as they straightened.
“So like a lizard,” she replied, smiling with wonder at Sorka. “Will you please tell us exactly how you enticed the creature to you?”
Sorka hesitated only briefly, then, at her father’s reassuring nod, she told them all she knew about the lizards, from her first sight of the little gold beast guarding her eggs, to the point where she had coaxed the bronze one to eat from her hand. She did not, however, mention Sean Connell, though she knew from the glances her parents exchanged that they surmised that he had been with her.
“Were you the only lucky one?” her father asked her in a low voice while the two biologists were engrossed in photographing the sleeping creature.
“Sean took two brown ones home. They have an awful time with snakes in their camp.”
“There’re homes waiting for them on Canadian Square,” her father reminded her. “And they’d have the place to themselves.”
All the ethnic nomads in the colony’s complement had been duly allotted living quarters, thoughtfully set to the edge of Landing, where they might not feel so enclosed. But after a few nights, they had all gone, melting into the unexplored lands beyond the settlement. Sorka shrugged.
Then Pol and Bay began a second round of questions, to clarify her account.
“Now, Sorka, we’d like to borrow your new acquisition for a few hours.” Bay emphasized the word “borrow.” “I assure you we won’t harm a—well, a patch of its hide. There’s a lot we can determine about it simply from observation and a judicious bit of hands-on examination.”
Sorka looked anxiously at her parents.
“Why don’t we let it get used to Sorka first?” Red said easily, one hand resting lightly on his daughter’s clenched fists. “Sorka’s very good with animals; they seem to trust her. And I think it’s far more important right now to reassure this bitty fellow than find out what makes it tick.” Sorka remembered to breathe and let her body relax. She knew she could count on her father. “We wouldn’t want to scare it away. It only hatched this morning.”
“Zeal motivates me,” Bay Harkenon said with a rueful smile. “But I know you’re right, Red. We’ll just have to leave it in Sorka’s capable care.” The woman gathered herself to rise when her associate cleared his throat.
“But if Sorka would keep track of how much it eats, how often, what it prefers—” Pol began.
“Besides bread and sandwich spread,” Mairi said with a laugh.
“That would improve our understanding.” Pol had a charming grin that made him appear less gray and frowzy. “And you say that all you had to do was entice it with food?”
Sorka had a sudden mental image of the rather stooped and unathletic Pol Nietro lurking in bushes with a basket of goodies, luring lizards to him.
“I think it had something to do with its being so dreadfully hungry after it hatched,” she replied thoughtfully. “I mean, I’ve had sandwiches in my pockets every morning this week on the beach, and the dam never came near me for food.”
“Hmmm. A good point. The newly hatched are voracious.” Pol continued to mumble to himself, mentally correlating the information.