That meant all three women were at least partially dressed out of Kesia Guyen’s rather flashy wardrobe. Happily, Kesia was very full-figured, so although her clothing hung loosely on the two Emberly women, it did fit. Now Kesia’s bag supplied what Anders needed for his treetop expedition.
“Good thing I like scarves,” she said, pulling out half a dozen, “and that they roll up so small I always keep a supply tucked in my travel bag.”
She’d grinned at him. “Nothing like a scarf to change your appearance when you’re short on other clothes. I bet your mama knows that.”
Now some of those scarves were stuffed into the front of Anders’ shirt as he began his laborious climb toward the top of the picketwood, the flagpole he’d shaped from a sapling lace willow strapped to his back and hanging down behind like a tail.
Here and there, as he climbed, Anders saw evidence of the treecats’ past use of the tree. He might have been defeated in one place where sometime in the distant past a branch had broken off, leaving no hand- or footholds, but he used a vibro-blade to cut himself toeholds.
More than once during that climb, Anders wished he could switch on his counter-grav unit. It would have carried him to his destination much more quickly-and if he had lost his grip, his fall would have been of much lesser consequence. However, he didn’t do so. Already he was regretting the extra power he’d used when picking near-pine pods with Dr. Calida. Dacey kept watch over the stack of power packets, but even with setting the counter-grav units at minimum, that stack was diminishing rapidly.
Soon, Anders thought, someone is going to have to go without. It can’t be Langston or Dacey. Why do I think Dad’s going to have excuses why it can’t be him? I’m guessing Virgil will volunteer. He’s still feeling stupidly guilty over the problem with the uni-links-even though Dad’s as much to blame. Or maybe Dad will suggest that since I’m not a “real” part of the expedition, I can do without. Maybe he’d even be right.
When he reached the top of the picketwood tree, Anders braced himself and began tying the scarves into long, brilliantly colored streamers at the narrow end of his pole. Then, holding short lengths of rope in his mouth, he lashed the flagpole into place. He’d practiced this part when he was lower down, but he hadn’t counted on the steady press of the wind that tried to wrestle the length of lace willow from his hands.
The streamers snapped in the occasional cross-draft, one stinging him across his face like a whip. Eventually, however, he got the flagpole into place. When he did, the scarves-most of which were at least a meter wide-billowed out and flew, defiant slashes of unnatural color against the Sphinxian sky.
He stayed up at the top of the picketwood for a while, watching, hoping, he knew against hope, to see some air car that he could wave down. But the sky remained empty, and once again Anders found himself regretting an SFS policy that restricted use not only of some wild lands, but of the airspace above them.
At last Anders made his slow, careful way down. That evening over a dinner that included some interesting results of Dr. Calida’s foraging combined with the last of their supplies, speculation was rife as to when they would be located.
“Tomorrow, certainly,” Dr. Whittaker said. “Last night we didn’t report in as planned. Certainly, some searching was done today. Indeed, I’m surprised we haven’t been located already.”
His tone was disapproving, as if with an entire planet to search, the SFS should have homed in on them at once. No one reminded Dr. Whittaker that the SFS had no idea where to look, but from the expressions on various faces, Anders was certain he was not the only one who remembered.
Despite Dr. Whittaker’s confident assertions, the fourth day of their castaway existence passed without their being found. On the fifth day, morale was distinctly low.
On the third day, Kesia Guyen had done her part to solve the question of who had access to the increasingly diminished supply of power packs for the counter-grav units by refusing to have anything more to do with surveying the remnants of the treecat community.
“I do have training in fieldwork,” she said, “but my primary skills are linguistic. I’ve had it with climbing trees, knowing I’ll bust my butt-or something a lot less well-padded-if I fall. I’m going to go sit with Dacey and turn my belt unit off unless I absolutely need to move.”
Anders watched in trepidation as Dr. Whittaker-he just couldn’t think of him as “Dad” when he got this way-ballooned up like a ship’s captain facing incipient mutiny.
Then Langston Nez coughed. The injured man had been doing more of this. The stuff coming up his throat didn’t look good: thick, viscous, and the color of mud. Anders tried to believe that it was good that some of this stuff was coming out, but it was hard to convince himself. Langston only had a low-grade fever, the sort even a minor system irritation like an allergy could cause. Nonetheless, his cheeks were hollow and his eyes-which occasionally fluttered open, but never seemed to see them-were sunken.
“Perhaps,” Dr. Whittaker said, “that is a good choice, Kesia. Dacey has been doing triple duty. Maybe if the two of you work together, you’d be able to get a bit more liquid into Langston. Water is more important than food for survival.”
Dr. Calida continued her researches, but since these supplied the bulk of their food, no one suggested she stop. Anders had assigned himself as her assistant, but to do his part to preserve power for the counter-grav units, he always slept (or tried to) with his unit turned off. There was no more soaring aloft lighter than his surroundings to pick nuts or seed pods.
Breakfast that morning was slim: small portions of a grilled fish-thing mixed with a strong-tasting fungus. The fungus smelled like old boots, but actually tasted sort of buttery. Marjorie Harrington’s notes commented that it was full of protein, though the entry ended, “Unless we can breed a variation that eliminates the odor but not the nutritional value, this fungus is likely to be-like the durian fruit of Old Terra-only appreciated by gourmets.”
Choking down his portion, Anders had to agree.
When they returned for lunch-bringing with them the strange array of plants that would be all they had for dinner unless the new location to which they’d moved the fish traps proved a lucky one-they found Dr. Whittaker in full rant.
“What I can’t understand,” he said, “is why no one has thought to look for us here! Surely, Ranger Jedrusinski must recall she showed us this place. By now-we’ve been missing for five days.”
“Three,” mouthed Kesia, who was becoming distinctly mutinous.
In spite of the linguist’s constant jokes about how John was going to love her newly slimmed self, it was clear that Kesia worried how he was taking her being missing. Apparently, John Qin hadn’t gotten where he had in business without having a strong sense of what was due to him and his.
Virgil’s situation was worse because-unlike Kesia who, maybe because of her husband’s relatively well-to-do station, had decided she could defy Dr. Whittaker-Virgil clearly felt his dependence strongly. Doubtless he was all too aware of the impending baby and knew this was not a time for him to go looking for work.
Even when twilight forced them in from their field work, Virgil would sit cataloging artifacts or photo-images by the light of one of the low-power light units with which they were fortunately well-supplied. Virgil rarely mentioned Peony Rose, but Anders had seen how frequently he glanced at her picture on his uni-link when he thought no one was looking.