“The colonel’s got a magnetic compass and there’s manual sighting gear adjusted for Helena in my pack,” Harker told him. “Good thing, too, since if it had been in the other boat we’d really be in a fix. The compass is adjusted to true north from its usual east-northeast on this planet, and should be adequate.”
By the end of an hour or so they were all soaked with sweat and feeling the strain of the tropical climate and particularly the hot, humid air. Harker was just about to suggest a break when they stepped out of the grasslands and into a dense forest. There hadn’t been many noticeable in-sects in the grass, but now the very air seemed made of them, and it was nearly impossible to keep themselves from being covered in them. Harker and Socolov both began coughing from having breathed in tiny bugs.
N’Gana came back and called a break. The others couldn’t imagine wanting to linger a single moment in that spot.
“Let’s get back into the grass,” Harker suggested, feeling like his entire face and arms were covered with tiny insects.
“Okay, just inside,” N’Gana responded. “Key to that large tree over there. Drop the packs and remain with them. I’m going to try and knock some of that fruit down, or climb up and get it.”
“I can help,” Father Chicanis volunteered. “Wait until I drop the backpack. No use giving you all the local names for things, but you’ll all like those. Don’t pick up any that have fallen, though. The insects will have pretty well moved in. Most of them don’t touch fruit that’s growing, though. It has a kind of natural defense, even if it was genetically designed.”
“Insects this bad in the old days?” N’Gana asked him.
“Not that I remember, but there were always a lot of them. No big game, no big animals at all, plenty of insects. They aren’t really insects, either, if you examine them closely, but they occupy the same niche. We just called them all bugs. That’s the trouble with tropical climates—what’s great for people is even better for the pests.”
It was clear that people hadn’t been in this area for a very long time, so it was pretty easy to pick enough of the oval-shaped fruit and bring it to the camp by the armload.
“Funny the insects don’t like it over here,” Harker commented, glad to be able to breathe real air.
“Oh, there are plenty in the grass, but they don’t go where they can’t eat. The range of most of those bugs is only a few dozen meters,” Chicanis answered him. “We’ll get some here when we crack open the fruit, but don’t let them bother you. Even if you swallow a few, just think of them as, well, protein. Most aren’t even native. They snuck in with the fruit. The native ones go more for the grasses and do a lot of tunneling.”
“Thanks a lot,” Harker responded. In one brief comment Chicanis had managed to make him paranoid about where he was sitting while also making the swarms even less appetizing to think about.
The one who seemed happiest about the bugs was Hamille. The feathery but serpentine creature opened that huge oval of a mouth and just seemed to inhale the flying bugs as fast as it could. When full, it would sink to the ground and start spitting. Out came tiny forms that looked like berries and others that looked like tiny gemstones that crawled or wriggled.
“The ones spit out are the native bugs, I assume,” Mogutu commented more than asked.
“Yes. Our friend can digest most protein-based bugs and such, even raw meat and what we would think of as carrion, but I think the native bugs are a bit indigestible even for it,” N’Gana replied. “At least Hamille will have the same ease with local cuisine as we, even if we eat different things. That’s good, because half or more of its food was in our lost packs.”
He used the knife to slice open one of the melonlike fruits. It revealed a bright yellow-orange pulp with a core of tiny white seeds. The thing tasted quite sweet and proved very filling. The second one turned out to have some bugs in it and, as it turned out, about one in three of them had a lot of visitors.
“I don’t understand it,” Chicanis said, shaking his head in wonder. “They used to avoid anything on the vine or die.”
“They’re adapting,” Harker responded, a little worriedly. “They’re evolving to meet changing circumstances. Too much grass, food that’s too concentrated.
Those things aren’t the most numerous of the bugs devouring the fruits that fall from the trees. Those silver things with the little pincers seem to be the boss, followed by the round black things with the four legs and the millipedelike critters. These little brown buggers had to adapt or die out.”
“I wonder if perhaps the surviving people might have as well?” the priest asked worriedly.
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” N’Gana responded. “Evolution takes a lot longer in us humans. Us—all of us—now, we have these skin flaps and bony plates from running through the genholes for years, but they’re growths, not deformities. They stop when we stop, and most are pretty easily removed. Mental adaptation, now, that’s a different story. We adapted so much to technology we got soft. Very few could do what we’re doing, you know that? We’ve gotten too used to waving our hands and having the machines provide. Anything we want and can’t find, we can synthesize. Anything we need to know we just plug our heads into a net and direct-load from the libraries. Used to be everybody had to read for information. Now nobody even remembers how, at least in general. We get tired of our looks, we drop in a clinic and brown eyes become blue, fat vanishes and is replaced by muscle in a matter of days or weeks, no effort. Nobody walks anywhere anymore.”
“Maybe so,” Father Chicanis said in a slightly dubious tone, “but not everybody. That’s what killed these worlds, of course. Stripped to the basics, only a very small number survived. Perhaps that is evolution. Perhaps the only ones who survived and bred did so precisely because they were either throwbacks or had qualities the others did not that allowed them to survive.”
“Maybe, but if we meet any of ’em I bet they won’t be all that different,” the colonel asserted. “I mean, except for extinction, nothing evolves in as little as ninety years or so, not without artificial help. Isn’t that right, Doctor?”
Eyes turned to the silent and sullen anthropologist. All had noticed her silence and somewhat shell-shocked look, but only Harker and Chicanis had been concerned about it.
When she didn’t reply, N’Gana frowned and called, “Doctor Socolov? Kat? You must snap out of this!” When she only vaguely reacted, he walked over and looked down at her. “Doctor, I will put this bluntly, but you must believe that I am not making idle conversation. We cannot afford to have breakdowns or episodes. If you have gone psychotic, you are a liability and we will leave you here. If you are doing this out of some inner angst or too-late self-doubt or whatever, then you are a liability. You went into this with as few illusions as we could manage. If you did not believe us, that is too bad, but if you are not a willing part of this team, then you are a threat to our lives and our mission, as much a threat as those things in the sand. We don’t have time for this, Doctor. Either grow up or walk off into the brush. I want your answer now. I want your response before we pick up and walk another ten kilometers. If you do not react, we will leave you. If you then follow, we will make certain that you cannot.”
“Cut her some slack, Colonel,” Father Chicanis put in, concerned. “She’s been through a lot already.”
“Stay out of this, Father! I am not doing this to be a petty tyrant. I simply wish you, both you and the doctor here, and anyone else who might think otherwise, to consider the cost of our failure. Ask yourselves just how many billions or trillions of lives is she worth? The mission is the only thing that is important here. Anyone who forgets that, or who gets in the way of that, will have to be cut out. There are worlds at stake here! Including hers—and mine.”