That was enough to bring Hag after the rest of them, but he grumbled all the way to the main building.
They wanted Brewster. Usually there was too much of him around, but this time he was nowhere to be seen. The only person in the main building was Winnie Carlson, and the only part of her that was visible was her ample rear end. The front of her was deep inside an autochef. She was sneezing when she came out.
“He went over to check the message center in the other building,” she said. “I’ll show you, I need a break anyway. You’ve been cooking with this thing? I’m giving it a first look and it’s disgusting. You’re not supposed to get allergies when you are on a different planet, but with anything this filthy, all bets are off.”
Her nose was red, and she had transferred great smudges of grease to both cheeks. Josh saw Topaz’s expression. It said, Are we supposed to learn equipment maintenance so we can all look like that?
Brewster wasn’t working at the message center itself when they entered the building. He was prowling around the room, which in addition to the communications equipment was filled with computers and peripherals. He was peering inside and underneath everything. Half a dozen of the computers had been turned on and were showing a variety of data-bank displays.
“I haven’t got ’round to the equipment in this room yet,” Winnie said. She sounded nervous and uncertain. “There’s so much to do. I’ll take a look at it later today.”
“No!” Brewster glared at her. “I don’t want any place even touched until I tell you to do it. There’s no messages for you.”
“Very well, sir. I’ll stay out of here.”
“And why have you dragged the trainees in with you?”
Winnie gaped at him. It was left to Sig, oldest of the others, to say reluctantly, “We found an animal tied up outside the fence, sir. It seemed to be starving. We let it go, but we wonder how it got there and if we did the right thing.”
Not, Josh decided, if Brewster’s reaction was anything to go by. He glowered and muttered “Damnation” under his breath. Then, louder, “Where is this beast?”
“We’ll show you.” Rick and Hag jumped forward like dogs let off a leash. The rest followed more slowly, picking up Dawn on the way, who emerged from between two buildings and drifted after them.
By the time they reached the clearing Brewster had calmed down. He took one look at the animal, lying where they had left it and now snoring, and nodded.
“What you have there is a Bode-Jarman chimera, usually known as a bodger. It doesn’t eat anything except leaves and roots, and the only way that it will do you any harm is if you let it sit on you.”
“But who tied it up?” Topaz asked.
“I can’t tell you that, not specifically.” Brewster paused for a moment. “Of course, when I told the group that we were going to the medical center for a more thorough check on everyone’s condition, matters became hurried and confused.” He paused again. “Somebody must have overlooked the bodger in all the excitement. That was regrettable, but fortunately it is not a tragedy. The animal can fend for itself very well, as you see. It will be fine here.” He managed to smile at Topaz. “All right?”
“Yes, sir.”
All right perhaps with Topaz, but not with Josh. He waited, until Brewster gave a final nod and headed back up the slope toward the gate with Winnie Carlson trailing obediently at his heels. The Lasker brothers began to fuss over the bodger, arguing about how they might lure it to the compound with water and suitable plants. While they were doing that, Dawn went across and sat down right in front of the big animal. She grabbed the beaded trunk, placed it on her lap, and began to stroke it. Josh was ready to run over and pull her away when the animal gave a great sigh, stretched forward, and rubbed its head along her side.
Topaz nodded, as though something had just been confirmed. “The bodger loves that. But he wasn’t telling the truth.”
“Brewster? I know.”
“How can you?” Topaz frowned at him, as though Josh wasn’t telling the truth, either.
“My mother. She’s an actress.”
“She is? That must be really neat for you.”
“Yeah.” Josh wasn’t so sure. “I guess so. Anyway, she showed me how she acted different things. If a person is saying something they already know or really believe, they talk and they look at you a certain way. If they’re improvising—making it up as they go along—the pauses and the look are different. Brewster was improvising.”
“And he was lying.” Topaz seemed very sure of herself.
“But how do you know?”
“You said you never had a pet, Josh. I did. That bodger was somebody’s pet—you only have to look at how it’s basking in the attention it’s getting from Dawn. There’s no way in a million years that anyone who had a pet like that would ‘overlook’ it and leave it to starve if they had to go away. At the very least, they would release it. If they didn’t have time to do that before they had to leave, the Solferino message center would be flooded right now with urgent requests for somebody to go out and let the animal go. Brewster said he had checked the message center. Obviously, no one sent anything about the bodger from the medical facility.”
Josh and Topaz stood and stared at each other. “So we agree,” Josh said. “He was definitely lying. But why?”
“I have no idea.”
Any other comments were lost in new excited cries from Rick and Hag Lasker. Dawn was on her feet. So was the bodger. When she started to walk, very slowly, back up the slope, the beast lumbered after her.
“Hey. He’s ours, not yours,” Hag complained. “We found him.”
Dawn took no notice. Nor did the animal. It just followed her, slowly and single-mindedly.
“I think bodgers must be like cats,” Topaz said. “You don’t decide who they belong to. They do.”
They started uphill after the Lasker twins. Sig was left standing alone, staring first at the bodger’s vanishing rear end, then at the uneaten heap of vegetation. When he finally followed the rest, he stayed at the back and spoke to no one.
At the gate to the compound the bodger halted, turned around twice, and settled on the ground. Dawn paused and made a mewing sound. The animal snorted, but did not move.
“I think you’ll have to leave it here, Dawn,” Topaz said. “It’s pretty smart. It knows it’s not welcome inside. And in any case, there’s nothing for it to eat there.”
Dawn did not look at Topaz, or register in any way that she had heard. But she went on through the gate.
The others, following her, found Winnie Carlson on the way to meet them. She appeared more flustered than ever.
“You have to come, right now,” she said. “Mr. Brewster told me to get everybody in the dining room for a meeting.”
“What does he want now?” Sig asked.
“I have no idea. But if I were you I would say as little as possible when you get there.”
Josh could see why as soon as he entered the dining room. Ruby, Sapphire, and Amethyst were already seated. Brewster was pacing up and down in front of them, his big hands clenched behind his back.
“At last,” he said, as Josh and the others filed in with Winnie Carlson bringing up the rear. Brewster looked them over, checking that everyone was present, and nodded.
“Listen closely. The medical results indicate that you are now adapted well enough to local conditions to go anywhere on Solferino. So it’s time you learned more about the planet. Reading isn’t the best way—even though some of you seem to think that it’s sufficient.” He favored Winnie Carlson with a glare of disapproval. “You need to experience things firsthand. We are all going to make a field trip to the Barbican Hills. Those are the three peaks that you see to the south of here. That is where, according to our surveys, the most advanced life forms on this planet are probably located. The site for this settlement was chosen with that in mind. You can expect to be gone for two or three days. Any questions?”