It was after midday when Winnie came wandering out of the camp’s combined kitchen and control center. She said, without much energy or enthusiasm. “All right, people, gather round. I have a progress report for you.”
Her summons did not rouse much enthusiasm, either. Winnie’s previous report had been a dull inventory of food, followed by the conclusion that with the use of local plants and animals, the camp could survive for weeks or months. She had not mentioned which plants and animals. Josh had a vision of chewing on a spangleburger, or dividing up a roast leg of bodger.
“It’s bad news, but it’s good news, too,” Winnie went on. “The bad news: Brewster won’t be back today. The good news is that he’ll definitely be here by tomorrow evening.”
“How do you know all that?” Amethyst asked.
“I just talked to him.” And, when they stared at her, “I used the camp radio. There’s a standard K-band link included in the control center. I didn’t know the carrier wave frequency for the compound, but when I did a band sweep I picked it up easily enough.”
Sig and Amethyst nodded, as though they understood what she was talking about. Josh noticed for the first time that Sapphire was missing from the group. He said, “Yesterday Brewster told us he’d be back this morning. Did he explain why he had to stay longer?”
“Sure.” Winnie became a more confident person when Brewster was away. “He says there’s rough weather forecast, with high winds and heavy rain. Don’t worry, though, this camp is perfectly safe.”
“I thought he went back for something to do with the medical center,” said Topaz. “It has some kind of problem.”
“I heard him say that, too. But I know no more about it than you do. He did tell me that he’ll be at the compound, and won’t be going off-planet. I knew that anyway, because unless he took my lander there’s no vehicle available to take him up to Solferino orbit. Even the lander can’t be used for interplanetary work. He’d need a system-rated ship for that. Meanwhile, he told us to carry on and do some exploration. I’m to help organize. So let’s get to it.”
“There might be,” Amethyst said. “We saw one the day before yesterday.”
Her comment stopped Winnie dead.
“One what?”
“A ship, close to Solferino.”
“You mean the one that brought me? That was yesterday, not the day before, and it’s long gone. But I don’t understand how you could have seen a ship—unless you mean the lander that I used for planetary arrival.”
“Not your lander,” Amethyst said, “or Brewster’s aircar. And it wasn’t the Cerberus, the ship that brought us here through the node.”
“It had to be one of those. Foodlines has no other ships anywhere near Solferino.”
“It wasn’t a Foodlines ship.” Amethyst looked to the others for confirmation. “It wasn’t, was it? It was a Unimine ship. I’m not sure of the name, but it was the Charles somebody-or-other. Charles Lyon?”
“The Charles Lyell.” Winnie frowned. “Then you must have been far out in the Grisel system, near Cauldron. That’s the only place around here where Unimine has mineral rights. What were you doing way out there?”
“We weren’t out there. We were here, in orbit around Solferino, and getting ready to use the lander. That’s when we saw it. Their ship was that close to us.” Amethyst held up her first finger and thumb, half an inch apart. “You could see it without a telescope.” She saw Winnie’s puzzled expression and took it for disbelief. “I’m telling the truth, really am I.”
“That’s all right.” Winnie nodded. “I believe you. Only, if that’s the case…” Her face went blank. It was another half minute before she returned to normal and said, “Very well. Enough of that. Let’s get ourselves organized. Brewster will want a report on what you’ve been doing when he gets back. Who knows? If you’re lucky, one of you will discover a valuable biological product. Then you’ll be Foodlines’s heroes and heroines.”
Josh could see one problem with Winnie’s upbeat speech. He wouldn’t know a valuable biological product if he fell over one. The whole point of their training program on Solferino was to teach them that sort of thing; so far the training hadn’t even started.
Maybe Winnie had the same thought, because she was looking the group over one by one, an odd expression in her watery blue eyes. Her nose was red. She was apparently allergic to something on Solferino, even though that was supposed to be impossible. She went on, “Your first priority is to get a general feel for the life forms around here. Take some time to wander around in this area and see what you can find. Don’t go too far away, and be back here in two hours. I’ll try to answer questions when you get back—though as I told Mister Brewster when I first arrived, all I know about this world is what I’ve read or heard in briefings.”
Josh decided that she was pulling a Sol Brewster on them: saying she wanted to do one thing, then almost at once doing the exact opposite. Three minutes ago Winnie had been all set to organize them. Now she was turning them loose to do whatever they liked. Something or someone had changed her mind.
The group was dispersing. The Karpov sisters, all four of them, were moving upstream, following the line of the valley. Dawn was trailing along behind Sapphire and Ruby on the left bank, while Topaz and Amethyst walked together on the right.
Josh decided that Dawn would be as safe with them as she would be with him. He was ready to explore the downstream direction, until he saw Rick and Hag moving that way. They had been giving him dirty looks ever since he had scared them during the landing. Worse than scaring them, he had made them do the unforgivable: they had acted like cowards in front of everyone—particularly the four girls. They would not forget that for a long time. It was asking for trouble to let them gang up on him away from all the others. Better to avoid them altogether.
He was turning to the steep bank that formed the valley side when Winnie called quietly, “Sig. Josh. I’d like a word with the two of you.”
Josh and Sig exchanged puzzled glances. If they were in trouble, neither one knew why.
“What’s the problem?” Sig asked, as they came closer to Winnie.
“I hope there won’t be one.” She wiped her runny nose. “Do you two agree with Amethyst, that you saw a Unimine ship near Solferino, and it was the Charles Lyell?”
“We saw a ship,” Sig said, and Josh nodded. “It was our ship’s computer that said it was the Charles Lyell. We didn’t.”
“That’s good enough for me.” But Winnie seemed more worried than ever. “Look, nothing has gone wrong, and maybe nothing will. I want you to help to make sure it doesn’t. If anything happens to me, you must look after the others. I said this camp is safe in bad weather, because I don’t want to scare the younger ones. But I don’t know how safe we are. You two are the strongest, physically.”
“Sapphire’s older than me,” Josh said. It was an indirect way of saying, hey, I don’t think Sapphire will take orders from me for one second.
“I know she’s older,” said Winnie. “I just don’t think she’s right for an emergency.”
“You better believe it.” Sig sniffed. “She’s a snaphead.”
“How do you know that?” Josh thought it had been his secret.