Josh took a break from his musings and turned to look at the sun. It was lower in the sky. Night was only an hour or two away, and he had long since eaten everything in his food packs. He had been testing for what felt like forever. Maybe Brewster had forgotten all about them. On the other hand, maybe he hadn’t. Josh didn’t relish the notion of being the first one back at the camp, and alone with Brewster.
He glanced idly at the test kit—and stopped dead. He had been wandering along on autopilot, working without thinking. Suddenly, while he was not looking, the blue light had started to blink.
Blue—anomaly. Only once in ten thousand times, Brewster had said. But there it was, as bright and beautiful as you could ask. There was a temptation to run screaming and shouting up the hill toward the camp. Josh damped that urge. Suppose he had somehow screwed up (though he didn’t see any way that he could have). Then the more he shouted and waved, the bigger idiot he would look when he was proved wrong.
He backtracked to the place where he had taken the last sample, pulled another piece from the same plant, a stem this time rather than a saw-edged leaf, and dropped it into the test kit. The wait seemed endless, though it was probably no longer than usual.
It came at last—blue again, unless he had developed a sudden case of color blindness. As casually as he could manage, Josh strolled back up the hill.
Of course, that raised problems of its own. He had to walk right past Rick Lasker.
At first the fair-haired twin took no notice of Josh. He was squatting close to the ground. In one hand was his test kit. In the other, near the test kit’s opening, Rick held some kind of fat black worm that wriggled to escape.
As soon as he became aware of Josh’s approach, Rick put the worm down and stood up.
“I really wasn’t going to.” He stared at Josh uneasily. “See, I was just wondering. Wondering what it would feel like.”
“That doesn’t look like a talking worm. It won’t tell you. Stick your finger inside the test kit, if you’re that keen on knowing what it feels like.”
Rick looked at Josh doubtfully. “You don’t mean that, do you? You’re joking.”
“No, I’m not. In fact, you can stick any part of you in there that you like, and it would suit me fine.” Josh started to walk past, up the hill toward the camp, but it was no good. As dusk approached, the flashing light became harder to conceal.
“You’ve got one!” Rick came to Josh’s side and bent to peer at the test kit. “Blue light. Didn’t Brewster say that’s the best kind of all?”
Before Josh could respond, Rick shouted loud enough to carry to the camp and a mile past it, “Over here! He’s got one! Josh Kerrigan bagged a blue!”
So much for the idea of a quiet walk back to camp. It had never occurred to Josh that the work was any kind of competition, but apparently Rick and Hag saw it that way. Hag came running over from a spot farther along the fissure. He peered, turned, and shouted, even louder than Rick, “Hey! Josh has one! He found an enorm-ally.”
Other people popped up from nowhere, Saph and Sig and Amethyst and Winnie. Most surprising of all, Brewster emerged from the main building of the camp—and he came running toward Josh and Rick across the uneven, ill-lit ground. Brewster, who never went anywhere faster than a stately walk! For the first time, Josh had the feeling that he might have discovered something truly important.
“Aha!” Brewster grabbed the test kit out of Josh’s hand and held it close to his face. “Yes, yes, yes. So far, so good. Now let’s see just what we have.”
He turned the test kit around, took something like a blunt screwdriver from his jacket, and poked it into half a dozen small marked pits. The kit beeped, and three of the pits glowed white in the dusk.
“Perfect! The best three.” Brewster handed the kit back to Josh and rubbed his hands together. “Show me exactly where you found it. Quickly, before it gets too dark.”
Josh knew that he would be able to find the plant just as well in the morning, and anyway the test kit was supposed to have its own accurate locator. However, he wasn’t about to get into an argument with Sol Brewster, even when the man was in a good mood. With everyone trailing along behind, Josh led the way to a sparsely covered piece of ground. He pointed to the plant that he had used. Brewster broke off a couple of purple leaves, grabbed a different test kit from Sig Lasker, and dropped them in.
Josh held his breath. If the whole thing was just something wrong with his test kit…
After another endless wait, the indicator light on the other unit flashed blue.
“That’s it!” Sol Brewster knelt down and peered at the ground. What he could see in the fading light was beyond Josh, but apparently it satisfied the other man because he took the blunt screwdriver again from his jacket and drove it effortlessly into the hard earth to mark the spot. He leaned back on his haunches.
“Excellent. Your work is over for the day, and a good day it’s been. You can all head back to camp now. I’ll stay here for a few more minutes, I have additional tests to carry out.” And, when everyone hesitated, interested to see what he would do next, “Have you gone deaf? I said move. This isn’t a circus, and I don’t need an audience.”
They headed reluctantly back up the hill. When they had gone about thirty yards, Josh turned for a last quick look. Brewster was still crouched in the same place. Rather than doing anything to the clump of plants, he seemed to be digging in the ground next to them, with another tool that looked from a distance like a curve-bladed trowel.
What was he doing? Josh asked Winnie Carlson, but all she did was shake her head and act vaguely worried. And when Brewster swept back in, half an hour later, no one had the nerve to say anything.
He was in his best mood ever. “I felt sure that something was here,” he said exultantly, “and by God I was right. But I thought that even if things went well, the search might take a long time. Now.” He paused, thinking. “Well, now I think that one more day will be enough. After that, we can wrap it up here.”
“What about Topaz and Dawn?” asked Amethyst. “We can’t leave without them.”
“Of course not.” Brewster was in too good a mood to cut her down as usual. “We’ll have to wait for them. But after tomorrow we can take things easy. In fact, I have a great idea. We’ll work tomorrow during the day, but tomorrow night we’ll have a party. A celebration, with special food and drink. How does that sound?”
It sounded too bizarre for words, at least to Josh. Sol Brewster was the last man in the world you would want at a party—or expect to give one. But it was Amethyst who spoke.
“Topaz is our best cook, sir, and she’s not here. Unless she gets back, no one else is nearly as good.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Brewster was grinning, for the first time since they had arrived. “You’re forgetting me. You won’t find a better cook this side of the Messina Dust Cloud. I’ll do the cooking.”
“And I’ll make a special appetizer,” added Winnie Carlson. Brewster frowned at her. Before he could object she went on, “You’ll love this, sir, I promise. I’ve made it a hundred times, and everyone says that my blini pancakes with synthecaviar and sour onion cream are the best thing they’ve ever tasted.”
Brewster was a greedy eater, and his expression showed that he was tempted. But still he hesitated, and Winnie hurried on, “I won’t need the use of the kitchen, either. You will have that, and I’ll make the blinis and onion cream using portable equipment.”