“Rise and shine, Carlson.” Brewster clapped his hands together. “Breakfast has to be over and done within five minutes, because you have a full day ahead. Unless you propose to renege on last night’s promise?”
“No, sir.” Winnie made an effort and stood up straight, but she stared at the breakfast trays as if she never intended to eat again. “I did a lot of preparation last night. I’ll have the appetizers ready by sundown, provided the day’s work doesn’t run too late.”
“I don’t see why it should. Yesterday we were engaged in a general search. Today we can be far more specific.” Brewster moved over to the wall, where an image of the Avernus Fissure was divided into sections and marked with multicolored arrows radiating out from a central point. “I have noted the location of our first discovery. Now I want to explore around it, and determine the extent of the find. Each of you will be assigned your own test sector.”
The trainees exchanged glances. It was going to be yesterday all over again, with heat enough to stifle, and without the excitement of a possible new discovery. One question remained: Which unlucky person would be given the test area closest to the Avernus hellhole?
“Let me end the whining before it begins.” Brewster had been watching their reaction. “No one will be assigned the quadrant closest to the fissure. The heat there today will be extreme. However”—he cut through the murmurs of relief—“that area must be tested. So each of you will spend one hour at that site. I will define the rotation of duties. I will also be spending more time there, myself, than any one of you.”
“But there are no plants in that sector,” Amethyst objected. “It’s too close to the fissure and too hot for anything to grow.”
“Quite true, but not relevant.” Brewster gestured to one of the tables, where a number of items of new equipment had been laid out. “Today you will not be testing plants. You will be testing soils. Let me show you how these instruments work.”
As they crowded closer to the table, it occurred to Josh that Rick and Hag’s questions of the previous night had just been answered. Soil tests were an important part of plant biology. That was why they had seen Brewster digging the ground in the place where Josh had made his discovery.
On the other hand, Brewster’s explanation was no explanation at all. It made sense to test soils, if you wanted to determine how well plants of a certain type might grow in them; but if you knew that nothing could grow close to the smoldering heat of the Avernus Fissure, why go to the trouble of testing soil there?
Josh pondered that question again later in the day, when his turn came to work close to the fissure. By noon, Solferino’s sun had burned off the morning steam and fog. Grisel shone blazing hot on his back as he knelt to lift a soil sample and place it in his new test kit. This time there was no chance of a startling find. The instrument did not display its results, it merely stored them internally for later integration into a computer database. You might be dropping gold dust in there, but you would never know it.
The soil analysis of each specimen took longer than a plant bioanalysis. Josh had to remain crouched in one place for more than two minutes in every test, until the unit finally informed him that he was free to move on. The air around him shimmered. Sweat dripped steadily from his chin and ran down his forehead into his eyes, and he could feel heat from the reddish soil burning through the padded knee-cloth of his trousers and warming the soles of his shoes.
It was probably only one hour, but it felt like three before Sig Lasker finally arrived to relieve him.
“Any sign of Topaz and Dawn?” Josh had to ask the important question quickly. Brewster might be watching, and he came down hard on anybody who stopped work to chat.
“Not a sign, but I’m going to tell you what I told Saph: Topaz is smart, and they’ll both be fine. If you can’t do anything about a thing, stop worrying.” Sig took Josh’s test kit and pretended to be studying it. “Schiitz, it’s hot down here.”
“Wait half an hour, then you’ll know what hot is. Anything else happening?”
“Rick and Hag aren’t feeling good. They had to go back to camp. Brewster insisted at first that they were all right, just faking it. But they weren’t.”
“He made them keep on working?”
“Not after Rick threw up all over Brewster’s boots. Then even Brewster had to admit there was something wrong.”
“How sick are they?”
“Those two morons?” If Sig felt any sympathy for his brothers, he didn’t show it. “Not as sick as they deserve to be. Put their brains together, you’d be lucky to get a half-wit. I’ve seen ’em do it before, but they never learn. They had another eating contest at breakfast today. Anybody would be sick, gobbling until there’s no room for one more bite, then coming out into this heat. I’m not worried about them. But Brewster seems to be. I told him they’d be all right, and still he seemed totally bent out of shape.”
“Maybe he feels bad about the way he’s been treating us.”
“Brewster? Yeah, sure. And maybe I’ll grow wings and fly across the fissure. Get real, Josh.”
“So what’s your explanation?”
“I don’t have one. I’m just reporting what happened.” Sig knelt down and pushed the little spoon-shaped sampler into the hard soil. He lifted it and dropped a few grams of red dirt into his test kit, then reached down and touched the ground with his bare hand. “It’s even hotter when you get down to ground level. Why are you hanging around, when you could be somewhere cooler?”
“I’m not. I’m on my way.”
Josh trudged up the hill. He could feel the temperature drop with every step. By the time he was back to his original station, halfway to the camp, the soles of his feet had stopped burning. He didn’t try to fool himself, though; the air was still too warm for comfort. He squinted up at the sun. Grisel was high in the sky. About four more hours before the signal came to quit for the day. What were the chances that Brewster would accept another trainee reporting sick?
Not good, unless you were able to throw up on his boots. And if you did, there would surely be reprisals later. Rick and Hag Lasker weren’t going to enjoy tomorrow.
Josh sighed, and stooped to test another sample.
Days had enough discomforts of their own to discourage thinking. Only when night approached did Josh begin to worry seriously about Dawn and Topaz.
Tonight, fortunately, there were distractions. It was strange, but the very word “party” produced a lift in everyone’s spirits. Even if it were Sol Brewster’s party, with the man himself presiding; even if half the group was not there (Rick and Hag had yet to put in an appearance; Sig reported that they were almost back to normal, except that any mention of food made them feel ill all over again); even if the food itself was a major question mark, because no one had any experience of Sol Brewster’s or Winnie Carlson’s cooking. In spite of all those things, Josh could feel his mood becoming more cheerful, and he knew from the rising noise level that others felt the same.
Certainly the two cooks seemed to be taking their jobs seriously. They were at opposite ends of the crowded dining room. Brewster had a gigantic pot bubbling on a heating element, and next to it a container of rice enough to feed twice their number. Keeping one eye on the pot, he was carefully pouring pale yellow liquid into disposable glasses from a large iced flagon.
Winnie Carlson, no less intent, hovered over two pans of her own and the portable autochef. She had made a great secret of its programming, refusing to allow anyone near while she was doing it.