Bult and Carson were looking in the water again. Bult shook his head.
“The staking out of territory is a courtship ritual,” Ev said.
“Like gangs,” I said.
“The male butterfish sweeps an area of ocean bottom clear of pebbles and shells for the female and then circles it constantly.”
I looked at the shuttlewren, which was rounding Bult’s umbrella again. Bult put down his log and collapsed the umbrella.
“The Mirgasazi on Yoan stake out a block of airspace. They’re an interesting species. Some of the females have bright feathers, but they’re not the ones the males are interested in.”
The shuttlewren flapped past us and up to Bult and Carson again. It rounded the bend, and Bult shot his umbrella open. The shuttlewren fell in midflap, and Bult stabbed it with the tip of the umbrella a couple of times.
“I knew I should have put umbrellas on the weapons list,” I said.
“Can I have it?” Ev said. “To see if it’s a male?”
Bult unfolded his arm, picked up the shuttlewren, and rode on, plucking the feathers off it. When he had half of them off, he stuck the shuttlewren in his mouth and bit it in half. He offered Carson half. Carson shook his head, and Bult crammed the whole thing in.
“Guess not,” I said. I leaned down and got a feather and handed it to him.
He was watching Bult chew. “Shouldn’t there be a fine for that?” he said.
“‘All members of the expedition shall refrain from making value judgments regarding the indigenous sentients’ ancient and noble culture,’” I said.
I picked up the pieces Bult spit out, which didn’t amount to much, and gave ’em to Ev. And looked off at the horizon.
The Wall curved back away from the Tongue and out across the plain in a straight line. Beyond it, there was a scattering of scourbrush and trees. There wasn’t any wind, the leaves were hanging limp. What we needed was a good dust storm to throw C.J. off, but there wasn’t so much as a breeze.
It wasn’t C.J.’s figuring the dust storms out that worried me. She’d try to blackmail us into naming something after her, but she’d been doing that for years. But I didn’t want her talking about it over the transmitter for Big Brother to hear. If they started looking at the log, they’d be able to see for themselves. There was no way there’d been a dust tantrum in this weather. There wasn’t even any air. The feathers Bult was spitting out up ahead fell straight down.
Half a klom later, we ran into a dust tantrum that was more like a full-blown rage. It got in the transmitter (but not before we’d gotten a full five minutes of it on the log), and up our noses and down our throats, and made it so dark we had to navigate by following the lights on Bult’s umbrella.
By the time we got clear of it, it was getting dark for real, and Bult started looking for a good place to camp, which meant someplace knee-deep in flora so he could get the maximum in fines out of us. Carson wanted to get across the Tongue first, but Bult peered solemnly into the water and pronounced tssi mitsse, and while Carson was yelling, “Where? I don’t see a damn thing!” the ponies started to sway, so we camped where we were.
We set up camp in a hurry, first because we didn’t want to have to unload the ponies after they were down, and then because we didn’t want to be stumbling around in the dark, but all three of Boohte’s moons were up before we got the transmitter unloaded.
Carson went off to tie the ponies up downwind, and Ev helped me spread out the bedrolls.
“Are we in uncharted territory?” he asked.
“Nope,” I said, shaking the dust out of my bedroll. “Unless you count what’s on us.” I spread the bedroll out, making sure it wasn’t on any flora. “Speaking of which, I’d better go call C.J. and tell her where we are.” I handed Carson’s bedroll to him and started over to the transmitter.
“Wait,” he said.
I stopped and turned back to look at him.
“When I talked to C.J., she wanted to know why the dust tantrum hadn’t shown up on the log.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“I said it came in at an angle and blindsided us. I said it blew up so fast I didn’t even see it till you shouted, and by that time we were in the middle of it.”
I told Carson he was smarter than he looked, I thought.
“How come you did that?” I said. “C.J.’d probably give you a free jump for telling her we blew up that storm ourselves.”
“Are you kidding?” he said, looking so surprised I was sorry I’d said it. Of course he wouldn’t betray us. We were Findriddy and Carson, the famous explorers who could do no wrong, even if he’d just caught us red-handed.
“Well, thanks,” I said, and wondered exactly how smart he was and what explanation I could get away with. “Carson and I had things we needed to discuss, and we didn’t want Big Brother listening.”
“It’s a gatecrasher, isn’t it? That’s why the expedition left in such a hurry and why you keep running whereabouts when there isn’t supposed to be anybody but us on the planet. You think somebody’s illegally opened a gate. Is that why Bult’s leading us south, to try to keep us from catching him?”
“I don’t know what Bult’s doing,” I said. “He could have kept us away from a gatecrasher by crossing where we were this morning and leading us up along the Wall past Silvershim Creek. He didn’t have to drag us clear down here. Besides,” I said, looking at Bult, who was down by the Tongue with Carson and the ponies, “he doesn’t like Wulfmeier. Why would he try to protect him?”
“Wulfmeier?” Ev said, sounding excited. “Is that who it is?”
“You know Wulfmeier?”
“Of course. From the pop-ups,” he said.
Well, I should have known.
“What do you think he’s doing?” Ev said. “Trading with the indigenous sentients? Mining?”
“I don’t think he’s doing anything. I got a verify this morning that he’s on Starting Gate.”
“Oh,” he said, disappointed. In the pop-ups, we must have gone after gatecrashers with lasers blasting. “But you want to go there just to make sure?”
“If Bult ever lets us cross the Tongue,” I said.
Carson came stomping up. “I ask Bult if it’s safe to water the ponies, and he pretends to look in the water and says, ‘tssi mitss nah,’ so I say, ‘Well, fine, since there aren’t any tssi mitss, we can cross first thing in the morning,’ and he hands me a pair of dice and says, ‘Sahthh. Brik lilla fahr.’” He squatted down and rummaged in his pack. “My shit, ‘lilla fahr’ is practically in the Ponypiles.” He glared at the mountains. “What on hell is he up to? And don’t give me that stuff about fines.” He pulled out the water-analysis kit and straightened up. “He’s got enough already to buy himself a different planet. Fin, did you get that aerial of the Wall from C.J. yet?”
“I was just calling her,” I said. He stomped off, and I went over to the transmitter.
“What can I do?” Ev said, tagging after me like a shuttlewren. “Should I gather some wood for a fire?”
I looked at him.
“Don’t tell me,” he said, catching my expression. “There’s a fine for gathering wood.”
“And starting a fire with advanced technology, and burning indigenous flora,” I said. “We usually try to wait till Bult gets cold and builds one.”
Bult didn’t show any signs of getting cold, even though the wind over the Ponypiles that had sent that dust tantrum into us had a chill to it, and after supper he gave Carson some more dice, and then went off and sat under his umbrella out by the ponies.
“What on hell’s he doing now?” Carson said.
“He probably went to get the battery-powered heater he bought last expedition,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “Tell us some more about mating customs, Ev. Maybe a little sex’ll warm us up.”