He came in, wiping his hands on a towel. He’d washed up and shaved around his mustache. He came over close to me. “Find anything?” he muttered.
“Maybe.”
Ev, still holding the meat platter, was looking at me inquiringly.
I said, “I found out those binocs you lost are gonna cost us three hundred.”
“I lost?” Carson said. “You’re the one who lost ’em. I laid ’em right next to your pack. Why on hell’s it three hundred?”
“Possible technological contamination,” I said. “If they turn up on an indidge, it’ll be five hundred you lost us.”
“I lost us!” he said.
C.J. came in, carrying a bowl of rice. She’d switched her shirt for one with even lower coordinates, and lights around the edges like the ones on Bult’s umbrella.
“You were the one in a hurry to get back here and meet Evelyn,” I said. I pulled a chair out from the table, stepped over it, and sat down.
He grabbed the platter out of Ev’s hands. “Five hundred. My shit!” He set the platter on the table. “How much were the rest of the fines?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t tallied ’em yet.”
“Well, what on hell were you doing all this time?” He sat down. “It’s plain to see you weren’t taking a bath.”
“C.J.’s cleaned up enough for both of us,” I said. “What’re the lights for?” I asked her.
Carson grinned. “They’re like those landing strip beacons, so you can find your way down.”
C.J. ignored him. “You sit here by me, Evelyn.”
He pulled out her chair, and she sat down, managing to lean over so we could all see the runway.
Ev sat down next to her. “I can’t believe I’m actually eating dinner with Carson and Findriddy! Tell me about your expedition. I’ll bet you had a lot of adventures.”
“Well,” Carson said, “Fin lost the binocs.”
“Have you decided when we leave on the next expedition yet?” Ev asked.
Carson gave me a look. “Not yet,” I said. “A few days, probably.”
“Oh, good,” C.J. crooned, leaning in Ev’s direction. “That’ll give us more time to get to know each other.” She latched onto his arm.
“Is there anything I can do to help so we can leave sooner?” Ev said. “Loading the ponies or something? I’m just so eager to get started.”
C.J. dropped his arm in disgust. “So you can spend three weeks sleeping on the ground and listening to these two?”
“Are you kidding?” he said. “I put in four years ago for the chance to go on an expedition with Carson and Findriddy! What’s it like, being on the survey team with them?”
“What’s it like?” She glared at us. “They’re rude, they’re dirty, they break every rule in the book, and don’t let all their bickering fool you—they’re just like that.” She crossed one finger over another. “Nobody has a chance against the two of them.”
“I know,” Ev said. “On the pop-ups, they—”
“What are these pop-ups?” I said. “Some kind of holo?”
“They’re DHVs,” Ev said, as if that explained everything. “There’s a whole series of them about you and Carson and Bult.” He stopped and looked around at Bult, hunched over the computer under his umbrella. “Doesn’t Bult eat with you?”
“He’s not allowed to,” Carson said, helping himself to the meat.
“Regs,” I said. “Cultural contamination. Asking him to eat at a table and use silverware is imperialistic. We might corrupt him with Earth foods and table manners.”
“Small chance of that,” C.J. said, taking the meat platter away from Carson. “You two don’t have any table manners.”
“So while we eat,” Carson said, plopping potatoes on his plate, “he sits there ordering demitasse cups and place settings for twelve. Nobody ever said Big Brother was big on logic.”
“Not Big Brother,” I said, shaking my finger at Carson. “Pursuant to our latest reprimand, members of the expedition will henceforth refer to the government by its appropriate title.”
“What, Idiots Incorporated?” Carson said. “What other brilliant orders did they come up with?”
“They want us to cover more territory. And they disallowed one of our names. Green Creek.”
Carson looked up from his plate. “What on hell’s wrong with Green Creek?”
“There’s a senator named Green on the Ways and Means Committee. They couldn’t prove any connection, though, so they just fined us the minimum.”
“There’re people named Hill and River, too,” Carson said. “If one of them gets on the committee, what on hell do we do then?”
“I think it’s ridiculous that you can’t name things after people,” C.J. said. “Don’t you, Evelyn?”
“Why can’t you?” Ev asked.
“Regs,” I said. “‘Pursuant to the practice of naming geological formations, waterways, etc., after surveyors, government officials, historical personages, etc., said practice is indicative of oppressive colonialist attitudes and lack of respect for indigenous cultural traditions, etc., etc.’ Hand the meat over.”
C.J.’d picked up the platter, but she didn’t pass it. “Oppressive! It is not. Why shouldn’t we have something named after us? We’re the ones stuck on this horrible planet all alone in uncharted territory for months at a time and with who knows what dangers lurking. We should get something.”
Carson and I have heard this pitch a hundred or so times. She used to try it on us before she decided the loaners were more susceptible.
“There are hundreds of mountains and streams on Boohte. You can’t tell me there isn’t some way you could name one of them after somebody. I mean, the government wouldn’t even notice.”
Well, she’s wrong there. Their Imperial Majesties check every single name, and even if all we tried to sneak past them was a bug named C.J., we could get tossed off Boohte.
“There’s a way you can get something named after you, C.J.,” Carson said. “Why didn’t you say you were interested?”
C.J. narrowed her eyes. “How?”
“Remember Stewart? He was one of the first pair of scouts on Boohte,” he explained to Ev. “Got caught in a flash flood and swept smack into a hill. Stewart’s Hill, they named it. In memoriam. All you’ve got to do is take the heli out tomorrow and point it at whatever you want named after you, and—”
“Very funny,” C.J. said. “I’m serious about this,” she said to Ev. “Don’t you think it’s natural to want to have some sign that you’ve been here, so after you’re gone you won’t be forgotten, some monument to what you’ve done?”
“My shit,” Carson said, “if you’re talking about doing stuff, Fin and I are the ones who should have something named after us! How about it, Fin? You want me to name something after you?”
“What would I do with it? What I want is the meat!” I held out my hands for it, but nobody paid any attention.
“Findriddy Lake,” Carson said. “Fin Mesa.”
“Findriddy Swamp,” C.J. said.
It was time to change the subject, or I was never going to get any meat. “So, Ev,” I said. “You’re a sexozoologist.”
“Socioexozoologist,” he said. “I study instinctive mating behaviors in extraterrestrial species. Courtship rituals and sexual behaviors.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” Carson said. “C.J.—”
C.J. cut in, “Tell me about some of the interesting species you’ve studied.”
“Well, they’re all interesting, really. Most animal behaviors are instinctive, they’re hardwired in, but reproductive behavior is really complicated. It’s part hardwiring, part survival strategies, and the combination produces all these variables. The charlizards on Ottiyal mate inside the crater of an active volcano, and there’s a Terran species, the bowerbird, which constructs an elaborate bower fifty times his size and then decorates it with orchids and berries to attract the female.”