Before, when the three of them had gone off into the trees, Cuiller and his crew had walked separately. They had raced off to look at sights that interested them, leapt freely up into the canopy, and generally acted like a cadet class on leave. Now they were more wary. That was good. It might save their lives-for as long as they might have on Beanstalk. It was time, right now, to give them some purpose.
“Daff, see what you can make from all the metal lying around out here. Cups or basins would be nice. A jar or canteen would be even better. But think twice before you do any cutting or pounding. Don’t attract visitors.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Sally, take a rifle and get up into the trees again. See if you can bring down one of your ‘peek-a-boo’ critters. They might be intelligent and in communication with the Bandersnatchi down here-”
“I don’t really think-”
“But if one of them holds still long enough, shoot it.”
“Captain, we don’t need to worry about hunting for food just yet.”
“Noted. But I want you to test the indigenous fauna before we eat up all our pocket rations. Anything you see like fruit or green shoots, collect them, too.”
“Yes, sir.”
She turned away and readied her grapnel launcher.
“You have any assignments for me?” Jook asked.
“If your leg is solid enough-”
“I might mention that our situation is hopeless, Captain.”
“So?”
“Our long-term prospects are terrible. We are all alone on a planet that’s never been charted, let alone visited by other humans. No one knows where we are-or probably much cares, because our mission had such a low priority to begin with. We are on the marches of kzinti territory-technically unclaimed but not likely to be unknown to them. We’ve got Bandersnatchi prowling around here, and suddenly they don’t like us, either. The best we can hope for is mere survival, but not much more. And, unless I miss my guess, even that’s a long shot unless we find some kind of vitamin supplements. We won’t last more than a couple of months hunting the local game in the treetops. So why should we do anything but give up, lie down, and die?”
“Because I said so,” Cuiller said grimly. “And I’m still in command.”
Jook straightened up. “Oh, well then, that’s different. What do you want me to do?”
“Follow Sally when she goes up. Take station behind her, and anything that tries to kill her- you kill it first.”
“Easy enough.” The Wunderlander stood up, kneaded the bubble cast for a moment, and readied his rig. “What are you going to do, Jared?”
“Get some exercise by kicking myself for landing us in this mess.”
“Fair enough.”
An hour later, Gambiel called the commander over to sort out a collection of gear he had recovered from the ground around the ship and from a few protected corners inside the hull. The weapons officer had already arranged his catch by classification.
In addition to various pieces of bent metal, he had found three battery packs for the lasers; a bucketful of damaged circuit chips that might be reworked into some kind of transmitter, given time and enough optic fiber; and half of the autodoc. What remained of the latter provided them with some unlabeled vials that might be painkillers, antibacterials, growth hormone, or vitamin supplements. The tags were all electronic, for use by the expert system that ran the ‘doc. It didn’t need to know English equivalents.
“So, that’s our inventory,” Gambiel said at last, corralling the glass vials.
Cuiller told him to hang on to them. Maybe Krater, with her background in biology, could tell the vials apart by smell or taste or something. He supposed she also knew enough basic anatomy to deal with sprains-like continued attention to Jook’s knee-and other manual medical techniques. If not, Cuiller had a little knowledge of first aid and could make do with bandage and splits ma pinch.
Gambiel had found nothing of the ‘cycler. So they had only the food in their pockets, unless Krater’s hunt was successful, or they figured out a way to bring down an adult Bandersnatch, or found a clutch of fresh buds.
“You want to try making a fire with that laser?” Cuiller asked.
“Burning what?”
“How much of a wedge do you think you could cut out of one of these trunks without knocking it down?”
“That’s green, sappy wood. give off a lot of smoke.”
“We can stand it. None of us is going to smell too good in a day or two.”
“I was thinking of our white friends. They might be sensitive to fire under the canopy.”
“You’re right. I -“
The sound was on them before they could hear it: the rippling crackle of tortured atmosphere parting before a heavy body traveling faster than air molecules knew how to move. What they consciously heard was the dap of a sonic boom-the air moving back in the wake of whatever had snapped it apart -followed by echoes of that first, searing push against the atmosphere.
Cuiller looked up, expecting to see a contrail in the sky and finding only the green gloom of the canopy above them.
“That was a ship,” Gambiel said. “In a hurry, too.”
“Of course. Have any idea what kind?”
“I didn’t hear any reaction thrusters. They could be on gravity polarizers.”
“And this close to the Patriarchy’s back door… Can kzinti detect a General Products hull at long range?”
“The same way we go about finding a stasis-box,” Gambiel said. “Keep probing with deep radar and study the return images. Our hull comes up cloudier than a Slaver box, but still defined.”
“Ouch! Let’s get up into the trees.”
“What about these?” Gambiel pointed to the hoarded supplies.
“You take the batteries and medicines. I’ll take the circuit chips. Leave the scraps-no one’s going to eat them.”
The Jinxian began filling his pockets.
“Captain, what was that?” Jook called on the radio. “Company. Daff and I are coming up to join you. Stay put and-until we know more-stay off the radio.”
In reply, Jook keyed the transmit twice. Two low bursts of static that could be read as “Aye-aye.”
Cuiller nodded silently at Jook’s quick and tactful thinking.
“The kzinti won’t be out of their ionization envelope yet,” Gambiel observed. “They can’t hear our radio transmissions yet.”
“Still…“ Cuiller took out his grapple and launcher, hooked up a line cassette, and took aim overhead. “When we get up there, Daff, go as high as you can. You’re our best at identifying kzinti ships by their silhouette. See if you can spot and evaluate the newcomers.”
“Do my best.”
They fired their grapples and swung up through the leaves, As soon as Gambiel was stabilized on a limb near his grapple, he released it, aimed higher, shot, and slithered away after it. Cuiller surveyed the local jungle. Radio would carry to the kzinti, but not voice.
“Hugh!… Sally!” he shouted.
Cuiller looked around, parting clusters of flat leaves to stare into the next meter-wide pocket of air. He called again, stepped over to another branch, recovered and reshot his grapple, and swung on a short arc toward where he thought his navigator and communications officer had gone up.
“Sally!…“
“Captain, you’re scaring the game.” It was Krater’s voice, but she was invisible, screened by the foliage.
“Belay the hunting, we’ve got visitors.”
“I know. If you keep shouting like that, you’ll scare them, too.”
“Well, just hang on, because-”
“Heads up, everybody! Coming through!” Small and distant, Gambiel’s voice drifted down to them. It was followed immediately by the groan of branches being forced aside-much like the first passage Callisto had made through the treetops-accompanied by the sizzle of wet leaves burning. Cuiller could smell hot iron and dying vegetation.