“It would be quicker and easier to come straight down from above,” objected S’greela.
“Easier, but not safer,” said Chan. “Nimrod will sense our presence if we try to move straight down through the vegetation. But the surface of the planet may confuse the return signal for the Construct’s sensors. We’ll use the horizontal tunnels. Is Vayvay willing to lead the way?”
“That is not clear.” Angel turned to the Coromar, who was slowly emerging from inside the tent. A few more seconds of squeaks produced a shake of Angel’s topmost fronds, and a human-sounding sigh. “Why even ask? The answer could have been predicted. Vayvay will take us to within a safe distance from Nimrod, provided that we guarantee plenty of food as payment. Vayvay asks, how close to Nimrod do we wish to approach?”
Chan thought about that, as the three others waited impatiently. “I really don’t know. For all I can say — and my experience yesterday supports it — Nimrod could be aware of us all the time. How else do you explain what happened to me down in the shaft?”
There was a non-committal silence, while Chan began to feel annoyed all over again. The others were being diplomatic, but still they didn’t believe him. When he had filed his report on the incident and sent it back to the Q-ship, the three of them had been annoyingly passive. They did not comment on or add to what he had sent — and that was unusual in such an opinionated group.
“All right.” Chan turned again to Angel. “Let’s take the problem from the other end. How close is Vayvay willing to approach to Nimrod?”
Another sequence of bat-squeaks from Angel’s communicator, dipping in and out of Chan’s audible range, led to a reply from the Coromar, and then another longer exchange between the two.
Angel turned at last to the others. “Apologies, for the time taken. The first answer was quickly given, but it was not in terms that are easily translated to your notations. Truly, there is no fixed reply. The answer is a nonlinear equation, a complicated balance of food offered against risks taken. And the distance unit that Vayvay employs is also not a constant. It is measured in browsing-distance-days, and is therefore location-dependent. In oversimplified terms, Vayvay will go as close as we want, provided that we always guarantee sufficient amounts of food.”
“Can’t you negotiate something a bit more specific?”
“That is already done. Primitive in some ways, Vayvay certainty seems to understand the barter principle. For three thousand kilos of synthesized high-protein vegetable matter, Vayvay will take us to within two kilometers of Nimrod’s most likely current position — for which a probability of 0.98 now seems appropriate.”
Angel was still leaving the most difficult decision to Chan. How close to Nimrod dare they go, before they descended to the solid surface of Travancore? Traveling above the vegetation could be done in the aircar, and swiftly, but surface travel would be on foot and slow.
Chan made the decision, probably quicker than he should have. “We’ll go down a shaft one full day’s march from the estimated location of the Morgan Construct. Say, twenty kilometers away from it.”
“The coordinates for such a shaft are already available. But of course,” Angel added, “these coordinates are time-dependent. When would we leave?”
“As soon as feasible. At once, if we can.”
But having made that decision, Chan began to worry about it. He had no faith in his own judgment. All morning he had been feeling feverish and light-headed. Was he actually getting sick? His immune system had been boosted at the beginning of pursuit team training, making it supposedly robust enough to handle any microorganisms on Barchan or Travancore. But that was just theory. Maybe yesterday’s hallucinations and today’s uneasiness were the result of a real physical ailment, nothing to do with Nimrod, nothing to do with mental instability.
Chan had little time for brooding. The aircar had already been recalled from its high, hovering orbit, and arrived within minutes. It took all their efforts to lift Vayvay aboard, but then they were off, heading around the great planetary curve of Travancore. The car skimmed over billowing waves of vegetation rising and falling below them like an endless turbulent sea.
They were at the chosen entry shaft in less than an hour. Before they entered the threatening black eye of the tunnel, S’greela sent the capsule back to orbit. If they returned safely, fine. It would be easy enough to recall it and use it to take them to the Q-ship. If they died …
Chan realized, with gloomy satisfaction, that from the Stellar Group’s point or view everything was safe enough. The capsule s current parking orbit was low, and atmospheric drag would bring it to re-entry and burn-up in only a couple of weeks. Whatever happened, Nimrod would not gain access to the Q-ship, and the Mattin Link that sat within it. Everyone except Vayvay became subdued when they entered the shaft. Chan felt particularly depressed. As they gradually lost the sunlight, his mood sank to match the shadowed gloom of Travancore’s lower forest. The spiraling path seemed to go on forever, down and down and down. The journey took longer than Chan had expected, because Vayvay always wanted to stop and nibble at any promising growth of leaves.
“As we were warned,” said Angel. “Browsing-distance-days.”
At last they persuaded the Coromar to keep going by additional bribes from the stores that they were carrying. The downward pace increased. Finally they came to the end of the vertical shaft. The drop to the surface took place in a close and dripping darkness. It felt to Chan like an irreversible and unwise step when he released his hold and fell lightly to the forest floor.
He was claustrophobic and filled with unnamed dread. The surface of Travancore would be an awful place to die; lightless, silent, stifling. The air pressed in on him like a shroud. He could not get Leah out of his mind. Had her fatal encounter with Nimrod taken place close to here? Had she died only a few kilometers from where they stood?
He could not remember. Somehow he could not bring himself to ask Angel to check the official record.
The floor of the jungle was flat, spongy, and damp. Nothing grew here except the immense boles of the megatrees, each one scores of meters across at the base. Long trailers of creeper depended from the upper levels and hung between the trunks. Faintly phosphorescent, their intertwined filaments hindered the path of any traveler moving on the natural surface.
After a few seconds of squeaking and searching, Vayvay set off across the forest floor, burrowing a way through the tangled creepers. Soon they came to one of the horizontal pathways. Two minutes more, and Vayvay had found the entrance. They walked into an arched structure, shining their lights around them on the orange and brown walls of a primitive roofed chamber.
“Home of the Maricore,” said Angel. “Apparently they do a poor job of maintenance. Vayvay says that we should not expect to meet the Maricore. They are nervous, and will keep out of our way.”
They set off along one of four tunnels that met at the entry chamber. It was only just wide enough for Vayvay, who led the way. The Coromar kept stopping, and not for food. S’greela, walking second, had to prod hard at Vayvay’s bolster-like rear end to start them moving again.
Chan walked last, in a foul mood. When they met Nimrod, they had to act at once to disable or destroy the Construct. He had warned the others. This time there could be none of the do-as-you-please behavior that had somehow worked on Barchan. They had all agreed — but how could he be sure that Shikari and Angel and S’greela would follow any instructions when the critical moment came?