The receiving point for information from Travancore was just as closely guarded. The Link Exit point was at Anabasis Headquarters, and nowhere else. The Solar Ambassador had agreed to that grudgingly, after direct pressure on Dougal MacDougal from the other members of the Stellar Group.
What the Stellar Group ambassadors had not approved, and what no one outside the Anabasis had been told about, was Mondrian’s other decision concerning Team Alpha. The human team member was equipped with a personal Link communicator, to send sound and vision through a mentation unit for the entire period that Leah Rainbow was on Travancore. She knew that those data were being beamed to Team Alpha’s orbiting ship. What she did not know was that they were sent on from there, to be received in real-time at Anabasis Headquarters.
Mondrian would monitor those signals himself, with help only from Kubo Flammarion and Luther Brachis.
Dawn on Travancore, night on Ceres. Esro Mondrian tapped Flammarion on the shoulder to indicate his arrival and sat down on the other side of the desk. Flammarion nodded and disconnected. He placed the headset in his lap, rubbed his temples, and yawned. “Quiet night. They heard a few funny noises outside the tent, then there was half an hour of heavy rain. Rain like Leah says she never heard of, even on Earth’s surface. Now the whole team is awake.”
Mondrian nodded. “I’m probably going to spend most of the day with them. Don t interrupt me unless we have an emergency.” He fitted the set carefully over his head and turned on. After the first unpleasant moment of double sensory input he was linked abruptly across fifty-six lightyears. The Link connection was excellent. He was seeing through Leah’s eyes and hearing with her ears. Whatever she saw and heard, he would experience as long as he wore the headset.
Leah was standing now on the reinforced side lip of the balloon tent, gazing out across the vivid emerald of Travancore’s endless jungle. The growth below the tent formed a tight-woven fabric of stems and vines. The early dazzle of Talitha’s light scattered and diffused from the array of trunks and creepers, so that Leah could look straight down and see for maybe two hundred feet. At that depth a continuous layer of broad leaves hid everything beneath it. Even with Talitha’s brilliance, the barrier of leaves was effective. There could be little photosynthesis deeper than the top few hundred meters. That left a real mystery: How did the lower levels obtain their energy supply?
Ishmael and S’glya were emerging from the tent to stand next to her.
“Cold,” said S’glya as a greeting. She vibrated vestigial wing cases.
Leah turned to point over the edge, as Ishmael flowed and fluttered to form a living blanket around her legs. “Is that a solid layer of leaves? I can’t see a thing below it.”
“You will not,” said S’glya. “The vegetation of this planet is structured in dense and continuous strata. We are looking down at one of them.”
“The lower regions must be in complete darkness.”
“Certainly. Even the microwave signals were somewhat damped in the first kilometer. We must evolve methods to work together in the dark.”
“Where do the lower levels of vegetation get their energy?”
S’glya raised a clawed forelimb and gestured around her. “From here. Where else?” She leaned far over the edge, oblivious to the chasm below, and touched a half-meter shaft of bright yellow trunk. “I believe that we could follow this all the way down, five kilometers, and find its roots set in the soil of Travancore. As for its width at the base …” The Pipe-Rilla pirouetted on the brink. “Who knows? Many, many meters.”
Behind them the Angel had come creeping out onto the lip of the tent. When it reached full sunlight the Chassel-Rose extended all its fronds and turned to face Talitha’s morning beams. “We have been performing … confirming analysis,” said the translation unit, after half a minute of silent sun-bathing. “From the data of the orbital survey, we now have an estimated location for the Morgan Construct.”
There was a flutter through Ishmael’s whole composite, but the Tinker held together.
“Where is it?” asked Leah.
“About three thousand kilometers from here, to the north-east. It is deep in the vegetation, and probably down on the surface itself.”
“So we are safe enough here.”
“Unless the Construct has chosen to move since the time that the survey was performed. We do not judge that as unlikely. The probability is high that the Construct was able to monitor our descent from orbit. We believe that it knows we are here.”
“But we must go closer,” objected S’glya. “We are supposed to meet the Construct, and then we are supposed to — to …”
Leah found the other three waiting expectantly. On every question of pursuit, they deferred to her without hesitation. And when the subject was the destruction of the Construct, they would do anything rather than mention it.
“We have to kill it.” Leah said the forbidden word, and watched them cringe and edge away from her. “We’ll have to go closer at some point. But not yet. We need to know more about this planet. The Construct has been here for months, with nothing to do but explore Travancore.”
“And it is supposed to be very intelligent. We should not go near.” S’glya changed her mind quickly, when Leah made her think the unthinkable.
“And we have been here less than four days,” added Ishmael. “We should not hurry. We should not seek out the Construct until we are ready.”
“Better safe than sorry,” said the Angel. “Look before you leap.”
The three aliens fell silent. Leah knew the problem. The others had agreed to become part of the pursuit team. But in their hearts (if the Angel had a heart) they had not expected to be asked to kill. That was a task only for a human.
Talitha rose higher in the sky. At last S’glya, rubbing her midlimbs against her side, spoke almost too softly to hear. “But if we do not now go to the Construct, then what should we be doing?”
Was it so difficult? Leah turned to the Angel. “We need to learn more about this place, especially what lies under all the vegetation. Can you determine from the orbital survey data how far we are from the nearest entry shaft?”
“That is known to us already. We are less than two kilometers from a spiral tunnel.”
“Then that’s where we go next. We must take a trip down, and learn what conditions are like on the lower levels of Travancore. We’ve been thinking of this as just a vertical forest, but that’s pure speculation.”
“And we should all go?” asked S’glya.
Leah hesitated. She thought she had heard uncertainty in the Pipe-Rilla’s tone, and with reason. It might be wise to leave one member of the team on the upper levels, for a possible rescue. But if so, who? S’glya would have to carry Angel, while Ishmael was easily the most mobile. More and more, Leah was convinced that the team had power because it was a team. Every element was important.
“There is safety in numbers,” said the Angel slowly, as though it had been reading Leah’s mind. “Many hands make light work.”
“All right.” But Leah was still not sure. If Angel were right, and the Construct had monitored their arrival …
“I guess we all go,” she said at last.
“When?” asked Ishmael.
“I see no advantage in waiting.” Leah was surprised that her decision was accepted so instantly. The team members were all equal — and yet she was the boss. “As soon as we can all be ready, we head for the shaft. Don’t bring a lot of equipment with you. On the first trip we travel light.”