“I did run them. Whatever’s in that sector, it’s not Wulfmeier. He’s on Starting Gate, and he’s under arrest. I got a verify.”
Carson stared south at the Ponypiles. “Then what on hell’s Bult up to?”
The shuttlewren changed course in midflap and started toward us. “I don’t know,” I said, taking off my hat and waving with it to keep it away. “Maybe the indidges have got a gold mine up there. Maybe they’re secretly building Las Vegas with all the stuff Bult’s ordered.” The wren circled my head and made a pass at Carson. “Maybe Bult’s just trying to run up our fines by taking us the long way around. Did he say how much farther we’d have to go before we could cross the Tongue?”
“Sahhth,” Carson said, mimicking Bult holding his umbrella and pointing. “If we go much farther south, we’ll be in the Ponypiles. Maybe he’s going to lead us into the mountains and drown us in a flash flood.”
“And then fine us for being foreign bodies in a waterway.” My watch beeped. “Looks like it’s starting to clear up,” I said. I picked up a handful of dirt, and we started back for the ponies.
Bult met us halfway. “Taking of souvenirs,” he said, pointing sternly at the dirt in my hand. “Disturbances of land surface. Destruction of indigenous flora.”
“Better transmit all those right away,” I said, “before you forget.”
I went over to Ev’s and my ponies, the shuttlewren tailing me. While Ev was watching it circle his head, I blew dirt off my hand onto the camera lens and then swung up and looked at my watch. A minute to go.
I messed with the transmitter a little and called to Carson, “I think I’ve got it fixed. Come on, Ev.”
I messed some more for Ev’s benefit, taking off a chip and snapping it back into place, but I didn’t need to have bothered. He was still gawking at the shuttlewren.
“Is that shuttlewren a male?” he asked.
“Beats me. You’re the expert on sex.” I released the disconnect, counted to three, hit it again, and counted to five. “Calling Ki—” I said, and kicked it on again. “—ng’s X, come in C.J.”
“C.J. here,” she said. “Where on hell did you go?”
“Nothing serious, C.J. Just a dust tantrum. We’re too close to the Wall,” I said. “Is the camera back on?”
“Yes. I don’t see any dust.”
“We just caught the edge of it. It lasted about a minute. I’ve been spending the rest of the time trying to get the transmitter up and running.”
“It’s funny,” she said slowly, “how a minute’s worth of dust could do so much damage.”
“It’s one of the chips. You know how sensitive they are.”
“If they’re so sensitive, how come all that dust from the rover didn’t jam them?”
“The rover?” I said, looking around blankly like one might drive up.
“When Evelyn drove out to meet you yesterday. How come the transmitter didn’t cut out then?”
Because I’d been too busy worrying about Wulfmeier and wrestling the binocs away from Bult to even think of it, I thought. I’d stood there coughing and choking in the rover’s dust and it hadn’t even crossed my mind. My shit, that was all we needed, for C.J. to catch on to our dust storms. “No accounting for technology,” I said, knowing she was never going to buy it. “Transmitter’s got a mind of its own.”
Carson came up. “You talking to C.J.? Ask her if she’s got an aerial of the Wall along here. I want to know where the breaks are.”
“Sure,” I said, and hit disconnect again. “We got a problem. C.J.’s asking questions about the dust storm. She wants to know why the transmitter didn’t go out with all that dust from the rover.”
“The rover?” he said, and I could see it dawn on him like it had on me. “What did you tell her?”
“That the transmitter’s temperamental.”
“She’ll never buy that,” he said, glaring at Ev, who was watching the shuttlewren start another lap. “I told you he’d cause trouble.”
“It’s not Ev’s fault. We’re the ones who didn’t have sense enough to recognize a dust storm when we saw it. I’m going back on. What do I tell her?”
“That it’s dust getting in the chip that does it,” he said, stomping back to his pony, “not just dust in the air.”
Which maybe would have worked, except two expeditions ago I’d told her it was dust in the air that did it.
“Come on, Ev,” I said. He came over and got on his pony, still watching the shuttlewren. I took my finger off the disconnect. “—ase, come in, Home Base.”
“Another dust storm?” C.J. said sarcastically.
“There must still be some dust in the chip,” I said. “It keeps cutting out.”
“How come the sound cuts out at the same time?” she said.
Because we’re still wearing our mikes too high, I thought.
“It’s funny,” she went on. “While you were out, I took a look at the meteorologicals Carson ran before you left. They don’t show any wind for that sector.”
“No accounting for the weather either, especially this close to the Wall,” I said. “Ev’s right here. You want to talk to him?”
I patched him in before she could answer, thinking sex wasn’t always such a bad thing on an expedition. It would take her mind off the dust anyway.
Bult and Carson rode in a wide circle around us to get in the lead again, and we followed, Ev still talking to C.J., which mostly consisted of listening and saying “yes” every once in a while, and “I promise.” The shuttlewren followed us, too, making the circuit back and forth like a sheep dog.
“What kind of nests do the shuttlewrens have?” Ev asked.
“We’ve never seen them,” I said. “What did C.J. have to say?”
“Not much. Their nests are probably in this area,” he said, looking across the Tongue. The Wall was almost up next to the bank, and there were a few scourbrush in the narrow space between, but nothing that looked big enough to hide a nest. “The behavior they’re exhibiting is either protective, in which case it’s a female, or territorial, in which case it’s a male. You say they’ve followed you for long distances. Have you ever been followed by more than one at a time?”
“No,” I said. “Sometimes one’ll fall away and another one’ll take over, like they’re working in shifts.”
“That sounds like territorial behavior,” he said, watching the shuttlewren make the turn past Bult. It was flying so low it brushed Bult’s umbrella, and he looked up and then hunched over his fines again. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to get a specimen?”
“Not unless it has a coronary,” I said, ducking as it skimmed my hat. “We’ve got holos. You can ask the memory.”
He did, and spent the next ten minutes poring over them while I worried about C.J. We’d talked her into believing the transmitter could be taken out by a gust of dust that wouldn’t even show on the log, and then I’d stood there yesterday and let the transmitter get totally smothered with it and hadn’t even had the sense to disconnect.
And now that she was suspicious, she wouldn’t let it go. She was probably checking all the logs for dust storms right now and comparing them to the meteorologicals.
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.”