“His acquisitive behavior,” Ev said. “Collecting and hoarding property is a typical male courtship behavior.”
“I thought collecting stuff was a female behavior,” I said. “What about all those diamonds and monograms?”
“Gifts the male gives to the female are symbols of the male’s ability to amass and defend wealth or territory,” Ev said. “By collecting fines and purchasing manufactured goods, Bult is demonstrating his ability to gain access to the resources necessary for survival.”
“Shower curtains?” I said.
“Utility isn’t the issue. The male burin fish collects large quantities of black rock clams, which are of no practical value, since the burin fish only eats flora, and piles them into towers as part of the courtship ritual.”
“And that impresses the female?” I said.
“Ability to amass wealth is indicative of the genetic superiority of the male, and therefore the increased chance of survival for her offspring. Of course she’s impressed. There are other qualities that impress her, too. Size, strength, the ability to defend territory, like that shuttlewren we saw this afternoon—”
Which the female shuttlewrens probably hadn’t been very impressed with, I thought.
“—virility, youth—”
Carson said, “You mean we’re here freezing our hind ends off because Bult’s trying to impress some female?” He stood up. “I told you sex can louse up an expedition faster than anything else.” He grabbed up the lantern. “I’m not gonna end up with frostbite just because Bult wants to show his genes to some damn female.”
He went stomping off into the dark, and I watched the bobbing lantern, wondering what had gotten into him all of a sudden and why Bult wasn’t following him with his log if what Ev said was true. Bult was still sitting out by the ponies—I could see the lights on his umbrella.
“The indigenous sentients on Prii built bonfires as part of their courtship ritual,” Ev said, rubbing his hands together to warm them. “They’re extinct. They burned down every forest on Prii in less than five hundred years time.” He tipped his head back and looked at the sky. “I still can’t believe how beautiful everything is.”
It was presentable-looking. There were a bunch of stars, and the three moons were jostling for position in the middle of the sky. But my teeth were chattering, and there was a strong whiff of ponypile from downwind.
“What are the names of the moons?” he said.
“Larry, Curly, and Moe,” I said.
“No, really. What are the Boohteri names?”
“They don’t have names for them. Don’t get any idea of naming one after C.J., though. They’re Satellite One, Two, and Three until Big Brother surveys them, which it won’t anytime soon since the Boohteri won’t agree to satellite surveys.”
“C.J.?” he said, like he’d forgotten who she was. “They don’t look anything like they did on the pop-ups. Nothing on Boohte has, except you. You look exactly like I thought you would.”
“These pop-ups you’re always talking about? What are they? Holo books?”
“DHVs.” He got up, went over to his bedroll, and squatted down to get something out from under it. He came back, holding a flat square the size of a playing card, and sat down beside me.
“See?” he said and opened the flat card up like a book. “Episode Six,” he said.
Pop-ups was a good name for them. The picture seemed to jump out of the middle of the card and into the space between us, like the map back at King’s X, only this was full-size and the people were moving and talking.
There was a presentable-looking female standing next to a horse made up to be a pony and a squatty pink thing like a cross between an accordion and a fireplug. They were having an argument.
“He’s been gone too long,” the female said. She had on tight pants and a low-slung shirt, and her hair was long and shiny. “I’m going to go find him.”
“It’s been nearly twenty hours,” the accordion said. “We must report in to Home Base.”
“I’m not leaving here without him,” the female said, and swung up on the horse and galloped away.
“Wait!” the accordion shouted. “You can’t! It’s too dangerous!”
“Who’s that supposed to be?” I said, sticking my finger into the accordion.
“Stop,” Ev said, and the scene froze. “That’s Bult.”
“Where’s his log?” I said.
“I told you things were different from what I’d expected,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “Go back.”
There was a flicker, and we were back at the beginning of the scene.
“He’s been gone too long!” Tight Pants said.
“If that’s Bult, then who’s that supposed to be?” I said.
“You,” he said, sounding surprised.
“Where’s Carson?” I said.
“In the next scene.”
There was another flicker, and we were at the foot of a cliff, with big, fake-looking boulders all around. Carson was sitting at the bottom of the cliff, sprawled out against one of the boulders with a big gash in the side of his head and a fancy mustache that curled at the ends. Carson’s mustache had never looked that good, not even the first time I saw him, and they had the nibblers all wrong, too—they looked like guinea pigs with false teeth—but what they were doing to Carson’s foot was pretty realistic. I hoped they got to the part where I found him pretty soon.
“Next scene,” I said, and it flickered to me coming straight down the cliff in those tight pants, blasting at the nibblers with a laser.
Which wasn’t the way it happened at all. Unless I’d wanted to go down the same way Carson did, there was no way off the cliff. The nibblers had run off when I yelled, but I’d had to go back along the cliff till I came to a chimney and work my way down and back around, and it took three hours. The nibblers had run off again when they heard me coming, but they hadn’t been gone long.
Tight Pants jumped the last ten feet and knelt down beside Carson, and started tearing strips she couldn’t afford to lose off her shirt and tying them around Carson’s foot, which only looked a little bloody around the toes, sobbing her eyes out.
“I didn’t cry,” I said. “You got any others?”
“Episode Eleven,” Ev said, and the cliff flicked into a silvershim grove. Tight Pants and Fancy Mustache were surveying the grove with an old-fashioned transit and sextant, and the accordion was writing down the measurements.
It looked like somebody’d cut up pieces of aluminum foil and hung them on a dead branch, and Carson was wearing a blue fuzzy vest that I had a feeling was supposed to be luggage fur.
“Findriddy!” the accordion said, looking up sharply. “I hear someone coming!”
“What are you two doing?” Carson said and walked right into a silvershim. He looked around, his arms full of sticks. “What on hell is this?”
“You and me,” I said.
“A pop-up,” Ev said.
“Turn it off!” Carson said, and the other Carson and Tight Pants and the silvershims compressed into a black nothing. “What on hell’s the matter with you, bringing advanced technology on an expedition? Fin, you were supposed to see to it he followed the regs!” He dumped the sticks with a clatter onto where the accordion’d been standing. “Do you know how big a fine Bult could slap us with for that?”
“I… I didn’t know…” Ev was stammering, stooping down to pick up the pop-up before Carson stepped on it. “It never occurred to me…”
“It’s no more advanced than Bult’s binocs,” I said, “or half the stuff he’s ordered. And even if it was, he doesn’t know anything about it. He’s over there tallying up his fines.” I pointed off toward the lights of his umbrella.
“How do you know he doesn’t know? You can see it for kloms!”