“Yes, sir,” Garin growled, his tone just short of surly.
“That goes for the rest of you, too,” Roman reminded the other guards. “Dr. Singh, is there enough of the rabbit left to study?”
Singh was leaning over the creature now, and the close-up view of the needleriddled body made Roman slightly queasy. “We can try, Captain,” he said, working the edge of his net underneath it. “Interesting—you notice it became a rabbit again when it died?”
“Actually, in a sense it was never anything else,” Ferrol spoke up from across the bridge. “I think the landing party ought to see this.”
“We’ve got something, Dr. Singh,” Roman told him. “Switch for reception from here.”
Ferrol had taken the transmission from Singh’s camera, scrubbed it through the computer, and run it at slow motion. It made the rabbit’s transformation easier to follow… but no less astonishing.
“It’s like the skin is flowing,” Singh muttered. “Like some kind of high-stretch elastic or even a semi-fluid.”
“And you can see the skeletal structure changing beneath it, too,” Peyton put in from the analysis table. “I was right—it’s exactly like a bi-state plastic. The muscles must be doing something similar—if they weren’t, the legs couldn’t lengthen like that without losing strength.”
“Muscles, and organs, too,” Singh pointed out. “Notice how the lung capacity has already nearly doubled?”
“It’s becoming a running machine,” Burch breathed, sounding awed.
It was, too. If the creature’s first appearance had reminded Singh of a rabbit, the new form that leaped slow-motion out of the camera’s range reminded Roman of a racing greyhound. “Opinions? Anybody?” he asked.
“It’s pretty obvious we’ve stumbled on something unique here,” Tenzing said.
“We’ll have to do more study to see whether this shape-changing ability is only used for fight/flight situations or whether each creature actually fills two entirely different ecological niches, sharing time between them.”
“Ah, yes,” Burch offered, half under his breath. “A planet called ‘Werewolf.’ ”
“Let’s just leave it at ‘Alpha,’ shall we?” Sanderson said shortly. “I think there’s plenty here to occupy our attention without wasting brainpower on names.
Especially when that’ll be the Tampies’ job, not ours.”
There was a moment of strained silence, an awkwardness Roman could feel as well on the bridge. Caught up in the excitement, everyone seemed to have forgotten the bottom-line reality of the situation. Four hundred thirty light-years from Earth, Alpha was far outside the range of Mitsuushi-equipped ships. Whatever they found down there—whether a site for a future colony, marketable plant and animal life, or even just exotic and exciting biology—it would be the Tampies, not humanity, who would gain from their work.
“They’re not content with just stealing us blind anymore,” Ferrol muttered, just loudly enough for Roman to hear. “Now they’ve got us delivering the loot for them.”
“That’s enough, Commander,” Roman growled, but the damage was already done.
“Dr. Singh, I’ll want you to do a complete microbe check on the rabbit, with an eye toward whether it’ll be safe to bring it back to the Amity. As long as it’s already dead,” he added, to forestall any potential argument from the Tampies, “we might as well make full use of it.”
“If our pre-exit air and soil checks didn’t show anything dangerous, the rabbit isn’t likely to be carrying anything,” Sanderson reminded him.
“I know that,” Roman said. “Do the checks anyway.”
“A-ha” Peyton cut in abruptly. “Got it, I think. Ells, do a quick electric field reading on a couple of the plants out there, will you?”
“Okay,” Sanderson said, his part of the split screen tilting abruptly as he and his chest camera knelt down.
“What, you suggesting an electric sense?” Burch asked, sounding doubtful.
“Why not? You were the one who commented on the high density of ions in the air when we took the first readings, if you’ll remember.”
“Yeah, but it’s nothing like the density you get in seawater, which is where you usually find electric senses,” Burch pointed out. “Terran sharks, et al.”
“Space horses can also sense electric fields,” Ttra-mu said.
“Interesting,” Burch said, a bit tartly, “but hardly relevant to a discussion of animals that evolved inside atmospheres.”
“Regardless, there’s clear and definite evidence of an electric sense in this animal,”
Peyton said. “Ells? Anything?”
“Looks like you may be right,” Sanderson agreed. “The fields are definitely there, with different intensities and oscillation frequencies for different species.”
“Oscillation frequencies?” Tenzing echoed. “You mean the fields aren’t static?”
“Far from it. The three plants I’ve checked have •jrdes ranging from about nine seconds to nearly 0.”
“Organic electric oscillators,” Singh murmured. “Elegant, indeed.”
“Elegant and a half,” Sanderson agreed. “Not to mention potentially useful, if we can figure out the mechanism.”
“Well, pick out a good sampling and bring them aboard,” Tenzing told him. “Do bear in mind, though, that we’ve only got the one lockbox lab per planet, and you’ll be poking around down there for two more weeks. You fill the lab to the ceiling and those of us who have to work in there will spend the next two months cursing your ancestry.”
Sanderson murmured slightly reluctant-sounding agreement, and Roman suppressed a smile. Just like kids in a toy store, he thought.
“Captain?” Marlowe said abruptly. “I’ve got something.”
His tone… “Got it,” Roman acknowledged, keying for scanner repeater. An infrared view of the landing area taken from Amity’s belly cameras… and in the woods beyond the prairie, circled by flashing markers—
“Dr. Sanderson?—hold it a minute,” he called toward the intercom. “You’ve got what looks like three large animals approaching from almost due west.”
The background conversation abruptly vanished. “Confirmed, Captain,” Garin said a moment later, his voice taut. “Still no visual contact, but we’ve got them on scanner. Bearing… directly toward us.”
He paused, and in the silence the snik of needle guns being put on full automatic was clearly audible. “Alert status is still yellow, Garin,” Roman reminded the guard leader. “Let’s not panic until we see what we’ve got here.”
“Acknowledged, sir,” Garin said, his voice tight but under control.
“The animals have picked up speed,” Marlowe reported. “About a minute to visual contact.”
Across the bridge, Roman heard the hiss of exhaled breath. “Comment, Commander?” he invited, keeping his attention on the view from Garin’s camera.
“Shouldn’t we be getting them out of there?” Ferrol asked, his voice tighter even than Garin’s. “At least have them get into the lander where they’ll be safe?”
“It’s too late for that,” Kennedy spoke up. Her tone, Roman noted, seemed more interested than worried. “They’re too spread out for everyone to get back in time.
Besides, if they have to fight, they’ll do better out in the open where they have a clear field of fire.”
“If the Tampies let them shoot,” Ferrol growled.
“That’s enough,” Roman said, punching for a tactical display. The landscape below appeared, with the lander and each of the eight humans and two Tampies marked with colored crosses. Garin and the other three guards, he saw, had deployed themselves in a rough semicircle facing the point where the three approaching animals would emerge from the woods. Well-trained, armed with probably the deadliest small arms in the Cordonale’s arsenal, Roman had little doubt that they could cut the approaching animals to ribbons if it became necessary.
Which meant the big question would be whether it was necessary… and whether the Tampies would see it the same way he did.
“Ells, the analysis table’s instruments are going crazy,” Peyton spoke up. “I think it’s picking up the animals’ electric fields.”