Dinosaurus Planet Survivors

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Kai, Lunzie and Varian arrived at the Zaid-Dayan as the brief Iretan twilight fell over the edge into night. Lights winked on in the settlement, a huge spotlight illuminating the large clearing around which the individual residences were grouped. Red night lights went on around the looming mass of the heavyworlder transport, making the great ship seem more ominous than ever. Twinkling here and there, patrol vehicles flitted on seemingly random courses like fire flies. The patrol carts were little more than powered platforms for the two men seated on them, but they were effective mobile sentry units. The gangway was clearly lit and as Varian landed the sled, she was surprised to see men trotting out to form an honor guard from the gangway to their sled.

“Why is it that you never have human escorts when you really need them?” Lunzie murmured. The usual three giffs had guided them to the plateau.

“Have they gone?” Varian asked. Far above them hung a layer of thick black clouds, under which the visibility was unusually lucid in the twilight, which was punctuated now and then with lightning.

“Now that they’ve delivered us safely to the big eggs.” Lunzie was in good spirits, and Kai wondered if she could continue that way all evening. It could be a dinner to be remembered for many reasons.

A sudden shrill whistle greeted them as they emerged from the sled.

“Muhlah! She’s thrown the whole ceremony at us,” Kai exclaimed, forgetting to watch his movements and catching his hand on the canopy frame. Neither Varian nor Lunzie noticed as their attention was on the naval honors being accorded them. He glanced quickly down at his gloved hand but saw no damage. He quickly fell in step behind the women, as complimented by the courtesies as they.

“Blessings on Mayerd for her parcels,” Varian said quickly to Kai.

“Well, now look what we have here!” Lunzie cried, holding her arms wide apart.

In the companionway Fordeliton stood in the silver, black, and blue dress uniform of the Fleet, complete with all his honors-and there were many-on his breast. Slightly to one side waited Mayerd, equally splendid, with the Medical sash crossing her chest. Neither were a patch on Sassinak, however, who also awaited her guests. The commander wore a knowing black gown, its full skirts decorated with tiny stars while the close fitting bodice was goffered with blue. Tiny jeweled formal-dress honors adorned her left breast while the rank emblems were jeweled shoulder ornaments. Kai did not remember ever seeing the ARCT’s officers in full dress regalia, but perhaps EVs followed customs different from those of the Fleet.

“Lunzie, it is indeed a privilege and a pleasure to meet you!”

Sassinak stood very straight and saluted crisply.

“It is a unique occasion, certainly,” Lunzie replied in a drawl but there was no diffidence in her firm handshake.

The two women stood for a long moment, then Sassinak grinned, cocking her head slightly to one side in a mannerism so like Lunzie that Kai and Varian exchanged startled looks.

“You have been exceedingly generous to a stranded relative, Commander Sassinak. That brandy went down very smoothly.”

“Sassinak, please,” and the commander indicated the direction they should take. “Surely one must mark the chance encounter with an ancestor.”

“This is going to be some evening,” Mayerd murmured as she took Kai by the arm.

“Stand down the honor guard, Besler,” Fordeliton ordered the duty officer with a salute. “This way, Governor Varian…”

It was indeed an evening long remembered by the participants. Fordeliton abandoned any pretext of composure after Lunzie’s fourth outrageous pun. Varian had no compunction and howled with laughter. Kai grinned so broadly he wondered if he was doing his face an injury. Mayerd had few inhibitions anyway and was respectful but unawed by her commander. The stewards managed to keep their expressions under reasonable control, but several times Varian was certain that she had heard bursts of laughter erupting from the serving alcove. And the food was superb! Varian watched Kai sample the unfamiliar portions with a tact born of the desire not to embarrass Lunzie. Varian found the dishes so utterly delicious, unusual, and much tastier than their recent fare that she felt Kai ought to have eaten with greater gusto. Each subtle taste was balanced by the next and none of the portions was too large, each was enough merely to tempt the palate to the next course. Their glasses were changed with each new course, and the wines were perfect.

When they conferred together on the point later, Varian and Kai were both disappointed not to learn more about Lunzie’s early career or her planet of origin. Not even the name of the child who had produced this latter-day descendant, Sassinak. That the two were actually blood-kin was obvious in a dozen small resemblance’s, in mannerisms or expressions, a gesture, a tilt of the head, a quirk of the eyebrow, and a shared humor that certainly bridged the generation gap.

All but the tiny cups of cha and elegant after dinner liqueur glasses had been cleared when Sassinak turned to Kai.

“I understand that you are shifting back to your original campsite, Kai. Wasn’t that where the fringe attacked you?”

“Yes, but I feel only because Tor’s warmth had attracted it. We exude a fraction of the body heat of a Thek. Forty years ago we didn’t see any land fringes though we had a full complement in the camp. The campsite has not lost the advantages which led us to choose it in the first place.”

“I believe I can offer you an even greater security, at least while we’re still in the vicinity. Fordeliton, don’t you think we should give the globes a test run in this unusual situation?”

“Yes, indeed, I do, Commander. They haven’t yet been tested by such diverse life-forms. Thek, human, dinosaur, the avian golden fliers, and fringes! This environment will be a very good test of globe capability.”

“Globes are an early warning device that have recently been released for Fleet use. I can’t go into specifics but with a properly programmed globe hanging over your encampment, Kai, you’ll be safe from such predators as the fringes and the bigger dinosaurs. Now tell me, just how did you escape from the dome and avoid the stampede?”

“It’s in my report,” Kai said, surprised.

“Your report, and I quote, says, ‘We exited from the rear of the dome and reached the safety of the shuttle just as the vanguard of the stampeding hadrosaurs breached the forcescreen’.” Sassinak stared hard at Kai for a long moment and then turned to Varian. “You were even less forth coming. ‘We escaped from the dome and reached the shuttle.’ Period. So how exactly did you escape to the shuttle?”

“Triv and I called on Discipline and parted the dome at the seam.”

“At the seam?” Fordeliton was impressed and glanced at his commander, who merely nodded. “The young man, Bonnard, had not been apprehended by the heavyworlders?”

“No, Bonnard was at large,” Kai said, with a wry grin. “He’d the great good sense to hide the power packs-”

“Rendering the sleds inoperative. Good strategy. I would suggest that the mutineers made the usual classic mistake-they underestimated their opponents. A lesson Naval Tactics always emphasizes, does it not, Ford?” Sassinak, raised one eyebrow and regarded her aide with a tolerant smile.

“Indeed, yes.” Fordeliton dabbed at his mouth with his napkin and looked anywhere but at Sassinak.

“Leaping ahead in your story, then, Kai and Varian, the golden fliers must be discriminating indeed if they protect you, and yet are aggressive to the Iretans, a hostility I infer from Aygar’s remark this morning.”

“The giffs had thresholds for their behavior, one of which was started-and this is surmise-by the mutineers who probably searched near enough to the giff caves to provoke attack. They would repel anyone approaching our refuge from the ravine side. They also seem to be able to distinguish among sled engines.”

“What more have you observed about the giffs?”

“Not as much as I would like. To date, my observations have mainly dealt with their reactions to us, not interactions among themselves. That’s what I’d like to explore.”

“Excellent! Excellent! That’s just what you should do.”

“What interested me most,” Mayerd said, hitching forward in her chair, “was the fact that those creatures knew a specific remedy for the fringe poison. And realized that you needed it. I’d say that places their intelligence level well above primitive norms.”

“What establishes them above primitive norms is…” Sassinak broke off, aware of a shadow, hovering anxiously just out of sight in the corridor. “Yes, what is it?”

Borander stepped into view, every inch of him reluctant to interrupt the gathering.

“You ordered that you be informed of any attempt at communication between the transport and the Iretans, Commander.”

“Indeed. Who’s trying to get in touch with whom?” Sassinak shed her party manner in that instant.

“A transmission from the transport has been monitored, directed at the Iretan settlement and requesting it to open communications.”

“And?”

“There has been no reply from the settlement.”

“How could the Iretans reply?” Lunzie asked. “They haven’t any comunits!”

“They don’t?” Now Fordeliton registered amazement.

“It isn’t likely that the original units have survived forty-three years in this climate,” Varian said. “Unless the Iretans were issued replacements.”

Fordeliton shook his head. “We were surprised, but Aygar said that he didn’t have much need for that sort of equipment. Nor did they request any power units suitable for a comunit of any current type.”

“On what frequency was Cruss broadcasting?” Kai asked suddenly. Sassinak raised her eyebrows with approval. When Borander gave the frequency, Kai smiled with satisfaction. “That was the frequency the expedition used, Commander.”

“Very interesting, indeed. Now how would our innocent Captain Cruss have learned that from the ‘message’ in the damaged homing capsule? I’ve read and reread the text. The frequencies were not included. He has well and truly used enough rope.”

Lunzie chuckled. “I wonder why Cruss is trying to contact people who don’t wish contact with him.”

“Could Aygar be playing a deep game?” Sassinak asked.

“I wouldn’t say he was playing any game,” Varian said, watching the frown on Kai’s face deepen at her remark. “He has stated his position quite clearly-this is his planet and he intends to remain on it.”

“More power to him if he can,” Sassinak replied. “Borander, my compliments to Lieutenant Commander Dupaynil. I think this is a matter for his skills.” As Borander went off on his errand, Sassinak turned to her guests. “Dupaynil’s Naval Intelligence. Varian, do the Iretans have any particular accent or provincial dialect?…” And when Varian reassured her, she continued, “My friends, too many attempts at planetary piracy have been successful, too many well-organized expeditions have appeared on planets which were not scheduled to be colonized for a half century. And-to be candid-generally not by groups which are amenable to observing Federated Charter obligations as regards ecology, minority, and nonaggression. The unusual circumstances of the spontaneous settlement are all reasonably explained-always after the fact, when the Federation is powerless to disband a by-then established, productive colony. The more we can discover about the modus operandi, the quicker we can squash the whole movement.”

“Are the heavyworlders always the pirates?” Kai asked.

“By no means,” Sassinak replied, twirling her liqueur glass gently, around on the damask table-covering. “But they have been the most successful at the game, usurping planets that were destined for other minorities. Ireta is a good case in point. Gravity is normal here.”

“That’s about the only thing that is,” Lunzie muttered under her breath.

“Be that as it may,” and Sassinak shot her relative a sympathetic glance, “Ireta is too rich a plum to be plucked by the fardling heavyworlders! Let them find high-gravity worlds where their mutation is useful.”

“It would be quite valuable, then, to discover if a group has been organizing these piratical ventures?” Lunzie asked.

“Invaluable, my dear great-great-great-great-grandmother Lunzie, invaluable. Have you any ideas?”

“One which I see no point in discussing prematurely. It’s just that something you said is twitching a memory.” Lunzie flung up one hand in disgust at her inability to recall it. “I’d like to assist this Intelligence man of yours, if I may…” and her glance took in Varian and Kai as well as the commander.

Varian shrugged and looked to Kai.

“It would afford me considerable pleasure,” he said, “if we could thwart the planetary pirates.”

A discreet rap on the door was immediately acknowledged by Sassinak and a slim, swarthy man eased into the wardroom. After one quick glance around the table, he gave all his attention to his commander.

“Dupaynil, how would you like to pose as an Iretan, eager to admit the heavyworlders to this planet?”

“The very thing to while away my tedium, Commander.”

“I apologize for the abrupt end to this exceedingly pleasant evening, ladies, gentlemen,” Sassinak said as she rose, her manner brusque, no longer suited to the elegant gown that swirled about her legs. “Lunzie, may we avail you of your offer? Ford, see our guests to their transport?”

“You will keep us informed of developments, Sassinak?” Kai asked, rising slowly and carefully.

“Indeed, she will,” Lunzie said with a little smile. “I’m a firm believer in ancestor worship.”