Putting Up Roots

Chapter Nine

The cargo aircar, heavy with passengers and supplies, was in the air and on its way. It was flying low in a strong and gusty wind, and the journey had been a bumpy one. Josh had a window seat in the back row. He was staring out and down. It was easy enough for Brewster to tell them to compare the aerial views of Earth and Solferino, but that made certain assumptions. Josh didn’t know about the others, but his own experience of flying was limited.

There had been the trip west, when his mother had the summer job in Seattle. That was eight years ago and he didn’t remember much about it. He and Mother had made plenty of other trips from town to town, but they had mostly been by bus and car and train. There had been one flight from Boston to Atlanta, but with clouds and turbulence all the way he hardly saw the ground, and anyway it was hard to think about scenery when people were throwing up all around you. And, of course, there was the recent ascent to orbit, when he had been too scared to notice anything at all.

Josh was convinced that when they landed there would be some sort of test on what they had seen and learned, and he would look like an idiot compared with the others. He turned his head and glanced along the row of seats. Dawn was next to him, staring raptly at nothing. Next to her sat Rick and Hag. They were absolutely rigid, eyes straight ahead and hands gripping the armrests. It was clear that they were trying to keep the vehicle in the air by sheer willpower. They were what his mother used to call “white-knuckle fliers,” people who hated to be aloft and wouldn’t be able to think straight until they were back on solid ground.

Feeling a good deal better, Josh turned again to look out of the window.

From the compound, the country all the way to the triple peaks of the Barbican Hills had been one smooth floor of purple and pale yellow. Seen from above there was far more variety. At the moment the aircar was passing over a river that meandered and wandered all over the place. Josh could see in the middle of the broad stream a group of islands shaped like teardrops. The plants on the island formed a mauve cover that looked as flat as a pancake, but Josh knew that was not the case. He could see little round circles all over the place. They had to be the tops of balloon plants, and he had learned from experience that they stuck up well above everything else. When Grisel was lower in the sky the balloons would throw their shadows on the rest of the vegetation, and the flat look would disappear.

Sol Brewster had been dead accurate about one thing: You learned better by seeing for yourself, and you took a lot more notice of what you were being told if the object you were being told about was sitting right in front of you.

“As you will see by looking out of the window, Solferino is a somewhat smaller planet than Earth. You can tell this, because the horizon is much nearer. You are traveling at a height of one thousand meters, and on a clear day you will be able to see a distance to the horizon of about one hundred kilometers. From this, can you estimate the radius of Solferino?”

Josh stared at the landscape and listened to the voice in his ear—not that he had much choice, since the signal came from multiple sources and reached a focus at his ears alone. No matter how he moved his head, the loudness of the voice did not change. If he asked a question, he alone would hear the reply. The others also had individual information services, designed to take account of differences in age and intelligence. Josh had decided in the first minute that his service thought he was either older or smarter than he was.

The voice was continuing: “The radius of Solferino is five thousand kilometers, rather less than four-fifths the size of the Earth. The surface gravity of this planet is almost exactly the same as Earth’s, but that is merely a lucky coincidence. It occurs because the average density of Solferino is twenty-six percent higher. The smaller size and higher density compensate for each other, which is convenient for human settlers.”

Josh switched channels. You couldn’t escape the flow of information, but you could change what you got. The same voice spoke again: “On the far horizon you can see the dark slopes of the Rayleigh Range, built of volcanic basalt. The high heavy-metal content of the range is strange by Earth standards, but it reflects the fact that the whole of Solferino is unusually rich in these substances. The Barbican Hills, in the foreground, are very different in base materials. Like the chalk hills of Earth, they were created by the deposit on the bed of the sea, over many tens of millions of years, of the shells of countless tiny sea creatures. About four million years ago, a general uplifting of the region brought the hills above sea level. Further buckling created the triple peaks.”

Josh had about as much interest in the Rayleigh Range and the Barbican Hills as they had in him. He tried another switch, but the system had its mind set on the approaching Barbicans and was not about to change.

“The Barbican Hills are a major habitat for Solferino’s most intelligent life form. Commonly known as a ‘rupert,’ this animal stands upright and is about four feet high. Its intelligence has been estimated as somewhere between a dog and a chimpanzee.” (Great. Except that Josh had never had a dog, and he had never even seen a chimpanzee.) “Like other Solferino animals, the rupert lacks eyes sensitive to ordinary light. Instead it sees as Earth bats see, by sending out and receiving echoes from intense, brief, high-pitched pulses of sound. The behavior of the rupert is the best support for the claim—”

Another voice, this one from the aircar’s navigation and control system, overrode the first one. “WE ARE WITHIN TWO MINUTES OF OUR DESTINATION. PREPARE FOR LANDING.”

The channel abruptly went silent.

Just when it was getting to the interesting part! Josh had tried the same channel earlier, and it had been yakking on about the basic genetic similarities between Solferino and Earth life forms, and what it meant that they were both based on the DNA molecule.

Behind him, he heard Winnie Carlson talking to Ruby. That figured. Ruby was so young, stuff for her had to be specially dumbed down. With nothing else to do, Josh found he was listening anyway.

“No, what Mr. Gage told you was quite right,” Winnie Carlson was saying. “When you were back on Earth, you couldn’t have eaten plants and animals from this world without getting very sick. They may look like Earth plants, but inside they are very different. They have DNA, but they don’t use it to produce proteins like the ones in Earth plants and animals. Before you came here, tiny specially designed machines—almost like little animals themselves—were put inside you.”

“Are those the same nanocritters that make us so we can breathe the air here?”

“Not quite. They’re small, like them, but these live inside your stomach, not your lungs. They make lots of copies of themselves when you eat Solferino plants and animals. Those copies all digest what you swallow, and what they give out you can digest. So it’s all right to eat the plants that you find here, or at least most of them. Do you understand?”

“I think so. Ugh!”

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re saying that I’ve got lots of these little animals inside me. They eat the plants, and all I get to eat is their poop. That’s disgusting, isn’t it?”

“No. I mean, you shouldn’t think of it that way. You ought to think—”

The rest of Winnie Carlson’s explanation was lost as the air-car’s voice again overrode normal conversation.

“WE ARE ENCOUNTERING STRONG SHEAR WINDS. BE PREPARED FOR A POSSIBLE ROUGH TOUCHDOWN.”

The vehicle was cruising along the center line of a long, narrow valley, seeking a wide, clear area suitable for landing. Josh held tight to his own armrests and braced his feet against the seat in front. He checked that Dawn’s belt system, like his, had come into automatic operation. Farther along the row, Rick and Hag had their eyes closed and seemed resigned to die at any moment.

The landing, when it came, was so soft and feathery that if Josh hadn’t been looking out of the window he wouldn’t have known when the ship made contact with the brick-red earth of the Barbican Hills.

On a random impulse, he gave a low, horrified moan and said, “Crashing! We’re crashing.”

He knew it was a dumb idea the moment he did it, even before he heard the wails of fear from his right. It was a little while before Rick and Hag opened their eyes and learned that they were safely on the ground. Then the vengeful glares that they gave Josh and the laughs of the others made him wonder if his joke had been all that bright a move.

Brewster saved Josh from immediate reprisals. As soon as the car landed he was on his feet. “Outside, everyone. We only have an hour or two to set up camp and stow everything inside.”

Josh decided that he agreed with Amethyst. It made no sense to rush out here to fumble around in Grisel’s red twilight, when fixing up the camp would be a lot easier in full daylight.

In practice, it turned out not to matter. Setting up camp required just three actions:

First, someone had to decide where the structures ought to go. Brewster did that, insofar as there was any choice. A stream occupied the middle of the valley, and most of the other ground was not flat enough, or was covered with chest-high plants. Brewster picked the one sizable area of level, dry ground, about forty paces from the stream and uphill from it.

Second, the cargo aircar had to release the crated building modules from its hold. Winnie Carlson gave the command for that.

And third, the buildings had to unfold from their crates, establish foundations, and transform themselves into bedrooms, bathrooms, and a kitchen. The buildings were smart enough to do that without instructions from anyone. The camp shaped itself in just a few minutes, while everyone looked on.

In the final stages Brewster returned to the cargo aircar. He said he had to talk with the communications center back at the compound. Topaz and the Lasker twins took over the newly formed kitchen. The rest were free to examine their surroundings, or as much of them as they could see in the deepening gloom.

Josh looked around seeking the giant and colorful balloon trees. The amazing thing was that from far away they dominated the skyline. Here, in the valley, they were nowhere to be seen. They must be on the other side of one of the ridges, shielded from view by the valley walls.

What he could see was odd enough. The vegetation at the water’s edge, and all the way to and around the newly erected buildings, formed a springy ground cover like the plants in the clearing where they had first landed on Solferino. On the sides of the valley that changed, very suddenly, to a shorter version of the umbrella plants. Josh walked over to where Amethyst was standing. She was alternately rising on tiptoe and then crouching down with bent knees.

“It’s like two different places,” she said, as he approached. “You’d never know from one that the other existed. Take a look for yourself.”

It wasn’t clear what she meant until Josh did what she was doing. The tops of the umbrella plants were pale yellow and paper-thin. All the plants were the same height, and when you stood tall enough to look over them you saw a continuous flat surface that appeared smooth enough to skate on. Only when you were very close could you see that the tops of the leaves were actually full of tiny wrinkles. Crouching down and looking underneath that layer, you entered a new world. A knee-high undergrowth formed a floor of dusky red. The ceiling was the underside of the umbrella leaves. They were not pale yellow and smooth, but dark mauve and rough on the bottom. Between floor and ceiling sat an open layer. That space was clear except for scattered umbrella plant stems, but it faded off as far as you could see in a deepening purple gloom.

Amethyst reached out and touched the underside of the nearest umbrella plant leaf. She pulled her hand back with a startled cry. “Ooh! It’s hairy!”

“You shouldn’t be too surprised at that.” Winnie Carlson had walked over to stand behind them. “A lot of plants on Earth are the same, smooth on top of their leaves and hairy underneath. There’s even a special word for it. Hairy leaves are called tomentose.”

“Tomentose.” Amethyst put out her hand again, and this time rubbed her fingers along the underside of the leaf. “It feels like a hairy felt mat.”

“And the top sides of the leaves are glabrous, which just means they don’t have hair on them. They’re also rugose—which is a fancy botanical word for wrinkled.” Winnie added, as though ashamed at possessing special knowledge, “They made me take all these courses about plants and things, though I don’t see why. I don’t need any of it as a technician. That’s not why I came over here, though. I wanted to tell you that dinner is ready. It’s pretty simple stuff, but Rick is putting on a couple of special flourishes to it. We’re lucky, finding somebody who likes to cook as much as they do.”

“Hey, we ought to have a cookout.” Amethyst lost interest in the leaves. “I don’t mean cooking outside. I mean like a shoot-out. A cooking contest. Rick and Hag take on Topaz, and we see who’s best.”

“Who’ll be the judge?” Josh asked, as they followed Winnie to the new kitchen.

“I will.” Amethyst seemed thrilled at the prospect. She was quite a bit overweight, and Josh was beginning to understand why.

There were foldout seats around the little kitchen, but no one bothered with them. They took plates of food and hunkered down on the ground. The plants were springy and had leaves rough enough to be a bit uncomfortable, but people were too hungry to change their minds and seek somewhere smoother.

It was almost completely dark. The first and unfamiliar stars were out and Solferino’s single satellite was rising. Bothwell Gage had described it as a big moon, but it was easy to disagree with him. To eyes used to Earth’s moon, this one seemed shrunken, no more than a third the usual size. It partly made up for that by shining a brighter silver, like a newly minted coin in the deep purple sky. The evening air was pleasant, and people were beginning to relax when a strange new sound began, high up the valley sides.

“It’s all right,” said Winnie. “No need to be scared. That’s insects—or the nearest thing that Solferino has to them. They’re supposed to be edible, if you’re desperate.”

Before anyone’s disgust at that idea could be expressed, Sol Brewster reappeared from the aircar. For a few minutes they had almost forgotten he was with them. Everyone went quiet.

“Something’s come up.” He walked into the middle of the group. He was so tall, above the level of the lights, that they could not see his eyes. “I’ve had a message from the medical center. It’s not bad news, but it means I have to go back to the settlement. I have to go tonight.”

The seated group all looked at each other. Just when everything was set up, and everyone was adjusting, they would have to uproot and leave. Winnie stood up and started toward the aircar. “I’d better tell the structures to pack themselves away again, and stow them in the cargo hold.”

“No need for that.” Brewster placed himself in her way. “You have plenty of supplies. You can stay here, settle in. I’ll be back tomorrow. Then we’ll carry on with the exploration.”

He turned and entered the aircar, without waiting to hear what anyone might have to say. The door closed and interior lights came on. A few seconds later there was a whine of engines and the vehicle rose into the night sky. They followed its path until it was lost against the stars.

“Suppose he doesn’t come back?” Ruby asked.

“He will.” Sapphire went across to sit by her young sister. “He’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll be fine.”

“But what if he isn’t?” Ruby persisted.

“Then we’ll pack bags and go back ourselves,” Sapphire said cheerfully. “It would be a long walk, but we could do it in two days.”

Josh thought of the view out of the cargo aircar window as they had flown here, and was not so sure. It might be a two-day walk if the land were level and clear. But what about the places where the plants grew chest-high, as they did close to the camp? It would not be easy to walk through them if you had to be crouched over all the time. And what about that wide, meandering river? They would have to cross it, and it might be too deep to wade.

“Would it be easy to walk?” Topaz sounded as though she was having the same thoughts as Josh.

“It might not be easy,” Winnie Carlson said. “We could do it, though. But don’t you think you should wait before you worry about being stranded? We could stay a week here if we had to, waiting for Brewster, and still have plenty of supplies left. And we’re completely safe.”

“What about animals?” Sig asked.

“There are certainly predators on Solferino, animals that prey on other animals, but they’re the size of insects. No animal like Earth’s big carnivores—lions and wolves and polar bears—ever developed here. So there’s nothing on Solferino dangerous to humans.”

As she spoke, a long, mournful wail sounded in the distance. It was answered by another, closer to them. And another. Suddenly the night was filled with strange, sobbing cries.

“It’s just the night life, calling each other to find out what social activities are going on in the neighborhood,” Winnie said. But her tone was not nearly as casual as her words, and she did not object when everyone stood up and moved toward the buildings. The structures were thin-walled and light and offered protection more psychological than real, but everyone wanted to be inside.

Josh lagged a step or two behind the others, his eye on Sig Lasker. Josh had been next to Sig, and he had seen, even if no one else had, the other’s reaction when the night cries began. Sig had stood up, and instinctively reached for the right-hand pocket of his pants.

He must have some kind of weapon there. Josh thought of Topaz, calmly pulling that vicious knife from the sheath under her arm to free the bodger. Did Sig have a hidden knife, too? Or a gun, or something even more destructive?

Sig was a thug, but he seemed to have pretty good survival instincts. Maybe that was what you needed, when you camped out on the “safe” world of Solferino.