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The biologist became more and more disturbed. He could not believe that they
existed just on the other side of the veil which he himself never crossed.
When Varian gave him the survey tapes she'd compiled, he shook an accusatory
finger at the screen.
"Those animals were planted here."
"By who?" gasped Bonnard, wide-eyed. "The Others?"
"The Theks planted them, of course," Trizein assured the boy.
"Gaber says we're planted," Bonnard added.
Trizein, in his mild way, was more saddened than disturbed by the suggestion.
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He looked to Varian.
"We're not planted, Trizein," the young co-leader assured him and gave Bonnard
a very intense and disapproving glare.
Kai was urgently summoned back from the edge of the continental shield to hear
Trizein's conclusions, leaving Bakkun alone on the ridge. Varian particularly
wanted Kai separated from the heavyworlders, for by the time he returned,
Trizein had given her even more disturbing news.
Paskutti had asked Trizein to test the toxicity of the fang-face flesh and
hide, a question which was not mere idle curiosity. Varian now had films of a
startling atrocity. That day, Bonnard had led her to
Bakkun's "special place." It proved to be a rough campground where five skulls
and blackened bones of some of the fang-faces lay among the stones.
Lunzie knew how quickly the parasites of Ireta disposed of carrion.
That meant these were very recent. There could be little doubt that the
heavyworlders had killed and eaten animal flesh. The situation narrowed down
to how well Kai, and Varian, could control the heavyworlders until the
ARCT-10
retrieved them.
Chapter Fifteen
With a grim expression, Varian began emergency measures. She ordered Bonnard
to remove all the sled power packs and hide them in the bushes around the
compound. The packs had been depleted at an amazing rate and now she had the
answer.
Overuse by the heavyworlders. They'd have to have sledded to reach their
"secret place," for the ritual slaughter and consumption of the animals.
Kai met them in the shuttle at the top of the hill, puzzled at the unusual
urgent summons. He was horrified when he heard
Varian's conclusions. Lunzie confirmed the continued drain of supplies which
led her to believe that the heavyworlders had reverted to primitivism.
"We're lucky if it isn't mutiny," Varian finished. "Haven't you noticed in the
past few days how their attitude toward us has been altering? Subtly, I admit;
but they show less respect for our positions than before."
Kai nodded. "Then you think a confrontation is imminent?"
Varian affirmed it: "Our grace period ended last restday."
The heavyworlders could take over. As Lunzie drily pointed out, the mutated
humans were far more able to take care of themselves on wild Ireta than the
lightweight humans.
"I realise I'm repeating myself," Lunzie added, "but if Gaber felt he had been
planted, the heavyworlders must have come to the same conclusion." She paused,
hearing the whine of a lift-belt in the distance and listened harder. Who'd be
using a lift-belt now?
"Bonnard and I also saw a Tyrannosaurus rex with a tree-sized spear stuck in
his ribs," Varian said, shuddering. "That creature once ruled Old Earth.
Nothing could stop him. A heavyworlder did, for fun! Furthermore, by
establishing those secondary camps, we have given them additional bases. Where
are the heavyworlders right now?"
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"I left Bakkun working at the ridge. Presumably when he's finished he'll come
back here. He had a lift-belt ..."
Lunzie glanced out of the shuttle door and saw the whole contingent of
heavyworlders coming toward them up the hill. The drawn concentration on their
heavy-boned faces was terrifying.
They looked dangerous, and they harboured no good intentions for the
lightweights in the ship. She shouted a warning to Kai and
Varian. She saw the door to the piloting compartment iris shut almost on
Paskutti's foot.
As she flattened herself against the bulkhead, she noticed the imperceptible
blink that told her the main power supply had been deactivated and the shuttle
was now on auxiliaries. Was it too much to hope that one of the leaders had
managed to get a message out?
"If you do not open that lock instantly, we will blast," said the hard
unemotional voice of Paskutti, blaster in hand.
He was fully kitted out with many items that had so recently gone missing from
the stores. Of course, Lunzie told herself; she realised too late that most of
that purloined equipment had offensive capability.
"Don't!" Varian's voice sounded sufficiently fearful to keep Paskutti from
pulling the release but Lunzie knew the girl was no coward. It did no good for
either of them to be fried alive in the compartment.
The hatch opened and massive Paskutti reached through it. He seized Varian by
the front of her shipsuit and hauled her out, flinging her against the ceramic
side of the shuttle with such force that it broke her arm. Grinning
sadistically, Tardma treated Kai the same way.
Lunzie caught Kai and kept him upright, forcing her mind into a
Discipline state to calm herself. This was far worse than she could have
imagined. How could she have been so naive as to think the heavyworlders would
just go quietly?
Then Terilla, Cleiti and Gaber were unceremoniously herded into the shuttle,
the cartographer babbling something about how this
was not the way matters should proceed and how dared they treat him with such
disrespect.
"Tanegli? Do you have them?" Paskutti asked into his wrist com-
unit.
Whom would the heavyworlder botanist have? Lunzie answered her own question -
the other lightweights not yet accounted for.
"None of the sleds have power packs," said Divisti, scowling in the lock. "And
that boy is missing."
"How did he elude you?" Paskutti frowned in annoyance.
"Confusion. I thought he'd cling to the others." Divisti shrugged.
Good for you, Bonnard, Lunzie thought, seeking far more encouragement from
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that minor triumph than it really deserved.
"Start dismantling the lab, Divisti, Tardma."
Trizein came out of his confusion. "Now wait a minute. You can't go in there.
I've got experiments and analyses going on. Divisti, don't touch that
fractional equipment. Have you taken leave of your senses?"
"You'll take leave of yours." With a cool smile of pleasure, Tardma struck
Trizein in the face with a blow that lifted the slight man off his feet and
sent him rolling down the hard deck to lie motionless at Lunzie's feet.
"Too hard, Tardma," said Paskutti. "I'd thought to take him. He'd be more
useful than any of the other lightweights."
Tardma shrugged. "Why bother with him anyway? Tanegli knows as much as he
does." She went toward the lab with an insolent swing other hips.
Lunzie heard the scraping of feet on the rocks outside and
Portegin with a bloody head half carried a groggy Dimenon across the
threshold. Bakkun shoved a weeping Aulia and a blank-faced
Margit inside. Triv was stretched on the floor when Berru tossed him there,
grinning ferociously at his gasps of pain. Inaudible to the
heavyworlders, Lunzie could hear Triv begin the measured breathing which led
to the trance state of Discipline. At least four of them were preparing for [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]