Dinosaurus Planet Survivors

She went beyond the octagon and saw out buildings, two with chimneys well blackened even after decades of scouring rain. One proved to be a forge and marks on the concrete behind it indicated the complete removal of another installation, as well as the squat thick form of a kiln. What power would they have used for the forge? Water? Up here? No, but there was no shortage of wind! She had become so accustomed to the buffeting of the almost incessant breezes that blew from moderate to gale force through the course of every Iretan day, that she’d almost missed the most obvious and easiest power source.

Paskutti had not been idly bragging when he’d said that he and his band could survive nicely on Ireta. If Aygar was to be believed, and the barbed steel tip of his lance gave fair evidence of metal craftsmanship, they didn’t need the Federated Sentient Planets. Maybe not the FSP, thought Varian, kicking at the mud, but they’d need a larger gene pool or their community risked dangerous inbreeding that could wipe out all they had achieved.

She should reserve her sympathy for her own problem-Kai’s restoration-and she wasn’t getting any help on the bleak butte. But she couldn’t resist the urge to peer into the buildings set apart from the living quarters. They might provide her with a measure of information on the quality of life the mutineers had established for themselves. With metal-working, glass manufacture, windpower, pottery, they’d achieved a commendable basic standard. One long building, down slope and nearer the luxuriant growth, attracted her interest since it was so obviously set apart from the industrial sites. The door faced the brush and Varian paused, puzzled. Despite the wild profusion of lush vegetation, something about the area struck her as odd. Then she realized that the fruiting trees were placed at regular intervals, and each row was comprised of different types. Moving closer, she saw metal stakes holding up another form of vine from which thick pods hung: a series of thorny bushes bore huge red berries, then another stand of trees and beyond the trees, against a low retaining wall were smaller plants, weed vines choking them and, on the wall, tucked into niches as if by design, a curious feathery purple moss.

Purple was not her favorite shade after the mold, Varian realized, even as she had to admit that she was looking at an overgrown garden. She turned then to the long hut and observed what she had failed to notice at first-it had no windows. A storehouse for the garden’s produce? Yes, for now that she was closer, she could see the carved panels in the door.

Vines, trees, and plants were each so carefully delineated on that door that even someone with little botanical knowledge would be able to identify the specimens once the carvings had been memorized. What had Aygar said? They had learned a long time ago to balance their diet. Varian recognized the carotene-rich grass from the Rift valley which the giffs as well as Tyrannosaurus rex had needed. Turning constantly to check against the door’s carvings, Varian found each of the plants growing in rows in the neglected garden. Divisti, the expedition’s botanist, must have been responsible for that catalog of Ireta’s edible flora.

Varian pushed her way through the overgrowth, gathering fruits which she recognized, until she reached the vine with pods. One split with ripe readiness as she touched it, exposing large pale green beans. The bean had a wholesome smell. She bit, taking the smallest possible morsel to roll about in her mouth, tensing to spit out an unwelcome flavor. But the taste was mealy, the flesh of the bean crisp, but so satisfying that she consumed the contents of the entire pod greedily. She ate as she gathered the beans, as much as her arms could hold. Then she strode back to the sled, depositing her harvest. She had wheeled back toward the garden when she exclaimed in exasperation. Climbing into the sled, she guided it to the garden.

As she picked and plucked, she was careful to take samples from each row of Divisti’s garden, including the caves or tufts of the various wall plants. She wondered if Divisti had ever thought her garden would one day succor those the Heavyworld botanist had once tried to kill. At the foot of the garden, held back by thick staves, Varian came at last to a fine stand of the thick-fuzzy leaves that the giffs had brought her for Kai’s wounds.

“So, the bloodsucker got to you, too, huh?” Varian was subtly pleased that one denizen of this planet caused the heavyworlders more pain than pleasure.

When the sled was as full as possible, she checked once more that she had a sample of each variety carved on the door of the storage barn. Elated by the unexpected dividend, she set a straight course for the giff palisades, cutting due south and speeded on her way by a smart tail wind.

She was astonished, then, no more than five minutes in the air, to see the recognizable figure of Aygar trotting along a twisting ravine.