Dinosaurus Planet Survivors
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Dinosaur Planet #2
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Dinosaurus Planet Survivors». Краткое содержание книги:
“Nnnooo connntaaaact.”
The inference was plain to Kai: the Thek did not care to keep in touch with the highly excitable, and by Thek standards, irresponsible winged sentients.
Kai was relieved. It was embarrassing enough to call the Thek for aid, but to have to apply to the Ryxi would result in considerably more humiliation. The Ryxi would thoroughly enjoy spreading such a grand joke throughout the universe at the expense of all wingless species.
Kai could move his head and neck easily now, and checked the line of his sleeping companions. Varian’s hand lay where it had fallen from his in the relaxation of sleep. Tor had placed a dim light somewhere in the shuttle, probably for Kai’s reassurance since the Thek did not require light to see. Kai touched Varian’s hand, still cold and rigid in the thrall of cryogenic sleep. He watched, holding his own breath, until he saw the slight rise and fall of her diaphragm in its much reduced life-rhythm. Then he relaxed, exhaling.
He turned back to Tor but sensed its complete withdrawaclass="underline" it had become a large smooth rock, flattened on the bottom to conform to the deck, extruding not so much as a lump, bump, or pseudopod. This was the Thek contemplative state and Kai knew better than to interrupt it.
He lay there until his nose began to itch. He stifled a sneeze with a finger under his nose, and then felt foolish. A sneeze couldn’t rouse a Thek. Much less the sleepers. That desire to sneeze was the prelude to a growing twitchy restlessness in Kai which he recognized as the result of the stimulants Tor had injected. The Thek had not said that he couldn’t move: it had only said to rest. Surely he had done enough of that.
Kai began the muscle toning Discipline and, although he worked up a fine sweat, he soon realized that cold sleep had done him no discernible harm. Even the healed wrist responded perfectly. The plaskin Lunzie had used to set the break had long since flaked away. That meant they’d been asleep at least four or five months.
He looked at his wrist chronometer, but the device was blank. Even ‘long-life’ battery tabs wear out. How long ago?
Exercise produced another effect and Kai, rising carefully, found his way through the cold-sleep mist that shrouded the shuttle to the toilet. Returning, he checked each of the sleepers, observing the curious transformation sleep worked on faces. Bonnard, for instance, in the middle of his second decade, looked more adult than Dimenon, twice the boy’s age. Portegin looked as if he still worried about the effectiveness of the beacon he had contrived. Lunzie, the pragmatic medic, was smiling, a rare sight while she was awake, and her face had assumed a gentleness at odds with her ascorbic temperament. She’d admitted to having undergone sleep suspension before: her records had listed her chronological age but there had always been that detachment about Lunzie that struck Kai as bemused tolerance: as if she’d already seen most of what the universe had to offer and wouldn’t spare the energy to be excited by anything anymore.
Triv, the other team member trained in Discipline, had a forbidding expression in sleep, a surprising strength in mouth, jawline and brow that had not been so apparent as the man went quietly about his normal duties.
Since Tor was still motionless, Kai sat down by Varian, feeling companionship even with her sleeping self. She was beautiful. Then he noticed that one side of her face slanted down, the other more or less up, leaving one eyebrow higher than the other, as if the cold sleep had surprised her. Suddenly he wanted very much to have the cheerfulness of her conscious company. Who knew how long Tor would remain an uncommunicative lump? He needed someone he could talk to, before his perspective was warped by self-accusative reflection in the gloomy silence. Varian was co-leader: she should have been revived as a matter of course. Kai then realized that he ought to be relieved that Tor had been able to single him out. If the Thek had revived, say, Aulia, she would have gone into hysterics just being close to a Thek-and then convulsions when she realized that she’d been put in cryogenic suspension without being consulted! As a geologist, Aulia was very good, but she failed in areas of personal adjustments.
Kai looked about the dimly lit area for the revival kit and saw it in the dust just beyond the clean outline where he had slept. Dust? The shuttle had not, of course, been sealed completely-cold sleepers still need air-but for dust of any depth to have settled…
The sprays in the box were clearly marked for precedence, color-coded as well. Calibrations on the cylinders listed dosages according to body weight. Instructions on the first cylinder advised Kai to wait until the sleeper had shown definite signs of revival before stimulants were injected.
Kai carefully released the appropriate dose into Varian’s arm and waited, trying to remember his own progress from cold sleep to consciousness. Her sleeping face exhibited no reassuring change. Maybe he hadn’t administered enough. He checked the dose and wondered if he’d been mistaken about her body weight. He was hesitating over a second small spray when he saw her eyelids flutter. Only then did he realize that she was respiring at a normal rate.
“Varian?” He leaned over, touching her shoulder and smiling at the effort she made to unglue her eyes. An old tale popped into his head and, so prompted, he kissed her cool lips gently.
“Kkkkaaaaaiiiiii?” Her eyes opened fully and then the lids drooped back but the left corner of her mouth lifted in appreciation.
“Just relax, Varian. You’ll be in working order shortly.”
“Hhhhooooowww?” The word trembled out as an aspirated whisper.
“Tor came. Don’t ask more questions, dear heart. Give the reviver a chance to penetrate. I’m right here. Everything is unchanged!”
“Nnughhh!” The groan came from her belly and made Kai laugh at the disgust vibrant in her protest.
“Well, a Thek bestirred itself on our behalf. It’s got a full report. I taped it,” he explained quickly as he saw Varian’s astonishment. “It is apparently thinking my words over.” Kai gestured to the silent rock. “Don’t move yet,” he cautioned Varian as he saw her neck tendons strain against the long immobility. “I guess I can give you the stimulants now, but don’t bounce. Oh, and your shoulder’s healed,” he added as he gave her the second set of shots. Paskutti had shattered Varian’s left shoulder just before Tardma had snapped his wrist.
Varian’s fully functional eyebrows registered pleased amazement, immediately followed by a frown of thoughtful concern.
“No, I haven’t a clue how long we’ve slept, Varian.” Paskutti damaged the shuttle’s chronometer. It’s just above the comunit, remember.”
Varian rolled her eyes in frustration and began to clear her throat.
“Make haste slowly,” he cautioned her, hand on her shoulder. “Or should I revive Lunzie?…”
Varian shook her head, working her tongue around her mouth as the tissues began to moisten. “Leaders first… and last…” Her voice sounded as disused as his had, and he repressed a smile.
“If your fingers and toes are beginning to tingle, try the small-muscle exercises of Discipline. They’ll help circulation and toning.”
Varian took a deep breath and closed her eyes to concentrate.
“I don’t know what Tor’s contemplating, Varian,” Kai went on, “but it can’t repair the comunit. It doesn’t indicate whether it received our message or realized we weren’t communicating on schedule. The ARCT-10 hasn’t been in touch but Tor doesn’t appear concerned. I can’t tell whether that’s due to normal Thek indifference or not.” Then Kai laughed. “There’s been no contact with the Ryxi.”
Varian’s chuckle sounded completely normal and he grinned down at her. Her eyes were twinkling with laughter.
“In old tapes,” she said, chewing her words out of her mouth slowly, on my planet, sleeping beauty is wakened by a noble’s kiss after a hundred years. Sweet way to wake up.