Dinosaurus Planet Survivors
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Dinosaur Planet #2
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Dinosaurus Planet Survivors». Краткое содержание книги:
“By the first Disciple, that was too ruddy close,” Triv exclaimed as Varian fought for an upward air passage. They had skimmed the surface of the sea itself.
Circling up and back toward the cliff at a safer height, they looked down. The tentacled monster, propelling itself after the vague shadow cast by the sled, writhed as the giffs continued to dive until it was forced to submerge.
“I think I better rig some sort of wind indicator at the mouth of the cave,” Triv said, more to himself than to her. “If it hadn’t been for those giffs…”
Varian, aware that she was trembling from reaction, heartily endorsed Triv’s idea of a wind indicator. Then they were above the cliffs and suddenly drenched by the torrential rains that had accompanied the treacherous wind squall.
The rains had passed by the time they had reached the first compound. The sun was having its noon time look. Steam rose from drying foliage, which encouraged the myriad biting, sucking, buzzing insects to swarm about the sled as Varian made her landing. Triv was silent beside her, but it wasn’t until they were down, that she realized why.
“It seems only yesterday…” he said in a low voice, staring about the deserted natural amphitheater. His gaze went from the spot where the main dome had been, to Gaber’s cartography unit, to where the mutineers’ accommodation had been. Then his lips thinned and his eyes hardened.
“The here-and-now is more important, Triv,” Varian said.
Because she had the belt, Varian insisted that Triv stay in the safety of the canopied sled while she attacked the vegetation that covered the remaining sleds. She found the stick Kai must have used, its point dug deep into the soft loam. She flailed away at colonies of slugs, worms, and multilegged insects which had made burrows between the sleds: a mini-ecology that at another time she would have enjoyed examining. When she had the worst of the vegetation cleared, Triv emerged. It took their combined efforts and much sweaty heaving to lift the sleds free of a dirt that had a consistency of hardened adhesive. But then the sleds had been settled deeply on their edges for over four decades.
“I can’t see any breaks in the substructure,” Triv said, running knowledgeable hands along the side panels.
“This model sled’s come out operational from worse battering, not to mention the slime sand on Tenebris V,” Varian said, settling herself at the control console of the four-man sled. “Now, for the tricky part.” Turning off the forcebelt, she wet her finger to test the prevailing wind. “You stand well to my right and move when the wind shifts. The purple mold’ll bubble up like Divisti’s moss tea.” She retrieved another feather from her breast pocket and saluted Triv with it before she reactivated her forcebelt. “Don’t let this stuff touch you, even if it gets me,” she added as she used Portegin’s seal breaker along the line. She strained her body away from the console as the mold boiled from its prison. Varian kept the panel in front of her face as the light winds dispersed the frothy fungi. She prodded with her feather at clumps momentarily caught on the lip of the unit. When she was sure that the worst had been blown away, she began to clear the delicate matrix panels, tickling the corners where fungi might hide, and slipping the tip of her feather in and under, back and forth into every part of the console. Then she dusted the control panel.
When she had refitted and scaled the unit, she motioned to Triv to install the power pack.
“I won’t take time to dust the other panels now, Triv. Let’s strap ’em in the cargo bed and get out of here.” Varian felt uneasy. She could smell nothing unusual, even when she turned off the forcebelt to be sure it was not filtering the nauseating sea odor that would herald the arrival of a man-enveloping fringe.
The two sleds fitted easily across the cargo section and Triv secured them deftly with stout twists and knots. After two hours of intensive labor, they had accomplished their task. How oddly comforting to know what time had passed again, Varian thought. She frequently consulted the console chrono during their labors. She asked Triv to take the four-man sled, since he was stronger and more rested than she. She maintained a position to his port so that she could see both his hand signals and watch the lashed sleds in case they should shift in adverse winds.
She caught Triv’s first signal the moment they were fully airborne but she saw no shift in the sleds. Then she saw him pointing upward and noticed the three giffs veering in to take up their escort positions. She’d had such a fright with the marine beast that she hadn’t even noticed their out-going escort. She chuckled to herself, wondering if these were the same three, or if they flew escort in rotation. Had their discreet surveillance somehow prevented a fringe attack? She must remember to ask Kai if the giffs had accompanied Tor’s craft, though she doubted it, at the rate of speed Tor could travel.
Their return journey was without incident. Varian took the small sled in first, reversing at the hover and getting as close to the space shuttle as possible to give Triv sufficient room to maneuver. He parked the four-man sled neatly against the left-hand side of the cave. Lunzie and Portegin, moving with some residual stiffness from his long sleep, helped to unload.
Portegin was for starting his project immediately but Varian cautioned him about the purple fungus. So they positioned a sled with its nose well over the cave edge, secured by rope to the heavier craft so that the wind, now sweeping down over the cliffs, would blow the fungus away from their living quarters.
“I see how to do it, Varian,” Portegin told her a bit impatiently.
“Let him do it,” Lunzie said, unbuckling Varian’s forcebelt even as she protested.
“I feel fine.”
“That’s because you haven’t seen yourself,” Lunzie replied with a disparaging sniff. “You need as much restorative as I can pump into you.”
“I’m tougher than I look,” Varian said. She whirled around when she heard Kai laugh.
“If I have to listen to Lunzie, so do you, co-leader. Now sit down here, take your medicine, and suffer with me.” Kai motioned her to sit beside him.
Varian did so, thinking it was the first time she’d had a chance to look at him since his injury. He seemed better but red blotches still marred his forehead and hands. Lunzie handed them each a shell bowl.
“More moss?” Varian asked seeing the color of Kai’s.
“I’ve fixed the taste,” Lunzie said.
Varian sniffed at hers, expecting the rich smell of the morning’s stew. “Krims! What’d you put in this?”
“What’s good for you! Drink it.” And she turned away to ladle portions for everyone else.
“She has fixed the taste,” said Kai after a sip and pulled himself to a sitting position. “But only after I made her sample it.” Kai grinned. “Whatever she added makes me hungrier than ever. I’d eat anything handed to me and ask for more.” He drained his bowl and picked a small red fruit from the pile beside him.
“Kai! You’re eating fruit! Fresh fruit!”
“I told you I was hungry enough to eat anything! Even this-this natural stuff!”
By the time the two sleds had been cleared of fungi, with Triv’s assistance, Portegin had began to reassemble the available communications matrices. While Triv and Varian had been away, Portegin dismantled the damaged shuttle comunit. The slabs were laid out under more of Lunzie’s plasfilm to protect them from the dust and debris that the wind blew about the cavern. Portegin shortly began muttering about doing delicate work with a hammer and tongs. He crouched like a troglodyte while Triv suggested that he transfer his operation into the big sled and the protection of the transparent canopy. Lunzie grudgingly surrendered one of her few medical probes to be heated to seal the connections.