Quofum (8 page)

Of course, he reminded himself firmly, all this was still nothing more than outrageous speculation. Like any thoughtful scientist, N’kosi had proffered a radical explanation in the absence of a more sensible one. The latter, based on the drastic but not untenable notion of radical evolution occurring under extraordinary and as yet undefined circumstances, was still the best extant explanation for everything they had seen. They had only been on Quofum for a few days. Wild tangents such as direct offworld intervention by an unknown intelligence might be proposed and discussed, but it was far too early in the game to accept them as anything more than impulsive conjecture.

Evidence. It was time to amass some hard, cold evidence. To date they had spent nearly all their time out in the field. Now it was time to sit down in the lab, to dissect a serious number of specimens in the search for links between species and types, and to let the camp’s AI engage in some fundamental extrapolation and sequence-crunching. In short, it was time to buckle down to the kind of time-intensive, repetitive, methodical, frequently boring work that constituted the greater preponderance of real science.

His line of thought changed to something else entirely when Haviti moved closer to him. It changed again, and not for the better this time, when she pointed to the west.

“Is that cloud moving?”

He squinted. His night vision had never been the best. Flipping down his visor, he joined her in studying the expanding phenomenon.

“It’s moving, but I’m not so sure it’s a cloud.”

“It is not.” Valnadireb’s huge compound eyes needed no artificial assistance to discern the true nature of the star-muting shadow. “It’s alive, and it is coming this way.”

More than the mood was broken as for the second time that day the four scientists unlimbered their sidearms. There was nothing to indicate that the dark mass would prove to be hostile, but its sheer size dictated caution. Better to be prepared than to be caught off guard and forced into making life-or-death decisions at the last moment.

As it turned out, the decision to take up arms proved prudent.

The sound of the onrushing shadow was surprising. A whispery hum, it was anything but threatening. That did not prevent N’kosi, ever the enthusiastic researcher, from letting out a yelp of surprise when the first of the gently parachuting larvae spiraled down to land on his arm. Half again as long as the scientist’s extended limb and nearly as wide, the larva was almost paper-thin. On contact with his forearm it lay there light as a leaf, allowing him to examine it closely. The pale, translucent form weighed next to nothing. A single black dot at one end hinted at the location of a very primitive eyespot.

“It’s like tissue.” As he addressed his colleagues, N’kosi raised his arm slowly up and down. “I don’t see any indication of…”

He grunted in pain as the larva contracted sharply around his forearm. Shrinking and tightening with frightening speed, it was transformed from a ten-centimeter-wide strip of pale protein into a swiftly shrinking tourniquet. Setting aside his pistol, N’kosi used his free hand to try and pull it off. Not only did the “flimsy” material fail to break, it burned his clutching fingers on contact.

“Get it off!” he yelled to his companions. Already the now wirelike strip was cutting off the flow of blood to his forearm and hand and threatening to slice right through his protective shirtsleeve into his flesh.

Haviti and Tellenberg fumbled for the knives contained in their field multitools. By the time either of them could get a blade out, an alert Valnadireb had clipped the shrunken larva in half. Using both foothands and truhands, he pulled it apart. The caustic fluid the migrating alien maggot secreted might sear human skin, but it barely left a mark on the thranx’s much tougher chitinous exoskeleton.

“Thanks, Val.” A grimacing N’kosi was rubbing his arm, stimulating the flow of blood to his throbbing hand.

They had no time to commiserate or study the dead creature now lying on the deck, because as the dozen or so enormous soaring night fliers continued passing overhead, blotting out the sky, their teeming progeny drifted downward like slow rain. Each of the nearly silent gliders released dozens, hundreds of the deceptively innocuous larvae from a line of multiple ventral cloaca. These floated downward or were carried off by gentle breezes like so much shredded tissue paper. The quartet of edgy scientists could only look on and admire the highly efficient means the creatures employed for spreading their spawn.

The larvae’s translucence allowed them to blend in with their surroundings, making it hard for potential hosts to separate them from forest and river surroundings. During the day, bright sunlight would have reflected off the ghostly protoplasm. At night the larvae were nearly invisible. They made no revealing noises, emitted no identifying sounds as they drifted downward. Their slow, gradual descent, disturbed only by the occasional draft, enhanced the stealth of the mass seeding. Outspread in parachute mode, their insubstantiality assured that their landing on a potential host would usually go unnoticed. Until they began to contract, by which time it would be too late for the hapless host to do anything about it.

Soaring noiselessly off to the east the adults continued on their migratory way, having sown the night behind them with silent horror. The horde of twisting, fluttering parasites descending in their wake landed everywhere: in the forest, on the water, on the glistening river-cast beaches. The researchers counted their good fortune as they clustered together in the center of the boat. The folding roof that was designed to protect them from the weather was a hundred percent effective in keeping the down-drifting larvae off their heads. Whenever the wind threatened to blow one of the creatures underneath, it was quickly knocked down with whatever heavy object was at hand.

At first they tried crushing the writhing, crinkling brood underfoot. One such attempt by Tellenberg was sufficient to show the inefficacy of that approach. The larva in question dodged his descending boot and curled around his ankle with horrid speed. For a second time, Valnadireb’s dexterous fingers were called upon to remove a constricting larva from one of his human associate’s more vulnerable limbs. Thereafter they took no more chances. Standing back-to-back and utilizing a pair of beamers taken from stores and set on low, they fried each successive gossamer intruder.

They did not relax or let down their guard even when it seemed that they had cruised clear of the last of the parasitic cloud. Tellenberg found that he was swallowing repeatedly and unnecessarily. He kept imagining what it would feel like to have one of the constricting creatures land softly on the back of his neck. This was one species where dead specimens would have to suffice for study not out of necessity but by choice and mutual agreement. Even with Valnadireb’s assistance, the live larvae were too treacherous to handle.

In the wake of the gliders’ passing, horrifying sounds began to resound from the forest. At first there were only one or two. As more and more of the larvae touched down and found hosts, the cries and shrieks of those organisms who had been successfully parasitized rose shockingly above the familiar din of otherwise healthy forest-dwellers. After a while this too died out. For a quarter of an hour or so the alien woods were unnervingly silent. Then, gradually, customary night sounds returned, until both sides of the river once more echoed to the bleat and wail of the thousands of unknown creatures who had managed to survive the ghastly seeding.

N’kosi was sitting on a bench studying the first larva that had landed on the boat. Or rather, on him. Ripped in half by the helpful Valnadireb, it lay stretched out immobile between his hands, a pair of thin strands of dully glistening protoplasmic thread.

“What do you suppose the next stage is?” Reaching down, Haviti ran an inquisitive forefinger along the middle part of the lifeless young. Dead, it no longer secreted its protective caustic liquid.

A nonscientist would have turned away or eyed the slender corpse uneasily. Despite having been attacked, N’kosi was all curiosity. “Maybe once it has secured a purchase on the prospective host, it burrows in and feeds.”

“Not too deeply, or too much,” Tellenberg commented astutely. “A smart parasite doesn’t kill its host right away. The successful ones are always good stewards of their food supply.”

“You saw how quickly and powerfully it contracts.” Haviti straightened. “Maybe the whole animal burrows in, the way an assassin uses piano wire.”

Tellenberg gaped at her. “What do you know about assassins and piano wire?”

She smiled back at him. “When I’m relaxing in my off-time, I watch a lot of cheap tridee productions. One does not live by assimilating scientific papers alone, you know.”

He wanted to add something witty, but not in general company. Instead, he rose. “Well, we may not have any live specimens, but we’ve got plenty of fried ones.” He busied himself helping Valnadireb gather dead larvae from the deck. Those too badly burned by the beamers were dumped over the side, to the great delight of a trailing swarm of aquatic scavengers.

One of the latter, he noted almost absently, was some kind of floating plant with multiple orifices. He shook his head. The variety of life-forms thriving on this world was exceeded only by the mystery of their origins.

Despite everyone’s pretense at scientific detachment, the rain of parasitic larvae had unsettled all of them to the point where it was decided that the boat’s automatic defense mechanisms notwithstanding, a watch would be mounted for the rest of the night. A lucky Tellenberg took the first. Settling himself behind the control console, he watched while his companions bedded down for the night; the humans on their traveling inflatable cots, Valnadireb on his simple raised pad. A flash of jealousy shot through Tellenberg as he noted the proximity of N’kosi’s bed to Haviti’s.

He was being silly, he chided himself. No matter what he felt toward Tiare he had never expressed those feelings. Such desire remained wholly private, and likely would continue to do so until they neared the expedition’s end. Articulating his feelings here and now, while they were thrown together out in the field with no way of really avoiding one another, could impact the quality of her work as well as his. Worse, she might respond negatively. He shuddered inwardly. She might even laugh.

Upon further consideration of the alternatives, he decided he would rather endure the attentions of one of the parasitic larvae.

6

The wretched condenser was acting up again. It had to be the condenser, Boylan figured. Not only because the system that delivered water to the different segments of the camp had already failed once, but because the supply was gravity-fed and there was little else that could go wrong with it. Spun like spider silk from a central silicate core, the simple and straightforward network of pipes had no seams, joints, or connectors. All the components were brand-new. Since the pipe material hardened on contact with air, it was unlikely there were any leaks.

It did not matter whether he activated dispensers in the living area, the lab, or outside. They all came up dry. Every time he said “cold water” or “hot water” to a spigot, it responded with an apology instead of the requested liquid. A part designed and manufactured to be as trouble-free as a water spigot could not be self-analytical. It could not provide a breakdown of the trouble. In the final analysis, it appeared, there were still some problems that required the attention of humans.

There was also the fact that the condenser had already failed once before, right after the science team had departed on their expedition upriver. The brief reports Boylan had received suggested that this had gone even better than expected, though in ways none had foreseen. While curious to learn the details of the outing, it was not his priority. As captain of the ship and nominal commander of the expedition, his job was to expedite the work of the researchers without coddling them. That meant ensuring suitable working conditions. The lack of a reliable water supply could hardly be counted among these.

The first time the condenser had broken down Araza had fixed it immediately. Precedent suggested that the latest problem, if it involved a similar failure, would be simple to fix. This time Boylan would supervise the repair work himself. Araza was a good workman and a solid technician, but he was not perfect. Even with the help of automatons and integrated construction servors, whipping the newly erected camp into working order and maintaining it was a full-time job for two men. In his haste to move on to the next project it was possible that Araza had overlooked something, had not quite finished the repair work properly, or had simply left it incomplete and had forgotten to return to complete the job.

Whatever the cause, this time the condenser would be fixed permanently. Boylan would see to that. Araza was like a lot of workmen the captain had known. Wholly competent but easily distracted. You had to keep on top of such people. For their own good. Every once in a while they needed to be chewed out. It inspired them to better work. The trick was to admonish without generating resentment. This was something at which Boylan had had plenty of practice. He was very good at it.

He did not have to go looking for the technician. Araza answered promptly when the captain buzzed him. The miniaturized communit clipped to Boylan’s right ear served as both pickup and speaker.

“Water condenser again,” he snapped. “Got to be condenser. There’s nothing coming out of any of the pipes.”

“Irrigation also?” Araza was a master of the terse interrogatory.

“I haven’t checked it for leaks, but I don’t see why that part of system should be any different. We know it can’t be vapor problem.” On this part of Quofum, at least, the air was saturated with moisture. With that kind of spongy atmosphere to draw upon, even a partially functioning condenser should have been able to provide plenty of water to all parts of the camp.

“I will check Irrigation,” Araza replied. “If it is dry also, I will get right on the condenser.”

Boylan was not in the mood for delays. “I told you, there no reason to check Irrigation. I’m heading up to the installation. Meet me there.”

There was a pause at the other end. “I would really like to run a system’s check on Irrigation first.”

“Condenser installation,” Boylan snapped in his best no-nonsense tone. “Now.” He shut down the commlink.

Maybe he was being too rough on Araza, he mused as he headed for the life-support wing of the camp. Give him his due: the tech did work hard. But he had on more than one occasion demonstrated a proclivity for overanalysis, for wasting time on checking that which had already been noted and dismissed. Even if water was flowing to Irrigation, the condenser’s condition still needed to be checked and its status determined before they could rule it out as the cause of the shortage. He knew from experience that every so often it was important, even in small ways, to remind others who was in charge. Perhaps the occasion of the loss of flow to the camp was not the best time to make the point, but it was already done. He smiled thinly to himself. Araza was tough. The man would survive another brief bout of criticism.

When Boylan surmounted the roof of the third and southernmost wing of the camp he found the tech already hard at work on the condenser. Seeing the captain, Araza waved. Boylan, who had ascended via a different set of steps, responded with a brisk gesture of his own. While rising to little more than a single story in height, the top of the gently arching snap-together roof sections offered a pleasant change of view from that available at ground level. As he made his way across the dimpled gray-green surface toward the roof-mounted condensing unit and the waiting technician, Boylan reflected on what the expedition had accomplished thus far.

There was reason to be proud. With minimal staff, they had erected a small but complete camp. Preliminary contact had been made with not one but with an unprecedented four species of native sentients. The planet had proven to be both a biological mine and an evolutionary minefield of new genotypes. When the official report of the expedition was filed upon their return home, the science team would be showered with honors. As for himself, he could look forward to a significant promotion within the civil service ranks as well as the approval and admiration of his peers.

Assuming, of course, he and his people didn’t die of thirst first.

Despite the ongoing condenser problems, that likelihood was sufficiently improbable as to verge on the impossible. After all, the pink-tinged sky gave up rain periodically and there was a sizable river nearby. Both sources could be drawn upon in an emergency. However, purer, safer water for drinking, bathing, and scientific work was to be had by extracting it directly from the atmosphere, so it would be better to fix the condenser.

Kneeling on the rooftop, Araza had his repair kit spread out to one side and several dissembled components of the big, boxy condenser unit carefully placed elsewhere, well within reach and where they would not be likely to slide off the roof.

“How it coming?” In a pinch, Boylan could probably have performed the necessary repairs himself. Modern scientific equipment was designed to self-diagnose. Repairs usually involved simple module replacement. But he would have been the first to admit that Araza could do the work better, and faster.

“Same problem as last time,” the tech told him. “This is the second antibacterial third-stage purifier that has failed on us.” His voice was accompanied by a slight reverb since he spoke while his head and upper body were inside the condenser’s protective shell. “I have run checks. The preliminary indication is that the module in question is overpowered. As a temporary fix and until I can run tests on the remaining replacements, I am putting in a bypass via a reduction circuit. This will lower the power to the third-stage purifier while allowing it to continue to function normally.” Scooting backward on hands and knees, he straightened and used a cloth to wipe perspiration from his forehead.

Araza was considerably taller than the captain, slim and muscular as a marathon runner. His shirt and shorts were soaked with sweat. Working on the ground was hot, making repairs on the roof hotter still. There was no breeze this morning.

“How long?” Boylan inquired.

The technician considered. “Five more minutes. Ten at the most.”

“Then we have water?”

The taller man smiled thinly. At times it was impossible to tell what the man was thinking, Boylan knew. Not that he cared. All that mattered was that the tech did the necessary work.

“Then we will have water,” Araza assured him. Kneeling again, he picked up a tool and thrust his torso into the open condenser housing.

Bending over to peer inside, Boylan rested one hand on the lip of the opening. “You know,” he essayed conversationally, “if you’d fixed this right the first time you wouldn’t be stuck up here now, sweating away the morning.”

“The problem could not be anticipated.” Araza spoke while continuing to work, his voice emerging slightly distorted from the depths of the condenser. “It is very uncharacteristic for such simple modules to fail. An official note of complaint to the manufacturer would not be out of order.”

“Record it,” Boylan replied testily. “I’ll second and sign it.” Raising his gaze, he squinted at the sky through his tinted visor. “We just lucky we set up camp in a wet forest and not in a desert.” Shifting his stance, he leaned back against the unit and folded his hands over his belly. “Of course, we set up in desert, then air-con fails, or something similar. Is first unwritten rule of exploration.” He concluded the observation by drawing the sidearm he always wore at his waist. “Another rule is that indigenous life-forms will have no fear of humans or thranx. Like for example, the ones that are having a go at me right now.”

Araza quickly scrambled backward out of the unit. His own weapon lay close at hand among the rest of the tools. As Boylan crouched down nearby, using the square mass of the condenser unit for cover, both men took aim at this latest manifestation of predatory Quofumian wildlife. It was not, the captain reflected as he sighted carefully over the back of his pistol, that the outrageous diversity of native life was atypically hostile. It was simply that with so many life-forms running amuck in the sky and river and forest where they had chosen to set down, a certain proportion were bound to be carnivorous. Carnivores are intrinsically curious. When presented with something entirely new, the only way for them to find out if it is good to eat is to taste it.

Declining to be tasted, he and Araza fired almost simultaneously.

The nearest of the half dozen or so toothy arboreals diving toward the roof of the building flew apart in a shower of alien bone, guts, and what more than anything else resembled an exploded ball of yellow twine. For an instant, a small portion of sky was stained darker than its usual pink. Now missing most of the body to which they had formerly been attached, membranous wings flapped and fluttered to the ground, coming to rest in the circular clearing that had been sheared around the camp’s three interlocking living modules.

The explosive demonstration had a salubrious effect on the rest of the plummeting feral flock. While they had no idea what had caused the sudden disintegration of their leader, collective prudence declared that hovering in the immediate vicinity of the attacking matriarch’s noisy and messy demise might prove unhealthy. Banking sharply, they whirled and fled back toward the trees from which they had emerged.

Rising, a satisfied Boylan walked to the edge of the roof to stare down at the shattered corpse of the aerial predator he had shot. Unraveling on impact, the peculiar cluster of stringy organic material reached halfway from the mangled body to the inner edge of the camp’s charged perimeter. Araza had come up alongside him. Despite his quiet, phlegmatic nature, the technician could be an inadvertently uneasy presence. There were times when he seemed to appear out of nowhere, making not a sound. Haviti had once stated that he didn’t walk—he floated. His tread could be as subdued as his voice.

The captain pointed. “See all that stringlike material? I wonder at its function.”

“Not for me to say.” Nevertheless, a curious Araza leaned forward and looked down to examine the carcass. “Some kind of internal support, perhaps. Sinewy integuments, tendons—N’kosi will know. Or Haviti.”

“Yes, Haviti will know,” Boylan murmured. “Quite a woman, that.”

The tech shrugged his lean shoulders. “Too smart for me. Sometimes when I listen to her it makes my head hurt.”

While he could have continued the chat, Boylan decided not to. In the course of the journey out from the Commonwealth he, like the rest of the team, had learned that pretty much any kind of conversation seemed to make Araza’s head hurt. Though he was not in any way overtly antisocial, the technician managed to make it clear without having to come out and say so that he preferred the company of his tools and manuals to that of other humans. Or thranx, for that matter. This insight upset no one. Boylan also cherished his privacy. And as he had just reiterated, there was little Araza had to contribute to casual conversation among four experienced and knowledgeable researchers.

Anyway, it was not banter Boylan wanted from the team’s technician. It was water.

Araza was as good as his word. Discounting the time he had been forced to pause in his work to help drive off the attacking aerial carnivores, final replacement of the failed filter unit had taken less than ten minutes. It took only a few more to replace the exterior panel on the condenser and secure it in place.

“Finished,” he declared as he began to pack up his tools.

“I hope so.” Boylan grunted. “The perimeter has been solid, but I want to get rest of the lab equipment unpacked and shelled in. Be a nice welcome back for our friends. With all they have seen, they will be wanting to dive right into follow-up studies, I think. It will be nice for them to find all equipment online and functioning when they return.”

“I will get right on it.” Araza started toward the steps he had used to climb up onto the roof. They were embedded in the side of the building. “It is what I was doing when the water pressure went down.”

“Disappeared, you mean. We don’t want it happen again.”

“I think it will be all right now.” As he started down the side of the building, the technician looked back up at him. “I promise. If I have to ask you to help me with the condenser again, I will shoot myself first.”

Boylan was quietly startled. It was the tech’s first attempt to make a joke that the captain could recall. A good sign, certainly. Not that he expected the placidly dour Araza to suddenly metamorphose into the expedition’s comic relief. The very idea was itself amusing. No one, he told himself as he retraced his own steps across the roof while keeping a wary eye out for the return of any winged predators, appreciated the hygienic benefits of shared merriment more than he did. Even if others did tend to say that Nicholai Boylan was apt to confuse disdain with humor. What nonsense! True, he could be stern, but that was only out of concern for the safety of his companions, those whose well-being had been entrusted to his care. There was that old joke about barbarian cream pie, for example, which he felt he told as well as anyone.