Tau Ceti (an Ell Donsaii story #6) (24 page)

The
AI
was
stabiliz
i
ng the video image
,
but
it didn’t have great detail
because of the slight blurring of each image caused by Goldy’s movements. So Norris
had to wait until they got pretty close to be sure it
actually
was a huge cave
. It had a
large ledge out in front of it
. Once Goldy and Silver entered
the cavern
they went to
a recess
and unloaded the
two
ropes in an area that had a lot of other supplies
. More ropes
, wooden shafts, chunks of rock
that
Norris
thought might be flint, baskets, pottery and
many
other objects that Norris didn’t recognize
were stacked in there
. Goldy leaned the rocket up against a large stack of what Norris determined
must
be firewood when Silver took several pieces to a blackened area and
began
start
ing
a fire with them.

The position of the rocket let Norris see much of the cave
,
though he suspected that it went
far
back into the mountain darkness where he couldn’t see. So perhaps he was only seeing the entrance? Though he wondered if the
Teecees
mostly live
d
out here where there was
plenty of
light.

While he surveyed the space
and saw the Teecees walking back and forth in it,
he became more and more astonished at the size of the space. It was huge! It seemed much bigger than he would have thought would be reasonable for two beings like Goldy and Silver to live in, yet the way they moved about in it bespoke familiarity. Just the amounts of the supplies stacked near the rocket seemed like the stores of a community, not a couple. Yet if this was the living space of a community, where were the people? Or where were the
Teecees
, to be more accurate? Were they all out hunting, or farming, or something like that, to return just before sunset? Had something happened to the community with Goldy and Silver the only survivors?

Goldy flew off out of the cave. Silver propped a large flat rock up on edge next to
the
fire and backed away from the fire to begin preparing a flyer it had been carrying. After Silver skinned the flyer and skewered pieces of it on a stick, it propped the stick over the fire,
then
went back into the storage area. It came back out with a
paddle shaped
stick, a large urn and a small pot. It poured something powdery out of the urn into the little pot, then dribbled some water into the pot
from
the
water
skin it carried. Using the stick it stirred the little pot, then took the urn back into the storage area. That done, Silver turned the spit over the fire and went to stand in the shade near the lip of the cave, staring out over the valley below with wings slightly spread. Norris got the impression that Silver was hot.

After a bit Silver went back to the fire and, wings folded behind it as if to keep the heat off them, flipped the big flat rock on its back with the hot side up. Silver poured pasty whitish material out of the pot onto the hot rock
, spreading it with the paddle stick.
Silver
again
went to stand, wings partially spread, in the shade near the lip
of the cave
.

After a while Goldy returned with no indication of where it’d gone and the
Teecees
ate the flyer and what appeared to be
flat
cakes
that had formed
from the paste Silver had put on the hot rock. They spent the remaining time until sunset looking through the storage area, bringing stuff out and making a pile. Then putting some things back. Norris had the impression that they were arguing about what to put on the pile at several points. If only
he
could hear!

***

Kant
Fladwami
walked into his meeting with President Flood. Several of the President’s other advisers were already there. The President turned, “
Kant
, I’ve got a lot of people
riding
my ass about this new run of bad weather! Is there any basis for their claims that we need to reduce CO
2
emissions
even further
?”

Fladwami
shrugged, “I’m your science adviser
,
but global warming isn’t one of my own areas of expertise. However, I’ve been talking to some people I trust
who
are
e
xperts. T
hey tell me that we should be concerned. Since
they
found all
th
at
cheap natural gas in the States there hasn’t been much reason to move to non
-
CO
2
producing energy sources because gas is so cheap.
Governmental
pressure on manufacturers and power plants to reduce output has helped
,
but hasn’t kept up with
the
increased
usage of
the cheap energy. When you burn a lot of gas, you’re going to create a lot of CO
2
and there’s a limit to how much of it you can sequester. Donsaii’s little ports that let cars get power directly from the pow
er company should help though. Not only are the power plants more efficient, c
ars that burn hydrocarbons don’t sequester
any
of the CO
2
they make like the power companies do. As we move away from those kinds of cars we’ll do better.”

“How much better?”

Fladwami
shrugged, “Not a whole lot, but better than nothing. We’ll also be moving away from batteries in the electric cars, the manufacture of those batteries is hydrocarbon intens
iv
e.”

The President
sighed
, “I still kind of think it’s all a load of crap
,
but I’ve got a lot of hand wringers, here and abroad, that want us to do better.” He looked up at the ceiling a moment, “I hate bowing to pressure.” He
bowed his head
, “Nonetheless, I’d like to be able to tell them we’re going to do something substantive. Any ideas?”

“We could start taxing hydrocarbon burning cars to push them off the street
s
. We could increase the tax on the power plants for unsequestered CO
2
production to push them to do better. We could also push farmers to
do
better with methane reclamation from manure to decrease the methane released
;
it’s a worse greenhouse gas than CO
2
.”

The Secretary of Defense leaned forward, “When Amundsen briefed me into this job he gave me one, I thought odd, piece of advice that might apply…”

“What?”

“‘If you’ve got a problem you can’t solve,’ he said, ‘try calling Donsaii.’ Came to mind just now since you guys were already taking her name in vain.”

The Secretary of Agriculture barked a laugh. “Come on guys, the girl’s pretty and smart and her ‘ports’ are pretty neat tech, but she isn’t going to have a solution to this! What do you think she’s gonna do,
install a port in each cow
to vent flatus into space?”

Several people in the room looked at each other, then a laugh broke out. “You might be onto something there Harvey,”
Fladwami
said, “th
ough we’d have to run numbers. But i
t might not be a good idea to vent stuff out into space where we can’t get it back if we need it someday. CO
2
 
has a lot of O
2
 
i
n it, you know.”

Flood sighed,
“
Kant
, ask Donsaii if she’s got any ideas,”
he
said, “Teller told me that he wished he’d talked to her more. Now, on
to our agenda…”

At the Tuesday morning “team
Teecee
” meeting
,
as Ell was calling it, Wheat and Norris attended remotely. Ell said, “Any new developments with Goldy and Silver?”

“Nope, since they packed up and left the big cave Sunday morning they’ve just been climbing
on up
the big mountain. They’re carrying a lot of supplies and look pretty tired. You know Norris had the idea that Silver was hot during his Saturday night observation. I graphed out the temperatures recorded since the rocket landed. They
have
been
quite a bit
higher the past few days than when it first
set
down.”

Wheat broke in, “I surveyed the
Teecees
behavior when the temps are up late in the day and they do tend to lift their wings as if they might be pumping blood through them and using them as cooling radiators.”

Roger said,
“I’ve looked over the orbit. Not only is this the time of the year that the southern hemisphere tilts toward Tau Ceti, but it is also closer to the star this time of year. I think they are going into a pretty hot summer. I’ll bet they’re climbing the mountain to get out of the heat.”

“Maybe the rest of their group or tribe is already up there?”

Wheat said, “I’m worried because it doesn’t look like they’re getting much to eat while they’re on the move. They’ve been eating those cakes they
cook
from the powder they picked up at the cave
,
but my impression is they aren’t happy about it.”

Emma leaned forward to
eye
Manuel, “Maybe our resident artist could draw them some diagrams of a bow and arrow to help them hunt on the move?”

Wheat shook his head, “Bow and arrow is actually pretty sophisticated tech. You need springy wood for the bow and straight shafts for the arrows.” He wiggled his eyebrows, “And feathers for guidance, remember there don’t seem to be any birds
on TC3
.”

“Maybe they could use some stiff leaves?”

“Getting that across in a drawing could be pretty difficult.
Remember their literal use of vines instead of their own
ropes when we helped them climb?
If we drew a leaf that was poorly suited, they might use it anyway.
Anyway, even after you’ve built your bow and arrow, learning to shoot accurately is no trivial task. They already know how to make snares. What I can’t figure out is why they don’t set snares out at night. There ought to be a pretty good chance of catching some nocturnal animals. Goldy put two out the first afternoon in that clearing
and caught a burrower at night
.”

“Those two depended on springy saplings and there aren’t many of them in the
shade of the
forest. The one clearing they overnighted in
recently
didn’t seem to have any saplings
in
it
. It w
as
probably cleared by
a recent burn
.”

Wheat said, “Well we
could
draw them some snares that don’t depend on sprung saplings.”

Manuel said, “Help me pick out some snare picture
off the inter
net, ones you think would work
on TC3.
I’ll redraw them for the laser.”

Wilson said, “It may be a while before we have a nice place like a cliff wall to project your pictures though.”

Emma leaned forward and raised an eyebrow, looking around, “
I’ve
got some news…”

As the pause extended, Ell narrowed her eyes “Are you trying to make us drag it out of you?”

Emma drew back putting up her hands, “No! No. Me um tell you right now
Bosslady!” She wrinkled her nose and grinned, “Well,
I’ll
let you listen.” Odd sounds issued from the room’s sound system, squeaks, swishes, thumps. Seeing the furrowed brows around her Emma pointed at the screens showing Silver walking up the mountain in front of Goldy and the rocket’s cameras. Suddenly they recognized the synchronization of soft padding sound with Silver’s stride. A fl
i
ttering sound was one of the small flyers going by.

“You got the laser acoustic pickup going!”

“Yup.” Emma sat back and grinned.