Tau Ceti (an Ell Donsaii story #6) (32 page)

Tears trickled down Ell’s cheeks during the ride back home. Recognizing that many men would be intimidated by her success
,
she had been thinking of
Gordon
as
someone
so
successful
that he
wouldn’t be affected that way.

He’d seemed like someone
she could love but…
not any more. Would she ever find someone? Someone not just chasing her for her fame or money? Someone undaunted by her fame? Someone who loved her for herself, unaffected by her
fame and
reputation?

***

Dex woke hungry. Hie and Syrdian had collected and eaten a few edible plants
the night before
,
but plants alone would not sustain them. Hie climbed up the bank to where the meteor stood. Again hie wondered why Syrdian had put it up there.
Though h
ie liked the thought of it up there
,
watching
over them at night.

Hie looked out over the clearing, the zornits were nearby, grazing. Hie looked at them speculatively. Even a little one would feed Syrdian and himself for
hands of
days
. B
ut
dalins usually hunted large animals by dropping onto them with knives.
Zornits were awfully big for that method.
Dex
’d never heard of anyone hunting
zornits
by any
means
except
driving
them over cliffs
. That was difficult because
they were said to be
pretty
wary
of a precipice
and cliffs that were tall enough weren’t very common
.
Trying to attack
a zornit
with a knife could get you killed.
A zornit’s
dorsal limbs were
somewhat
dangerous, the zornits used them to drive away small flyers, but
even
if you
braved the dorsal limbs
and
did land
on a zornit’s back it would promptly roll. This forced you to either lift back off or be crushed.
Hie didn’t think the steep bank at the edge of the stream would
hurt a
zornit, even if hie did manage to drive them over
it somehow
.

Dex
shrugged hies wings and
flew out to check the snares
hie
’d set the night before.

Syrdian looked up at the sound of Dex
returning
. His wing beats sounded… happier, more alive. Sure enough
when
hie
coasted down over the bank and dropped in beside the cave
hie
had hies hands full of small game. They would eat well this morning at least.
Syrdian
excitedly cast arms and wings around Dex, “Thank you! I’m so hungry!”

Dex, very happy to have Syrdian’s arms around himr, said, “Me too! Let’s hope the snares keep working this well.”

“Did you do something different?”

“Yes, you inspired me when you said you thought you’d caught all the swimmers in such a small stream. I realized that the snares might have caught all the animals that used
the
path
s I had them on
and I should move them to different paths. Thank you.”

“Thank
you
,” Syrdian said, taking Dex’s catch.

***

Ell sat down at their weekly TC3 meeting. Everyone else had
already
arrived though their three professors were all attending remotely. “Sorry I’m late. Who’s got something interesting to tell us?”

Emma said, “Our new rocket will arrive tonight. We flew the old one up to the bank above the
Teecee’s
cave while they were gone yesterday and they didn’t seem
to be
upset
by it
. I’m h
oping to fly the new one down
to the bank
and the old one out of there while they’re out hunting tomorrow. The new one looks very much like the old one except it’s about a half inch bigger around and three inches longer so we’re hoping they’ll just think it grew a little. Once we’ve made the swap, Professor Norris can fly the old one around, surveying the planet
like he’s been wanting
.”

Wheat interjected, “Promise me you’ll fly it south first to confirm whether
or not
there are
Teecees
down there that could have migrated from Goldy’s
cave
area.”

Norris smiled, “Yeah, yeah, we can check out a few of your biologic questions before we move on to the important stuff
like
analyzing the planet itself.”

Wheat said, “And we need more specimens tested for DNA. One sample could have been contaminated by some DNA from earth in the chamber.”

Emma and Manuel protested, “We cleaned that…”

Wheat put a hand up, “
Yes, yes
, I’m sure you did, but we can’t publish without repeating the test.”

Ell said, “I hope you’re not planning to publish right away.”

“No,
no,
” he waved dismissively, “but, someday
…

“Also, I’ve got to say that
I’m worried
about Goldy and Silver
. I don’t think they’re getting enough to eat. I’m pretty sure they have n
o experience with living in the
area
with its higher altitude and different flora and fauna. I suspect that normally they get most of their food by hunting from the air. We
’ve seen Goldy stoop on burrowers
a few times
. But Silver can’t fly at all and Goldy isn’t flying a lot. When the rocket
is
in a position to see Goldy fly
,
it looks like it’s a bit of a struggle getting into the air. They’ve been fishing in the stream and did well for a while
,
but I think they may have overfished such a small stream
because Silver hasn’t been bringing
in
much lately.”

“Is there anything we could do to help?”

“Should we be interfering in the natural course of events on another planet?”
Several of the group looked at Emma when she asked this and shrugged
,
but no one entered
into
a debate on the question.

Manuel said, “We could teach them how to make an Ojibwa bird snare with a few drawings.”

“What’s that?”

Manuel said, “It’s a pretty
simple
little trap
to catch
birds.
I’ve already made drawings.” He scrolled through them on the screen
. “I don’t see why
that snare
wouldn’t catch the flyers they have there just as easily
as it does
birds on
earth
.”

Norris said, “
Good idea. Another
thing that’s been bugging me is their
staves. They have those pointed staves
they’ve been carrying and holding
kind of like they were
spears
,
but I’ve never seen them use them except to
whack things with the sides of them.”

“When that big animal looked like it would attack
,
they did
hold them
point out
when they were preparing to defend themselves.”

Roger frowned, “I wouldn’t think they would make very good weapons. It’s har
d
to imagine getting
a
relatively blunt
wooden
point to penetrate much
,
even if they’ve heat treated them
.”

“
Agreed
,” Norris said, “but they have flint knives. Why haven’t they hafted some flint points onto those shafts?”

Emma said, “Last night, during my watch period, Silver broke a big lump of rock that I think was flint into some smaller chunks and seemed to be flaking them as if trying to make some more knives.”

Wilson said, “I’ve looked
into this
a little. Flint is usually found in limestone and
here on
E
arth
limestone is typically the remnants of coral and other marine organisms.
So, on another planet, with different life forms, there may not be coral, therefore no limestone, and therefore no flint?”

The group looked at
Wheat
. He shrugged, “Look around. It’s a different planet, but the life is DNA based and there are tree analogues, grass analogues, bird analogues and fish analogues. I’ll bet when we get to the sea we’ll find coral analogues, or
something
that builds
underwater structures
out of carbonates anyway. Most caves here on
E
arth
occur
in limestone and you’ll notice we’ve encountered some caves.

Manuel tilted his head, “So
, do
you think if I drew them pictures of a hafted spear that they might be able to take down one of those large grazers in the meadow?”

Wheat shrugged, “Seems like it would be a lot safer
for them
than it was for our ancestors. Goldy can just fly over
a grazer
and plunge
a
spear into it. He, excuse me,
‘
it
’
doesn’t have to worry about being
run down by an angry bull
that survives the attack
. If
his
attack fails he just flies on by.”

Manuel said,
“
Looks
like I’ve got some more drawing
s
to
make
.”

Ell looked over at Kira Piscova. “Any luck with translation Dr. Piscova?”

Kira tossed her hands up gently, “This is
very
difficult. All the languages we use here have breaks to define words but my impression is that the only breaks in the sounds they make may signify what to us would be
‘
sentences
.
’
They seem to emit several frequencies at the same time
,
as if they have several different sets of vocal cords, or vocal cord analogues. Right now I’m testing the theory that pitch shifts act kind of like letters in our words, that
they use another high or low tone as a modifier of
the word. That high end AI you’v
e len
t
me is helping a lot. I’ve identified a few sound clips that I think I know the meaning of, at least when spoken by Goldy. This is Silver’s name,” a tweedle played over the speakers, “and this is ‘fire,’” another tweedle, “and this is ‘fish,’” a third tweedle played. Of course I’m not even sure if I’m right
about those particular sounds
.” She sighed, “I’ve got a long way to go. Will you allow me to
‘
speak to them
’
through the speaker on the new rocket?”

Ell said, “Sure, once you’re pretty confident we won’t
be
say
ing
something
that offends
them.”

***

Dex climbed up to the bank above the cave and retrieved
hies
meteorite, bringing it back down into the
front of the
cave.
It felt great to have a full stomach. Hie set the meteorite on its legs just inside the opening of the cave, then crouched comfortably to ponder it. Hie wondered if it would ever give himr more instructions.
If only I could ask it questions!

Suddenly a hissing sound came from it and it moved, turning part way around. Dex saw a red spot appear and when hie turned to look at the wall of the cave hie saw a drawing of a dalin cutting a point onto one end of
a
pole. The dalin pounded it into the ground with a rock. It cut a point into the top
end
and bored a
transverse
hole through
it below
the
top
. Next the dalin took a smaller stick and trimmed it
so the base of it
fit into the hole
in the pole
. A noose
was made
from fiberlin
with a knot tied in
the
string above the knot. The string went through the hole in the pole and then the stick was fitted in to jam the string
with the
knot
just above
the hole. The tail of the string was tied around the rock
that had been used to pound the stick into the ground. A
noose
from the top end of the string
was draped over the horizontal stick
. The dalin left.