Expendable - James Alan Gardner [36]
I powered my throat transceiver to maximum strength. “Jacaranda, do you read?”
“Loud and clear, Explorer,” Harque answered, with just the faintest tone of insolence.
“Christ, I love that ride!” Chee’s voice said over the cornset.
I looked around. A few meters away, Chee lay spreadeagled face-down in the grass. He made no effort to get up, but his feet kicked enthusiastically like a gleeful child. Good—no damage to his spinal cord. “Jacaranda,” I said over the radio, “the Drop was successful. Proceed to record.”
“Roger. Recording.”
Idly, I wondered if Harque was lying; but I had stopped caring. I would do my job, I would make my reports, and I would be professional to the very end.
Formally, I announced, “Explorer First Class Festina Ramos, TSS Jacaranda, reporting initial survey of Melaquin, AOR. 72061721, Inter-date 2452/9/23. Other party members: Explorer Second Class Yarrun Derigha and Admiral Chee. Any comments for the record, Admiral?”
“The High Council of Admirals can kiss my—”
“Thank you, Admiral. On a more immediate note, Melaquin appears to be an extremely Earthlike planet with local weather and flora similar to the temperate zone of New Earth…the Lake District of Novatario, I’d say. Thick grass growing calf-to knee-height. Wildflowers highly reminiscent of daisies and black-eyed Susans. About a hundred meters away, this meadow falls off into a ravine with deciduous trees on its side. And in the opposite direction, we have bluffs descending to a sizable freshwater lake.
“There is a good deal of insect activity apparent here: I can see several on the wildflowers around me. They are highly reminiscent of terrestrial bees.” In fact, they were exactly like terrestrial bees, big fuzzy bumblebees in yellow and black…the kind we all ran from as children, even though adults told us not to make sudden moves. “I can also see three butterflies not too far away. Two are a greenish-white, wingspan about three centimeters; the other is highly reminiscent of a Monarch butterfly.”
It was a Monarch butterfly. Orange and black, landing on a milkweed plant whose pods spilled creamy floating seeds.
“In short,” I said aloud, “one’s immediate impression of local flora and fauna is that they are visual duplicates of Earth species. Do you concur, Admiral Chee?”
“The High Council commits unnatural acts with poodles.”
“Duly noted, Admiral. Thank you.”
The Bumbler
“Bumbler operational,” Yarrun said with exaggerated diction. (He was always self-conscious about having his voice recorded. A typical exploration report from the two of us consisted of a steady stream of blather from me, with infrequent one or two-word interjections from Yarrun.)
The Bumbler—officially our “Portable Wide Spectrum Amplification and Analysis Datascope” but only called that by quartermasters—was a hand-held scanning device about the size and shape of a flat-topped coffee pot. It served two functions:
A. Its screen could be tuned to display any range of the electromagnetic spectrum in a visible form…handy if you wanted to check the neighborhood for the IR glow of warm-blooded fauna, or take an X-ray shot of some animal specimen’s skeleton.
B. The machine was constantly analyzing incoming data for hints suggesting the approach of hostile lifeforms.
The Bumbler broadcast an alarm if it detected anything moving toward us. It had saved my life at least twice, and I was grateful; I was not, however, overwhelmed with the Bumbler’s acumen. It was a kindly little machine that meant well in its bumbling way, but it was not as bright as one might hope—it took so long to do a risk analysis that the alarm sometimes went off after the first attack.
Surveying
“Infrared scanning,” Yarrun said, turning a careful circle with the Bumbler in front of him. “Cat-sized creature,” he said, suddenly pointing off to my right; but almost immediately, he lowered his hand and muttered, “Went down a hole.”
“Another rabbit?” Chee asked. He was sitting up now, working at the release catches of his helmet.
Yarrun didn’t answer. He completed his