Expendable - James Alan Gardner [37]
“Then we’ll begin standard sampling,” I told him. I reached into my own backpack. On top of everything else lay my stunner, and I slid it into my hip holster. In entertainment bubbles, donning a weapon is always a portentous affair; but that’s because in entertainment bubbles, weapons have a more tangible chance of stopping whatever is trying to kill you. In my case, I was only moving the stunner out of my backpack because it lay in the way of the plastic bags we used to hold samples.
Yarrun traditionally took plant samples while I dug up packets of soil. I wasn’t particularly interested in dirt, but I had sat through four soil analysis electives at the Academy because geology was one of Jelca’s majors.
My own major was zoology. It meant that whenever we shot an animal, Yarrun made me decide what to do with the carcass.
“Ahhhh!” Chee sighed, inhaling deeply as he removed his helmet. The sight of him, naked to the planet’s microbes, filled me with envy and anger…like the time when I was a teenager, and watched girls with normal faces go skinny-dipping as if it were the height of erotic sophistication. I knew it wasn’t, and I knew it was.
“It smells wonderful out here!” Chee cried in delight.
“Could you please describe the smell, sir?”
“It smells real. Grass. Air that hasn’t been through anyone else’s lungs. Glorious.”
“And you feel well?”
“Better than I have in months.” He arched his back in a happy stretch. “Forget the damned samples, Ramos. Let’s go for a walk.”
“Begging the admiral’s pardon,” I replied, “but we are conducting a survey mission here.”
“You’re conducting an execution, Ramos. The survey is nothing but horseshit.”
“Any information we gather may assist other parties who land here,” I insisted. “No Explorer is an island.”
“Don’t give me that John Donne crap,” Chee grumbled. “Do you know what he said about Shakespeare?” Turning his back on me, the admiral headed in the direction of the lake, taking ostentatiously deep breaths.
“Admiral,” I called out, “please don’t wander off. You don’t understand how risky—”
“I understand fine! I’m just going to look at the water.”
I considered tackling him. Or shooting him. But the edge of the bluffs really wasn’t far for him to wander. If our goal was to use him as bait for whatever danger lurked on Melaquin, I had to give him his lead.
It took real effort to watch him walk away from me. Explorers don’t let go easily.
The Worm
The first soil sample I took contained an earthworm. Technically speaking, I suppose it was a Melaquinworm, but it looked like an earthworm to me: brown, annelid, roughly ten centimeters long, with the familiar thick clitellum band partway along its body.
“Greetings,” I said to it, feeling ridiculous. “I am a sentient citizen of the League of Peoples. I beg your Hospitality.”
“Find something?” Yarrun called.
“A worm,” I told him.
“You’re talking to a worm?” Chee cackled over the cornset.
“I am talking to an alien lifeform that may prove to be sentient. Don’t be so narrow-minded!”
“I bet it’s just a worm.”
Almost certainly, Chee was right. On the other hand, you never know when you might be scoring goodwill points with the League. They supposedly keep constant watch on all human activities.
I let the worm crawl for a moment, then nudged a stone into its path. It bumped its nose into the stone and seemed confused.
Proof enough for me. It was stupid; it was just a worm.
I shot it with my stunner and put it in a plastic bag.
The Bird
As Chee walked toward the cliff, a bird suddenly dashed out of the grass near his feet with a great panicked chirping. Yarrun and I both drew stunners and aimed. But the bird simply scuttled several meters away and made no gestures we could interpret as a threat.
In fact, it ran clumsily, one wing drooping.
“I didn’t touch it!” Chee said with aggrieved innocence.
“I’m sure you didn’t,” I told him. “Stay where you are, please.”
Carefully, I walked toward Chee. The bird flopped about, squawking loudly.
“What’s wrong with it?” Chee asks.