Expendable - James Alan Gardner [72]
“Oar,” I said, “can you please walk along the bank and see if there are any rocks sticking out of the dirt? I’m looking for rocks with edges…not smooth like these pebbles.”
“What shall I do if I find one?”
“Bring it to me.”
She looked at me dubiously. “You want me to touch dirty rocks, Festina? That is not very nice.”
“You can wash your hands after—the creek’s right there.”
“Is the creek water clean?”
“Clean enough,” I said, stretching a point. It was actually a bit muddy, thanks to silt washed down by the previous day’s rain. No doubt, it also contained the usual disease-causing microbes one finds in untreated water: typhoid perhaps, and a cornucopia of viruses for intestinal flu. However, Oar had little to worry about—along with the other improvements in her body, she probably had a nigh-impregnable immune system. Why not? Her designers had built in everything else.
I envied her for that. Since the start of our trip, I’d carefully purified the water we drank, boiling it on the campfire and filling enough canteens to last us through the next day. I also had water purification tablets if the canteens ran dry, but I preferred to use those sparingly, since I could never replenish my supply. Still, I worried about infection. If this planet really was a duplicate of Earth from millennia ago, it might have smallpox, diphtheria, pneumonic plague: famous diseases, extinct in the rest of the galaxy, but possibly still thriving here on Melaquin.
Maybe Oar was right to worry about getting dirty.
With the air of a woman who hopes she doesn’t find anything, Oar started walking slowly along the water’s edge. I turned my attention to the gravel flat and began to dig down. Sure enough, the stones were not so eroded a few centimeters below the top surface. I was just beginning to examine them for fossil evidence when the Bumbler’s alarm went off.
EM Anomaly
I did my programmed roll-and-tuck, having the good fortune to dive in the direction of the Bumbler rather than throwing myself into the nearby creek. With fists ready for trouble, I kicked the Bumbler’s SHUT-UP switch and scanned the area.
I saw no threat, but standing on the creek-bed, I was three meters lower than the main level of the prairie. Anything could be up there, lurking just out of sight.
Not far away, Oar opened her mouth to say something. I held up a hand and held my finger to my lips. She closed her mouth and looked around warily.
Think, I told myself. What could the Bumbler detect from here? It might be a false alarm—Bumblers did make mistakes—but Explorers who dismissed such warnings soon had their names entered on the Academy’s Memory Wall.
Maybe the Bumbler had suddenly decided to complain about Oar again: unknown organism, help, help. Still, I had programmed the machine’s tiny brain to accept her as a friend; her presence hadn’t bothered it for days. Best to assume the problem was something else…something I couldn’t see.
What could the Bumbler detect that I couldn’t? It had a small capacity for peering through the creek banks, but not well—its passive X-ray scans could only penetrate ten to fifteen centimeters of dirt. Naturally, it could see farther if something was emitting large quantities of X-rays…or radio waves….
Radio. Someone nearby might have transmitted a radio message. Quickly, I backtracked the Bumbler’s short term memory and looked at the radio bands. Yes: it had picked up a coherent short-wave signal lasting only fifteen seconds. Did that mean an Explorer in the neighborhood? Or someone else?
Silently, I turned to Oar and pointed to the creek. Without waiting to see if she understood, I hefted up the Bumbler and headed for the water. We could hide there, just to be on the safe side—the middle of the creek was deep enough to be over our heads. My pack had a tiny scuba rebreather, only two minutes of air, but enough to stay submerged in an emergency. I’d give that to Oar; for myself, I’d have to make do with….
Shit. I’d have to snorkel with the same esophageal airway I’d used on Yarrun.
The Peeper
After whispered instructions