• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Lunzie snorted. “Typical xenob training. You can’t help it, but you can learn from mistakes!”

Kai began to thresh in earnest, loosening the cocoon they had wrapped about him.

“Sap time!” Lunzie said, reaching for the leaves. “This medication is effective for an hour and a half. I wish I knew if there were side effects to prolonged application. I wish I had something to work with . . .” Lunzie’s tone was fierce but her hands were gentle in their ministrations.

“What do you need?” Varian asked quietly.

“The small microscope plus the metal medicine container that Tanegli made off with!”

“I know the console was blinking its red head off, but none of the warning lights was steady,” Varian said. “I’ll take a look tomorrow. Portegin had enough tools to make that homing beacon, and I’m a fair mechanic when pushed. A few matrices may just have loosened in that hard landing. I remember the coordinates of all the camps . . . as if it were yesterday. . . .” Varian caught Lunzie’s eyes and laughed. Lunzie’s gaze was cynical. “Well, the last thing the heavyworlders would be expecting is a raid by one of us.”

“Do the bastards good to get shaken out of their sagging skins,” the physician said. “If any of the original ones are still alive.”

“A bit daunting to think they might all be safely in their graves, or whatever they do,” said Triv, “and us alive and kicking.”

“You get used to it,” Lunzie said sourly.

“What?” asked Varian. “The kicking or still being alive when everyone else you know has long since been dead?” With those words Varian faced that possibility for the first time since she had awakened.

“Both,” was Lunzie’s cryptic reply.

“I’ll have a go at fixing the sled first light tomorrow.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Triv said.

“Then you,” and Lunzie pointed at Triv, “can take first watch with Kai tonight.” She was wringing out another cloth to place on Kai’s forehead. “I’m tired.”

Varian gave the physician a searching look. Yes, Lunzie was tired of many things. Tired, resigned, but not defeated.

“Wake me for the next watch, Triv.” Varian hauled the thermal blanket over her shoulders and was asleep almost before she could pillow her head on her arm.

Varian woke Lunzie at first light when Kai’s temperature began to rise.

“That’s the way of fevers,” Lunzie told her, checking her patient. “Some of the punctures are completely closed. That’s good.” Lunzie offered Kai juice which he thirstily gulped. “That’s good, too.”

Varian went over to Triv and was about to wake him when Lunzie intervened.

“Can you manage without him? He needs more rest than he’ll let on.”

“I’ll call if I need help, then.” Varian equipped herself with Portegin’s few tools and shinnied up the vine to the cliff top.

First she had to empty the sled of the rainwater that had accumulated even in the brief time the canopy had been opened. That gave her a chance to examine the undercarriage. Although there were a few scratches from Kai’s rough landing, there were no fracture lines on the ceramic. As she righted the sled, she noticed several small feathers. She picked them up, smoothed them and held them out to the fresh dawn breeze to dry. They couldn’t be from giffs, which were furred, and once dry enough to show color, they were a greenish blue. The downy portion fluffed while the top of the quills remained rigid, too thick with oil to have suffered damage from their immersion. Carefully putting them in a breast pocket, Varian turned to the business at hand.

She switched on the power, and the blinking lights reappeared. The fault might be just in the console panel, Varian thought, for despite her confident claim to Lunzie, she wasn’t a trained mechanic. If the sled’s malfunction involved circuit or matrix adjustments, she would be unable to cope. Then they would have to wake Portegin. But the units were built to withstand a good deal of rough usage as well as long periods of idleness, stored in the Exploratory Vessel, so they had been designed to survive under just the circumstances that then prevailed.

Fortunately the wind was blowing over her right