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By Root 834 0

the survival of the mutineers as well as the slanted account passed down to their descendants. She wished she could have figured out a way to ask Aygar if his people had encountered the creature that had attacked Kai, and if they knew what could be used to cure him. On the other hand, she now knew that the second camp had been abandoned. She debated the wisdom of continuing to it since it would be unlikely she’d find anything of value to her. Certainly none of the equipment Lunzie needed. Of course, if Kai were not considerably improved, and Varian refused to consider the worst, she had a good reason for approaching Aygar again today. Surely his people must have encountered the leech-creatures and might even have developed an antidote for the toxemia. She could say that another member of her landing party had been attacked—which was true enough anyhow. She grimaced at the comunit on her console and suddenly realized that the device was operative, even if there was nowhere to communicate to. But, Varian told herself cheerfully, there were four other sleds with equally undamaged comunits. They could wake Portegin, have him utilize what matrix slabs were necessary from one or two of the sleds and repair the shuttle’s smashed unit, at least for intership communications. That would give them two, maybe three sleds available for use. It might not be enough to reach a passing EEC ship outside the stellar system, but certainly they’d be able to reach the Thek again. Or the Ryxi.

Varian grimaced at the thought of having to appeal for help to the Ryxi: how they would flaunt that news about! More vital, she didn’t want the Ryxi to know more about the giffs than they already did.

Kai had to recover. After the mutiny of the six heavyworlders, their situation had been difficult at best, desperate at the worst. They had emerged from cold sleep in a very much improved position, despite Kai’s injury. The mutineers had had their own problems on Ireta, and Varian felt that her initial contact with the younger generation had established a position of undeniable superiority. Or had she? Something about Aygar’s manner toward the end of their encounter bothered her. That’s why she had instinctively invented a “contact” with a “base.”

She could feel the laxness of her muscles as Discipline eased. She ate the rest of the fruit, inadequate though it was to replenish her energies. Why hadn’t she thought to take a pepper with her, she wondered peevishly. Probably, she amended her own forgetfulness, because the last peppers had been used to overcome delayed shock after escaping the stampede of the herbivores.

She smiled as she recalled Aygar’s legend of that incident. Did he know how silly it was for six people to be deliberately abandoned to form a colony? He didn’t know the first thing about genetics. Well, yes, he must if he’d mentioned breeding.

It was fatigue more than curiosity that made Varian decide to continue on to the old camp. She’d be safe there and able to snatch an hour’s sleep before the return journey. She was so nearly there anyhow, she might just as well have a look.

4

THE rain, combined with a dismal heat mist, made the site more desolate than she remembered it. She’d spotted a stand of fruit trees on the final leg of her journey and, hovering the sled, had picked the upper branches free of succulent ripe yellow globes. Consequently she felt less weary when she glided the sled to land on the square of the old secondary camp. And it did look ancient.

The original dome, which would have been comfortable for two people, was missing but the space it had occupied was an ovoid barren of all growth in the center of an octagon of long stone buildings. Tiny plants now grew in cavities where windblown dirt had accumulated. The buildings had been so well built that Varian wondered why the mutineers had moved. Of course, just then the rain kept the insects away, but there would be a superb panorama of the surrounding plains, not that she supposed the heavy-worlders had indulged themselves that way. Most of the visible buttes supported