The Mystery of Ireta_ Dinosaur Planet & Dinosaur Planet Survivors - Anne McCaffrey [129]
“How could they spot that we’re in trouble?” Triv cried, straining backward in his seat, his eyes glued on the water rushing to meet them.
Out of the corner of her eye, Varian caught a flash of thick, suckered tentacle, felt it bang against the sled’s rear flange. Then the giffs attacked the appendage, their sharp beaks slicing into the flesh until it fell away.
“By the First Disciple, that was too ruddy close,” Triv exclaimed as Varian fought for an upward air passage. They had skimmed the surface of the sea itself.
Circling up and back toward the cliffs at a safer height, they looked down. The tentacled monster, propelling itself after the vague shadow cast by the sled, writhed as the giffs continued to dive until it was forced to submerge.
“I think I better rig some sort of wind indicator at the mouth of the cave,” Triv said, more to himself than to her. “If it hadn’t been for those giffs . . .”
Varian, aware that she was trembling from reaction, heartily endorsed Triv’s idea of a wind indicator. Then they were above the cliffs and suddenly drenched by the torrential rains that had accompanied the treacherous wind squall.
The rains had passed by the time they had reached the first compound. The sun was having its noontime look. Steam rose from drying foliage, which encouraged the myriad biting, sucking, buzzing insects to swarm about the sled as Varian made her landing. Triv was silent beside her, but it wasn’t until they were down that she realized why.
“It seems only yesterday . . .” he said in a low voice, staring about the deserted natural amphitheater. His gaze went from the spot where the main dome had been, to Gaber’s cartography unit, to where the mutineers’ accommodations had been. Then his lips thinned and his eyes hardened.
“The here-and-now is more important, Triv,” Varian said.
Because she had the belt, Varian insisted that Triv stay in the safety of the canopied sled while she attacked the vegetation that covered the remaining sleds. She found the stick Kai must have used, its point dug deep into the soft loam. She flailed away at colonies of slugs, worms, and multilegged insects which had made burrows between the sleds: a miniecology that at another time she would have enjoyed examining. When she had the worst of the vegetation cleared, Triv emerged. It took their combined efforts and much sweaty heaving to lift the sleds free of a dirt that had a consistency of hardened adhesive. But then, the sleds had been settled deeply on their edges for over four decades.
“I can’t see any breaks in the substructure,” Triv said, running knowledgable hands along the side panels.
“This model sled’s come out operational from worse battering, not to mention the slime sand on Tenebris V,” Varian said, settling herself at the control console of the four-man sled. “Now, for the tricky part.” Turning off the forcebelt, she wet her finger to test the prevailing wind. “You stand well to my right and move when the wind shifts. The purple mold’ll bubble up like Divisti’s moss tea.” She retrieved another feather from her breast pocket and saluted Triv with it before she reactivated her forcebelt. “Don’t let this stuff touch you, even if it gets me,” she added as she used Portegin’s seal breaker along the line.
She strained her body away from the console as the mold boiled from its prison. Varian kept the panel in front of her face as the light winds dispersed the frothy fungi. She prodded with her feather at clumps momentarily caught on the lip of the unit. When she was sure that the worst had been blown away, she began to clear the delicate matrix panels, tickling the corners where fungi might hide, and slipping the tip of her feather in and under, back and forth into every part of the console.