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Portegin kept shaking his head. “Bakkun was a good all-round engineer, but even with all the matrices I’ve got, I couldn’t make that sort of a scan system, not planetwide, and that’s what they’d need.”

“So,” Kai said in summation, “they waited to be sure ARCT wasn’t making the scheduled pick-up. They also waited until they could be reasonably certain our distress signal was unheard and then too weak. Then they sent the homing capsule to one of the heavy-world colonies inviting settlers and technicians.”

“And if a colony ship, large enough to transport enough people and supplies, is to make the journey profitable, they’d have to build a landing grid,” Triv exclaimed.

“Which explains why they left the very good settlement they had in the secondary camp,” Varian cried.

“And why Aygar chooses to meet you there rather than at their new site,” Lunzie finished with a sour grimace. “Such an undertaking also explains forty-three years.”

“Even for heavy-worlders, it would take years to clear this sort of jungle and hold it back while they got a grid in place,” said Portegin with some awe.

“Probably with a homing device built into the acknowledging capsule to confirm arrangements and approximate time of arrival,” Triv added.

The group reflected on this solution with no joy.

Triv broke the silence. “I’d opt for us to come from a Fleet ship, a cruiser. They make periodic reports to a Sector HQ and no one in his right mind messes with a cruiser.”

“Would Aygar know that?” Varian asked facetiously.

“No, but the captain of the incoming ship would,” Triv replied. “And a search party could have been set down here to check on the distress call while the cruiser goes on to the Ryxi and the Thek planets.”

“Now that our identity is established,” Kai said with an attempt at heartiness, “I suggest we transfer to the campsite built for Dimenon and Margit. If it still exists.”

“Don’t see why it wouldn’t,” Triv said. “The heavyworlders wouldn’t have wasted belt power dismantling and transporting it.”

“Wouldn’t we go to the original site?” asked Portegin.

“We did,” Varian replied, “but Kai got attacked there, didn’t he? So we should move to the second auxiliary camp.” She rose and stretched. “And we’d also better fill in the holes of the vine screen. Then the sleepers will be safe.”

The next morning, Triv took one of the smaller sleds to investigate the secondary camp which had been sited for Dimenon and Margit to use as a base for their explorations of the southwestern part of Ireta’s main continent. Assisted by Varian and Lunzie, Portegin gathered the matrices removed from the other two small sleds and the undamaged units in the shuttle. He was optimistic that with these components, he could rig working comunits in the two small sleds and the four-man sled, plus an ordinary homing beacon, consonant with their role as a rescue team from a Space Fleet cruiser.

Lunzie proved the deftest in making minute welds with the heated tip of a surgical probe, all the while muttering about the misuse of her precious medical equipment on inanimate objects.

Varian’s usefulness to the project was shortlived. She was unable to limit herself to controlled dexterity for long, and announced that she was better suited to shifting vines than matrices. It was hard, sweaty labor, hampered by Ireta’s sudden squalls and then steamy sunheat. The vines clung with tenacious webs of sticky fibers to the rock, so she hacked away, pried loose, and tugged at the tendrils to rig a full curtain across the entrance. At the same time, she rigged fiber ropes to pull the vines back to allow for the entry and exit of the sleds. She coaxed additional new vine tendrils across the chasm, setting them to fill in. At the rate vegetation grew on Ireta, the cave ought to be densely screened in a matter of weeks.

Triv returned with the welcome news that the other camp had survived, although it had become the residence of creatures large and small. However the fortified posts were functional so that, once cleared of intruders, the camp