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Lunzie made good use of the vines left over from Varian’s camouflage trimming and created emergency rations from the vegetable matter and more light blankets from the residual fibers. These were packed into the two smaller sleds while Kai was made comfortable in the larger. Lunzie made a last check on the sleepers and set the time release for additional sleep vapor. As Triv pulled back the vine curtain, using Varian’s cords, the three sleds emerged just as the evening rain began to splash down. They landed briefly on the cliff, while Triv joined them and took over the controls of one sled from Lunzie who then joined Varian and Kai in the larger sled.

As Varian lifted, she searched the leaden skies. “No giffs!”

“They’ve sense enough to come in out of that rain,” Lunzie said, drying her hands as she looked at the raindrops battering the sled’s canopy.

“They followed me, you know.”

“So you told me. Not superstitious, are you, Varian?” the medic asked with an ironic chuckle.

“Enough to prefer their company to their absence.”

“They stood guard a long time,” Kai said in his husky voice.

“You’re both allowing them far more intelligence than they deserve.”

Varian turned her head to give Kai a broad grin which he answered. Then the rain squall quickened and she had to keep her attention on flying for the rest of the journey.

Although Triv and Portegin had arrived in advance of the four-man sled, Kai was struck by the eeriness of landing in the gloom of Iretan twilight at a campsite which he knew had been uninhabited for over four decades. It seemed to have slept, unchanged, as they had.

Rationally, he knew that part of its lack of change was due to the rocky site, but the dome which Dimenon and Margit had set up was only slightly browned by wind and weather. A small fire burned on the hearth outside. Its light was cheering and its smoke a partial deterrent to insects until the force field could be powered up. The pack was quickly connected and crackled immediately with tiny spurts as insects were vaporized. Small bits of char drifted down as Kai stiffly made his way from the sled to the dome. He was heartily disgusted with his weakness and kept to himself the fact that he still had no feeling at all in the areas where the fringe had sucked deepest. He couldn’t prevent furtive glances for fringes lurking beyond the veil. He worried briefly if the creatures could be stopped by the force field. Of course they could— Force fields had even held back the stampede of the herbivores . . . for a time.

He was trembling again, to his disgust. Only a short walk, and he was spent. Lunzie had cautioned him against using Discipline to overcome the weakness of convalescence, but surely a daily routine of basic Discipline exercise would be beneficial. Might even be essential if Varian’s meeting with Aygar proved unlucky. Kai wasn’t easy about that confrontation, even with all three armed. He’d spent some time trying to estimate how large the mutineers’ group would be after two generations of breeding. And if a colony ship had arrived, there could be thousands to back the heavy-worlders’ claim. Either way his team was at risk.

Where had the ARCT-10 disappeared to? Why had Tor been so uncharacteristically keen to find the old core? Why had the Thek then departed? Kai reminded himself that a mere human did not demand explanations of a Thek. Out of sight, out of mind, yet Tor had awakened him to find the core.

And how had the Ryxi flourished on their new planet? Kai wondered, though he knew that Vrl, his contact with the volatile avians, probably wouldn’t have worried about the geologist’s silence. Certainly the Ryxi wouldn’t have communicated with the Thek. Surely, though, Kai reasoned, the commander of the Ryxi colony vessel ought to have tried to raise the Iretan group, if only prompted by courtesy. Probably the silence of the Iretan expedition was thought to mean that the ARCT-10 had collected the Iretan team as scheduled.

Which brought Kai back to the original question: What had happened to the ARCT-10? The great