The Mystery of Ireta_ Dinosaur Planet & Dinosaur Planet Survivors - Anne McCaffrey [3]
“Bonnard’s a good kid, Kai, and means well . . .”
“I know. I know.”
“I wonder if food on this planet tastes the way most things smell,” said Varian, again changing the subject. “If fruit tastes of hydrotelluride . . .”
“Are we food-low?”
“No,” said Varian, who was charged by the expedition’s charter to procure any additional food suppliers needed. “But Divisti is a cautious soul. The less we use of the basic subsistence supplies, the better. And fresh fruit . . . you ship-bred types may not miss it . . .”
“Land-born primates have no dietary discipline.”
They were both grinning, Varian cocking her head to one side, her gray eyes sparkling. The first day they’d met, at a table in the humanoid dining area of the huge EEC ship, they’d teased each other about dietary idiosyncrasies.
Born and brought up on the ship, Kai was used to synthesized foods and to the limited textures provided. Even when he’d been grounded for brief periods, he had never quite adjusted to the infinite variety and consistencies of natural foods. Varian had boasted that she could eat anything vegetable or mineral and had found the ship’s diet, even when augmented from the life-support dome with freshly grown produce, rather monotonous.
“I’d call it educated tastes, man. And if the fruit tastes at all decent, you may be perverted to an appreciation of real food.”
Just as they reached the lab, the panel shushed open, and an excited man came charging toward them.
“Marvelous!” He halted mid-stride and, losing his balance, staggered against the panel wall. “Just the people I need to see. Varian, the cell formation on those marine specimens is a real innovation. There are filaments, four different kinds . . . just take a look . . .” Trizein began pulling her back into his laboratory and gesturing urgently for Kai to follow.
“I’ve something for you, too, my friend.” Varian extended the slide. “We caught one of those heavy-duty herbivores, wounded, bleeding red blood . . .”
“But don’t you understand, Varian,” Trizein continued, apparently deaf to her announcement, “this is a completely different life form. Never in all my expeditionary experience have I come across such a cellular formation . . .”
“Nor have I come across such an anomaly as this, contrasting to your new life form.” Varian closed her fingers about the slide. “Do be a love and run a spectro analysis on this?”
“Red blood, you said?” Trizein blinked, changing mental gears to deal with Varian’s request. He held the slide up to the light, frowning at it. “Red blood? Isn’t compatible with what I’ve just told you.”
At that moment, the alarm wailed unnervingly through the shuttle and the outside encampment and tingled jarringly at the wrist units that Kai and Varian wore as team leaders.
“Foraging party in trouble, Kai, Varian.” Paskutti’s voice, his thick slurred speech unhurried, came over the intercom. “Aerial attack.”
Kai depressed the two-way button on his wrist unit. “Assemble your group, Paskutti. Varian and I are coming.”
“Aerial attack?” asked Varian as both moved quickly to the iris lock of the shuttlecraft. “From what?”
“Is the party airborne, Paskutti?” Kai asked.
“No, sir. I have coordinates. Shall I call in your teams?”
“No, they’d be too far out to be useful.” To Varian he said, “What can they have got into?”
“On this crazy planet? Who knows?” Varian seemed to thrive on the various alarms Ireta produced, for which Kai was glad. On his second expedition, the co-leader had been such a confirmed pessimist that the morale of the entire party had deteriorated, causing needless disastrous incidents.
As usual, the first blast of Ireta’s odorous atmosphere took Kai’s breath away. He’d forgotten to replace the deodorizing plugs he’d removed while in the shuttle. The plugs helped but not when one was forced to breathe through his mouth, as he was while running to join Paskutti’s rapidly forming