The Mystery of Ireta_ Dinosaur Planet & Dinosaur Planet Survivors - Anne McCaffrey [47]
That evening Lunzie supplied enough of the fruit drink to make the evening extremely convivial. The heavy-worlders drank no more than anyone else, laughed infrequently as was their habit and retired when everyone else did. The following day there was no impairment of their efficiency, which increased the mystery of their behavior that first evening.
The contact hour with the Theks was duly kept by Kai. Varian arrived halfway through the ponderous and slowly delivered reply.
“No” was the answer to his questions about messages being stripped from the satellite and contact with the EV. He received the expected deferred answer concerning any knowledge of a previous survey and the discovery of the old cores. “Excellent” was their response to news of the pitchblende deposit, with “continue” added. To his comment that he had heard from the Ryxi, he got an acknowledgment. The Theks were reputedly tolerant of all species in a benevolent, impartial way, but Kai was left with the feeling that the Theks couldn’t care less if the Ryxi maintained contact.
He was of two minds about their deferred answer on a previous survey. On one hand, he’d half hoped they could find a previous reference, though how they could, out of contact with their own kind and EV’s data banks, he didn’t know. On the other hand, he would have been obscurely relieved if they had proved their fallibility. Yet, if this case did shatter their reputation, something stable and secure would be lost forever to him.
“So they don’t know,” said Varian, blatantly pleased.
“Not actively at any rate,” he replied, quite willing to take the Thek part to offset his mental disloyalty. “Of course, there are only several million planets in the universe on which life of some sort has evolved . . .”
“So we’re constantly informed, but our sphere of interest is currently limited to this one stinking ball of earth. By the way, in order to set up your secondary camp, we’re going to have to formulate a few plans,” said Varian. “According to the old core pattern, the shield runs about two thousand kilometers in a long point to the southeast. That makes commuting back here unfeasible. I want to take Tanegli, Paskutti, Tardma and Lunzie and check out that area.” She unrolled area charts, some of the topographical features already marked out in Gaber’s neat draftsmanship. Over these were wash colors, the key at the side. “I’ve keyed it here to territorialities of the beasts we’ve tagged. I think the guide is adequate, but there is so much animal life in this area,” and she indicated the plateau and rain forest just beyond the dead perimeters of the camp, “that I’ve only bothered with the big and dangerous ones. Here’s a spot frame of each type we’ve observed enough to identify as herbivorous, carnivorous or omnivorous. As you can see, we’ve a ways to go before we’ve done even the most superficial cataloguing.” She tapped vast areas of the outlined land mass which were pristine. “Here there be dragons!” she added in a fruity voice.
“Dragons?”
“Well, that’s what the antique cartographers would say when they didn’t know a binary bit about the indigenous life.”
“Any more news on which species is which here?” asked Kai.
She shook her head, handing him several copies of the maps. “That’s not as urgent as your geological work, and you needed some sort of a guide.”
“This map is terrific, Varian. I thought you’d been out with your teams . . .”
“No, I sent them to get me this information and fill in some of the nearby gaps in our survey. Terilla and I collaborated on the composite.”
“Terilla did these with you?” Impressed, Kai was poring over the charts.
“Yes, indeed. I know the youngsters were sort of dumped on us at the last moment, but I wish someone had thought to give