The Mystery of Ireta_ Dinosaur Planet & Dinosaur Planet Survivors - Anne McCaffrey [52]
“Well, let us know how EV appreciates our labors on this stinking planet. Although—” Dimenon frowned and felt his nostrils. “Rake it! I forgot to put ’em in again!”
“Smell anything?” asked Kai, amused.
Dimenon’s eyes began to widen and his mouth dropped in exaggerated reaction.
“I’ve got used to the stench!” He roared the statement, full of aggrieved incredulity. “Kai, please, when you’ve got through to EV, have them pick us up before schedule? Please, I’ve got used to the stench of hydrotelluride.” He clutched at his throat now, contorting his face as though in terminal agony, “I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it.”
Lunzie, who was literal-minded, came rushing up, frowning with anxiety while Kai tried to gesture reassurance. Others were grinning at Dimenon’s histrionics, but the heavy-worlders, after uninterested glances at the geologist, turned back to their own quiet-toned discussions. Lunzie still hadn’t realized that Dimenon was acting. He grabbed at her shoulders now.
“Tell me, Lunzie, tell me I’m not a goner. My sense of smell’ll come back, won’t it? Once I’m in decent air? Oh, don’t tell me I’ll never be able to smell nothing in the air again . . .”
“If the acclimatization should be permanent, you could always get an Iretan air-conditioner for your shipboard quarters,” Lunzie replied, apparently in earnest.
Dimenon looked horrified and, for a moment, didn’t catch the brand of the physician’s humor.
“C’mon, partner, you’ve been bested,” said Margit, taking him by the arm. “Better to smell the sweet air of another find . . .”
“Could you get so used to Iretan stink you’d never smell normally again?” Bonnard asked Lunzie, a little worried as he watched the two geologists leave.
“No,” said Lunzie with a dry chuckle. “The smell is powerful but I doubt there’s any permanent desensitization. The temporary effect is somewhat of a blessing. Do you have it?”
Bonnard nodded uncertainly. “But I didn’t know I couldn’t smell it anymore until Dimenon mentioned it.” This worried him.
“Since you are now used to the overbearing smell, see if you can now distinguish other, previously unsensed odors while you’re out and about today.”
“Worse ones?” Bonnard regarded Lunzie, appalled.
“I can smell a difference in the blossoms I’ve been cataloguing,” said Terilla. “And some of the leaves have an odor if you crush ’em . Not too bad a smell, really,” she added helpfully.
That morning Kai checked with Lunzie about stores. She was not the sort of person to give spot replies and together they went to the store hold.
“I’m not missing any of the fruit distillation, if that’s what you’re worried about, Kai,” she said in her direct fashion. “We’ve not made too many inroads in the subsistence supplies, either. I’ve been gradually phasing them out entirely, in favor of local protein.”
“You have,” Kai was surprised.
“You hadn’t noticed?” There was a slight emphasis on the pronoun. Lunzie smiled briefly with pleasure at the success of her program. “We are losing hard goods, though, at a rate which worries me.”
“Hard goods?”
“Knives, film and sheet extruders, spare charges for lift-belts . . .”
“What did the secondary camps take?”
“Not enough to account for some of these items. Unless, of course, they haven’t reported the losses and have merely helped themselves when I was busy elsewhere.” That solu- tion sounded plausible. “If I may, I’ll appoint Cleiti as requisitions officer and have her on hand when anyone needs to visit the supply hold. We can keep a check that way without giving offense . . .”
Or warning, thought Kai, and then decided that his imagination was working overtime. He did need that day’s respite.
Varian returned to the camp from one of her search-and-identify sweeps early on the afternoon before rest day. She cornered Kai in his dome, scornfully clacking the tape holders that were stacked in front of him, tugging