An Accidental Alliance (7 page)

     
On launching the boat, Park decided he ought to rig the canvas covers while he still had a machine shop to use and made a strong frame that he could cover with the canvas half-shelters. When finished he had a frame that could be covered in a number of ways to afford him and Iris sufficient shade during the day and shelter at night.

     
Without a pier to tie up to, loading the boat was a very wet job. “Any chance of getting a small dock here?” Park asked Arn hopefully as he and Iris were about to set off.

     
“I think that can be arranged,” Arn agreed. “We’ll need one anyway and compared to everything else we need to do it should be simple.”

     
“Thanks,” Park replied. The shook hands and he continued, “So we’ll see you in a few days, I guess, unless this river is shorter than it looks.”

     
“We’re hardly at the right end to judge that,” Arn remarked, “Don’t forget to radio back every night if you can.”

     
“We will,” Park promised. Then he used an oar to push off from the shore and Iris started up the solar powered engine.

     
“This probably all looks familiar to you,” Iris remarked once the people from Van Winkle Base were no longer in sight.

     
“Not really,” Park laughed. “This all looks very different from up there. In fact from down here I can’t even see over the south bank.”

     
“That won’t be necessary,” Iris reminded him. “The rest of the team can scout over there. We’re on long range reconnaissance.”

     
“True enough, do you think the confluence will be difficult to navigate through?” Park asked.

     
“We may have some turbulence where the two rivers join,” Iris warned him, “but it didn’t look too bad from what I could see. Neither stream is particularly turbulent. Through the telescope I found, the confluence seemed placid enough. The north branch is also somewhat smaller than this one, and we would have to portage at least once had we launched from there. It probably won’t have a lot of effect on our conditions. What we may find further downstream is another matter.”

     
Iris’ predictions were correct and they continued to move southwest for the rest of the day. “I think this is far enough for one day,” Park decided in the middle of the afternoon.

     
“Are we beyond where you went on the chopper?” Iris asked.

     
“I doubt it,” Park laughed. “Tina and I flew well beyond Arn’s limits.”

     
“I know,” Iris replied. “Arn couldn’t read all the indicators, but I knew precisely where you were the whole time.”

     
“You didn’t say anything?” Park wondered.

     
“I agreed with you, dear,” she smiled. “We need to see as much of the world as soon as we can. Should we set up camp on shore tonight?”

     
“Let’s take a look around,” Park decided after making sure the anchor had been set securely. “I wish there was a tree or a rock to tie us up to,” he told her.

     
“There are normally a few isolated trees on savannahs, aren’t there?” Iris asked.

     
“On the African savannah, sure,” Park replied. “Here? Obviously not. There’s something about this that keeps tickling at my mind, though.”

     
“What’s that?” Iris asked. Park was soaked from the waist up, but was gallantly offering her his hand so she could disembark dryly. “Thank you, sir,” she told him with a mock courtesy.

     
“An honor, my lady,” Park replied just as facetiously. He had a pair of binoculars around his neck. They were digital with night-vision and infrared capability and he picked them up to look around the landscape. “I think I see some movement in the grass a hundred yards or so that way. I’ll switch to infrared, though with the sun up, that may not be all that useful.” He flipped a switch and grunted.

     
“Anything wrong?” Iris asked.

     
“No,” he shook his head. “I just forgot to close my eyes before flipping over to IR is all. It takes a moment for the display to filter out the excess light. That’s better. Still not too clear, but I think there’s something rooting about in the grass. Let’s go take a look, shall we?”

     
They stepped as quietly as they could toward the small area of disturbance. When they were about ten feet away, there was a frightened squawk and they got a passing glimpse of something cat-sized with hard plates for skin the same color as the golden grass they stood in. As it ran, Park and Iris could trace its path through the grass. It was still moving when after hundred yards something else moved in the grass and abruptly stopped its flight.

     
When Park started moving forward to see what that second creature was, Iris stopped him. “We brought hunting rifles along, Park. It occurs to me that in a strange land, it was reckless of us not to bring them ashore.”

     
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Park confessed, feeling somewhat abashed. “I’ve never really been into hunting. Guess I just don’t think in those terms yet.”

     
“I think we’re both going to have to learn to think that way,” Iris told him, indicating they should head back to the boat.

     
“True,” Park replied, following her. “We’re in a wild, new land and for all we know about it, it might as well be a whole new planet. Did you get a look at that little creature?”

     
“Very briefly,” Iris replied. “It was the size of a large housecat I think, but that skin…”

     
“Looked like armored plates to me,” Park commented. “Sort of like an armadillo.”

    
 
“It looked nothing like an armadillo to me,” Iris told him. “It didn’t sound like one when it moved either.”

     
“It didn’t move like an armadillo either, now that I come to think of it, more like a cat or small dog,” Park recalled. “I wonder if it is a mammal. There was no hair to be seen, but with skin like that…”

     
“I don’t think it was a reptile,” Iris replied. “What else could it be?”

     
“Two hundred million years ago,” Park began and then corrected himself, “well, two hundred million before we went into stasis, there were no mammals. Instead our proto-mammalian ancestors, the synapsids walked the earth in their unique reptilian way. Between the Permian and the Holocene, both birds and mammals evolved into existence, the dinosaurs died off and so forth. It’s been two hundred and fifty million years since the world we know now. That’s more than enough time for entire new orders of life, new kingdoms, perhaps, to evolve. I have a sneaky suspicion Linnaeus would not have known what to do with that thing. We ought to find another and bring it back to base for Patty and the other biologists to have a look at.”

     
“We can collect samples on the way back,” Iris suggested as they arrived back at the boat. “I imagine they would get very high if we start collecting them now. Should we get the guns and go for more of a walk, do you think?”

     
“Changed my mind about that,” Park decided. “Let’s move a little further downstream. We have another three hours of light. Maybe we can find a place where the grass is lower. Maybe we’ll definitely stay on the boat tonight.”

     
Iris nodded and they were soon moving downstream again. They pulled in near shore when the sun started to set and Park told her. “We have nightscopes for these rifles. I’m not sure why. Maybe we were expected to wake up in the middle of a war, but they’re like the binocs and can be switched to infrared. Why don’t we go up on the bank and see what we can spot through them.”

     
“In infrared?” Iris repeated to be certain she understood.

 
    
“Right,” Park nodded. “If that critter we saw and others around here are warm-blooded we’ll be able to see their body heat in the grass. Even cold-blooded critters won’t cool off as fast as the grass does. The scopes will show us where they are, and the guns should offer some protection against predators provided we don’t forget to look around from time to time. I’m bringing the binoculars for that too.”

     
“You don’t want to hunt in the dark do you?” Iris asked.

     
“It’s not unheard of,” Park replied. “But that wasn’t my intention. Let’s just see how many animals we can spot. We didn’t see any from the chopper at all.”

     
From the top of the river bank they were able to see several dozen animals on the grassy plane. “Look over there,” Iris whispered to Park. Do you think that’s a hunting pack or just a family group of things like the one we saw earlier?”

     
“Hard to say,” Park whispered back. “My guess is they’re predators, though. They’re just sitting there like a pride of lions… rather small lions… as though waiting for something. I think herbivores, if not diurnal altogether, would be busy eating. These critters are acting like they’re waiting to see or smell out their prey before making a move.”

     
“That second creature,” Iris replied, “the one that caught the one we saw. It seemed to be waiting too. Then when the first one came too close it pounced.”

     
“That’s how it looked to me,” Park agreed. “I imagine there are a number of different predators and prey out here. This seems like a fairly good environment to me, though I wonder why we haven’t seen any megafauna, or at least something large enough to see over the grass.”

     
“Maybe evolution has adapted life for smallness for some reason,” Iris remarked.

     
“That most often happens when there’s a scarcity of food,” Park replied. “With three-foot tall grass, I would expect some larger herbivores. Something analogous to bison, perhaps. Well, maybe they’ve gone north for the summer or west for the dry season, although with this river it seem to me life should team near its banks.”

     
“Um,” Iris interrupted him. “Funny you should mention that. I see a fair number of things coming slowly toward us. I’m fairly sure it’s just the river they want but…”

     
“But we should get back to the boat,” Park finished for her. “We can see the pretty animals from there and we left the camera there anyway. At least we’ll finally get a good look at them.”

     
They used the oars to quietly push off from the shore and reset the anchor in the middle of the river’s channel. The river was only a little over fifty feet wide and still somewhat shallow in many places, but it was the best they could do. “Anything could probably swim or walk out here,” Park noted, “and if this world has something equivalent to elephants, we may have visitors, but for now, let’s just watch and wait.”

     
“Shouldn’t we be calling back to base?” Iris asked.

     
“Let’s get a look at the neighbors first,” Park replied.

     
Through the night-vision scope and binoculars they got a good look at the creatures that came down to the river to drink. The first to arrive were a group of round-headed creatures that reminded Park of pigs, but without any snouts. Even with the night-vision on Park and Iris could see the odd, plate-like skin on the animals. Iris found the camera and started snapping pictures. With the time to study them, it was obvious that the plates overlapped slightly, but had more flexible skin holding them together. The result was an incredibly tough skin that afforded the creature that wore it complete flexibility as well as protection. These were obviously grazers to Park’s eye, though, and he wondered what the carnivores looked like. He did not have long to wait.

     
After a few minutes, the round-headed grazers looked up from the water nervously and started walking briskly downstream. A moment later a somewhat larger animal with the same hairless, plated skin walked confidently to the edge of the river. Park and Iris estimated this one was somewhat larger than a man although it only stood two feet tall at its shoulders. It paused at the water’s edge and sniffed in all directions. Then it made an eerie, deep-pitched howl and several others of its ilk arrived.

     
These beasts did have snouts and rows of teeth that marked them for the carnivores they were. The teeth were all at least two inches long with front fangs even longer. Their long tongues dropped into the water as they drank their fill. When they were done, they slipped back away from the river silently.

     
“I’m glad we decided not to stay on shore,” Iris whispered as she took a few pictures.

     
“Yeah,” Park breathed. “Not exactly cute and cuddly house pets, are they? What I want to know is why they had to send a scout first. What are they afraid of?”

     
“I’m not sure I want to know,” Iris replied. “No, I take that back. I do want to know. That sort of information could be crucial. Oh something else is thirsty.”

     
As they watched, a dozen or so bipedal creatures jumped down to the water’s edge. Their bodies were mostly thick-looking bare skin, but they had vestigial wings covered with short dark feathers, a mane of feathers down their backs and broad, turkey-like tails. They may have been birds or something birds evolved into, but their heads were completely unlike any bird either Park or Iris had ever seen.

     
Their beaks filed most of their faces and were broad and long and, when they were closed, appeared circular in profile. They stood about four feet tall and had legs like tree trunks.

 
    
“Some budgies, huh?” Park whispered to Iris. She had trouble stifling a laugh. “At least we finally found something that can see over the seed heads.”

     
“There’s something rustling on the other side of the river,” Iris reported while the strange birds were still drinking.