Delta Pavonis (6 page)

"Hell, yes, let's go!" said Okamura. He already wasn't afraid of much.

"Yeah!" Govinda said, her usual jitters transformed to aggressiveness.

"Let's do it," Hannie said, almost placidly. Her calm acceptance of the proposition seemed to decide the others. One by one, they signaled assent.

"Great," Forrest said. "We rest up for the rest of today. Tomorrow morning, we hit those cliffs. Now that we know there are large carnivores here that're fully equipped to eat us, I'm doubling the guard. While there's light, I want you to gather plenty of firewood. We want big fires tonight."

"We want regular overhead scans," Govinda said. "Those flying dragons spook me."

Forrest turned to Colin. "How about it? What size of prey did those things go for?"

"From what was known at the time the Island Worlds left Sol, about the largest they could manage was a good-sized fish. Maybe they could pick up something the size of a small child, but that's about the maximum."

"That's a relief," Govinda said.

"Hold it," Colin cautioned. "That's just what was known. It takes specialized conditions to become fossilized, and the flying reptiles were rarer than most. Just when the paleontologists thought they'd found the biggest one, somebody'd discover an unknown species twice as large. We just don't know how big they got. You find a lot of fossils of a particular dinosaur, it usually means there were a lot of them, herd animals like the triceratops, or maybe they just lived around the right type of mud that's ideal for fossilization. There may have been thousands of species that never were discovered."

"Okay, we watch the sky, just in case," Forrest ordered. "And nobody leaves the camp in groups of less than four. Damn, I wish they'd let us have more beam rifles. Okay, nobody goes out of sight of the camp unless Sims or Okamura goes along with a beamer." He pointed at the two men in question. "If one of you goes out with a mission, the other stays with the camp. Clear?" The two security men nodded stolidly.

When everyone was settled in for the evening around a rather large fire, Dierdre decided to bring up the most vexing subject once more. "How did they get here?" She didn't have to elaborate; everyone knew what she referred to. To her surprise, Steve Forrest wasn't annoyed at the question.

"It's too soon to draw any conclusions," he said, "but let's look at what little we know. Some years ago, Derek Kuroda found the Rhea Objects. They were of alien origin, and it was by studying them that Sieglinde Kornfeld-Taggart developed the star drive that brought us here. Nobody knows how old those alien power packs were when Kuroda found them. They might have been left behind an hour before he found them, or they might have been millions of years old.

"What they meant, without question, was that aliens had visited the Sol system. It could be that they took samples and brought them back here."

"But," Fumiyo interjected, "nobody's found any alien artifacts in this system."

"How do we know that?" Dierdre said. "We don't know what to look for. The effort's been intense, but we've only covered the tiniest part of this system, and we could be looking at alien artifacts without knowing it."

"They might've left here millions of years ago," Colin pointed out. "All traces of their works might have disappeared. The animal life is self-reproducing. If the environment's remained the same, there'd be no need for the dinosaurs to die out or evolve into something else. They might have changed in small ways, but they'd already gone through millions of years of evolution. Life forms like that tend to remain stable until radical environmental change comes along."

"Could this be the aliens' home system?" Schubert wondered.

"I think we'd see more sign of it if it were," Forrest said. "It might be a world-sized lab, maybe a zoo. Whoever they were, they did things in a big way. We can't even be sure that these are the same aliens. Earth might have been visited many times since life appeared there."

The little group stared into the fire, intimidated by the image of such power and such a span of time. Even for people accustomed to crossing the vast reaches of space, it was awe-inspiring. It meant that humans had taken only the first, faltering steps along a path trodden long ago by beings of unimaginable knowledge and power.

"What bothers me most," Colin said, "is the idea that maybe they might still be around."

FOUR

It was just past sunrise when they reached the base of the cliffs. Forrest had chosen a spot near where they had seen the triceratops because the cliffs dipped lower there than at other spots they had surveyed. Fumiyo's party of the day before gawked at the enormous skeleton while a party of four made a short recon farther up the cliffline. Within the hour, they returned.

"Great scaling site, Boss," Okamura reported. "It'll be an easy climb even for the newbys."

The spot they had found was a notch in the cliff cut by a small stream. The base of the notch was no more than ten meters above them and trailing vines dangled within easy reach.

"Govinda, Dierdre," Forrest called, "you two are the smallest. Climb those vines and anchor us some lines up there. Don't go farther in than it takes to find a good anchor point."

"Hot damn!" Govinda said, almost hopping with excitement.

Dierdre's stomach fluttered as she pulled on her gloves. "Anybody got any good first words for when we get to the top?" she asked, nervously.

"Just keep your eyes on your surroundings," Forrest said. "If you want memorable first words, we can make some up later. That's what everybody does anyway."

Each woman grabbed a handful of the vines, braced her feet against the cliff face, and pulled as hard as she could. If they were going to fall, it would be best to do it while they were still close to the ground. The vines held. They began to climb.

Before she had climbed five meters, Dierdre's arms and shoulders began to scream at her. It had started out so easily that the sudden fatigue came as a shock. She bit her lower lip and forged on. In moments, her stomach muscles began to give out. There were still three meters to go. Govinda, with more experience, was almost at the top. Well, so much for being first. Making progress by inches, Dierdre continued her climb. She was determined not to fail in front of Forrest and the others.

It hadn't
looked
like a difficult climb, not from below. Dark spots began to form before her eyes. She was losing feeling in her hands.

"Just another half meter, Jamail," Govinda called from above. "C'mon!"

Gasping and sick in her stomach, Dierdre inched upward. She was sure she would fall when a hand grabbed the back of her collar and hauled upward. With a final surge of strength, Dierdre scrambled over the crumbly, vine-matted edge of the drop-off and sprawled on her belly in the sweet-smelling foliage next to the tiny stream.

"That wasn't so rough, was it?" Govinda said. She looked as fresh as if she had walked up the cliff.

"Piece of cake," Dierdre gasped, stomach heaving, sure she would faint. Gradually, her distress subsided. "I'm going to have to practice this climbing business."

"You'll get lots of opportunity. Can you get on your feet? We have to find a big rock or tree or something, and damn if I'm going in there alone."

Shakily, Dierdre stood. Everything seemed to be in working order. "Let's go."

Cautiously, pushing their way through the dense foliage lining the stream, they tried to look in every direction at once. Tiny creatures ran along the branches of bushes and small trees, too swift to see clearly. Insects buzzed loudly, but the repellant that Schubert had concocted from his aid kit seemed to be working.

"Was that a snake?" Govinda said, pointing at a movement in the underbrush.

"I didn't see it. At least none of those monsters have been here lately. This growth hasn't been trampled or chewed up in a long time. Years, maybe," she added, hopefully.

"Here's a good one." Govinda pointed to a tree nearly a half-meter in thickness, its gnarled roots gripping the steep side of the ravine. They looped a rope around the trunk and went back to the edge, tossing the rest of the line over.

"Come on up!" Govinda called.

First to ascend were Sims and Okamura, their beam rifles slung across their backs. As soon as they were up, they took up positions a dozen meters into the brush, keeping watch overhead and inland. Forrest came next, followed by the others. The team leader scanned the surroundings, muttering constantly into his recorder unit. With the rope, the climb was far easier and the last of the team was atop the cliff within ten minutes.

Dierdre had not experienced such excitement in her life, not even on her first solo flight. The air here seemed to crackle with life and danger. A chilling thought struck her: it would be easy to die here. Then another thought: so what?

"Let's move out," Forrest called. "Up onto the plateau, single file, two-meter intervals. Sims, you go first, I go next. Okamura, take rear guard. Go."

Slowly, they made their way up the steep bank.

The growth was dense, and Sims had to grunt and heave to force his way through, taking the easiest route he could find, quartering the slope rather than trying to climb straight up. Dierdre, still tired from her climb, took a position near the rear so that the trail would be well broken by the time she got to it.

The climb to the plateau took only a few minutes. They found themselves standing among tall trees that formed cathedral-like arches overhead. There was dense underbrush in places, but huge tunnels drilled through it forming long, intersecting corridors.

"Damn," Forrest said. "Now that's what I call a game trail." He inspected one, its tangled roof fully five meters from the forest floor. The floor itself was bare dirt in the tunnels, mossy loam everywhere else.

Colin stooped to study the ground. "This is packed too hard to take footprints. When we get to softer ground, we'll see plenty of them."

"Here's something," Hannie called. A few paces from the path, she had found a footprint impressed in the soft loam. It was at least forty centimeters wide, with toe and claw impressions. Everyone gaped at it.

"The broad ones like this," Colin said, "will be mostly herbivores. The ones to watch out for will have tracks like big birds, with long toes and not much footpad. Some will leave nothing but toe impressions."

"I'd just as soon not meet a tyrannosaur," Hannie said.

Colin shook his head. "A predator that size probably wouldn't even notice you. There were smaller ones a lot more dangerous. Small by dinosaur standards, that is. There was a real horror called a deinonychus. About man-sized, and they traveled in packs. Their hind feet each had a gut hook about half as long as your forearm. There were probably a lot of others never discovered."

"That's enough gawking," Forrest said. "We'll see plenty of tracks before long, and the animals that make them, too. Keep close, keep low and try not to attract attention. Pretend this is a war and we're moving through enemy territory. Until we know more about the habits of these creatures, we'll assume that they attack motion, smell, anything. Try to keep out of sight and keep downwind of the big ones. Don't forget to scan overhead." He thought for a moment. "And don't assume that just because an animal is a vegetarian that it can't be mean. Back on Earth, rhinos and bulls and elephants could be plenty rough when they felt provoked. We're intruders here, so act accordingly. Okay, let's move out, same way as before."

They reshouldered packs and weapons and began to trek inland, away from the cliffs. Dierdre found herself looking and listening harder than she ever had in her life. Her skin was sensitive to the slightest change in the wind and she sniffed the air for any significant smell. It was amazing to have all her senses and faculties engaged at once and she realized that most people go through life half-dead to the world around them. She wondered if this was part of the appeal that so many people found in war, this atavistic sense of hunting and being hunted at the same time.

It was oddly quiet in the forest. The loudest noise was the clicking and buzzing of insects. They saw no large animals, but once they startled a family of brightly-striped dinosaurs that had been sleeping in the shade. Everyone jumped at the burst of motion, then laughed nervously as they saw that the reptiles stood no more than knee-high. The little creatures stood on two legs with long tails, serpent-like necks and tiny heads. They fled in panic, tails high, into the forest.

"I wonder what they taste like," Sims said.

"We'd all like some decent food," Forrest said.

"But the rules clearly state that explorer teams are not to kill anything unless they're attacked."

"Do they say," Govinda asked, "that you can't eat it after it's attacked and you've killed it?"

Forrest thought a moment. "No, I guess not. Nobody'd thought we'd ever run into edible animal life down here. But, hell, you've lived on tank-raised seafood and synthetic meat all your lives. Do you really think you could butcher an animal for food?"

"I'm a biologist," Fumiyo said. "Biologists don't butcher animals, they dissect them. Hell, yes, I could cut one up and eat it. The stuff we've been eating the last few months would turn Buddha into a cannibal."

"Get your minds off your stomachs and back on your surroundings," the team leader ordered. "It's still morning. Let's push on."

Dierdre wondered if they were reverting to primitives in the primordial surroundings. She had never seriously considered killing a live animal and eating it. She felt she should be revolted at the thought. Instead, it made her mouth water.

The ground began to slope downward, and just before noon they came to a broad swamp. The trees thinned and for a while it looked as if they had been still on solid ground, but the grasses beneath their feet began to squish. Forrest held up his hand, signaling a stop. They had come to the edge of the treeline and beyond was a field of reeds. Here and there they could catch a glimpse of water. In the distance they could see large, slow-moving animals wading in the shallows.

"It looks peaceful, if primitive," Schubert said.

Just before them was a tangle of fallen logs, their roots undoubtedly rotted by rising waters from the swamp, all of them felled in a storm so that they lay with their tops in the same direction, their bark bumpy and scaly. The explorers started when one of the "logs" detached itself and glided into the water, parting reeds as it went until it disappeared.

"Colin," Forrest called, "can you identify it?"

"I think it was some sort of crocodilian. They were around at the same time as the dinosaurs. I'd say that that one was more than ten meters long, bigger than the surviving crocs. We'd better stay well back from the water. Crocodilians move fast when they're hunting and it'd be almost on top of you before you could see or hear it."

"You heard him," Forrest said. "We stay well within the trees, not where the growth is dense. We want to be able to see what's coming."

"Hey, look at that!" someone said, pointing. A hundred meters away, one of the flying reptiles was plunging toward a patch of open water. Just before it hit the surface, the broad wings warped downward, braking the fall. The elongated head darted out on its serpentine neck and then jerked back in a spray of water, clutching something silver and wriggling between the rows of back-curving teeth. With a flapping of leathery wings, the pterodactyl flew inland toward a range of steep hills just visible in the distance.

"Damn!" Govinda said. "That was beautiful!" It was amazing to see the animal world in action. Even for those who had been on earlier expeditions, it was impossible to respond to alien wildlife as to this scene from the past of their own planet. Even the best of the educational holos could never deliver the feeling of actually witnessing the real thing.

Keeping within the treeline, they sought a way around the swamp. Once, they tiptoed around a small herd of triceratops. The immense beasts paid them no heed, continuing placidly if noisily to munch the grass and brush. About half of the adult specimens lacked the brilliant coloration of the animal they had seen the day before. The immature members of the herd were likewise drab.

At noon Forrest called a halt and they sat in a wide circle with guards posted well away from the main group. He ordered Schubert to try a comm check.

"Absolutely no contact at all," Schubert reported happily. "We're getting nothing but static."

"Great. Let's hope it stays that way for a few days. I want to get a good look at this place. We need to find something really significant before we report in."

"Significant!" Fumiyo said. "What could be more significant than what we've found already?"

"What we've seen so far," Forrest waved an arm to take in their surroundings, "is tantalizing. We have some idea of what we're seeing. We still don't know how, when, who or why."

Dierdre put down the pine cone she had been studying. "You want to find signs of the aliens who did this? Artifacts?"

He nodded. "Or the aliens themselves. They could still be here, you know."

"That would definitely get our names in the history books," said Gaston, a dark, squat man from Avalon. "First contact. We've been talking about it for years."

"But are we the ones to handle it?" Fumiyo wanted to know.

"I can't think of anybody better," Forrest said. "Do you think our superiors are any smarter than we are? Hell, no. They just have seniority. When it comes to first contact, nobody has any experience, so that's not even a factor."

Everybody seemed to think that made sense. If their judgment was questionable, they had no lack of self-confidence and healthy egotism.

Something had been bothering Dierdre for most of the day, but she hadn't been able to sort it out from a host of other confused impressions. Now it resurfaced and she realized what it was.

"Hey, boss, I just thought of something. Those bugs that've been eating on us act like they like warm blood, but we've seen nothing here but reptiles. Did mosquitoes and dinosaurs coexist?"

Forrest cocked an eyebrow at Colin.

"Hard to say. People still argue over whether dinosaurs were cold-blooded or not. In any case, there were mammals around through most of the dinosaur period—little ones, like rats. Whether there were enough of them to support swarms of blood-sucking parasites, I don't know. Maybe nobody does. Insects rarely leave fossils behind."

"Parasites," somebody repeated. The very idea was horrifying. Generations spent in the controlled environments of the asteroid colonies had eliminated any tolerance for such horrors of the natural world.