Mirabile (6 page)

Opener

Denness, he’d been the scout that opened and mapped all the new territory from Ranomafana to Goddamn! He brought back cell samples of everything he found, that being part of the job; but he’d also brought back a live specimen of the beastly, which was at least as nasty as the average kangaroo rex and could fly to boot. When Granddaddy Jason asked him why he’d gone to the trouble, he’d only shrugged and said, “Best you observe its habits as well as its genes.”

The decision on the beastly had been to push it back from the inhabited areas rather than to shoot on sight. Nasty as it was, it could be driven off by loud sounds (bronze bells, now that I thought of it!) and it made a specialty of hunting what passed for rats on Mirabile. Those rats were considerably worse than having to yell yourself hoarse when you traveled through the plains farmlands.

“If you’d jogged my memory earlier,” I said, “I wouldn’t have bothered to check your credentials with Elly.”

“Annie, I didn’t think bragging was in order.”

“Facts are a little different than brags. Now I can stop worrying about your health and get down to serious business.”

Leaving the plaster to harden, I headed him down to the boats. “Two boats today, Leonov Opener Denness. You stake out that side of the loch, I’ll stake out this. Much as I’d enjoy your company, this gives us two chances to spot something and the sooner we get this sorted out, the better it’ll be for Elly. Whistle if you spot anything. Otherwise, I’ll meet you back here an hour after dusk.”

We’d probably have to do a nighttime wait too, but I was hoping the thing wasn’t strictly nocturnal. If it was, I’d need more equipment, which meant calling Mike, which meant making it formal and public.

There’s nothing more irritating than waiting for a Dragon’s Tooth to rear its ugly head, even if
Page 21

you’re sure the head’s herbivorous. After all these years, I’m pretty good at it. Besides, there were otters and odders to watch, and it was one of those perfect days on Loch Moose. I’d have been out contemplative fishing anyhow. This just took its toll of watching and waiting, which is not nearly as restful. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the plesiosaur still swam sinisterly in Loch Ness.

Susan’s odders, as ugly as they were, proved in action almost as much fun as the otters, though considerably sillier looking. And observation proved her right—several times I saw them dive down and come up with a mouthful of lilies or clogweed.

A breeze came up—one of those lovely ones that Loch Moose is justly famous for—soft and sweet and smelling of lilies and pine and popcorn tree.

The pines began to smoke. I found myself grateful to the Dragon’s Tooth for putting me on the loch at the right time to see it.

The whole loch misted over with drifting golden clouds of pollen. I could scarcely see my hand in front of my face. That, of course, was when I heard it. First a soft thud of hooves, then something easing into the water. Something big. I

strained to see, but the golden mist made it impossible.

I was damned glad Leo had told me his past history, otherwise I’d have worried.

I knew he was doing exactly what I was doing at that moment—keeping dead silent and listening.

I brought up my flare gun in one hand and my snagger in the other.

Even if it was a plesiosaur, a flare right in the face should drive it off. I couldn’t bring myself to raise the shotgun. Must be I’m mellowing in my old age.

I could still hear the splash and play of the otters and the odders on either side of me. That was a good sign as well. They’d decided it wasn’t a hazard to them.

My nerves were singing, though, as I heard the soft splashing coming toward me.

I turned toward the sound, but still couldn’t see a thing. There was a gurgle, like water being sucked down a drain, and suddenly I couldn’t locate it by ear anymore.

I guessed it had submerged, but that didn’t do a thing for my nerves…

The best I could do was keep an eye on the surface of the water where it should have been heading if it had followed a straight line—and that was directly under my boat. Looking straight down, I could barely make out a dark bulk. I could believe the ton estimate.

It reached the other side. I lost sight of it momentarily. Then, with a surge that brought up an entire float of lilies and splattered water all over me, it surfaced not ten feet from my boat, to eye me with a glare.

I’d thought Susan’s odders were as ugly as things came, but this topped them without even trying. Even through the mist, I could see it now.

Like Susan’s Monster, it had that same old-boot-shaped head, the same flopping mule ears, streaming water now. What I’d taken for its head in the glimpse I’d gotten the previous night was actually the most unbelievable set of antlers I’d ever seen in my life, like huge gnarled up-raised palms. What Stirzaker had taken for grasping hands, I realized—only at the moment they were filled to the brim with a tangle of scarlet water lilies. From its throat, a flap of flesh dangled dripping like a wet beard.

It stared at me with solemn black eyes and munched thoughtfully on the nearest of the dangling lilies. The drifting pollen was slowly turning it to gold.

I swear I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

For a moment, I just stared, and it stared back, looking away only long enough to tilt another lily into its mouth. Then I remembered what I was there for and raised the snagger. I got it first try, snapped the snagger to retrieve.

The thing jerked back, glared, then let out a bellow that Mike must have heard back in the lab. It started to swim closer.

“BACK OFF!” I bellowed. Truthfully, I didn’t think it was angered, just nosy, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way. I raised the flare gun.

From the distance came the sound of splashing oars. “Annie!” Leo yelled. “I’m coming. Hang on!”

The creature backpedaled in the water and cocked its head, lilies and all, toward the sound of Leo’s boat. Interested all over again, it started that way at a very efficient paddle. I got a glimpse of a hump just at the shoulders, followed by the curve of a rump, followed by a tiny flop of tail like a deer’s. The same view Pastides had gotten, no doubt.

Suddenly, from the direction of Leo’s boat, there came the clamor of a bell. The creature backpedaled again, ears twitching.

With a splash of utter panic, the creature turned around in the water, dived for cover, and swam for shore. I could hear it crash into the undergrowth even over the clanging of the bell.

“Enough, Leo, enough! It’s gone!” He shut up with the bell and we called to each other until he found me through the mist. I’m sorry to say, by the time he pulled alongside, I was laughing so hard there were tears streaming down my cheeks.

Leo’s face—what I could see of it—went through about three changes of expression in as many seconds. He laid aside his bell—it was a big, bronze beastly-scarebell—and sighed with relief.

He too was gold from all the pollen.

I wiped my eyes and grinned at him. “I wish I could say, ‘Saved by the bell,’ but the thing wasn’t really a danger. Clumsy maybe. Possibly aggressive if annoyed, but—” I burst into laughter again.

Leo said amiably, “I’m sure you’ll tell me about it when you get your breath back.”

I nodded. Pulling in the sample the snagger had caught, I waved him toward the shore. When we were halfway up the hill to the lodge, I said, “Please, Leo, don’t ask until I can check my sample.”

He spread his hands. “At least I know it’s not a plesiosaur.”

I had the urge again—and found the laughter had worn down to hiccupping giggles.

When we got to the lodge, I didn’t have to yell for them—we got surrounded the moment we hit the porch. Elly did a full body check on both of us, which meant she wound up as pollen-covered as we were.

“Susan,” I said through the chaos of a dozen questions at once, “run that for me.

Let’s see what we’ve got.” I held out the sample.

“Me?” Susan squeaked.

“You,” I said. I took Leo’s arm, well above the rifle, and said, “We want some eats, and then I want to see Susan’s results from this morning.”

I cued the computer over a bowl of steaming chowder, calling up the odder sample Susan had been working on. She’d found some stuff in the twists all right.

All the possibilities were herbivorous, though, and I was betting that one of them would match my silly-looking friend in the loch. I giggled again, I’m afraid. I had a pretty good idea what we were dealing with, but I had to be sure before I let those kids back out on the loch.

By the time we’d finished our chowder, Susan had come charging down the stairs. She punched up the results on my monitor—she was not just fast, she was good.

I called up ship’s records and went straight to my best guess. At a glance, we had a match but I went through gene by gene and found the one drift.

“It’s a match!” Ilanith crowed from behind me. “First try, too, Mama Jason!”

Everybody focused on the monitor. “Look again, kiddo. Only ninety-nine percent match.” I pointed out the drifted genes. “Those mean it can eat your popcorn trees without so much as a stomach upset.”

Ilanith said, “That’s okay with me. Elly? Do you mind?”

“I don’t know,” Elly said. “What it, Annie? Can we live with it?”

is

I called up ships’ records on the behavior patterns of the authentic creature and moved aside to let Elly have a look. “I suspect you’ll all have to carry Leo’s secret weapon when you go down to the loch to fish or swim, but other than that I don’t see much of a problem.”

Leo thumped me on the back. “Damn you, woman, what is it?”

Elly’d gotten a film that might have been my creature’s twin. She looked taken aback at first, then she too giggled. “That’s the silliest thing I’ve seen in years!

Come on, Annie, what is it?”

“Honey, Loch Moose has got its first moose.”

“No!” Leo shouted, but he followed it with a laugh as he crowded in with the rest to look at the screen.

Only Susan wasn’t laughing. She caught my hand and pulled me down to whisper, “Will they let us keep it if it’s only ninety-nine percent? It’s not good for anything, like the odders are.”

I patted her hand. “It’s good for a laugh. I say it’s a keeper.” I was not about to let this go the way of the kangaroo rex.

“Now I understand why I found her in that state,” Leo was saying. He pointed accusingly at me.

“This woman was laughing so hard she could scarcely catch her breath.”

“You didn’t see the damn thing crowned with water lilies and chewing on them while it contemplated the oddity in the boat. You’d have been as helpless as I was.”

“Unbelievable,” he said.

“Worse,” I told him, “in this case, seeing isn’t believing. I still can’t believe in something like that. The mind won’t encompass it.”

He laughed at the screen, then again at me. “Maybe that accounts for your granddaddy’s monster. It was so silly-looking anybody who saw it wouldn’t believe his own eyes.”

I couldn’t help it—I kissed him on the cheek. “Leo, you’re a genius!”

He squeaked like Susan. “Me? What did I do?”

“Elly,” I said, “congratulations! You now have the only lodge on Mirabile with an Earth-authentic Loch Ness monster.” I grinned at Susan, who caught on immediately. I swear her smile started at the mouth and ran all the way down to her toes.

Feeling rather smug, I went on, “Leo will make bells so your lodgers can scare it away if it gets too close to them, won’t you, Leo?”

“Oh!” said Leo. He considered the idea. “You know, Annie, it might just work. If everybody went to Loch Ness to try to get a glimpse of the monster, maybe they’ll come here, too. Scary but safe.”

“Exactly.” I fixed him with a look. “Now how do we go about it?”

He grinned. “We follow our family traditions: we tell stories.”

“You think if I hang around for a week or so that’ll make it a safe monster?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Good,” I said. “Susan? What’s the verdict? Are you going off to the lab? If I’m going to stay here, somebody

’ll have to help Mike coddle those red daffodils.”

No squeak this time. Her mouth dropped open but what came out was, “Uh, yes.

Uh, Elly?”

Elly nodded with a smile, sad but proud all in one.

So while they bustled about packing, I had a chance to read through all the material in ships’

records on both moose and Nessie. By the time they were ready to leave for town, I had a pretty
Page 24

good idea of our game plan. I sent Susan off with instructions to run a full gene-read on both creatures. Brute force on the moose, to make sure it wouldn’t chain up to something bigger and nastier.

Then we co-opted the rest of Elly’s kids. Leo gave each of them a different version of our monster tale to tell.

Jen, I thought, did it best. She got so excited when she told it that her eyes popped and she got incoherent, greatly enhancing the tale of how Leonov Opener Denness had saved Annie Jason Masmajean from the monster in Loch Moose.

Leo brought bells from his workshop. They’d been intended to keep beastlies away in the northern territory, but there was no reason they wouldn’t do just as good a job against a monster that was Earth-authentic.

Two days later, the inn was full of overnighters—much to Elly’s surprise and delight—all hoping for a glimpse of the Loch Moose monster.

In my room, late night and by nova-light, Leo got his first peek at the creature.

Once again it was swimming in the loch. He stared long and hard out the window.

After a long moment, he remembered the task we’d set ourselves. “Should I wake the rest of the lodgers, do you think?”

“No,” I said, “you just tell them about it at breakfast. Anybody who doesn’t see it tonight will stay another night, hoping.”

“You’re a wicked old lady.”

I raised Ilanith’s camera to the window. “Yup,” I said, and, twisting the lens deliberately out of focus, I snapped a picture. “Hope that didn’t come out well,” I said.

If I’d thought that was the end of it, I’d thought wrong.