Wasteland of flint

the trench. So they can grow and be protected from the sun.' Gretchen nodded. 'Because all of these organisms – all of this effusion of Ephesian life – are terribly sensitive to ultraviolet radiation. You saw what happened down in the examining room – everything just died. Or in the shuttle intake with your multispec lamp.'

'Okay,' Parker said as he stubbed out his tabac. 'Then how did all of this develop here? There's no ozone layer to speak of, no heavy atmosphere…the surface is a kill zone for the chapultin. How would they ever get a chance?'

Gretchen's expression changed and Parker thought she looked terribly sad.

'Because there were so many of them to begin with,' she said in a hollow voice. 'Unnumbered billions, covering the world in a terrible killing mist. They must have blotted out the sun, turned the sky dark with their numbers. But of course, there was no one to see them, not by then.'

'Huh?' Parker's tabac hung on his lip, sending up a slow, coiling trail of smoke.

'They were the eaters,' Gretchen said, grinding a palm heel against her eye. 'The First Sun people came to this world and they scattered thousands of cylinders – just like those Russovsky found. The cylinders broke open and the chapultin poured out, relentless and unstoppable. And, in the end, when they were done, there was nothing but barren rock and stone and an empty world.'

Parker drew back, an expression half of amazement and half of disgust on his face.

'Then the great machines descended from the sky and the whole mantle of the world was torn away and reshaped in a way which pleased the gods of the First Sun. Lennox thinks their project was interrupted, that they went away in haste and I think she's right. Because they left behind a ruin and some of their expendable tools were still alive. Some of the eaters lived, burrowing into the stone, hiding from the sun which turned the newly shattered surface into the harshest desert imaginable.

'Smalls is puzzled by the levels of oxygen and nitrogen in the current atmosphere. They're much higher than they should be – like there's a chlorophyll reaction working somewhere – and there's really very little CO₂.' A wan smile tried to intrude on Gretchen's face, but failed. 'The descendants of the chapultin fill the sand, the rock, every niche – just as life always seems to do – and they gobble up any CO₂ they might find, releasing plain carbon and oxygen. And they fear the sun, so they've evolved in this swift million years, laying down waste products to protect their crystalline bodies, a shell to block the killing UV.'

Her hand opened, indicating the plateau of pipeflowers. 'Some of them have evolved to get their energy from the sun, though even then in only a specialized way. They must…they must have thought the engine flare of the shuttle was a new sun – so bright, so close – but there was too much energy, too fast.' Gretchen nodded to the pilot. 'What's a beam weapon, but a directed stream of excited particles? That plateau is thirty miles wide, Parker, and there must be hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of pipeflowers. And every one of them probably suffered a catastrophic electron cascade all at once.'

'Ugly.' Parker said after thinking about it for a moment. 'Very ugly. Old crow better be careful flying around down there. Could get his tailfeathers singed.'

Gretchen smiled broadly at the thought of the Imperial judge plunging in a ball of fire to the desert floor. The mental image was clear and vivid and accompanied by a very satisfying crashing sound.

'Hrrwht!' Magdalena shook her head, ears angled back. 'A Midge won't attract them – it's quiet and unobtrusive – barely leaves a vapor trail. Russovsky was lucky – or figured it all out for herself. She was a careful hunter – well, before they ate her up, she was.' The Hesht sighed.

'Yes…' Gretchen suddenly looked thoughtful. She was thinking of Hummingbird and his mysterious errand. 'Parker, how much fuel does a Midge carry? How high can one fly?'

'So,' Anderssen announced in a very satisfied tone, 'he's not coming back.'

Parker stared around in alarm, making a cutting motion at his throat. 'Sister save us! Boss, don't talk like that! He's plugged into every surveillance camera on the ship.'

The pilot had been working up fuel loads and the speed and range of a Midge on the navigator's panel for an hour. None of his scenarios allowed an ultralight to rise to a sufficient altitude in the Ephesian atmosphere to let a shuttle on ballistic path to make a skyhook snatch.

'Maggie?' Gretchen swiveled her head toward the black-furred alien.

The Hesht shook her head, the overhead lights swirling across her work goggles, attention far away. 'Crow and the Marines are loading supplies into the fresh Midge and doing a systems check. He's away from his surveillance equipment.'

'See?' Gretchen grinned at the pilot. Parker made a face.

'Don't cost anything to be careful,' he muttered. 'Look – maybe he's expecting a pickup from the Cornuelle. A navy shuttle could pick him up anywhere. No law saying he has to be snatched out of the upper atmosphere on a skyhook.'

'I suppose.' Anderssen's face fell and her grumpy mood returned. In her heart, she knew there was no reason at all for the Imperial nauallis to choose the same way down and back. 'So you think he wants this crazy high-altitude insertion now because the Cornuelle isn't available?'

'Sure.' Parker settled back in the navigator's chair, his nervous tension draining away as Anderssen's voice became more reasonable. 'Our shuttles aren't equipped with any kind of stealth tech, no antiradar alloys and composites…just commercial birds. So if he wants a quiet delivery, then this ballistic skip is an entirely reasonable way to go. Coming back? The Cornuelle sends down some freaky, high-grade military shuttle to snatch him up all ghostlike.'

'Hmm. Only if the Cornuelle comes back soon enough. These suits and other equipment aren't going to last too long down there, not if he's wandering around in the mountains. He'll need to be extracted in no more than a week or two.'

'What do you mean?' Parker stubbed out his tabac. 'People have been working down at base camp for months.'

'Yes, in pressurized buildings and using de-dusting equipment when they come in from the field.' Gretchen waved her hand for emphasis. 'Plus, the observatory site is in the middle of a bright, well-lit plain – almost flat, a desert even by Ephesian standards – so the population density of the microfauna is very low. I checked the airlocks and storm doors – they're eroding, not quickly, but you can see signs of wear. If the camp was someplace sheltered, in a canyon and in shade part of the day? There'd be nothing but a mineralized sheath left, or even an animate copy, like Russovsky.'

Parker's shoulder twitched in reaction. 'That's a nice thought.'

'Ah-huh.' Gretchen looked at Maggie questioningly. The Hesht was still staring into the distance. Still a little time, Anderssen thought. And what am I going to do? My prize is snatched away, the expedition cashiered short of any kind of deliverable – there won't be a single bonus now, not without something the Company can sell. The thought of not being able to afford a holiday ticket made her stomach turn over. Her thoughts shied away from the prospect of the expedition crew being charged for the lost machinery, tools, equipment and data at the base camp. 'Parker, can you tell where the Cornuelle has gone? When it might come back?'

The pilot made a coughing sound – a conscious imitation of Magdalena's diesel generator laugh – and shook his head. 'Sorry, boss. We lost the navy as soon as they went passive, shut down their hull lights and snuck off into the dark. Those light cruisers are built for snooping around, and the poor lot of matchsticks on this tub won't light them up even if we try.'

Parker sighed, tapping a fresh tabac from a dingy plastic box he carried in the front pocket of his work vest. 'As to a return date? I don't know. One of Maggie's tapes has Isoroku saying karijozu on his last comm call as they were preparing to leave. 'Good luck hunting.' So I'd guess they're looking for the refinery ship.' He squinted at one of the dead navigation panels, thinking. 'A search of the asteroid belt could take weeks, even months.'

'I see.' Gretchen's expression had grown still. She started to speak, but Magdalena suddenly twitched, making a sharp motion with one hand.

'They've finished,' the Hesht said, ears twitching. 'Back to work.'

Grumbling, Parker hitched up his work belt and swung himself gracefully up and over the ring of command