“Do you have the coordinates?” she inquired.
“The autopilot has them. Up in the foothills of the Sawtooth, right? We aren’t all of us tunnel-vision moneygrubbers in Venusberg, whatever you suppose.” His finger stabbed the control board. Power whirred.
And again I’ve blundered, she thought. Not that he’s altogether undeserving of it. “Apologies. No offense meant. I’m anxious, you see, tired, overwrought.”
“Then shouldn’t you have rested before we go, or sent somebody else?” His tone had smoothed. “That would have to be a Susaian, I imagine, but why not?”
She shook her head. “I dare not delay. Orichalc can come to grief at any instant. He was on New Halla till lately and has had time to learn virtually nothing about wilderness survival. Besides, under the circumstances, I think I may be the only person of either species on this planet who could find him.”
If that can be done at all, she thought. The trail is already cold.
They gained altitude and bore east. The ocean, the curving shoreline slipped from view. Below them reached another sea, ruddy-brown, the crowns of trees in their millions, from horizon to horizon and beyond. Wind made great slow billows over it. Here and there gleamed a lake or the meandering thread of a river. A marsh passed beneath vision, nearly hidden by antlike forms, browsing animals that in reality were huge. Often a flock of winged creatures, thousands strong, scudded above the forest. Far ahead, cloud banks towered beneath an opalescent sky. Air conditioning made the cabin blessedly cool.
“Well—” In almost Susaian wise, Lissa felt how Hebo tried to veil skepticism. “This, uh, Orichalc, I gather he’s important?”
“Why, yes. I thought you’d remember. It was a sensation, six years ago. How he led us to those black holes about to collide, at risk of his life, such a scientific prize that my House was glad to award him the island he asked for.”
“Oh,
“Why the secrecy? Doesn’t seem like you.”
“To keep journalists and other pests off our tails and out from under our feet.”
Insufficient reason, she thought. He’s holding back something. But what, and why?
The Venusberg operations may not be advertised, but they aren’t hidden. I wish I could say outright that what I learned about them when I came home was what brought me here, dismayed, indignant, hoping I can make such a position for myself among the Susaians that I can get something done to curb the destruction.
No. Not now. I can’t afford a quarrel. Yet.
She swallowed. “Well, I’m grateful you came out of hiding to help.”
He gave her a glance. His tone mildened anew. “Orichalc means a lot to you, plain to see. After what you went through together in space.”
“And our correspondence and meetings since then. Any life matters, of course, but his more than most. They revere him on New Halla. His words, his leadership may make all the difference in what happens during the next few centuries. He came to the mainland to learn for himself, in hands-on detail, what’s being accomplished there and now. The whole idea, which the Old Truth itself promotes, is not to destroy the natural environment but to fit into it.”
“As if you could do that without causing an upheaval’s worth of changes.” Hebo sighed. “Hey, I don’t want a fight, But could I ask you to study some history? Pioneers, voortrekkers, yeah, they do your minimalist, economical sort of thing. They haven’t the means to do more. But after them come the farmers, the miners, the cities, the factories—and that’s the end of anything you could call nature.”
“We’ve kept Asborg green.” Mostly.
“Domesticated,” he snorted. “Manicured. What virgin growth and wildlife you’ve got are in carefully managed reserves. Anyway, the case is completely different on Freydis, and you know it.”
At the aircraft’s speed, they were already beyond the coastal plain. Ground rose in swells and ridges, still densely overgrown but with lighter-hued foliage and frequent shrubby openings. Rainclouds shrouded the Sawtooths themselves and spilled westward beneath the high permanent overcast.
After a silence too full of the thrum and whine of their passage, Hebo said, “I’ve got to admit the problem today isn’t clear to me. All I was told, in the hurry everybody was in, was that a camp had been attacked by predators, several persons were hurt, including the human leader, and one was missing. Your Susaian friend, it turns out. Doesn’t he have his radio bracelet on?”
“Radio collar,” Lynn corrected. “No, but that wasn’t due to carelessness. The trouble was unforeseen— unforeseeable. The Susaians were familiar only with New Halla, an island, and getting some acquaintance with part of the continental seaboard. Uldor had worked in the highlands, and deemed the time ripe to start exploring and experimenting there. In many respects, he said, they might prove to be the best site for the first mainland colony.”
Hebo nodded. She hurried on: “Orichalc went along to observe. The Susaian leaders need to know how these efforts are conducted. Uldor’s party was conveyed to a suitable spot and left to itself. The first couple of days went to settling in. Then everybody relaxed last night, before commencing their studies. They held a party to celebrate. Perfectly sober, Old Truth believers don’t use recreational drugs of any kind, and Uldor might have a single well- watered shot of whiskey if he’s feeling expansive. They saw no need to post a watch when they went to sleep, but did. In short, they took every precaution.
“A little before daybreak, a pack of silent-running large carnivores entered the camp. As dark as the night was and as fast as they moved, the lookout doesn’t seem to have been aware of anything till they were almost on her, and then probably only through her emotional sense. We don’t know; she barely had time to cry out before being torn apart. The creatures ran wild, blood-frenzied. Uldor and a couple of others had kept loaded firearms handy, and shot several, two fatally, but fangs slashed them nevertheless. After a horrible battle in the dark, the beasts retreated and our people called the base. We evacuated them. You know the rest.”
“No, I don’t,” Hebo said. “What sort of beasts? You say dead ones were there to look at.”
“Lycosauroids. I asked Forholt for data, and they identified them from my transmission, and were astounded. None had ever been seen this far north. Why should Uldor provide against them? Getting struck by lightning seemed more probable.”
“Hm.” Hebo rubbed his chin. “Did some weird set of chances take a single pack hundreds of klicks from its hunting grounds? Or is this an early sign of an ecological fluctuation? The ceratodon herds do seem to be declining in the southern range, and that’s the principal lyco prey. …”
His almost scientific language bemused Lissa. It was she who must say: “Such problems can wait. No, I take that back. It can well be a very practical question. Another deadly stunt pulled by a world never really meant for us.”
But just homelike enough to draw us into its snares, she thought. If Susaian and Freydisan and Terran life didn’t happen to be biochemically similar, able to provide nourishment of sorts for each other, none of us would have dreamed of any such ventures here as ours.
“Or for anybody,” Hebo said sardonically. “Not that I object, understand. I’m in business because of it. But I have wondered what’s eating the settlers, to take all this risk and hardship.”
“An ideal.”
“Yeah, an ideology.” He sounded contemptuous.
She shook her head. “Nothing so simple. Susaians aren’t completely alien to us. Look back at human history. You’ll find any number of parallels to this. You know”—whether or not you understand—“how the Old Truth people have needed a place of their own. Discriminated against on the Susaian worlds, even persecuted, for centuries— though their standards of honesty, industry, all-around decency put most of our race to shame—”
He laughed. “Quite the little idealist yourself, aren’t you?”
She wouldn’t let the gibe sting. She wouldn’t. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to preach. When I got home, my father told me how he’d had to explain things over and over to Asborgans who knew practically nothing and cared less about the subject till suddenly they heard they were getting nonhuman next-door neighbors. I guess that
