to look for Lionheart’s clan or something-the search is concentrating on the region north of Twin Forks, up to the foothills of the Copperwall Mountains.”
Already considering herself part of the search, Stephanie called up a map on her uni-link.
“The search isn’t going to be easy,” she said, holding the uni-link out so Karl could look at the map with her. “There’s some rough terrain in there.”
“Yeah,” Karl agreed. “That’s actually why the anthropological team chose the area in the first place. Because of the rise and fall of the mountains there-and that large river-there are a lot of ecosystems represented in a relatively compact area. Problem is, while the map shows the area as a couple hundred square kilometers, when you take into account all the dips and rises, what the search parties need to deal with is actually closer to twice or three times as much area.”
“Including a river,” Stephanie said. She pulled up details on it. “Large and fast-moving. You don’t think they landed the van in the river somehow?”
Karl’s expression became grim. “I don’t think even the most absent-minded scientist could do that, but if they did, the end result isn’t worth thinking about. They’d be gone and no one would find them, not in a million years.”
Climbs Quickly tasted the spike of anxiety and fear in Death Fang’s Bane’s mind-glow as Shadowed Sunlight talked. He felt his usual bud of frustration since none of the mouth noises gave him any indication of what the problem was. Once or twice, he heard the sound “Anders”-a sound which he thought applied to the bright-haired young male his two-leg was so interested in. However, since she often made this noise lately, Climbs Quickly couldn’t be certain that Bleached Fur was involved in whatever the problem might be.
As he was trying to piece together what might be wrong, Death Fang’s Bane’s newest friend, Windswept-as Climbs Quickly had dubbed the girl, both in tribute to her physical appearance and the changeable surges of her bright mind-glow-came trotting over to join Shadowed Sunlight and Death Fang’s Bane. The wild-haired girl had visited Death Fang’s Bane quite a bit lately, as had a female Climbs Quickly was fairly certain was Windswept’s mother.
Although Windswept could not read mind-glows, the new arrival was apparently aware of the tension. She asked a question. In reply, both Death Fang’s Bane and Shadowed Sunlight began talking rapidly, their mouth noises overlapping each other in a manner that Climbs Quickly wondered if anyone ever found confusing. However, whatever was being said, one thing became clear: whatever was wrong was centered on Bleached Fur. Death Fang’s Bane’s mind-glow as she explained matters to Windswept became shaded with a level of dread that was distinctly unsettling.
Climbs Quickly was certain this feeling was rooted in something real, not in those wild surges of emotion that filled Death Fang’s Bane whenever the young man was near. For one thing, Shadowed Sunlight and Windswept were also both disturbed.
Climbs Quickly was not in the least surprised when Death Fang’s Bane turned to him. Most of her mouth noises as she spoke to him were incomprehensible, but he caught two he recognized: “Go” and “Anders.” These, combined with the urgency in her mind-glow, were all he needed to know.
They were going to do something about this “Anders” problem, and his two-leg wanted him along.
“Bleek!” Climbs Quickly replied, scampering ahead in the direction of Shadowed Sunlight’s air car. “Bleek! Bleek!”
For Anders, the days since the crash had been a blur of cascading emergencies. Once the crew had accepted that they couldn’t hope for rescue any earlier than two or three days from now, there had been a round of blame-slinging.
Anders knew his own angry explosion had triggered this, so he felt guilty when Dr. Whittaker diverted the issue by tossing around some blame of his own.
“And, why,” Dr. Whittaker said to the air in his best “professor questioning the class” tone, “aren’t our uni- links working?”
He glowered generally, but it was Virgil Iwamoto who wilted. As junior member of the crew, he had been responsible for assembling much of the gear.
“We did notice a few problems before,” he began hesitantly, “but they didn’t seem to matter much, since we’d have the on-vehicle unit.”
That had been the wrong thing to say. Dr. Whittaker hadn’t been married for nearly twenty years to a politician without knowing that disapproval worked far more efficiently than anger in reigning in subordinates. He ignored the question of the vehicle and focused on the uni-links.
“You should have looked into having the problem fixed or substitute units purchased as soon as the problem first showed,” he stated in a manner that brooked no argument-and how could Virgil argue? What Dr. Whittaker said was correct.
Then came the question of where to set up their camp. They weren’t high enough in the Copperwall Mountains for peak bears to be a problem, but the highly adaptable hexapumas could not be ignored-especially since their only weapons were utilitarian vibro-blades and a single tranq rifle with only one clip of darts. That meant setting up camp in the trees, and that, as far as Dr. Whittaker was concerned, meant finding a location that would not contaminate his beloved site.
Again, arguing was useless. There was no overlooking the fact that when they were found, Dr. Whittaker was going to have a certain amount of fast-talking to do if the expedition’s relationship with the SFS was to be salvaged. Damage to the treecat site would only complicate matters.
Valuable time was spent while they surveyed the area until they located a stand of yellow rock trees that didn’t seem to have been used by the treecats. However, the anthropologists’ insistence on not contaminating the site made setting up camp more difficult. While the network of branches and nodal trunks made picketwood ideal for what Kesia flippantly termed “treehouse building,” the straight-trunked rock trees were less well-suited.
Eventually, however, they located a stand of younger trees, many of which retained horizontal limbs at a relatively “low” seven or so meters from the ground. At least rock trees-called such for the extreme hardness and density of their wood-were strong enough that even a young one could hold a fair amount of weight.
Transporting their gear and erecting the camping shelters at that height above the ground introduced the next problem.
“I just looked at my counter-grav unit,” Virgil said. “The read-out seems lower than it should be.
His tone was hesitant. Anders didn’t blame him, given that Dr. Whittaker seemed set on making Virgil the scapegoat for any and all problems having to do with equipment. He’d already been reprimanded for only arranging for enough food for their planned jaunt and because the box containing the tea Dr. Whittaker favored, along with a few other luxury goods, hadn’t been among those removed from the sinking van.
There was a moment’s hesitation while everyone else checked their units. All, to varying degrees, were exhausted below the level they should have been. Dr. Whittaker’s was the closest to normal. He somehow seemed to think this made him virtuous.
“Perhaps you damaged the unit,” he began, “with all that jumping about in the bog…”
Dr. Emberly cut him off.
“The source of the problem is obvious,” she said crisply. “At our usual rate of use, these units are good for about thirty-three hours. However, since we’ve been using them to lighten our loads while we make camp, we’re burning more power. Usually, that wouldn’t be an issue, since broadcast power from the van would have recharged the units as we used them, but that isn’t available.”
And, Anders added in silent, vicious commentary, since Dad has mostly been standing around, giving orders and not doing much hauling, he hasn’t burned as much power as some of us.
Anders’ own unit’s read-out was about the same as Virgil’s. He tried to remember the conversion factor. Details escaped him, but he did remember that at minimum power use-which reduced gravity by about twenty-five percent-the counter-grav units were good for right on forty-eight hours. Since they already had been using them at a higher setting-Sphinx’s gravity was one Terran normal, plus an additional third or so-they had been drawing power to counter an extra fifteen percent. That was why the units were good for about thirty-three hours, rather than the full forty-eight, since increasing counter-grav above the minimum drew power at a higher rate of use.
