“Well, you’re the one who opened the box in the first place.”
“We can leave the box,” Gambiel decided, setting it down on the vine mat. “Do you think you could find this place again?”
“No.”
“If I left it with the stasis-field turned on, we could locate it again, easily.”
“So could the kzinti.”
“Yeah. And that might distract them.”
“Then leave it,” she agreed.
“Is that the right decision, hey, Fellah?” he asked, hugging the little dog tighter under his arm.
It looked up at him with those big eyes, seeming to understand the question. It made a sound halfway between a chirp and a whine.
“Err-yupp!”
“Oh, brother!” Krater sighed.
He bent down and activated the flat disk. The cloudy surface of the box cleared to a hard, silvery shine in the fading light.
“Let’s get out of here,” Krater said.
It was too dark, really, to go swinging thought the trees. But with the box set like a beacon behind them, Gambiel could see no alternative. He readied the grapple in its launcher and aimed left-handed.
Chuff!
“I need better field accuracy than this,” Nyawk-Captain said, handing his jury-built locator to Weaponsmaster.
The kzin took it and inspected the pirated missile circuitry. “Perhaps I can tune-”
“Is the -ship’s radar back in commission yet?”
“Navigator and I were just making the final adjustments.”
“Give me a sweep of the area.”
“Yes, sir.”
While they fired up the repaired systems, Nyawk-Captain stretched, scratched, and got himself something to eat. He had learned it was easier to shed the armor outside the ship and work the airlock unencumbered. Bad policy if a ground force attacked while all of them were inside, but he didn’t think anything would come against the ship, except more Whitefoods. And Nyawk-Captain had made reconstruction of the short-range armaments a priority.
Munching a haunch of Mystery Meat-a Fleet ration consisting of amalgamated proteins and vitamins, pressed around a synthetic bone and inadequately rehydrated-he looked out through the open hatch. The armor stood sentinel there, and in more than just a symbolic sense. Before stepping out of it, he had keyed the enhancers for sound and scent, slaving them by radio circuit back into the ship’s sensors.
“Ready now, sir” Navigator called.
“Locate the Thrintun box.”
“Two kilometers distant but at a new bearing- uhn, different from the one you took.”
“Which way?”
“North and east of here.”
“Weaponsmaster, get armor. We will go together to find it this time.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Ouch!” came a low sound in the utter blackness.
“What was that?”
“I hit my head on a branch.”
“Again?”
“Can’t we slow down?”
“Still three kzinti out there. Behind us.”
“One, you mean.”
“One that we saw.”
“The others are working on their ship.”
“Yes-last time we looked.”
“We’ll kill ourselves, swinging through these trees in the dark.”
“You want to walk? And put both feet through a hole?” “We could stop for the night.”
“The kzinti would find us.”
“In this jungle, I couldn’t find us.”
“You don’t have their sense of smell.”
“Ow?’
“What now?”
“I barked my shin.”
“Well, do it quietly. They have ears, too.”
Nyawk-Captain aimed the locator up into the trees. The refinements Weaponsmaster had made in its circuits were amazing: they reduced the light bloom of any hardened return to a pinpoint, while stepping up the return image from woody branches and trunks into a ghost map of the tree world.
“I detuned everything else and made it selective for carbon,” Weaponsmaster had explained, the first time his captain had used it. “Carbon is a component in cellulose,” the kzin added.
“Very creative,” Nyawk-Captain had said.
Now, two kilometers from the ship, he aimed into the treetops again and took a reading. The artifact was right above them, almost aligned with the tree by which they were standing.
Nyawk-Captain turned his helmet light up the side of the tree. “The artifact is approximately ten cubits out from this trunk in-” He oriented himself against it and pointed. “-that direction.”
“Shall I dumb for it?”
“Do so.”
En five minutes, the kzin returned with the storage box under his arm.
“It feels light, sir.”
“We’ll open it at the ship.”
“When they find it’s empty, what do you think they’ll do?”
“Come after us.”
“They’re already doing that”
“So? Did you expect them to stop?”
“No, I guess not.”
Excitement overcame Nyawk-Captain. Rather than shed his armor and climb into the ship, he called on Navigator to come out with a strong worklight.
“Should not someone stay inside, sir? To guard against-”
“Come out here!”
Before Navigator could negotiate the airlock, Nyawk-Captain had the box on the ground and, in the light of their helmet lamps, had found the actuator stud.
The box turned from flashing mirror-brightness to a simple, luminous gray. A crack appeared along its top. Nyawk-Captain forced it apart with his hands. Navigator brought up the light and angled it down inside.
Nothing.
In all the records collected by the Patriarchy concerning Thrintun boxes, none had mentioned an empty box. Preserving fresh air was not a priority with any species.
Nyawk-Captain put the beak of his helmet into the space and inhaled deeply, with suit enhancers at full power His own nose told him that some animal had once-briefly and forever-inhabited this space. The suit’s flicker display began cataloging a long list of organic chemicals: oils, hormones, enzymes, pheromones.
He inspected the interior with optical enhancers, and found three hairs-finer than those on any kzin’s pelt-and all without pigment. In daylight, they would be white.
“Is this a billion-year-old joke?” Navigator asked.
“No. The box was inhabited by a live animal,” Nyawk-Captain replied. “Too small to be a Thrint. Unlikely to be
