“My benevolence has a limit, young man. I am on my way to the secondary camp mentioned in the final report recorded on the beacon. Are any of the original expedition still living?”
Varian was trying to guess whose son he might be. Or grandson, she added bleakly. She opted for Bakkun and Berru, since they were the only heavyworlders with light eyes. Aygar’s were a clear, bright, shrewd green. His features were finer than could be expected from either Tardma or Divisti.
“One has survived,” he said in an insolent drawl.
“One of the children from the original landing party?” Could she goad him into revealing more about the mutineers’ interpretation of abandonment.
“Children?” Aygar was surprised. “There were no children on the original expedition!”
“According to the beacon,” she replied, sowing what she hoped would be fertile seeds of doubt,
“three children were included; Bonnard was the boy, and the two girls are named as Terilla and Cleiti, all in their second decade.”
“There were no children. Only six adults. Abandoned by the ARCT-10.” He spoke with the ring of truth in his voice, a truth which she knew to be false no matter how keenly he believed it.
“Discrepancies are not generally committed to satellite beacons. The message clearly read nineteen in the landing party, not six,” she said, permitting both irritation and surprise to tinge her voice. “What’re your leaders’ names?”
“Now? Or then?” He covered his chagrin with anger.
“Either.”
“Paskutti and Bakkun who was my grandsire.”
“Paskutti? Bakkun? Those are not the leaders of record. This is all very strange. You mentioned one survivor of the original group?”
“Tanegli, but he is failing,” and that frailty was anathema to Aygar’s youthful strength, “so his passing will occur in the near future.”
“Tanegli? What of Kai, Varian? The physician, Lunzie, the chemist Trizein.”
Aygar’s face was closed. “I’ve never heard those names. Six survived the stampede which overran the original camp?”
“Stampede?”
Aygar gestured irritably toward the far distant herbivores. “They panic easily, and panicked on the day my grandsire and the other five nearly died.” He grounded his spear and straightened in pride. “Had they not had the strength of three men, they would not have out run the herd that day!”
“Stampede?” Varian looked at the peaceful grazers as if assessing their potential. “Yes, well, I can imagine that a mass of them in hysterical flight might short even a large force field. And that 38
Anne McCaffrey – Dinosaur Planet II – The Survivors certainly explains why only stubs of the plastic supports remain at the original site. Where are you now located? At the secondary camp?”
“No,” he said and took the largest of his two knives with which he proceeded to hack at the softer belly hide of the dead beast. He had to use both hands and great effort to penetrate the thick tissue.
“Once the power for the force field was exhausted,” he continued, spacing his words between grunts as he made incisions, “the night creatures attacked. We live in caves, near the iron workings.
We live on the flesh of animals that we trap or kill in chase,” he went on with cold vehemence.
“We live and we die. This is our world now. You arrive too late to be any use to us. Go!”
“Keep a polite tongue in your head, young man, when speaking to me,” Varian said in a colder voice, summoning Discipline to every fiber of her body.
He rose, tossing down the bloody hunk of meat he had just carved. His eyes narrowed at the tone she had used, but she preferred to precipitate an incident while she was at full Discipline, and when he had just concluded a wearying run.
“We no longer recognize the authority of those who abandoned us to this savage world.”
“This world, Ireta, belongs to the Federated sentient Planets, young man, and you cannot—”
He made his move, goaded, as she had hoped, by her insufferable attitude. As she had expected, he came for her in a frontal attack, secure in his advantage of height and strength; swinging one arm wide, hand open, aimed to connect with the side of her head and knock her senseless. Had she not had the training of Discipline, she would probably have been crushed against fang-face, possibly skewered on a finely sharp claw. As it was, she caught his hand, used his forward momentum against him and threw him heavily to the ground.