Anne McCaffrey – Dinosaur Planet II – The Survivors CHAPTER THREE
“Kaaaiiii!” The rumble that awakened Kai was a nightmare sound because the noise not only issued from a source uncomfortably close to his ear but it also vibrated through the stone under him.
“Huh? Whaaat?” Varian lifted her head from its pillow on his upper arm. “Tor? She blinked up at the rock which, from her perspective, towered above them.
As she moved, the recorder was firmly placed on Kai’s diaphragm, forcing an exhalation from him.
“Location old core?” the recorder said in lugubrious tones.
“The old core?” Varian’s voice echoed the astonishment which she and Kai felt for that totally unexpected query. “We’ve nearly been murdered, stripped of all survival equipment, out of touch with everyone …”
Kai tightened his arm to silence her. “Typical Thek logic, Varian. It chose the issue important to it, not us. I wonder if that old core is what stirred Tor to come.”
“Huh?” Varian struggled to a sitting position, drawing her legs away from Tor’s meter-high triangular lump of granite.
“Where do you remember last seeing that core?” Kai asked her.
“Frankly, I’d other things on my mind than ancient geological artifacts and yet …” She frowned as she searched her memory. “It must have been in Gaber’s dome. Paskutti wouldn’t have been interested in it. Would Bakkun have hung on to it for some obscure reason?”
“Bakkun?” Kai thought of the heavy world geologist with whom he had often teamed on field trips. “No, he wouldn’t value it. He already knew where the ore sites were.” Kai looked up at the Thek. “Original compound!”
Tor rumbled but Kai was diverted by Varian’s urgent tug on his arm.
“If he’s going to the compound, Kai, we could take a power pack and go with him. The heavyworlders couldn’t have used the sleds without power. They might still be where they were stashed. If we could have some form of transport …”
“Accompany for search, Tor!” Kai said in loud measured tones, repeating the request as the Thek’s rumbling continued.
“I wonder where we’d fit,” said Varian, thoughtfully staring at the Thek vehicle.
The fit, as Kai discovered, was exceedingly close for just one of them. The spare power pack could be secured neatly to one side of Tor’s pointed top but one full-sized human had to cram his body against the curve of the shield canopy, arching over the Thek’s mass. After taking a long look at his flight position, Kai turned to Varian.
“I think you’d better wake Lunzie and Triv. The others can stay in cold sleep until we need them but I’d rather have the two Disciples awake.”
“You’re not expecting trouble, are you? Here?” asked Varian, incredulously spreading her arms to include the dim vine-bedecked cave.
“No.” Kai grinned. “Not here! But I don’t know how long I’ll be with Tor.” He shrugged.
“You’d be better off with someone to talk to. And they could be useful, if only for the experience they’ve gained on other expeditions.”
Varian nodded agreement and returned Kai’s grin, then Tor closed the canopy about them. The Thek was warmer than Kai had thought, so he spent most of the mercifully short trip to the original 19
Anne McCaffrey – Dinosaur Planet II – The Survivors compound site clutching desperately to the grips which Tor had fashioned for him on the shield’s interior. Kai remembered the trip as a series of incredible acrobatics on his part and a green blur for the Thek sled was capable of considerably more speed than the ones designed for humanoids.
Finally Tor braked its forward speed and began an abrupt circling movement.
“Here?” Tor rumbled. The word reverberated in the enclosed space like a klaxon.
Dazedly Kai looked down and wondered how Tor could have recognized anything at the speed with which it was circling. Kai felt nauseous.
“Here!” To stop the dizzying motion, Kai would have confirmed any location, but he had recognized the ledge on which the space shuttle had once rested. Tor braked the cone in the same spot and Kai groggily disengaged himself, then waited until the shield had been lifted and he could step back onto solid ground. It would be a long time before he volunteered to go anywhere in a Thek vehicle.