“I told you I was hungry enough to eat anything! Even this—this natural stuff!”
By the time the two sleds had been cleared of fungi, with Triv’s assistance, Portegin had began to reassemble the available communications matrices. While Triv and Varian had been away, Portegin dismantled the damaged shuttle comunit. The slabs were laid out under more of Lunzie’s plasfilm to protect them from the dust and debris that the wind blew about the cavern. Portegin shortly began muttering about doing delicate work with a hammer and tongs. He crouched like a troglodyte while Triv suggested that he transfer his operation into the big sled and the protection of the transparent canopy. Lunzie grudgingly surrendered one of her few medical probes to be heated to seal the connections.
“The joints won’t last as long as they would if I had the proper equipment but they ought to hold well enough,” Portegin announced after thanking Lunzie for her sacrifice.
Triv offered to assist Portegin as the man’s small-muscle control showed the effects of long disuse. They rearranged the seats in the larger sled and came across unexpected riches. Tucked between the seat back and the curve of the hull were two stunguns, three force belts, and a lift unit for power packs, rolled tightly up in a spare coverall.
“Bonnard, that clever scamp. He must have hidden them, while the mutineers were mauling us in the shuttle,” Varian cried, dancing about with the belts and guns held high in jubilation.
“D’you suppose he hid anything else in the other sleds?” Kai asked.
They searched thoroughly, but the food packs which Bonnard had secreted had been penetrated by insect or fungi and were empty.
“Disinfected, these tubes’ll make good containers,” Lunzie said.
Portegin was to make the last find, the most important one, and that only by chance, for the curve of the blunt sled had concealed it well. His hands found the real treasures: eight matrices, still in a film coating which even the purple fungus had been unable to penetrate, five tiny separators, several dozen stun-capsules, and another wrist unit. The items had been glued to the surface by some gummy substance that had long since hardened. Over the decades it had become brittle so that Portegin’s touch had loosened the riches from their unlikely hidey-hole. The five surveyed their wealth in a silence broken when Varian laid tentative fingers on the stun gun.
“In forty-three years, they would have exhausted all their supplies. No matter how clever they are, they couldn’t achieve the technology to produce more.”
53
Anne McCaffrey – Dinosaur Planet II – The Survivors
“Not if they hunt that thunder lizard of Trizein’s with a crossbow and lance.” Lunzie said. “Nice to have an advantage again.”
Varian hated weapons but was exceedingly grateful to see them. The discovery also lifted from her mind the depression that had plagued her. She was far more tired than she cared to admit and not even Lunzie’s nutrient soup had reduced that weariness. In her present state, she’d never be able to use Discipline effectively for any long period, and any encounters with Aygar and his peers presumed full Discipline on her part. To have such accouterments when she kept that appointment gave her the psychological advantage she needed.
“If they’re metal-working and smart,” Triv noted as he hefted a stunner in his hand, “they’ll have found the ingredients for primitive explosive weapons. This stunner doesn’t have the effective range of a projectile weapon, even of that crossbow.”
“Strategy can make up for shortcomings—or short ranges,” Varian noted in a light tone.
“Even if you have to crash and destroy them, those sleds aren’t to fail into the mutineers’ hands,”
Kai said forcefully, swearing again as his voice cracked.
“We don’t necessarily have to bring the sleds into sight,” said Varian, “not when we have lift belts.”
“Let’s not talk of destroying the sleds,” Portegin urged holding up both hands in dismay at the notion. “I can bypass the start switch so that only we’d know how to start one.”
“Can you patch a line from wrist unit to the shuttle or the sled?”
“You’re not taking the four-man sled are you, Varian?” Kai asked.