“Two days,” Varian found herself answering far more casually than she felt because, again, that curious reticence held her: a reticence evidently not stemming from Discipline. “But, if you know about these fringe things, you know how to treat them?”
“The victim’s still alive?” This gave Aygar some surprise.
“Yes, but unconscious and delirious, bleeding profusely from the worst of the … puncture wounds.”
“I thought exploratory teams were equipped with belts to protect them from—”
“I don’t know whether his belt was activated or not,” said Varian severely in a tone that implied she intended to find out if any basic precaution had been neglected.
“If he doesn’t die in the first few hours, then the punctures reached no vital areas and he’ll survive. If you’re near the original campsite, find a squat thick-trunked plant with leaves like this: they appear covered with a soft down or fuzz.” He neatly sketched the leaf with which the giff had supplied them. “Gather the thickest ones, squeeze them directly over the punctures and keep repeating the treatment until the wounds seal.”
“I’m told he’s running a very high fever …”
“Use an antipyretic, of course. When that didn’t reduce the fever, one of the original members of our group used a parasitic purple moss which usually grows on the north side of the green plum or yellow juice melon trees. There ought to be some nearby. Boil the moss, let it steep, and get it down the man’s throat. Tastes vile but it will reduce fever.”
Aygar rose, shifted the burden of meat on his shoulders and started off.
“End of interview,” Varian murmured to herself. She was too relieved by the information he’d given her to take offense at his curt departure or his lack of real surprise at seeing her again so soon the same day.
She scrambled up the side of the ravine and back into the safety of the sled as fast as if a fringe had been homing in on her blood warmth.
Terilla’s fringes! The same aquatic life-form that the giffs took care to avoid when caught in their grass nets. And if the creature was basically amphibious, no wonder it had lasted a long time after the other water-breathers had died. But that had been a small creature, like an almost transparent kerchief. Yet Varian recalled all too vividly the voracity with which the sea fringes had flung themselves after the reflection of the sled on the water. She stared at her hand a moment as if she could imagine what that same fringe could do, folding itself into a sucking envelope …
She shook her head: she was suffering the depression and enervation of the post-Discipline state.
She reached for more of the pods and munched slowly at the beans: they were even more satisfying than the sweet fruit.
45
Anne McCaffrey – Dinosaur Planet II – The Survivors Purple moss, huh? That same purple moss that had grown in Divisti’s wall, no doubt. She wondered if she’d taken enough, but at least she knew what to harvest.
The trip was exceptionally profitable though one discovery displeased her a great deal: forty-three years was a long time for ARCT-10 to have remained missing. And not long enough for a small sea creature to develop into something large enough to attack a man. To be sure, the larger species might have existed on Ireta when the expedition had first landed; they’d barely explored the continental basement shield area before the mutiny.
Varian shuddered again, reminding herself that one reason for her revulsion of the fringes must in part stem from her experience with the blood-sucking Galormis—by day so friendly, by night deadly.
The rain cleared and the omnipresent mists dispersed as the setting sun took a final look at the world it had spawned. The giffs were behind and above her, their golden selves glorious against the muted haze of the western twilight. She hadn’t noticed them when she was on the compound bluff, nor when she had intercepted Aygar. Nonetheless she felt they’d made the entire journey discreetly within sight of her.
Krims! but she was tired. Now, if she could keep her wits about her, and the light held long enough to land inside the cave … Other giffs whirled up from their vantage points to escort her the last few kilometers and she was touched by the courtesy, if that’s what it was. Had the giffs, as well as Lunzie, worried over her long day’s absence?