“They would have had to wait to be sure that the ARCT-10 wasn’t just delayed,” Varian suggested.
“Could they have known that the ARCT-10 never stripped the beacon of messages?” Lunzie asked.
“Only Kai and I knew that.”
“Bakkun might have guessed,” Kai said slowly.
“By what we didn’t say rather than what we did?” Varian asked. Kai nodded.
“We ought,” Kai went on, “to have invented a message from the ARCT.”
Lunzie snorted. “I don’t think that would have kept the heavyworlders satisfied once they’d had their bloody rest day … and tasted animal protein. Brings out the worst in them every time.”
A taut silence ensued, broken as Varian shuddered, then said, “But Divisti’s garden produced sufficient vegetable protein to support twice as many heavyworlder appetites.”
“I’d say they waited,” Lunzie began, picking at her lower lip for a moment before she continued.
“They would have tried to locate the shuttle and the power packs which young Bonnard so cleverly concealed. They knew Kai’d sent out some sort of message, before Paskutti smashed the comunit?
Well, then, they’d have had to wait to see if assistance arrived. They would have had to assume also that we’d rig some sort of distress beacon to attract rescue, even if it did take the Thek forty-three years to bother to investigate.”
Varian broke in excitedly. “You don’t suppose that they could have rigged an alert for a landing?”
“No way.” Portegin shook his head violently. “Not with the equipment they had. Remember it was replacement parts they took with the stores, not full units.”
“Yes, but Aygar spoke of iron mines and they’ve been working a forge.”
Portegin kept shaking his head. “Bakkun was a good all-round engineer but even with all the matrices I’ve got, I couldn’t make that sort of a scan system, not planet wide, and that’s what they’d need.”
“So,” Kai said in summation, “they waited to be sure ARCT wasn’t making the scheduled pick-up. They also waited until they could be reasonably certain our distress signal was unheard and then too weak. Then they sent the homing capsule to one of the Heavyworld colonies inviting settlers and technicians.”
“And if a colony ship, large enough to transport enough people and supplies is to make the journey profitable, they’d have to build a landing grid,” Triv exclaimed.
60
Anne McCaffrey – Dinosaur Planet II – The Survivors
“Which explains why they left the very good settlement they had in the secondary camp,” Varian cried.
“And why Aygar chooses to meet you there rather than at their new site,” Lunzie finished with a sour grimace. “Such an undertaking also explains forty-three years.”
“Even for heavyworlders, it would take years to clear this sort of jungle and hold it back while they got a grid in place,” said Portegin with some awe.
“Probably with a homing device built into the acknowledging capsule to confirm arrangements and approximate time of arrival,” Triv added.
The group reflected on this solution with no joy.
Triv broke the silence. “I’d opt for us to come from a Fleet ship, a cruiser. They make periodic reports to a Sector HQ and no one in his right mind messes with a cruiser.”
“Would Aygar know that?” Varian asked facetiously.
“No, but the captain of the incoming ship would,” Triv replied.
“And a search party could have been set down here to check on the distress call while the cruiser goes on to the Ryxi and the Thek planets.”
“Now that our identity is established,” Kai said with an attempt at heartiness, “I suggest we transfer to the campsite built for Dimenon and Margit. If it still exists.”
“Don’t see why it wouldn’t,” Triv said. “The heavyworlders wouldn’t have wasted belt power dismantling and transporting it.”
“Wouldn’t we go to the original site?” asked Portegin.
“We did,” Varian replied, “but Kai got attacked there didn’t he? So we move to the second auxiliary camp.” She rose and stretched. “And we’d also better fill in the holes of the vine screen.
Then the sleepers will be safe.”
The next morning, Triv took one of the smaller sleds to investigate the secondary camp which had been sighted for Dimenon and Margit to use as a base for their explorations of the southwestern part of Ireta’s main continent. Assisted by Varian and Lunzie, Portegin gathered the matrices removed from the other two small sleds and the undamaged units in the shuttle. He was optimistic that with these components, he could rig working comunits in the two small sleds and the four-man sled, plus an ordinary homing beacon, consonant with their role as a rescue team from a Space Fleet cruiser.