Though Kai went back to his map, he had lost all enthusiasm for it. He had a wayward urge to trample it down into the soil from which he had raised it. He had in fact lifted one foot to obliterate the mountain when he caught sight of his bloodied fist. Startled, he examined the hand and then the other, and hastily returned to the dome to wash away the mud and examine the damage he hadn’t felt. Fortunately it was no more than scrapes and minor cuts. He was still examining his hands when the first of the sleds returned. He almost resented the intrusion on his solitude.
No sooner had Triv parked his sled than the second, with Varian and Portegin, emerged from the evening haze. Varian halted Triv’s entrance to the veil, saying she’d a lot of fruit and bean pods to bring in. No sooner were the three inside the screen than Triv saw the relief map and would have dropped his burden had not Varian shouted. Then she and Portegin stood, arms full, exclaiming over Kai’s improvisation.
“I’d have to check scale,” Kai said, disclaiming their fulsome compliments, “and, of course, we don’t know how the polar region or the southern tip have changed with tectonic action …”
“Are you in there?” A harsh shout at the veil entrance distracted them.
“It’s Lunzie,” Varian cried, looking hastily about her for a spot to place her burdens.
“Come on, you three,” the medic called, “this bunch isn’t too steady on their feet yet. Kai, operate this damned veil.”
In the excitement of welcoming Trizein, Margit, and Dimenon, Kai was relieved that Lunzie had no time to notice his hands, which he kept at his sides. Then Varian called him to help her unload the rest of her harvest while the newly-awakened were made comfortable in the dome.
“If you’ll just hold your arms out, Kai …” Varian stared down at the hand he obediently held upward for a load. She started to touch his scored fingers and then stopped, staring at his face.
“That does it, Kai. We contact someone who can remedy this. Even a freighter will have medical files on its computer.”
“Varian, if the Ryxi—”
80
Anne McCaffrey – Dinosaur Planet II – The Survivors
“I’ve an override to protect my own species first, Kai.” She exhaled, part in exasperation, part in anger until her eyes, avoiding his, fell on the map, its mountain mounds and the Rift outlined in the last of the westerly light. “And that’s a contribution, too!”
She finished loading his extended arms, grinning conspiratorially at him as she artistically draped bean pod leaves over his hands and then gave him an affectionate shove back to the dome.
Trizein provided an almost continuous monologue on the types, probable evolutionary steps, habit, temperament, and breeding methods of all the creatures he had seen on his way from the giff cave to theirs. According to Dimenon’s amused aside, the chemist had nearly driven Lunzie to fury by his insistence that they divert the journey to follow this or that species until he had had a close enough look. He had also appropriated some of the pulp sheets Lunzie had extruded for Kai, insisting that his work would be far more important in the eyes of the FSP than any merely prodigious amount of transuranic elements. “Why, the discovery of those beasts would settle for once and all an argument that had exercised centuries of paleontologists, biologists, and xenobiologists—the possibility of convergent biology, of similar life-forms evolving from cellular stews on different planets. He added, complete with wild gestures, that its happening with a third-generation sun was utterly improbable, incredible, and unlikely—as any zoologist of the lowest rating would tell you.
Trizein continued in this vein, occasionally stopping to admire one of his many sketches, apologizing for its rudeness and correcting a line or contour, until Lunzie announced that everyone had better eat something, then shoved Trizein’s bowl under his nose.
The man’s enthusiasm was so infectious that even Kai found himself smiling at the man’s joy.
“We’ll go out again, tomorrow, Trizein,” Varian said, her voice bubbling with good humor. “I’ve the Rift grasses. Lunzie, do you need to synthesize—”