CHAPTER THREE
Varian was diverted by Kai’s reception of the fruit when it was served as the evening meal. Divisti and Lungie had collaborated and the table was spread with the fruit in its natural form, sliced into green juicy portions: fruit synthesized as a paste, reinforced with nutrients and vitamins; fruit added to the subsistence proteins; stewed fruit, dried fruit. Kai fastidiously tasted a minute piece of the fresh sliced, smiled, made polite noises and finished his meal with the paste. Then he complained of a metallic aftertaste.
“That’s the additives. There’s no aftertaste with the fresh fruit,” Varian told him suppressing a mixture of annoyance at his conservative tastes and amusement at his reaction. The ship-bred were wary of anything in its natural form.
“Why cultivate a taste for something I can’t indulge?” Kai asked when she tried to get him to eat more of the fresh fruit.
“Why not indulge yourself a little, while you have the chance? Besides,” she added, “once you have the taste, you can programme it into any synthesizer, and duplicate it on shipboard to your heart’s content.”
“A point.”
Varian had decided some time ago that it was just these little ship evolved differences that fascinated her about Kai. He wasn’t physically that much different from the attractive young men she’d known on the various planets of her childhood and early specialist’s training. If anything, Kai kept himself more physical fit in the EV’s various humanoid sports facilities than his planet-based contemporaries. He’d a lean, wiry frame, slightly taller than average, taller than herself and she was not rated short on any normal Earth-type planet being 1.75 metres tall. More important to her in Kai than mere handsomeness which he had, was the strength in his face, the sparkle of humour in his brown eyes and the inner serenity that had commended him when they’d met in the EV’s humanoid dining area. She’d quickly recognized the aura of Discipline about him and been overwhelmingly relieved that he was a Disciple, and amused that his having passed the Training mattered to her on such short acquaintance. She’d accepted Discipline not that long ago herself, however much it meant that she could continue to advance in FSP service. A leader had to have Discipline since it was the only personal defence against other humanoids permitted by FSP and EEC, and of inestimable value in emergency situations.
Varian had been quite willing to develop a relationship with Kai and had privately done a good bit of private crowing when she’d unexpectedly been tapped as a xenob on his geology expedition to Ireta.
“And what’s this I hear? This planet’s been raped before?”
“The shield land mass we’re on has certainly been stripped?” Kai replied, grinning a little at her blunt phrase. “Portegin only got the seismic screen rigged last night. Gaber thought it was malfunctioning because we got echoes where we’d cored, and faint impulses where we hadn’t. So I did a decco and found an old old core.”
Varian had already heard many of the details. “We were informed during our briefing on shipboard that the system had been in storage a long time.”
“Well, there was no mention made of a previous geological survey.
“True,” and Varian looked at a vague middle distance thoughtfully as she drawled out the affirmative. There had been sort of a last minute rush to assemble this Iretan expedition, though the Theks and Ryxi had been scheduled for their respective planets for some months. “My team was sure added in a hurry. After they got print-out of life forms from the probe scan.”
“With all due respects, co-leader, the inclusion of your team doesn’t puzzle me as much as no mention of a previous coring.”
“I quite appreciate that. How old d’you think the cores are?”
“Too scorching old for my liking, Varian. The line end with the stable shield area!”
Varian drew breath in a whistle. “Kai, that would mean millions of years. Could even a Thek manufactured device last that long?”
“Who knows?” C’mon, you can have a look at the device yourself. And I’ve some tapes to play for you that I think you’ll like.”