“Mocked?”
“They do like their little jokes on us light gravs. I don’t want them to have one on you. We’ve a laugh for them, all right–on the Theks–with this,” and Kai held up the core.” Our rocky friends are not so infallible after all. Not that I blame them for forgetting all about this planet, considering how it smells.”
“The heavy-worlders would make me a joke?” Gaber was having difficulty in accepting the possibility but Kai was certain he’d found the proper deterrent to keep the man from spreading that insidious rumour.
“Under the present circumstances, yes, if you came out with that notion. As I mentioned, we have the youngsters with us. You don’t really think the Third Officer of EV is planting her son?”
“No, no, she wouldn’t do that.” Gaber’s expression changed from distressed to irritated. “You’re right. She’d’ve opposed it.” Gaber straightened his shoulders. “You’ve eased my mind, Kai. I hadn’t really liked the idea of being planted: I’ve left research unfinished and I only accepted this assignment to try and get a fresh perspective on it …”
“Good man.” Kai clapped the cartographer on the shoulder and turned him back towards the sled.
It occurred to Kai that he’d have all the arguments to press again once Gaber, and the others, learned that the EV had not picked up the secondary reports. He’d worry about that when the time came. Right now he had more to ponder in the ancient core in his hand. He didn’t think they had any apparatus for dating the device in the shuttle. He couldn’t remember if it had ever come up in discussion how long one of these cores could function. Portegin was the man to ask. And wouldn’t he be amazed at what his malfunctioning screen was recording?
In fact, Portegin was already puzzling over the print-out when Kai and Gaber strode into the chart dome.
“Kai, we’ve got some crazy echoes on the seismic … what’s this?”
“One of those echoes.”
Portegin, his lean face settling into lines of dismay, weighed the device in his hand, peered at it, turning it round and round, end for end before he looked with intense accusation at Kai.
“Where’d you get this?”
“Approximately here,” said Kai, pointing to the gap in the line of old echoes on the screen.
“We haven’t cored that area yet, boss.”
“I know.”
“But, boss, this is Thek manufacture. I’d swear it.”
Margit, who’d been filling in her report, came over to the two men.
She took the core from Portegin’s unresisting hand.
“It feels heavier. And this crystal looks almost dead.” She regarded Kai for an explanation.
He shrugged. “Gaber saw the echoes on the recorder, thought you’d mucked it up, Portegin …” he grinned as the mechanic growled at the cartographer. “But I decided we’d better check. This was what we found.”
Margit made a guttural noise, deep in her throat, of disgust and irritation. “You mean, we’ve spent hours doing what has been done! You wit-heads could have saved us time and useless energy by rigging that screen right off.”
“According to our computer banks, this planet had never been surveyed,” Kai said in a soothing drawl.
“Well, it has been.” Margit glowered at the screen. “And you know, we’ve paralleled their line almost perfectly. Not bad for a first working expedition, is it,” she added, talking herself into a better frame of mind. “Hey,” she said in a much louder, less happy tone of voice, “no wonder we couldn’t find anything worth the looking. It’d been got already. How far does the old survey coring go?”
“Stops at the edge of the shield, my dear girl,” said Portegin, “and now that we know from the old cores where the shield ends, we can start hitting some pay-dirt for a change. I don’t think we’ve done too much duplication–except in the north and northeast.”
Kai thanked the compassionate computer who had put those two on this team with him: they might complain a bit, but they’d already talked themselves into a positive frame over the duplicated effort.
“I feel a lot better now, knowing there was a good reason we couldn’t find any pay-dirt at all!” Margit studied the screen and then pointed at several areas. There’s nothing here, and here. Should be!”