“Signals are very faint,” Portegin said. “Some may have just give up the ghost. If everything else there is worked out, is there any point in setting new cores, Kai?”
“None.”
Aulia and Dimenon entered the cartography dome, closely followed by the other four geologists.
“Guess what Kai and Gaber found?” asked Margit. “They found out why we couldn’t find anything … yet!”
Expressions of surprise and displeasure greeted this statement. So Kai and Gaber repeated their afternoon’s activities and the relief that spread throughout the room was reassuring to the team leader. Everyone had a turn at examining the old device, comparing it with those they were setting, joking about ghosts and echoes.
“We can set up secondary camps right on the edges of the shield,” Triv was saying excitedly. “Can we start tomorrow, Kai?”
“Surely, I’ll reassign everyone to more profitable areas, hopefully. Let me work it out. And Bakkun, I’ll be out with you tomorrow?”
The meal gong sounded, reverberating under the force-screen so he dismissed them all, staying behind briefly to reschedule flights for the morrow. They would have to set up secondary camps, as Triv suggested, but Kai wasn’t all that keen to dissipate their complement. Varian hadn’t yet had a chance to catalogue the worst of the predators and, despite the personal force-screens, a team could be caught too far away for timely help to arrive. That predator he’d seen today wouldn’t be stopped by a puny personal force-screen. He also couldn’t hold the teams back from discovering deposits: they got credit bonuses based on the assays of their individual discoveries. That was one reason why the lack of finds so far had had a serious effect on their morale. He couldn’t risk a further check to their spirits and ambitions. He also couldn’t risk sending them out against predators like those he’d seen today. He must have a chat with Varian.
He emerged into an insect-noisy night. The force-screen, arcing over the encampment, was aglow with blue spits of light as nocturnal creatures tried to reach the tantalizing floodlights which illuminated the compound.
Had that other survey party, millenniums ago, camped here? Would another group, millenniums hence, return when his cores emitted shallow ghost blips on another screen?
Were they really planted? The disturbing thought bobbed to the surface of his reflections, much as the aquatic monsters had been triggered by the shadow of the sled over the water. He tried to push down the notion. Had one of the others been tipped off privily? Varian? No, as co-leader, she was the least likely to have been informed. Tanegli? And was that why he was so willing to search out edible fruits? No, Tanegli was a sound man, but not the sort to be given private instructions while the team leaders were keyed out.
Not quite reassured within his own mind, Kai decided that congenial company would disrupt the uneasy tenor of his thoughts and he strode more purposefully towards the largest dome and his meal.