The land dropped away again and they corrected their flight line. Far in the purple distance the first range of volcanoes could be seen on the edge of the inland sea; a lake that was doomed to be destroyed by the restless tectonic action of this very active world. That was the first area he’d had tested for its seismicity because he’d worried that perhaps their granite shelf might be too close to tectonic activity and turn mobile. But the first print-out of the cores had been reassuring. The lake would subside, probably giving way to small hills pushed up from beneath, clad with sediment and eventually folded under, for this was the near edge of the stable continental shelf on which the encampment had been placed.
The steamy, noxiously scented heat of the swamplands began to rise to meet them: cloying humidity intensified the basic hydro-telluride stench. The homer’s buzz grew louder and became continuous.
Kai was not the only member of the party scanning ahead. Far-sighted Paskutti saw the sled first, in a grove of angiosperms, parked on a sizable hummock that jutted into the swamp, away from the firmer mass of the jungle. The great purple-barked, many-rooted branches of the immense trees, well-scarred by herbivorous assaults, were untenanted by avian life, and Kai was beginning to feel the anger of relief overcome concern.
Paskutti’s arm gesture caught his attention and he followed the line of the heavy-worlder’s sweep towards the swamp. Several tan objects were slowly being dragged under the water by the pointed snouts of the swamp-dwellers. A minor battle began as two long-necked denizens contended for the possession of one corpse. The victor claimed the spoils by the simple expedient of sitting on the body and sinking with it into the muddy waters.
Tardma, the heavy-worlder directly in front of Kai, pointed in the other direction, toward the firmer land, where a winged creature obviously recovering from a stun blast, was swaying upright.
Paskutti fired a warning triplet and then motioned the group to land on the inland side of the grove. They came to a running stop, the heavy-worlders automatically deploying towards the swamp since the likelihood of attack was from that quarter. Kai, Varian and Paskutti jogged towards the sled from behind which the foragers now emerged.
Tanegli stood waiting, his squat solid bulk a bastion around which the smaller members of the party ranged: the three youngsters, Kai was relieved to see, appeared to be all right, as did the zeno-botanist Divisti. Now Kai noticed the small pile of assorted brilliant yellow objects in the storage cage of the sled: more of similar shape and colour were strewn about the clear ground of the small grove.
“We called prematurely,” said Tanegli by way of greeting.” The swamp creatures proved curious allies.” He replaced his stunner in his belt and dusted his thick hands as if dismissing the incident.
“What was attacking you?” Varian asked, staring about her.
“These?” asked Paskutti as he dragged a limp, furred and winged creature from behind the trunk of a thick tree.
“Watch out!” said Tanegli, reaching to his belt before he saw the stunner in Paskutti’s. “I set the gun on a light charge.”
It’s one of those gliders. See, no socket for the wing to fold,” Varian said, ignoring the protests of the heavy-worlders as she moved the limp wings out and back.
Kai eyed the pointed beak of the creature with apprehension, suppressing an irrational desire to step back.
“Carrion eater by the size and shape of that jaw,” remarked Paskutti, peering with considerable interest.
“Well and truly stunned,” Varian said with a final twitch of arrangement to the wings. “What was dead enough to attract it here?”
“That!” Tanegli pointed to the edge of the clearing, to a mottled brown bundle, its belly swelling up out of the course vegetation.
“And I rescued this!” said Bonnard, stepping clear of his friends so that Kai and Varian saw the small replica of the dead animal in his arms. “But it didn’t bring the gliders. They were already here. It’s very young. And its mother is dead now.”
“We found it over there, hiding in the roots of the tree?” said Cleiti, loyally supporting her friend, Bonnard, against adult disapproval.