He sniffed again and added, “I’ll admit that the touch of sulfur is special.”
Hogg chuckled grimly. “You haven’t been in the crew’s quarters when Lamsoe and Dasi’re having a fart contest, I guess,” he said. “But it’s good to see the sky, again, I’ll say that. Even—”
He looked around the horizon with a sour expression.
“—this sky.”
Count Klimov watched with great interest as a team of riggers drew his aircar from the hatch forward on C Deck. They’d hung a winch from Antenna Port B; Woetjans was riding the half-extended mast, clinging by her legs and left hand as she kept eyeball contact with the vehicle that’d been lifted from the hold on the level below. Ordinarily D Deck was underwater, so access to the bulk storage there was through the deck above.
Valentina Klimovna gave the proceedings a cursory glance, then walked purposefully to where Daniel and Hogg stood twenty yards from the Princess Cecile. Leary’s concern over the Countess’ wardrobe had been misplaced: during the voyage she’d worn coveralls of tough, drab moleskin that seemed every bit as practical as RCN utilities. Now that they’d landed she’d changed into a loose, many-pocketed hunting outfit which again seemed functional, for all that it was probably very expensive.
The same could be said of her impeller. The stock and fore-end were of some lustrous wood with a swirling grain, and the metalwork was scrolled and inlaid with hunting scenes in gold and platinum. Daniel didn’t doubt it’d hit just as hard as the pair of service weapons he and Hogg had taken from the Sissie’s armory, though.
“So, Daniel?” she said. “You are coming with me to the pyramid, yes?”
“Yes, I thought Hogg and I should accompany you,” Daniel said. “You and your husband, I believe?”
“Georgi thinks we will find a dragon for him to shoot,” Klimovna said. “He likes to shoot things.”
She grinned; the expression made her look a decade younger. “I like to shoot things too, but not so much.”
Her eyes appraised Hogg. “Your man here can drive an aircar?”
“Sure!” said Hogg. “You bet—”
“No,” Daniel said firmly. “Hogg can’t drive an aircar any better than he can sing hymns, and he’s got more experience singing hymns. If—”
“Well, if somebody’d give me a chance to practice, young master . . . ,” Hogg muttered with a hurt look on his face.
“—necessary there are spacers aboard who can drive, though I was thinking that it’s less than a mile to the pyramid there—”
He pointed to the glitter on the rise to the west. Even with the sun at zenith, the surface of 4795-C had the feel of misty twilight.
“No matter,” Klimovna said, brushing aside the suggestion of walking before Daniel got the words fully out. “I will drive; I planned to anyway.”
Daniel had landed the Princess Cecile in a maze of meandering streams rather than among separated ponds. Hiking—even a moderate distance—probably wasn’t a good idea, though he was uncomfortable about being in an aircar to hunt prey that flew.
He was uncomfortable about the Klimovs, also. Until you’d seen how a person behaved with a gun in his hand, you really couldn’t judge how safe they were to be around. Adding the variable of an aircar was bothersome.
Low sedge-like vegetation grew in shallow water and up the banks besides. Daniel found it difficult to be sure where the margin was until he noticed that the stalks rising from the water had a touch of gold overlaying the dark green of their fellows rooted in land.
On a settled planet, he’d have an overview from the Sailing Directions and perhaps detailed supplements on the local natural history. Well, when the Princess Cecile returned to Cinnabar, he’d copy his logs to the Publications Bureau of the Navy Office. There they’d be available to spacers who knew they’d be landing on 4795-C in the future.
If there were such folk, ever in the future history of the Republic.
At a distance from the streams, thumb-thick tubes lay awkwardly across the mud like tangles of hose. Every foot or so, the horizontal stems sent up jointed vertical shoots that got no more than six inches high. Cilia burrowed into the soil from the sides of the stems; if there were substantial roots as well, they were lost in the surface muddle.