Hal Clement - Fossil

Rekchellet stood for just a moment in shocked surprise. In that moment another Habra snatched the tracker from his harness and was also gone. The remaining ones also left, each in a different direction, and the Deputy Safety Chief of Pitville found himself standing alone on a Solid Ocean hill with no means of judging what was occurring or why.

It had been a long time since he had been so angry, and for several minutes he was incapable of clear thought. He could only wonder what the purpose behind this silly attempt at stranding was— silly, since obviously he could get back to the truck or to Pitville; they hadn’t done anything about his ability to fly. Was someone trying to annoy him for being friendly with Erthumoi?

Not likely. He was certainly unpopular among some Crotonites — had been ever since he had exhibited his painting of an Erthuma with wings, widely regarded as obscene — but there were few who would translate that into concrete action. They were civilized people. Their very superiority over the un-winged would keep them above that level.

There were Trueliners, of course — the ones who insisted fervently that Crotonites were direct descendants of the Seventh Race, and therefore were automatically entitled to all the relics of that species found by anyone anywhere. Could any of these be on Habranha and interested in Rekchellet? Conceivably; he had occasionally expressed disdain for their ideas quite publicly. But, again, what could even a Wildwinder expect to gain from this trick, however extremely and universally the colonists of that world might resent doubt of their mythical ancestry?

Then, as his temper cooled, Rekchellet wondered what might have happened to his companions. Would his attackers have tried to do anything to them, too? There was no way to deduce this; it depended on the reasons for doing what they had done to Rekchellet himself, and he could only speculate on that. He could no longer call the Habras, and with his equipment gone they could sense him only from nearby. Walt and Crow — and perhaps Third-Supply-Watcher — would have to take care of themselves.

No, that wasn’t quite true. He could warn the Locrian; he could get back to the truck — he certainly remembered the way! — and tell her what happened. Deciding what to do was, after all, the important thing; hunt for explanations and theories later, you hatchling; act now.

Back to the truck.

Or back to Pitville? The distances differed by only a few tens of kilometers; the back-trace had led them east along the road, but since then they had been heading pretty much northwest, though there had been jogs in the path. Rekchellet visualized the map. Yes, distance meant little. Would wind make any difference to flight time? No doubt it would, but there was no predicting how much or which way on Habranha.

From Pitville, Third-Supply-Watcher could be warned by neutrino transmitter, but she’d still be alone. If Rekchellet went back to the truck, he’d be able to help physically and could report to Pitville just as well.

But how much help could he actually be to the Locrian? He’d been of little use to himself just now.

That thought made up his mind for him. He’d go back to the vehicle and try to make a better showing this time — if these whatever-they-were made trouble there. He didn’t know whether they’d try. and he— forget it. That’s back to premature theorizing. Get into action. Hatchling.

He swept into the air, beat his way upward, and quickly spotted the truck light. It was many kilometers away, but he knew just where to look. He flew toward it with all the power his great wings could use, but before he had gone halfway Chaos put in its bit. The light vanished in another snow squall. This one was deep, dense, and extensive enough to hide the hill-and-dune patterns which he had memorized so thoroughly, and for long, long minutes he circled impatiently over the general area waiting for the inevitable clearing to take place. It seemed like hours, and might have actually been over an hour — he never knew — before the winds died and the ice powder settled enough to let him match his memory once more with the view below.

The match wasn’t perfect, of course, less because the dunes had moved — they hadn’t, significantly— but because now Fafnir was almost at the horizon, shadows were far longer than they had been, and many of the smaller humps were no longer visible at all. Rekchellet had known what to expect; changing surface illumination was nothing new to him. Still, it took time to reorient himself, and to identify with fair certainty the valley which the truck should be traversing.

When he had managed this, he had to face the fact that no light could now be seen. That forced still another decision: should he remain at altitude and examine the surrounding valleys since he could just possibly have picked the wrong one? Or should he go down and make a really close examination on the assumption that the truck had stopped and become buried, had lost its lights, or had been interfered with by his recent antagonists?

The last possibility decided him. He went down.

There were numerous bumps and ripples in the fresh-blown snow, many of them quite large enough to have buried the vehicle completely. For a while, Rekchellet feared he might have to dig into thirty or forty individual dunes, with no tools and no certainty that any of them was the right one. He almost reconsidered his decision against reporting first at Pitville. Then he noticed that a strong wind, unusually steady for Habranha, was blowing along the valley and sweeping the piles of ice dust before it at respectable speed. The larger ones, close examination showed, were traveling westward at a rate of a meter every three or four minutes. If the truck were actually inside any of them, it should be uncovered in half an hour at the most, and with any luck much less.

Chaos helped this time. Ten minutes or so after he had started patrolling the most probable section of the valley, as figured from his memory of the original topography and the truck’s speed, the shallow upwind slope of one of the larger dunes began to display a small projection. A few more minutes revealed this to be the hind end of the truck, now being left exposed by the advance of the wind-driven powder. Why it should have stopped and allowed itself to be buried in the first place Rekchellet refused to consider; there were too many possibilities.

He tried to land on it, but the smooth body offered nothing to grip; he was promptly blown away, and regained his equilibrium only after a second or two of mad fluttering. He did land behind it, and within a minute or two found that enough snow had gathered on his windward side and been scooped from his lee to topple him into a growing hole and start to bury him under a new embryonic dune. He was able to spread his wings and avoid burial only with difficulty. He settled finally on a nearby hilltop which seemed to be packed hard enough to promise some kind of permanence, and watched as the truck slowly emerged into view, or such view as there was; Fafnir had reached the horizon and the whole floor of the valley was now immersed in shadow.

When the main hatch was clear, though the front of the vehicle was still buried almost to the control room windows, the Crotonite flew down to the truck again. He was worried; not only were the outside lights off, but the control chamber was dark.

Total power failure in such a machine was rare enough so that he gave it only a passing thought. Why had Third-Supply-Watcher shut things down? Or had she been the one to do it? Were the ones who had stolen his communicators, or others of the same group, already inside, perhaps waiting for him? Maybe it wasn’t wise to show himself — no, forget that, they’d have seen him already and have been expecting him before that if they were there. All he could do was get in fast, if that were possible, and do whatever seemed in order. .