Connie Willis - Uncharted Territory

“I know, I know. Forcible confiscation of property,” I said. It didn’t much matter. Bult’s fines were nothing compared to the penalty for killing an indigenous life-form.

The tssi mitsse had floated in close to the bank. I hooked it with the umbrella handle and pulled it to the edge and onto the bank, stepping away from it in a hurry, in case it wasn’t dead, but Bult went right over to it, unfolded an arm, and started poking his hand into its side.

“Tssi mitss,” he said.

“You’re kidding,” I said. “How big are the big ones?”

It was over a meter long and was perfectly visible now that it was out of the water, with transparent jellylike flesh that must have the same refraction index as water.

“Tith,” Bult said, pulling the mouth back. “Keel bait.”

They looked like they could kill bite, all right, or at least take off a foot. There were two long, sharp teeth on either side of its mouth and little serrated ones in between, and that was good. At least it wasn’t a harmless algae-eater.

Ev came back with the camera. He handed it to me, looking at the tssi mitss. “It’s huge,” he said.

“That’s what you think,” I said. “You’d better go find Carson.”

“Yeah,” he said, and stood there, hesitating. “I’m sorry I jumped out of the water like that.”

“No harm done,” I said.

I took holos and measurements and brought down the scale to weigh it. When I started to pick it up by the head, Bult said, “Keel bail,” and I dropped it with a thud and then took a closer look at its teeth.

Definitely not an algae-eater. The long teeth on either side weren’t teeth. They were fangs, and when I ran an analysis of the venom, it ate right through the vial.

I hauled the tssi mitss by the tail up the rocks to camp and started in on the reports. “Accidental killing of indigenous fauna,” I told the log. “Circumstances—” and then sat and stared at the screen.

Carson came back, scrambling up the rocks from the direction of the pool and stopping short when he saw the tssi mitss. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I said, looking at the screen. “Don’t touch the teeth. They’re full of acid.”

“My shit,” he said softly. “Is this what was in the Tongue when Bult wouldn’t let us cross?”

“Nope. This is the small version,” I said, wishing he’d get on with it.

“It didn’t bite you? You’re sure you’re all right?”

“I’m sure,” I said, even though I wasn’t.

He squatted down and looked at it. “My shit,” he said again. He looked up at me. “Evie says you were in the pool when you killed it. What on hell were you doing in there?”

“I was taking a bath,” I said, looking at the screen.

“Since when do you take baths in uncharted territory?”

“Since I ride all afternoon through gypsum dust,” I said. “Since I get covered with oil, trying to wash it off the ponies. Since I find out you can’t even tell half the time whether I’m female or not.”

He stood up. “So you take off all your clothes and go in swimming with Evie?”

“I didn’t take off all my clothes. I had my boots on.” I glared at him. “And I don’t have to have my clothes off for Ev to be able to tell I’m a female.”

“Oh, right, I forgot, he’s the expert on sex. Is that what that was down at the pool, some kind of mating dance?” He kicked at the carcass with his bad foot.

“Don’t do that,” I said. “I’ve got enough to worry about without having to fill out a form for desecrating remains.”

“Worry about!” he said, his mustache quivering. “ You’ve got enough to worry about? You know what I’ve got to worry about? What on hell you’re going to do next.” He kicked the tssi mitss again. “You let Wulfmeier open a gate right under our noses, you lead us into an oil field, you take a bath and nearly get yourself killed.”

I slammed the terminal off and stood up. “And I lost the binocs! Don’t forget that! You want a new partner, is that what you’re saying?”

“A new—?”

“A new partner,” I said. “I’m sure there are plenty of females to choose from who’d traipse off with you to Boohte the way I did.”

“That’s what all this is about, isn’t it?” Carson said, frowning at me. “It’s not about Evie at all. It’s about what I said the other night about picking you as a partner.”

“You didn’t pick me, remember?” I said furiously. “ Big Brother picked me. For gender balance. Only it obviously didn’t work because half the time you can’t tell which gender I am.”

“Well, I sure can right now. You’re acting worse than C.J. We been partners for a hundred and eighty expeditions—”

“Eighty-four,” I said.

“We’ve been eating dehydes and putting up with C.J. and getting fined by Bult for eight years. What on hell difference does it make how I picked you?”

“You didn’t pick me. You sat there with your feet up on my desk and said, ‘Wanta come?’ and I came, just like that. And now I find out all you cared about is that I could do topographicals.”

“All I cared about—?” He kicked the tssi mitss again, and a big piece of clear jelly flew off. “I rode into that luggage stampede and got you. I never even looked at any of those female loaners. What do you want me to do? Send you flowers? Bring you a dead fish? No, wait, I forgot, you got one of those for yourself. Lock horns with Evie so that you can tell which one of us is younger and’s got both feet? What?”

“I want you to leave me alone. I have to finish these reports,” I said, and looked at the screen. “I want you to go away.”

Nobody said a word during supper, except Bult, who fined me for dusting off a lump of gypsum before I sat down. It started to rain and all evening Carson kept going out to the edge of the overhang and looking at the sky.

Ev sat in a corner, looking miserable, and I worked on the reports. Bult didn’t show any inclination to build any more fires. He sat in the opposite corner watching pop-ups until Carson took it away from him and snapped it shut, and then he opened his umbrella, nearly poking me in the eye with it, and went off up to the Wall.

I wrapped up in my bedroll and worked on the reports some more, but it was too cold. I went to bed. Ev was still sitting in the corner, and Carson was still watching the rain.

I woke up in the middle of the night with water dripping on my neck. Ev was still asleep in his bedroll, snoring, and Carson was sitting in the corner, with the pop-up spread out in front of him. He was watching the scene in Big Brother’s offices, the scene where he asked me to go with him.

In the morning he was gone. It was raining really hard, and the wind had started to blow. There was a stream running through the middle of the overhang and pooling at the back. The foot of Ev’s bedroll was already wet.

It was a lot colder, and I figured Carson had gone after firewood, but when I went outside his pony was gone.

I climbed up to the Wall to look for Bult. He wasn’t in any of the chambers. I went back down to the pool.

He wasn’t there, and the pool wasn’t either. Water was pouring everywhere over the rocks, white with gypsum. The ponypile Ev had crouched on was completely covered.

I climbed back up to the Wall and followed it over the ridge. Bult was at the top, looking south toward what you could see of the Ponypiles, which wasn’t much, the clouds were so low.

“Where’s Carson?” I shouted over the rain.

He looked west and then down at the oil field we’d crossed yesterday. “Dan nah,” he said.