Конни Уиллис: Terra Incognita: Three Novellas

C.J. cut in, “Tell me about some of the interesting species you’ve studied.”

“Well, they’re all interesting, really. Most animal behaviors are instinctive, they’re hardwired in, but reproductive behavior is really complicated. It’s part hardwiring, part survival strategies, and the combination produces all these variables. The charlizards on Ottiyal mate inside the crater of an active volcano, and there’s a Terran species, the bowerbird, which constructs an elaborate bower fifty times his size and then decorates it with orchids and berries to attract the female.”

“Some nest,” I said.

“Oh, but it’s not the nest,” Ev said. “The nest is built in front of the bower, and it’s quite ordinary. The bower is just for courtship. Sentients are even more interesting. The Inkicce males cut off their toes to impress the female. And the Opantis’ courtship ritual—they’re the indigenous sentients on Jevo—takes six months. The Opanti female sets a series of difficult tasks the male must perform before she allows him to mate with her.”

“Just like C.J.,” I said. “What kind of tasks do these Opantis have to do for the females? Name rivers after them?”

“The tasks vary, but they’re usually the giving of tokens of esteem, proofs of valor, feats of strength.”

“How come the male’s always the one who has to do all the courting?” Carson said. “Giving ’em candy and flowers, proving they’re tough, building bowers while the female just sits there making up her mind.”

“Because the male is concerned only with mating,” Ev said. “The female is concerned with ensuring the optimum survival of her offspring, which means she needs a strong mate or a smart one. The male doesn’t do all the courting, though. The females send out response signals to encourage and attract the males.”

“Like landing lights?” I said.

C.J. glared at me.

“Without those signals, the courtship ritual breaks down and can’t be completed,” Ev said.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Carson said. He pushed back from the table. “Fin, if we’re gonna start in two days, we’d better take a look at the map. I’ll go get the new topographicals.” He went out.

C.J. cleared off the table, and I threw Bult off the computer and set up the map, filling in the two holes with extrapolated topographics before I went back over to the table.

Ev was bending over the map. “Is that the Wall?” he said, pointing at the Tongue.

“Nope. That’s the Tongue. That’s the Wall,” I said, sticking my hand in the middle of the holo to show him its course.

“I hadn’t realized it was so long,” he said wonderingly, tracing its meandering course along the Tongue and into the Ponypiles. “Which part is uncharted territory?”

“The blank part,” I said, looking at the huge western expanse of the map. The charted area looked like a drop in the bucket.

Carson came back in and called Bult and his umbrella over, and we discussed routes.

“We haven’t mapped any of the northern tributaries of the Tongue,” Carson said, circling an area in light marker. “Where can we cross the Wall, Bult?”

Bult leaned over the table and pointed stiffly at two different places, making sure his finger didn’t go into the holo.

“If we cross down here,” I said, taking the marker away from Carson, “we can cut across here and follow Blacksand Ridge up.” I lit a line up to Sector 248-76 and through the hole. “What do you think?”

Bult pointed at the other break in the Wall, holding his hinged finger well above the table. “Fahtsser wye.”

I looked across at Carson. “What do you think?”

He looked steadily back at me.

“Will we get to see the trees that have the silver leaves?” Ev said.

“Maybe,” Carson said, still looking at me. “Either way looks good to me,” he said to Bult. “I’ll have to check on the weather and see which one’ll work. It looks like there’s a lot of rain down here.” He poked his finger at the route Bult’d marked. “And we’ll have to run terrains. Fin, you want to do that?”

“You bet,” I said.

“I’ll check the weather, and see if we can work a route through some silvershims for Evie here.”

He went out. “Can I watch you run the terrains?” Ev asked me.

“You bet,” I said. I went over to the computer.

Bult was on it again, hunched under his umbrella, buying a roulette wheel.

“I’ve got to figure the easiest route,” I said. “You can come back to the mall when I’m done.”

He got out his log. “Discriminatory practices,” he said.

That was a new one. “Why all these fines, Bult?” I said. “You saving up to buy a—” I was about to say “casino” but the last thing I wanted to do was give him any ideas. “To buy something big?” I ended up.

He reached for his log again.

“I need the computer if you want me to enter those fines you ran up with the rover today,” I said.

He hesitated, wondering whether fining me for “attempt to bribe indigenous scout” would be worth more than the rover’s fines, and then unfolded himself joint by joint and let me sit down.

I stared at the screen. There was no point in running terrains when I already knew the route I wanted, and I couldn’t look at the log with Bult and Ev there either. I started tallying the fines.

After a few minutes, C.J. came in and dragged Ev off to convince him Big Brother wouldn’t catch him if he named one of the hills Mount C.J., but Bult was still hovering behind me, his umbrella aimed at my back.

“Don’t you need to go unpack all those umbrellas and shower curtains you bought?” I said, but he didn’t budge.

I had to wait till everybody was bedded down, including C.J., who’d flounced into her bunk in a hide-nothing nightie and then leaned out to say good night to Ev and give him one last eyeful, before I could take a look at that log.

I figured Bult would be in the gate area, unpacking his purchases, but he wasn’t. Which meant he was still “tchopping,” and I’d never get time alone on the computer. But he wasn’t in the mess either.

I checked the kitchen and then started over to the stables. Halfway there, I caught sight of a half circle of lights out by the ridge. I didn’t have any notion of what he was doing clear out there—probably trying to collect fines from the luggage, but at least he wasn’t hogging the computer.

I walked out far enough to make sure it was him and not just his umbrella, and then went back into the mess and asked Starting Gate for a verify on Wulfmeier. I got it, which didn’t mean anything either. Bult could make more selling fake verifies than he makes off us.

I asked for a trace, then checked on the rest of the gatecrashers. We had beacons on Miller and Abeyta, and Shoudamire was in the brig on the Powell, which left Karadjk and Redfox. They were out on the Arm.

The trace showed Wulfmeier on Dazil until yesterday afternoon. I thought about it, and then asked for the log and frame-by-frame coordinates and leaned back to watch it.

I’d been right. Sector 248-76 was next to the Wall, about twenty kloms down from where we’d crossed, an area of grayish igneous hills covered with knee-high scourbrush, which was probably the reason we’d skirted it.

I asked for an aerial. C.J.’d sideswiped 248-76 on one of her trips home. I put privacies on and asked for visuals. It looked the way I remembered it—hills and scourbrush, a few roadkill. The visual said fine-grained schist with phyllosilicates all the way down. I asked for the earlier log. That expedition, we were south of it. It was hills and scourbrush on that end, too.

The schist we’d found on Boohte wasn’t gold-bearing, and there were no signs of salt or drainage anomalies, so it wasn’t an anticline. And we’d had good reasons for missing it both times—the first time we’d been following the Wall, looking for a break, and the second time we were trying to avoid 246-73. I couldn’t see any indications either time that Bult was avoiding it. Even if he was, it was probably because the ponies would balk at the steepness of the hills.