Алан Дин Фостер - Relic

Bac’cul was baffled. “Then… where could they be?”

The outpost director turned away from the two scientists and toward the interminable mudflats that stretched away from the research facility in every direction. “Only one conclusion is possible. If they are not hiding within the outpost, then they must be hiding without.”

Cor’rin came up to stand and stare beside her. “Is that possible? Our pre-arrival studies suggested that the general environment is…”

“Hostile.” Swiveling her head more than halfway around, Twi’win regarded her dismayed visitors. “Generally, not unrelievedly, so. While my personnel never venture outside unless they are armed and properly attired, I suppose it is conceivable that one with an intimate knowledge of the Daribbian environment might be able to survive its threats without protection.”

“The juvenile!” Cor’rin exclaimed.

One of the director’s hands gestured in a broad sweep at the surging, sucking surroundings outside. “As nearly all of the human presence here was concentrated in their empty cities, we have expended very little of our limited resources on the study of the mudflats themselves. Aggressive lifeforms aside, they constitute anything but a hospitable environment. The great majority of our work has focused on the derelict urban centers.”

“Whereas humans who lived and matured here must have been forced to learn everything they could about all of their surroundings.” Bac’cul’s voice was full of rising hope. “We must begin a search of the immediate area!”

“How?” Twi’win regarded the researcher with a mixture of compassion and frustration. “With our transportation immobilized we cannot cover any significant ground. We will have to wait until the driftecs are operational once again.”

Cor’rin’s frustration was palpable. “We cannot just squat here waiting for the Vrizan to return! And they will return, once they have finished fruitlessly scouring Dinabu for signs of the two specimens.”

“Let them.” Twi’win sounded anything but accommodating. “If they come back we will be ready for them. Prepared, I am confident my staff can stand them off. Next time they will not have the element of surprise.”

“But,” Bac’cul protested, “what about the humans?”

Already ambling toward the lift that would take her back down into the body of the outpost, the director looked back at him. “We can only hope they are safe and that when our driftecs are once more operational, we can find them before the Vrizan do.” With her assistants in tow she entered the waiting lift and was gone.

Left to themselves, Bac’cul and Cor’rin turned their attention back to the vast mudflats above which the outpost stood, a lonely sentinel of civilization in an environment as intimidating as it was unpleasant.

“We could take Kel’les and go look for the humans ourselves,” he suggested hesitantly.

“How?” She indicated the flat, yellow-brown horizon. “There are no landmarks, nothing to suggest which way they might have gone. If they were close by and standing erect, or even crouching, do you not think the meticulous Vrizan would have spotted them? If they could not locate them with instruments, how could we possibly find them on our own? If Ruslan and the child were walking on gliders, the Vrizan would surely have taken notice.”

Bac’cul’s mind was racing. “Humans have fewer joints than us but thicker bones and heavier muscles. It is conceivable they could make more progress without gliders and on foot than Myssari or Vrizan.”

“Except that one of them is a juvenile, short and undeveloped.”

“Trueso.” Once again Bac’cul returned his gaze to the bleak, utterly flat landscape that surrounded them. “Then we are left with our original uncertainty: where are they?”

“Not in the belly of some indigenous predator, one hopes. If that is the case, then all our defensive posturing and all the belligerence of the Vrizan hold no more meaning than what can be found in a specimen cup of this all-pervasive muck.”

The Myssari technician who was running the checkout on the organic recycling system was as relieved as the rest of his colleagues at the departure of the belligerent Vrizan. Though the majority of personnel had suffered no contact with the intruders, everyone knew that they had temporarily taken control of the station. All staff had been instructed to stand aside and not interfere as the Vrizan had conducted an incredibly thorough inspection of the outpost’s facilities, though to what end and for what purpose most of the workers had no idea.

It was not important, the tech told herself. The Vrizan were gone now. All that mattered to her and her associates was that the intruders had left without doing any damage. They had been in a foul mood when they had arrived and had apparently encountered nothing to ameliorate their emotions by the time they departed. Wishing them all infected fundaments, she and her colleagues had resumed their daily work schedule as soon as the Vrizan had taken their leave.

Since no alarm or alert had sounded to indicate that they had returned, the tech was more than mildly startled when the exterior portal just ahead and to the right of her normal inspection track began to open from the outside. She immediately found herself debating whether or not to sound a warning. Surely if the Vrizan had come back, their approach, not to mention their actual arrival, would have been broadcast throughout the outpost? That left few alternative explanations for what she was seeing. To the best of her knowledge, there were no maintenance crews working on the exterior of this side of the facility. Those that were operating outside were doing so on the opposite side of the station from where she was standing. There was no reason for one or more members of those maintenance crews to be on this side. Additionally, if someone was having a problem with reentry, she and everyone else would have been notified to look out for them and to be ready to render assistance as needed.

All her excellent reasoning notwithstanding, the doorway continued to slide sideways into its receptacle. Diluted hazy sunlight poured in through the opening that resulted. She held off sounding an alarm. It was probably nothing. Declaring a false emergency would open her to station-wide ridicule.

Just as she had decided that the door opening was purely accidental, two figures stepped through the gap and into the accessway. Beyond the fact that they stood upright, she could recognize nothing about them. Completely covered in muck from the mudflats, all details of their true shapes were masked. Whatever facial features they possessed were turned away from the tech.

Daribbian indigenes! she thought wildly. If these were anything like their fellow creatures, they were doubtless both dangerous and hostile. She immediately voiced an alarm to her aural pickup. It turned out to be the wrong decision. The ridicule she had hoped to avoid soon followed, though it was all good-natured.

Though the relief expressed by Bac’cul, Cor’rin, and Kel’les, not to mention Director Twi’win, at the safe return of the two specimens was expressive, the humans themselves seemed to care for nothing save access to a mist rinse. Only when they had thoroughly cleansed themselves of the mud that had provided them refuge did Ruslan take the time to explain where they had been and how they had avoided detection by the swarming Vrizan.

“Cherpa deserves all the credit.” Seated in the relaxation lounge with a cold drink at hand, he was happy to relate the circumstances of their survival. “I didn’t want to go outside, unarmed, but it was obvious that if we were going to avoid the Vrizan we had no other choice. So I followed her lead.” He nodded toward the far side of the mood-changing chamber, where the girl was playing with her doll while finger-painting three-dimensional patterns on the wall. That the ever-changing scenes being displayed were of Myssari and not human-settled worlds did not matter to her. She found each and every one new and fascinating.