Anne McCaffrey - Dinosaur Planet

Kai wanted to grab her in his arms, kiss and hug her for that suggestion but it was neither the time nor place.

“That's exactly the right place, Varian. We'd even register the same as the adult giffs. And the kids as juveniles! Varian, That's . . . That's . . .”

“The best idea we've heard all day,” said Lunzie, finishing when words failed Kai. There was as much relief in her voice as in Kai's. Varian beamed at the reception of her solution.

“Fine. We'll hole up there . . .” and he ducked as Lunzie swung at him for his pun, “get a good night's sleep and then do some heavy evaluation. I did, and don't forget this, my friends, get that message off to the Theks . . .” He held up his hand as Aulia opened her mouth to renew her arguments to aid from that source, “and as one of them is an old friend of my family's on the ARCT-10, I think I can promise that the message will not be ignored.”

Aulia may not have been convinced but Kai saw that others were willing to rest some confidence in that fact.

“Where has Bonnard got to?” asked Varian, shuddering as Lunzie finished her manipulation on her shoulder. “He ought to have been long back.”

“I'll go,” said Triv and was out of the lock before either leader could protest.

“Now, Leader Kai,” said Lunzie, indicating it was his turn at her hands.

“Margit, would you break out some peppers for us all?” said Kai, surrendering his broken wrist to Lunzie and diverting his thoughts. “I don't think they got what was in the locker in the pilot's compartment.”

"A pepper?" Margit moved with alacrity to the forward compartment, Aulia right behind her. "That's the second best idea I've heard today. Pray Krim they didn't get the peppers! Ah, the locker's untouched! Leave off, Aulia, pass them out to the others, first! " Her voice had turned hard.

“You know, this is the first time I've ever seen Leaders required to use Discipline,” said Dimenon, cracking the seal on the can Aulia had handed him. She was drinking hers as she passed others the restoratives. “I'm aware that a Leader has to have the Training to lead, but I'd never seen it working. I couldn't figure out what had got into you, Varian, when you let them beat admissions out of you.”

“I had to play the coward,” said Varian, taking a long swig at her pepper. “Dead Disciples are no use to anyone. I'd guessed that Bonnard would be smart enough to hide. I do wish he'd get back now, though.”

They all heard the noises at the lock. Kai slipped his half-sealed wrist from Lunzie's grasp and moved quickly to the lock, good hand poised in a clenched fist. Portegin and Dimenon joined him, their bare hands cocked back.

"I found him," Triv said, poking his head through the half-opened iris. "He'd been stacking all the power packs at the edge of . . . the dead beasts. He's gone for the others now." He handed three power packs through the lock to Portegin." He says the heavy-worlders have started a fire on the ridge beyond us. We'll be able to slide the shuttle to our left, up the hill and they shouldn't see us. Dead and dying herbivores are hill high in the compound. It's going to take some time before they realize neither we nor the shuttle are buried here."

“Good,” said Kai and motioned Triv to return to help Bonnard. “We can be gone without a trace left for them to follow or find, bless this ceramic hull.”

Once the resourceful boy and Triv had swung the power packs safely into the shuttle, they dosed the lock. Kai and Varian took Bonnard into the pilot's compartment where he could diagram the shuttle's position and the clearest way up the hill.

Paskutti's fist had wrecked the outside view screens as well as the communication unit so maneuvers would be blind. Not, Varian pointed out, that they could have seen all that much even with night-masks and they couldn't, under the circumstances, use the shuttle's exterior spotbeams. Both Kai and Varian could recall the co-ordinates for the inland sea without the tapes now spread across the compound's littered floor.

Triv and Dimenon synthesized enough padding to cushion the wounded on the bare plastic deck, and had set Margit and Aulia to clear up the worst of the spillage in Trizein's laboratory. He was unconscious again, the strain having been excessive for a man of his years. Lunzie thought he might have suffered a heart seizure as a result of the brutal treatment.

Manoeuvring on the bare minimum of power, Kai and Varian, each with one good hand, eased the shuttle out from under its burden of Hadrasaur corpses, up the hill and onto a course for the inland sea.

During the trip, Lunzie synthesized a hyper-saturated tonic to reduce the effects of delayed shock and made certain every single person took their dose, either as a drink or a spray. With Triv and Dimenon's assistance, Portegin began to raid all unnecessary circuits to see if he could jury rig even an outgoing signal.

When they reached the inland sea, Kai hovered the shuttle while Varian, the lock iris partly open, shouted verbal instructions to the terrace they had happily occupied that rest day, it seemed so long ago. When the lock was half a metre above the terrace, Varian and Triv jumped down. They would have to guide the shuttle into the cave, feeding Kai directions over their wrist communits. Since the heavy-worlders were sure of their deaths in the dome, it was unlikely any of them would be listening in on their own units.

The mouth of the cave was not large enough to accept the central bulge of the shuttle, but, by steadily pressing in against the rock, they forced a way through, ignoring the score marks on the ceramic skin of the shuttle.

Varian, standing in the darkness of the terrace, couldn't understand why the grating noise and vibrations hadn't aroused the entire population of the cliff but no crested head emerged to investigate.

Triv lowered Varian down to the cave by belt line. Then, having secured one end on a rocky spur on the terrace, he joined her. The shuttle was far enough inside the cave not to be immediately visible. But Triv and Varian gathered up masses of dried vegetation and threw them in camouflage over the stern of the shuttle. Dimenon, Margit and Portegin came out to help, spattering the top and sides with moistened cave dung.

It didn't take long but everyone was relieved to be inside the shuttle, with the iris closed behind them. Then the others settled themselves with what comfort they could find.

“You are going to rest, aren't you, Lunzie,” asked Kai, hunkering down by her side as she tended Trizein.

She gave a snort. “I'll have no option as soon as Discipline releases. But Trizein should be all right. It's natural for his system to seek repair in rest. And there won't be anything to disturb him. How're you?” she asked bluntly, glancing at sealed wrist and then more intently at his eyes.

“I'm still under Discipline, but not for much longer.”

She filled her spray gun. “I'll give everyone else slightly more sedation than necessary. That'll give us a chance for enough rest.”

She moved about the cabin then, administering the spray.

Varian tapped Kai on the shoulder.

“We've accommodation forward, Kai.”

He glanced round the recumbent forms and then followed her, gratefully lowering himself on the deck on the padding. Thin but thermal lined sheets had been fashioned and ought, he thought, to suffice. The ship would keep the interior temperature at a comfortable level for sleepers. Lunzie and Triv joined them and settled down, too.

“It could be worse, Kai,” said the physician, as if she read his thoughts as he stared down the bare cabin at the other sleepers. “We only lost Gaber and that fool asked for it with his tardy heroics.”

“Terilla and Cleiti?” asked Varian.