Dave Duncan - Wildcatter

He raised it over his head. “Mine!” he repeated. They had gourds and spears; they must understand the concept of property. Yes, but that might not be the point in this case.

The teenager-equivalents thought this was another game and tried to jump high enough to reach the prize. He staggered as they collided with him and fell back, but he kept possession of the bag. Their yittering changed, growing even shriller. Seth couldn’t understand their chatter or their facial expressions, but when one of them slapped him on the chest he understood. Those flippers stung like a hard leather strap. Then another struck his back. He was rescued from a mobbing by one of the spear-carriers, who shouted and scolded, and drove the gang away from the monster.

Seth thanked him and bowed.

He, or she, yittered and clapped flappers.

The dialogue might have progressed further, had it not been interrupted by shrill cries from centaurs outside the cave. Those near the door took it up, and in moments the entire tribe had disappeared.

“That’s the surge coming,” Meredith said. “Hear the rumble?”

Mostly Seth could still hear the roar of the wind and rain, but at least he no longer had to shout over the centaurs as well. “What happened to the communicator?”

“I was kneeling on it.” She struggled to her feet, clutching the headband. She put it on. “Can you hear me? Yes, we’re both all right. Sorry to scare you. I had to hide the com from the centaurs. They’ll grab anything; worse than jackdaws or keas. Seth’s here, see? Yes, I agree. A bit on the hairy side, but that impressed the centaurs.”

“Mine!” Seth said firmly, dropping the sample bag so he could relieve Meredith of the com and camera. “Prospector to Golden Hind .”

“Welcome back, Mr. Universe,” said Hanna. Oh, Lord, why did it have to be Hanna? “That storm surge is almost upon you. If you can take cover, do so right now.”

“Yes, ma’am. Prospector out.”

Seth hurled the sample bag at the doorway to the decon room. He aimed very high and scored at the first attempt. By then he had decided that Meredith would need help and he would be better able to provide it if he went first, however ungallant that seemed. He scrambled up the improvised ladder as fast as he could and reached down for her.

She handed him the fish the centaurs had brought her, rescued her bra just before it floated out the door, and started to climb. The help he could give her was very limited, and they might not have made it had the rapidly rising water not lifted her. He hauled her in beside him.

Meredith scrambled across the shower doors. He followed. By the time he reached the far side, the water was spilling into the decon chamber. He slid open a panel to let the big shower cubicle take the first of the flood while he made his escape through the second doorway and found a safe foothold on the foldaway bunk that served as a ladder. He let the door latch itself. Then he scrambled down, landing hard on his bare feet. The dormitory was blessedly quiet, the roar of the storm barely detectable through the hull.

He wished he’d saved a reserve of rainwater.

In the gloom, lit only by his helmet lamp, Meredith sat on the tumbled bedding, making herself more decent with another sheet. Seth looked around for another, absurdly conscious of the vivid red welts where the centaur had slapped him. Fortunately the camera had not recorded that foolish brawl.

“That door is a devil to open,” Meredith remarked. Her calmness would have been incredible if he did not suspect she was slipping into some sort of shock.

“Not if the room beyond it is full of water, it won’t be.” He straightened out another mattress for himself.

“You don’t happen to have a blazer on you?”

“Didn’t bring one.”

“Then I’ll eat sushi. Lend me your knife.”

Seth wasn’t tempted to join her for dinner. He was too parched to eat anything, but he did accept a fragment of Cacafuegian salmon for his sample bag.

“Why bother?” Meredith said with her mouth full. “‘Indigenous materials from a world inhabited by sentients must be surrendered to an authorized representative of ISLA.’”

True. “I promised JC I’d collect samples for him. If he wants to deep-space them, that’s his privilege.”

He left the light on, because his battery had at least ten hours’ power remaining, longer than the air in the cabin would last. The shuttle shuddered again as another wave struck it, even bounced slightly. Neither of them commented.

“How does it taste?”

“Excellent,” she said with her mouth full. “Needs some Tartar sauce.” She ate two slices of raw fish, wrapped the rest in a pillowcase and tucked it away, out of sight or scent. It might be stinking up the dormitory, but the dormitory already reeked of too many things for one more to matter.

By then Seth had noted that the noise of the storm had stopped altogether and the cabin was starting to shift uneasily, both observations suggesting that the shuttle must be almost submerged.

He said, “Since no one can overhear us here and you trust me like you would your own mother, tell me about Commodore Duddridge.”

“Of course I trust you, Mom, but you’re recording everything we say.”

“Then pretend I’m Grandma.”

“That’s worse. What about Commodore Duddridge?”

“Do you trust him?”

“As much as I trust any bottom-line, bottom-feeding low-life. I told him so, the last time we spoke, just before the shuttle rolled. I told him things I’d been wanting to say for a long time.”

“What sort of things?”

“Well he asked me a lot of personal questions, about my experience with various guys in the crew. Really personal details about their technique and performance. So I felt at liberty to tell him how much better in bed they all were than he was and how most anyone aboard would make a better commodore. I told him I expected he would blame the disaster on me. I wanted to get that into the record. He assured me that he would see that no blame attached to me for what happened to the landing party.”

“And you didn’t believe him?”

“Never!” Meredith moved as if seeking a more comfortable position. No position was comfortable for long in 1.62 gees. “Old Doddery is old for deep-space work and angling for a management slot. He sucks up to the top brass, puts Galactic’s balance sheet ahead of anything else, and still wants the crew to think of him as a brother. He’s always sincere, no matter how little he means it.”

That had been Seth’s impression of the man in the one recorded glimpse he had obtained, but could he be so mean-spirited that he would leave two women to die out of personal dislike?

“When he pulled out, he posted a yellow flag, meaning plague. His beacon message dwelt on the hurricane-force winds and a virus that could penetrate all barriers. He never mentioned the centaurs at all.”

“What? But I told him they were sentient! And I was right. Every time it rains or floods, they come visiting and leave fish offerings. That’s GenRegs’ 196 [E] behavior exactly. He should have posted a purple flag. Why yellow?”

“Perhaps to cover his ass for forbidding Tony Violaceus to try a rescue effort after you lost contact.”

“Tony offered to do that? Jeez! He really is a great guy.”

Seth thought he caught a faint afterthought of, “in bed, too,” but that might be his own Old Adam grumbling. “Tony could have staked the planet for Galactic while he was at it. So perhaps Duddridge didn’t want you rescued, babbling about talking otters? Your remarks from the shuttle can be dismissed as fevered delirium. He hoped to scare Mighty Mite out of sending down a shuttle, but he did not want to close the world to a later visit by Galactic. If this is the case, then he must think that there’s some value in staking this planet. And you must have found it.”