The Mystery of Ireta Read Free Page A

Both he and Varian had been pleased when Tanegli, as botanist, and Divisti, as biologist, had answered the request for such specialists. When they had made planetfall and Varian had seen the unexpectedly large type of animal life which populated Ireta, she had blessed the heavy-worlders on her team. Whatever emergency they were going to meet now would be approached with much more confidence in such company.
    Paskutti nodded at Gaber as the cartographer’s hands twitched above the veil controls. Slowly the veil lifted while Varian, by Kai’s side, shuffled with impatience. One couldn’t fuss Gaber by reminding him that this was an emergency and speed was essential.
    Paskutti ducked under the lifting veil, charging out, the squad at his heels, before Gaber had completed the opening. It was, as usual, raining a thin mist, which except for the heavier drops, had been deflected by the main screen as had the insects small enough to be fried by contact.
    They could hear Gaber muttering anxiously under his breath about people never waiting for anything as Paskutti gave the closed-fist upward gesture that meant sky-trailing. The rescuers activated their lift-belts and assumed the formation assigned them at Paskutti’s original briefing on emergency procedures. Kai and Varian were in the protected positions of the flying V formation.
    Aloft, Kai turned his combutton to home in on Tanegli’s signal. Paskutti gestures westward, toward the swampy lowlands, and indicated speed increase as his other hand adjusted his mask.
    They flew at treetop level, Kai remembering to keep his eyes horizontal, on Paskutti’s back. Oddly enough his tinge of agoraphobia bothered him less in the air, as long as he didn’t look directly down at the fast-moving ground. He was cushioned by the air-stream of his passage, an almost tactile support at this speed. The monotonous floor of conifers and gymnosperms which dotted this part of the continent waved briefly at their passage. High, high above, Kai caught a glimpse of circling winged monsters. Varian hadn’t yet had a chance to identify or telltale any of the aerial life forms: the creatures warily made themselves scarce when the explorers were abroad in lift-belts or sleds.
    They increased altitude to maneuver the first of the basaltic clines and then glided down the other side, skimming the endless primeval forest, its foliage in ever-varied patterns of blue-green, green and green-purple. They met the first of the thermal downdrafts and had to correct, buffeted by the air currents. Paskutti signaled descent as the best solution. For him, it was, with his bulk of heavy grav-trained muscles, flesh and bone, but Kai and Varian had to keep compensating with their lift-belts’ auxiliary thrust jets.
    As the buzz of the homer intensified, Kai began to berate himself. He ought not to have allowed any exploratory groups beyond a reasonable lift-belt radius of the compound. On the other hand, Tanegli was perfectly capable of combating most of the life forms so far seen here while dealing with the exuberant nature of the youngsters in his charge. So what aerial trouble could they have fallen into? And so quickly. Tanegli had left in the sled just prior to Kai’s scheduled contact with the Theks. They could barely have made their destination before running afoul of whatever it was. Tanegli would surely have mentioned any casualty. Then Kai wondered if the sled had been damaged. They’d only the one big unit and the four two-man sleds for his seismic teams. The smaller sleds could, in a pinch, take four passengers, but no equipment.
    The land dropped away again and they corrected their flight line. Far in the purple distance the first range of volcanoes could be seen on the edge of the inland sea—a lake that was doomed to be destroyed by the restless tectonic action of this very active world. That was the first area he’d had tested for its seismicity because he’d worried that perhaps their granite shelf