reassure her, “I’m sure it will all be all right. You just make certain your notes are all packed properly in the morning. That data on the Kiqui is the second most important thing to come out of this crazy odyssey, and it’s got to get back. Okay?”
“Sure, Tosh.”
He let gravity pull him over onto his back. He closed his eyes and breathed slowly to feign sleep.
“Toshio?”
The young man sighed. “Yes, Denn …”
“Um, it’s about Sah’ot. He’s only leaving to escort me. Otherwise I think you’d have a mutiny on your hands.”
“I know. He wants to stay and listen to those underground ‘voices’ of his.” Toshio rubbed his eyes, wondering why Dennie was keeping him awake with all this. He already had listened to Sah’ot’s importunities.
“Don’t shrug them off like that. Tosh. He says Creideiki listened to them, too, and that he had to cut the channel to break the captain out of a trance, the sounds were so fascinating.”
“The captain is a brain-damaged cripple.” The words were bitter. “And Sah’ot is an egocentric, unstable …”
“I used to think so too,” Dennie interrupted. “He used to scare me until I learned he was really quite sweet and harmless. But even if we could suppose the two fen were having hallucinations, there’s the stuff I’ve been finding out about the metal-mounds.”
“Mmmph,” Toshio commented sleepily. “What is it? More about the metal-mounds being alive?”
Dennie winced a little at his mild disparagement. “Yes, and the weird eco-niche of the drill-trees. Toshio, I did an analysis on my pocketcomp, and there’s only one possible solution! The drill-tree shafts are part of the life cycle of one organism—an organism that lives part of its life cycle above the surface as a superficially simple coral colony, and later falls into the pit prepared for it …”
“All that clever adaptation and energy expended to dig a grave for itself?” Toshio cut in.
“No! Not a grave! A channel! The metal-mound is only the beginning of this creature’s life cycle … the larval stage. Its destiny as an adult form lies below, below the shallow crust of the planet, where convective veins of magma can provide all the energy a metallo-organic life form might ever need!”
Toshio tried earnestly to pay attention, but his thoughts kept drifting—to bombs, to traitors, to worry over Akki, his missing comrade, and to a man somewhere far to the north, who deserved to have someone waiting for him if—when he finally returned to his island launching point.
“… only thing wrong is there’s no way I see that such a life form could have evolved! There’s no sign of intermediate forms, no mention of any possible precursors in the old Library records on Kithrup … and this is certainly unique enough a life form to merit mention!”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
Dennie looked over at Toshio. His arm was over his eyes and he breathed slowly as if drifting off into slumber. But she saw a fine vein on his temple pulse rapidly, and his other fist clenched at even intervals.
She lay there watching him in the dimness. She wanted to shake him and make him listen to her!
Why am I pestering him like this? she suddenly asked herself. Sure, the stuff’s important, but it’s all intellectual, and Toshio’s got our corner of the world on his shoulders. He’s so young, yet he’s carrying a fighting man’s load now.
How do I feel about that?
A queasy stomach told her. I’m pestering him because I want attention.
I want his attention, she corrected. In my clumsy way I’ve been trying to give him opportunities to …
Nervously, she faced her own foolishness.
If I, the older one, can get my signals this crossed, I can hardly expect him to figure out the cues, she realized at last.
Her hand reached out. It stopped just short of the glossy black hair that lay in long, wet strands over his temples. Trembling, she looked again at her feelings, and saw only fear of rejection holding her back.
As if on a will of its own, her hand moved to touch the soft stubble on Toshio’s cheek. The youth started and turned to look at her, wide-eyed.
“Toshio,” she swallowed. “I’m cold.”
78
Tom Orley
When there came a moment of relative calm, Tom made a mental note. Remind me next time, he told himself, not to go around kicking hornets’ nests.
He sucked on one end of the makeshift breathing tube. The other end protruded from the surface of a tiny opening in the weedscape. Fortunately, he didn’t have to pull in quite so