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"In a minute. Did you get a picture of that
northwest section?"
There was a long pause before her answer came
back. "I forgot."
"What do you mean, you forgot?"
"I had other things on my mind. The heli prop
sounded funny."
"On hell it did. The only thing on your mind was
jumping Ev."
"I don't know what you're so upset about," she
said. "That whole area's charted, isn't it?"
"Here's Ev," I said. I patched her through and
showed Ev the transmit button, and then looked back
at Carson.
He'd want to know what I'd found out or hadn't
found out, but he and Bult were too far back to shout
at, and besides, I didn't want Bult figuring out why
we'd picked the route we had.
If he hadn't already. We'd long since passed the
second break in the Wall, and he didn't show any
signs of crossing the Tongue.
"I'll try," Ev said earnestly into his mike. "I
promise."
It's about time for a dust storm, I thought, looking
at the sky. Carson usually likes to have one on the
first day anyway, just in case something comes up
where we need one, but he was deep in conversation
with Bult, probably trying to talk him into crossing
the Tongue.
"I miss you, too, C.J.," Ev said.
Nothing was stopping me from pointing the
camera at a likely suspect and doing one myself, but
there wasn't so much as a haze on the horizon. The
Wall was only half a klom off along this stretch, and
sometimes there are little kick-up breezes along it,
but not today. The air was as still as a roadkill.
"Look!" Ev said, and I thought he was talking to
C.J., but he said, "Fin, what's that?" and pointed at a
shuttlewren that was flying toward us.
"Tssillirah," I said. "We call them shuttlewrens."
"Why?" he said, watching the little bird fly over my
head and back toward the other two ponies.
I didn't waste breath answering. The shuttlewren
circled Carson's head and started back for us,
flapping its stubby pinkish wings like it was about to
wear out. It made two trips around Ev's hat and
started back for Carson again.
"Oh," Ev said, turning around to see it making the
circuit again, flapping for dear life. "How long can it
keep that up?"
"A long time. We had one follow us for fifty kloms
like that one time up by Turquoise Lake.
Carson figured up it flew almost seven hundred
kloms."
Ev started asking for stuff on his log. "What does
the Boohteri name for them mean?" he asked me.
"Wide mud," I said, "and don't ask what that's
supposed to mean. Maybe they build their nests out
of mud. But there's no mud around here."
Or dust, I thought. I went back to thinking about
dust storms. If Bult and Carson had been up ahead of
us, I'd've taken my foot out of the stirrup and dragged
it in the dirt to stir up some dust, but the way it was,
Bult would catch me, and Ev would stop talking about
shuttlewrens and ask what I was doing.
I looked back at Carson and waved, thinking
maybe that would signal him to do something, but he
was so busy talking to Bult I couldn't get his
attention. The shuttlewren, on its tenth lap, skimmed
the top of his hat, but that didn't get his attention
either.
"Oh, look!" Ev said.
I turned back around. He was half up in the saddle,
pointing off toward the Wall. I couldn't see what at,
which meant neither could the scans.
"Where?" I said.
"Over there," he said, pointing.
I finally saw what he was looking at a couch
potato lying down behind a roundleaf bush and
looking like a ponypile with fur.
I didn't think the scan had enough res to pick it up,
but I said, "I don't see anything," to stall while I set
the camera on a narrow focus to the far left of it, just
in case.
"Over there," Ev said. "Is that "
I cut him off before he could get more specific. "My
shit!" I shouted. "Put the shield on. That's a..." and hit
the disconnect.
"What is it?" Ev said, reaching for his knife. "Is it
dangerous?"
"What?" I said, locking the disconnect in for twelve
minutes.
"That!" Ev said, waving his hand in the direction of
the couch potato. "That brown thing over there."
"Oh, that," I said. "That's a couch potato. It's not
dangerous. Herbivore. Lies down most of the time,
except to eat. I didn't notice it lying there." I set my
watch alarm for ten minutes.
"Then what were you looking at?" he said, staring
worriedly at the horizon.
"The weather," I said. "We get dust tantrums close
to the Wall, and they play hob with the transmitter." I
punched the transmitter's send three or four times
and then held it down. "C.J., you there? Calling Home
Base. Come in, Home Base." I shook my head. "It's
out. I was afraid of that."
"I didn't see any dust," Ev said.
"They're only a meter or so wide," I said, "and
nearly invisible unless they're in your line of sight."
I hit a few more keys at random. "I better go tell
Carson."
I yanked hard on the pony's reins and prodded it
in the sides. "Carson," I called. "We got a problem."
Carson was still deep in conversation with Bult. I
gave the pony another prod, and it gave me an evil
look and started backing. At this rate, the dust
storm'd be over before I even made it back there.
I should've made it twenty minutes. "C.J., you
there?" I said into the transmitter, just to make sure it
was off, and got down off the pony.
"Hey, Carson," I yelled, "the transmitter's down." I
walked back to his pony. "Wind's picking up," I said.
"Looks like we're in for a dust tantrum."
"When?" he said, with a glance at Bult, who was
busy digging for his log to fine me for being off
Useless.
"Now," I said.
"How long do you think it'll last?"
"Awhile," I said, looking speculatively at the sky.
"Twelve minutes, maybe twelve and a half." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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