Tau Ceti (an Ell Donsaii story #6) (23 page)

Syrdian frowned, “Maybe we’re supposed to tie several short pieces together to have ones long enough?”

“Do you really think it matters that we use vine instead of rope?”

Syrdian shrugged hies wings, “I’ve never
had
advice from the spirits before. But Bultaken always wants
the tribe
to do things
exactly
as
hie
saw
them
in
hies
spirit dreams.”

Dex raised
hies
head in surprise, “Do you think those were spirit dreams we had last night?”

Syrdian shrugged.

Dex said, “I’ve never heard of two
dalins
having the same dream.
I saw
glowing red lines
on the cliff
face,
showing
a
dalin climbing a cliff using vines
.
” Hie tilted hies head,
“
Did you see the same thing
?”

Syrdian dipped hies head yes.

Dex waved hies head uncertainly a moment, then said, “OK, I’ll get some pieces of vine to tie together, but I’m worried they won’t be strong enough.”

By the time
Dex returned with several lengths of vine Syrdian had finished cooking the swimmer and had collected and chopped up a few small tubers from near the campsite. They ate with gusto, the crunch of the little tubers going well with the soft flesh of the swimmer. Syrdian had even filled a skin with water when hie was down at the stream so that they had something to drink.

They laid out two pieces of vine end to end. Dex said, “How do we tie them together?”

Syrdian’s head went up and back, “
I
don’t know! You’re the leatherworker.”

Dex tilted hies head, “Vines aren’t exactly like leather, you know,” he said
quietly,
picking up the two ends and
wrapping them into the first throw of a knot. The vines were stiff and didn’t form a good knot. Hie looked at the knot a moment then said, “Pull on that end.”

Syrdian picked up the vine on the other side of the knot and began pulling. The knot cinched down but the vine started cracking and splintering as hie pulled hard. Eventually the vine pulled into something that resembled a knot but had corners
and splinters
rather than the smooth roundedness Dex was used to.

Syrdian looked at the kno
t curiously, “Do you think that’ll be
strong enough?”

Dex waved
hies
head in negation. “I don’t think you should trust your life to it.”

“How can we make it stronger?”

“Add a rope?”

“Do you think that would be OK with the spirits?”

“I don’t know, but it would make me feel better.”

“Me too,” Syrdian whispered.

***

Deltain sighed as the rest of the tribe launch
ed
themselves into the air for the second day of the migration.
Wings sagging, hie turned back
and looked
to the north from whence they had come
.
H
i
e knew
in hies hearts
that there could be
no chance
that
Dex might appear in the distance, flying hies way
. Y
et hie could hope
...
With
aching heart
s
hie
slowly
turned again and lifted into the air to
ward
the south.

***

Wilson Daster was on “voyeur” duty, as he thought of it, watching the
Teecees
on
Saturday afternoon.
Once
Manuel had finished his drawings the rest of the group had broken up and taken off to enjoy the weekend
because the
Teecees
themselves were boringly asleep
. The rotational period of TC3 was surprisingly similar to Earth
’
s at 23 hours and 43 minutes. Currently
,
sunrise at the TC3 camp
w
ould have come at about 10:35
,
but
because
they were on the western slope of a huge mountain Tau Ceti didn’t actually crest it until about noon and it didn’t go down until around midnight.
Wilson
had been
watching in the late morning when the
Teecees
first woke in the dark and saw the laser tracing
out
Manuel’s drawings on the cliff face.
Although Goldy had put the rocket down on its side, by luck he
laid
it over a bump that held the laser window slightly above the ground. The window was facing
a little bit
downward bu
t Allan twisted it with a gentle
shot from the rotational attitude jets. They shot compressed air
,
but
the slight hiss they presumably made hadn’t disturbed the
Teecees
.

W
ilson
had a moment of panic w
hen Goldy stepped in between the rocket and the cliff and into the beam of the laser
. H
e’d
barked at
his AI
to
shut the laser down
because h
e
wasn’t sure whether
the beam
was strong enough to burn the
Teecee
. Allan
, Ell’s AI,
had
then
confirmed
that
the power was low enough that it
sh
ouldn’t cause harm
,
but Wilson had left it off unti
l Goldy was well out of the way. The
Teecees
had seemed somewhat panicked and Wilson considered leaving the laser show off
,
but eventually
resumed
showing
the series of pictures.

The
Teecees
had apparently gone back to sleep
,
but when their campsite was
fairly
well lit
by sunlight diffused
through
the clouds
,
they
had gotten u
p and gone their separate ways. They left
the rocket
lying there
so
Wilson
had no idea what they were doing.
When the
Teecees
returned Goldy was empty handed but Silver had a fish! Well, when Wilson was able to see it clearly
,
he could see that it was quite different than Earth fishes. Brown in color, it must be slippery because Silver held it with claws slightly extended to provide a grip. Torpedo shaped, the head
drooped
a little as if it had a muscular but boneless neck like the
Teecees
, the burrower
,
and the flyers. The body
appeared to be less
flexible
than
earth fish and instead of a tail with fins, it looked like it had the standard plan of four hind limbs, two of which were
much
enlarged and looked like they performed the function of the tail in an earth fish.

Once Silver had cleaned the fishlike animal,
Wilson
sent a message to Wheat, letting him know that another “dissection” had been done.
Wilson
watched interestedly as the fish was suspended over the fire and
occasionally wondered where Goldy had gone.
When Goldy returned with several short lengths of vine,
Wilson
wondered why he hadn’t brought back a longer one. She?
Wilson
realized that he had subconsciously decided that Goldy was the male and Silver the female part of a mated couple. He shrugged, thinking to himself that it didn’t matter much
how
he
thought
of
their sexes,
at present
the important question was why not a full length vine?

Having an “aha” moment, while the
Teecees
were eating the swimmer
Wilson
scanned back through the images of the hike the day before. Though there were lots of vines
,
they were all tangled together and going up trees, maybe it was impossible to obtain
a long
one like they had had the laser draw.

Back to the present,
Wilson
saw Goldy tying two vines together but the knot didn’t look very strong to him.
Maybe if they bound the knot with a smaller vine?
But then Goldy flew away.

Silver didn’t do much while Goldy was gone. At one point she came over and examined the rocket, giving
Wilson
a close up view of her head.
Then Goldy reappeared and picked up several of the short vines, taking off with them back up into the air.
Wilson
wondered what was happening.

After a bit
,
a vine was lowered down the face of the cliff. It appeared at the edge of the field of view of the camera and looked odd, as if it were double stranded?
Narrowing his eyes and leaning forward, Wilson said, “Allan, zoom me in on that vine at the right edge of the picture.” As the digital zoom took him in he saw that there was some kind of black second strand accompanying the vine. Something else flashed into view, then was gone. “Zoom out.” A second vine seemed to be hanging just at the edge of view. Wilson could only see leaves
, not the actual main vine or whether it also had a second strand of black. He wondered whether they were in fact taking direction from the laser drawings the team had sent them or whether this was something they had planned to do anyway.

Silver appeared in the frame and went to the cliff where the vines hung. First she picked up the black strand and wrapped it around her waist, tying it off. Wilson had Allan zoom in again,
that looks like rope!
Silver picked up the vine and wrapped it around her waist also tying a loose knot in it. Then she picked up the other vine, pulling it into view. It also had a black rope. She pulled on it firmly, as if testing its strength. Or the strength of the rope anyway. Wilson noticed that the vine didn’t really come tight. Even though Silver had both in her hands, all the weight seemed to be on the rope. He tilted his head wondering,
why
are they using the vine if they ha
ve
a
perfectly good rope?
Could they be trying to follow our instructions
to the letter
even where they make no sense, but backing them up with something that does?

S
ilver looked up the cliff face and
tested her weight on the rope again. The rope around her waist pulled taught. Her wings fluttered a moment, then she climbed out of view
,
leaving Wilson to wonder what was happening.

***

Just when Wilson was wondering if he should have the rocket right itself and fly up the cliff looking for the
Teecees
, there was a flash of wings and Goldy landed at the campsite. He moved around the camp
,
picking up a few items and attaching them to his harness. Then he approached the rocket, picked it up and r
eattached it to the front of hi
s
harness. Wilson’s point of view flew back into the air and circled out over the forest climbing hard. Silver came into view beside a small tree at the top of the cliff
,
working on the vines she had climbed. Goldy landed beside her and picked up the vine. In a moment it became evident that the black strand was indeed a rope and they were removing the vine from it. Once it was separated they coiled the two ropes and each took one as they began hiking up the slope again. The area near the cliff was relatively clear, perhaps because it wouldn’t support large trees
,
but
in a few minutes
they were back in the forest
.

***

Norris took over from Wilson Daster Saturday evening.
Because
Daster had described the ascent of the cliff
,
Norris set one screen
let him obse
r
ve
the ascent while he watched the
Teecees
progress on the others.
He’d been pretty bored at first as the
Teecees
simply
trekked the forest
,
but now they had broken out of the forest and were approaching a large limestone formation. Not an endless cliff like they’d encountered before, there was forest to either side of it. It was pretty massive though and it had a large dark shadow on it that he thought might be a cave.