Justin grinned to himself. Stu Ellington held the record for speed through that pass. She'd have been taking it easy with Cadzie aboard. Justin had already put money on her for the next Landing Day race.
Little Cad was nursing, or sleeping, or both. The cloth covering Linda's bosom made it difficult to tell which. "Dad, we've found two more maybe-type explosions in the mine record."
"Grendel guano! Are the dates significant?"
She stared. Cadmann said, "I meant, did they happen when someone might have wanted-skip it. Tell me more."
"Recent explosions, twenty weeks ago and fourteen. Low energy, like gunpowder again, way tamer than dynamite. But they didn't happen where boring was going on, they happened in the secondary processors. That machinery is very forgiving, and it just went on chugging."
Cadmann thought carefully. If sabotage, then... test explosions before the real thing? But the real thing had been something quite different. "Got any ideas, small bright one?"
"Some defect in the thermal unit at the secondary processor. Some contamination in the coal itself? There's a mushy look to one of the spikes, like... less like a single grenade than a bushel of cherry bombs."
"Coal dust?" someone said from the door.
She shook her head. "Coal dust can explode, but we thought of that in the design. If air is mixing with the dust there' d have to be something wrong in the machinery, something Cassandra doesn't see. Even something deliberate."
"Sabotage?"
She shrugged.
"Have you done a spectroscopic on the coal?"
"Yes, of course, months ago-"
"No, I mean recent."
"Joe says we can't, the instrumentation is gone. We've got to go there."
"I was thinking dynamite at the bit, but what if air was getting in?"
Cadmann was looking about him, not obviously, trying to read faces.
"Possible, but tricky. We'll look when we get there," Linda said.
"All right. Bluff Two. Good moorage for Robor, and it's the right place for the Scouts. Make it the base, and we'll check the other mine areas by skeeter."
"What about the lowlands expeditions. Dad?"
"Remember, this is a dry run. Take three days, check everything, do your overnight with the Scouts, then you can look for a good place for a base camp. Stay alert, and pull back fast if anything unexpected crops up."
"Reconnaissance in force," Linda said.
Cadmann grinned faintly. His fingers moved across the map. "Once you're through with the Scout stuff, you can do geology with one skeeter and use another for mapping. While you do that, the Grendel Scouts stay on the Mesa with somebody steady in charge. Usual rules there. Stay high, no lowlands at all. Any variation from this order will be cause for mainland privileges to be revoked. Do we understand each other?"
For a moment Justin wondered if Aaron would give an argument, or say something provocative-he had been known to do that. But he wanted this trip too badly. Justin could almost see him sitting on his emotions, holding his tongue for dear life. Instead of smart-mouthing, he nodded.
Linda sighed. "I'm sure that whatever is wrong, we can handle it. Nothing to worry about. Otherwise," she said, "I'd never take Cadzie with us. Never in a thousand years."
Chapter 7
THE MAINLAND
Its horror and its beauty are divine.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLY, The "Medusa" of Leonardo da Vinci
"Can we talk?"
Linda looked up with faint annoyance. Linda had learned what all mothers learn. Sleep when the baby sleeps, stupid! She'd just got Cadzie down for a nap.
"Please."
Edgar looked desperate. Joe had been worried about him lately, worried that Edgar had problems he wouldn't talk about. Joe would want to know. She sighed and pointed to the sleeping baby. "In your work room, then. Cassie, Cadzie is asleep. Listen for Cadzie. We will be in Edgar's workroom. Call if he wakes up."
"Understood, Linda," Cassandra said softly.
Edgar led the way. "Coffee?"
"Sure, thanks," she said. "I like coffee and I never get a chance to go pick beans."
Edgar gave her an evil grin. "There's one way you can get all the coffee you ever want."
"I used to do that," she said.
"Hey, I didn't mean anything."
"All right." She sipped coffee. "I do like this stuff. Okay, Edgar, what's so urgent it can't wait for me to get a nap while Cadzie's asleep?"
"Why don't I get laid?"
"What?"
He couldn't meet her eyes now. "It's hard enough asking once, let alone twice. Why can't I get laid? I must be the oldest virgin on this planet."
"You're not a virgin. You're a Grendel Scout. I was there. Trish Chance, the Bottle Baby."
"Close enough," Edgar said. "There was that once on the mainland. I didn't know what to do. Trish had to show me, and she hardly speaks to me now."
"Why ask me?"
He sighed and shook his head. "There was a time when I'd have given anything I had to sleep with you. You know that."
She struggled to avoid laughing, and lost. "I'm sorry," she giggled.
"But Edgar, I never knew—"
"You knew," he said. "Come on, I don't know much about girls, but anybody could tell you were keeping score, making sure that anybody you hadn't made it with sure wanted to. You—unless I'm psychotic. Linda?"
"All right, I suppose I did," Linda said. "And then one morning I woke up tired of the games."
Edgar nodded, relaxing a little. "You slept with damn near everybody! Everybody but me. I figured what the hell, eventually you'd get to me just for the record. But you never did. I guess you got pregnant first."
"Pregnant and tired," Linda said.
"So I'd wait till you had the baby, and then I'd have a chance, but that didn't work because now you're my stepmother! Near enough, anyway."
Tired, and pregnant, and lonely, which didn't make sense because I could have awakened with anyone I wanted, but—"Let's just say I had a lot of friends."
If he'd been a dog, Edgar's tail would have wagged. "I've read a bunch of different names that people used to use. Hooker. Town pump. Round heels."
"Round heels?"
He laughed. "Falls over easily on her back. And hooker, I read about that one. There was a Union general. Fighting Joe Hooker, who had so many shady ladies following him that people called them Hooker's battalion—"
"Thank you for the lecture, but that's quite enough." She stopped, and thought for a moment. "But come to think of it, Joe knows those words, too. He'd never use them, but he knows them."
"Yeah, Wow, I never would have thought of that. Has he--?"
"Never."
"Anyway, it never happened with us. Or anyone. It's that way with all the girls. Some of them are friends, but none of them want to sleep with me, and it's driving me nuts. Why?"
"You're too eager, for starts," Linda said. "And you have a talent for lecturing on the wrong subjects."
"I tried being hard to get. That doesn't work either."
"No, of course not. I mean—"
He looked down at himself with a sour expression. "Yeah. I know what you mean."
"Then why ask?"
Edgar looked at himself. "I'm fat. I've been taking lessons from
Toshiro—"
"It shows," Linda said. "More muscle tone. Better posture. Lose some weight and you'll look good. Edgar, I'd sleep with you now. I mean, I won't, but I would if I were doing that sort of thing now."
"You mean that?"