Fokin wished Mboga a good morning and was about to go back into the tent and finish his sleep, when he ran into Komov.
“Where are you going?” Komov inquired.
“To get dressed, of course,” Fokin replied with dignity. The morning was fresh and clear, except for scattered white clouds which floated unmoving in the violet sky to the south. Komov jumped down onto the grass and set off to fix breakfast. He planned on fixing fried eggs, but he couldn’t find the butter.
“Boris,” he called, “where’s the butter?”
Fokin was standing on the roof in a strange pose—he was doing Yoga exercises.
“I have no idea,” he said haughtily.
“You did the cooking yesterday evening.”
“Uh… yes. So the butter is where it was last evening.”
“And where was it last evening?” Komov asked with restraint.
Fokin, with a displeased look, disengaged his head from under his right knee. “How should I know?” he said. “We restacked all the boxes afterward.”
Komov sighed, and started patiently examining box after box. There was no butter. Then he went over to the building and dragged Fokin down by a leg. “Where’s the butter?” he asked.
Fokin had just opened his mouth to reply when Tanya came around the corner, wearing a sleeveless blouse and shorts. Her hair was wet.
“Morning, boys,” she said.
“Morning, Tanya my sweet,” said Fokin. “You haven’t by any chance seen the box of butter?”
“Where have you been?” Komov asked fiercely.
“Swimming,” said Tanya.
“What do you mean you’ve been swimming?” said Komov. “Who gave you permission?”
Tanya unfastened from her belt an electric hacker in a plastic sheath, and threw it onto the boxes. “Gennady, old dear,” she said, “there aren’t any crocodiles here. The water is wonderful and the bottom is grassy.”
“You haven’t seen the butter?” Komov asked.
“No, I haven’t—but has anybody seen my shoes?”
“I have,” said Fonin. “They’re on the other roof.”
“No, they’re not.”
All three turned around and looked at the roof. The shoes were gone. Komov looked at Mboga. He was lying on the grass in the shade, sleeping soundly, with his small fists under his cheek.
“Come now!” said Tanya. “What would he do with my shoes?”
“Or the butter,” added Fokin.
“Perhaps they were in his way,” muttered Komov. “Well, all right. I’ll cook something without butter.”
“And without shoes.”
“All right, all right,” said Komov. “Go work on the intravisor. You too, Tanya. Try to get it put together as soon as possible.”
Ryu came to breakfast. Before him he herded a large black machine on six hemomechanical legs. The machine left behind it a broad swath through the grass, stretching all the way back to the base. Ryu scrambled up to the roof and sat at the table, while the machine stopped in the middle of the street below.
“Tell me, Ryu,” said Komov. “Did anything ever get lost on you back at the base?”
“Like what?” asked Ryu.
“Well, say you leave something outside overnight, and you can’t find it in the morning.”
“Not that I know of.” Ryu shrugged. “Sometimes little things get lost—bits of rubbish, pieces of wire, scraps of lithoplast. But I think my cybers pick up that sort of trash. They’re very economical little comrades, and they can find a use for anything.”
“Could they find a use for my shoes?” asked Tanya.
Ryu laughed. “I don’t know,” he said. “I hardly think so.”
“And could they find a use for a box of butter?” asked Fokin.
Ryu stopped laughing. “You’ve lost your butter?” he asked.
“And a pair of shoes.”
“No,” said Ryu. “The cybers don’t go into the city.”
Deftly as a lizard, Mboga climbed onto the roof. “Good morning,” he said. “I’m late.”
Tanya poured him his coffee. Mboga always breakfasted on one cup of coffee.
“So, we’ve been robbed,” he said, smiling.
“Meaning it wasn’t you?” asked Fokin.
“No, it wasn’t me. But last night the birds we saw yesterday flew over the city twice.”
“And so much for the shoes,” said Fokin. “Somewhere I—”
“I haven’t lost anything in two months,” said Ryu. “Of course, I keep everything in the dome. And then, I have the cybers. And smoke and noise all the time,”
“Okay,” said Fokin, getting up. “Let’s get to work, Tanya girl. Imagine, a pair of shoes!”
They left, and Komov started gathering up the dishes.
“I’ll post a guard around you this evening,” said Ryu.
“As you like,” Mboga said thoughtfully. “But I’d prefer doing it myself at first. Gennady, I’m going to bed right now, and tonight I’ll set up a little ambush.”
“Very well, Doctor Mboga,” Komov said reluctantly.
“Then I’ll come too,” said Ryu.
“Do that,” Mboga agreed. “But no cybers, please.”
From the next roof came an outburst of indignation. “Good grief, I asked you to put the packs down in order of assembly!”
“I did! That is how I put them!”
“You call this order of assembly? E-7, A-2, B-16… then E again!”
“Tanya my sweet! Honest! Comrades!” Fokin called across the street in a wounded voice. “Who mixed up the packs?”
“Look!” shouted Tanya. “Pack E-9 is gone completely!”
Mboga said quietly, “Messieurs, we’re also missing a sheet.”
“What?” said Komov. He was pale. “Search everywhere!” he shouted, jumping from the roof and running toward Fokin and Tanya. Mboga watched him go and then started looking to the south, across the river. He could hear Komav say on the next roof, “What exactly is missing?”
“The HFG,” Tanya answered.
“So what are you standing there jabbering for? Put together a new one.”
“That will take two days,” Tanya said angrily.
“Then what do you suggest?”
“We’ll have to cut,” said Fokin. Then silence reigned on the roof.
“Ryu, look,” Mboga said suddenly. He stood up and, shading his eyes from the sun, looked across the river.
Ryu turned around. Across the river the green plain was dotted with black spots-hippopotamus backs, and there were very many of them. Ryu had never imagined that there could be so many. The spots were slowly moving south.
“I think they’re going away,” Mboga said.
Komov decided to spend the night under the open sky. He dragged his cot out of the tent and lay down on the roof, his hands behind his head. The sky was blue-black, and a large greenish-orange disk with fuzzy edges—Palmyra, the moon of Leonida—crawled slowly up from the eastern horizon. Muffled drawn-out cries, no doubt those of the birds, came from the dark plain across the river. Brief flashes of sheet lightning appeared over the base, and something gnashed and crackled softly.
We’ll have to put up a fence, thought Komov. Enclose the city with an electric fence, and run through a fairly weak current But then, if it’s the birds, a fence won’t help. And it probably is the birds. A huge critter like that wouldn’t have any trouble at all in dragging off a pack. It could probably even carry off a person. After all, on Pandora once a flying dragon grabbed a man in a heavy-duty spacesuit, and that was maybe one-hundred-fifty kilos. That’s the way things are going. First shoes, then a pack… and the whole expedition has only one carbine. Why was Gorbovsky so set against weapons? Of course we should have opened fire then—at least to scare them away. Why wouldn’t the doctor fire? Because it “seemed” to him… and I wouldn’t have fired myself because it had “seemed” to me too. And just exactly what had it seemed to me? Komov wiped his forehead, wet from nervousness, vigorously with his hand. Enormous birds, beautiful birds, and how they flew! What noiseless, effortless, perfect flight! Well, even hunters sometimes pity the game, and I’m no hunter.