“We’re going to sit out here for awhile and really look at things,” Vasil said. He had said this before, more than once; Kira felt her shoulders tighten now. She didn’t like being treated as an idiot who couldn’t remember. Perhaps that was what he was used to; unlike the others, he had no academic appointment. She tried to convince herself that this explained his attitude. “We’re going to launch a low-orbit scanner,” he went on. Kira could have repeated his next words with him; she did it silently, careful not to move her lips. “And only when we know what we’re getting into, will we decide where to land.” The obvious place was the old colony site, since their mission included shutting down that powerplant. Vasil knew that. The shuttle pilot knew that. Kira glared at the viewscreen and told herself she’d feel better when she got out of the ship for awhile.
She watched the launch of the low-orbit scanner, and then went to the lab to put the first transmissions through her own special filters. She didn’t expect the analysis of atmospheric gases to have changed from the baseline data filed before Sims Bancorp was issued the first development license, but she would be more comfortable with her instruments than the tension in the wardroom. Chesva followed her, “Would you like me to do the atmospheric stuff, and let you get right to the surface data?”
“I don’t think there’ll be any surface data for awhile, but we can check the response of the visuals.” “I’ll load the old data for comparison.” They knew it by heart, but the computer would catch subtle changes they might miss.
“Thanks,” Kira said. She wished Chesva were on the primary team with her… but then she might have had someone like Bilong for her backup. Better this way, probably.
The atmospheric data began to show up on her screen. She pulled up the old, and had the computer highlight any changes. Nothing showed. Just as she’d expected.
“What about that old weathersat?” Chesva asked. “Do we have the access codes?” “I’ll check,” Kira ran through the expedition manual, which was supposed to contain a précis of all relevant data, including enabling codes for any equipment Sims Bancorp had left behind. “Yes — and I’ll just give it a shove—” The weathersat’s computer obligingly dumped a long file of weather observations, graphics and all. Kira called up the current image. Blue water, swirling white clouds in streaks along the wind patterns, a mass of clouds lumped up over something on the western side of the image. She muttered her way through the selection tree to pull up information about that. Mountains, it turned out to be. Chesva had moved over to her workstation. “Do you suppose the weathersat has any idle scanners? If so, maybe we could get an early peek—”
“Good idea. Have you ever peeled this kind of system?”
Chesva grinned. “Actually, yes. And it nearly got me drafted into the military.” “Sounds like a good story,” Kira said. “But in that case, why don’t you fiddle with this, and I’ll watch and learn.”
Chesva explained as he went along, but Kira was more interested in the incoming data than in the way he convinced the weathersat to realign scanners and antennae to pick up and transmit the data he wanted. By the time he had it running to his satisfaction, the weathersat’s area of observation was moving toward the nightside.
“Handy that the powerplant’s still on,” Chesva said. “It’s the thermal peak there which has let the weathersat stay in position all these years.”
“Really.” Kira wasn’t that interested. She could see the bright dot on the infrared herself. Around it were the softer, dimmer blurs of buildings radiating heat absorbed from the sun, distinctly different from the ground only on the side where shadows had cooled the soil… they all seemed to have one sharp edge, and the rest blurry.
“Now if we can just get the magnification working—” Chesva said. “Ah. There. Now what do you suppose that is?”
A visible light scan, this time, the low slanting rays of the setting sun making bold shadows… there were the buildings of the abandoned colony, arranged in neat rows, the forest ramparts with their longer shadows… and something moving between the houses.
Kira felt a shiver run down her back. Animals. Probably only animals, either the surviving domestic animals abandoned by the colonists, or the forest animals they had described. The aliens had been thousands of kilometers away; the colonists had lived there forty years without seeing anything dangerous. But the shadows they cast were long, upright.
“Thermal sources,” Chesva said. “Whatever they are, they’re warm-blooded, but not as hot as the powerplant.”
“Upright,” Kira said. She was glad to hear that her voice was steady.
“Yes.” His voice was as calm as hers. They were professionals, academics, adults… but her heart pounded. She knew… she knew these were not cows or sheep or monkeylike forest climbers. These were the ones who had destroyed a colony — blown up a shuttle — and now prowled about, learning entirely too much.
Sunlight vanished from the scene, and without the stark contrast of sun and shadow she could see nothing, not even movement. On the infrared, she could see the buildings radiating their stored heat. At a little distance, two clumps of brighter dots might be cattle and sheep. And between the blurred shapes of the buildings, she could see little pale dots moving. Abruptly they disappeared.
“Went inside something,” Chesva said. “One of the buildings.” She heard him swallow. “They’re really
there.”
“We’re theorizing ahead of our data,” Kira said, trying to sound professional. Chesva snorted.
“You know we’re not,” he said. “We just got more data than anyone else has had.”
“Yeah,” Kira said. “I think so.”
Suddenly the visual scan changed. Lights sparkled on the dark screen.
“We know so,” Kira amended. “They’ve figured out the lights—”
“Wouldn’t be hard,” Chesva said. He sucked his teeth, his only irritating habit, and then went on. “It wouldn’t take digits, necessarily. A hand-swipe — if those are standard toggle switches. A tentacle. Even a beak.”
“Bipedal,” Kira said. “Those upright shadows.”
“Not necessarily bi,” Chesva said. “But I agree, they’re upright. Let’s pull up one of the earlier frames and really go over it.”
“You do that. I want to watch this—” Kira waved at the screens. Lights. The computer said four lights.
She put a trace on the IR pattern that had moved, the little dots that had crossed the street and gone inside. Now that she had a moment to think, she called up the village street plan furnished by Sims Bancorp, and decided that the — indigenes, she had better think of them, rather than aliens — had gone into the multipurpose building that housed the control and monitoring functions, the rainwater storage tanks, schoolrooms, communal workrooms, and so on.
The computer bleeped; when she glanced at the visual display, another light had come on. She looked back at the village plan. Falfurrias, Bartolomeo et u. et m., it said. She translated the archaic notation: et ux et mater, “and wife and mother.” Originally built and occupied by Humberto and Ofelia Falfurrias. She looked up the evacuation report. Bartolomeo and Rosara Falfurrias had been taken up on shuttle 3-F;