"Forward, Robert L - Rocheworld 02 - Return to Rocheworld - with Julie Forward Fuller 5.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forward Robert L)
*CHAPTER FOUR -- MEETING*
As Barnard's light first shone on the only artifacts on the planet surface, Carmen woke from her light sleep in her berth aboard the _Dragonfly_. She had only gotten three hours rest, but she was eager to get started on the next day; it would only be six hours long and only three of those hours would be in daylight. As she started to rise, a wave of dizziness hit her and she slumped back onto her berth. The imp in her hair stretched out a miniature arm to grasp her earlobe. Pulses of multicolored laser light flashed from the tips of the imp's wire-like fingers, passed through the thin blood vessels in the earlobe, and were picked up by photodetectors in the fingers on the other side. In a fraction of a second, the imp had collected the multispectral data needed for a complete blood assay.
"Carmen," said Juno through the imp. "Your blood sugar is very low. You have hardly eaten at all for three days. I am aware that you are trying to cut down your calorie intake, and as long as you were not overdoing it I said nothing. But after the last four weeks of dieting, you cannot simply fast."
Dieting? Carmen hadn't been dieting really, she simply didn't feel much like eating. Maybe it had been a couple weeks since she had much appetite, but big as she was, she was certainly in no danger. She had enough excess fat to last for years! Carmen stood more slowly and with better success.
"I am afraid I must insist that you eat something," Juno's voice gently chided.
"Leave off, Juno. I'm just not hungry. Even the thought of eating makes me feel nauseated."
"Perhaps John should check you out. Shall I inform General Jones that you are too ill to function properly?"
Carmen grimaced at the thought of Jinjur insisting that they scrub the mission just because she didn't want to eat. "Okay, okay, what do I have to do to get you off my back?" She went into the compact toilet down the aisle and made a face at her reflection in the mirror. If she had lost any weight, it certainly wasn't enough. Carmen began applying the make-up that went everywhere with her.
"I will make an algae shake that contains all the vitamins and minerals you need for the day. It will also contain the glucose necessary to keep you from forming ketone. Make sure that you drink it all."
"Like I'd be able to hide it from you the way I used to hide the brussels sprouts from mia madre," she muttered. Sometimes living with a permanent nanny could be a real pain.
By the time Carmen had fixed her hair and face and had slipped out through the privacy curtain between the sleeping quarters and the galley section, Caroline was halfway through a breakfast pseudo-omelette made with egg-flavored algae powder. Carmen got her shake, pulled out one of the swing-out seats from under the galley counter and joined the engineer. "You sure got up fast," Carmen said, trying to put off drinking the blue frothy mixture.
Caroline laughed. "I don't do more than make sure my hair's out of the way. I don't know why you bother with all that warpaint out here in the boondocks."
"I wouldn't go anywhere with out my natural beauty."
Caroline speared the last of her omelette. "Do you think we should start out on our own?"
"I'd rather wait until Jinjur gets up. We don't want her to miss a chance to order us to do exactly what we want."
Caroline paused. She sensed some hostility in Carmen's voice and didn't know how to react to it. Usually Carmen would not have made disparaging remarks about the General. Maybe it had something to do with the algae shake Carmen was sipping. Caroline wondered what delicacy she was paying for now. James often made them trade off overindulgence in the fruits of Nels's tanks and tissue cultures with the healthy but unappetizing shakes. She tried to laugh it off. "Our fearless leader will be out soon." The privacy curtain between the galley and the sleeping quarters slammed open.
"Speak of the devil..." Jinjur's voice rung out. "You two raring to go?"
"I figured we'd get the power supply set up first,"said Caroline. "Then we'll work out the best place for the laser transmitter and the touchscreen for the flouwen."
"Richard can take a look at the local geology while you're setting up the power supply," said Jinjur. "He'll be able to predict any problems you might have with erosion and water table levels. Also, I doubt I'll be able to keep him here with me without tying him down."
"I wouldn't mind tying him down," said Carmen, batting her long eyelashes at Sam and Richard as they came through the privacy curtain. Carmen slipped out as they came in, making sure that she squeezed against them, lingering to maximize the contact despite the fact that there was plenty of room.
The two geologists grinned at her good naturedly, and sat down with Jinjur. Richard pushed away Carmen's half-empty glass, and grimaced. "None of this slop for me," he called out. "I want steak and hash browns and biscuits with plenty of good country-sausage gravy."
"You're scheduled for an herb algae-omelette and your usual morning Coke," said Juno quietly as the galley imp pushed the plate and metal tumbler forward.
"Well, it was worth a try," Richard grinned, downing a big gulp of caffeine and phosphoric acid, and reaching for his fork. "So, how far have you planned for us to go on today's expedition?"
"That will depend upon what you find," replied Juno. "But I don't think there will be any surprises. This island was mapped thoroughly from the air during the previous visit to Eau by the members of the crew in Surface Excursion Module One. Since then, it has been periodically monitored by the commsat _Barbara_ during its overflights. It is highly unlikely you will discover anything new or unusual, like alien life-forms or strange artifacts. There does appear to be a small land-locked lake toward the middle of this island that Sam should check out."
"The geology exploration plan for the next three hour daylight period is for Richard to assist the laser communications installation crew in finding the most suitable spot for burying the power supply, while Sam checks out the geology around the lake."
"First I want to meet the flouwen," Sam objected.
"I thought you were a geologist, not a xenobiologist!" Jinjur objected.
"I've been on the surface of Ceres, Vesta, Pallas and Juno, on Ganymede and Callisto, and have never seen so much as a fossil. Then on the first mission to Rocheworld I got stuck with exploring Roche, while Richard got to go to Eau and meet the flouwen. I want to talk to the first 'little green men'."
Clear^White^Whistle was just as eager to talk to the humans. As they had eaten their fill of the wild life in the deep ocean of Eau, many of the newly awakened flouwen came back to the waters off the beach. Most stayed only a moment to see if there had been any new developments, but Dainty()Blue()Warble, Roaring*Hot*Vermillion, and Strong||Lavender||Crackle joined Clear^White^Whistle's vigil. With the rise of Hot, movement became apparent in the landing craft and the aeroplane. In order to see up the slope of the beach, the flouwen had to ride the waves to their zenith. Even then, since sound waves were slower and less effective in the air, they got back only a weak, far away picture full of confusing echoes. Looking with their newly-made eyes gave a clearer picture, but it was only two dimensional, and they could not tell what was happening within the hard, shiny walls of the vehicles. Roaring*Hot*Vermillion was bored, but the challenge of trying to see while riding on the surf intrigued it, and so it was the first one to see the lock door reopen at the top of the towering lander.
The spacesuited forms of Tony, John, and Shirley appeared in the _Falcon_ airlock. Shirley extended out a long metal beam from the ceiling of the lock with the winch on the end, while John and Thomas attached the first of a number of packages to the end of the cable. Then the airlock on the _Dragonfly_ opened and Cinnamon, Sam, Richard, Carmen, and Caroline came out to stand at the bottom of the lander to await the arrival of the packages. Jinjur and Thomas remained inside _Dragonfly_ and _Falcon_ where they could monitor the progress of the others after they split into groups.
The first package lowered down was a compact metal cylinder, the nuclear minireactor-photoelectric generator that would be the power supply for the flouwen laser communication link. Although not large, it was dense because of its load of plutonium fuel, photoelectric cells, and folded heat-pipe radiator vanes. Even in the twelfth-gee gravity field at the outer pole of Eau, it was a load even for Richard. Next came a geological coring tool and bit, a bundle of core tubes, reels of high temperature superconductor cable, the laser transmitter module, the autotracking telescope for sending the laser beam either up to _Prometheus_ or directly to Earth, and the underwater touchscreen designed for use by the flouwen. The last package lowered was a large bag with three lumps in it. John rode down with the bag, while, after securing the winch, Shirley scrambled after him down the rungs of the Jacob's Ladder that ran from the airlock to the surface.
Richard checked the safety latches on the minireactor, hoisted the compact heavy package to his left shoulder, picked up the coring tool with his right hand, and started trudging off up the beach. He looked carefully at the geology of the terrain in the distance, trying to identify the best location to emplace the reactor-generator. Trotting along after him came Shirley with the telescope and core tubes, Carmen with the laser transmitter, John with the reels of cable, and Caroline with the touchscreen.
Sam and Cinnamon picked up the large bag between them, and they and Tony walked down to the edge of the surf to greet the waiting flouwen.
*Hello! Hello! Hello!* cried Roaring*Hot*Vermillion as it literally beached in front them. Feeling the sand imbedded in its flesh, Roaring*Hot*Vermillion knew that it would later regret the hasty charge. *Arrgh! I hate the sand!*
"We can bring you out of the surf and protect you from the sand," said a voice coming from the brightly glowing SoundMaker that sat on the shoulder of the human.
*Anything that will get me away from this thought-clouding sand!* Roaring*Hot*Vermillion pulled back from the beach on the receding wave. Following closely, the humans decreased the buoyancy of their suits and carefully waded into and under the surf. The sand that so interfered with internal communication slowly sifted out of Roaring*Hot*Vermillion as they reached clearer waters. Soon the three humans were completely submerged in the relative calm just below the tossing waves. One of their suit imps swam up to the surface where it acted as a relay for the blue-green laser optical link between the suit computers and the central computers on the vehicles.
"We'll never be able to fit them into one of these suits," said Cinnamon, looking with awe at the gigantic blob of reddish jelly that stretched for meters in each direction. "Can they only partially solidify in order to fit?"
"James thought that for the chance to come exploring with us, they would be willing to separate part of themselves off from the rest," said Tony. Jupiter, operating the outside suit imps at long distance through the optical relay link, translated Tony's words for the flouwen, while adding some words of explanation of its own.
*Separate!?!* Roaring*Hot*Vermillion roared.
"Were you translating?" Cinnamon asked.
"I am translating everything," said Jupiter.
*I will not tear off pieces of myself ...*
^Wait a moment.^ Clear^White^Whistle surrounded the humans. ^How big a subset do you need this time? Part of me remembers being studied by you before and you did me no harm.^
"Actually," said Sam as he spread out the giant-sized baggy that they had developed to hold the flouwen, "This is as much of each of you as our ship is capable of holding."
Clear^White^Whistle took the limp bag of glassy-foil from Sam's hand and studied it carefully with a series of sonar pulses. Sam showed him how to work the zipper and the white flouwen opened the suit and allowed himself to flow inside, squeezing excess water from its body as it did so. By the time the bag was filled, a good portion of the giant flouwen was surrounded by silvery glassy-foil. It was easy for Clear^White^Whistle to see the way the zipper would seal the flouwen into the bag, protecting that portion of his body from the sand and the drying effects of the air -- and from the rest of himself outside. Clear^White^Whistle hesitated, hating the idea of separating into two beings. ^If I do this, you will take me with you to explore the land above?^
"Yes," said Sam. "That's why we brought the suits. This is the only way you can leave the ocean and go exploring with us." He produced two others.
Dainty()Blue()Warble, Strong||Lavender||Crackle and Roaring*Hot*Vermillion waited. Slowly, Clear^White^Whistle closed the zipper. Almost immediately he opened it again, testing the device. Then the zipper closed again and the free portion of Clear^White^Whistle moved away, leaving the suited flouwen standing alone.
*How does it feel?* asked Roaring*Hot*Vermillion.
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