The Blossom of Erda by L.A. Taylor

Author:L.A. Taylor [Taylor, Laurie Aylma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, General, http://www.archive.org/details/blossomoferda00tayl
ISBN: 9780312085216
Google: G8IhHQAACAAJ
Amazon: 0312085214
Publisher: St Martins Pr
Published: 1986-01-02T04:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

On Regel, the temperature cycled upward, uninterrupted by storms. The late-afternoon fields became cauldrons, impossible to work in. Maele shifted to the scout, to prepare the next day’s releases, while Drel ran the morning’s data through the computer and tended to housework, an arrangement dictated by the yellow jackets. Despite several concoctions poured into the nest in the middle of various nights, the colony had not been eradicated. Maele only hoped it had not swarmed unnoticed.

Without words, she and Drel had agreed to work faster. They used the sled even for short distances, a saving of seven minutes a kilometer. Whenever possible they worked separately. Breakfast they ate while planting. Nothing else until the heat forced them back to base, and Maele took her afternoon meal with her to the scout while Drel ate his at the computer. Gradually they regained lost time. The one irrecoverable loss was that of the second species of bird. With great hope, Maele had reset the incubator after the first storm, but the eggs had not hatched.

“That’s the end of the survey,’’ Drel announced when Maele returned to the cabin on the evening of standard day forty-six, the forty-second Regel day. “All that’s left is the rest of the releases.’’

“Then done?’’

“So says the First,’’ Drel agreed, nodding at the computer.

“Two or three hours of work left, then. Make sure you get it all on numbered, erasure-proof disks,” Maele said. “We don’t want our work disappearing at Headquarters.”

“Like the distress call received by the Guardian! There really was one, you know. Yov and I and Wherlen and Unst, the day’s helmsman, all heard it.”

“Your radioman?”

“Had excused himself temporarily. He was very new at the time. I’ve wondered about that.”

Maele, peeling off her sweaty rags in the bathroom, asked, “How does he get along with Arden?”

“Maxel? He’s very formal, very stiff.”

“Not something Yov Arden encourages.” She turned on the shower and stepped under it. “What about you?” she asked. “What does Maxel think of you?”

Drel, leaning against the doorjamb, looked at the floor. “I suspect he finds the presence of a non-human difficult to bear.”

“Rinold’s man, you think?”

“It would not surprise me.” He pushed off the doorjamb and reached out. “Like some help soaping your back?” he inquired.

“You’re so kind.” Maele laughed, and tossed him the slippery bar.

“Day 44, Regel time,” Maele wrote. “Weather still sunny & hot.” She stopped to organize her thoughts, pleased by her near solitude. SanDreleccür had gone to the basalt cliff to meditate. His mind was a distant blur in her own.

What to write? “Woke early, made love with both joy and sadness, breakfasted on oat cereal and coffee, Drel to the rocks to meditate”? Hardly the thing to put in a personal log, which might someday be open to inspection by the entire staff of Link Services Headquarters. She dropped her scribbler and stretched.

Looking down, she thought her boots were pretty scruffy. Not a bad idea to polish them, as long as the day would be devoted to packing and housekeeping.

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