The Secret of Black Ship Island by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle & Steven Barnes

Author:Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle & Steven Barnes [Niven, Larry & Pournelle, Jerry & Barnes, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: SF, colonization
Published: 2012-03-19T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

*

Puzzle Time

*

About four hundred feet to the east, Marshall and his blue team were reading another poem aloud.

"Smooth and strong and white as milk,

You'll find your goal a road of silk.

Though not a native form, they say,

Their roots will help you find your way."

Their leader, a little red-headed ball of energy named Kelly, brother of Red Team's resident pessimist Roderick, made a face. " 'Road of silk'? What are we looking for?"

"Cloth, maybe?" the kid beside him said. "What was the road of silk?"

They were chopping their way through an overgrown foot path. The local vegetation was heavy but not unpleasant. They paused. Within a cluster of fleshy pitcher-plant type leaves writhed what looked like a knot of hairy spider legs. Spider-legs was struggling slowly, the torpor increasing even as they watched, as if fatiguing or losing hope.

Kelly squealed. "Oh! Poor thing."

"Behold," Marshall sighed. "The wonder of nature."

"What is it doing?"

"Lunch," a redheaded girl said, and got jostled.

"There's nothing we can do, kids, not really." Marshall said.

"Why?" the redhead asked.

"Everything has to eat," Marshall said. "And we're on a mission, kids. No time, really."

The kids looked at each other.

Then Kelly turned. "I'm taking a vote. Who sides with the plant?"

"Come on..." Marshall said.

hairy cluster suddenly took heart and increased its struggles. The plant stopped trying to eat it, and the legs wrenched themselves away. It swung up into a tree and chittered at them. A few broken sucker-fronds still adhered to its skin. The kid stood his ground. "Let's do this." Kelly and his team-mates drew their little machetes and began to hack at the plant. The

"Hmmmm," Marshall said.

"You're welcome!" Kelly said.

The thing chittered at them. The kids grinned at it and continued on their way. The thing tore away the suckers, exposing little patches of red where fur had been torn. It cursed in hairy-leg language at the plant, which seemed almost to be sulking and nursing its damaged vines. The tree spider followed the kids.

"Uh-oh," Kelly said. "Don't look now. We've got company."

Marshall grinned. "You save a life, you own a life."

Kelly looked back. Spider-legs was following them, all right, swinging from branch to branch like a monkey with no torso.

"Back to business," the redhead said. " 'Road of silk.' Heck, we could walk right past something and not know what it is."

"Maybe," Marshall said. "Maybe not. We worked hard to be sure that the clues were fair."

Kelly suddenly stopped. "Wait a minute. What's this?" In the middle of a group of reddish flowers was a row of green bushes, all approximately the same size and rough shape. Clearly...cultivated. Marshall said nothing, merely watching. "Marshall? Is this something we should pay attention to?" Marshall said nothing. The kids clustered. The bushes had not only been planted, but labeled.

"Look at the label," Kelly said. "It says White Russian Mulberry – Morus alba var. tatarica."

His teammates began to chatter:

"Well, it doesn't belong here."

"What is it doing here?"

"Isn't that...a mulberry plant?"

"Isn't...don't silkworms eat mulberry leaves?" The kids looked at each other, and suddenly slapped hands.

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