In the Stormy Red Sky by David Drake

Author:David Drake [Drake, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2009-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

Adele sat beside Selsmark on the forward thwart of the square-bowed skiff, balancing Tovera and Gibbs with the control wheel in the stern. The motor sang with high-pitched enthusiasm, but it wasn't really big enough for the twenty-foot vessel, even with only four people aboard. They were travelling up the sluggish watercourse at what ordinarily would've been a walking pace.

It wouldn't have been possible to walk so quickly along this route, however, or for that matter to walk at all. Sideways the skiff could've spanned the stream at its widest, and the vegetation to either side wasn't so much a wall as a ragged 200-foot cliff.

Though a number of the trees shared common features—corkscrew trunks and an orange undertone to the bark were the most visible ones—Adele wouldn't have sworn that any two were the same species. Daniel might be able to judge which were age states or genders of a particular tree, but Adele was lost without a database. If Master Beckford's scouts had bothered to log that sort of information, it hadn't reached files which Adele could access.

Something in the forest called, "Coo! Coo! Coo!" It was very loud, but Adele couldn't tell which side of the stream it was on. She thought it might be a signal, but the feral beside her paid no attention.

Adele's data unit was in her lap, though she'd resisted bringing it live. It had nothing useful to tell her and would've been better in its thigh pocket, but she took comfort in its open presence.

"We ought to be getting close," Selsmark mumbled through a mouthful of protein ration taken straight from the packet without rehydration. He seemed to be speaking to himself anyway, though Adele could understand him when she concentrated. "Bloody hell, I don't like this, I don't like it a bit!"

Cory on the Milton's bridge was tracking her through the data unit, but the satellites that guided Fonthill's logging crews saw only the top of the triple canopy. Cory could follow the barge's progress, but he couldn't give warning of what might be waiting beneath the curtain of foliage. Branches interwove from both sides, hiding the stream from above.

Four-legged, four-winged, insectoids swarmed up from rafts of algae and landed on the passengers. They didn't bite or sting, but the touch of their feet itched and might raise welts in the course of time. Since all the vegetation was poisonous, the creatures that ate it were likely to transport the toxins also.

The ferals ignored them, and Adele avoided brushing the insects away also. If they were poisonous, spreading their juices over her body wasn't going to help the situation.

Selsmark finished the ration packet and threw it into the bottom of the skiff. Adele said, "What do you eat in the jungle?"

"Bloody little," the feral muttered. He scanned the green tangle to either side with nervous flicks of his eyes. "Whatever we can plant, corn and squash mainly. Nothing local, it'll rot you from the inside. What we steal from the camps, what we trade to the ships that slip in from Hydra, but they pay us crap for logs.

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