Between the Strokes of Night

“It is, Jonas.” Wolfgang had identified the real source of the question. “This is a wonderful planet. In many ways it’s better for humans than Pentecost, or even the original homeworld, Earth. You all volunteered to live and work here, and you’ll enjoy it. Soon you’ll be free to wander around and see the place for yourselves. But there’s a huge difference between few dangers and no dangers. Today I’m going to take you and point out things that can be dangerous. I want you to see ‘em and smell ‘em and hear ‘em — and learn not to touch them. You do those things on the ground. You can’t do them sitting in an aircar. Any other questions?”

The youth nudged Tilda again, but she did not speak. Finally he said, “Dangerous things. You mean like the karnoos?”

Peron thought that a reasonable question. The karnoos were big, armored, and possessed a double array of scythelike teeth. They were also fairly intelligent, smarter than the night-lappers of Pentecost that made anyone except determined Planetfest competitors avoid the Villasylvia woods after dark.

Wolfgang smiled. “You’ve been looking at the pictures, haven’t you? But no, I don’t mean the karnoos. They are herbivores, and all they want is to be left in peace. They could certainly hurt you — take a look at the size of them, and all those teeth — but they are dangerous only if they can’t run away. Get in trouble with a karnoo, and you can bet it will be your own fault.”

“But we will see some, won’t we?” asked a tall, rangy girl at the back of the group.

“If we’re lucky. The karnoos are very picky about what they eat. We’ve had agbots planting our own crops in this area, which don’t seem to appeal to karnoo tastes. As our settlement spreads, they stay farther away. You’ll see karnoos when we get out beyond ten kilometers — which we never will do, unless people stop asking me questions and we start moving.”

“How smart are they?” It was the dark-haired youth next to Tilda again. “Smart enough, Jonas. Smart enough to build dams and avoid humans. The beginnings of language, too, we think — but we’ve never been able to study it, because once a karnoo is captured and realizes it can’t escape it just lies down. Either you have to let it go, or after a while it dies. Which is what you’re all going to feel like doing — of starvation — unless we leave this minute. We have a set amount of ground to cover before we stop and eat. Let’s go.” Wolfgang waved a hand, to show that he would listen to no more questions, and ushered the group away along one of the paths that led through planted fields toward the undeveloped areas beyond.

“Anyway, it’s not the animals,” Peron heard Wolfgang saying as they went. “It’s the plants you have to watch out for. There’s a fruit that I’m going to show you. The karnoos love it, and we call it a globerry. Like a big yellow plum, smells wonderful and tastes even better. Eat one, and you’re likely to eat another. Which would be a terrible mistake. They contain a hemolytic poison. Unless you throw up at once, you’ll sweat, vomit blood, pee blood, and collapse. Then there’s the papercut bush.…”

Peron noticed that the group was hanging slightly closer to Wolfgang as they went out of sight. He smiled, and went back into the house. It had been grown mainly from Elissa’s specifications, and was big for Peron’s tastes. But he could not complain about the kitchen. Elissa had programmed in everything that he liked to eat.

He scanned incoming messages as he ate breakfast. Not surprisingly, there was nothing new from any of the S-space facilities. During the nine hours since he had last looked, only a quarter of a minute had passed in S-space. Also, and more to the point, little or nothing had happened here. Perhaps that was predictable, but no one had foreseen it when they discussed a second facility. And everyone had agreed that if it was not to be in S-space, then a planetary setting would be more attractive than anywhere else to the fresh new talent that they needed. What was less obvious was the amount of time and effort it took to form what was, in effect, a new planetary colony. As the number of people grew, the original settlement had expanded to two, then three, widely separated groups. Soon there would be more, with easy and continuous communication among them.