Read Delta Pavonis for Free Online

That's what they keep saying, anyway. Of course, the field expeditions will be the last to get it."
    "I guess I could've stayed home if I'd wanted to live easy." She managed to eat half of the bar, then gave it up and stuffed the remainder in a pocket for later. Standing, she brushed crumbs from her coverall "Could we go into the woods a little way? I've never seen a wild environment before this."
    He got up. "Sure. It's safe as long as we stay near the camp We have to sign out first." She followed him to the HQ shack where he logged them out, giving their planned route and approximate time of return. "If we don't log back in within an hour of that time," he told her. "the unit raises hell and the rescue parties go out. If they find you, they can make you wish they hadn't."
    "I hear that nobody likes rescue parties." She followed him from the HQ shack toward the mess shack, where they could fill their portable water bladders.
    "That doesn't quite describe it. I got caught by a carnivorous plant once. It couldn't eat me, but it held me immobilized with a tentacle for about six hours. The search party found me and cut me loose, but for weeks they acted like it was all my fault, as if I'd planned it so they could lose some rest. I guess we'll get that way too, if we're down here long enough."
    As they walked toward the forest margin, he ducked into the Team Red barracks to inform Forrest of their hike. When they proceeded, Dierdre found that she had to restrain herself to copy Colin's leisurely pace.
    As they neared the woodline, Dierdre felt an intimidation she hoped Colin wouldn't notice. It looked dark in there, and it was crawling with uncontrolled life. It was all indescribably alien.
    "Scary, isn't it?" Colin said.
    "Not at all," she protested.
    "You don't fool me. Everybody who's come down from orbit is scared the first time they confront a wild environment. I thought I'd go into convulsions the first time I walked under the trees. And that was right outside a big planetside base."
    "Well, maybe it's a little bit scary." She felt sure he was exaggerating to spare her feelings, but she appreciated the gesture.
    Once they were beneath the branches of the first trees, she lost the irrational terror she had felt. It seemed peaceful. Better yet, it was a good deal cooler. In contrast to the previous night, the quiet was positively vacuumlike. That made sense, when she thought about it. Nocturnal animals would naturally depend more on sound. She began to wish she had taken more biology classes.
    "Is it safe to touch things?" she asked.
    "Sure, as long as you don't grab an animal. Sometimes they resent handling."
    She stooped and picked up a handful of dirt. Holding it to her nose, she inhaled its loamy aroma. "It smells just like the soil back in the biocontrol labs."
    "Dirt seems to smell like dirt everyplace. There are probably differences, but human noses aren't very acute. Down at the bacterial level, it's likely that life forms are pretty similar. Come over this way, I'll show you something you've never seen before."
    "I've never seen any of this before." She followed him down a gentle slope. Somewhere ahead, through a screen of dense growth, she could hear a strange, continuous sound. It awoke feelings she could only describe as ancestral. They pushed through the growth and there before them was a stream tumbling over a rocky bed. The sound was subtly different from any she had heard in a holographic reproduction, and heir she could smell the damp streambed and feel the spray from where the rocks churned up a fine mist.
    "It's beautiful!" She squatted on a damp rock and dipped her hand in the flow. The stream was perhaps five meters wide, not at all intimidating, unlike the ocean. She looked up at the sky, gleaming blue through a gap in the trees.
    I think I'm going to like this place," she said.

THREE

    The boats didn't look strong enough to paddle across a swimming pool, much less to take to the open ocean. They