Read Ireta 02 - [Dinosaur Planet 02] - Dinosaur Planet Survivors for Free Online

think.” Varian took his left hand and placed it on the thick stem. She moved beyond his reach, but he could see her nod that she’d found her vine and he should move on down.
    Kai forced Discipline on himself, willing the tension out of his blood and tissue. Then there was only a short piece of vine left in his hand, the final edge tickling as it curled into his palm.
    “Varian!”
    The white blur of face turned to him. He knew she’d seen his upraised hand, she made a thumbs-up gesture and crouched to run, her hand along the vine that would take her over the cliff and into sanctuary.
    He pulled as firm and hard as he could, felt something vibrate along the length of the line. Then he began to run, hands before him on the rough vine trunk, counting his steps. Wouldn’t do to hurtle over the cliff.
    The rumble of the stones cascading into the ravine startled him so much that he nearly lost count of his strides. The giffs roused with a squawk. He looked back at them. To his relief, their heads were turned away and their motion was upward.
    “I’m at the edge, Kai!” Varian’s voice was low but intense.
    He found it, too, just as his leading foot slipped into a crevice. Then he closed his hands about the fat vine and, in blind faith that it was the right one, began to scramble down it. He scraped his knuckles against the cliff wall and then swung into free air, as the vine curved inward, still secured to the shuttle docking brace.
    “Krims! I grabbed the wrong one,” Varian suddenly exclaimed.
    “Swing near me, Varian. I’ll catch you!”
    “No!”
    He heard that defiant negative above the screams of the giffs. Only the Discipline that had been instilled in them both, that one leader must survive, forced him to continue down his vine until he was inside the cave and knew it was safe to let go. He staggered to his feet, able to distinguish the cave mouth by the slightly brighter darkness.
    “Varian!”
    “I’m to your right. I got the wrong vine. It’s too short. Can you see me?”
    He couldn’t. The curtain of vines hid her. “Can you grab the next vine? Shake it!”
    Tracing the sound, he found the agitated vine and hauled it back into the cave, bracing it.
    “Okay, switch and slide!”
    When her feet touched him, he guided her legs to the ground. They clung together, trembling with a reaction neither bothered to Discipline.
    Then, hand in hand, they moved to the curved bow of the shuttle, unslung their improvised packs, carefully removing the fruit and nuts. Then they curled up together in the blankets and were almost instantly asleep.

 
    3
     
     
    “K AAAIIII!” The rumble that awakened Kai was a nightmare sound because the noise not only issued from a source uncomfortably close to his ear but it also vibrated through the stone under him.
    “Huh? Whaaat?” Varian lifted her head from its pillow on his upper arm. “Tor?” She blinked up at the rock which, from her perspective, towered above them.
    As she moved, the recorder was firmly placed on Kai’s diaphragm, forcing an exhalation from him.
    “Location old core?” the recorder said in lugubrious tones.
    “The old core?” Varian’s voice echoed the astonishment which she and Kai felt for that totally unexpected query. “We’ve nearly been murdered, stripped of all survival equipment, out of touch with everyone . . .”
    Kai tightened his arm to silence her. “Typical Thek logic, Varian. It chose the issue important to it, not us. I wonder if that old core is what stirred Tor to come.”
    “Huh?” Varian struggled to a sitting position, drawing her legs away from Tor’s meter-high triangular lump of granite.
    “Where do you remember last seeing that core?” Kai asked her.
    “Frankly, I’d other things on my mind than ancient geological artifacts and yet . . .” She frowned as she searched her memory. “It must have been in Gaber’s dome. Paskutti wouldn’t have been interested in it. Would Bakkun have hung on to it for