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and glared at me. I ignored her and started handing the bedrolls and the surveying equipment down to him.
    “Don’t set the terminal on any flora,” I shouted down to him, too late. He’d already laid it in a patch of scourbrush.
    I glanced at Bult, but he’d gone down to the river’s edge and was looking at the other side with his binocs.
    “Sorry,” Ev shouted to me. He jerked the terminal back up and looked around for a bare spot.
    “Stop gossiping and jump,” Carson said behind me, “so I can get the ponies unloaded.”
    I grabbed the supply packs and handed them down to Ev. “Stand back,” I shouted to him, scanning the ground for a clear patch.
    “What on hell’s keeping you?” Carson shouted. “They’re going to unload before I unload them.”
    I picked a bare spot and jumped, but before I’d so much as hit, Carson yelled, “Lower, C.J.,” and I nearly cracked my head on the heli when I straightened up.
    “Lower!” Carson bellowed over his shoulder, and C.J. dipped the heli down. “Fin, take the reins, dammit. What on hell are you waiting for? Lead ‘em off.”
    I grabbed for the dangling reins, which did about as much good as it always does, but Carson always thinks the ponies are gonna suddenly turn rational and jump off. They reared and shied and backed Carson against the side of the heli’s bay, like always, and Carson said, like always, “You rock-headed morons, get off me!” which Bult entered in his log.
    “Verbal abuse of indigenous fauna.”
    “You’re gonna have to push ‘em off,” I said, like always, and climbed back on.
    “Ev,” I shouted down, “we’re bringing this down as far as it’ll go. Signal C.J. when it touches the tops of the scourbrush.”
    C.J. circled the heli and came in lower. “Up a little,” Evelyn said, gesturing with his hand. “Okay.”
    We were half a meter from the ground. “Let’s try it one more time,” Carson said, like always. “Take the reins.”
    I did. This time they squashed him against the back of C.J.’s seat.
    “Goddammit, you shit-brained sonsabitches,” he shouted, swatting at their hind ends. They backed against him some more.
    I maneuvered around to Carson’s side, and picked up a hind paw of the one that was standing on his bad foot. The pony went over like it’d been doped, and we dragged it to the edge of the bay and pushed it out. It landed with an “oof” and laid there.
    Evelyn hurried over. “I think it’s hurt,” he said.
    “Nope,” I said. “Just sulking. Stand back.”
    We upended the other three and dumped them on top of the first one and jumped down.
    “Shouldn’t we do something?” Evelyn said, looking anxiously at the heap.
    “Not till we’re ready to go,” Carson said, picking up his gear. “They can’t shit in that position. Come on, Bult. Let’s get packed.”
    Bult was still over by the Tongue, but he’d dropped his binocs and was squatting on the bank, peering into the centimeter-deep water.
    “Bult!” I shouted, walking over to him.
    He stood up and got out his log. “Disturbance of water surface,” he said, pointing up at the hovering heli. “Generation of waves.”
    “There’s not enough water for a wave,” I said, sticking my hand in it. “There’s hardly enough to wet your finger.”
    “Introduction of foreign body into waterway,” Bult said.
    “Foreign—” I started and was drowned out by the heli. It flew over the Tongue, rippling the centimeter’s worth of water, and came back around, skimming the bushes. C.J. swooped past us, blowing kisses.
    “I know, I know,” I said to Bult, “disturbance of waterway.”
    He stalked over to a clump of scourbrush, unfolded an arm under it, and came up with two wiry leaves and a shriveled berry. He held them out to me. “Destruction of crop,” he said.
    C.J. banked and turned, waving, and headed off northeast. I’d told her to swing over Sector 248-76 on her way home and try to get an aerial. I hoped she wasn’t so busy