Free Delta Pavonis by John Maddox Roberts, Eric Kotani Page A

contaminated water?" someone asked.
    "Forget that," Govinda said. "If we all have to stop washing on this expedition, I'm gonna swim back to the base camp."
    "Let's keep our worries to a minimum," Forrest cautioned. "I don't think there were any diseases you could get that way that'd kill you very fast. If somebody comes down with something, we can probably evacuate them. Same procedure as dealing with serious injury."
    "How come," Angus said, "all those heroic explorer stories we were raised on never said anything about the bugs and the diseases?"
    "They did, if you go back far enough. In Magellan's day, you could expect at least fifty percent dead from disease or accident on a typical voyage. For a really big, round-the-world expedition, they could send out five ships. If one ship made it back, with half a crew and a cargo of spices, they figured it'd been a successful voyage."
    "I guess that's okay for the Dark Ages," Hannie said. "Being gobbled up by a dinosaur is one thing, but dysentery is so undignified. Galloping diarrhea until you hemorrhage. That's no way for an explorer to die."
    Sims tossed a pine cone at her. "If you wanted it easy, you could've stayed at home."
    "Enough talk and relaxation," Forrest ordered. "Let's be on our way. I want everybody to be on the lookout for . . ." He hesitated. "For something different, out of place. I know that everything here looks exotic and new, but if you find something that really looks like it doesn't belong here, that's not a part of the natural landscape, that may be tangible evidence of the aliens."
    "I think we get your drift, boss," Dierdre said, reshouldering her pack.
    "Good. Jamail, you lead off, right behind Okamura."
    Dierdre stepped out, smiling inwardly. She decided that being given the secondary point position was a sign that she was now accepted as a full-fledged explorer. She had, she decided complacently, acquitted herself rather well so far.
    They continued to skirt the swamp and by late afternoon they came to a small lagoon where the water growth was less dense. A family of huge reptiles grazed on bottom growth, scooping up great, messy wads of muck and greenery, chewing it slowly in their wide, ducklike beaks. They paid no attention to the explorers, who were no more than fifty meters away.
    "No gawking," Forrest said, "we'll see plenty more." Everybody gawked anyway, Forrest included. This was the closest they had come to any of the bigger specimens. These were mottled green-gray-brown, although it wasn't clear how much of that was hide and how much was mud.
    "They don't seem too impressed with us," someone said.
    "Would you be?" Colin asked.

    By late afternoon they were not only physically exhausted but emotionally wrung out. It had been the longest, most exciting day of any of their young lives. The sights had been incredible and eventually even Forrest's no-gawking litany subsided to an occasional muttered "buncha damned tourists." The hint of omnipresent danger added to the strain, as did the knowledge that they were in willful violation of the regs. They were anxious to see everything, but nobody gave Forrest an argument when he decided to call it quits for the day.
    They found a favorable campsite on high ground with a good field of view in all directions. They had discovered in the course of the day that the bloodsucking pests favored the low, swampy areas. In the final hour of daylight they gathered enough firewood to last the night. There were to be no after-dark separations from the group.
    Dierdre tossed down her last load of wood and collapsed atop her pack. "I've gotta have some sack time or I'm gonna die right here!" she announced.
    "You don't get to die until you've stood watch, Jamail," Forrest told her. He consulted his roster. "Which, in your case, will be 0300 to 0400, along with Lefevre."
    "I might've known. The deadest part of the night." She unwrapped a ration bar and bit into it. She was so exhausted that it almost tasted good.