The Tower and the Hive by Anne McCaffrey Page A

Clancy.”
    â€œThanks,” his cousin said drolly.
    Then Thian flicked his fingers at Sam Weiman and Grm. “C’mon. Get ready. I don’t want to hang around ... in case the Admiral has second thoughts about this.” He grinned, once more, mischievously before he turned. With a skip and hop more suited to a much younger person, Thian made his way to his room to suit himself in the gear specified by the Admiral.
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    Any sign we’ve been noticed, Clancy? Thian asked when he felt the slight bump as the shuttle landed on Arcadia’s surface. Nice ’port. You’re improving.
    Thank you. Clancy’s tone was droll. Nary a flicker on the telltales!
    Thian turned. “Let’s have a reading on the air, Mocmurra,” he said, and the woman promptly held up the peculiar device she carried. A long, thin spiral tube contained a worm of intricate, flexible coils coated with a polyamide material that turned them brown: a compact and efficient gas chromatograph.
    Mocmurra grinned. “Air’s fresher than the Washington’s.”
    â€œLet’s move out, men,” Commander Semirame said, touching the shuttle’s hatch control as her squad instantly got to their feet. She nodded to Thian, allowing him to be first, but Grm slipped in ahead of him and jumped deftly to the ground, the tools on the belt it wore clanking together.
    â€œSoft,” it said as it flipped its feet through the greeny-brown ground cover that stretched beyond and over the collection facility. Tendrils from the vegetation had spilled over the wide entrance but were trimmed short of covering it.
    â€œKeep the place tidy, don’t they,” Semirame said, right at Thian’s elbow as he stepped onto the surface. She gestured for her squad to spread out and around the shuttle, checking on all sides.
    â€œAll clear, sir,” her sergeant reported.
    â€œNow what, Thian?” she asked.
    â€œI don’t quite know,” he said, looking around at the plain that extended in all directions, at the cultivated land with an occasional access alley for the workers. He took deep breaths of the air, tasting it, feeling it on his skin. “Faint odor?”
    â€œThere is.” Semirame took another deep breath. “Sort of ... crisp.”
    â€œYes, exactly,” Thian said, having been unable to find the right descriptive word for the lingering smell in the air.
    It was extraordinary to be standing here, on a Hiver world, and he didn’t bother to hide the slight smile of wonderment and incredulity this moment provoked. He snapped mental fingers at Rojer’s jibe that he’d never be “risked” on a personal tour.
    Semirame pointed. “Look at it move!”
    Thian saw the ’Dini, cavorting over the ground cover, headed right for the collection facility entrance, down the slope.
    Semirame whistled for her squad leader’s attention, but the sergeant had already allocated two men to follow the ’Dini.
    Any activity, Clancy?
    Not so much as a pip out of place. Admiral’s in here, on your couch, eyes glued to the screen. His expression—well, I’d call it avid, I think. Certainly nothing’s going to surprise him. What’s it like?
    Like any other M-type planet we’ve been on. Air has a nice crispness to it. We’ve taken GC readings and Weiman’s taking samples of the ground cover. Grm’s on its way down the embankment to the entrance and we’re following. Keep track of me.
    Just don’t expect me to move all of you out of danger if you run into it. Clancy’s tone was slightly sour.
    You can come on the next excursion, Clancy.
    Do I have a choice?
    Thian only laughed as he started down the steep slope that led into the subsurface collection center. He was elated in a way he had never before experienced, not even when he and Kiely-Austin had penetrated the nova-seared Great Sphere and found the egg repositories intact.