Delta Pavonis Read Online Free PDF

woman took a belt that bore, among other items, a medkit and comm unit, settling it about her hips.
    Dierdre followed, back out into the light and heat. She admired Barbara's easy, long-legged gait and glossy, golden skin. She wondered whether the skin was a derm treatment or the natural effect of sunlight. She had always felt her own body to be, at best, sturdily functional. Her height of 1.6 meters made her feel small in a gravity environment. It occurred to her that her stature, an irrelevancy in space, might be a handicap in exploring a planet.
    The buildings were situated on a shelf of harder ground above the shifting sand that felt, to Dierdre, dangerously unstable. Barbara stopped before a long, low-roofed structure that was little more than a ragged half-cylinder of extruded foam. Its dingy brown color blended well enough with the nearby dirt, but that was its only saving grace. There was no sign or marking of any kind, so Dierdre figured that everyone just had to memorize where everybody else was. They ducked through the low doorway.
    The interior was dim and relatively cool. The translucent foam and the small windows permitted enough light to make artificial illumination unnecessary. The building was lined with a double row of bunks, some of them occupied. Faces blinked toward the bright light of the doorway. On the first right-hand bunk, a man sat doing something with a pair of boots.
    He set the boots on the floor. "Morning, Barb." One eyebrow went up at the sight of a second entrant.
    "Kay, this is Dierdre. She'll be joining your team."
    "I have a full team now. We jump off for unknown territory the day after tomorrow and we don't have time to break in a replacement just off the shuttle." He picked up his boots and with a look of profound disgust went back to whatever he was doing. "Find something for her to do at HQ where she can keep out of the way until she knows which way the gravity pulls."
    "Kurz assigned her to you," Barbara said. "You want to give someone a hard time, go give it to Kurz." She turned to Dierdre. "I'll see you later. You'll do all right here."
    When she was gone, Forrest glared at Dierdre. "What do you do?"
    "Topographical analysis, and don't bother telling me it's no use down here; I already know. What was your specialty when you arrived?"
    He hesitated a moment before answering. "Biology."
    "And that's done you a hell of a lot of good, hasn't it?"
    "Look, the rest of us were sent down to one of the big bases and we worked on safe operations until we knew the ropes. The dangerous operations are supposed to be handled only by experienced people."
    She looked around at the ramshackle interior of the barracks. "That's not how I heard it. I've been told that people ended up here by screwing up."
    He said, grudgingly, "Usually, it's just a personality clash."
    "I'll believe that if you'll believe I won't be a drag on your team."
    He sighed. "Hell, it's too early to argue. You're on. That last bunk on the end is unoccupied. Go on down and set up housekeeping." He returned his attention to his boots. To her admittedly inexperienced eye, they looked good for about another half-kilometer before utter disintegration.
    Dierdre dragged her gear the length of the barracks, deciding that she had handled the interview rather well. She had always been good at projecting a confidence she didn't feel. There seemed to be twelve people in the team, which meant that she made it thirteen. She remembered that there was supposed to be something unlucky about that, but she didn't know why.
    The bunk was a tubular metal frame with plastic webbing slung between the upper rods. She untied her sleeping bag from her pack and tossed it onto the bunk, where it unrolled and inflated. Her tent unit she left in its undeployed state, where it made a passable pillow. With unutterable relief, she sat on the bag and leaned back.
    "New team member?" The speaker sat on the next bunk. "I'm Colin. Glad to have you here. Now somebody