Ireta 02 - [Dinosaur Planet 02] - Dinosaur Planet Survivors Read Online Free PDF Page B

It was difficult to find enough stones and rubble to place behind the branch. Once a small shower cascaded into the ravine, and they suspended all movement until the whirr of wings disappeared. They worked quickly for Ireta’s night would soon complicate things. As it was, they finished the last of their arrangements in the dark. Removing their boots, they secured them to the blanket packs across their shoulders.
    “I have a sudden negative thought,” said Varian her lips against Kai’s ears. “I can’t remember how far it is to the edged of the cliff. We won’t be able to see until we’re there—or over it.”
    Kai contemplated that hazard. “Well, it’s not going to make any difference when we try to cross in the dark, is it? So, if they’re diurnal, they might just fall asleep if we give ’em enough time. Then . . .” he paused as a sudden notion occurred to him, “why not lengthen this release vine and go as far as we can, and make our avalanche when and if we need a diversion?”
    Varian gave his head a quick squeeze and then turned to cut more vine. In whispered consultation, they estimated that the edge of the cliff was about thirty meters away, so Varian knotted sufficient vine to approximate that length.
    Waiting in darkness punctuated by the noises of night creatures which nibbled, squeaked, and scrabbled was most tedious. Kai practiced the Disciplined breathing that calmed nerves, and exerted the strength of patience on an overactive imagination. Tiny noises in infinite variety assumed a menacing quality despite the slightness of sound. He could feel Varian, beside him, practicing the same exercises and was subtly comforted.
    Varian’s sudden disappearance from his side startled him.
    “No mist, and only three sleepy bird watchers,” was her quiet murmur in his ear a moment later.
    “We go?”
    Her answer was a hand on his, then she stepped in front of him, slowly parting the vegetation as he followed, playing out the release line as she cleared the way.
    Although the vines lay in thick profusion along the cliff top, there was sufficient space between tendrils to allow their bare feet a reassuring contact with the cooling stone. Bent in a semicrouch, Kai watched Varian’s white feet as they moved forward, always angled back in the direction of the ravine. He kept the line as taut as he dared. Varian, one hand lightly touching his shoulder, kept her eyes on the curiously luminous forms of the giffs, whose crested heads were turned toward the ravine. Their wings were folded. Kai wondered if they kept from falling over by clutching the rock with their wing-joint talons. They were so motionless, they had to be asleep.
    There are many aspects of time, Kai thought grimly as he and Varian continued their stealthy, seemingly infinite journey. There is the objective time lost in cold sleep, which might have been centuries or only a few years. But the variety of time he was now experiencing was definitely hard to endure subjectively. His leg muscles began to twitch with the cramp of controlled motion. His hands were starting to sweat with a fear that an inadvertent tug would break the vine or that he wouldn’t be able to release the key log to provide the crucial diversion.
    Abruptly Varian stopped, twisted her torso to put her mouth to his ear.
    “Kai, we’ve got to find the vines we used this morning. They’ll be to our right. I can’t see, but I feel we should move that way.”
    Kai glanced nervously at the sleeping giffs, now slightly to the right and behind them. Varian plucked at his sleeve, and he followed her light guidance, sliding his feet carefully over vines to the stone interstices. He almost fell over Varian when she crouched suddenly, and it took all his control not to jerk on the release line. He was also startled by the realization that only two more loops remained in his hand. As he turned to warn her, they bumped noses.
    “I’m almost out of vine.”
    “I’ve found ours. I