Ryo was quite conscious of how much was riding on the success of this planting. While failure would not shatter his solid reputation within the Company, a good bexamin crop would considerably enhance it. Whether a grand triumph was a good idea he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t seem to be progressing in any other directions. So he thought he might as well rise within the Company structure.

“Bor, Aen,” he said to his two assistants, both of whom were older than he, “break out the transit sighters. We’re going to lay a line down that way.” With right foothand and truhand he gestured to his left, to the northeast.

They acknowledged the order by unpacking the instruments and fixing them to the proper mounts on the side of the crawler. Ryo made sure the stingers were unstrapped and ready for use in case they should meet with an errilis.

But nothing sprang from the tangled vegetation to challenge them as they powered up the instruments. Minutes passed and Bor was removing a reflective marker from its case when an explosion threw him violently to the crawler deck. The concussion bent the thinner trees eastward. Vines and creepers were torn free of their branches. Only his grip on the steering pylon enabled Ryo to maintain his footing.

During the silence that followed, the three of them lay stunned, not knowing what to make of the violence. Then a frantic cacophony of screeks and wails, moans and weeping rose from the startled inhabitants of the jungle as they recovered from their own shock.

A trio of splay-footed inwicep birds ran past the crawler, their meter-wide webbed feet barely tickling the swamp water, their necks held parallel to the surface and their thin blue tails stretched out behind them for balance.

“Ovipositors acute!” muttered Bor. “What was that?” As if to punctuate the query there was another roar, less cataclysmic but still strong enough to rattle the treetops.

Both assistants looked to Ryo for an explanation, but he could only stare south, the way they’d come, and perform instinctive gestures of befuddlement. “I’ve no idea. It almost sounds as if the generator nexus went up.”

“A collision at the transport terminal perhaps,” suggested Aen.

“Not possible.” Bor made a gesture of assurance. He was the eldest of the trio. “Only a monitor breakdown for the northern sector of the continent would allow such a disaster. Even if that came to pass I can’t visualize any collision of modules producing such an explosion.”

“That would depend on what they were carrying,” said Ryo, “but I agree with you. A more likely source of such energy would be the Reducer complex south of town where they distill fuel alcohols.”

Aen concurred. “We’d best hurry back and see what we can do to help. There may be fire in the burrows.”

“I have clanmates who work at the Reducer.” Bor was no less concerned than his friends.

“And I,” added Aen.

Ryo gunned the engine of the crawler. Broad exterior treads spun in opposite directions. The vehicle turned on its axis and Ryo sent it rumbling back down the path they’d crunched through the raw jungle. Ooze and water sprayed from the speeding machine’s flanks as Bor and Aen hurriedly restowed the survey equipment.