Quofum Read Online Free Page A

his right ear was working, he pushed aside a low-hanging branch of what looked like a giant white rosebush and stepped into the verdure. With a reluctant sigh, Tellenberg moved to catch up.
    Walking was easier once they had progressed a little ways from the beach. Forced to compete for available sunlight, plant growth diminished, leaving adequate room to step around or between the various boles. Moist ground revealed the tracks of whatever it was that had been spying on them.
    “See?” A crouching N’kosi pointed out the path: two sets of dashes like parallel dotted lines. Whatever creature had made them walked on a very narrow foot.
    Looking down, Tellenberg nodded. “I suppose tracking unknown creatures through wild forest is a talent you inherited from your ancestors?”
    Staring straight ahead, N’kosi straightened. “All my ancestors have been scientists or teachers, except for one who was an inventor of cheap kitchen appliances. At least, that’s how it has been in my family for the past several generations. Further back than that, I couldn’t tell you.”
    Who could? Tellenberg reflected. Like that of most people, his own personal ancestry was lost in the mists of time, buried in the ancient history of the homeworld when humankind had, difficult as it was to imagine, been restricted to a single planet. He trailed N’kosi as the other researcher led the way deeper into the forest.
    There was no risk of them becoming lost. Disoriented, yes, but a quick check of their individual communits would guide them back to the camp. He checked the time. If everything was going according to plan, Boylan and Araza would have at least the life-support basics up and running by the time the two teams of xenologists returned from their initial exploratory forays into the surrounding environment.
    The fecundity they had detected from orbit was no illusion. In addition to the vigorous plant life, the forest was alive with a remarkably dynamic fauna. Serpentine shapes of varying length, color, and pattern slithered along the forest floor or burrowed into its rich soil. Vertebrates with two, four, six, and more legs scurried away from their approach. Such instinctive wariness suggested that they were hunted, or at least harried. Long-armed, tentacled, and sucker-equipped arboreal residents made their way through the branches, traveling from tree to tree. Splashed with the color of perpetual sunset, the pink sky was awing with all manner of flying things. Quofumian taxonomy, he reflected as he stepped over an arching root the color of burnt sienna that was spotted with mauve fungi, could easily be a full-time career.
    Not theirs, however. This was a preliminary survey. Their job was to observe, record, and where time and gear permitted, collect. The task of classification would fall to scientists back home blessed with more time and better-equipped labs.
    The longer they walked the more troubled he became, though he could not identify the source of his growing unease. The forest was a wonderful place. No xenologist could ask for more varied, exhilarating, stimulating surroundings. Every minute it seemed as if his eyes and his recorder saw something new and exciting. Nothing had threatened them. The local life-forms appeared alternately curious and chary of their presence. It was almost as if, he reflected, the many and varied creatures had encountered humans before. Or something like them. More likely, he decided, local predation was governed by a set of rules yet to be revealed. Perhaps the resident carnivores only hunted at certain times of the day, or according to species-specific biocycles. So much to see, he mused. So much to learn. A whole new world, wide-ranging and vast.
    He ought to have been quietly ecstatic. Instead, an imperceptible
something
he could not define continued to nag at him.
    He forgot about it when N’kosi halted abruptly and gestured. Tellenberg did not have to squint to see what his partner was pointing at.