"There's another consideration: How long do dolphins live?" Ross asked. "Remember, this trouble started when the colony was down eight to nine years. In your report, Lieutenant, you did mention that further tests with the organism proved that water drowned it and organic fire consumed it. Mentasynth-enhanced creatures have good memories, sure. But how many generations of dolphins have there been? Would they even be aware of what happened on land? Much less remember?"

"Would they want to, is more the case," Saraidh said. "They're independent and very intelligent. I imagine they'd cut their losses and survive on their own. I would, if I were a dolphin."

Then Saraidh started the recorders on the gig's delta wing, to take a record of the plunging antics of the large marine life as the Erica swooped over the ocean on its final descent toward the site of record.

"Records state that the Bahrain brought fifteen female dolphins and nine males," Nev said suddenly. "Dolphins produce—what? Once a year. There could be nearly eight hundred of ‘em in the seas right now. That's a lot of terrestrial life-forms we'd be abandoning."

"Abandoning? Hell, Cahill, they're in their element. Look at them, they're doing their damnedest to keep pace with us."

"Maybe they have a message for us," Nev went on earnestly.

"We look for humans first, Ensign," the science officer said firmly. "Then we'll check the dolphins! Ross, I'm not getting anything from the ship-to-ground interface that's recorded for the site. It's inoperative, too."

"Now hear this! Buckle up for landing," Ross said, opening a channel to the marines' quarters.

"Muhlah!" was Saraidh's awed comment as they saw the two ruined volcanic craters and the smoking cone of the third.

Ross could say nothing, appalled by the extent of the eruption. He had never expected anything as catastrophic as this. Or had this devastation occurred after the organism had begun to fall? While he had more or less resigned himself to the idea that he was unlikely to encounter his uncle, he had hoped to chat with the admiral's descendants. He certainly hadn't anticipated this level of devastation. They flew over the landing-field tower, its beacon now blinking, activated by the proximity of the gig.

"See those mounds, just coming up on portside?" Saraidh pointed. "They've got the outlines of shuttles. How many did the colonists have?"

"Records say six, " Nev replied. "Bahrain had one, Buenos Aires two, and the Yoko three. Plus a captain's gig."

"Only three parked there now. Wonder where the others went," Saraidh mused.

"Maybe they were used to get out of this place when the volcano blew?" Nev suggested.

"But where to? There were no signs of human habitation on the northern continent," Benden said, sternly repressing his dismay.

Saraidh let out a thin, high whistle. "And those other regular mounds are—were—the settlement. Neatly, if not esthetically, laid out. Must have built well, for nothing seems to have collapsed from the weight of ash and dirt. Lava's cooled. Ross, got a reading of how deep that ash is over the ground?"

"We do indeed, Saraidh," Ross replied. "A metallic grid is present a half meter below the surface. No problem landing—it'll be nice and soft."

Which it was. While waiting for the disturbed ash to settle, both officers and marines suited up, checking masks and breathing tanks, and strapping on the lift belts that would convey them safely above the ash to the settlement.

"What're those?" one of the ratings asked as the landing party assembled to hover a meter above the ash-coated ground outside the Erica. He pointed to a series of long semicircular mounds, bulging up out of the ash. "Tunnels?"

"Unlikely. Not big enough and don't seem to go anywhere," Ni Morgana said, deftly manipulating her attitude and forward jets. She hovered to one side of the nearest mound and pushed with her foot. It collapsed with a dusty implosion and a stench that the filters of their masks had to work hard to neutralize. "Faugh! Dead organism. Now, why didn't that puddle?" She took out a specimen tube and carefully gathered some of the residue, sealing it and putting the tube away in a second padded container.

"It fed on ash or grass or something?" Ensign Nev asked.

"We'll check that out later. Let's look at the buildings. Scag, stay by the gig," Benden ordered one of the marines. He gestured for the others to follow him up to the empty settlement.

"Not empty," Ross said an hour later, increasingly pessimistic about finding any survivors. Contact with a cousin or two would have been something to write home about! So he clutched at a vain hope: "Emptied. They didn't leave a thing they could use. Nasties would have obliterated any trace of humans."

"That's true enough," Saraidh said. "And there's no evidence of Nasties at all. Merely an evacuated settlement. There is that second beacon to the southwest. There's certainly nothing here to give us any explanations. Your point about everything being emptied is well taken, Benden. They closed shop here, but that doesn't mean they didn't open it up elsewhere."

"Using the three missing shuttles," Nev added brightly.

Airborne again in the Erica, heading directly toward the beacon, they overpassed the rest of the settlement, taping the one smoking volcano crater and the melted structures below it. No sooner were they over the river than the landscape showed another form of devastation. The prevailing winds had minimized the dispersal of volcanic dust, but oddly enough, there were only occasional stands of vegetation and large circles of parched soil.

"Like something had sprinkled the land with whopping great acid drops," Cahill Nev said, awed at the extent of the markings.

"Not acid. No way," Benden replied. He keyed the relevant section of the report he knew so well. "The EEC survey team found similar circular patches, and they also reported that botanical succession had started."

"It has to be the Oort organism," Nev said enthusiastically. "On the cruiser it died of starvation. It had plenty to eat here."

"The organism had to get here first, mister," Ni Morgana said bitingly. "And we haven't established how it could cross some six hundred thousand miles of space to drop on Pern." Ross, glancing at her set expression, thought she was rapidly considering improbable transport media. "Terrain's flat enough here, Mister Benden. Try a low-level pass, and give us a closer look at that—that diseased ground."

Benden obliged, noting once again how responsive the Erica was to the helm as it smoothly skimmed the often uneven terrain. Not that he expected something to pop up out of those polka dots, but one never knew on alien worlds—even ones thoroughly surveyed by Exploration and Evaluation teams. They might not have found any predators, but something dangerous had put in an appearance nine years after the settlers took hold. And the Tubberman appeal hadn't mentioned a volcanic eruption.

Klick after klick, they passed over circles and overlapping circles and triple circles. Ni Morgana remarked that some succession was visible on their peripheries. She asked Benden to land so she could take more samples, including clods of the regenerating vegetation. Across a broad river there were swaths of totally unharmed trees and acres of broadleafed and unscathed vegetation. Over one wide pasture they caught sight of a cloud of dust, but whatever had stirred it up disappeared under the broad leaves of a thick forest. They spotted no trace of human habitation. Not even a dirt-covered mound that might be the remains of a building or a wall.

The second beacon signal became stronger as they neared the foothills of a great barrier of mountains, snow-clad even in what must be high summer in this hemisphere. Gradually the pips altered from rhythmic bleeps to a sustained note as they homed in on the beacon.