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A scratch at the door made Benden straighten up, despite the anguish the movement caused the long tendons in his legs, but he was damned if he'd show weakness.
"It's I," Ni Morgana a
Ross was crippled enough to be willing to try anything, noxious or bizarre. He could hardly appear before Kimmer in his present shape.
"Oh, it is numbing. Whee… ooh… ahh… more on the right calf, please," Benden said, ridiculously relieved by the numbing effect of the salve. The pain seemed to drain out of calves and thighs, leaving them oddly cool but not cold, and certainly free of that damnable soreness.
"I've got plenty for later, and Faith says they have buckets of the stuff. Make it fresh every year. Doesn't smell half-bad either. Pungent and… piney."
When she finished doctoring Benden, she washed her hands thoroughly. "I'd say don't shower today or you'll lose the relief." Then she turned back to him with a puzzled expression. "Ross," she began, settling against the little handbasin and crossing her arms. "How much would you say Kimmer weighed?"
"Hmm…" Benden thought of the man's build and height. "About seventy-two, seventy-four kilos. Why?"
"I weighed him in at ninety-five kilos. Of course, he was clothed, and the tunic and trousers are rather full and made of sturdy fabric, but I wouldn't have thought he carried that much flesh."
"Nor would I."
"I didn't judge the women correctly, either. They all weighed in a little under and a little over seventy kilos, and none of them are either tall or heavyset."
Nev mumbled figures under his breath. "All of ‘em, even the kids?"
"No, the three brothers are seventy-three, seventy-two and seventy-five kilos, which is about what I thought they'd be. But the girl and the boys are also two or three kilos more than I'd have thought them."
"With a full tank, we can afford a few extra kilos," Benden said.
"I was also asked how much they could bring with them," Saraidh went on, "and I said we had to calibrate body weights and other factors before we could give them an exact allowance. I trust that wasn't out of line."
"I'll get Nev to calculate in those weights and let me know how much fuel we'll have in reserve then," Benden said. "And what we use as padding and safety harness so no one bounces all over the gig during takeoff."
Folding out the cabin's keyboard, Benden ran some rough figures against the lifting power of the full tank. "D'you have a total on their weights?" Ni Morgana gave him the figure. He added them in, plus kilos for padding and harness, and contemplated the result. "I'd hate to be considered mean, but twenty-three point-five kilos each is about all we can allow."
"That's as much as we're allowed for personal effects on the Amherst," Ni Morgana said. "Is there room for another twenty-three point-five kilos in medicinals? I gather this stuff is effective."
"It certainly is," Benden said, flexing his knees and feeling no discomfort.
"I'll just get some of this on the marines as well, then," Ni Morgana said.
"Ha!" was Benden's scoffing reply.
"I don't know about that," Ni Morgana said with a sly grin. "But then, you didn't catch sight of Sergeant Greene making for the galley. I think—" She paused reflectively. "—that I'm doing some empirical tests of this junk and they just got lucky to be chosen as test subjects. Yes, that should save face admirably. We can't give Kimmer any reason to be suspicious, now, can we?" Then she left, chuckling.
At 0835, when Benden left the galley and proceeded to the Hold, he found Kimmer and the women in the main room, none of them looking too happy.
"We've done the calculations, Kimmer, and we can allow each of you, the children included, twenty-three-point-five kilos of personal effects. That's what Fleet perso
"Twenty-three-point-five kilos is quite generous, Lieutenant," Kimmer surprised Benden by saying. He turned to the women chidingly. "That's more than we had coming out on the Yoko."
"And," Benden said, turning to Faith, "that wouldn't include medicinal products and respective seeds to a similar limit. Lieutenant Ni Morgana is of the opinion that they could well be valuable commodities."
"For which we'd be reimbursed?" Kimmer asked sharply.
"Of course," Benden said, keeping his voice even. "We have to allow for the weight of padding and harness to keep you secure during our drop into the primary's gravity well."
Charity and Hope emitted nervous squeaks.
"Nothing to worry yourself over, ladies," Benden went on with a reassuring smile. "We use gravity wells all the time as a quick way to break out of a system."
"Be damned grateful we're getting off this frigging forsaken mudball," Kimmer said angrily, rising to his feet. "Go on, now, sort out what you've got to bring but keep it to the weight limit. Hear me?"
The women removed themselves, with Faith casting one last despairing glance over her shoulder at her father. Benden wondered why he had thought any of them graceful. They waddled in a most ungainly fashion
"You've been extremely generous, Lieutenant," Kimmer said affably as he settled himself again in the high-backed carved chair that he usually occupied at the table. "I thought we'd be lucky enough to get off with what we have on our backs."
"Are you absolutely positive that there are no other survivors on Pern?" Benden asked, favoring a direct attack. "Others could have carved holds out of cliffs and remained secure from that airborne menace of yours."
"Yes, they could have, but for one thing, there aren't any cave systems here on the southern continent. And I'll tell you why I think the rest perished after I lost the last radio contact with those at Drake's Lake and Dorado. In those days I was more confident of rescue and I'd enough power left in my sled to make one more trip back to Bitkim Island, where I'd mined some good emeralds." He paused, leaning forward, elbows on the table and shaking one finger at Benden. "And black diamonds."
"Black diamonds?" Benden exclaimed, doing what he considered an admirable job of faking amazement.
"Black diamonds, a whole beachful of them. That's what I intend to bring back."
"Twenty-three-point-five kilos of them?"
"And a few pieces of turquoise that I found."
"Really?"
"When I'd enough of a load of stones, I went into a natural cavern on Bitkim's southeast side. Big enough to anchor ships in, if you stepped the mast. And it was there."
"Pardon?"
"Jim Tillek's ship was there, mast and all, holes and grooves where Thread had scored it time and again."
"Jim Tillek?"
"The admiral's right hand. And a man who loved that ship. Loved it like other men love women—or Fussy Fusi loved flying." Kimmer allowed his malice to show briefly. "But I'm telling you, Jim Tillek wouldn't have left that ship, not to gather dust and algae on her hull, if he was alive somewhere on Pern. And that ship had been anchored there three or four years. That's one very good reason why I know no one was left alive.
"Did you find any sign of human occupation," Kimmer went on, his voice less intense, his eyes glittering almost mockingly, "when you spiraled down across the northern hemisphere?"
"No, neither on infra or power-use detection," Benden had to admit.