CHAPTER 5
RESEARCH BEGINS
After changing from her uniform into lighter weight, more comfortable clothing, Kate spent the rest of that first day studying birds, stuffed and alive, in and around the Roc Bar. For a while the Sheriff and his Captain accompanied her to acquaint her with the Bar and surrounding area and to answer questions, but COM messages from his office finally pulled John away, and Bar business odds and ends gradually reclaimed Captain Jack.
Kate hardly even noticed them go, she was so intrigued by Aves wildlife including its birds. The awesome, miraculous trees towered around her, more magnificent than anything that had ever lived on Earth. Time and again she walked up to a huge tree and simply ran her hands over the rough bark, marveling that such a huge living thing could exist. Outside the inn there were insects in abundance, though thankfully they kept themselves several meters away from her. Though revolting they were fascinating. They were so large that all their incredibly colorful body parts could be easily seen. She was so driven by wonder and discovery that she hardly even noticed the stifling heat and thick wet air anymore.
Cheepers the chickadee visited her several times, singing and asking her for food. She tried to actually have a conversation with it, but it was either unable or uninterested, and simply kept asking for food. She did get it to use several dozen words, enough to indicate at least a sub-human intelligence level. It was definitely smarter than an Earth dog, but the exact extent and nature of that intelligence could not readily be determined.
Whenever it became apparent that she wasn't going to feed it anymore, the bird vanished into the catacombs of the odd building. Curious, Kate followed it. She heard bird sounds behind a closed door and opened it, assuming that she’d found Cheepers.
The room obviously used to be a bedroom for humans, but now it was cluttered with a half-dozen bird nests complete with nesting females and juveniles. Both females and juveniles were gray/brown, striped with off-white, virtually identical to dozens of sparrow and finch species, but the raspberry coloring of the few adult males present was unmistakable, as was the metallic “tick, tack,” of their calls of alarm. She had no doubt; these were purple finches. Not wanting to disturb them further, she closed the door quietly.
Continuing to explore, she found that one entire wing of the Roc Bar and Inn was overrun with birds. There were several bird-filled hotel rooms, each occupied by a distinct species of songbird. The rooms had obviously been altered by humans to better suit the feathered boarders. Windows had been removed and then partly boarded up again using stout timbers. This still allowed access by the smaller songbirds, but made entrance by larger birds such as grackles impossible. It was the same technique people used on Earth to build bird houses that were exclusively for small birds, she realized; small holes were made for small birds.
Human technology was being used to keep the feathered tenants comfortable. Most of the outside decks featured Jacuzzis with running water that served as birdbaths. Air was constantly circulated by fans that sucked in air from the outside and out through vents, a feature that helped keep tolerable temperatures in the rooms despite the summer heat. Water was kept running continuously into sinks, for drinking. What had originally been built to be a boarding house for humans had been fully adapted for bird use. The Captain had made his peace with the birds all right, and then some.
Though she didn't have access to the top-notch equipment of a full-scale lab, she retrieved her specialized COM unit from her utility belt and put it to work. It may have looked similar to the simple audio and video communications devices or hand-held computers of centuries earlier, but this 'scientific' model had evolved significantly. In addition to the communications, positioning by satellite, and general purpose computing capabilities provided by any ordinary COM unit, this special 'scientific' model featured a wide-band image scanner that served as telescope or microscope, and also provided relatively crude chemical and electrical analysis capabilities. It was a sort of 'Swiss-army knife' for scientists working in the field. With it she recorded images of live and mounted birds as well as bird song that she would analyze more fully later.
Fortunately she had down-loaded onto the unit considerable reference material on Earth birds before leaving for Aves. What she was able to confirm immediately was that except for their huge size, in terms of outward appearance these were indeed Earth birds or nearly perfect copies. All of the birds encountered closely matched corresponding North American bird species in terms of coloring and general proportions, including several species now extinct on Earth.
"This already proves the Earth connection, as far as I'm concerned," she announced to Captain Jack, when he brought her sandwiches and beer for dinner. "I’ll be starting some basic genetic matching tests soon that will cinch it for sure, but the general anatomical features are an exact match with those of corresponding Earth birds, well within bounds statistically of individual variation and measurement error. With one obvious exception so far: disproportional brain case enlargement. These creatures may be even more intelligent than you know."
Jack nodded. "Bigger birds and even bigger bird brains. That's what we figured, when we studied bird remains that first year."
"Studied? Biological study was done on these birds that early?" she asked, glancing around the rogues gallery.
"Of course it was. Can you even begin to imagine the level of scientific interest? Study was intensive by Corporation scientists, until the Corporation pulled most of them off studying Aves native life and onto studying how to grow Earth crops here for feeding Earth. With most of the scientists doing other work, me and John and some of early settlers did most of the taxidermy work you see here, but we cubed lots of video and so forth. We display only a few of the less gory photos out by the bar. Too much blood and guts isn’t good for the bar and restaurant business."
"Do you have any data on bird brains?"
"Sure. For example we have videos that include some volume and mass measurements on-cube here someplace." He limped into a side-room and reappeared a few minutes later, carrying a small bag containing hundreds of data cubes. "You can keep these; I made copies for you months ago, soon after John requested Directorate help. But don't let the Corporation get at them; they think that they confiscated all of this stuff years ago. They try to corner the market on all Aves scientific data, not that much of this stuff is particularly scientific." He handed her a data cube. "Try this one maybe, for a start."
Kate slid the small cube into her COM and holding the unit to her eyes, scanned through the contents file, which seemed to be a jumble of cryptic descriptors. 'Log Camp 7' said one, 'Joe's bad day' said another. "How is this data arranged?" she asked, perplexed.
"It isn't," confessed Jack. “We took turns recording everything we thought was interesting. It’s much more the log of our expedition than a science data collection, but the Corporation science staff was supposed to put it in order and study it as part of their tasking. I have no idea what they’ve done with it, if anything. I figure at some point the Corporation will sell this stuff to entertainment and academic folks Earth-side for millions of credits.”
The Captain went back to his restaurant business while Kate scanned cubes with her COM. Excited, she skimmed through a sample of the cubes in chronological order, watching a minute or so of sample files on each one.
They showed gigantic forests being explored and cleared, monstrous mountains being climbed, and even human social activities such as birthday parties being held, but there were also violent bird scenes in virtually every sequence. Early on, birds were hunted, killed, butchered and eaten.
But it wasn’t a one-sided slaughter. Many birds attacked; swooping down at the explorers without warning to rip them with talons and beaks. Most attacks were by individual birds, often huge owls or hawks big enough to easily carry away their human prey. Well-armed humans standing guard usually cut them down before they could do any damage, providing plenty of action-packed footage. The Captain was right, this s
tuff had huge Earth-side box office potential, all right. Billions of credits worth, probably.
Hours after she started viewing, she found a file that showed dozens of jays simultaneously and methodically attacking a fully armed human hunting party, and only being driven off after tremendous carnage on both sides. The Captain returned as she watched the last of the file. “I can see why you fear the jays,” Kate remarked, putting down the COM unit. “Have they given you trouble lately?”
The Captain shook his head. “We’re not entirely sure. We haven’t even seen any jays in nearly two years. But our people have been mysteriously disappearing, as they work in the fields on summer afternoons. My best guess is it’s a rogue raptor or two, but it’s being done so carefully that we really don’t know. Could also be clever jays, or even those sneaky blackbirds. As John explained to you, that’s why you’re here, Kate. Help John figure it out the sooner the better, since soon we’ll be soon reaching the peak of summer heat when most attacks have happened in the past.”
“The birds I’ve seen here don’t seem to fear humans. Aren’t they hunted anymore?”
The Captain shook his head. “Been a total ban on hunting birds for a couple years now. We’ve found that it’s better for us that we let them eat the damn bugs in peace. Pouching still happens occasionally, as fresh meat is so hard to come by here otherwise, other than fish, but for the most part we leave them be, and they leave us be. What do you think of the cubes so far?"
Kate shook her head. Her COM unit had a general purpose search engine application, as well as an automated data reorganization application, but she had quickly found that the volume and complexity of this information was far beyond their capabilities to assimilate. Her examination of this information would have to be essentially manual. “It could take me weeks to even figure out which cubes to look at, and more weeks of reviewing them after that to extract meaningful scientific data.”
“So you’ve decided to work the case then?” asked John Weltman, who had walked up behind Kate and Captain Jack without them noticing. He was carrying a full pitcher of beer and three chilled mugs. He quickly filled the mugs and passed them around.
Kate shrugged. “I’m not a cop or a forensic scientist. Why didn’t you ask for those instead of bird experts?”
“Because we already have cops and I already think that it’s the birds that are behind this,” stated John. "Plus, the Corporation has already applied forensic science without result."
“Couldn’t it be a human serial killer?”
John shook his head. “I’m a good enough cop to have eliminated that as a possibility, and that leaves the birds as the most likely possibility. The bird situation is very complex. One thing you may have noticed is the bossy, nosy blackbirds. A couple of years back they seem to have taken over the bird world, at least around here.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“To the contrary, so far it seems to be a good thing,” stated John. “The damned jays and raptors are gone and we’ve had peace.”
“At a price,” inserted the Captain. “We’ve noticed a big drop in most other types of birds. There used to be much more variety. Now it's mostly starlings, cow birds and the damn sneaky grackles. I call them junk birds, and I don’t let them come around my bar.” He took a big chug of beer. “Peace bringers or not, I never liked the grackle attitude. I can do the math. The grackles come, and the other birds suffer. Cocky bastards, every last one of them. I had a cook in my command with their attitude once, a real shit-head of a guy, and he ended up as a politician. I just don’t trust them. I usually threaten to shoot the bastards when I see them, ban or no ban.”
“Birds or politicians?” asked Kate, beginning to feel the effects of the beer.
The men laughed. “Let’s just focus on the bird problem for right now,” Jack replied.
Kate took another swig of brew. It was slightly cool and mild, just the way she liked it, not bitter – and it obviously had plenty of alcohol in it. It was a very suitable beverage for a frontier planet with sweltering summer days, Kate decided.
Some people got nasty when they got drunk; Kate got happy and silly. She was feeling much better about everything already. She was on Aves and having a hell of a good time studying giant birds. Now they wanted her solve murder mysteries? Sure, why the hell not? She fought to retain her professional composure. “And what am I supposed to do about it? The shift in bird populations you describe sounds a lot like ordinary bird territorial stuff. The land here has been cleared, giving certain species an edge that they’re merely taking advantage of. Sounds only natural to me. OK, so you have missing people, but my first guess is, it’s not the birds.”
John shrugged. “Maybe. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s stuff going on here with the birds that we don’t understand. And we can’t stand for missing people every summer, that’s certain. In the past two summers we’ve had seventy-four missing persons, with most disappearing last summer. If this third summer is that bad, it will be a disaster, what with the first big crop due in soon and all.”
“On Mars and Earth many thousands of people go missing every year, despite modern identification and surveillance,” Kate pointed out. “People beat the system.”
John shook his head. “Aves is different. Seventy-four people out of a few thousand is a lot of people to lose. Everyone has lost family or close friends. We’re still sort of one big frontier community. Many of us know each other, at least the old-timers like Jack and me do. Besides, there’s nowhere else to go on Aves except the wilderness.”
“So then, maybe that’s the answer,” reasoned Kate. “Maybe these folks went native on you; they decided the hell with the Corporation and hard work farming and lumbering and set out for unsettled territory.”
John shook his head, grim faced. “That happens some. But then we notice and they take supplies and equipment with them, and they tend to leave in groups, and hell, we even throw them going away parties with no hard feelings. You see, there isn’t really any need to sneak away, if going native is what you want to do. The Corporation has even tried to sponsor private exploration and establishment of satellite communities, so most of the adventurous types can actually do their adventuring with full Corporation backing. Equipment, supplies and everything. And if you don’t want their backing you can still do it on your own if you’re crazy enough to, and there isn’t even any law against it. But going out on your own or doing exploration isn’t done very much. Too dangerous.”
“Why? There’s a whole damn planet to settle and explore. Think of the opportunities.”
The Captain shook his head sadly. “Even most of our official expeditions don’t return, and almost all of our maverick explorers are never heard from again.”
“That’s mostly birds for sure,” said John. “Away from human settled areas there is no truce with the birds, we reckon. But that’s not what worries us. We’ve had seventy-four folks disappear unexpectedly from fields well within settlement boundaries, leaving grieving loved ones and so forth. We have our squabbles, but nothing to make all those people leave our little community one or two at a time. We had one group of eight disappear in a field last year without a trace, leaving behind dozens of grieving close friends and family.” John chugged some beer, then shut his eyes as though trying to shut away bad memories. “No, they’re taken against their will, that’s certain. It happens in the heat of mid to late summer, in weather just like we’re starting to get now.”
“What’s the Corporation position on all this?” Kate asked.
“Ha!” laughed Captain Jack. “The usual. Denial that anything strange or terrible is happening. Assurances that everything is under control. The usual official bull-shit.”
John nodded. “Spin control and cover-up. Lots of bull-shit. But under it they’re as concerned as we are, or at least some of the Corporation cops are. I’ve got some close friends on the security team that are going nuts over this, and their bosses in the Corporation are ro
yally pissed-off that they haven’t solved this thing. In fact, I heard from a couple security types already today that heard about you arriving here, and they say they’ll help you in any way they can. Unofficially of course.”
“What about the Corporation science people? What about their boss?”
Captain Jack laughed. “Mark Helmins? He’s the damn Corporation boss on Aves, more than he’s a scientist. The fact that he has science credentials has helped shield the Corporation from the Directorate. He provides a persona of science, but his real job here in terms of science is to keep science from happening or at least the results from leaking out to Earth. The Corporation sure as hell knows more about Aves than they tell Earth or us, that’s for sure. Helmins was so pissed off at John for requesting Directorate help, we were hopeful that he’d have a coronary.”
“No damn luck there,” said John, grinning. The alcohol was making him a little giddy also. He refilled Kate’s mug, and the Captain’s.
“You two guys are terrible,” said Kate, giggling. She was feeling pretty zonked herself, and wondered clinically what the alcohol content of the beer that they were drinking was. Super high: over ten percent maybe?
The two men looked at each other and grinned. “She’s found us out already,” said the Captain.
John nodded. “It usually takes a couple of weeks for someone new to figure out what shit-heads we are Kate, you’re a sharp one all-right. That’s why we need you. The Captain has some empty rooms here, even air conditioned ones, without humans or even birds settled in them. For now you can stay right here at the Roc and study birds and data cubes and whatever. You can be your own boss, and we'll feed you and help you as much as we can. We can even get you some inside dope from the Corporation's disgruntled science staff."
"Free room and board with all the free beer you want," inserted Captain Jack, winking. “Good, home-made brew, not that imported swill with the fake damned alcohol substitute in it. Sound OK to you, kid?”
Kate shrugged. “So then, all you want me to do over the next couple of months is figure out all this stuff that you and hundred Corporation cops and scientists couldn’t figure out over the last four Aves-years? Is that all?”
John chugged down the rest of his beer. “And maybe get drunk with us once in a while. Yep. That’s about it in a nut-shell.”
"OK, you've got yourself a scientist, gentlemen," Kate vowed, though she hoped she'd still approve of her decision when she was sober.