Kris Longknife: Tenacious (Kris Longknife novellas Book 12) by Mike Shepherd

hammered from space?”
    Kris thought over what she’d heard. When she spoke, she did so slowly, letting each word come out carefully polished. “So. Did this planet attack the other one? Or did the other one attack this planet? And if this planet was the last one standing, why are we looking at a primitive world? What level of technology did you spot among the people here, Penny?”
    “Stone Age. Yes, a sophisticated set of Stone Age tools, but stone. No metalworking. I think we also spotted some pottery at one site. Maybe others. We need to do a whole lot more before we draw solid conclusions about the people down there.”
    “Nelly, can you spot any group of hunter-gatherers?” Kris asked.
    “Yes, Kris. I’ve spotted several villages,” Nelly reported.
    A window opened on the screen. Here was a collection of bark and wood-shingle huts spread along a riverbank. Three watercraft, apparently hollowed-out tree trunks, were pulled up on the shore.
    A second window opened. Here a stream flowed through a grassy plain. The dwellings here were made of poles covered with something. “That looks like a wigwam,” Jacques provided. “They use poles covered with animal hides sewn together for shelter. It’s very portable. Nelly, are there any domesticated animals?”
    The screen’s view expanded as the village shrank. There were no herds of any sort.
    “Hmm . . .” Jacques muttered. “The life of a plains hunter-gatherer is rough without something like a horse for transportation. But it’s also a lot less warlike.”
    The picture changed again. Now it showed a collection of stone huts built together with shared walls. They were close to the cliffs that provided the stone. Down close to a small, tree-lined creek were fields covered with a grasslike plant. People were harvesting it with bone or wooden implements.
    “From the looks of it,” Jacques said, “they’re using small flint edges to cut the grain off the tops of the plant stems. Interesting. They’re not harvesting the whole plant.”
    Kris remembered her stay on Pandemonium. “I’ve seen farmers growing a crop that gives them a grain harvest two or three times a year without them having to replant.”
    “I’m aware of that crop,” Amanda, the economist, put in. “It was genetically engineered to provide ground cover to protect the soil as well as food.”
    “Genetically engineered, huh?” Jack said.
    “I think we need to look at the DNA of that crop as well as some of the wild stuff growing around it,” Kris said.
    Professor Labao got that faraway look in his eyes again. No doubt, the ruminations of Kris’s staff were going into some furious planning among the experts elsewhere on the ship.
    “And if we find evidence of genetic engineering?” Jack asked.
    “I’ve been wondering why it is that the aliens have five nucleonic acids in their DNA while we have only three,” Kris said. “This may be none of my business, but if three hold together very well, why would evolution keep going and end up with two more?”
    “You need to make allowances for the additional background radiation of this planet,” Professor Labao put in. “Our rough estimate at this time is that the heavy atomic attack occurred some hundred-thousand-plus years ago. That would have encouraged a lot of mutation among both plant and animal life here.”
    “Have you got a definite date for the attack here?” Jack asked.
    “No, not yet,” the professor said.
    “Because,” Kris said, speaking carefully as she tossed the verbal hand grenade, “if the attack occurred first here, then there, we might have an interesting time line.”
    “Are you thinking that the other planet attacked here, and they later counterattacked?” Jack asked.
    “It’s possible.”
    “It’s also possible,” Jacques said, “that these people fouled their own nest themselves, then attacked the other planet with vicious intent.”
    Kris nodded. “The data allows for both interpretations.