hundred, maybe. It never occurred to me to count.”
Janzen shook his head, meaning it hadn’t occurred to him either, then he said, “You can get some idea after dinner. Once the sun goes down, most of them will be out in the pasture, browsing. If it were crops we were raising instead of sheep, they’d be a much bigger nuisance than they are now.”
Susan raised a querying brow at him.
“Given any kind of a choice, the roos prefer their food tender, which means they go for young shoots. That’d play havoc with any food crop. Sheep will browse tough stuff that’s inedible to most Earth-authentics, and they’ll do it right down to the ground.”
“Yeah,” said Moustafa, “and they’re too stupid to know what’s poisonous and what isn’t.”
That reminded me. “Excuse me a minute,” I said, but I took my bowl of stew with me while I went to the computer to call up the home team.
I got Mike, which was good luck, and there were no emergencies in the offing, which was better.
“I need an EC workup on Gogol. Can you get me one by tomorrow evening?” At his look, I said, “It doesn’t have to be complete. Just a preliminary. Quick and dirty is fine. We’ll do a complete if anything interesting shows up.” His look hadn’t improved, so I added, “Take Selima. With two of you, it’ll go faster and won’t be quite as dirty.”
That fixed the look right up. Ah, young love… ain’t it handy? “Anything new I should know about?”
“Yeah.” This time he grinned. “Your kangaroo rex didn’t recognize lamb as edible.”
Behind me, someone said, “All right!” on a note of triumph. I ignored that to eye Mike suspiciously. When he said nothing further, I voiced his implied, “But…?”
“But it could learn that trick. Right now its idea of superb cuisine is chatterboxes, grubroots, and gladrats.”
Interesting. Those were all Mirabilan, and all pests from our point of view.
“That’s certainly in its favor,” I said. “They’re all of a size too—nowhere near the size of sheep.”
“Means nothing. There’s only one rex on the premises. Who knows what size prey a mob of them will take on.”
“I know,” I said, “but that gives me more breathing space here.” I thought about it a moment then got an inspiration. “Mike? Try it on those damn jumping fish next time it looks hungry.”
That brought a grin from Mike. “Annie,” he said, “our luck’s not that good this summer.
Besides, the rexes wouldn’t do well in that EC.”
Page 40
“Just try it. And shoot me that EC report as soon as you can.” I broke the connection, picked up my bowl, and—still thinking about it—headed back for the dinner table. I almost ran Leo down.
I looked around me. The whole troop had been looking over my shoulder. “Sit,” I said, “my apologies. We will now give the stew the attention it deserves.”
Which we did, and when we were done, it was time for Janzen and Moustafa to see to their sheep for the evening… and for me and Leo to place ourselves strategically in the fields to see how many roos showed up to browse—and how many of them were breeding rexes.
We ran into half a dozen of the locals and enlisted three. Susan dug out two more samplers, but those went to Leo and Susan herself. (We’re short on equipment. I put that on the docket for winter, making more samplers or finding somebody who wanted the job.)
Sangster was nowhere to be seen. Despite Susan’s earlier comment, I had no doubt she was off somewhere raising the level of hysteria. I could have kicked myself for not dragging Sangster in with us that afternoon, just to keep her out of trouble.
It would have been a lovely evening for hanky-panky. Too bad Leo was on the opposite edge of the field. With the sun going down, there was a bit of nip in the air.
Dew had started to condense and I was wet to the knees, but I laid out a bit of tarp to sit on and to drag around my shoulders and settled down to count
Janzen shook his head, meaning it hadn’t occurred to him either, then he said, “You can get some idea after dinner. Once the sun goes down, most of them will be out in the pasture, browsing. If it were crops we were raising instead of sheep, they’d be a much bigger nuisance than they are now.”
Susan raised a querying brow at him.
“Given any kind of a choice, the roos prefer their food tender, which means they go for young shoots. That’d play havoc with any food crop. Sheep will browse tough stuff that’s inedible to most Earth-authentics, and they’ll do it right down to the ground.”
“Yeah,” said Moustafa, “and they’re too stupid to know what’s poisonous and what isn’t.”
That reminded me. “Excuse me a minute,” I said, but I took my bowl of stew with me while I went to the computer to call up the home team.
I got Mike, which was good luck, and there were no emergencies in the offing, which was better.
“I need an EC workup on Gogol. Can you get me one by tomorrow evening?” At his look, I said, “It doesn’t have to be complete. Just a preliminary. Quick and dirty is fine. We’ll do a complete if anything interesting shows up.” His look hadn’t improved, so I added, “Take Selima. With two of you, it’ll go faster and won’t be quite as dirty.”
That fixed the look right up. Ah, young love… ain’t it handy? “Anything new I should know about?”
“Yeah.” This time he grinned. “Your kangaroo rex didn’t recognize lamb as edible.”
Behind me, someone said, “All right!” on a note of triumph. I ignored that to eye Mike suspiciously. When he said nothing further, I voiced his implied, “But…?”
“But it could learn that trick. Right now its idea of superb cuisine is chatterboxes, grubroots, and gladrats.”
Interesting. Those were all Mirabilan, and all pests from our point of view.
“That’s certainly in its favor,” I said. “They’re all of a size too—nowhere near the size of sheep.”
“Means nothing. There’s only one rex on the premises. Who knows what size prey a mob of them will take on.”
“I know,” I said, “but that gives me more breathing space here.” I thought about it a moment then got an inspiration. “Mike? Try it on those damn jumping fish next time it looks hungry.”
That brought a grin from Mike. “Annie,” he said, “our luck’s not that good this summer.
Besides, the rexes wouldn’t do well in that EC.”
Page 40
“Just try it. And shoot me that EC report as soon as you can.” I broke the connection, picked up my bowl, and—still thinking about it—headed back for the dinner table. I almost ran Leo down.
I looked around me. The whole troop had been looking over my shoulder. “Sit,” I said, “my apologies. We will now give the stew the attention it deserves.”
Which we did, and when we were done, it was time for Janzen and Moustafa to see to their sheep for the evening… and for me and Leo to place ourselves strategically in the fields to see how many roos showed up to browse—and how many of them were breeding rexes.
We ran into half a dozen of the locals and enlisted three. Susan dug out two more samplers, but those went to Leo and Susan herself. (We’re short on equipment. I put that on the docket for winter, making more samplers or finding somebody who wanted the job.)
Sangster was nowhere to be seen. Despite Susan’s earlier comment, I had no doubt she was off somewhere raising the level of hysteria. I could have kicked myself for not dragging Sangster in with us that afternoon, just to keep her out of trouble.
It would have been a lovely evening for hanky-panky. Too bad Leo was on the opposite edge of the field. With the sun going down, there was a bit of nip in the air.
Dew had started to condense and I was wet to the knees, but I laid out a bit of tarp to sit on and to drag around my shoulders and settled down to count
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