guessing distance. But really, who cares where we are? For the first time in my life I'm just walking. I don't know how far we've come. I don't know how far we have to go. I don't know what time it is. My mind isn't three days ahead and two days behind and anticipating fifteen appointments and worrying about my retirement and my headstone. Suddenly my stomach is all I need to keep track of mealtimes and the sun is my alarm clock. I'm here, taking in the now.'
They considered that.
'I agree,' Ico said. 'It's why I felt it didn't hurt to switch our drop-off point. Let's live in the moment. But at some point we have to get back.' He glanced at his wrist. 'It's one-seventeen, by the way, if I'm in the right time zone.'
'It's when you throw that watch away that you'll be in the right zone.'
'Touche.' But he kept the watch on.
They looked out at the desert from their rock shelter. A slope of sandstone gave way to a plain as flat and featureless as the face of a calm ocean. Stunted trees and shrubs, gray-green, studded the pan of sand out to a horizon where the ground evaporated into a shimmering mirage of blue water, bleeding into an equally blue sky. Nothing moved, except a hawk wheeling on the thermals.
'Get back?' Tucker said suddenly. 'Hell, I just got here.'
As the afternoon progressed the desert became more beautiful. What had seemed to be crabbed trees cowering under the hammer of the sun at noon now lengthened with their afternoon shadows, trunks of white and gray taking on sinuous grace. Colors grew richer as the sun dropped, sand making snaking dunes of an eerie red. They crossed two sandy watercourses with no visible water. Amaya pointed out that the tiny ants that marched everywhere on the riverbanks seemed absent on the dry streambeds. 'We should camp on the sand,' she observed. 'Less bugs.' It was prettier on the empty rivers as well. The white eucalyptus grew taller and more beautiful than the desert bush, and seemed in its serene majesty as timeless and still as the rocks.
At a third riverbed they found a pool of standing water and stopped, the sky on fire behind them, a deepening blue ahead. 'Honey, I'm home!' Ico called, heaving off his pack in relief. They guessed they'd come ten miles.
Daniel was the only one who hadn't brought a tent, deciding to rely on a light tarp instead. Bright fabric mushrooms puffed up from the other three to form an instant village, the thin nylon a comfortable shield against the emptiness of this great outside. There was a bit of awkward unfamiliarity as they set up their stoves and prepared their first real meal, sharing dishes, but also good humor at the fact they were succeeding on their own with these simple tasks. Tucker dragged in some wood and lit a fire with a match. Its purpose was more psychological than to heat or cook. 'Man is here!' Tucker shouted to the desert. 'He will prevail!' The noise drifted away across the sand.
'And woman.' Amaya had erected her tent first.
'There's only one of you,' Ico noted.
'She'll prevail anyway,' Daniel predicted. 'Smarter, saner, and more centered than any of us.'
She grinned at him. 'Centered, or self-centered?'
'The center of our universe,' Ico crooned.
As the light disappeared, so did the flies. Stars began to pop out, first like isolated beacons and then faster and faster, like a growing storm of snow. The night shone with starlight, the silken ribbon of the Milky Way a familiar streak but the constellations strange. Amaya pointed to a cluster of stars to the south. 'The Southern Cross,' she said. 'We'll keep it on our right as we travel.'
Sparks climbed skyward and seemed to join the stars. Daniel got a laugh with his story of how he'd started a tiny blaze in his apartment.
'I'll pay fifty bucks to see you do that again,' offered Ico.
'You brought money?'
'Just what I had. In case we got held up somewhere.' He shrugged. 'I'll probably keep it though, for emergencies, and pay you at home.'
'That's crazier than rubbing sticks, you know that?'
'Come on, I want to see you do it.'
'No, I'm too tired. Last time it took me hours. Besides, you'll get to see me do it for free once we run out of matches.'
'Civilization starting to look better then?' He held up a match.
'Not good enough that I'd want to be carrying seventy-five pounds, like you're doing.'
Ico grinned. 'It gets lighter with every match.'
The light and food and rest relaxed them, erasing memories of the heat of the day. They laughed at Ico's espresso maker with its solar battery chip, but they each had a cup.
'See, what I'm looking for is balance,' he explained. 'I know this shit is silly, but why not take the best of both worlds and enjoy ourselves out here? It's society I don't like, not technology. Bureaucracy, not gadgets. My goal is to find out what's really necessary, what's really important, and then plan permanent escape. I take the essentials into a wild pocket of the world- maybe even sneak back here- and live my life, not theirs. Even Robinson Crusoe had a lot of shipwreck gear to salvage. I'd want that too.'
'You don't happen to have an ice cream maker stuffed away, do you, Crusoe?' Tucker asked. 'I'm craving strawberry ripple.'
'Nah. But maybe there's still wild cows in Australia. If you catch one, Freidel, I'll make you a latte.'
Despite his weariness from the day's walk, Daniel was too restless to immediately sleep. He strolled up the riverbed, the gray sand shimmering under the stars and the night strangely comforting in its glow. This was not a scary place at all, he decided. He also liked the smell of Australia. There was none of the odor of moist soil and decay like some wet northern forests he had hiked in, but rather a scent of dry wood and plant oils that strangely reminded him of dusty furniture. The aridity seemed clean. He could hear animals scuttling away in the night and he wondered who the group's neighbors were. There were no large predators in Australia, he knew. Eventually they might run into wild domestics- dogs, camels, cows, pigs- but for the moment nature seemed unfamiliar, harmless, and discreet.
He sat on a log, looked up into the night sky, and shivered. The glorious immensity! Not just of the universe, but this strange red desert. It was intimidating to think of being so far from help, but liberating too. He could go anywhere, do anything. Be anything. All the restraints were off except the ones remaining in his head. This could be heaven, he thought: roaming endlessly with his house on his back and exploring the uncharted terrain of his own spirit. He could do it forever with the right person. Daniel wondered if Raven was out there somewhere, and if so whether she was walking with a man other than himself. He wondered if he'd ever see her again.
There was a rustle and he turned. It was Amaya.
'Can I join you?'
He beckoned and she sat down on the log next to him. 'It's nicest at night,' she said. 'No wonder that's when most of the desert creatures move about.'
'I think we're going to have to change our habits. Move early and late, hole up at midday. We're prisoners of that sun.'
'Prisoners? I thought we came here for freedom, Daniel.'
'Oops.'
'We just need to get in rhythm.'
'That's what I meant. But it was an interesting slip. I've heard that when you're jailed long enough you never really get free. You become a prisoner in your own mind. Everything looks like a wall. And you learn to like your jailers.'
'You're worried that's you.'
'Of course.'
'We do have to be realistic about what we can achieve out here,' she said. 'Animals aren't really free. They spend their lives bound by the weather, the seasons, and hunting or being hunted. We shouldn't romanticize them or their existence or pretend we can find a life without limitations. But I liked what you said today about getting away from numbers and schedules and maps. I think we're here to break bad habits, or at least recognize and examine them.'
He looked at her face, pale in the starlight. Amaya was actually quite pretty, he decided- not beautiful in the
