he and Jimmy wrestled a packing crate out of the cargo bay. And everyone who'd waited on the ground silently seconded that. There was only one way off this planet, and everyone knew it.
George, wholly smitten with flying, now wanted to try piloting the Ultra-Light as well but had to be content with simply putting the diaphanous miniature plane together the next day. D.W. had already decided that Marc would go up with him on the first flight so the naturalist could get a feel for how the space images corresponded to the actual terrain and vegetation.
While George and D.W. were off-planet, the ground crew had passed the time preparing a runway for the Ultra-Light, which required a forty-meter strip. There were still two stumps to finish pulling, and then they had to wait for the right amount of rain to pack the loose soil down without turning it into a swamp, so it was nearly a week before D.W. and Marc were able to start their flight down a river gorge that passed through a minor mountain range northeast of their position in the clearing.
There had been no indication yet that anyone knew they were there, despite two noisy trips in and one out of the clearing, and that was to the good. Their flight paths had been chosen to minimize the likelihood of passing over inhabited regions, and evidently no air transportation had been developed locally. While still on the
After fifteen hours, the last five of which were incommunicado, Jimmy broke the silence with a shout. Then they all heard the Ultra-Light's motor and everyone stood to scan the sky for the little plane. 'There!' Sofia cried and they watched D.W. circle and then drop down for the bumpy landing.
Marc was smiling broadly as he climbed out of his seat. 'We found a village! Perhaps six, or seven days' walk from here, if we move along the river valley,' he told them. 'Set into the side of some cliffs, about thirty meters up from the river. We almost missed it. Very interesting architecture. Almost like Anasazi cliff dwellings but not at all geometric.'
'Oh, Marc!' Anne moaned. 'Who gives a shit about the architecture?'
'Did you find any Singers? What do they look like?' George asked.
'We didn't see anyone,' D.W. told them, climbing out and stretching. 'Damnedest thing. The place didn't look to be abandoned. Not like a ghost town. But we didn't see a soul stirrin'.'
'It was very bizarre,' Marc admitted. 'We landed across the river and watched for a long time, but there was no one to be seen.'
'So what do we do now?' Jimmy asked. 'Look for another village with some people in it?'
'No,' said Emilio. 'We should go to the village Marc and D.W. found today.'
They all turned to look at him blankly, and Emilio realized that no one had expected him to have an opinion about this. He couldn't stop himself from running his hands through his hair but he straightened and spoke again, with more confidence than usual and in his own voice. 'We have been here for some time, in seclusion. To become used to the planet, as we hoped, yes? And now, we have the possibility of investigating this village, also in some privacy. It appears to me that things are proceeding step by step. And next perhaps, we will meet whom we are meant to meet.'
'Do you suppose,' Marc Robichaux asked, breaking the silence and turning to D.W. with shining eyes, 'that this village constitutes a turtle on a fencepost?'
D.W. snorted and laughed shortly and rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the ground for a while, heartily sorry that he had ever mentioned turtles. Then he looked around at the civilians. George and Jimmy were clearly ready to hoist backpacks and go. He shook his head and appealed wordlessly to Anne and Sofia, hoping that one of the women had something logical or practical to contribute. But Anne only shrugged, palms up, and Sofia simply asked, 'Why walk when we can fly? I think we should use the Ultra-Light for transport. No fuel problems. We can ferry in personnel and equipment in several trips.'
At that, D.W. threw his arms up and looked at the sky in resignation and walked in a circle with his hands on his hips muttering to himself that the whole damn thing beat the livin' shit out of him. But finally he came to rest and gazed at Emilio Sandoz, whom he had known, boy to man, for almost thirty years now. Whose astonishing, diffident, whispered confessions he now heard while fighting back his own tears. For a moment, D.W. was overwhelmed by the sense that he had seen this soul take root and grow and blossom in a way he never would have predicted and could hardly have hoped for and barely understood. A mystic! he thought, astounded. I got a Porter Rican mystic on my hands.
The others were all waiting for his decision. 'Sure,' D.W. said at last. 'Okay. Fine by me. Why not? There's a flat patch where I can land, outta sight, a few miles south of the village on the same side of the river. We'll ferry the heaviest equipment in with Mendes, here, 'cause she don't weigh nothing. Quinn can carry the damn toothbrushes on his trip.'
There were cheers then and high fives and a general sense of being ready to roll and they began talking all at once. In the midst of the commotion, Emilio Sandoz stood silently, as though listening, but he heard none of the discussion of plans and procedures that went on around him. When he came back from wherever he had been, it was Sofia Mendes he saw, a little distance away, as apart from the others as he was, watching him with intelligent, searching eyes. He met her gaze without embarrassment. And then the moment passed.
One by one, they were carried over forest, along the river course, and into a drier mountain-lee land, to the staging area D.W. had identified. They took with them the camping and communications gear and a two-month supply of food, leaving the bulk of their cargo stored in the lander, which D.W. locked down and camouflaged. The last thing each of them looked at as they rose skyward from the runway was the grave of Alan Pace. No one commented on or admitted to leaving the flowers.
Everything east of the mountains seemed a little dwarfed and less colorful than in the forest. The blues and greens and lavenders were more muted and dusty, the animal species more dependent on stealth and concealment for safety. There were treelike plants, widely spaced, but with multiple stems and a tangle of branches in place of the graceful canopies of the forest. That evening, between the second and third sunsets, George found a place in the rocks to conceal the disassembled Ultra-Light, while the others secured the new food depot. They were constantly startled as they worked by small gray-blue animals, almost invisible until they stepped near one, which Anne named coronaries for the heartstopping habit the little animals had of exploding upward, grouselike, in brief flights from the ground. Their voices sounded loud even when they spoke quietly. Without any discussion, they pitched the tents very close together that night. For the first time since landfall, they all felt alien and misplaced, and a little scared as they crawled into sleeping bags and tried to get some rest.
The next morning, Marc led them cautiously down the river valley to a sheltered place where they could see the village, although at first none of them could make out what he was pointing at. It was a wonder, not to say a miracle, he had noticed it at all, soaring past it in the Ultra-Light. Intended to blend into their surroundings, the masonry and terraces fit seamlessly into the layered, river-cut stone of the cliffside. Roof lines showed sudden displacements, changing height and materials to mimic subsidences and shifts in the rock. Openings were not squared or uniform but varied in concert with the shadowed overhangs where the natural rock had spalled off and fallen toward the river.
Even at this distance, they could see many rooms that opened directly onto terraces overlooking the river. There were large open-weave river-reed parasols, nearly invisible in the surrounding vines and foliage, providing midday shade. These relatively flimsy structures supported D.W.'s impression that the village had been inhabited not long ago; they would not have withstood many storms without upkeep.
'Plague?' Jimmy asked Anne softly. There was still no sign of the villagers, and seeing their emptied dwellings was distinctly eerie.
'No, I wouldn't think so,' she said quietly. 'There'd be bodies lying around, or mourners, or something. Maybe there's a war going on and they were all evacuated?'
They watched for a while, speculating and studying the village, trying to estimate population and drawing grim whispered conclusions about the missing inhabitants.
'Awright, awright, let's go take a closer look,' D.W. said finally.
