Jef sat down on the bed. What he should do right now was start to sort out what he would take with him in his backpack tomorrow when he headed upcountry. His heavier supplies and equipment, as well as the excess of the luggage brought from the ship, would have to follow him by supply truck, on one of the monthly vehicle runs to the upcountry supply posts. Jef himself had no wish to wait around for several weeks just in order to ride, rather than walk, part way to his destination; and, more important, he was eager to introduce Mikey to his native environment and begin the study he had come here to do.
Just at the moment, however, the events of a day full of alarms, tensions, and unlikely adventures had gotten to him. He was suddenly aware of being numb with tiredness. He kicked off his boots and stretched out on the bed and, reaching out to the table controls, turned off the room light.
Half an hour's nap, then he would get up and pack...
He woke, abruptly, in darkness. He lay still, with the lingering impression that something, some sound, had wakened him; but as he lay there listening, he heard nothing. The door was locked and Mikey would certainly not be lying still himself if anyone had tried to get in.
Jef continued to lie still, half-awake, trying to remember just what time of day or night it was, and what he had been doing when he fell asleep. Apparently he had dropped off instantly on lying down; and his fogged brain was now being slow to respond.
Gradually events began to come back to him, including the note he had pushed under the door for Martin. Remembered now by a slowed mind in a slumber-chilled body, his leaving of the note did not seem such a reasonable move as it had when he had done it. It was true that what he had written did not commit Mikey and himself to anything; but it did set up a moral obligation to someone who might be up to his ears in some criminal activity. At the very least, it left the door wide open for Martin to make demands upon him at some unspecified time in the future, when such demands might be anything from inconvenient to downright dangerous. In short, Jef found himself regretting the note.
He tried to talk himself out of that regret; but it would not go. His mind kept offering unwanted images of Martin on the run from the authorities, asking for shelter; of Martin engaged in some falling-out with other criminal elements, wanting Jef's—and Mikey's—assistance in the struggle. This went on for some minutes in the dark, Jef's imagination presenting pictures of what might happen that were more and more wild—until finally, with a grunt of disgust, he threw off the covers and sat up.
When you make a mistake, he told himself, admit it.
He put his boots back on, got up and unlocked the door to his room. He went out, followed curiously by Mikey, to have a look at the situation. Maybe he could fish the note back from under the door...
But as he reached the door of Martin's suite, he stopped. A murmur of voices was coming from within the room. Too late.
For a few seconds that was all he could think of. Then his ears identified the voices. There were two. One was Martin's and the other, the deeper, softer voice of Armage.
Unconsciously Jef moved closer to the door, bringing his ear almost against the upper part of its panel. He thought he had heard Martin's voice saying something that sounded like "... Robini…"
He could not be sure. Even with his ear closer to the door now, and straining to hear, he could not make out anything that the Constable was saying; and only now and then did the sharper tones of Martin become intelligible.
"... not at all, my dear Avery. Not at all..."
"... otherwise, I'd not give much for the chance..."
"... upcountry, of course..."
"... because it's my choice not to, that's why..."
The voices broke off suddenly. For a split second more Jef strained to hear, then it burst on him that perhaps something had aroused the suspicions of the two men inside and one or both were even now coming to open the door and look out.
Swiftly, he stepped away, backing into his own room, pulling Mikey with him and closing his door as quietly as possible. Standing inside his closed door, he listened intently for several minutes more. But if the door to the suite was opened, it was done so quietly he could not hear it.
In any case, he told himself, there was nothing more to be gained by his continuing to eavesdrop. Whatever was going on between Martin and Armage—and it was suspicious that Martin had been using the other's first name, when he had always been so careful to address Jef formally—it would have to wait for events to bring it to light, if they ever did. In any case, things were out of Jef's hands now. There was nothing to be said or done until Martin came to him. Then he could lay the whole matter out squarely between them and demand some answers.
Tell the truth and shame the devil.
Almost fiercely, Jef got busy with his packing for the crosscountry hike that would begin for him tomorrow.
Chapter Five
"bring him along! That's right... inside, now," said the Constable. He stood with his shoulder against the open door of the rotorcraft, making his big body one side of a corridor which channeled Mikey through into the craft's interior.
It was the next morning. Jef, outfitted with a mapcase, directions, and the rest of his equipment he had brought along for just this use, was embarking with Mikey for a lift upcountry in search of Beau leCourboisier. It was a bright, warm day and everything was fine; except that Mikey did not want to board. He was signaling Jef by every means available to him that they should not board the rotorcraft, but take off across country northward, on foot. The fact was he had never really calmed down since the encounter with Chavel. He was showing now the same sort of excitement he had exhibited on the flight to the Constable's home from the spaceport.
"In, Mikey!" Jef finally managed to push the maolot through the entrance and hurried to squeeze in behind him. Seated and holding Mikey wedged against the farther side of the craft with his knees, Jef turned to say a last word to Armage and Martin.
"I appreciate all this," he told the Constable. "You'll keep an alert here for anyone with information on the whereabouts of my brother's grave—?"
"Absolutely," said the Constable. "Good luck, now. You understand the pilot's not allowed to take you beyond the edge of grazing territory? It's one of our ordinances aimed to saving fuel and engine-wear. Any travel beyond the plains country has to be on foot or animal, except official or emergency travel."
"It's all right," said Jef. "I knew about that. That's why I brought this backpacking equipment I'll do fine. Good-bye then. Martin—"
Martin, who was standing half a dozen steps off, took one small step closer to the craft. "Yes?" he said.
"I wanted to thank you, too—"
"Never mind. Think nothing of it—nothing at all." Martin's speech was rapid, as if his mind was elsewhere and he resented the time being wasted in social exchange. He had been this way all morning, a complete change of mood from his attitude when Jef had last seen him, the night before. Martin seemed now to have lost interest in Jef and Mikey—almost to the point of regretting that he had ever had anything to do with them. He had not mentioned the note from Jef.
Jef took his determination in both hands.
"I put a message under your door last night—" he began quietly to Martin, as Armage turned away out of earshot.
"Oh, yes. Thank you. Very nice of you," said Martin. "However, it's hardly likely that I'd have need of your assistance, since our paths lie in different directions. But thank you, by all means —and I believe it's time you were following your beast aboard, there."
"But you did say it was possible Mikey and I might be useful to you, and that was the reason you wanted to keep track of where we were," said Jef stiffly. "If you still think that would be useful—"
"Not at all, not at all—the way things look, now that I'm actually here and have a better view of them. Simply disregard what I said, Mr. Robini. And now—"
"Good-bye, then," said Jef, clearly and deliberately, determined not to be hustled off in such a manner.<
br />
"Good-bye, good-bye," said Martin.
The Constable slammed the rotorcraft door closed. "Strap in, sir," said the driver of the craft, over his shoulder. "Ready to lift."
Jef strapped in both Mikey and himself. The rotorcraft lifted with an unexpected lurch and the ground fell away below them as they headed northward, away from the artificially landscaped lawn and neatly planted trees of the Constable's home.
But with the upward bound of the craft into the air, Jef felt a curiously corresponding bound in his own spirits. Suddenly he was conscious of a vast feeling of relief. For the first time it dawned on him that he was now relieved of all obligations—to Martin or to anyone else.
In an unexpected sense, just now, Martin had set him free. If the man had accepted—even conventionally accepted—the idea of a debt of action due on Jef's part, Jef would still have been tied to his affairs and whatever connection they had with the affairs of the Everon government, in the person of Armage and others like him. As it was, apparently both Martin and the Constable were happy to see the last of him; and, more than a little to his own astonishment, he was overwhelmingly happy to see the last of them.
For the first time he recognized some of the hidden depths of feeling with which he had come out here. He had been expecting to encounter an alien world with all its differences and dangers— but also expecting the assistance and aid of the people who had come here before him.
Unconsciously he had been thinking that everyone who emigrated to a new world like this would be like William. Where he had never expected friendship or help from any among the teeming billions of people on Earth, he had expected those things, automatically, out here. That had peen why, he now realized, he had been hit so hard by the hostility of the other passengers on the spaceship, and that of the Constable, on landing.
Now, in the face of his expectations, everything had been reversed. Those humans belonging to Everon had treated him with coldness and suspicion. But the different and dangerous planet he had been braced to encounter had seemed to reach out golden-green, warm and strangely friendly arms to welcome and enfold him.
He laughed a little to himself. He was being fanciful.
Nonetheless, it was a fact that he had seldom felt as free as he did at this moment, and never in his memory could he remember feeling happier. He was headed out at last to do the research he had always wanted to do, with Mikey, who had always been closer to him than anyone but his immediate family; and there were, as far as he could see now that he had left Everon City behind, no clouds on the horizon of his immediate future to trouble this prospect.
It was a strange feeling but a good one. He fastened his gaze on the landscape below. Ten minutes later there was no sign of city or planted fields under them at all; and they were fleeing west and north over a sea of yellow-green grass that seemed to stretch unbroken and unblemished to the uplands and the misty mountains.
They traveled for nearly an hour above the apparently endless grass and occasional herds of wisent, seemingly hidden shoulder-deep in it. Jef found himself surprised to see how small the variform of the European bison must be. As best he could judge from the air, they could not be much bigger than sheep. Then a dark line appeared on the farther horizon and grew into a green band of forest, stretching on to a farther horizon. The rotorcraft approached to within a hundred meters of the forest edge and slowed gradually to a hover. Instead of landing, the craft held its position ten meters off the ground and the entrance door opened itself on the air. A section of floor moved outward through the opening and became a platform supported by cables slanting down on either side of the entrance.
"Ready to descend," said the driver. "Don't worry, that platform can carry cargo ten times the weight of you and the maolot and it has, lots of times."
"I wasn't exactly worried," retorted Jef. "Just surprised. Why don't you land?"
"Ordinance," said the pilot. "Don't ask me why. It's the law, is all."
Jef got up from his seat and led Mikey out on to the platform. He had been afraid that Mikey would choose this time to be excited, as he had been on boarding the craft, but the maolot was now perfectly calm and docile. Jef found himself looking at the horizon, rather than straight down. Ten meters was no great height, but the platform was only about a meter and a half by three meters in area, and it had no side rails. He felt the metal surface tremble under him as the cables extended, and the ground came slowly up to meet them until they touched, flattening the grass beneath.
Once down Jef stepped off, staring about himself. This grass was as tall as his own head. Evidently he had been badly wrong about the size of the variform wisents. They must be nearly as big as buffalo back on Earth. However, there was no point in worrying about that now. Luckily, he could see the edge of the forest through the heads of the stems.
"All right?" called down the driver. Jef looked up.
"All right," Jef waved. "Take it up. Thanks."
"Luck!" The platform began to be drawn back to the rotorcraft again. It mounted all the way, was taken back in, and the door of the craft shut. The pilot waved through the glass of the windscreen and the craft, gaining altitude, turned and headed south once more.
"All right, Mikey, here we go," said Jef, turning to the maolot. Mikey butted him cheerfully with his head. For a second Jef merely looked down at the animal.
"I don't get it," he said. "You were all wound up back at the Constable's, now you're peaceful as a lamb. What's got into you —or I should say, what's got out of you?"
Mikey only butted him again. Jef gave up and led the way toward the forest edge.
As they came within the shade of the nearest trees—some were variform conifers, but mainly willy-trees, specimens of a cotton-woodlike plant that was native to these regions of Everon—the tall stems of the grass shrank until they were hardly centimeters in height, revealing the bright-green interlacing, ground-hugging part of the plant that gave it its local name of moss-grass. Back under the farther parts of the forest this green seemed to extend forever like an endless carpet. It was a brighter green than most of the more somber colors of the forest, but almost everything growing on Everon was green, including the trunks and branches of native plants such as the willy-tree. The only patches of non-green were occasional pastel patches of flowerlike vegetation and dustings of brown from the dried and fallen apart, fleshy extensions of the native trees, which took the place of leaves in the Everon vegetation.
Jef stopped to check the mapcase the Constable had given him. It was a device about the size and shape of a pocket-sized book. A computer-loaded compass on the upperpart of its surface, however, pointed always in the direction of the destination it was set for; and just below the compass a section of map showed through the window, with a red line marking the direction and distance Jef had traveled since leaving the aircraft.
The compass needle was now pointing straight ahead, and the red line was running nicely parallel to the black line indicating their desired route. Jef put the map back into one of his woods-jacket pockets with satisfaction. According to the map and to what the Constable had said, it would be a short two-day hike to Trading Post Fifty on the Voral River. He could look forward to finding a good camping spot tonight by the ford on the only other actual river between him and Post Fifty. Then at Post Fifty he would either find this Beau leCourboisier or someone who could tell him how to locate the man.
His search seemed to be turning out to be more straightforward than he had thought—thanks to the Constable; or rather thanks to Martin Curragh, who had been responsible for the Constable's cooperation. For the first time in some months Jef's spirits began to rise as he strode along.
The simple fact that the exercise was warming him, making him more alert and optimistic, could have been reason enough for his increase in cheerfulness. But it was also a fact that the country through which he was traveling was strangely pleasant and exciting. Jef looked about him as he walked, trying to pin down what it was that was so particularl
y stimulating to his feelings.
There seemed to be no one specific cause. Overall, there was almost a fabled quality to the place he was in. Everything was as green as the Land of Oz, which gave the forest an unreal, magical appearance. But it was not just the green color alone, thought Jef, that produced the magical effect. It was the way the oversize yel low sun sent its light in amongst this verdant work greenness itself seemed touched with gold leaf and horizon, rather than straight down. Ten meters was no great height, but the platform was only about a meter and a half by three meters in area, and it had no side rails. He felt the metal surface tremble under him as the cables extended, and the ground came slowly up to meet them until they touched, flattening the grass beneath.
Once down Jef stepped off, staring about himself. This grass was as tall as his own head. Evidently he had been badly wrong about the size of the variform wisents. They must be nearly as big as buffalo back on Earth. However, there was no point in worrying about that now. Luckily, he could see the edge of the forest through the heads of the stems.
"All right?" called down the driver. Jef looked up.
"All right," Jef waved. "Take it up. Thanks."
"Luck!" The platform began to be drawn back to the rotorcraft again. It mounted all the way, was taken back in, and the door of the craft shut. The pilot waved through the glass of the windscreen and the craft, gaining altitude, turned and headed south once more.
"All right, Mikey, here we go," said Jef, turning to the maolot. Mikey butted him cheerfully with his head. For a second Jef merely looked down at the animal.
Masters of Everon Page 6
