When Gap Teeth returned, Alin and Dorik were spreading the story that Rakki, Shingral, and Zomu had been caught in a rock fall and swept over a precipice. As of then, Jemmo had made no move to claim Shell Eyes—probably to avoid being too obvious and provoking a reaction from Rakki's supporters. But Rakki couldn't be left out there another day. In any case, White Head thought that Jemmo would consolidate his position soon, which meant Gap Teeth would be in danger—and probably White Head too, since Jemmo had never trusted Oldworlders, and White Head's association with Rakki would count against him. They decided it was time for them to leave the caves.
White Head talked to Sims, and afterward told the others that Sims would be joining them. Gap Teeth approached Uban, a former warrior from the swamps, who had always been loyal to Rakki, and told him the story, intimating that Uban could also be in danger if he stayed. Uban agreed to go with them and in turn recruited another, Neotto, who also felt threatened. Finally, Shell Eyes sensed that something unusual was being planned and accosted White Head, who was frank with her. She had discerned Jemmo's intentions toward her and said she wanted to be taken along also.
To avoid drawing attention, they left individually at different times through the day, taking various loads with them, including several stripped branches and some lengths of vine for lashing together a litter that Rakki could be carried on. They met some distance from the caves and commenced their journey, traveling almost to the end of the day once again before they reached the place where Rakki had fallen. Gap Teeth went down with Uban and Neotto to bring him back up, after which there was little more they could do than find space beneath a boulder to shelter for the night as best they could.
The next morning, White Head, who had some knowledge of treating injuries, was reluctant to let Rakki be moved; but fear of pursuit and Jemmo's vengeance left them no choice but to press onward, taking turns to carry the litter with Rakki lashed to it. They trekked for many days through the Broken Lands, changing direction frequently, erasing their tracks, and living off roots, berries, mosses, and occasional birds or sand rats found among the rocks. Rakki's recollections began again as the party was emerging into a lower region of hills and dunes west of the Broken Lands that none of them had seen before, carved by floods into a maze of canyons and water channels. Scrub and grass began appearing on the landscape, along with the tracks and droppings of larger animals. Soon they began glimpsing ones and twos, sometimes larger groups of them, in the distance. They found scraps of strangely fashioned Oldworld artifacts that not even White Head nor Sims were able to identify, and the bones of huge creatures that the Oldworlders said had lived in areas of water vast enough to submerge all the known land. As Rakki's leg and side healed, he was able to walk for distances that gradually grew larger as the days went by, though always at a pace that forced the others to slow down. It became apparent that the crookedness in his leg was permanent, and he would never run or move with his previous agility again.
According to White Head, they moved from place to place in the region they named Roundhills for almost half a year. During that time Neotto gashed his chest on a poisonous thornbush and died after being consumed by fever, and Shell Eyes began the swelling that meant she would produce a child. Then they encountered a group of people consisting of several couples, most of them crazy-ones, and a number of children, living under makeshift roofs of branches and leaves built over crevices in the rocks. After two of the males were killed in a short but fierce fight, the others submitted to Rakki's leadership. Both the dead Neffers possessed females. Rakki gave one of them to Gap Teeth as a reward for saving his life. She was called Hyokoka and had yellow-hued skin with straight hair and curiously slanted eyes of a kind Rakki had never seen before. Uban challenged Sims over who would take the other, whose name was Engressi, but Sims declined to fight and so she became Uban's. Of the children, two were old enough to fetch, carry, and be given chores. Rakki ordered them to be kept, but not Engressi's boy baby, who was just able to walk. However, Shell Eyes offered to help Engressi with him and suggested he could be raised to be a special attendant for Rakki. "Another leg for you, to replace the one that is crooked," she urged. Rakki had laughed at the joke and relented, and the baby was spared.
But he wouldn't let himself become soft like the Oldworlders, he told himself inwardly. Always, burning at the back of his mind, was the thought of one day exacting revenge on Jemmo. And Alin and Dorik. He sometimes spent long hours visualizing the ways he would watch them die if it ever came within his power to order it.
The location was good, with thick growth around, a creek running down to join a long lake not far below, and although the ground above sloped up to a broken ridge above, it was away from the steep heights that were liable to avalanches of rocks and boulders when the earthquakes came. Rakki decided they would remain there. The people that they had subdued called it Joburg, which they said was the Oldworld name of a place far to the south, now buried under snow according to a lone traveler who had passed through a long time ago. Rakki liked the name and decided they would keep it.
More had joined them in the time since: several couples in a group, again with more children; a number of Neffers traveling in twos and threes, and in one instance, a lone wandering female. All were from the south, where they told of snow and ice covering the land. The clan built more shelters of dried grass thatched onto frames of woven vine, cleared space for growing food plants in the way the Cave People had done, and fenced in an area for keeping the animals they were beginning to acquire. Sims and two of the newcomers made a bowl-shaped frame covered in skins, and floated out on the lake below to find fish.
For the first time that he could remember, Rakki was able to live free from uncertainty and suspicion of everyone around him. Life at Joburg was better than he had known. But still, the thirst for revenge never left him.
He surveyed his domain with pride as he and White Head came down from the ridge side by side astride the mules. Smoke was rising from the hearth outside the open-fronted cooking hut, where a bush-pig was being roasted. The hut for storing a reserve supply of food was nearly complete. A large rock had been levered out of the creek and rolled to one side as part of a plan to clear a portion of it and widen it into a pool for washing and bathing. Rakki felt satisfaction in what they were doing. But he was unsure how long it might last.
"It looks as if they have started working on the creek," White Head observed. "The path down to it is clearer." He turned his head and read Rakki's face. "But you seem troubled."
"How long will we be able to stay in this place?" Rakki replied. "Everyone talks about a world of snow moving closer from the south. Will Roundhills be covered too?"
"That world is far away from us," White Head replied. "I don't think it will reach here."
"But do you know?"
"No, I do not know. But a man can only guard himself from what is or what he knows will be. To try to guard against every fear of what might be would make him as the crazy-ones."
"That is good," Rakki pronounced. "We will make Joburg big and find many warriors. Then one day I will lead them back to the caves. We will settle the thing with Jemmo that was never settled, and Shingral will be avenged. Even if I have to walk the whole way there, I will lead them."
"Your fever over Jemmo is more relentless than the one that gripped you after we brought you back up from the chasm," White Head said. "That fever cooled and died with time. This one becomes worse."
"It is our way," Rakki told him. "You understood a different world. This world, I understand."
"There comes a time when what's past is better left in the past," White Head said.
Rakki was about to reply, but then directed his attention away when he realized that something unusual was going on around the huts. Gap Teeth and Sims were standing in the clearing in front of the animal pen, both looking up. Hyokoka had come out from the cooking hut, while behind her Engressi was shepherding the children inside. Bakka, one of the newcomers, and h
is mate, Geel, were in front of the original covered shelter, he looking up, she hanging back under the roof and seeming fearful. More were coming out and calling to others. Rakki frowned and followed their gaze upward. An object unlike anything he'd seen before was hanging in the sky. His jaw tightened as he forced back his fear, at the same time reaching unthinkingly for the edged metal club that he still carried everywhere.
It wasn't a bird, for although it possessed a body and wings, there was no movement of them, and its motion wasn't that of a soaring bird that sailed on currents of wind. It seemed larger than any bird he'd seen, but he couldn't be sure because he had no real way of judging how high up it was. It seemed to be circling slowly around the area where the huts stood, as if studying it. With the wind as he and White Head came over the ridge, Rakki hadn't heard it before, but now he became aware that it was making a steady droning sound. He leveled a hand over his eyes to shield out the background light of the sky.
It was definitely not a bird. There was no head; its lines were too sharp and rigid. It had a dome like the top of a head, but it was in the middle of the body and hung underneath. Its skin was smooth and gray, lighter on the top side, as if it was reflecting the light. . . . Rakki's finger traced unconsciously along the contour of the club he was holding. He looked down at it. Metal. A metal bird? He remembered the strange, distant roaring noises that had been coming intermittently from somewhere to the north for days now; his head jerked around sharply toward White Head as impossible thoughts came into his mind. White Head's mouth was drawn back, showing his teeth. His face and his eyes were shining ecstatically.
"What is this, old man?" Rakki demanded. "What does it mean?"
White Head had to find breath before he could answer. "It means there are some of them left somewhere," he answered.
"The gods?"
White Head turned his face back. Rakki had never seen his eyes watery before. "Yes, Rakki. The gods. They've come back!"
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The site that had been chosen for Serengeti base was on a plateau of sediments left by receding floodwaters, close to halfway down the long Raphta peninsula and somewhat west of center, between the shrunken Indian Ocean to the east and the new westward ocean being created by the opening up of the Great Rift, which the Kronians had named the African Sea. North of the plateau, a river flowed westward from a wasteland of shattered rock and dizzying chasms inland, and then turned south to run for some distance through hilly regions to the west and south before turning away again to meander across a marshy coastal plain. The location was judged high enough to be reasonably safe from freak inundations in the still unpredictable conditions, while still offering access for ground exploration over a wide operating range in all directions. Also, it had the potential for expansion to accommodate a sizeable number of evacuees from Kronia, should such a measure ever be decided on.
Keene stood in front of one of the now-assembled prefab laboratories, watching the six-wheeled "Scout" vehicle, just back from a survey excursion. It approached him across the strip of open ground separating the base complex from the landing area, with its gaggle of supply shuttles and personnel ferries down from the orbiting Varuna and Surya. Nearby, outside the storage extension to the lab block, some young members of the mission's Security Arm detachment were unloading a cargo container from one of the shuttles, at the same time getting some acclimatization to handling weights in Earth's gravity. Keene was wearing a surface cover-suit, hood pulled up against the dusty wind blowing down from the mountains to the east. The sky was a patchy gray, like much of the landscape, shifting and swirling and spitting a forewarning of rain. It was not the kind of climate traditionally thought of in connection with what had been the Serengeti Plain. The shifting of Earth's axis to bring the south pole closer had caused a migration of colder regions northward, with the result that the areas that had formerly formed South Africa were now bleak and snowy, with the ice cap extending to the new islands formed from rising ocean ridges south from the Cape. Conversely, Scandinavia and the northwest coasts of Siberia were warming and expected eventually to settle at temperatures comparable to those previously found in California and the American South.
Next to the labs were the Operations Control and Communications Dome and the workshop domes housing fabricating and machining areas. The Kronians built in the manner they were accustomed to. Beyond the domes, a radiation screening wall was being constructed around the open-frame structure of Agni, detached from Varuna and landed, with power connections coming through to distribution equipment installed in a power control house abutting the workshops. Agni could have powered a large town. It was there as a working test of the technology, and to be available to supply the needs of an emergency expansion program should a sudden migration of the Kronian population be forced. So the base was taking shape. Already, the orbiters and probes were surveying for a second site somewhere in the Americas.
Keene's limbs still felt like lead after his time away. He dreaded to think what it was like for native-born Kronians. It was easy to pick them out among the SA recruits, regardless of their height. They were the ones staggering under the weight of cases and boxes that those raised through their formative years on Earth, even after being away for most of their lives in some cases, were able to handle easily. Keene was doubtful as to the usefulness to the mission of an SA complement. There wasn't much in the way of Terran threats to be protected from. But there had been pressure to include them on the grounds that Saturn would be too far away to help deal with whatever unknowns might develop; and in any case, the experience would be invaluable training, and their military-style organization made them an ideal general labor resource in a situation like this. Keene turned his attention back to the Scout as it pulled in and halted in front of the lab block.
A couple of technicians that Keene didn't know well yet since they had traveled with the Surya climbed out and went back to the open rear section to begin unloading an assortment of animal cages and containers, trays holding various plants, and boxes of jars filled with rock and soil samples. Keene sauntered over to greet the figure in a padded work vest and Cossack-style hat with the backflap down that had paused at the step below the driver's door to secure a bundle of notebooks and folders that he was carrying against the wind. It was Pieter Naarmegen, also from the Surya. Pieter had been a biology teacher in Durban at one time and was with the mission because, in theory anyway, he had some familiarity with the region, and he'd had firsthand professional experience of Terran flora and fauna. He had a pinkish, wrinkly face that gave the impression of being weatherbeaten despite his living the past eleven years in the artificial environments of Kronia, and a short, grizzled beard that he trimmed to a point.
"So, how'd it go, Pieter?" Keene inquired. "You're not wasting much time. Your section of the labs isn't finished yet, and you're starting a menagerie and horticultural collection already."
"Hey, Lan. Pretty good. Well, you know how it is. There's so much going on out there that we'd need a hundred lifetimes anyway. Are we online here with the power yet?"
"The crew are just hooking up to the distribution system now. We'll be ready to go as soon as they've finished the shielding wall." Some of the file folders on top of the wad that Naarmegen was carrying slipped loose. Keene caught them deftly before the wind could carry them away. "It's okay, I'll bring them in," he said.
They walked together to the open double doors leading into the lab block. Inside, the technicians were setting the cages and sample boxes down on benches among others waiting to be cataloged and stored. Naarmegen took the papers into a partitioned area littered with boxes, pieces of furniture, desktop equipment, and miscellaneous paraphernalia that was in the process of becoming an office. Keene looked around while he waited. The boxes contained small animals like mice and shrews, lizards, a brown snake, worms and snails, various insects. He moved closer to contemplate some plant specimens standing in soil-filled plastic pots. They were drab green to dark gray, tough an
d leathery-looking in texture. One had cactus-like spines along the edges of broad, spade-shaped leaves. Another, purple and gray, growing from a partly-visible tuber, was putting out curly tendrils that were already feeling along the rim of the container.
"Strange-looking things," he commented as Naarmegen rejoined him.
"That's the interesting thing. I'm not enough of an expert to know if those forms are something new or just an unusual variety that happen to be suited to the new conditions. But what intrigues me is the coloring. It's widespread across all kinds of different species. They're getting as much energy as they can by absorbing all across the spectrum. If they did it a hundred percent efficiently, they'd be black."
"Would they have the right chemistry to process it?" Keene asked dubiously. "I thought most plants were specialized to absorb in the red." Which, of course, was why most plants used to look green.
"That's one of the things we hope to find out," Naarmegen said.
Keene stared at the growths reflectively. "Those changes didn't all just happen together by random guesses in the time since Athena."
"Exactly," Naarmegen agreed. "The programs to switch to the new environment were already in there."
It was an allusion to the Kronian version of evolution, which held that as with their findings in geology and planetary formation, changes didn't happen gradually over immense spans of time as had been previously thought, but in huge leaps, where whole new sets of designs and body plans seemed to appear abruptly to repopulate the Earth after major cataclysms. So maybe "revolution" would have been a better word.
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