Uncharted Territory

by Connie Willis

  Bult was looking through his binocs. He took them down from his eyes and then held them up to his ear.

  “Let’s go,” I said, and went to gather up the specimens. “Wagons ho, Ev!”

  “What about the tributary?” Ev said.

  “Sandbar Creek,” I said. “Come on.”

  Bult was already going. Carson and I grabbed up the specimens and Carson’s binocs, but Bult was already up the bank and heading west between the hills.

  “What about the other one?” Ev said.

  “Other what?” I said, jamming the specimens in my pack. I slung Carson’s binocs around the pommelbone.

  “The other tributary. Do the Boohteri have a name for it?”

  “I doubt it,” I said, swinging up onto Useless. Carson was having trouble with his pony. If we waited for him, we were going to lose Bult. “Come on,” I said to Ev and started after Bult.

  “Accordion Creek,” Ev said.

  “What?” I said, trying to decide which way Bult had gone. I caught a flash of light from his binocs off to the left and urged the pony that way.

  “As a name for the other tributary,” Ev said. “Accordion Creek, because of the way it folds back and forth.”

  “No technological references,” I said, looking back at Carson. His pony had stopped and was unloading a pile.

  “Oh, right,” Ev said. “Then how about Zigzag Creek?”

  I caught sight of Bult again. He was on top of the next rise, off his pony, looking through his binocs.

  “We’ve already got a Zigzag Creek,” I said, waving to Carson to come ahead. “Up north in Sector 250-81.”

  “Oh,” he said, sounding disappointed. “What else means back and forth? Crooked? Tortuous?”

  We caught up to Bult, and I unhooked Carson’s binocs from the pommelbone and put them up to my eyes, but I couldn’t see anything through them but hills and sandblossoms. I upped the resolution.

  “Ladder,” Ev was muttering beside me. “No, that’s technological … crisscross … how about Crisscross Creek?”

  Well, it was a good try. It wasn’t “chrysanthemum,” and he’d waited till Carson wasn’t there and I was worrying about something else. He was definitely smarter than he looked. But not smart enough.

  “Nice try,” I said, still scanning the hills with the binocs. “How about Sneaky Creek?” I said as Carson caught up to us. “For the way it tries to slip past you when you’re not looking?”

  Either Bult had seen what he was looking for through his binocs, or he’d given up. He didn’t try to ride ahead for the rest of the afternoon, and after our second rest stop, he put his binocs in his pack and got out his umbrella again. When I asked him the name of a bush during the rest stop, he wouldn’t answer me.

  Ev wasn’t talking either, which was fine because I had a lot to think about. Bult might have calmed down, but he still wasn’t levying fines, even though the rest stop had been on a hillside covered with sandblossoms, and two or three times I caught him glaring at me from under his umbrella. When his pony wouldn’t get up, he kicked it.

  I wondered if irritability was a sign of mating behavior, too, or if he was just nervous. Maybe he wasn’t just trying to impress some female. Maybe he was taking us home to meet her.

  I called C.J. “I need a whereabout on the indidges,” I told her.

  “And I need a whereabout on you. What are you doing down in 249-68?”

  “Trying to cross the Tongue,” I said. “Are there any indidges in our sector?”

  “Not a one. They’re all up by the Wall in 248-85.” Well, at least they weren’t in 248-76.

  “Any unusual movements?”

  “No. Let me talk to Ev.”

  “Sure thing. Ask him about the creek we named this morning,” I said.

  I patched him through and thought about Bult some more, and then asked for another whereabout on the gatecrashers. Wulfmeier still showed on Starting Gate, probably trying to come up with the money to pay his fines.

  We got back to the Tongue by late afternoon, but it was still hilly, and the Tongue was too narrow and deep for us to cross. We were close to the Wall—it wound up and down over the hills on the other side—and apparently in a shuttlewren’s territory again. Ev alternated between watching it make its rounds and trying to shoo it away so Bult couldn’t harpoon it.

  Bult headed south, winding up over the tops of hills about like the Wall. I shouted ahead to Carson that it was too steep for the ponies, and he nodded and said something to Bult. Bult plodded on, and ten minutes later his pony keeled over in a dead faint.

  Ours followed suit, and we sat down and waited for them to recover. Bult took his umbrella halfway up the hill and sat down under it. Carson lay back and put his hat over his eyes, and I got out Bult’s purchase orders and went over them again, looking for clues.

  “Do you always see shuttlewrens close to the Wall like this?” he asked. He was apparently recovered from the tongue-lashing C.J.’d given him.

  “I don’t know,” I said, trying to remember. “Carson, do we always see shuttlewrens when we’re close to the Wall?”

  “Mmph,” Carson said from under his hat.

  “These species that give gifts to their mates,” I said to Ev, “what other kinds of courting do they do?”

  “Fighting,” he said, “mating dances, displays of sexual characteristics.”

  “Migration?” I said, looking up the hill at Bult. The umbrella was sitting propped against the hill, its lights on. Bult wasn’t under it. “Where’s Bult?”

  Carson sat up, putting his hat on. “Which way?”

  I stood up. “Over there. Ev, tie up the ponies.”

  “They’re still out cold,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  Carson was already halfway up the hill. I scrambled after him.

  “Up this gully,” he said, and we clambered up it. It led up between two hills, a trickle of water at the bottom, and then opened out. Carson signaled me to wait and went up a hundred meters.

  “What is it?” Ev said, coming up behind me, panting. “Has something happened to Bult?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Only he doesn’t know it yet.”

  Carson was back. “Just like we thought,” he said. “Dead end. What say you go up there”—he pointed—”and I go around that way?”

  “And we meet in the middle,” I said, nodding. I headed up the side of the gully with Ev behind me. I ran along the crest of the hill in a half crouch, and then dropped to all fours and crawled the rest of the way.

  “What is it?” Ev whispered. “A nibbler?” He looked excited.

  “Yeah,” I whispered back. “A nibbler.”

  He pulled his knife out.

  “Put that away,” I hissed at him. “You’re liable to fall on it and kill yourself.” He put it away. “Don’t worry. It’s not dangerous unless it’s doing something it shouldn’t.”

  He looked confused.

  “Down,” I said, and we crawled out onto a ledge looking down on the space where the gully widened out. Below us, I could see the flattened area of a gate and a lean-to made of a tarp on sticks. In front of it was Bult.

  A man was standing half under the tarp, holding out a handful of rocks to Bult. “Quartz,” the man said. “It’s found in igneous outcroppings, like this.” He reached forward to show Bult a holo, and Bult stepped back.

  “You ever seen anything like this around here?” the man said, holding up the holo.

  Bult took another step backward.

  “It’s only a holo, you moron,” the man said, holding it out to Bult. “Did you ever see anything like this around here?” and Carson came strolling into the clearing, carrying his pack.

  He stopped short. “Wulfmeier!” he said, sounding surprised and amused. “What on hell are you doing on Boohte?”

  “Wulfmeier,” Ev breathed beside me. I put my finger to my lips to shush him.

  “What’s that?” Carson said, pointing at the holo. “A postcard?” He walked up next
to Bult. “My pony wandered off, and I came looking for him. Same as Bult. How about you, Wulfineier?”

  I wished I could see Wulfmeier’s face from where we were. “Something went wrong with my gate,” he said, taking a step back under the tarp and looking behind him.“Where’s Fin?” he said, and lowered his hand to his side.

  “Right here,” I said, and jumped down. “Wulfmeier,” I said, holding out my hand. “Fancy meeting you here. Ev,” I called up, “come on down here and meet Wulfmeier.”

  Wulfmeier didn’t look up. He looked at Carson, who’d moved off to the side. Ev landed on all fours and stood up quickly.

  “Ev,” I said, “this is Wulfmeier. We go way back. What are you doing on Boohte? It’s restricted.”

  “I told Carson,” he said, looking warily from one to the other of us, “something must have gone wrong with my gate. I was trying to get to Menniwot.”

  “Really?” I said. “We had a verify that you were on Starting Gate.” I walked over to Bult. “What you got there, Bult?”

  “I was emptying out my boot, and Bult wanted to see it,” Wulfmeier said, still watching Carson.

  Bult handed me the chunks of quartz. I examined them. “Tch, tch, taking of souvenirs. Bult, looks like you’re going to have to fine him for that.”

  “I told you, I got them in my shoe. I was walking around, trying to figure out where I was.”

  “Tch, tch, tch, leaving footprints. Disturbance of land surface.” I went over to the gate and peered underneath it. “Destruction of flora.” I leaned inside the gate. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “I got it fixed,” Wulfmeier said.

  I stepped inside, and came back out again. “Looks like dust, Carson,” I said. “We have a lot of trouble with dust. Does it get in the chips? He better check it while we’re here, just in case.”

  Wulfineier glanced back at the lean-to and over at Ev, and then back at Carson. He moved his hand away from his side.

  “Good idea,” he said. “I’ll get my stuff.”

  “Better not,” I said. “You wouldn’t want to overload the gate. We’ll send it along afterward.” I went up to the gate controls. “Where’d you say you were trying to go? Menniwot?”

  He opened his mouth to say something and then closed it. I asked for coordinates and fed the data into the gate. “That should do it,” I said. “You shouldn’t end up here again.”

  Carson walked him over to the gate, and he stepped inside. His hand dropped to his side again, and I hit activate and got out of the way.

  Carson was already back at the lean-to, rummaging through Wulfmeier’s stuff.

  “What’d he have?” I said.

  “Ore samples. Gold-bearing quartz, argentite, platinum ore.” He leafed through the holos. “Where’d you send him?”

  “Starting Gate,” I said. “Speaking of which, I better go tell them he’s coming. And that somebody’s been messing with Big Brother’s arrest records. Bult, figure up the fines on this stuff, and we’ll send ‘em special delivery. Come on,” I said to Ev, who was standing there looking at the place where the gate had been like he wished there’d been a fight. “We’ve gotta call C.J.”

  We started down the gully. “You were great!” Ev said, scrambling over rocks. “I couldn’t believe you faced him down like that! It was just like in the pop-ups!”

  We came out of the gully and down the hill to where he’d tied the ponies. They were still lying down.

  “What’ll happen to Wulfmeier on Starting Gate?” he asked while I wrestled the transmitter off Useless.

  “He’ll get fined for faking his location and disturbing land surface.”

  “But he was gatecrashing!”

  “He says he wasn’t. You heard him. There was something wrong with his gate. He’d have to have been drilling, trading, prospecting, or shooting luggage for Big Brother to confiscate his gate.”

  “What about those rocks he was giving Bult? That’s trading, isn’t it?”

  I shook my head. “He wasn’t giving them to Bult. He was asking if he’d ever seen anything like them. At least he wasn’t pouring oil on the ground and lighting it like the last time we caught him with Bult.”

  “But that’s prospecting!”

  “We can’t prove that either.”

  “So he gets fined, and then what?” Ev said.

  “He’ll scrounge up the money to pay the fines, probably from some other gatecrasher who wants to know where to look, and then he’ll try again. Up north, probably, now that he knows where we are.” Up in Sector 248-76, I thought.

  “And you can’t stop him?”

  “There are four people on this whole planet, and we’re supposed to be surveying it, not chasing after gatecrashers.”

  “But—”

  “Yeah. Sooner or later, there’ll be one we won’t catch. I’m not worried about Wulfmeier—the indidges don’t like him, and anything he gets he’ll have to find himself. But not all of the gatecrashers are scum. Most of them are people looking for a better place to starve, and sooner or later they’ll figure out where a silver mine is from our terrains, or they’ll talk the indidges into showing them an oil field. And it’ll be all over.”

  “But the government—what about the regs? What about—”

  “Preserving the indigenous culture and the natural ecology? Depends. Big Brother can’t stop a mining or drilling operation without sending forces, which means gates and buildings and people taking excursion trips to see the Wall, and forces to protect them, and pretty soon you’ve got Los Angeles.”

  “You said it depends,” Ev said. “On what?”

  “On what they find. If it’s big enough, Big Brother’ll come to get it himself.”

  “What’ll happen to the Boohteri?”

  “The same thing that always happens. Bult’s a smart operator, but not as smart as Big Brother. Which is why we’re putting the money from those out-of-stocks in the bank for him. So he’ll have a fighting chance.”

  I punched send. “Expedition calling King’s X. Come in, King’s X.” I grinned at Ev. “You know, there was something wrong with Wulfmeier’s gate.”

  C.J. came on, and I told her to send a message through the gate to Starting Gate and handed her over to Ev so he could fill her in on the details. “Fin was great!” he said. “You should have seen her!”

  Bult and Carson were back. Bult had his log out and was talking into it.

  “You find anything?” I said.

  “Holos of anticlines and diamond pipes. Couple cans of oil. A laser.”

  “What about the ore samples? Were they indigenous?”

  He shook his head. “Standard Earth samples.” He looked at Bult, who’d stopped tallying fines and was going up the hill to get his umbrella. “At least now we know why Bult was leading us down here.”

  “Maybe.” I frowned. “I got the idea he was just as surprised to see Wulfmeier as we were. And Wulfmeier was definitely surprised to see us.”

  “He’d probably told Bult to sneak off and meet him after dark,” he said. “Speaking of which, we’d better get going. I don’t want Wulfmeier to come back and find us sail here.”

  “He’s not coming back for a while,” I said. “He’s got a loose T-cable. It’ll fall off by the time he gets to Starting Gate.”

  He smiled. “I still want to make it to the other side of the Wall by tonight.”

  “If Bult’ll let us cross the Tongue,” I said.

  “Why wouldn’t he? He’s already had his conference with Wulfmeier.”

  “Maybe,” I said, but Bult didn’t go half a klom before he led the ponies across, and not a word about tssi mitss, e or otherwise, which shot my theory to pieces.

  “You know the best part about that scene back there with Wulfmeier?” Ev said as we splashed across and headed south again. “The way you and Carson worked together. It’s even better than on the pop-ups.”

  I’d watched that pop-up last night. We’d caught Wulfmeier threatening the accordion and come
out punching and kicking, lasers blazing.

  “You don’t even have to say anything. You both know what the other one’s thinking.” Ev gestured expansively. “On the pop-ups they show you working together, but this was like you were reading each other’s minds. You do what the other one wants you to do without even being told. It must be great to have a partner like that.”

  “Fin, where on hell do you think you’re going?” Carson said. He was off his pony and untying the cameras. “Stop jabbering about mating customs and come help me. Were camping here.”

  It wasn’t a bad place to camp, and Bult was back to fining us, or at least me, for every step I took, but I was still worried. Carson’s binocs disappeared again, and Bult paced back and forth between the three of us while we were setting up camp and eating supper, giving me murderous looks. After supper he disappeared.

  “Where’s Bult?” I asked Carson, looking out into the darkness for Bult’s umbrella.

  “Probably looking for diamond pipes,” Carson said, huddling next to the lantern. It was chilly again, and there were big clouds over the Ponypiles.

  I was still thinking about Bult. “Ev,” I asked, “do any of these species of yours get violent as part of their courtship rituals?”

  “Violent?” Ev said. “You mean, toward their mate? Bull zoes sometime accidently kill their mates during the mating dance, and spiders and praying mantis females eat the male alive.”

  “Like C.J.,” Carson said.

  “I was thinking more of violence against something else, to impress the female,” I said.

  “Predators sometimes kill prey to present to the female as a gift,” Ev said, “if you’d call that violence.”

  I would, especially if it meant Bult was leading us into a nibbler’s nest or over a cliff so he could dump our carcasses at his girlfriend’s feet.

  “Fahrrr,” Bult said, looming out of the darkness. He dumped a big pile of sticks in front of us. “Fahrrr,” he said to Carson, and squatted to light it with a chemical igniter. As soon as it was going, he disappeared again.

  “Rivalry among males is common in almost all mammals,” Ev said, “elephant seals, primates—” “Homo sap,” Carson said.

  “Homo sapiens,” Ev said, unruffled, “elk, woodcats. In a few cases they actually fight to the death, but in most it’s symbolic combat, designed to show the female who’s stronger, more virile, younger—”