The taste is still bitter.
Oar took care of me in her way: alternating between earnest attempts to comfort me and annoyed impatience when I wouldn’t “stop being foolish.” Sometimes she would storm off, calling me a stupid fucking Explorer who was very, very boring. Later she would come back and hold me, rocking me in her arms as she searched for words to bring me back from wherever I was. She fed me; she told me when I had to wash; she slept beside me after I fell into bed from exhaustion.
When I awoke the fourth day…I won’t say I was better or over my breakdown, because that makes me sound stronger than I was. I felt as fragile as an eggshell; but a tiny part of me was ready again for the future.
By the time Oar woke up, I was rewatching the broadcast from Chee and Seele. This time, I paid attention to the maps.
Geography
As I had seen from space, the lower half of this continent was a wide prairie basin, bounded to the south by an arc of mountains and to the north by the three-lake chain stretching well into the heartland. The more I thought about the layout, the more it reminded me of Old Earth’s North America: the Great Lakes in the middle of the continent with forest-covered shield to the north and grassy plains to the south. The parallels weren’t exact, but they were disturbing, as if someone had superimposed Earth’s ecology onto another planet’s plate tectonics.
In terrestrial terms, I was close to the south shore of the lowermost Great Lake—call it Lake Erie—and the city Chee and Seele described lay several hundred klicks to the south, somewhere in the mountains along the “Caribbean” coast.
The trip from here to there looked suspiciously simple. The region immediately below the lake had a good growth of forest (slightly thinned by Oar); but a few days travel would bring me to open grassland, and from there it was an easy walk all the way to my destination.
No doubt there would be difficulties—rivers to cross, wild animals to avoid—and winter could start snowing down in a few weeks. By then, however, I’d be substantially closer to the equator. If Melaquin’s weather patterns were comparable to Earth’s, I might miss the snow entirely.
As the broadcast ended, I finished scribbling in my notebook: Seele’s description of how to find the entrance to the subterranean city. Between now and the next broadcast, I would check the best food synthesizer Jelca left behind and get the rest of my gear together. Then I’d listen to the loop one more time to make sure I had all the details correctly. Within an hour, I’d be ready to head south…except for one loose end.
“You are writing, Festina,” Oar said. “Does that mean you are no longer crazed?”
Seeing the World
“When you are crazed,” Oar continued, “you are a very boring person, Festina. You nearly drove me to lie down with my ancestors forever and ever.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” I told her. “I still feel three quarters crazed, but at least I’ve cried myself out. How are you?”
“I am not such a person as has difficulties,” she answered, “except when you fucking Explorers make me bored or sad.”
“Lucky you,” I murmured.
She gave me a look of wounded dignity.
“All right,” I sighed, “let’s talk about important matters. Have you ever wanted to see the world?”
“I can see the world now, Festina. It is not invisible.”
“See more of the world. How far have you traveled from your home here?”
“As far as far.” She lowered her eyes. “When the other Explorers left with my sister—for some time I was crazed like you. Later, I tried to follow them; perhaps I was crazed then too. I walked for many days in the direction they had gone, until finally I came to a river that was very wide and deep. It was not such a river as I could cross, but I tried anyway. That is how I know what drowning is like, Festina. It is very unpleasant. I was lucky the river had a strong current—it carried my body along till I washed up on shore. The same shore I left. I thought about trying to cross again, but I lacked the courage.”
She glanced up quickly, as if to check whether I was sneering at her as a coward. “You made a wise decision,” I assured her.
“I did not feel wise. I felt sad and lonely. I sat on the bank of that river for many days, wondering how my sister got across. We are not such creatures as swim. But perhaps Explorer Jelca pulled her through the water, just as you pulled me out of the lake. He might have wrapped his arms around her and helped her away.”
For a moment or two, we both brooded silently over that mental image.
My Native Guide
“All right,” I said at last, “you’ve traveled before. Would you like to do it again?”
“What do you mean, Festina?”
“I know where Jelca and Ullis went. I want to go there too, and I’d like you to come with me. My native guide.”
“We would see Explorer Jelca?”
“And Ullis and your sister,” I added, too sharply. “What’s your sister’s name anyway?”
“I call her Eel,” Oar answered. “An eel is an unpleasant kind of fish.”
“Is that her real name?” I asked suspiciously.
“Yes,” Oar replied. In a lower voice she added, “At one time, I did not think eel-fish were so bad.”
I hid a smile. “Would you like to go with me, Oar? I could use your help.”
“Is that true? I would be helpful to an Explorer?”
“Absolutely. You’ve helped me the past few days, haven’t you?”
“That is different, Festina—you were crazed. Now that you are an Explorer again, you are not such a person as needs help from me.”
I looked at her closely. Her head was lowered, her posture crumpled. Hesitantly, I patted her shoulder; today, her skin felt cool under my fingers. “The other Explorers made you feel useless…is that it?”
“You do too, Festina.” She didn’t lift her head. “You know many clever things. Even when you are being stupid, you make me fear I am the one who does not understand. You can swim and make fires; you can use your seeing machine. And you know the names of plants and animals—you talked about them when you were crazed. I have lived here all my life and do not know such names. You know more about my world than I do.” Suddenly, she raised her eyes and looked straight at me. “How do you think I will help you, Festina? Do you just need someone for bed games? That is the only thing Explorers do not like to do by themselves.”
“Oar…” When I met Jelca, he was going to have a lot of explaining to do. “Oar, I need you to help carry things. It’s not glamorous, but it’s important—you’re much stronger than I am. And I’ll teach you other things as we go along. Besides,” I added, “I’ll be lonely and sad if I go on my own. I need company, and I’d like it to be you.”
“Festina,” Oar said, “are you telling the truth? Maybe you just feel bad about going away, and you say, ‘Come along, Oar,’ because you are sorry for me. I do not want to burden you, Festina. It is sad being alone, but it is worse being with someone who hates you.”
“I don’t hate you now, and I won’t hate you ever. Listen, Oar. If I went without you, I’d be alone with my thoughts for weeks on end. I couldn’t stand that—not right now. With you along, I’ll stay sane…probably moody as hell, but I’ll cope. Besides, Explorers never set out alone if they can help it. Solo missions are a hundred times more dangerous than taking a partner.”
Oar’s face brightened. “I will be your partner? Your real partner?”
I closed my eyes against a stab of heartache. Oh God, Yarrun! I thought. But he would be the first to tell me, Let go, let go. “Yes,” I said, “you’ll be my new partner…if you want to be.”
She leapt forward and seized me in a bear hug so fierce it had a serious potential for cracking my ribs. I might have been squeezed to a pulp if a sudden thought hadn’t struck her. Releasing her grip, she stepped back a pace and asked, “Now that I am an Explorer, do I have to make myself ugly?”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.<
br />
Part XI
TRAVEL
Weeds Transformed
Riding back to the beach in Oar’s glass coffin was more pleasant than my previous trip. This time there was a hint of brownish green light, dimmed by fathoms of water but enough to show where the boat was going. I lay on my stomach and looked through the forward wall, watching for fish crossing the bow. There were several collisions on the trip—smallmouth bass who glanced off and scuttled away in terror—but the thumps of impact weren’t so loud when I knew they were coming.
The boat opened up as soon as it landed, and I hurried to unload the equipment I’d been lying on: my pack, the Bumbler, and Jelca’s food synthesizer. The last was a heavy brute—it took all my strength to wrestle it out of the boat, even using the carrying straps that I’d attached to it. If I carried the machine myself, I’d only manage a few klicks a day before dropping from exhaustion. Oar, however, claimed to have no trouble hauling such a weight. When her ancestors engineered themselves transparent and immortal, they’d obviously thrown in the strength of gorillas as a bonus.
And Oar felt inferior to me?
After two minutes, the boat closed itself and slipped back into the lake, returning underwater to pick up Oar. In the meantime, I busied myself testing the food synthesizer. If it didn’t work, we’d still press on with our trip—I could shoot game with my stunner, or forage for nuts and berries—but spending time as hunter-gatherers would reduce the distance we could travel in a day, and increase our chance of being caught by winter. Added to that, I preferred not to eat local flora and fauna. Everything might look like Earth species, but they still could turn out poisonous. Even if they were fully terrestrial, that was no guarantee of safety. What if I cooked a rabbit for supper and later found it had rabies?
Since the synthesizer was solar-powered, I set it in the sun and loaded the hopper with weeds from the face of the bluffs. Grinders whirred immediately, turning the plants to puree: a good sign. There was no way to guess how long the machine needed to do its job, breaking the weeds into basic aminos, then reassembling the components into edible blobs: maybe five minutes, maybe several hours. In the meantime, the day was fresh, and placidly warm outside the shadow of the bluffs. I took off my top to air after wearing it four days straight…or perhaps just to feel the autumn sun on my skin.
For a few minutes, I had the planet to myself.
Alone
I had never been alone before…not in this specific way. Often I had been one of only two sentient creatures on a planet—the other being Yarrun, of course. But a planet-down mission was different, with goals to accomplish, checklists to work through, and a shipload of Vac personnel listening to your transmissions. Even as a little girl, I never felt truly alone. I was constantly accompanied by responsibility: the schoolwork heaped upon potential Explorers from the age of three, plus the chores I had to do on the farm. Now and then, our family took vacations; now and then, I played hooky or ran off to sulk in “secret hiding places” my parents likely knew from their own childhoods. But wherever I went, I was shadowed by what was expected of me. You don’t free yourself from duty by running away. That only increases the weight on your shoulders.
Now, I was free—forcibly cut loose. If I stayed on this beach forever, what difference would it make? How would anything change? Jelca wasn’t expecting me. He might not even be glad to see me: just some kid who made a spectacle of herself, mooning after him at the Academy.
Ullis would be happy if I showed up—we got along well as roommates. Even so, I remembered one night in the dorm, when she complained after hours of study, “Who cares about zoology, Festina? Cataloguing animals is as pointless as stamp collecting. There’s only one classification system that interests me: things that can kill and things that can’t.” Even as Ullis hugged and welcomed me, she might be thinking, A zoology specialist…why couldn’t it be someone with useful skills?
Why force myself on them? It might be better just to lie in the sun. I could keep Oar company, and give her English lessons till she felt brave enough to use a contraction.
And then what, Festina? Help clear fields to prove you’re both civilized? Play “bed games” with her out of sheer boredom? Endure it as long as you can, then go lie down with her ancestors? That would be a vicious way to die: withering up with radiation sickness, while the glass folk around you fed on the rays.
“I’m an Explorer,” I said aloud. The words had no portentous echo—they were just words, spoken as waves lapped the shore and bushes rustled in the breeze.
I touched my cheek. “I’m an Explorer,” I repeated.
As a duty, it was stupid; but as an open opportunity….
Some maudlin urge made me want to address a speech to Yarrun—an apology and a promise. But the only phrases in my mind were too banal to voice.
The sun continued to beam warmly on my skin. A gull launched itself from the top of the bluffs and I watched it soar into the cloudless sky.
Oar’s Axe
Ten minutes later, Oar’s boat slid onto the sand. She stepped out, and with rehearsed casualness, swung a gloss-silver axe onto her shoulder. It looked deadly heavy, but not metallic—perhaps plastic, perhaps ceramic. Whatever it was, I’d bet my favorite egg the blade was sharp enough to shave a balloon; a culture that could make a see-through woman could certainly produce a monofoil cutting edge.
“On our trip,” Oar announced, “we should clear trees now and then. Then we can tell the Explorers we traveled in a civilized way.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “When Jelca taught you our language, he never explained the word ‘ecology.’”
Oar Food
Before I could lecture Oar on environmentalism, the food synthesizer gave a subdued chirp. I looked at my watch: eighteen minutes since I pressed the machine’s on button. Jelca might be lax on conservation, but he made admirably efficient gadgets.
When I opened the drawer at the bottom of the synthesizer, it contained two dozen blobs of jelly, each the size of my thumb. They came in several shades: light pink, frost green, and dull brown, with a few clear colorless ones too. I lifted a pink blob and smelled it; the fragrance was generically fruity, like cheap candy that simply tastes red.
“What are those, Festina?” Oar asked.
“Food.”
Her nose wrinkled skeptically. “Explorer food?”
“And Oar food.”
During my three days of breakdown, Oar had fetched us both food from the big village synthesizer, so I knew what she usually ate. Most dishes had the shape of common terrestrial foods—noodles, wafers, soups—but of course, each morsel looked like glass. The jellylike output from Jelca’s synthesizer was at least translucent; but I had to admit it didn’t resemble Oar’s normal cuisine.
“Try that clear one there,” I pointed. “I’ll bet it tastes good.”
“I cannot put that in my mouth,” she objected. “It has touched the green one. It is dirty!”
“This is special food,” I said. “It doesn’t get dirty.” I took the clear blob myself, making sure it hadn’t picked up any color from adjacent blobs. “See? It’s pretty.”
“Now you’re touching it.”
“My hands are clean…and my skin color doesn’t rub off, you know that. Otherwise, you’d be smeared and smudged yourself.”
She didn’t look convinced.
“Oar,” I said, “if you don’t like food from the synthesizer, what are you going to eat? Do you want me to kill animals for you? Or rip up plants I think might be edible? Do you want to eat raw fish? Or bright red raspberries?”
Her eyes widened in horror. “I will try machine food,” she said quickly, and plucked the clear jelly from my hand. With the get-it-over-quick air of a woman taking medicine, she plopped the blob in her mouth, and swallowed without chewing…as if she was hurrying to get it down before the taste made her gag.
Seconds ticked by silently. “How was it?” I asked.
“I do not know,” she answered.
“I shall wait to see if I become sick.”
Good enough, I told myself. If I could eat her food, she could probably eat mine; but let her work up to it gradually. In the meantime, the sun was bright—she could photosynthesize, like her ancestors back in the village.
“We’re ready,” I said. “Let’s head south.”
We Begin
Our climb up the bluffs proved Oar had ample strength to carry the synthesizer—with it strapped to her back, she walked as if its weight were barely there. I worried the straps might chafe her bare shoulders; but as time passed without a peep of complaint, I concluded her skin really was as tough as glass…and hardened safety glass at that.
From the top of the bluffs, our way south ran into the wooded ravine. I veered off the most direct route to avoid passing the log that held Yarrun’s corpse; instead, I led Oar along the ravine’s spindly stream, traveling southeast according to my compass. Walking wasn’t easy—undergrowth tangled thickly along the stream bank—but I stuck with it for ten minutes, till we were far past my partner’s shabby burial site. Then we turned due south again, climbing out of the ravine and into more level woodland.
For a long time after that, I still made wide detours around any logs that lay in our path.
Walking (Part 1)
Here is what I remember from that first day.
The peaceful stillness of the forest…and sudden compulsions to break that silence, babbling trivialities to cover the noise of guilt in my brain.
The League of Peoples Page 16
