He checked to make sure that they were belted tightly into the webwork, closed the pod, and waited for the shuttle to lift off the ground.
Ay’r explained, “We go straight up, like a spore leaving the fungal tree. Then we find our bearing and move any way we want. I’ll be using my wrist connection.” He showed them how it matched an alloy disk on the inner wall of the T-pod. “But there’s manual control, too. See this lever?” He lifted the lightweight rod from the floor. “Move it forward and back slightly for those directions. Left and right slightly for those directions. But for going up and down, you push it forward more and back more. You ought to know how to use it, just in case something happens to me while we’re flying.”
“May I?” ’Dward reached eagerly for the lever to try it, just as Ay’r thought he would.
“Wait until we’re up.”
“They’re ascending!” ’Dward watched the shuttle lift until it was above them, ’Harles leaning across to speak to P’al, Alli piloting. It hung above the spot for a second, then darted over the land and out of sight.
“Now us,” Ay’r said.
As in all new things, ’Dward liked the sensation. Once they were above the ground, he seemed only slightly excited by it all, saying, “I’ve had dreams just like this.”
I'll wager you have, Ay’r thought, remembering his own flying dreams of adolescence. But he wondered. Since the seeded Humes on Pelagia were all derived from a society that had used T-pods for centuries and had flown since middle Metro.-Terran times, perhaps flying was part of their racial memory, which only needed prompting. If so, then many things ’Dward and Oudma would experience once they were off Pelagia in more developed areas of the galaxy should also exist in their racial memory, merely needing prompting. Which, if true, suggested they would fit in better than anyone thought. Perhaps that racial memory was the Aldebaran Five’s trump card in their plan for the eventual Consolidation of all seeded species.
Indeed, ’Dward handled the manual lever quite well after only a short practice. Ay’r “introduced” ’Dward and Oudma to the Fast’s mind, and soon ’Dward was talking to P’al – pod to shuttle – easily accepting the fact of long-distance communication, even though the shuttle was nowhere in sight.
Below them, the range of high, rugged mountains surrounding Pelagia’s southern promontory flattened into more rounded hills. The canopy of cloud that covered most of the continent began to reassert itself.
“Look down there!” ’Dward said. “Those gulches are wider and flatter. Soon we will be flying over Monosilla Valley!”
“If we can still see below,” Ay’r cautioned.
“Sometimes the canopy is thinner over Monosilla,” Oudma said.
Not this day. Within seconds, all below them was clouds, from the northern glaciers distantly glinting in sunlight to the southern mountains that rose at the ocean’s edge.
“No matter,” ’Dward said excitedly. “I know I’m up here.”
The canopy began to thin out after they turned northward, where another rugged range of mountains poked through the cloud cover.
“The Northern Mountains!” ’Harles could be heard through the communication. “I visited their foothills when I was ’Dward’s age. Soon we will come to the pass through which the Boglanders trekked. It leads to the Great Cold Swamp.”
The range seemed unbroken below, until Alli signaled that she was turning east. Only when Ay’r followed her lead did he notice a slightly wider cleft in the cordillera, and through it a spit of land descending rapidly and widening, as though one or more mountains had been shattered and had fallen into the surrounding ocean.
Ay’r remembered the Boglanders’ legends of how difficult that trek from a sunken land had been, and how steep the climb. Many hadn’t made it, had died there. As the T-pod turned, he said, “Now all you know is behind you.”
’Dward faced him but didn’t look back. “Good!” he said quietly, with determination. Oudma remained silent.
What ’Harles called the Great Cold Swamp became visible as they continued due east: its vast extent and strange mixture of land and water resembled an ecru lace shawl dropped carelessly upon the ocean, converting its expanse of cobalt blue into hundreds of smaller lakes, ponds, and lochs, each a different tint of white, gray, aqua or deep green, silver blue, or yellow gold.
“The first stop is near the northwestern edge,” the Fast’s mind said.
Although they had seen this continent before from the Fast’s holos, Ay’r and Oudma (and probably ’Dward, too, though he didn’t say anything) were amazed by its eerie beauty, by the ever-changing patterns of water and land beneath them, by how the dominant water was forced into bizarre shapes by the much sparser surrounding land, and tinted by as yet unknown factors in the soil or biota. At times it looked like sophisticated, richly designed hydrofarm terracing – similar, Alli Clark comm.ed, to those she had studied on New Venice and Procyon XI. Now she bemoaned the fact that it probably wouldn’t survive the results of the past night’s lunar conjunction to ever be used for nurturing populations. At other times, the land was so wildly and grotesquely chaotic that it could have resulted only from nature – or from natural calamity. ’Dward followed one long thread of enclosed water from their first, southwestern entry over the continent nearly to its northwestern exit some time later, and he swore that several other equally arabesque canals existed of the same length.
The Fast reported that it had lost one optical scout within the swamp and speculated that large, voracious fish lived in some larger pools, since its last view from the scout had apparently been a quickly dimming interior, like that of a gullet. Before that unfortunate event, however, the scout had reported, and the other scout was now corroborating, a similarity of land and waterscape which suggested that solid land – when available – would be no more than a few score meters in size and even then of dubious solidity. The Fast had sent the second scout toward the largest section of such land, from which a faint radiation seemed to be emanating.
“What do you think?” Ay’r communicated to the shuttle. “Should we go down to it?”
Alli hesitated. Then the Fast interrupted.
“The radiation I’m receiving appears to be ancient deuterium, with a rather long half-life. It might very well be of natural origin.”
“ Any signs of habitation?”
“None. Wait! The scout is picking up ruins. I’m making it stop and do a rapid thermoluminescence dating. The ruins seem to be either old or eroded.”
“What does the area look like?”
“Very overgrown. Some sort of mangrovelike tree without any branches or leaves. It appears to be all root, rising about four meters high.”
“Is that all the vegetation down there?”
“It’s the predominant life-form of the swamp. Wait, a minute, I’m getting thermoluminescence dating now. It’s not that old. Maybe three thousand to thirty-five hundred Pelagian years.”
“The original Boglanders!” Ay’r and Oudma exclaimed.
“I see no reason to stop here,” Alli Clark comm.ed.
“Not even for archaeological reasons?” Ay’r asked.
“Archaeology is well and fine. But we’re looking for a far more recent settlement,” she insisted. “Fast, what are the coordinates of the next spot?”
“Exactly fifty degrees East longitude, exactly fifty degrees North latitude,” the Fast reported.
“Now, that sounds more like it! I like to visit places that announce themselves by their position. Ay’r, if you want to look at that Boglander ruin, you’ve got a half an hour Sol Rad. Catch up with us at Fifty-Fifty.”
“Oudma?” Ay’r asked, already knowing that ’Dward’s answer would be yes. She, too, agreed. They remained in radio contact with the shuttle and Fast as Ay’r turned northward and began to descend. Soon the pod was skimming over sheets of mist, like yellow tatters thrown over the lacework of land and water. The water was assuming a more stable shade of pale green below, and darker gr
een where it was shadowed by mist. As the pod continued to slide downward, ’Dward spotted the larger area – almost an island. Ay’r saw the land itself become two-toned: a lighter hue of brown at the water’s edge, darker brown within. In the center of the large area they were aiming for, the lighter color predominated.
He pointed out his findings to both ’Dward and the Fast.
“I think the darker brown is the root-tree,” ’Dward offered and the Fast corroborated.
“Has your scout found any metal in those ruins?” Ay’r asked the Fast.
“I’ve sent it ahead to Fifty-Fifty to guide the shuttle. Do you want me to release another?”
“Don’t bother. We’ll be landing in a minute.”
“I’ll find a spot clear of those root-trees,” the Fast assured him, “yet not exactly in the middle. I’m not certain Humes ought to be so close to that deuterium.”
“Have you speculated what it could be?” Ay’r said. “That kind of oxystripped hydrogen molecule is associated with star birth. Have you correlated it to any possible supernovas in this sector from around that time?”
“That was exactly my fear, Ser Sanqq’. I see you haven’t forgotten your basic fusion astro-chemistry from Ed. and Dev.”
“We’re ready to land.”
The pod dropped through the sheets of yellow mist and hovered. The scene below was admittedly bleak with the greenish water out of sight. The dun-colored hummocky surface lay ahead and, surrounding it, the ubiquitous root-trees grew in grotesque shapes. Dozens of tall, woody-looking roots rose from the damp earth to support each knobby, misshapen trunk that, instead of rising upward and sprouting branches and foliage, turned in on itself and snaked along before dropping another dozen younger, sickly, whiter-looking roots; each root-tree intertwining the other, twisting around and sharing roots, becoming a deformed and stunted thicket.
The scene was even more discomfiting once the pod alit gingerly upon one of the mossy-looking hummocks that dotted the open area; the root-trees here were taller, some clumps rising four times a Hume’s height. Close up, they looked more impenetrable and far uglier, with their heavily gnarled bark and diseased-looking roots.
“The ruins are some twenty meters due north, in the direction the pod is facing,” the Fast said.
“Do you want to stay here?” Ay’r asked his passengers.
’Dward didn’t dignify the question with an answer. Oudma also unbelted. It almost seemed as though they were in silent competition with each other.
The pod’s front half opened, and the heavy, fetid air filled Ay’r’s nose and throat, making him cough.
Oudma said jauntily, “No worse than the Colley’s manure field at Monosilla.”
When they were out, the pod shut itself. “I can see the ruins from here!” ’Dward exclaimed.
“Stay near me,” Ay’r said. “Just to be on the safe side, I’m putting on a shield.”
They strode over hummocky stuff that seemed to be a lichen colony, much tougher and springier than in Dryland. It might have once been seaweed.
“Look! There!” ’Dward pointed to something tiny and skittering, and when Ay’r didn’t see it, ’Dward ran ahead and actually caught it and brought it back to him in his hands. “Some sort of creature with six legs. Yet not an insect!”
Not a mammal either, nor a lizard. More like a fish with that gaping piscine mouth. Its legs were more like flippers, or cartilage-thickened fins. It was panting through its gills.
“What could it be?” Oudma asked.
“A fish of some sort. A land-walking fish,” Ay’r said, as the creature suddenly jumped out of ’Dward’s palms and skittered away.
’Dward ran after it, but it was already deep within the roots of a root-tree when Ay’r and Oudma caught up. “Stay by me, or we’re returning to the pod!” Ay’r warned in a parental voice he regretted immediately.
“It’s harmless,” ’Dward replied in an expected aggrieved voice.
“We scared it,” Oudma said.
They bent down to get a closer look as the fishlike creature began to preen its gills with one flipper and sniff at the root stems where they disappeared into the damp ground.
“It sure is ugly!” ’Dward laughed.
As they were watching, one sickly white root dangling above suddenly shot down at a terrific speed and wrapped itself around the creature, lifting it off the ground and rotating the creature’s body to better entwine itself. Before they could do more than make sounds of amazement at the speed, the root’s growing point shoved itself into the creature’s mouth and down its gullet. They looked on in horror as the creature began to convulse, until its skin was broken through from within at a hundred points simultaneously along its body by fresh pointed shoots. The shoots grew out rapidly into an interlacing ball. Soon they formed a new single-pointed growing shoot, which turned downward and drove suddenly into the damp ground, diving deeply and so quickly that in seconds the fishlike creature was completely buried in damp silt.
They fell back, making sure they were nowhere near any of the roots.
’Dward’s face wore an expression of shock and disgust. Oudma had blanched. It was the first time Ay’r had seen ’Dward so frightened or Oudma so vulnerable, and he felt compassion for them both – compassion and a strong desire to protect them.
“Come!” He reached for ’Dward, who jumped at the light electromagnetic shield’s touch.
“Something terrible must have happened here a long time ago,” Oudma said quietly.
Hoping to counteract their fright, Ay’r said, “A tiny piece of an exploding sun may have fallen here more or less intact. And it devastated much. But worse than that, through its poisonous radiation, it seems to have transformed anything which was still alive into what we just saw.”
“Will all Dryland be like this in the future?” Oudma asked soberly.
“Possibly. If there’s any land left to it.”
Both remained silent. Ay’r knew he’d not succeeded in calming them.
“Perhaps you had better return to the pod,” Ay’r suggested, and this time Oudma agreed readily. Ay’r waited until she was belted in, then turned to ’Dward, who said with grim determination, “I’ll go with you.”
When they arrived at the ruins the Fast had guided them to, at least they had the benefit of its novelty to distract them from dark thoughts.
The ruins were a jumble of fallen and partly revealed stone ledges mostly hidden by the hummocky lichen colonies, yet they seemed far too large – at their exposed corners and broken edges – too enormous, really, for mere Boglanders to have constructed. From where had they quarried the stone? Nowhere within 1,000 kilometers, surely, unless quarries and mountains lay beneath this great swamp. Cold swamp, Ay’r reminded himself as he turned up the shield to block out the sudden chill he was beginning to feel. He gently cautioned ’Dward not to touch anything, but to look for any signs of carving on the ruined stones. This time ’Dward did not argue or defend himself, but did as he was told.
Ay’r was looking at one great chunk, trying to make out whether the pattern he saw was natural or caused by an intelligent hand when he thought he saw a sudden motion in his peripheral vision. He looked up. He was facing the way they had come. There was the T-pod, still closed upon its hummock. The root-trees were ominous behind. Nothing else. He went back to inspecting the stone.
A few minutes later, he again thought something moved, and again he looked up.
“What is it, Ay’r?”
“Nothing. Perhaps an illusion. Gases rising from the ground or –”
He saw it again and quite clearly now: the T-pod moved. Turned a bit and moved. How? Then he saw what he thought must be white roots sidling along the hummock. And Oudma was inside!
“Stay here, ’Dward! And don’t come unless I call you! Understand?”
’Dward looked frightened and perplexed, but he remained.
It was a five-minute Sol Rad. walk back to the T-pod and from halfway there, Ay�
�r saw the roots: two of them. One had begun to encircle the hummock upon which the pod sat, which was causing it to turn. The roots would never penetrate it, but they could certainly encircle it. He would have to get inside and fly it directly to the ruins. Or make it hover. Maybe they ought to just get out of here. Alli was right – again! – Eve take her!
He was only a half dozen meters from the T-pod. A third root approached his legs tentatively and, more out of disgust than fear, Ay’r stomped it into the ground. It dove in and didn’t come back out. The larger root had spun the pod around nearly ninety degrees and begun to pull it off the hummock, doubtless toward the root-trees that were already sending out snakes of fresh white roots to entangle it. Oudma must be very frightened now. He waved to her to remain where she was, hoping she wouldn’t panic. This would have to be close: he didn’t want any roots getting inside the pod.
As he calculated exactly how much time it would take, more roots suddenly appeared along the ground, sidling toward him, but cautiously, as though they knew what he had done to one. Could that be true? Were they all part of an intelligent living creature? Or at least a creature capable of learning from experience? What if all of this surrounding grotesque vegetation was one entity – single-brained, like an insect colony?
Suddenly Ay’r speculations were shattered by a hint of an odor: something sweet and very different, as though out of all this miasmic life a fresh orchid had bloomed suddenly. A second later, Ay’r remembered when he had last smelled that odor – in Bogland, just before the Gods’ T-pods had appeared.
He turned toward ’Dward, standing there among the ruins, unaware of anything. He had to warn ’Dward!
Ay’r had begun to shout ’Dward’s name when he heard the muffled, yet unmistakable buzzing of the Gods’ T-pods. He pointed up and shouted, until ’Dward seemed to realize what was happening and began running toward Ay’r.
In that second, Ay’r heard the distinct sounds of thumping from within the T-pod. Oudma was banging on the inside wall to get his attention. He turned to see the pod beginning to tip over. The bottom root had lifted it completely off the hummock, and several others shot out toward it, trying to gain a hold.
Dryland's End Page 44
