Here air masses thrust powerfully but slowly, too ponderous for high speed or sudden flaws, gusts, squalls. Here tide at its peak raised a hull above every rock and shoal except the highest-reaching; and, the period of Raksh being what it was, that tide would not change fast. An enormous steadiness surrounded the boat, enfolded it and bore it outward.
Not that there were no dangers! Regardless of how firm a control he had, it took a sailor who was better than good to work his way past reefs, fight clear of eddies and riptides, beat around regions against which the hovering man warned him.
Heaven was not leaden, it was silver. Lively little weather clouds caught the light of a half-hidden sun in flashes which gleamed off steel and violet hues beneath. The land that fell away aft was a many-colored lavishness of life; over the forest passed uncountable wings and a wander-song to answer the drumbeat of breakers ahead. The air blew full of salt and strength, it lulled, it whistled, it frolicked and kissed. To sail was to dance with the world.
Now came the barrier. Surf spouted blinding white. Its roar shook the bones. “Bear right!” O’Malley’s voice screamed from the transceiver. “You’ll miss the channel—bear right!” Starboard, Danny grinned, and put his helm down. He could see the passage, clear and inviting ahead. It was good to have counsel from above, but not really needed, in this place that was his.
He passed through, out onto the Gulf of Ardashir, which gives on the Uranian Ocean and thence on a world. Waves ran easily. The boat swayed in the long swell of them. So did the airbus, after O’Malley settled it down onto its pontoons. Still, this could be the trickiest part of the whole business, laying alongside and transferring freight. Danny gave himself the challenge.
When both vessels were linked, the man leaned out of his open cargo hatch and cried in glory, “We’ve done it!” After a moment, with no less joy; “I’m sorry. You have.”
“We have, Jack,” Danny said. “Now let me give you the instruments first. The motor’s going to be the very devil to shift across. We could lose it.”
“I think not. Once the chains are made fast, this winch can snatch along three times that load. But sure, let’s start with the lesser-weight items.”
Danny braced feet against the rolling and began to pass boxes over. O’Malley received them with some difficulty. Nevertheless, he received them. Once he remarked through wind and wave noise: “What a shame we can’t also take that remarkable boat back.”
Danny gazed at this work of his hands, then landward, and answered softly, “That’s all right. We’ll be back—here.”
PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN
After three hours of troubled sleep, Dan Coffin awoke to the same knowing: They haven’t called in.
Or, have they? his mind asked, and answered: Unlikely. I gave strict orders I be told whenever word came, whatever it was.
So Mary’s voice has not reached us since dusk. She’s lost, in danger. He forced himself to add: Or she’s dead.
Forever stilled, that joyousness that ran from the radio to him especially? “Remember, Dan, we’ve got a date exactly three tendays from now. ‘Bye till then. I’ll be waiting.” No!
Understanding it was useless, and thinking that he ought to get more rest, he left his bunk. The rug, a cerothere hide, felt scratchy under his bare feet, and the clay floor beyond was cold. The air did surround him with warmth and sound —trillings, croakings, the lapping of waves, and once from the woods a carnivore’s scream —but he hardly noticed. Paleness filled the windows. Otherwise his cabin was dark. He didn’t turn on a light to help him dress. When you spend a lot of time in the wilderness, you learn how to do things after sunset without a fluoropanel over your head.
Weariness ached in him, as if his very bones felt the drag of a fourth again Earth’s gravity. But that’s nonsense, he thought. His entire life had been spent on Rustum. No part of him had ever known Earth—except his chromosomes and the memories they bore of billionfold years of another evolution—I’m simply worn out from worrying,.
When he trod outside, a breeze ruffled his hair (as Mary’s fingers had done) and its coolness seemed to renew his strength. Or maybe that came from the odors it brought, fragrances of soil and water and hastening growth. He filled his lungs, leaned back against the rough solidity of walls, and tried to inhale serenity from this, his homeland. A few thousand human beings, isolated on a world that had not bred their race, must needs be wary. Yet did they sometimes make such a habit of it that there could be no peace for them ever?
The two dozen buildings of the station, not only the log shelters like his own but the newer metal-and-plastic prefabs, seemed a part of the landscape, unless they were simply lost in its immensity. Behind them, pastures and grainfields reached wanly to a towering black wall of forest. Before them, Lake Moondance murmured and sheened to a half-seen horizon; and above that world-edge soared mountains, climbing and climbing until their tiers were lost in the cloud deck.
The middle of heaven was clear, though, as often happened on summer nights. Both satellites were aloft there. Raksh was nearly at maximum distance, a tiny copper sickle, while Sohrab never showed much more than a spark. The light thus came chiefly from natural sky-glow and stars. Those last were more sharp and multitudinous than was usual when you looked up through the thick lowland air. Dan could even pick out Sol among them. Two sister planets glowed bright enough to cast glades on the lake, and Sohrab’s image skipped upon it as swiftly as the moonlet flew.
It’s almost like a night on High America, Dan thought. The memory of walking beneath upland skies, Mary Lochaber at his side, stabbed him. He hurried toward the radio shack.
No one ordinarily stood watch there, but whoever was on patrol—against catlings, genghis ants, or less foreseeable emergency makers —checked it from time to time to see if any messages had come in. Dan stared at the register dial. Yes! Half an hour ago! His finger stabbed the playback button. “Weather Center calling/’ said a voice from Anchor. “Hello, Moondance. Look, we’ve got indications of a storm front building off the Uranian coast, but we need to check a wider area. Can you take some local readings for us?” He didn’t hear the rest. Sickness rose in his throat.
A footfall pulled him back to here and now. He whirled rather than turned. Startled, Eva Spain stepped from the threshold. For a moment, in the dim illumination of its interior, they confronted each other.
“Oh!” She tried to laugh. “I’m not an urso hunting his dinner, Dan. Honest, I’m not.”
“What are you after, then?” he snapped.
If that were Mary, tall and slim, hair like sunlight, standing against the darkness in the door—It was only Eva. In the same coarse coveralls as him, with the same knife and pistol—tools—at her belt, she likewise needed no reduction helmet on her red-tressed, snub-nosed, freckle-faced head. Also like him, she was of stocky build, though she lacked the share of Oriental genes that made his locks dark, cheekbones high, skin tawny. And she had a few years less than he did, whereas Mary was of his age. That didn’t matter; they were all young. What mattered was that this was not Mary.
Now don’t blame Eva for that, Dan told himself. She’s good people. He recalled that for a long while, practically since they met, everybody seemed to take for granted that in due course they would marry. He couldn’t ask for a better wife, from a practical viewpoint.
Practicality be damned.
Her eyes, large and green, blinked; he saw light reflected off tears. Yet she answered him stiffly: “I could inquire the same of you. Except I’d be more polite about it.”
Dan swallowed. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude.”
She eased a little, stepped close and patted his hand. Her palm was not as hard as his; she was a biologist, not an explorer who had lately begun farming on the side. Nevertheless he felt callouses left by the gear and animal harness that every low-lander must use.
(Mary’s touch was soft. Not that she was an idler. Even on High America, survival required that every healthy adult wo
rk, and she did a competent job of keeping the hospital records. But she never had to cut brush, midwife a cow, cook on a wood fire for a campful of loggers, dress an animal she herself had shot and cure its hide. Such was lowlander labor, and it would be death for Highland Mary to try, even as it was death for her to be long marooned in the wilderness around Lake Moondance.)
“Sure,” Eva said gently, “I understand. You’ve fretted your nerves raw.”
“What does bring you here at this hour?”
“The same as you.” She frowned. “Do you think I’m not concerned? Bill Svoboda and the Loch-abers, they’re my friends as well as yours.”
Dan struck fist in palm, again and again. “What can we do?”
“Start a search.”
“Yes. One wretched little aircar available, to scout over how many thousands of square kilometers? It’d take days to assemble a fleet of vehicles. They haven’t got days. Bill does, maybe, but Mary and Ralph… very possibly don’t.”
“Why not? If their helmets are intact——”
“You haven’t seen as many cases as I have. It takes a pretty strong man, with considerable training, to wear one of those rigs almost constantly. When your own chest expansion has to power the reduction pump—the ordinary person can’t sleep in one of them. That, and sheer muscular exhaustion, make the body extra vulnerable to pressure intoxication, when the victim takes the helmet off so he can rest.”
Dan had spoken in a quick, harsh monotone. Eva replied less grimly: “They can’t be any old where. They were homebound, after all.”
“But you know they, the Lochabers, they wanted to see more of the countryside, and Bill promised he’d cruise them around. They’d’ve been zigzagging the whole way. They could have landed at random, as far as we’re concerned, for a closer look at something, and come to grief. Even if we pass near, treetops or crags or mists can hide their vehicle from us.”
“I’m aware that this is a rather large and not especially mapped country.” Eva’s response was dry. It broke into anger. She stamped her foot. “Why are you moping around like this? Dan Coffin, the great discoverer! Won’t you try?”
He hit back indignation of his own. “I intend to start at dawn. I assure you it’s no use flying at night, it’s a waste of fuel. Light-amplifier systems lose too much detail, in that complicated viewfield where the smallest trace may the one that counts. The odds are astronomical against chancing in sight of a beacon fire or in metal-detector range or——” He slumped. “Oh, God, Eva, why am I being sarcastic? You’ve flown more than I have. It’s so huge a territory, that’s all. If I had the slightest clue——”
Once more her manner mildened. “Of course.” Slowly: “Could we maybe have such a lead? Some faint indication that they might have headed one way rather than another? Did Mary—did Mary tell you she was especially interested in seeing some particular sight?”
“Well, the geysers at Ahriman,” he said in his wretchedness. “But the last call-in we got from them was that they’d visited this and were about to proceed elsewhere.”
“True. I’ve played back that tape a few times myself.”
“Maybe you put an idea into their heads. Eva? You saw considerable of them, too, while they were here.”
“So I did. I chatted about a lot of our natural wonders. Ralph’s fascinated by the giant species.” She sighed. “I offered to find him a herd of tera-saur. We flew to Ironwood where one had been reported, but it had moved on northward, the trail was clear but there was a thunderstorm ahead. I had ;rouble convincing Ralph how foolish we’d be to fly near that weather. Just because lowland air currents are slow, those High Americans always seem to think they lack force…. No, Ralph’s bright, he knows better; but he does have a reckless streak. Why am I rambling? We——”
She broke off. Dan had stiffened where he stood. “What is it?” she whispered.
“That could be the clue we need.” The night wind boomed under his words.
“What?” She seized him by the wrist. Only afterward did he notice that her nails had broken his skin.
“Terasaur—they migrate upward in summer, you know. Bill could’ve promised to locate a herd for the Lochabers, maybe the same herd you failed to see. Their tracks are easy enough to spot from above—” He grabbed her to him. “You’re wonderful! It may turn out to be a false lead, but right now it is a lead and that’s plenty. Come daybreak, I’m on my way!”
Tears broke from her, though her voice stayed level. “I’m coming along. You may need help.”
“What? I’ll take a partner, certainly——”
“The partner will be me. I can pilot a car, shoot a gun, or treat an injury as well as anybody else. And haven’t I earned the right?”
In the several years of his career as an explorer, Dan Coffin had often returned to High America. Not only did the scientists and planners want the information he gathered about this planet that they hoped to people with their descendants; but he himself must discuss further expeditions and arrange for equipping them. Moreover, he had family and friends there.
Additionally, at first, he found refreshment of both body and spirit in the land. High America rose above the cloud deck that covered most of Rustum most of the time; its skies were usually clear, its winters knew snow and its summers cool breezes through their warmth. Compared to the low country, it was almost like Earth.
Or so he imagined, until gradually he began to wonder. He had gotten a standard teaching about the variations. The sun was smaller in Earth’s sky though somewhat more intense, its light more yellowish than orangy. Earth took one-point-seven years to complete a circuit around Sol, but spun on its axis in a mere twenty-four hours. There was a single moon, gigantic but sufficiently far off that it showed half the disc that Raksh did and took about eleven days (about thirty Earth-days) for a cycle of phases. Dan Coffin, who weighed a hundred kilos here, would weigh eighty on Earth. The basic biologies of the two worlds were similar but not identical, for instance, leaves yonder were pure green, no blue tinge in their color, and never brown or yellow except when dying….
Searching his memories, then asking questions carefully framed, he came to realize how poorly the older people—even those who had grown to adulthood on Earth, and even when helped by books and films—were able to convey to him some sense of what the mother globe really was like. Did the differences add up to such alienness that they themselves could no longer quite imagine it? And if this was true, what about the younger folk, the Rustumites born? And what about the children whom they in turn were starting to have?
So did Dan Coffin really need High America?
Most humans absolutely did, of course. The air pressure at lower altitudes was too much for them, made them ill if they were exposed more than very briefly, eventually killed them. But his body could take it, actually thrive on it. In fact, on each return he missed more keenly the high-metabolism vigor that was his down below, the clarity of sound and richness of smells. Besides, High America was too damn cramped. Oh, there was still a lot of fallow real estate; but the future belonged to those who could settle the lowlands. Already the whole wild, beautiful, mysterious, limitlessly beckoning surface of the world was theirs.
He continued to enjoy his visits as a change of pace, a chance to meet people, savor the civilized amenities, roister a bit in what few establishments Anchor supported for that purpose. Yet it was always good to get back to Moondance. This became especially true after Eva Spain arrived there.
Like him, she had been an exogenetic baby, her parentage selected with a view to tolerance of dense air. The result was equally satisfactory for her. He and she could both descend to sea level in comfort, which made them natural partners. Most of those who were beginning to settle the lowlands did not care to go that far down; Moondance station was at two kilometers altitude. Eventually, man as a whole would be able to live anywhere on the planet. That evolution wouldn’t take a dreadfully long time, either: because the few who now had full freedom were sure to
have a disproportionate share in the heredity.
Dan and Eva… they worked well together, liked each other, there was no burning romance but there was a growing attraction and certainly a marriage would make excellent sense from every standpoint. But then, for the first time since school days, he encountered Mary Lochaber.
This near summer solstice, at this middle latitude, daylight would endure for about forty-two hours. The searchers intended to lose none of them. Their aircar was aloft before the first eastward paling of the clouds.
Those had again covered the sky. Dan remembered Mary wondering how he could endure such almost perpetual gloom. “It’s not like that at all,” he answered. “Still another thing you ought to experience for yourself.”
Finally she had come, and—His knuckles stood white on the controls.
Eva turned her eyes from the forest. Beneath silver-bright heaven, in the absence of clear shadows, its treetop hues were an infinitely subtle and changeable intermingling. Their endlessness was broken by the upheaval of a plutonic tor, the flash of a waterfall and a great river, the splendid northward climbing of the entire land. Kilometers away, uncountable birds moved like a storm.
“You really are suffering, aren’t you?” she asked quietly.
He heard his own voice, rough and uneven: “I used to revel in the sheer bigness of the country. Now, when we have to find one speck that’s gotten lost somewhere, it’s horrible.”
“Don’t let it get to you that way, Dan. Either we learn to live with the fact of death—here—or we can never be happy.”
He recalled the tidal cross-chop that had capsized their boat when they were taking biological samples off the Hephaestian coast. Half-stunned, he might have drowned if she hadn’t come to his aid. Toshiro Hirayama, who had been like a brother to both of them, was indeed lost. The rest of the crew clung to the keel for hours before a rescue flyer found them. She got back her merriment as fast as any of the others. Nevertheless she still laid a wreath now and then before Toshiro’s little cenotaph.
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