The Book of the Ler

by M. A. Foster

  “I thought your wrists couldn’t take stress. And I thought you wouldn’t use anything that left the hand for a weapon.”

  “Well, for the first, I still have elbows, knees, feet and heels. And forearms are almost as good. And as for the other when that beast Hath’ingar shot at me and you, he removed any restraint I might have. It is open season on them now for me. I can commit atrocities if required.” She smiled with evident satisfaction. Han found it chilling.

  Their speed increased. Han was gradually descending in altitude as they drew away. Liszendir was watching the warship in the rear screen. Han asked her, “Can you find any thing on this shuttle that looks like it might be a power source?”

  “No. Nor have I felt any since we started. Do they have stuff that good, and they can’t fix that ship?”

  “I doubt it. I think these shuttles run off beamed power from the big ship. Probably a high-power microwave, using part of the echo from the shuttle to align itself. If this is true, we are going to run out of power in a few minutes, when the big one gets going.”

  “Ah! You may be right. The big one is moving now, off the ground and away, towards their own country. And one of their rocks . . . Han, it spiraled upwards right out of sight!”

  “Well, we can’t go any faster; I’ve got it on full power, now. If the ship is moving, we won’t get far away.”

  “They’re going to drop one of those rocks. Yes, the attackers are scattering, too. They know!”

  But their speed did not increase; on the contrary, it slowed appreciably and steadily, as the big ship drew away from them. Han said, over his shoulder, “Speed dropping now, and the controls feel mushy. Inverse square rule, power drops off. And the atmosphere may attenuate the beam signal strength, too.” He brought the shuttle lower as fast as he could, now. He didn’t know what would happen when the power went off for good. They seemed to crawl over the plains, now visible as being covered with a kind of grassy plant cover, golden in the harsh bright light. Time crawled, became infinitesimal in its pace.

  He looked around at the rear screen Liszendir was watching. The big ship was still visible, but it was now far away and at some altitude, receding fast. But it was still good; as long as it was in sight they still had a chance. Ahead of them, in their path, rose a grassy rise, a ridge line. The plains were not absolutely flat. They would probably make it.

  “I’m going to drop us behind those hills in front. If their aim is good with those meteors, we should be fairly safe there.”

  “They claimed to me that it was quite good, decreasing with speed, of course. Within ten miles of the target point for this kind of shot.”

  “Good. Now be ready. We may crash, after we drop behind the hills. It will cut off the signal.”

  In the rear screen, the ground rose as they put the ridge line between themselves and the big warship, now almost out of sight, fading in the very distant haze, not in apparent size. The warship dropped below the apparent horizon. Instantly, the control panel in the front went completely dead, and the shuttle dropped sickeningly in free fall, then braked, none too gently. They felt themselves gripped by a sudden force field, that faded even as they noticed it. Automatics. Then they fell free another few feet, and impacted. Han and Liszendir were shaken up and dazed, but there seemed to be no injuries.

  Liszendir looked up, glassy-eyed, from the floor. “What now? Can we run?”

  “Won’t do us any good. Just get free of the shuttle. It may roll about. Lie on the ground. Roll into a ball.”

  They helped each other up, and climbed out of the shuttle. It did not seem to be damaged in any way, other than some dents, which might have been there before. They ran a short distance, threw themselves on the ground, rolled up into balls, and waited. They didn’t wait long. There was a single bright flash from the zenith, followed instantly by a lurid quick glare near the point over the hill where the warship had been. Then they heard the shriek of rending air, and then a titanic sound that could not be described. The earth shook violently, opening small cracks all around them. Dust rose and hung in the air, close to the ground.

  Han looked up. “Now we wait for debris to fall. Keep an eye out. Chunks could come this far.”

  Liszendir got to her feet, looking into the sky, with an expression of disgust on her face. “That was truly obscene.”

  “I know. It’s a projectile weapon. I feel horror, too, even though I have no prohibitions such as yours.”

  “It is ultimate sin. I have seen evil.”

  Han got to his feet, and started for the hill. “Come on. I want to see what it did. Maybe someone made it.”

  She was obstinate. “No. I will not look. Go. I will wait. After all, where do I have to go?”

  Han started out for the top of the hill they had sheltered behind. It took a good half-run to get there. The clear air distorted distances even more than on Chalcedon. At the top of the rise, he stood panting and out of breath, gazing out on a scene of utter destruction. He felt dizzy. The air was very thin, he thought, too thin. He sat down, laboring for breath.

  Below, where the plains had stretched unmarked, yellow and clean, there was a crater. A large one. A huge cloud of dust and dirt obscured the impact zone and the crater, so he could not see fine details. Streaks radiated away from the crater, for several miles. The grass was on fire in places. He tried to guess the distance. He could not. The thin air gave no hint of depth. There were no marks by which he could judge. Guessing, he estimated about fifty miles. They were lucky. The projectile had probably been solid nickel-iron, a third of a cubic mile perhaps in volume, moving at higher than orbital speeds. They were indeed fortunate. Nothing moved, back on the plains.

  He returned to where Liszendir sat, with a puzzled look on her face, mingled with a trace of pain and fear. She had rifled the shuttle while he had been gone, and had the food bag with her. And the crossbow. And some blankets from one of the shuttle lockers. For the time, they would have some shelter and food.

  She spoke, as he came up, in a whisper. “Han, what are our chances now? You are the survivor, not me. I did it once, but it was by guess and I almost died of it. What is this place like? Where do we go?”

  He answered, “I don’t know.” Then he took a long look around them. The land was nearly featureless and flat, except toward the hill that had saved them, and in the direction of the mountains. The distant mountains stood quietly as Han inspected their outlines. Distant, deep blue with distance. They were high, high, even if they were only ten miles away. And he knew they were farther. He tested the air, glanced sideways towards the sun.

  “Without instruments, an atlas, knowledge? I know now only what my senses tell me. That is little enough.” He jumped up and down experimentally. “The gravity feels about right—about a little higher than a standard G, maybe 1.1 G. But the air is very thin.”

  “Yes. I noticed. I am not breathing well at all.”

  “This seems like a high plateau. Feels like around thirteen thousand to fifteen thousand feet, but with a higher oxygen content. Altiplano. Kadhyal to you, if you have any on Kenten. It will get cold at night. We can also expect altitude sickness, headaches, earaches, maybe vomiting. Respiratory bleeding. We will have to get off this plain to survive. I can see no way out, but towards the mountains. There may be a gap, or a canyon. But notice the snow on them. It only goes up so far. Above that, it’s naked rock. Those clouds you see on the lowest peaks and saddles are cirrus. They are high-altitude clouds—35,000 feet, in a gravity and an atmosphere near standard. Here, higher gravity, thicker atmosphere. I don’t have any idea. But they are very far away, and they are much higher than us. Miles higher. They may go up to sixty, seventy thousand feet equivalent. Higher. I know we cannot cross them on foot. But that way is our only chance. Mountains that high and that rough more often than not have a trough behind them, if they have a plain high up in front, like this. Continental edge. There should be a sea behind them.” He finished. He wanted to say more, but he couldn’t. He
was out of breath.

  Liszendir gazed at the mountains for a long time. She shaded her eyes, peering intently. “Yes, you are right. They are far away—many days for us. But I agree—it is the most reasonable way to start. I do not fancy walking out on that plain, not after the meteor. But notice how the sun moves. Already it is getting on into afternoon, and when we landed it seemed near noon. The day here must be very short. You can almost see the sun move.”

  “Don’t look at it! That blue tinge means ultraviolet. We can get a vicious sunburn, especially you. And it will burn your eyes out.”

  Resignedly, they covered themselves as well as they could, and, gathering up their few possessions, they started walking.

  “Walk slowly, Liszendir. Breathe deeply. We can’t hurry.”

  She smiled back at him. “Who’s hurrying?” She spoke cheerily, defiantly, but it was with effort. Han began to worry, it might be hard on her. He did not know how tolerant ler were to altitude. But he knew one thing about them. They never lived in extremely high places. Yes. It could be very hard on her.

  Nightfall was as abrupt as a door slamming, and they had not gotten very far by the time that it happened. And Liszendir had developed a headache. In the mountain wall ahead, Han had picked out a saddle, a notch in the gargantuan wall, which had a peculiar, easily recognizable shape, for reference. He wanted to see what kind of progress they were making, if any.

  They found some water. It was a murky trickling spring, with no apparent source, and the water sank back into the ground no great distance away. Han, smelled it, tasted it gingerly, and looked all around the area for slimes and iridescent deposits. There were none. They drank at its meager output for hours.

  The light behind the mountain wall across the world went to an indescribable color, a burning pearl-blue that hurt the eyes, then dimmed, darkened; and went out. After eating the food-concentrate pellets without enthusiasm, and without conversation, they made a shallow pit in the ground, and in it, partially covered and wrapped around each other for warmth and comfort, they settled in for the night. Liszendir was suffering. She gasped for air in deep breaths which were constant effort. Han enclosed her in his arms. He was feeling bad himself, extraordinarily tired, for no more than they had done; but it was not as bad as he had expected. The oxygen content must be high.

  The stars came out, shining with unusual brilliance and clarity, although even at the zenith, they sparkled and flickered like stars close to the horizon on more normal planets. Yes. A heavy, thick atmosphere, low in water vapor, high in oxygen. But they were utterly strange, and after the gentle, kindly nights of Chalcedon, hostile in their strangeness. And it was cold. He had been right—the temperature did indeed drop fast.

  They did not sleep well; nobody does with altitude sickness. The cold and the discomfort. Han was almost glad to see the sky brighten in the east after a short, seemingly too short, night. The sky first turned, without warning, so it seemed, a hot pearl color, then burning, then the piercing sun again. It was quick, brutal. He now understood why they called this planet “Dawn.” It was beautiful, in a hard way, like the glint of fire on blued steel. The temperature began warming up before the sun had completely cleared the flat horizon in the east. The foot of the mountains was masked in darkness.

  Liszendir was awake. She looked feverish and bedraggled, and admitted to little sleep either. The thin air was a slow torment. But stoically and quietly, they picked up their things and pressed on through the short day, west, straight for the mountains.

  Several times during the day they felt earthquakes; not severe ones, but large enough to notice. Liszendir noticed them, but said nothing. Han told her, “These mountains ahead, the high plateau, the earthquakes. We must be near the continental edge. If we can make it to the mountains, there must be a way through them, a gorge or canyon. On the other side, the altitude will drop down to something nearer sea level. There will be lower country on the other side, and maybe an ocean. All worlds have drifting continents—that’s what piles mountains up like those, it’s the only thing that could pile them up that high and that regularly north to south. The only thing that differs on various worlds is the rate at which they move around.”

  She nodded. She had heard and understood. They walked on.

  The mountains grew no bigger, not even by a little bit, and Han revised upwards his estimates of their altitudes, and the distances he and Liszendir would have yet to walk. They stopped early, too tired to continue until actual darkness. There was no water at this place; they ate listlessly and curled up together against the coming cold. Han took one last look around the featureless plains, and at the mountains. The sun was just dropping behind them.

  To the right, or north, of the notch he had marked the day before. Not a lot, not a great distance, but enough to be noticeable, and he knew that they could not have moved so far to the side of their route, north or south, to make that much of a difference. It was disturbing, but the answer was not apparent, so he filed the fact away, and lapsed into fitful sleep.

  Then there was the short night; which was followed by another day, which was very much like the one previous, clear and unmarked by weather of any sort. And another. And another. At first, it only became important whether they had water when they stopped for the night, but even this faded. They stopped talking. They ceased to notice any differences at all.

  But there was a difference, as the days passed endlessly and monotonously. The mountains were coming closer, and the plains were beginning to undulate in rolling hills; it was hard for them to go up the gentle slopes, but pure pleasure going down the western slopes, even though there was one more just like it just ahead, and just a little higher.

  They rationed the tasteless pellets as well as they could, for neither of them could visualize even the hungriest man bolting them down in an abandon of hunger. Yet, as well as they stretched them out, they knew they were drawing on their reserves, and Liszendir was showing severe weight loss; her face was becoming drawn and haggard, and Han thought she looked more worn than when she had stumbled into the market at Hobb’s Bazaar. Hobb’s Bazaar. It seemed years, ages in the past, in another time, remote as childhood, meaningless. The numbers of the days were meaningless as well—and the only realities were the amount of food concentrate remaining in the bag, and the distance to the mountains, which was now growing less, at last. Each evening, the violet shadows rising from the bases reached them sooner, earlier. And the sun was moving daily to the right, the north. Han’s mind was fogged. He knew that movement was significant, but somehow the connection always seemed just out of reach. The significance grew into suspicion, still unformed. He could not put it into words, but something deeper knew and told him that they must get off that plain and down; they were casting shadows at noon, shadows that fell to the south, and every day, they were a little longer, at noon. The earthquakes grew stronger and more frequent. And the mountains gleamed above them, now dominating the western half of the horizon, giant fangs raised skywards in a terrible rictus of defiance.

  At the end of the next day, they came, quietly and undramatically, to an enormous gash in the earth, which they did not see until they were almost upon it. The other side faded away into the violet haze of the evening shadows of the mountains, and could not clearly be made out. The far side merged into the tumbles of the foothills, imperceptibly. And below them it went down and down from the gentle break at the rim, the air growing misty toward the bottom, where they thought they could see the suggestion of a silver river, wearing away at the stone. They stood in the short twilight on the rim, looking down into the depths; the river, if there was one, seemed to flow to the south and the gorge seemed to trend back toward the mountains, although they could see no hint of break in the wall above them. Like everything else on Dawn, the gorge exceeded anything in their experience in sheer size. It matched the mountains well in scale.

  Liszendir looked downwards with shining eyes. “Air, that’s what I need. If I could just breathe ag
ain, I could go down there and die in peace.” Her voice was a croak.

  Han added, “And I as well. It will be enough, if we can just get down there.” His voice sounded even stranger to him.

  They started down immediately, not willing to spend even another night on the terrible high, cold plains. But despite the apparent gentleness of the upper slopes, the going down was not easy, for the distances were deceiving; and the slope soon became steeper. In the dark, under the stars, and for the first time with a restricted horizon, they stopped.

  Their distance per day dropped to almost nothing, but they moved steadily downwards. Each day the rim to the east rose higher, and the air grew fractionally denser and warmer, easier to breathe, and each night the shadows came earlier. And still they crawled down, down, making slow progress. But one thing had improved—they had water all the time, fresh water dripping from springs in the rocks. With water they could stretch the food concentrate even further. But it was showing on them. Han was gaunt and skeletal, but Liszendir was worse; and what bothered Han even more, now that he could think better in the denser air, was something he had noticed the last day, although he had dim recollections of it starting back on the high plains: Liszendir was starting to hallucinate and talk to herself.

  They ate the last of the Warrior’s food concentrate. There was enough for both of them to stretch two days, or eat it all and go as far as they could. They ate it all and threw the bag away, laughing. And far from being sad, they felt, as they ate, the closest thing to joy they had known since Chalcedon. And after they had eaten, Liszendir seemed to return to her senses. It was good—she had been babbling most of the afternoon about castles and the thirsty eye.