on the holes and bled the reserve tank for a fresh atmosphere. Only then
did he sit down, gasp, shudder, and finally wet his mummy-dry mouth from
the water tube.
Afterward he was able to examine the dead bugs. Throwing a couple of
them into his pack, he resumed climbing. From the top of the ringwall he
discerned the wrecked flyer and slanted across talus and ice patches to
reach it. The crash had pretty well fractured it to bits, which
facilitated study. He collected a few specimen parts and returned to
Jake.
The trip was made in a growingly grim silence, which he scarcely broke
when he re-entered the boat. Aloneness and not knowing had ground Djana
down. She sped to welcome him. He gave her a perfunctory kiss, demanded
food and a large pot of coffee, and brushed past her on his way to the
workshop.
VII
—
They had about 200 kilometers to go. That was the distance, according to
the maps Flandry had made in orbit, from the scoutboat’s resting place
to a peak so high that a transmission from it would be line-of-sight
with some of the towering radio transceiver masts he had observed at
varying separations from the old computer centrum.
“We don’t want to get closer than we must,” he explained to the girl.
“We want plenty of room for running, if we find out that operations have
been taken over by something that eats people.”
She swallowed. “Where could we run to?”
“That’s a good question. But I won’t lie down and die gracefully. I’m
far too cowardly for that.”
She didn’t respond to his smile. He hoped she hadn’t taken his remark
literally, even though it contained a fair amount of truth.
The trip could be shortened by crossing two intervening maria. Flandry
refused. “I prefer to skulk,” he said, laving out a circuitous path
through foothills and a mountain range that offered hiding places. While
it would often make the going tough, and Djana was inexperienced and not
in training, and they would be burdened with Ammon’s supplies and
planetside gear, he hoped they could average thirty or forty kilometers
per twenty-four hours. A pitiful few factors worked in their favor.
There was the mild gravity and the absence of rivers to ford and brush
to struggle through. There was the probably steady weather. Since
Wayland always turned the same face to Regin, there was continuous
daylight for the span of their journey, except at high noon when the
planet would eclipse Mimir. There was an ample supply of stimulants.
And, Flandry reflected, it helps to travel scared.
He decreed a final decent meal before departure, and music and
lovemaking and a good sleep while the boat’s sensors kept watch. The
party fell rather flat; Djana was too conscious that this might be the
last time. Flandry made no reproaches. He did dismiss any vague ideas he
might have entertained about trying for a long-term liaison with her.
They loaded up and marched. More accurately, they scrambled, across the
crater wall and into a stretch of sharp hills and wind-polished slippery
glaciers. Flandry allowed ten minutes’ rest per hour. He spent most of
those periods with map, gyrocompass, and sextant, making sure they were
still headed right. When Djana declared she could do no more, he said
calculatedly, “Yes, I understand; you’re no use off your back.” She spat
her rage and jumped to her feet.
I mustn’t drive her too hard, Flandry realized. Gradual strengthening
will get us where we’re going faster. In fact, without that she might
not make it at all.
Does that matter?
Yes, it does, I can’t abandon her.
Why not? She’d do the same for me.
Um-m-m … I don’t know exactly why … let’s say that in spite of
everything, she’s a woman. Waste not, want not.
When she did begin reeling as she walked, he agreed to pitch camp and
did most of the chores alone.
First he selected a spot beneath an overhanging cliff. “So our winged
chums won’t see us,” he explained chattily, “or drop on us their
equivalent of what winged chums usually drop. You will note, however,
that an easy route will take us onto the top of the cliff, if we should