“I was home – you brought me away.” Her voice was small, crushed, woeful. Now she pushed away from me.
“I want to go home now! Please, Kilda, I want to go home!” Oomark stood up, tugging at my hand.
I arose, surveying the valley and the air above, hoping to sight some searcher who would spare us the trip on foot back to the station, for my body protested every movement as if I had been put to some severe strain.
But there was no sign of anyone else. We might have been on a deserted world. Kosgro – on what planet had he awakened? Would he return to his ship and rise on a new voyage of discovery with his ordeal in the gray country only another incident in an adventurous life? Would he try to trace us and our fate through some official channel – or could I do so for him? But that thought I put from me now. The important thing was to get back to the station and then to Tamlin.
Bartare did not protest. She appeared to accept that there would be no return to the other world. But her silent, woeful crying continued. Now and then she smeared the palms of her hands across her cheeks, wiping away the tears.
We had reached the top of the river valley cliff when I realized that the trip back to the station was going to be even more difficult than I had thought. My aching body resisted each new effort I demanded of it, and the children were lagging. I had no strength to carry them. We leaned against some rocks for support, while once more I searched the skies and the country for some sign of life.
“Kilda! There – someone’s coming!” Oomark pointed, not at the sky but out over the tumbled rocks. Only it was not a ranger combing for us. A single figure advanced, slowly, pausing often with one hand or the other braced gainst a nearby boulder, as if that support were badly needed.
I waved both my arms and shouted, “Here! Here we are!”
There was a gesture to acknowledge my call, and that other turned his slow march in our direction. He must be in trouble or hurt, he made such an effort to reach us.
As he came closer, I saw that he was a young man, and he was not wearing a ranger’s uniform. Tattered remains of breeches did cover part of his body, and around his chest was a bandage. The skin of his hands and face was very dark, the space tan of a starfarer, but on the less exposed parts of his body it was ivory-white. He had no sign of beard – another indication he was a spacer, since facial hair for them was eradicated on first showing. Dark red hair was cropped very close, a mere stubble on his skull, though his brows were as black as my own. His face was drawn and gaunt, the bones standing out clearly beneath the stretch of dark skin. It was plain he was in no better shape than we.
My attention centered on that bandage – I stood very still, hardly breathing. Could it be – ? But Melusa had sworn to return us to our own worlds. Why would Kosgro be here? He had landed his scout on an uninhabitated planet, then fallen through a gate by chance. This was Dylan, for over a hundred years a known and settled world.
I took. a step or two to meet him, and I made a question of a name: “Jorth Kosgro?”
He halted, holding to a rock with his left hand, brushing the right across his eyes, as if he were in doubt of seeing clearly.
“So she broke oath after all,” he said. “She sent you after me.”
“No! It was the other way around!” Though Melusa had willingly or unwillingly betrayed him, I was glad, in spite of knowing what this must mean to him. “This is Dylan- she sent you with us!”
He stared at me. “It is” – he answered me slowly, spacing his words as I might have done if I had been trying to impress something upon a child’s mind and that child was only half attentive – “the planet on which I made landfall. It is not on any map – 1 discovered it.”
“It is Dylan!” I countered. “This is the way we came – ” I gestured toward the hidden station. “Why, there is a ranger station just behind those ridges. They should be out hunting us now. And we are a short flitter flight from Tamlin, a port city.”
He balled the hand resting against the rock into a fist and brought it hard against the stone. “I tell you, I planeted on an unknown world. I have not yet sent in a report – I can take you to my ship – prove it – ”
It was delirium, of course, born of his wound. I surveyed the bandage I had adjusted. There were no fresh stains on it. Even if the wound had not broken open, he must be under great strain. We had very little food. As soon as we could get to the station, they would be able to give him proper care.
“Come on!” Oomark ran back to catch Kosgro by the hand. “Please, we’re so hungry. It isn’t far to the station, really it isn’t. And they’ll give us something to eat.”
Kosgro looked down into his small face. “Where is this place?” he asked, as if the boy’s answer was very important.
“Well, I don’t know exactly where this is,” Oomark began to my dismay. His hesitation would only feed Kosgro’s delusion. “We aren’t very far from the Lugraan Valley and the park where the flitters are. Gentlehomo Largrace brought my class from school. And Kilda and Bartare, they came with our families for the picnic. We were to watch the Lugraans and write a report. And the rangers said for us to keep together and not wander. I’ll bet they’ll be awfully mad when they find us. Kilda, will they be so mad that they’ll tell the commandant and have him punish us?” For the first time since his return, he looked apprehensive.
“I think when Commandant Piscov knows the whole story, hell understand.” I hastened to reassure him.
Kosgro glanced from one to the other of us. There was a stunned expression on his dark face. But when Oomark pulled at his hand again, he came.
“I want to see this ranger station, this flitter park. Show me!” he said.
We went very slowly along the rough way. I was more than a little worried. The fact we had met no searchers bothered me. Surely the rangers would have maintained a lookout on one of the higher points with distance glasses, as a check. Yet, save for some flying things, the world might have been as barren of others of our kind as Kosgro insisted it was.
Coming to the top of the slope, we looked down at the track that led from the valley platforms to the flitter park. Such a well-worn way -would convince Kosgro at once.
But there was nothing – save faint indications that such a cut had once existed. I had made no mistake – this was where Bartare and her brother had left and I had followed. Eight over there was the rock on which I had left Lazk Volk’s recorder. But not only was that box gone, but the rock – when I looked for it – had vanished.
“Kilda, where’s the road? What happened to the road?” Oomark cried.
“Yes, where is this road?” Kosgro sounded triumphant, as if he were proving his point. Yet I had sighted too many still unchanged landmarks to be mistaken. And if one looked closely enough, the remains of the road were still visible.
“The road ran there. And you can still see part of it! There! There! There!” I stabbed my finger to indicate the places. But that it had changed from the well-marked way to this was very hard for me to accept.
“I want to go home, please, Kilda!” Oomark sounded frightened.
“We’ll go down to the fliter park.” I took his hand. “This way.” Resolutely I slipped and slid to that faint gash that should be our link with civilization. Not far now – just two turns more –
My feet hurt. The rocks, so different from the turf of the gray world, cut through the flimsy sandals. But I hobbled on.
The flitter park – yes, the remains of it! But no craft stood on the cracked surface, its edge roughly scalloped where chunks of it had broken away. It had been hardly used, and there were no attempts at repair. How could this happen in just days? It all looked as if years had passed since anyone walked here.