“Hogg, let’s look at the ruins,” Daniel said. There was high-definition imaging equipment in the kit Adele’s servant, Tovera, had packed for the expedition, but for Daniel’s initial survey his helmet’s recording capacity would be sufficient. “Dorotige, come along with us. You’ve been here before, and none of our records mention the location at all.”
“There’s not a hell of a lot to see,” Dorotige muttered as he slid across the seat. “God but it’s cold!”
Patterns that Daniel had taken for mineral deposits on the rock were actually the stems of woody plants. They crawled across the surface because the wind would shear them if they rose any distance in the air. Their purplish leaves were as tiny as grains of rice.
“Some’re up this way,” Dorotige said, waving toward the hillside. “But they’re all over the place, for what they’re worth. It’s just ditches in the rock.”
He started up the slope. His foot slipped on bare stone; from then on he stepped on the flat mounds of grass that gave him some traction. He was wearing soft-soled sandals better suited for a drawing room than a wilderness.
Daniel thought about how long it must take plants to grow in this windswept aridity but didn’t say anything to Dorotige. Besides, only the outer rim of the cushions was still alive; the centers were coarse gray stems.
“Here’s one,” said Dorotige, pointing to his feet. “Not much to come a thousand miles for, it seems to me.”
“You got that right,” Hogg said. He spat again, grimacing as the wind blew the gobbet back just short of his boot.
Daniel squatted beside the indentation in the rock, hoping to find some reason to disagree. He couldn’t come up with one immediately.
So: there was a trough in the sandstone. It was straight, true enough, but it never got deeper than his index finger and its margins were rounded. Eight feet up it crossed another trough, shallower yet, at right angles. When Daniel held his head low to the ground he could make out a whole network of the markings, just as Dorotige had said.
“They could be footings for walls,” Daniel offered. The patterns had been easier to see from the air, because the shadows thrown by the indentations were more obvious than the grooves themselves.
“Or they could be cracks that the wind routed out with sand,” Hogg said. His education had been practical rather than scholarly, but there was very little new about the countryside an academic would be able to tell Hogg. “And anyhow, it didn’t happen any time in the last couple thousand years.”
His boot pointed to—but didn’t touch—a shrub growing where troughs joined, its four stems writhing up the intersecting lines. “If this wasn’t about as big back when they settled the planet, I’ll never touch liquor again.”
“I’m getting a jacket,” Dorotige said. He stalked off, rubbing his hands together. Daniel ignored him, so Hogg merely shrugged.
Sun had the aircar emptied; Vesey was leading a section with buckets and shovels into the nearest ravine, searching for the water that was supposed to be there. They’d brought three days’ supply in jerricans, but it’d be nice to have extra so they could wash.
Daniel stood, feeling momentarily dizzy. Squatting had cut off the circulation in his legs, robbing his brain of blood when he rose too quickly.
“This is fine-grained rock,” he said. “I don’t see any reason why it should crack at right angles the way it has. And granted that the sand has worn it—”
The aircar’s drive fans whined, spinning up from idle; Dorotige hadn’t shut the motors down when he landed. Daniel turned, frowning slightly. Sun and the other spacers were nearer to the vehicle, but they were upwind and probably didn’t notice.
“Officer Sun?” Daniel said, the name cueing his direct channel to the warrant officer. “Did you order the local to move the—”
Dorotige slammed full power to his fans, sending the aircar downslope in a spray of grit. He kept it sliding only a handsbreadth above the ground so that surface effect supported the vehicle and as much power as possible went to accelerating its mass. The spacers shouted angrily, shielding their eyes as the car passed.