“I told the monitor station that you had come safely to ground,” he said.
“What else did you tell them?”
“There was nothing more to tell.”
I stood. “You can call them again now,” I said. “And tell them I’m on my way out to the pod.” I gave it the tight-lipped, no-tears-for-me delivery. From the corner of my eye I saw him nod, and for a second I wondered if maybe the famous Ulrik system of analysis had slipped, and this big hunk of virility was going to sit on his haunches and let poor frail little me tackle the trail alone.
“The way will not be easy,” he said. “The winds have come to the high passes. Snow lies on the heights of Kooclain.”
“My suit heater will handle that part. If you can spare me some food. . . .”
He went to a shelf, lifted down a pack the size and shape of a climate unit for a five-room conapt. I knew then my trap was closing dead on target.
“If my company will not be unwelcome, Carl Patton, I will go with you,” he said.
I went through the routine protestations, but in the end I let him convince me. We left half an hour later, after notifying Ring station that we were on the way.
13
Johnny Thunder took the lead, swinging along at an easy amble that covered ground at a deceptive rate, not bothered by the big pack on his back. He was wearing the same leathers he had on when he met me. The only weapon he carried was a ten-foot steel-shod staff. The monster mutt trotted along off-side, nose to the ground; I brought up the rear. My pack was light; the big man pointed out that the less I carried the better time we’d make. I managed to keep up, hanging back a little to make it look good. My bones still ached some, but I was feeling frisky as a colt in the low G. We did a good hour without talking, working up along the angle of a long slope through the big trees. We crested the rise and the big fellow stopped and waited while I came up, puffing a little, but game as they come.
“We will rest here,” he said.
“Rest, hell,” I came back. “Minutes may make all the difference to those poor devils.”
“A man must rest,” he said reasonably, and sat down, propping his bare arms on his knees. This put his eyes on a level with mine, standing. I didn’t like that, so I sat too.
He took his full ten minutes before starting off again. Johnny Thunder, I saw, was not a man to be bullied. He knew his best pace. Even with all my fancy equipment, I was going to have my hands full walking him to death on his own turf.
That was the plan, just the way they’d laid it out for me, back at Aldo: no wounds on his big corpse when they found it, no dirty work, just a fellow who’d died trying: bigger than your average pictonews hero, but human enough to miscalculate his own giant abilities. Boss would welcome investigation, and he’d check out as clean as a farmhand waiting for the last bus back from the county fair. All I had to do was use my high-tech gear to stay close enough to urge him on. Simple. Not easy, but simple. On that thought I let sleep take me.
14
We crossed a wide valley and headed up into high country. It was cold, and the trees were sparser here, gaunter, dwarfed by the frost and twisted by the winds into hunched shapes that clutched the rock like arthritic hands. There were patches of rotten snow, and a hint in the sky that there might be more to come before long. Not that I could feel the edge of the wind that came whipping down off the peaks; but the giant was taking it on his bare arms.
“Don’t you own a coat?” I asked him at the next stop. We were on a shelf of rock, exposed to the full blast of what was building to a forty-mile gale.
“I have a cape, here.” He slapped the pack on his back. “Later I will wear it.”
“You make your own clothes?” I was looking at the tanned leather, fur side in, the big sailmaker’s stitches.
“A woman made these garments for me,” he said. “That was long ago.”
“Yeah,” I said. I tried to picture him with his woman, to picture how she’d move, what she’d look like. A woman ten feet tall.
“Do you have a picture of her?”
“Only in my heart.” He said it matter-of-factly. I wondered how it felt to be the last of your kind, but I didn’t ask him that. Instead I asked, “Why do you do it? Live here alone?”
He looked out across a view of refrigerated rock. “This is my home,” he said. Another straight answer, with no sho-biz behind it. It just didn’t get to this overgrown plowboy. It never occurred to him how he could milk the situation for tears and cash from a few billion sensation-hungry fans. A real-life soap opera. The end of the trail. Poor Johnny Thunder, so brave and so alone.
“Why do you do—what you do?” he asked suddenly. I felt my gut clench like a fist.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I got it out between my teeth, while my hand tickled the crater gun out of its wrist clip and into my palm.
“You, too, live alone, Carl Patton. You captain a ship of space. You endure solitude and hardship. And now, you offer your life for your comrades.”
“They’re not my comrades,” I snapped. “They’re cash cargo, that’s all. No delivery, no payment. And I’m not offering my life. I’m taking a little hike for my health.”
He studied me. “Few men would attempt the heights of Kooclain in this season. None without a great reason.”
“I’ve got great reasons; millions of them.”
He smiled a faint smile. “You are many things, I think, Carl Patton. But not a fool.”
“Let’s hit the trail,” I said. ”We’ve got a long way to go before I collect.”
15
Johnny Thunder held his pace back to what he thought I could manage. The dog seemed a little nervous, raising his nose and snuffling the air, then loping ahead. I easy-footed it after them, with plenty of wheezing on the upslopes and some realistic panting at the breaks, enough to make me look busy, but not enough to give the giant ideas of slowing down. Little by little I upped the cadence in an inobtrusive way, until we were hitting better than four miles per hour. That’s a good brisk stride on flat ground at standard G; it would take a trained athlete to keep it up for long. Here, with my suit’s efficient piezoelectronic muscles doing most of the work, it was a breeze—for me.
We took a lunch break. The big man dug bread and cheese and a Jeroboam of wine out of his knapsack and handed me enough for two meals. I ate a little of it and tucked the rest into the disposal pocket on my shoulder when he wasn’t looking. When he finished his ration—not much bigger than mine—I got to my feet and looked expectant. He didn’t move.
“We must rest now for an hour,” he told me.
“OK,” I said. “You rest alone. I’ve got a job to do.” I started off across the patchy snow and got about ten steps before Bowser gallumphed past me and turned, blocking my route. I started past him on the right and he moved into my path. The same for the left.
“Rest, Carl Patton,” Goliath said. He lay back and put his hands under his head and closed his eyes. Well, I couldn’t keep him walking, but I could cut into his sleep. I went back and sat beside him.
“Lonely country,” I said. He didn’t answer.
“Looks like nobody’s ever been here before,” I added. “Not a beer can in sight.” That didn’t net a reply either.
“What do you live on in this place?” I asked him. “What do you make the cheese out of, and the bread?”
He opened his eyes. “The heart of the friendly-tree. It is pulverized for flour, or made into a paste and fermented.”
“Neat,” I said. “I guess you import the wine.”
“The fruit of the same tree gives us our wine. He said ‘us’ as easily as if he had a wife, six kids, and a chapter of the Knights of Pythias waiting for him back home.
“It must have been tough at first,” I said. “If the whole planet is like this, it’s hard to see how your ancestors survived.”
“They fought,” the giant said, as if that explained everything.