The regular attacked the descent first, scattering pebbles, slipping somewhat in his determination to make haste. And suddenly he stopped.
Duncan heard the aircraft at the same instant, a distant hum that grew louder, passed overhead and circled off again. He looked at Galey, and Galey likewise looked disturbed.
“Maybe it’s weather moving in on us,” Galey said, “or maybe it’s something urgent at the port.”
Duncan had the communicator; he fingered it nervously, reckoning that if either had been the case, then there should have been a call from the aircraft. There was silence.
“Move,” he said to Galey.
There was no sign of the aircraft while they worked their way down the dangerous descent. They rested hardly at all; Duncan found blood choking him, stripped off the mask and wiped his face, smearing a red streak across his hand dizziness blurred the rocks. He felt his way after Galey, stumbled to the valley floor, the soft and difficult sand.
“You’re just out of sickbay,” Galey said, offering with a touch on the straps to take the load that he carried. “Trust me with the gear at least. You’ll be done up again.”
“No,” he answered, blindly stubborn. He gathered his feet under him and started walking, overwhelmed with anxiety, Galey struggling to stay with him.
Another kilometer up the canyon: this much ground Duncan made before he found his limit with the load he carried, coughing painfully; he surrendered the gear to Galey, who labored along with him, himself suffering from the cold air, rawly gasping after each breath. It was a naked, terribly isolate feeling, walking these shadowed depths among the tombs, carrying a record that did not belong to humanity, that others desired.
And there came a regul vehicle lumbering down the canyon, slow and ponderous. Galey swore. Duncan simply watched it come.
There was nothing to do, nowhere to go, no longer even any place to conceal the equipment. They were far from the rocks, in the center of the sandy expanse and under observation from the regul.
The sled rumbled up to them and stopped. The windscreen rolled back. A regul youngling smiled a regul smile at them both, a mere opening of the mouth that showed the ridge of dentition within.
“Kose Sten Duncan,” said the regul. “We grew concerned. All right? All right?”
“Entirely,” he said. “Go away. We do not need help.” The smile stayed. The round brown eyes flicked over his face, his hand, the equipage they carried. “Thin air. Heavy to carry, perhaps? Sit on the back, favor. I will carry you. Many bad things are here, evening coming. I am koj Suth Horag-gi. Bai Hulagh sent me. The reverence has profound concern would not wish, kose Sten Duncan, accident to a human party here in the desert. We will take you back.”
It was a small vehicle, a sled with a flatbed for cargo, where it was possible to sit without being confined: it was not imminently threatening, and it was pointless pride to refuse and keep walking, when the sled could easily match their best pace.
But Duncan did not believe the words he had been told mistrusted the regul presence entirely. Galey was not moving without him, stood waiting his cue; and with great misgivings Duncan climbed aboard the flatbed of the little vehicle. He made room for Galey, who joined him, holding the gear carefully on his lap. The vehicle jolted into a slow turn on the sand.
“They must have landed down by our ship,” Galey shouted into his ear. Duncan understood his meaning: regul all over their ship, that they had not secured because there was no living enemy against whom they reasonably ought to have secured it. He cursed himself for that overconfidence.
They two were armed. The regul were insane if they hoped to outmatch human reflexes in a direct confrontation; but the fact was that regul could expend younglings such as these with little regret.
And the reverence bai Hulagh had sent them Hulagh, whose fear of the mri was obsessive and sufficient for murder.
Duncan touched Galey’s arm, used the system of handsig-nals used in emergencies in space. Careful. Hostiles.