displayed a checkerboard pattern that reminded Jon-Tom of
a non-Euclidian chessboard. Liverworts grew waist-high,
while lichens and mosses formed a thick, cushiony carpet
into which their boots sank up to the ankles. Clean granite
was disfigured by crawling fungoid corruption growing on
its surface. And over this vast, wild eruption of thallophytic
life there hung a pervasive sense of desolation, of waste
and fossilized hope.
The first couple of days had seen no slowing of their
progress. Now their pace began to degenerate. They slept
longer and spent less time over meals. It didn’t matter
what food they took from their packs or scavenged from
the land: everything seemed to have lost its flavor. What-
ever they consumed turned flat and tasteless in their
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
69
mouths and sat heavy in their bellies. Even the water
which fell fresh from the clouds had acquired a metallic,
unsatisfying aftertaste.
They’d been in the Moors for almost a week when
Jon-Tom tripped over the skeleton. Like everything else
lately its discovery provoked little more than a tired mur-
mur of indifference from his companions.
“So wot?” muttered Mudge. “Don’t mean a damn
thing.”
“Ah’m sitting down,” said Roseroar. “Ah’m tired.”
So was Jon-Tom, but the sight of the stark white bone
peeping out from beneath the encrusting rusts and mildews
roused a dormant concern in his mind.
“This is all wrong,” he told them. “There’s something
very wrong going on here.”
“No poison, if that’s wot you’re thinkin’, mate.” Mudge
indicated the growths surrounding them. “I’ve been care-