The dark-haired girl who had been stirring the largest pot on the stove pulled a glossy green leaf from one of her pockets. It was an almost perfect triangle in shape—green, threaded by bright red and yellow veins.
“Ever see one like that before, Dard?” Trude asked.
He took it and examined it curiously before he answered with a shake of his head.
“Pinch it and give a sniff!” Trude suggested.
He did and the good odor of cooking was nullified by another aromatic, clean fragrance, a mixture of herb and flower—of all the pleasant scents he had ever known.
“You can rub it on skin or hair and the scent lingers,” Petra told him eagerly.
“And you’ll never guess where we got that one,” Trude broke in. “Tell him.”
“I saw a hopper carrying it out in the grain field when I was gleaning yesterday. I thought it had been stealing from our food and chased it. Then when it wriggled through a hole in the brush fence it dropped the leaf. I picked it up and at first we thought it might be good to eat because the hopper wanted it. But it is just nice perfume.”
“Sure, and if you want to get on the good side of the kitchen detail,” Trude twinkled at him “you just find out where you can get about a peck of those, Dard. We ain’t got the smell of that ship off: us yet—nasty chemicals. And we’d admire a chance to get some perfume. You do a little looking around when you’re off on this jaunt of yours and see what you can find us. Now—clear out. Take your lunch.”
Dard gave the leaf back to Petra and picked up the carrier. But he went out of the kitchen puzzled. What had Trude meant by “this jaunt of yours?” As far as he knew he was not intending to leave the valley. Had some other plans been made?
He started back to Kimber, determined to have an explanation.
“Lunch, huh?” Cully crawled out from under the cylinder as Dard sat the carrier on the ground.
The engineer wiped his hands on the grass and then on a piece of waste. “What do they have for us this time?”
“Stew of apples for one thing,” Dard returned impatiently. “Listen, Kimber, Mrs. Harmon said something about my going on an expedition.”
Sim Kimber pried the lid off a container of stew and poked into the depths of the savory mixture before he replied.
“We have to earn our keep, kid. And not being specialists in anything but woodcraft and transportation, it’s up to us to do what we can along those lines. You knew the woods and mountains back on earth, and you have a feeling for animals. So Kordov assigned you to the exploration department.”
Dard sat very still, afraid to answer, afraid to burst out with the wild exultation which surged in him now. He had tried, tried so hard these past few days to follow Harmon’s overpowering interest in the land, to be another, if unskilled, pair of hands in the work about the cave. But the machines they were assembling at top speed were totally unknown to him. The men who worked on them lapsed into a jargon of functions he knew nothing about, until it seemed that they jabbered a foreign tongue.
For so long he had been responsible for others—for Lars and Dessie, for their food, their shelter, even their safety. And now he was not even responsible for himself. He was beginning to feel useless, for here he knew so little that was of any account.
All his training had been slanted toward keeping alive, at a minimum level of existence, in a hostile world. With that pressure removed he believed he had nothing to offer the colonists.
What he had dreamed and longed to do was to leave this compact group where he was the outsider, to go on into this new world, searching out its wonders, whether that meant trailing a hopper to its mysterious lair or flying above the cliffs into the unknown country beyond. Exploration was what he wanted, wanted so badly that sometimes just thinking about it hurt.
And here was Kimber offering him that very thing! Dard could not say anything. But maybe his eyes, his rapturous face answered for him, as the pilot glanced up, met Dard’s wide happy eyes; and quickly looked away. Then the boy’s feelings were under control again, and he was able to say, in what he believed was a level and unmoved voice:
“But what are you planning?”
“Go up and over.” It was Cully who answered that before Kimber could swallow his mouthful of stew. “We load up this old bus,” the engineer patted the sled affectionately, “and take off to see what lies on the other side of the cliffs. Mainly to discover whether we need expect any visitors.”
“We—who?”
Kimber named those who would share in the adventure.
“I’ll pilot. Cully goes along to keep the sled ticking. And Santee is to provide the strong right arm.”
“To fight–?” But Dard didn’t complete that question before Kimber had an answer.
“Killing,” he said, staring thoughtfully down at the full spoon he balanced on its way to his mouth, “is not on the program if we can help it. Even such pests as—Cully! behind you!”
The engineer slowed around just in time to snatch up a small wrench and so baffle the furry thief that tried to seize it.
“Even those pests are safe from us,” Kimber continued before he added to the swearing engineer, “Why don’t you sit on everything, Jorge? That’s what I am doing.” He moved to let them see that all the smaller tools he had been using were now covered by his body. “It may not be comfortable, but they’ll still be here when I need them!
“No,” he returned to his earlier theme, “we’re not going to kill anything if we can help it. To save our lives—for food, if it is absolutely necessary. But not for sport—or because we are unsure!” His lips twisted in a sneer. “Sport! The greatest sport of all is the hunting of man! As man finally discovered, having terrorized all of the rest of the living earth. Our species killed wantonly-now we have a second choice and chance. Maybe we can be saner this time. So—Santee is a crack shot—but that does not mean he is going to use the rifle.”
Dard had only one more question. “When do we go?”
“Tomorrow morning, early. On our last swing around the cliffs two days ago we sighted indications of a road leading eastward from the other side. It could be the guide we want.”
They finished their work upon the sled in mid-afternoon and spent the remaining hours of work time stowing away supplies and equipment. Kimber made preparations for five days’ absence from the valley—flying east to the interior of the land mass on which the star ship had earthed.
“That tube we found pointed in that direction. If it was a freight carrier for some city-and I am of the opinion that it was—that’s where we may find the remains of civilization.” Kimber’s voice came muffled as he checked dials behind the wind screen of the aircraft.
“Yeah.” Santee added a small bag of his own to the supplies. “But—after what we seen at that there farmhouse—they played rough around here once upon a time. Better watch out that we don’t get shot down before we make peace signs.”
“It’s been a long time since the farm was looted,” Dard ventured to point out. “And why didn’t the looters return—if they were the winners in some war. Harmon says this land is rich, that any farmer would settle here.”
“Soldiers ain’t farmers,” said Santee. “Me, I’d say this was looting’ done by an army or somebody like them blasted Peacemen. They was out to smash and grab and run. Land don’t mean nothin’, to them kinda guys. But I see what Harmon means. If the war ended why didn’t somebody come back here to rebuild? Yeah, that’s sense.”
“Maybe there was no one left,” Dard said.
“Blew themselves up?” Kimber’s expressive eyebrows rose as he considered that. “Kind of wholesale, even for a big-time war. The burn-off took most of Terra’s cities and the purge killed off the people who could rebuild them. But there were still plenty of men kicking around afterward. Of course, they were ahead of us technically here—those things in the carrier point to that. Which argues that—if they were like us—they were way ahead in the production of bigger and more lethal weapons, too. Well, I have a feeling that tomorrow or the next day we’re going to learn about it.”
The light was that gray wash which preceded sunrise when Dard sat up in his bedroll to answer the shadowy figure who roused him. He shivered, more with excitement than the morning chill, as he rolled his bag together and stole after Cully out of the cave to the sled.