Wine of the Gods 4: Explorers (6 page)

As the sky darkened, Lon took in the brilliant stars. He loved the skies of primitive
worlds. He, and most of the cadre opted to sleep out on the hill. Even the short termers, the drivers of the trucks toting the boxes opted to sleep out in the brilliant night. The doctor dispensed a lotion that kept the few mosquitoes at bay.

George nudged him awake in the predawn.

"Thought you'd like to see this."

Lon sat up and followed George's gesture. Venus was bright in the eastern sky, the almost new moon cut a thin cres
cent from the inky sky . . . and there were comets. Three of them. No. Four. A bit south of due east, the lowest was nearly lost in the faint predawn. The other three lined up vertically like beads on a string, the pale wash of their tails fading upwards, gas and dust blown away by the solar wind

"That's unusual." George muttered. "Been a while since I've seen even one so obvious, I've never seen a string of them like this."

"Yeah. Same here." Lon made a mental note to take some long exposure pictures. No doubt an astronomer would be able to tell him all about them. He watched them rise, the pale ghosts of the tails fading away before the sun broke the horizon, the brighter cores disappearing not long after.

Then he got up and helped George with breakfast over a small fire.

By noon
the next day, the instruments on the balloon were mapping dry hills, with high mountains visible to the south, then a high altitude wind took it away to the west and as the sun set, over the coast and out to sea.

Lon almost refused to move indoors that night
. The air was crisp and cool, perfect camping weather.

"Ah
, now this is my idea of a proper new world. I hope this place has half the promise of Twelve-seventeen." George grinned. "The Government scouts there reported voracious mosquitoes and high humidity. Maybe your Board will leave the whole planet to JJ."

Lon growled. "It's out of my hands. Nast
y little ass kissing backstabber. I'll be happy so long as he's not anywhere on a world of mine."

George eyed him. "Where'd you work with him?"

"Tournay. And that is all I'm going to say." Lon stalked off far enough to enjoy the bright stars in solitude.

Kia Farr was much more hesitant when she got to the rest of her equipment, and the second gravity meter and all the drones with gravity meters all registered the same fluctuations. "I don't suppose the planet has neutronium pellets in low orbits or something, does it?"

"I really doubt it." He left her disass
embling the gravity meters and wandered down to the mapping box.

Nelson had them pretty well spotted on his map. Northwestern China. "The ice probably covers all of the Mongolian highlands. We'll have to circle wider to find out
if it is regional, or connected to the polar icecap. South and east we have arid grasslands, the ice age Gobi desert. The shoreline is a vague approximation of the Earth's continental shelf." Nelson tapped a bit of water at the northern limit of the coverage. "The Sea of Japan, probably a land locked lake, possibly salty. I can't pinpoint much else, the sea level is lower and the geologic history different. But those mountains to the south would be the Himalayan complex, however altered. They're taller, can you imagine that? I wonder if we could drive over these mountains to the west and release a balloon there? Map westward?"

Naomi
shook her head. "The way the jet stream grabbed the first one, we'll have to use the drones to map to the west. The other balloon I've launched, I set to stay low. We may be able to get a good deal further south, get some data on those mountains for you."

Lon peered at the map and nodded his approval.
"Did the first balloon make it across the Pacific?"

"Not even close. It hit a storm a few hundred miles offshore and lost lifting power, either iced or holed. And
as I said, number two is low altitude. I'll send up another high altitude balloon in a few days, give that storm time to move or dissipate."

"Right. We'll try to get the drones up and flying quickly. We'll have them up in two weeks even if the
gravity meters are recording nothing but garbage."

Lon's fir
st report was sent with the returning empty trucks and all of Nelson's surface and core samples. The report skated past "instrument problems delaying the start of the drone flights" and jumped to the early maps with Nelson Manrique's geologic samples used to denote the surface geology." Not bad for three day's work. The next report was going to have to have drone flights

Spring
1360

Eastern Hemisphere

The ground was getting difficult, the river beside them thick and swollen and fast, taking up a lot of the space between the towering walls of rock and  ice.

"The Rip is a lot narrower, now." Lefty rolled up his maps. "The walls are lower too, unless there's a second scarp buried under the ice. I think the faults and all will be running back together a lot further north than the other end, down east of Farofo."

It was only a wee
k since the Auld Wulf had traveled them and their horses, piled with supplies, to where they'd abandoned their wagon last fall when the arctic winter closed in.

The g
od had jumped them all over
two thousand
miles to the geyser in the Rip that was closest to the village. Then he'd taken them the rest of the way in mere five hundred miles long steps. Actually it was a bit of a relief to know he was a god. Lefty could stop thinking about how much hard work would be needed to reach that level of ability. Never and Dydit, working together, could travel ten miles or so, more when they had geothermal features to use as mental wayposts. And they had years more training than he'd had.

Never and Dydit
, together, were also good at physical manipulations. Lefty watched, admittedly a bit jealously, as they shifted boulders and melted rock for another half mile before relaxing. Even though Never pulled energy from the Earth, and Dydit used and redirected power from sunlight, some metabolic energy was always expended, and could only be replaced the old fashioned way. With a year to refine their techniques, they were both efficient and terrifyingly powerful, when he stopped to think of the sheer weight of rock they moved.

The road
cooled quickly in the brisk air. Lefty walked down it, looking over the edge. In places they'd had to build a ledge out over the river. From the end they could see around the shoulder of rock. A narrow canyon, filled with the river, bent out of sight, but showed a tantalizing glimpse of blue, and Lefty was suddenly aware of the scent of grass over the slight sulfur of the river. He hadn't seen a fumarole for the last few miles.

"What do you think? A narrow shelf right over the river's edge?" Dydit scowled down at the fast moving bulk of water on his left. It was cloudy with the fine sediments ground up under the thick ice sheets.

"Looks like it's all down hill from here," Never said. "I wonder how fast it drops off beyond the shoulder. It's moving
fast
and it's loud."

"Only one way to find out." They joined hands and rock softened and moved, deformed like putty into a flat road wide enough for the wagon.
Half cut out of the canyon wall, and half a ledge sticking out over the river. They walked forward, and the rock yielded as they approached. Beyond, the ground fell away. To their right, the ice sheet fractured and thinned and disappeared. Across the river on the left the ice marched on, but the rock cliff continued, dipping down as the ice thickened  Ahead, from their height they looked across a valley perhaps thirty miles across. The far side was a steep ridge running roughly east-west.

The river plunged off the cliff, to crash down into a narrow lake that curved to the right as it reached the center of the valley floor. The brilliant green of grass sprouted among the white and gray rock, then spread to dominate the valley floor. Birds flew, and the bounding shapes that were probably deer drew the eye.

"No trees," Never murmured.

"Too far north, probably," Dydit leaned out. "How the hell are we going to get down there?"

It took a full three days of rock moving and molding to produce a path the wagon could traverse.

Lefty and Question took advantage of the time to climb to the top of the glacier for a bird's eye view. The kids fed the horses and chickens, and watched the rock work from a safe distance.

Lefty came back with a sketch map. "The far side of the valley is a single ridge, it drops on the far side, where there's a lake. The glacier on the east looks like it feeds right into it. The valley widens to the west. We're either going to be crossing a whole bunch of little rivers, or we'll have to cross the main river and travel on the far side."

Never frowned at his sketch. "Hmm, that ridge is the first major east west feature we've ever seen that crosses the Rip."

Lefty looked at her innocently. "What Rip? It appears to have ended. Pretty much right here."

She raised her eyebrows, and sat down for some meditation. The deep flow was from the south, pretty much straight at her. She shook herself and got out her own maps and noted the flow. "Well, how about we tackle that slope?"

They rode the brake down the slope, steep even though they had run it along the side of the slope, and breathed a sigh of relief when it leveled out. Their team of horses trotted out eagerly, and snatched mouthfuls of grass, with Never scolding them. They camped right there, picketing the horses and trading off watches through the
chilly spring night when the sun dipped below the massive ice behind them.

The next day they made fifty easy miles, crossing the small streams and watching the river as the valley widened.

Never meditated that night, and mapped the deep currents of molten rock again. She studied her map, and laid it over Lefty's to lightly sketch in the terrain features. "I'd really like to cross the river and head more directly south. Of course that assumes that the south ridge keeps curving that way."

"We'll have to see what the river does." Dydit stretched out w
ith his head quite near Never. "I warned the kids about wolves and such."

Question snorted. "
Is that why they're building traps?"

The kids were already asleep, bedrolls beside the fire.

Never nodded. "They said they wanted to study the differences between Asian and normal wolves. I told them anything they caught would be much too old to turn into a pet." She reached out delicately to run her fingers through Dydit's hair. Then snatched her hand back as he flinched.

Lefty leaned over and w
hispered loudly. "Oh look, Dydit's tired. Never's going to get him this trip."

Question elbowed him. "Behave. They're young, they just need a little more time."

"I'll take first watch," Dydit informed them. "Out there."

Never frowned. "I can put up a shield."

"I'd rather find out if the wolves are going to be a problem first, otherwise you'll be doing it every night."

"Makes sense. I'll take the midwatch," Lefty said. "Then the ladies can take the morning and fix us a proper breakfast."

"Works."

Never snorted, and banked the fire. "Goodnight, lady, gentleman, Dydit."

Three hours later they jolted awake at a high pitched yelp, followed by a small fireball and extended yelping.

"No fear of humans." Dydit commented from the darkness.

"I think they just acquired some." Lefty scanned around.

"There were only two of them." Dydit shrugged. "Since you're awake, you can take the watch."

He curled up under blankets across the fire from Never. Peeked out at her. Turned his back on her. Thrashed some more.

The river curved south with maddening slowness, and continued deep wide and powerful.

"The sediments are too thick to really get to the rock to build a bridge." Never growled irritably. "The deep flow is turning. I want to go south and see if it keeps turning."

Dydit turned his head. "Lefty and Question are back, let's see what they have to say."

Havi and Rustle climbed to the top of the wagon to spot the returning scouts.

"They have to say that they have a challenge for you." Question hopped off Little Bit, and turned to unsaddle her.

Lefty dismounted more slowly. "The river turns due west and goes through a canyon in the west hills." He waved toward the steep rocky hills that formed the, now, west side of the valley.

"If you want to try and bridge it, it's at its narrowest at the mouth of the canyon, and the bedrock is at the surface. I'm sure the long drop to foaming, roaring, white water rapids won't bother you at all." Question grinned, probably at their expressions. "It's really impressive. I didn't think a river this big could
do
rapids."

"Unless you two want to try crossing the hills, it sounds like a good idea." Dydit said.

"Actually, we figured that while you two were building, we'd take a hike over them, see what's on the far side. Trust me, you two will have your work cut out for you on this one. We've got plenty of time to explore."