The Many-Coloured Land - 1 (48 page)

"Second," said Uwe, and the Steering Committee meeting came to an end. Everyone except Chief Burke bade Amerie goodnight and slipped away into the shadows. The quondam judge stretched out his wounded leg for the nun to examine.

At length she said, "There's nothing more I can do for you, Peo. Hot soaks and moderate exercise to keep the muscles from tightening. I can give you a herendorf to block the pain on D-Day."

He waved a deprecating hand. "We'll save it for somebody who really needs it."

"As you like."

They went outside, where the village was quiet except for faint insect noises. It was nearly midnight and the moon was still down. Burke craned his neck and studied the starry vault of the sky.

"There it is, just above the rim of the canyon," he said, pointing.

"What?" she inquired.

"Ah, I forgot you were a newcomer, Amerie. The constellation we call the Trumpet. See the triangular bell, the four bright stars forming the straight tube? Take special note of the mouthpiece star. It's the most important one in all the sky, at least to the Tanu and Firvulag. On the day when it culminates at midnight over Finiah and High Vrazel, those are the oldest settlements, remember, it will mark the opening of the five-day Grand Combat."

"The date?"

"By our Milieu calendar, around October 31 or November 1."

"You're kidding!"

"It's true. And the noon culmination that takes place exactly six months later comes around May Day. The exotics have another big show then, which Tanu and Firvulag celebrate separately, the Grand Love Feast. Most popular with the females of the species, it's said."

"That's really very odd," Amerie said. "I'm no folklorist, but those two dates ..."

"I know. Only in our time, there was no good explanation, in astronomy or anything else, for the ritualization of those days rather than any others occurring about the same times." "It's ridiculous to assume a correlation." "Oh, certainly," The Native American's face was inscrutable in the starlight.

"I mean, six million years."

"Do you know the significance of the mouthpiece star? It's a marker. Their home galaxy lies almost directly behind the star."

"Oh, Peo. How many light years?"

"A hell of a lot more than six million. So in one way, they've come even farther away from home than we have, poor devils."

He gave her a brief salute and limped away, leaving her standing beneath the stars.

CHAPTER SEVEN

"But it isn't blue!" Felice protested. "It's brown."

Madame changed the course of their dinghy to avoid a stranded snag. "The color brown, it lacks that certain cachet. The composer wished to evoke the river's beauty."

The girl gave a contemptuous snort as she studied the terrain "This place would never win any prizes. Too dry. It looks like it hasn't rained for months." She knelt upright in the bow of the little boat and scanned the open dun-colored slopes with the aid of Madaine Guderian's little monocular. Only in the arroyos and in the flats nearest the Danube were there areas of green. The widely scattered groves of trees had a dusty bluish look.

"I can see a few small herds of hipparions and antelopes," the girl said after a time. "Nothing else seems to be alive in those uplands on the left bank. No sign of the crater. Nothing distinctive at all except that little volcano yesterday. You don't think we could have passed it by, do you? This damn river really rolls"

"Richard will tell us at noon."

The old woman and the athlete had shared one decamole boat since the party had emerged from the Water Caves nearly two days ago. Claude, Martha, and Richard occupied a second boat that drifted a few dozen meters ahead of them on the swift current of the Bright Ystroll. In spite of the drought they had made splendid time, since the flood received most of its water from the Alps, which shone white in the far south. On the previous night they had pulled up on a wooded gravel bar to sleep, the Bogle having warned them against camping on shore. They were grateful for their isolation when they were awakened later by the cries of hyenas. Claude told them that some of the Pliocene species attained the bulk of large bears and were active predators as well as scavengers.

For navigation, they had one precious map. Back at the Tree, Richard had traced pertinent portions from the fading plass of a venerable Kiimmerley + Frey Strassenkarte von Europa (Zweitausendjahrige Ausgabe), which a nostalgic Low-life treasured as his dearest memento of times to come. The old road map was dim and difficult to decipher, and Claude had warned Richard that the watershed of the Pliocene Danube was going to be greatly altered during the coming Ice Age by volumes of glacial till washing down from the Alps. The tributary streams of the upper Danube that were shown on the map would likely occupy different positions during the Pliocene; and the bed of the great river itself would lie farther south, twisted all out of recognition. The travelers could not hope to follow Galactic Age landmarks to the Ries crater. But there was one precious bit of data from the old map that would have retained its validity over six million years: the exact longitudinal component in kilometers between the meridian of High Vrazel peak (alias Grand Ballon) and that of the Ries (symbolized on the map by the future city of Nordlingen, which lay within what would be a mere ringwall plain on the Elder Earth). No matter how the Ystroll wandered, it was still bound to cross the Ries meridian. As nearly as Richard had been able to determine from the decrepit plass of the road map, the linear distance was 260 kilometers, three and one-half degrees of longitude east of the "prime meridian" of High Vrazel.

Richard had set his accurate wrist chronometer for precisely noon at High Vrazel and had carefully improvised a quadrant to measure the solar angle. Every day, the quadrant could be used to tell them local noontime, and the difference between this and P.M. noon shown on the watch could be used to calculate the longitude. When they reached the Ries meridian on the Danube, all they had to do was march due north to reach the crater ...

One of the figures in the lead boat raised an arm. The craft pulled in to shore.

"There's a little break in the northern highlands there," Felice said. "Maybe Richard has decided it's our best bet." When they had beached their boat next to the other one, she asked, "What d'you think, guys? Is this it?"

"Pretty close, anyhow," Richard said. "And it doesn't look like too bad a hike, for all it's uphill. I calculate thirty kilometers north should hit the lower rim. Even if I'm a little off, we should be able to see the thing from the crest of those northern hills. Damn crater's supposed to be more than twenty kloms wide, after all. How about lunch, while I set up one more sun shot?"

"I've got fish," Martha said, raising a string of silvery-brown shapes. "Richard's excused for his navigating chores, and that leaves you two to dig the perishin' bulrushes white Madame and I get these to grilling."

"Right," sighed Claude and Felice.

They made their fire in a well-shaded spot near the edge of a large grove, dear water came trickling down a limestone ledge to disappear into a muddy depression that swarmed with little yellow butterflies. After fifteen minutes or so, the delectable smell of roasting young salmon came wafting to the tuber grubbers.

"Come on, Claude," Felice said, sloshing a net full of lumps up and down in the water to rinse them. "We've got enough of these things."

The paleontologist stood quietly, up to his knees in the river among the tall stalks. "I thought I heard something. Probably beavers."

They waded back to the bank where they had left their boots. Both pairs were still there, but something, or someone, had been messing about with them.

"Look here," said Claude, studying the surrounding mud.

"Baby footprints!" Felice exclaimed. "Screw me Wind! Could there be Howlers or Firvulag in this country?"

They hurried back to the fire with the tubers. Madame used her farsensing metafunction to scan the area and professed to sense no exotic beings.

"It is doubtless some animal," she said, "with prints that mimic those of children. A small bear, perhaps."

"Bears were very rare during the early Pliocene," Claude said. "More likely, ah, well. Whatever it is, it's too small to do us any harm."

Richard came back to the group and tucked map, note-plaque, and quadrant back into his pack. "We're near as damn all," he said. "If we really hump this afternoon, we might get there fairly early tomorrow."

"Sit down and have some fish," Martha said. "Doesn't the aroma drive you wild? They say that salmon is just about the only fish that's nutritionally complete enough to serve as a steady diet. Because it has fat as well as protein, you see." She licked her lips, then gave a strangled squeak. "Don't . . . turn . . . around." Her eyes were wide. The rest of them were sitting on the side of the fire opposite her. "Right behind you there's a wild rama."

"No, Felice!" Claude hissed, as the athete's muscles automatically tensed. "It's harmless. Everybody turn very slowly."

Martha said, "It's carrying something."

The little creature, its body covered with golden-tan fur, stood a short distance back among the trees, trembling noticeably but with an expression of what could only be called determination upon its face. It was about the size of a six-year-old child and had fully humanoid hands and feet. It carried two large warty fruits, greenish bronze streaked with dull orange. As the five travelers regarded it with astonishment, the ramapithecine stepped forward, placed the fruits on the ground, then drew back.

With infinite caution, Claude rose to his feet. The little ape backed up a few paces. Claude said softly, "Well, hullo there, Mrs Thing. We're glad you could stop by for lunch. How's the husband and kiddies? All well? A little hungry in this drought? I'm not surprised. Fruit is nice, but there's nothing like a bit of protein and fat to keep body and soul together. And the mice and squirrels and locusts have mostly migrated into the upper valleys, haven't they? Too bad you didn't go along with them."

He stooped and picked up the fruits. What were they? Melons? Some kind of papaw? He carried them back to the fire and took two of the larger salmon and wrapped them in an elephant-ear leaf. He put the fish down in the exact spot where the fruit had been and withdrew to his place by the fire.

The ramapithecus stared at the bundle. She reached out, touched a greasy fish-head, and put the finger into her mouth. Giving a low crooning call, she everted her upper lip.

Felice grinned back. She drew her dirk, hefted one of the fruits, and sliced it open. A mouth-watering sweet smell arose from the yellowish-pink flesh. Felice cut off a tiny slice and took a bite of it. "Yum!"

The rama clucked. She picked up the package of fish, everted her lips over her small teeth once again, and ran away into the trees.

Felice called out, "Give our regards to King Kong!"

"That was the damnedest thing," Richard said. "Smart, aren't they?"

"Our direct hominid ancestors." Claude stirred up the tubers.

"We had them for servants in Finiah," Martha said. "They were very gentle and cleanly little things. Timid, but they would work conscientiously at the tasks given them by torc wearers."

"How were they cared for?" Claude asked, curious. "Like little people?"

"Not really." Martha said. "They had a kind of barn adjacent to the house, where they lived in partitioned stalls, almost like the small cave rooms filled with straw. They were monogamous, you see, and each family had to have its own apartment. There were community areas, too, and dormitory nooks for the singletons. The childless adults worked for about twelve hours, then came home to eat and sleep. The mothers would care for their young for three years, and then put them in charge of 'aunties', old females who acted for all the world like schoolteachers. The aunties and other very old males and females played with the children and cared for them when the parents were absent. You could see that the parents were unhappy at having to leave the little ones, but the call of the torc couldn't be denied. Still, the rama-keepers told me that the auntie system was a variant of one used by the creatures in the wild. It generally produced well-adjusted individuals. The Tanu have raised ramas in captivity for as long as they've lived on this planet."

"Those sounds they make," Claude said. "Could ordinary bare-necked people such as yourself communicate with them?"

Martha shook her head. "They answered to their names, and there were perhaps a dozen simple voice commands they'd respond to. But the principal means of communicating with them was through the torc. They could grasp very complex mental commands. And of course they were trained with the pleasure-pain circuitry so that they required little supervision for routine tasks such as housework."

Madame shook her head slowly. "So close to humanity, and yet so far away from us. Their life span is only fourteen or fifteen years in captivity. Probably less in the wfld. So fragile, so helpless-seeming! How did they ever survive the hyenas, the bear-dogs, the sabertooth cats, and other monsters?"

"Brains," Richard said. "Look at that one who came to us. Her family won't be hungry tonight. There's natural selection working right in front of us. That little ape is a survivor."

Felice looked at him with a wicked expression. "I thought I noticed a family resemblance ... Here you go, Captain Blood. Have some of your great-great-et-cetera grandmother's fruit for dessert "

They left the Danube behind them and walked. It felt like the temperature was over forty in the September sun, but their adapted bodies could take it. Over the sunburnt grass, through thickets of brittle maquis, over boulders in the dry watercourses they walked. Richard had set their goal, the notch between two long hills that lay due north beyond slowly rising land with hardly a patch of shade and no water at all. They stripped to shorts, backpacks, and broad-brimmed hats. Madame passed a precious squeeze-bottle of sunburn cream. Richard led and Felice took the rear, the athlete ranging out tirelessly to be sure that no animal stalked them and to search, without luck, as it turned out, for some spring or other source of water. Between the two inarched Claude and Madame, supporting Martha between them. The engineer became weaker as the hot hours of hiking accumulated; but she refused to let them slow down. None of them wanted to stop, in spite of the fact that there seemed to be nothing ahead of them but the dry stubbly upland reaching to the undulating horizon. Above it hung a pale-yellow, pitiless sky.