Genellan: Planetfall Part 20

SECTION THREE

ESTABLIs.h.i.+NG RELATIONS.

Chapter 25.

Communication.

The wind stiffened at dusk, blowing snow sideways. Cliff dwellers packed the cold whiteness around the salt bags, building low-walled enclosures over which they draped animal hides. The creatures, chewing their meager dinners, scurried into the shelters, piling atop more hides and atop each other. Four heavily bundled dwellers remained outside, positioned around the humans.

"Sentries," Buccari said, squinting in the fading light.

"Or guards," MacArthur reb.u.t.ted. "A matter of semantics."

Buccari stared at the Marine. "Semantics, eh? I didn't know you were a philosopher, Corporal," she said into her ice-crusted scarf.

"Philosopher? No. Well, maybe, but only when it gets warmer," MacArthur replied, burying a tent stake sideways in the snow. "You know," he remarked without guile, "our little friends are smart. They sleep together and stay warm. Being warm is more important than philosophy."

Buccari tented alone.

"Perhaps," she answered, hiding her face behind her scarf.

MacArthur straightened abruptly, staring past her. She turned to see two cliff dwellers approaching through the falling snow. She remembered the mannerisms displayed during previous contact. MacArthur followed her lead.

Braan bowed in return, pleased by the display of manners. The long-legs stood erect and looked at each other. Braan took the initiative and whistled the special low notes. The hairy-faced one responded in kind, although the short one was obviously the leader. This one uttered grunts and pulled back the flap covering the shelter. It pointed-obscenely extending the first finger-rudely signaling the hunters inside. The hairy-faced one kicked snow from its foot coverings and entered. Not knowing how else to signal, Braan rudely pointed at Short-one-who-leads and indicated that it should go next. Short-one-who-leads moved in next to the taller one.

Braan directed Craag to enter the enclosure. The courageous hunter shook snow from his cloak and slowly moved inside, joining the long-legs. Braan followed, pausing to feel the peculiar fabric of the tent. He left the flap open, the last hint of daylight illuminating their council. Panic welled in Braan' s belly. Sitting close to a potential enemy was against all instinct. The odor of the long-legs, sour and dank, pervaded the tent's interior, and Braan suddenly missed the sweet breezes of the snowstorm.

"Definitely the same bugs that took Tonto back," MacArthur said. "Look at the scars on their captain's nose?"

"Captain!" Buccari said, pointing at the lead hunter, anointing him. The creature recoiled from her pointed finger. She looked at her hand and slowly dropped it. The cliff dweller noticeably relaxed.

"Captain doesn't like to be pointed at," she observed. "Evidently not," MacArthur replied.

"But he pointed at me when we were outside," said Buccari, perplexed.

"Yeah, but he was uncomfortable," MacArthur replied, pointing his finger into the air. The cliff dwellers watched suspiciously. MacArthur moved his hand slowly in their direction. When MacArthur's finger was pointed at Captain, the creature gently pushed it aside. MacArthur nodded, and both cliff dwellers bobbed their heads up and down. Captain reached out and firmly grabbed MacArthur's hands, extending the Marine's fingers in a praying position. The cliff dweller, holding his own hands in the same manner, thrust them toward MacArthur, withdrew them, and then did the same toward Buccari. Pointing the long index finger on his four-fingered hand toward MacArthur, he shook his head and pulled his finger away, using his other hand.

"Interesting!" Buccari said, her hands together. "Pointing with one finger must be impolite."

"Progress," MacArthur said. "A good first step-proper manners."

A dark form in the snowy gloom moved across the tent opening.

"Mac, you there?" Chastain asked loudly.

The cliff dwellers recoiled at the booming voice.

Buccari spoke softly: "Chastain, move away from the tent. We have two of the animals in here." Chastain's shadowy hulk moved silently away. Buccari, using both hands, pointed to the tent entrance. The creatures nodded vigorously and scrambled through the opening. Buccari and MacArthur followed, the cliff dwellers already invisible in the snowy gloaming. Buccari looked up at MacArthur, feeling the warm spot on her thigh, where his knee had touched her. She was excited; they had taken another step in establis.h.i.+ng contact with the strange animals, but her excitement was heightened by physical contact with her own kind.

"Good night, Corporal," she said, trying not to smile at the handsome face. She put her hands together in cliff dweller fas.h.i.+on and put them next to her cheek. Then she stuck out her fist with her thumb extended, jerked it over her shoulder and said, "Scram!"

"Aye, sir," MacArthur replied, moving away in the darkening snowfall.

"Oh, Mac, er... Corporal," Buccari called after him. "Yeah...Lieutenant," he replied, quickly turning.

"Tell everyone how to point. Wouldn't want any incidents."

MacArthur pointed as if firing a pistol. "You got it," he said.

She laughed and crawled into her tent, wearing her clothes against the penetrating chill. She climbed into her sleeping bag, sealed the thermal flaps, and zipped the bag over her head. Snow-muted laughter drifted in. Her stomach growled, but she fell into an exhausted coma of dreamless sleep.

The hikers awoke in the flat light before dawn, camped on the edge of the world. The blizzard of the previous evening had masked the proximity of the cliff face, mere paces from their tents. Cloudless skies arched high above, the air transparently clear. MacArthur studied the terrain. The rock wall of the river valley, covered with snow, appeared vertical with no hint of a trail. Beyond the precipice, past the sinuous gash of the great river, spread the rest of the world in virgin white, awaiting the sun's golden rays to pour over the eastern horizon. Visibility was limitless. Beyond the twin volcanoes, their sullen summits issuing wisps of sulfurous smoke, the plains rolled to infinity, softly white and featureless in their snowy mantle. Far, far away, on the distant northeastern horizon, beyond the curve of the planet, jagged tips of another mountain range bathed in the sharp, golden aura of daylight revealed the coming dawn.

MacArthur stared, mesmerized at the vast scale and depth of his vista. In outer s.p.a.ce one could see infinite distances, but the view before him was more powerful. It was dimensionalized by finite objects, objects a human being could understand, objects that had weight and size, with a clearness and granularity far exceeding reasonable expectation. You could see a star, but you could never comprehend one. Intellectually maybe, but never viscerally.

The cold, dense air made his hearing acute; MacArthur detected the twitter and chirping of cliff dwellers, shrill and constant, as they hiked up the trail, their encampment cleanly evacuated. The loud voices and industrious clankings of the humans were amplified, every word, every syllable clear and distinct. The powdery snow squeaked plaintively under the souls of their boots. Heightened senses enhanced his feeling of physical power. He felt powerful-omnipotent. He felt alive.

"Daydreaming, Corporal? Sun's not even up," Buccari said. She slogged through the dry snow to his side, only paces from the brink. He looked down into her face, one rapture replaced by another. She had not put on her ragged scarf, and her complexion glowed with high color. The first spark of sun peeked over the horizon and flashed in her green eyes.

"Morning, Lieutenant," he said, turning to watch the sunrise. "It's beautiful." His words exploded in vaporous puffs. The eastern horizon had been a stark demarcation of land and sky, a bold line of definition. The fiery sun overflowed the boundary, its red-gold splendor suffusing all realms. Feeble rays of warmth touched his exposed face, enforcing his sense of well-being.

"Wonderful!" she replied. They turned to each other, sharing a mutual resonance. MacArthur forced himself to leave the moment.

"Running behind, aren't we?" he chided. "Our friends are moving out."

"You're right," Buccari groaned, stretching her back. "We better hustle. Then again, we don't have to worry about losing them, do we?"

The advance of the departing cliff dwellers was marked by a gash of tracks up the mountain. Two dwellers, Captain and his constant companion-Lieutenant Buccari had christened him 'X.O.' for Executive Officer-loitered at the column's rear. The dwellers lifted a hand and turned to the steep trail. The column stretched far up the ascent until it disappeared around the profile of the cliff, a necklace of black pearls in diminis.h.i.+ng perspective.

Braan heard panicked whistles. The hunter leader moved rapidly up the side of the halted column, Craag following close behind. The terrain was nearly vertical, the traverse perilous. Hunters lay on their sides, leaning against the rocky slope, feet dug securely into the packed snow. Three animals protected each salt bag, moving it several hundred paces at a turn. Braan and Craag stepped over the hunters and their cargoes, the trail too narrow for them to walk around.

"Caught up with 'em!" MacArthur said. "Take a breather." Buccari, in the number two position, leaned a shoulder into the snow and loosened the belay.

"Forgot how steep," she said, "and how narrow this trail is."

"The snow might have something to do with that, Lieutenant," Jones said, third in line. "You're checking good, sir. I'm just trying to keep up with you."

"Thanks, Boats," Buccari replied. "We should have stuck with EPLs. I'll take a short fuel, bad alignment reentry any day."

"I'd go anywhere as long as you're the pilot," Jones said.

"She's got my vote, too," MacArthur joined in from above.

Buccari grinned at the Marine, but he was staring up the trail. She looked down at Jones and smiled nervously. Jones smiled back, but not comfortably. O'Toole and Chastain, stood close together, talking quietly, pointing nonchalantly out over the void.

"Let's move," MacArthur said.

Buccari felt the slack go out of the belay. She exhaled, moved her weight over the path, and dug a boot into the packed snow for another step forward, when urgent whistling came from above. Snow cascaded down the fall line onto their heads.

"Keep moving!" MacArthur shouted. "Get out from under that snow!"

The whistling heightened in urgency. More and different sounds sliced the still air, screams of panic and desperation. A switchback appeared. Buccari followed MacArthur on a short climb before traversing in the opposite direction; the path widened slightly. Able to look upslope, she comprehended what was happening: a team of bag bearers had lost control of their precious load. A cliff dweller with a bag strapped to his back lay spread-eagled on the steep slope, his leather-covered talons and fingers sunk desperately into the snow; but the snow beneath him was moving inexorably downwards. Two cliff dwellers not burdened with bags leapt into the air.

"Jocko!" MacArthur yelled down the hill. "Untie and take one of the lines back to where the snow was falling on the path. One of the bats is over the edge with a bag on his back, and his hold is about to let go."

Buccari wondered what good Chastain could possibly do standing beneath a potential avalanche.

"The rest of you come up to this wide spot and give me the other rope," MacArthur shouted, moving ahead and pulling the rest of the group with him. "Jocko! If he's falling, don't try to catch him or he'll take you with him. If he's sliding or barely moving, give it your best shot. Be careful, Jocko! Take off your pack."

Chastain pulled one rope away from his comrades and removed his pack, driving the frame deep into the powder. With rope in hand he retraced the trail and disappeared from sight. MacArthur removed his pack as he waited for the second rope to be cleared from the waists of his fellow climbers. The bag bearer had slipped another body length and the slope was increasing. Before Buccari could say anything, MacArthur pulled the rope free and clambered on all fours across the face of the cliff, cutting beneath the trail in a direct route to the falling hunter. He stopped and coiled the rope, placing it over his head and shoulders. MacArthur kicked the edges of his boots into the yielding snow and crabbed across the cliff.

Braan flapped mightily, holding position over the salt bag. He whistled permission for the salt bearer to release the salt bag, but the plucky hunter stubbornly held on, begging for help. Braan noticed additional movement on the slope and was astonished to see a long-legs. It could not glide to safety. It would fall to certain death. The long-legs was very brave-or crazy.

Braan watched the long-legs take a rope from his shoulder and shake out the coils. With a jerky flick, one end of the rope was tossed to the spread-eagled hunter. It snaked across the salt bearer's forearms. Suddenly Braan had an inkling of what the long-legs wanted. The long-legs took the remaining coil of rope and threw it feebly up the hill, the effort causing him to slide abruptly downhill. Shouts and screams erupted from the long-legs waiting at the switchback. They crawled, panic-stricken, up the trail.

Braan screamed and dove for the bitter end of the rope. The leader of the hunters landed in the snow, grabbed the rope with his talons, and leapt into the air, pulling mightily, struggling to regain the path.

MacArthur felt sick to his stomach. Every move he made caused the snowpack to slide. Digging in his boots did no good; everything was moving. He looked at the bag bearer. It had grabbed the end of the rope and was tying it. To the bag! To the bag!

"No! Tie it around your waist!" MacArthur spoke as loudly as he could without exhaling strenuously. Even heavy breathing seemed to move the snow. "c.r.a.p," he whined, his face buried in the soft snow. "I killed myself for a lousy lunch bag."

Braan dropped his the end of the rope into the waiting hands of cliff dwellers and jumped into the air, flapping over the deteriorating predicament. He made his decision.

"Untie the bag. Give the rope to the long-legs," he commanded.

"Braan-our-leader," whistled the salt bearer as he untied the rope, the movements accelerating his descent. "I have failed." The sliding hunter threw the rope to the long-legs who grabbed it greedily.

"The salt is gone, warrior. Fly now, so thou may redeem thyself with future effort," Braan screamed, struggling to hold alt.i.tude.

MacArthur clenched the rope in his gloved hands. He looped it around his right wrist and arm several times and then reached over to the cliff dweller with his left hand. He shouted, "Grab hold! Take my hand!" But the animal had slipped out of reach. The bag bearer looked dumbly at MacArthur, then glanced up at the cliff dweller flapping mightily overhead. The bag bearer shrugged its shoulders and started sliding down the precipice, clearing itself from the bag straps.

MacArthur screamed, "Heads up, Jocko! Stand clear!" "Heads up, Jocko! Stand clear!"

Cliff dweller and bag slid from sight. MacArthur closed his eyes. The creatures flapping overhead moved away from the cliff. With shocking abruptness they screamed in unison and soared out over the river valley. The cliff dwellers on the trail also raised their voices in squeaky bedlam. Suddenly MacArthur felt himself moving upward with powerful jerks. He looked up to see Jones and O'Toole hauling on the line. Jones's strong arms grabbed his coat and pulled him onto the narrow path. The meager trail appeared as wide as a jet runway.

"What happened to Chastain?" MacArthur gasped. "O'Toole, check on Jocko." The Marine moved cautiously down the precarious path toward the switchback, while curious and highly animated cliff dwellers crowded around the gasping human, Captain foremost among them. MacArthur looked up as Captain solemnly bowed. MacArthur, still on his knees, did his best to return the gesture, but his mind was on Chastain. Buccari stood a few paces downhill, looking up at him as if she were seeing a ghost, her face ashen, tears glistening in the bright sun.

"That was the stupidest trick I have ever seen, Corporal!" she shouted, eyes flas.h.i.+ng green sparks. "Why didn't you throw the rope over from the trail?"

"I thought it would be quicker..." he started. MacArthur felt old emotions, emotions not felt since he was a small child. He put his head down and tried to rationalize an appropriate response. He could not; the lieutenant was correct. He had made a poor move. He looked at her, amazed at the power of her emotions. She was not just chewing him out-she had been scared witless by his peril.

"You're right, Lieutenant," MacArthur said. "I guess I didn't have a plan until I got out there, and the options narrowed too fast." Buccari stood there, shoulders heaving.

"Excuse me, Lieutenant," MacArthur said, breaking the emotion-laden silence. "I got to check on Chastain. Our problem's not over." He slipped and skidded past her down to the switchback in time to see O'Toole and Chastain climbing up, Chastain carrying the bag. Two dwellers hiked a cautious distance behind. A third hunter, a tiny speck in the distance, tramped up the trail far below.

Seeing Chastain loosened a surge of warmth through MacArthur' s body. The big man had become a part of his being; they had shared too much. MacArthur felt the infinite obligation of owing his life to the gentle giant, and Chastain was simple enough not to care. Chastain looked up and his features erupted in an immense grin. MacArthur felt his own face stretch with happiness. The big man lifted the gray bag over his head like a trophy.

With startling clarity MacArthur understood the pa.s.sing sequence of emotional transactions. His own fears over Chastain' s well-being and the subsequent joy felt at seeing him whole were cathartic. MacArthur realized Buccari had suffered a similar catharsis and that he was the focal point of her emotions. He was warmed by the thought-and confused. He looked up the trail and saw the lieutenant, hands clasped over her chest. MacArthur waved-a subdued wave, a subtle signal. Buccari waved back in kind, quickly and easily.

MacArthur looked back at Chastain. The big man trudged upward, the bag slung effortlessly over his shoulder.

"Ho, Mac!" he shouted. "This bag's filled with salt!"

"Salt?" MacArthur replied, grabbing Chastain' s arm. "These guys are risking their lives for salt?" Yet as he spoke he realized how much they, too, needed salt.

"I heard you yell," Chastain said proudly. "I look up and see the bat sliding down the mountain. He's holding on to the bag with his feet-flapping his wings hard. Stubborn-like you, Mac. But he's coming straight down and the bag starts bouncing, so he lets go. The bag rolled right into my arms. It was going pretty fast, but I had a wide spot to stand on. But then the little bat flew right by me, screaming so loud I almost jumped off the trail."

"You did great, Jocko!" MacArthur slapped the big man on the chest. Chastain glowed with pride. "I'd like to hear the bat's version. I'll bet it was falling like a son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h."

Captain and X.O. glided into the snow above the switchback and hopped down, showing no fear. Captain chirped and whistled to the cliff dwellers trailing behind the humans and then moved directly in front of Chastain, bowing deeply. The other animals, catching up with Chastain, also bowed.

"Bow, Jocko," MacArthur ordered gently. "You're a hero, my friend."

"Cut it out, Mac." Chastain smiled self-consciously and bowed awkwardly. He offered the salt bag to the little animal. Captain bowed deeply again. Chastain, confused, returned the bow. MacArthur smiled at Chastain's gracelessness. X.O. stepped forward and accepted the bag. The creatures all bowed yet again.

"Okay." MacArthur laughed. "Everybody bow one more time, real low."

Swirls of first-magnitude stars dotted the velvet skies. The last murky hints of dusk revealed a line of salt bearers winding along the brink of the plateau far ahead of the exhausted earthlings. The humans trudged upward, miserably chilled by plummeting temperatures and rising winds. A full moon elevated into the eastern skies, outs.h.i.+ning the stars and casting an eerie light over the snowy landscape. The river falling over the cliffs had lost much of its volume and voice, but its cascading spray spread phantasmically in the soft light. Silky sheets of gossamer snow sifted across the crusty whiteness, drifting into patterned dunes of sugar dust. MacArthur worried the drifting snows would mask the trail. He stumbled faster, pulling the patrol with him.

"What's your plan, Mac?" Buccari panted.