Eclipses v1 0, p.2
Eclipses (v1.0), page 2
Aram touched Calib’s hand to awaken him. The pale and puffy flesh was warm from the sun.
Calib stirred and blinked. He pushed dry, white hairs from his forehead and looked at Aram. “Sorry, where were we?”
“The dam. Shall we put in the roller? We may need to take logs from the forests above the reservoir,” Aram said evenly.
Calib knew he drifted into sleep too easily. It kept him from doing many things; he did not like it to keep him from talking with Aram. Calib shifted in the contour seat, sitting straighter, trying to look more alert. “We’ll have the road usable by the time we can use that timber,” he said.
“Track, Calib. We’re going to put in a monorail to go over the pass. We will run it with hydroelectric power; don’t want to depend on fossil fuel for anything so important to the Empire.”
“Yes, of course.” Calib looked at Aram with puzzled eyes.
Aram ignored his father’s confusion. There was nothing wrong with Calib’s mind, and he would quickly catch the pieces he had missed without Aram’s patronizing. “It will take a lot of handling to load the logs onto the monorail cars. If we plan for it now we could spill them into the locks by raising a roller, float them down to the mills,” Aram said. “On the other hand, we won’t need it for ten or fifteen years, for, as you say, that timber isn’t ready yet.”
“Put in the roller-gate,” Calib said firmly.
Aram nodded. He’d approved the construction changes the day before and now, when Calib saw the final drawings, he would remember this conversation with pleasure. Calib no longer had enough waking hours in which to consult with Aram on all the details of the Empire, but this dam was special. Aram watched Calib turn in his chair to keep the sun out of his eyes. Beyond them was a ruggedly magnificent valley that, when the dam was built, would be the largest man-made lake on Serensunar. Calib was not likely to see it filled, but in his vivid imagination it was almost a reality. Thousands of drought-prone acres would be turned into rich farms and ranches with the water and energy the dam would supply. Much of the water would be allotted to the arid coastal plains outside the Empire where colonists had begun to live, spreading north from the rain forest where Serensunar was densely populated.
Calib touched his son’s shoulder. “Aram, look. The woman.”
“What woman? Who?”
Calib was pointing toward the orchard beyond the lawn where the ground was covered with brown and russet petals. Aram looked and saw a woman, bent under a heavy backpack, striding out of the orchard and up over the lawn. He recognized her silhouette immediately.
“It’s the anthropologist from Earth,” Calib said.
“She’s the one Kelly almost blew up yesterday,” Aram said. Thoughtfully, he rubbed the fresh bruise on his cheek and then realized Calib was waiting for further explanation. “She came out of the sun, after the eclipse, walked into the blast area. Kelly was ready to ignite the charge when someone gave a shout, and I spotted her.” He nodded toward the hiker. “There was no time to do anything except knock Kelly away from the detonator. Close call.”
“How’d you get the bruise?”
“Kelly came up swinging—not asking for explanations.” Calib nodded appreciatively. “Kelly has a temper like yours. Perhaps that’s not good for blasting.”
Aram considered Calib’s observation; there was nothing . like Kelly’s temper to get through solid granite slabs. She found them personally offensive and blasted doggedly and ingeniously. The element of recklessness had never come close to costing a life before. Or was it the anthropologist’s recklessness in ignoring the blast whistle?
“What did the anthropologist want in the blast area?”
“I don’t know. She ran when the fight was over. She probably got scared when she realized what had happened,” Aram said. “Well, I’ve got to go back to work …”
“No, stay. Wait and meet her. She’s incredible—an anthropologist working on a planet that has only two hundred years of civilization to study.” Calib chuckled and re-emphasized his wish for Aram to stay with a hand motion.
Aram sat back, faintly amused with his father’s interest, and watched the woman. She’d stepped up her pace and was shortening the distance a lot faster than Aram might unless he ran. She was close enough for Aram to see that she was very tall. She wore shorts and her tanned legs flashed handsomely. Her thumbs were hooked onto her pack straps; her hair, cut short to keep it out of the straps, was tangled and windblown.
She stopped in front of Calib’s chair and tossed down her pack.
“Hi, Calib,” she said. Then she recognized Aram, blanched, and gave him a hesitant nod. For an instant she stood, frozen, and her jaw clenched; then, ignoring Aram, she bent over the pack and began digging in the contents. “I have a problem.” She pulled out papers and spread them on the hood of the car before Calib, leaning over to smooth the creases and turning her back to Aram. “See, the last known campsite should be in this canyon right here.” With one finger marking the papers, she looked up and pointed with the other hand to the far side of the valley. “The canyon’s right beyond that ridge … and that’s my problem.”
Aram got up so he could see the papers. They seemed to be a map, but unlike any other map he’d ever seen: lines and x’s with handwritten notes haphazardly placed to explain the legend.
“What’s the problem?” Calib asked, leaning over to look. This time his confusion was not peculiar to his illness. Aram was puzzled, too. Both men squinted at the map.
“If that’s the canyon—we call it Cat’s Creek Canyon— where is a … uh, sign to indicate the old mine? It should be right here.” Aram pointed to a place where there was nothing on the map.
When she didn’t answer, Calib added, “My mansion is a landmark on most maps, and it’s not there, either.”
“This map’s too old to have the house or the mine. It was made by Serensunar’s first explorers,” she said.
“Oh,” Aram said, nodding. “The Lost Expedition.”
“Beth, this is my son, Aram,” Calib said.
Again she froze, as if wondering if she could continue to ignore him. But finally she turned to him. Her eyes were pure blue, her cheeks sunburned despite a protective tan. With a ’ halting move, she pushed sun-blonde hair from her forehead. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” she said. She’d recovered her color but her eyes were wide with fear. “Is that bruise from the fight?”
Aram nodded.
“I never saw anything like it. I got scared and ran.”
Aram couldn’t restrain a smile. “I imagine that was about as close to death as you’ve been since your cold-sleep journey from Earth.”
Beth frowned. “I don’t mean the explosives. I never saw a man fight with a woman like that before. You didn’t hold your punches any. You really socked her.”
Aram’s mouth droned open. “Was I supposed to lie there and let her beat the … Kelly outweighs me by at least twenty kilos!”
Beth shook her head. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have been there. I’m really very sorry for the trouble I caused you and Kelly.”
Aram was momentarily speechless. Beth was frightened white again just talking about it, but it wasn’t her near death that put fear in her. It was the fight with the blaster. Aram hadn’t been involved in a fight for years, and he didn’t believe Kelly, for all her formidable temper, had been, either. But it was an honest misunderstanding, a fair fight, and they’d parted friends when it was done. Beth apparently had not stayed long enough to see that. Did she think one of us would hit her next? Does she think that’s why I chased her? Aram imagined her heart was pounding furiously even now; certainly her knuckles were white and her muscles tense. “It’s done and forgotten,” Aram said, pushing as much congeniality as he could through stiff lips. “Now, tell me what this problem is.”
Beth exhaled a shaky sigh. “They’re going to blast a tunnel under the canyon wall to divert rivers into Cat’s Creek Canyon while they build the dam.”
“Yes, they’ll be done surveying by the end of the week,” Aram said. “It will be nothing more than a crude trough. Kelly will make short work of it.”
“That’s the problem. I haven’t been able to find the Lost Expedition’s camp, and when the diversion tunnel is done and the canyon is flooded, I’ll never find it. It will be under water. I’d like the blasting delayed until I find the campsite.”
Aram stared in amazement.
“I know schedule changes and revisions of plans all cost money, but…”
“Not money on Serensunar,” Calib said gently. “We don’t have any. It means broken contracts—trust and goodwill.” Beth frowned. “Sounds even worse that way,” she said. Calib nodded.
“I know I’m asking a lot, but if I don’t find that camp now, no one ever will. They wintered there. There will be equipment and records stashed … somewhere.”
Aram understood her dismay, and he had to admit that her contract had never received any special consideration during planning stages. Likely, as she was fresh from Earth, her contract hadn’t existed during planning stages. He looked at her map again, studying it. “Look,” Aram said. .“Your map isn’t accurate. This … mapmaker has the great boulder at the canyon entrance. It should be back here.”
Beth looked where he pointed. “That would put the camp upstream.”
“Yes, but look at where the mapmaker put the Sentinel Mountain Range. Are you sure you’re looking in the right canyon?”
“Yes, the directions in the diary are very explicit to this point. I found the camp they used the previous summer by following directions in the same diary … same map,Too. It’s back there.” Beth pointed to the mountain ridge behind the mansion.
“Did you?” Aram said, rocking back on his heels a moment. “I used to look for it when I was a boy, but I never found it.”
“It’s there. I can work in it anytime. It’s the winter camp I’m worried about. I must do that now.”
“Do what?”
“Find it and catalog what they left behind. Most of all I’m hoping to find an indication of where they were when they left this area. The trail ends here, because this is the last known location before the orbiter went home.”
“Why?” Aram said. He sat back again. “Why would anyone want to bother?”
“Don’t you wonder how they lived?”
Aram shook his head.
“But they knew there was a minimum of thirty years before help would come. They must have made extensive preparations to endure, perhaps resigning themselves to living the rest of their lives on Serensunar without benefit of any support from Earth. It was almost forty-five years before help did come—the first shipload of colonists.”
Aram nodded. History was sketchy about the Lost Expedition, and not very interesting beyond its influence in settling ’ the planet. They’d completed exploration of the Sibernian Continent and sent back extensive descriptions of the petroleum deposits under what they’d considered an uninhabitable desert. Almost a million people lived in Sibemia today, for in the forty-five years that it took for the colonists to arrive, Earth technology had learned how to turn petroleum into food, along with discovering better ways to bum it up. The Lost Expedition had crossed the ocean to the only other continent that wasn’t submerged beneath the vast and rough seas. Again reports and descriptions were extensive, but they covered only the rain forests along the coast, a fertile land that had been beaten fairly flat by ocean waves and fierce tides, land that had then been upthrust by unknown forces, or else the ocean had receded. Whatever the reason, there was a vast stretch of flat forested land along the present coast that was above the tidal flood plain, quite suitable for homesteading. When coastal exploration was finished, the shuttle carried the expedition to the great rift valley, third of four planned touchdown and exploration sites. Exploration of the last two sites was never completed. Consequently the first wave of colonists had opted to settle on the coast, a place about which there was some data and known favorable conditions. The rift valley was eliminated from consideration because it was there that the shuttle was lost in an earthquake. The survivors reported more earthquakes, many, many more, so many that they were forced to evacuate to the mountains. *
‘‘There was a search made,” Aram said, returning his attention to Beth. “Nothing was ever found.”
“Not a good search,” Beth said firmly. “The colonists were only interested in their homesteading, and that was done on the coast. It was too far from the mountains to support a proper base camp. An astronaut conducted the search, not an explorer. He knew little about wilderness survival.”
“All right. Perhaps a proper search never was made. So what? What’s to be gained by making one now?” “Knowledge—about man and Serensunar. There were twenty men and seven women, each a scientist and specialist, trapped on Serensunar. The last shuttle jump was into the rift valley; not particularly spectacular as geological formations go, but very pretty. They found out how deadly it could be when the shuttle was covered with tons of rock in an earthquake. Suddenly they faced a minimum of thirty years on the planet, fifteen for the ship to get back to Earth, another fifteen for a rescue ship to bring a new shuttle. The orbiter waited for six months, maintaining radio contact. That’s how we know they walked out of the riftlands to the mountains. The summer camp was up there”—Beth pointed to the ridge again—“and the winter camp is in the canyon. That’s why the map is lousy, too.” Beth ran her hand over the signature on the map. “They didn’t have any means for reproducing graphics from the ground after losing the shuttle. The people in the orbiter drew the map from instructions like ‘Now proceed three millimeters north from the place marked boulder … that’s our camp.’ ”
“And they hadn’t selected a permanent settlement before the orbiter left. So you don’t know where it is.”
“Right, but they surely left a message in the winter camp.” “Assuming they even survived the winter,” Aram said dryly.
“They did. They were scientists who were accustomed to expedition hardships. These mountains would not be particularly hostile to a well-trained group like that even if they did lose most of their equipment with the shuttle. They knew how to fashion tools by hand^even if not skillfully at first. Did they - become farmers? Nomadic hunters? Where did they go? How did they live?”
“You think there is a lost colony somewhere?”
“No. But while they lived, I’m certain they documented everything. It is inconceivable that as scientists they would not.”
“The mountains are far from fully explored,” Aram said thoughtfully. “Well, let’s go.” He got to his feet and brushed blades of grass from his pants.
“Go? Where?”
“Cat’s Creek Canyon. If we’re going to find that camp before the trough is finished, we’ll have to hurry. With my knowledge of the canyon, put together with your horrible map, we may have better luck than you did on your own.”
“But if we don’t,” Beth said, “you will delay—”
“First things first. Let’s try.”
Beth nodded and folded up the map. “Thanks, Aram. Thank you, Calib.” But the old man was asleep. Sadly, Beth looked at Aram. He’s very ill, her eyes seemed to say.
“We’ll let him sleep,” Aram said. There was really no way to prevent Calib from sleeping most of the time. One day, he’d sleep forever. Too soon, Aram thought.
They sat on moss-covered rock, for the canyon was hot. The sun was straight overhead, the big moon far below. There would be no eclipse to cool them today. Beth idly soaked her toes in the swift stream and Aram studied the map while both ate lunch from Beth’s provisions. Aram ate sparingly, for though she made no mention of it, he could see she had little to share.
“The scale of this map isn’t right, either,” Aram said to her. “The end of the canyon is squeezed in between the mountain pass and the lower valley.”
Beth nodded. She seemed more at ease now; at least she didn’t turn white every time he spoke.
“But even considering the squeeze, the camp is marked in the canyon narrows. If we use that as a bearing point instead of the big boulder, it must be half a kilometer upstream … or two down there.” He pointed downstream with his thumb.
Shaking his head, Aram folded the paper map. She must have been appalled when she realized how bad the maps were. They probably were the reason the task of finding the old Lost Expedition campsites had .not been accomplished in two hundred years. Likely the Research City computer had recently sweetened the challenge, perhaps because of the dam construction. A thorough data search would have revealed the effect of one on the other.
Beth’s rain-blue eyes had followed the flow of the tiny creek to where it disappeared under a tangle of waxy succulent vines. “The mine is back there,” she said, nodding. “The mine, any kind of cave, seemed a likely choice, but it wasn’t there. Is there another cave upstream?”
“Not that I know of,” Aram said. He would have added that he doubted there could be one without his knowing of it, but Beth had put her canteen back in the pack and was pulling on her socks and boots. She was easy to watch. She curled like a cat and unwound with sure motions. Her calves and thighs were lean and sinewy, hard from walking. Her shoulder muscles were overdeveloped from carrying the pack, but her neck was long and straight. There was appeal in her well-turned body beyond simple attractiveness and youth.
She started upstream and Aram stood watching her.
Beth looked back and saw him watching her. “A stone bridge,” she said, “and a ridge there that looks like it carries through to the canyon top.”
