Chapter 7: "Seek the Great Ones!"

All right, Riley. What are you trying to pull?" Steve barked in his curiously flat voice. "Is this, or isn't it where the base is supposed to be?"

"I... I don't understand it. This is the right place. I've seen it from the air enough times so that I couldn't be mistaken. It's got to be here!" Pete suddenly realized that he hadn't been so close to bawling from sheer frustration since the time when he was twelve years old, and had gotten lost right in his own neighborhood.

"Ain't no use, standin' here and arguing whether it tis or it tain't," Charley broke in. "The only way we'll find out for sure, is to go down and look at things, close up."

The breeze brought a multitude of odors from the swamp, feeling cool against the beads of sweat brought out by their climb up the outer slope of the ridge. Helping Dan to his feet, they threaded their way down the hillside without another word, their thoughts filled with apprehension and fear of the unknown. At the bottom, Pete stopped and glared at the peaceful scene.

"Right there!" he shouted, pointing. "That's where the buildings were. Look! You can see where the base of the hill was cut back for them. The dirt has been smoothed back, but you can see where the foundations used to be." His knees buckled, and he sat down abruptly on the ground, cradling his head in his hands. "They've pulled out and left us!"

"But, why?" Nancy's eyes widened in terror. "Why would they do that to us?"

"Don't you see?" Steve's flat voice was an oasis of sanity in a world suddenly gone chaotic. "They think we're dead. They've closed the project down, and cleaned up their traces so that future archaeologists will find no trace of our works. That's standard procedure on a precivilized world."

"But, won't they check back on this spot, in case we do show up?" Nancy asked, on the verge of tears. Pete got unsteadily to his feet, putting his arm around her shoulders.

"Not very likely, but they might have left something here that we can use," Amy suggested, her voice cool and composed. "Anyway, my boss will check this place again, even if your company doesn't."

"Who's your boss?" Nancy looked confused. "I thought that you worked for the Trade Board."

"I'm only on loan to them, by World Traders, Inc."

"Yes, I've heard about your boss, and his two 'executive secretaries'." Steve's monotone held a world of sarcasm.

"Executive secretaries?" Pete asked.

"I'm one of Neal Marten's two executive secretaries. My full name is Amaluetha. He rescued me from a band of renegade soldiers, on the world where I was born. I use his last name in your culture, wherever two names are necessary. Otherwise, people just call me Amy. If Neal thinks there is any chance of my being alive, he will keep an eye on this place."

"Just where will he find out the coordinates of this world?" Steve looked around in distaste at the crowding jungle. "My agency has the only set of duplicate coordinates of what worlds have been contacted, and they're not about to give them out to someone like him."

"I think we can put off worrying about that for now," Pete interrupted. "First, we need to know more about what happened here. We'll scout the area, see if there is anything here that we can use. KeeBar, can you make it to your village and back before dark?"

"Can do, ManPete." KeeBar lapsed back into his earlier mode of speech. "Thanna will stay here while I go."

"No, I go too!"

"You will stay here. I can go faster by myself. I will feel better, knowing that you are here where it is safe."

As soon as he was gone, his friends began the search, looking for anything that might help them to survive. Lyssa and Amy ranged up and down the slopes behind where the buildings had been, while Steve and Charley searched around the site of the cook shack. Pete and Nancy, with Thanna tagging forlornly along, wandered around the area that had once been covered by the post's buildings. Only Dan didn't join in, but even he scanned the area from where he sat, resting. At last Pete stopped, and stood beating his fist into the palm of his other hand.

"What's wrong?" Nancy put her hand on his arm, feeling the muscles corded with tension. "You're doing everything that you can."

"Everything but use my head. We need more than just the scraps we might find around here. If they thought that there was any chance we might show up here, they would have left a cache of supplies for us. What we need to do, is to figure out where they would have left it."

He stood motionless in the center of the level area, his brow furrowed with the effort of trying to think. He stared at the familiar outlines of the surrounding hills, letting his gaze follow the contours of the ground. At last, his shoulders sagged and he turned away.

"I don't see a thing to suggest a cache," he finally admitted, wearily. "Surely, they would have marked it for us if they'd left one."

"Maybe they didn't want KeeBar's people to find it," Nancy suggested.

"They could still have marked it with blue dye that wouldn't have shown up to their eyes. Maybe KeeBar will come up with something."

They surveyed their meager findings in the somber light of the late evening sun. Charley and Steve had picked up a few unopened packets of freezedried foods among what little trash had been left behind, and a few plastic eating utensils, but there simply wasn't any great quantity of food or weapons to be found. Amy and Lyssa had found no sign of a cache, and neither had Pete and Nancy.

"When KeeBar get back?" Thanna asked, anxiously. "It get dark soon."

"He should have been here by now," Pete answered, glancing at his watch. "He can't travel through the swamps at night, so if he doesn't make it soon, he won't get here until morning. He'll be all right, though. He's spent the night in a tree plenty of times before."

It was almost dark when Thanna caught a flash of movement out in the swamp. She sprang to her feet as the movement was repeated, running to meet her nearly exhausted mate as he stumbled up the slope toward them. Pete and Amy helped her bring him to the campfire, then waited impatiently for him to catch his breath.

"What did you find out?" Pete asked as soon as the youth could talk.

"Nothing good, my friend Pete." KeeBar's face was expressionless, as always, but his voice was sad. "The word came from the Great Ones, only a few days after the storm. They say, 'No trade. Have nothing to do with strangers from afar. Tell them to go away, not ever return.' My chief not wish for me to return here, but I tell him I must go to my mate. Kee say, we thought to be dead. Men bring chopter to hunt, but find no sign. Men hunt five, six days. Then, go. This place had much damage from storm. They tear down what left. Take all things with them. They say, not come back. Not ever!"

"Huh! Seems like they gave up mighty easy," was Charley's comment. "We're harder to kill than that."

"Pete, what's that, over there?" Lyssa pointed off into the darkness.

"Where? I don't see anything."

"Come over here, out of the light. Now, look. It seems to be some kind of a bluish glow."

Standing with his back to the fire, he looked where she was pointing.

"You're right, there does seem to be a faint glow over there." He took a few more steps away from the fire. "Yes, I can see it better, now. It looks like someone painted an 'X' on the side of the hill."

"Oh, I see it now!" Amy exclaimed.

"I don't see anything," Nancy said plaintively.

"Me neither." "Neither do I," Charley and Steve chorused, and Dan agreed with them.

By now, they were all well away from the fire. Pete led the way to where he could see the faint glow. He prodded at the ground with his machete, noticing that the bluish glimmer brightened slightly where he did this.

"Now I can see it a little bit!" exclaimed Nancy, but Charley and Steve still couldn't make it out.

"It's probably the remains of a marker," Pete decided. "They must have used a dye that only our eyes could pick out, but the rains have faded it to where it's almost invisible." He was digging with the point of his machete as he talked. "Whatever they used, it glows brightest in the nearultraviolet. I read some place that we blondes and redheads can see a little farther in that direction than people with darker complexions. Ah!" He stopped digging as the point of his machete struck something solid. He cleared the dirt from around it with his hands. "Feels like some kind of a box. Get the shovels, and we'll soon have it out of there."

KeeBar brought torches from the fire, too. In another moment, they could see the corner of a wooden chest. A few minutes of digging had the top clear of dirt, and Pete quickly pried it open. Inside, they found two carbines with several hundred rounds of ammunition, some clothing, and, most welcome of all, a plentiful supply of concentrated food!

The next morning found them in a more hopeful mood. Charley and Lyssa had helped Nancy to inventory the food, estimating that they now had at least a four week supply.

"One question." Steve looked up from where he'd been scribbling on a piece of paper. "What happens if we come to the end of that four weeks, and we are still sitting here?"

Pete looked stunned for a moment, all of the elation draining from his face.

"You're right, damn it! Too bad there's no one here who knows how to build us one of those transdimensional gates, or portals, or whatever you want to call them."

"Oh, but there is."

Their heads snapped around at Amy's matteroffact comment.

"Nonsense!" Steve rasped irritably. "No one but a few top scientists know what makes the portals work. Anyway, they take huge installations, and terrific amounts of power."

"Your government doesn't know everything," Amy told him calmly. "There is such a thing as a small portal, and I do know how to build it. What I was really thinking about, though, was a device to send signals across the dimensional gap. My company uses them for communicating back and forth between its outposts. The only trouble is, whichever one we decide on, it's going to take machinery, metals, and some power to build and operate. A signaler would take us the longest, but a small portal couldn't possible reach all the way back to our own universe."

"Electricity, tools, and iron." Pete smiled wanly. "That's three out of three that we don't have. How much, and what kinds of each would you need?"

"If we pooled all of the iron from our tools and weapons, we would have just barely enough. Without some way to melt it down, and without a good small metalturning lathe, we can't do much with it. As for power, about a thousand watts would do the job, maybe even less. Direct current, not alternating."

"And just where do you expect to find all of these things?" Steve asked, his lips curled in a sneer. "Pick them out of thin air?"

"Maybe you can figure that one out!" Amy flared back at him.

"I have an idea that might be worth a try." Pete stepped between them. "It's pretty wild, I'll admit, but it's the only thing I can come up with."

"What is it?" Nancy asked eagerly.

"Remember back in the forest, when we saw that stubby being attacked by the strider?"

"Of course we do," Steve retorted. "What does that have to do with our problem?"

"I noticed something that maybe nobody else did, or if they saw it, they didn't realize what it meant. That stubby had a brand on its side. It belonged to somebody. Or to something."

"What kinda brand? You sure it wasn't an old scar?"

"Positive, Charley. It was too sharp and regular to be accidental. It had to be a brand."

"So? Where does that get us?" Steve asked acidly.

"What it means to me, is that somewhere on this planet is a higher level of civilization than KeeBar's people. I don't know how much higher, but that brand was clear and sharp. Stamped, not just drawn on crudely by hand. If they have that much, they could have other things. At least, they might have the craftsmen to help us build what we need."

"That's about as farfetched an argument as I've ever heard," Steve grumbled, then added before Pete could flare up at him, "but it's just crazy enough that it might be true. Where do you expect to find these 'technologically advanced' people?"

"There's only one logical place to start. KeeBar's Great Ones. Since we know where to hunt for them, that will save us some time. We have only four to six weeks before we start to weaken from lack of food."

"But, ManPete! To go to Great Ones is forbidden. You must not!"

"It's either that, or take a chance on starving to death. We don't expect you to come with us. You have helped us a lot, getting us back here. Now, you and Thanna can go back to your village to live."

"No! I not go! Great Ones say you never come back. I want to learn, to know things. Never anything new happen in village. If I help, maybe men come back. I help you to find Great Ones."

"You could end up an outcast if we fail," Pete reminded him.

"You fail, I be outcast, you be dead. You win, I go to other worlds with you. Learn much."

"What about you, Thanna?"

"Where KeeBar go, I go," she answered simply. "Anyway, it sound like fun."

"I can't argue with that," Pete answered with a laugh, then suddenly sobered. "All right, then. We do or die together, and we'll take a lot of stopping."

"Until we run out of food," Steve muttered, but Pete ignored him.

In high spirits, and with a good breakfast to give them energy, the little band shouldered their packs and started back up the ridge. Behind them, a durable marker pointed out the way they had gone, and buried beneath it was a bottle with a note.

Back in the forests, there were no more encounters with the voracious striders, but smaller meat eaters were plentiful, and they had to stay alert. A couple of times, they had to use bursts of rifle fire to drive off hungry reptiles, but usually predators would sheer off as soon as they got a whiff of the humans' odor.

Their first real trouble came when they approached the river bottom where Dan had been injured. Even from a distance, they could see dark bodies moving among the trees. Cautious scouting showed these to be the same kind of blocky, semiaquatic lizard that had attacked them before.

"Hey, I don't want anything to do with those bastards," Dan argued, hanging back.

"Not your idea of a trophy?" Steve asked, sarcasm edging his flat voice.

Dan glared at him silently, but his fingers gripped the staff Charley had cut for him, as though he would have liked to use it for a club.

"Have you ever seen any of these lizards in the swamps?" Pete asked KeeBar.

"No, never. Just here. You think maybe they not go in swamp?"

"It could be. They may just live along this river, or even have come here to breed. If so, we may be able to go around them."

They swung to their right, heading for the gap in the ridge where, long ago, the river had broken its way through the wall of the ancient crater. They had to swing wide to avoid extensive swamps as they neared the rim, but soon they came to where the ground rose in front of them. A dull roar boomed back at them from the steep walls of the river canyon, and the air grew even damper as they went along. Mosses and fungi, their bright colors muted in the mists, coated the dripping rocks as they picked their way carefully to where the canyon opened out.

Below them, the sluggish river quickened its pace, dashing and swirling among tumbled boulders. Then it smoothed out, curving glassily down and out of sight over a ledge of rock. Beyond the rim, clouds of mist and spray rose from the plunging waters. The river was narrow here, but even so, its roar shook the air and vibrated the solid stone beneath their feet. They crept cautiously forward to where they could peer over the edge, but boiling mists hid whatever awaited them below.

"And just how are you going to get us past this?" Steve asked.

"Our best bet is to climb up the side of the canyon, here. We'll come down to a lower level off to one side. It's too steep here, this close to the falls, but it should flatten out some as soon as we get off to one side."

KeeBar and Thanna looked with some trepidation at the hillside, but their clawed feet proved surprisingly adept at finding toeholds on the steep slopes. The group had to use Charley's ropes a time or two, where ledges of rock dropped too sheer for Dan to manage, but EssChad's lighter gravity proved to be a great help.

"I go ahead. Find way through swamp," KeeBar volunteered when they were at the bottom of the hill.

"All right. Charley and I can scout along the edge of the swamp. I want to see what it's like where the falls come down."

"I'm coming with you," Nancy stated. "If Thanna can go with KeeBar, I can go with you."

"All right. Then, Charley had better stay here with the others to help guard our packs."